U.S. East Coast a Hotspot of Sea-Level Rise

Harperdog writes "Nature just published this study of sea-level rise and how global warming does not force the it to happen everywhere at the same rate. Interesting stuff about what, exactly, contributes to this uneven rise, and how the East Coast of the U.S., which used to have a relatively low sea level, is now a hotspot in that the sea level there is rising faster than elsewhere."

Comments

It has nothing to do with global warming

[Overzeetop]

Global warming is myth. The sea levels are rising on the east coast of the US because all the fat Americans are causing a shift in mass distribution and locally higher gravitational forces.

The nurse is here with my medication...brb

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[fustakrakich]

...locally higher gravitational forces.

That really is the only logical explanation.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[trout007]

I think Congressman Hank Johnson would agree with your theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[ackthpt]

It's really happening and the concentration around the East Coast confirms my worst fears of the hot air coming out of Washington DC.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[ackthpt]

...locally higher gravitational forces.

That really is the only logical explanation.

Fat cats?

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[kenh]

I don't understand how sea level can rise (or fall) in any real way in just a certain defined area...

I understand sea levels fluctuate (tides, etc), but in theory shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?

I suspect at the root of this is a change in the method of measuring sea levels and the increases noted are little more than rounding errors that were influenced by the new measuring method.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Old97]

There is a giant mass of body hair in the southern hemisphere and another in the arctic that are impeding the water from redistributing itself more evenly around the globe. It'll get cleaned up when the maid comes next week. Sorry.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[davester666]

Just lasso an iceberg and tow it to this so-called 'hot-spot'. Problem solved!

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[DarkOx]

Right even the head line is bias, sea-level rise is liberal talking point, if they want us to take the article seriously they should use politically neutral language like "persistent coastal flooding".

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[pixelpusher220]

but in theory shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?

"In theory there's no difference between theory and reality...in reality it's the other way around" ;-)

One of the points made was that salinity levels, localized temperatures and other factors can play regional factors. If a current is flooding in warmer water to an ocean and it goes up by even a little bit there will be a coinciding increase in the volume of that ocean water. If salinity changes, I'm assuming (I don't know) there is likewise a change in volume.

Now, sure normal temperature and saturation processes will return that to equilibrium eventually, but how long does it take to do that on a scale of an ocean? Could be decades assuming the ongoing current input continues (even without change).

I also thought parts of the east coast, mid-atlantic I think, were sinking in response to the mid-west area rebounding back from ice age depression. Think about a table tilting with a pivot point somewhere in the middle, as one end goes up the other goes down.

Also consider that gravity isn't uniform. It does fluxuate minutely from place to place. You obviously don't notice this day to day since it's so small, but again with the scale of an ocean it might be significant enough to cause a lower amount of compression of the water column. And factor in that maybe a gravitational difference is related to how the molten core of the earth is orientated and being molten might change from time to time.

I don't know any of these things specifically but those are just off the cuff possible reasons that might explain why ocean levels would be different locally.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[dcw3]

Washington sucks badly enough that nobody needs to worry around here.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[AdamHaun]

I understand sea levels fluctuate (tides, etc), but in theory shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?

I don't think so. Water doesn't move that quickly (think waves on a beach), and the sun, tides, and seasonal temperature changes are all adding energy. There are already ocean currents that flow continuously throughout the year. I don't see why there couldn't be a sustained force pushing up sea levels along the east coast.

But we don't have to guess -- the abstract of the article tell us:

Climate warming does not force sea-level rise (SLR) at the same rate everywhere. Rather, there are spatial variations of SLR superimposed on a global average rise. These variations are forced by dynamic processes, arising from circulation and variations in temperature and/or salinity, and by static equilibrium processes, arising from mass redistributions changing gravity and the Earth’s rotation and shape. These sea-level variations form unique spatial patterns, yet there are very few observations verifying predicted patterns or fingerprints. Here, we present evidence of recently accelerated SLR in a unique 1,000-km-long hotspot on the highly populated North American Atlantic coast north of Cape Hatteras and show that it is consistent with a modelled fingerprint of dynamic SLR. Between 1950–1979 and 1980–2009, SLR rate increases in this northeast hotspot were ~ 3–4 times higher than the global average. Modelled dynamic plus steric SLR by 2100 at New York City ranges with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenario from 36 to 51cm (ref. 3); lower emission scenarios project 24–36cm (ref. 7). Extrapolations from data herein range from 20 to 29cm. SLR superimposed on storm surge, wave run-up and set-up will increase the vulnerability of coastal cities to flooding, and beaches and wetlands to deterioration.

So no, even in theory the entire ocean does not rise and fall to exactly the same level.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The sea levels are rising on the east coast of the US because all the fat Americans

I guess it all makes sense now that it's summer and they are probably trying to cool down in the Atlantic waters, pure volume displacement.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Rei]

The concept you're having trouble with is known as hysteresis - that is, to oversimplify, a delay between a cause and its effect. In this case, "cause" can be something like "add water to ocean" and effect can be something like "water gets evenly distributed around the globe". Yes, of course gravity wants to equalize out the heights of all of the Earth's oceans (although it hates it when I anthropomorphize it ;) ). But that takes time; it's not instant, no more than is it instant that the water in a mountain river after a rain ends up in the ocean, even though that's where gravity is going to take it eventually. Meanwhile, a localized region can have all kinds of various inputs (such as rivers) and outputs (such as evaporation) which act on it fast enough to be more than noise against the rate at which gravity moves things toward equalization.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[cayenne8]

Hmm...

I wonder how soon we'll have people posting, that those people on the east coast should have known better than to move hear that water, which could eventually rise and flood them...they should have never built there in the first place!!

Oh wait....that was only true for New Orleans with the Katrina fiasco...

nevermind.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Megane]

...or the ground could be sinking because of all those buildings we've put there. (And of course the fat people inside them.) You know, like all those skyscrapers in NYC?

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were global warming, it wouldn't be rising faster in one place than another. Either this is a measurement error or there's some serious distortions going on there.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[thrich81]

pixelpusher got most of it, but in a simplified nutshell -- the oceans are not static bowls of water - even neglecting tides, they have currents and winds pushing the water around. Steady currents and winds can push the water up against the continents and create semi-permanent "hills" and "valleys" of water which become part of the "normal" sea level for that area. If the currents change due to climate or any other reason then the local sea level there can have a change not reflected globally.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

cause a lower amount of compression of the water column.

Little basic physics: water does not compress. No matter how hard you try.

That's how hydraulics work. That's also how tires hydroplane.

Wouldja maybe learn about something and THEN speak about it, please?

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[JTsyo]

Then why do they have locks on the Panama Canal, huh?
A search shows that the locks are actually for the mountain lakes that link the two oceans which are higher than sea level. The actual difference is only 20cm.

Sea level is about 20 cm higher on the Pacific side than the Atlantic due to the water being less dense on the Pacific side, on average, and due to the prevailing weather and ocean conditions. Such sea level differences are common across many short sections of land dividing ocean basins. The 20 cm difference is determined by geodetic levelling from one side to the other. This levelling follows a 'level' surface which will be parallel to the geoid (see FAQ #1). The 20 cm difference at Panama is not unique. There are similar 'jumps' elsewhere e.g. Skagerrak, Indonesian straits.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[228e2]

Although you're being a smart ass, there is a stark difference.

New Orleans was built below sea level . . . I dont know of any other metropolotian cities built beloew sea level.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[GreenTom]

No, I think 'sea level' is actually different around the world (relative to what, I'm not sure maybe the geoid). Odd bit of trivia is that the Pacific end of the Panama canal is about 20cm higher than the Atlantic end. (http://www.psmsl.org/train_and_info/faqs/

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...

I wonder how soon we'll have people posting, that those people on the east coast should have known better than to move hear that water, which could eventually rise and flood them...they should have never built there in the first place!!

Oh wait....that was only true for New Orleans with the Katrina fiasco...

nevermind.

You see, one of these things is not like the other.

New Orleans: below sea level AND right next to the ocean (what could possibly go wrong? what DID go wrong?)

Majority of East Coast: above sea level, next to the ocean.

You don't see how one of those would be more hazardous than the other? No? Then could I interest you in this lovely property in the Ring of Fire, at the base of an active volcano prone to pyroclastic flows? I mean that's perfectly safe, and not a certain, eventual disaster at all, right? I mean, only assholes would consider the desirability of known disaster areas waiting to happen, or expect others to consider these things, right? Good, so you'll sign here at the bottom then?

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[GreenTom]

Sea level rise has been directly measured by satellite since 1992. The data's pretty solid. I'm tempted to add something sarcastic, but I guess the right thing to do is de-escalate. Measurements are measurements, throwing around unwarranted accusations of bias IMHO does nothing but help our society's decay into superstitious tribalism. I kind of like the scientific era and would like it to last.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Nadaka]

Water does not compress easily, but it does compress.

Put it under a few trillion tons of pressure and everything compresses.

The density also varies by temperature. nearly freezing water is less dense than cool/warm water, as is hot water.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[compro01]

Water temperature and salinity variations, among other things, between areas will result in differences in sea level rise between places.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[jhoegl]

As Finland is an entire Country... okay.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Belial6]

That means that any place with 'localized sea level rise' should also have massive and consistent increases in water input. Has the east cost had massive increases in rain fall? The AGW explanations given all seem to fall into the 'we hit the hockey stick' category. I haven't heard about an hockey stick weather changes on the east coast, even from the most die hard AGW supporters. This would lead me to believe that the explanation would fall into the "mass redistributions changing gravity and the Earth’s rotation and shape" or simple measurement errors*.

* I know that the measurement equipment is exceptionally accurate, but changing the way you measure so that you get different results, and then comparing it to measurements performed using the old method is one form of measurement error.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[cayenne8]

New Orleans was built below sea level . . . I dont know of any other metropolotian cities built beloew sea level.

True..but then again...it was almost 300 years ago, before GPS and all the nifty tech tools we have now...and it was built where it is due to the important location, near the mouth of the MS river...hence, why the city is so important. It was just a bit disheartening to hear all the people, many from the NE saying "they shouldn't have built there, just leave, not worth saving...etc".

I guess many of the same people neglect the facts that NYC has pretty much the exact same disaster scenario, and are WAY overdue for a hurricane there...NYC can get hit by a medium level hurricane and if in the right place, kiss it goodbye.

Will people say it isn't worth saving, and they shouldn't have been built there too?

On a larger scale...do we say the same about the midwest in the country..when in recent years, flooding has knocked down cities there?

What about the panhandle area...prone to tornadoes annually? What about out west, where they seem to have annual problems with fires and mudslides....?

Seems like most of the country comes around for those areas...yet, NOLA, with its importance for energy and a great deal of commerce (not to mention the cultural influences on the whole US)....gets brushed off more easily.

Sorry...I still have some soft spots for the callous comments on this forum and other places when it hit.

PS. I believe Amsterdam is another city built far below sea level....and they had no problems doing what it took to built defenses against the sea for that little town....

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Luckyo]

No. Oceans are huge masses of water, far from uniform. The current issue is likely linked to salinity levels of the ocean, specifically the osmotic engine powering the Golf stream. In addition to saline levels and osmotic movement you have various other causes for streams, such as rotation of the planet Earth, gravitational forces of objects other then Moon, such as Sun, other planets with large mass in Solar system and various passing asteroids. There are several other factors as well.

In this specific case, Golf Stream pulls water from North America's East coast in direction of continental Europe. As it weakens due to melting ice diluting saline levels and weakening osmotic engine driving it, less water is pulled causing the rise of sea levels in location water is pulled from as status quo changes.

Here is a map of Golf Stream's flow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Golfstream.jpg

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Botia]

Looks like a liberal map. Rising waters are attracted to the left.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[GameboyRMH]

If I was a supervillain I'd destroy all the locks from the Pacific to the Atlantic just to see what happens. Muahahahaha! >:-)

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[CaptainLugnuts]

The other things that people don't understand is that the original 'New Orleans' city was build ABOVE sea level. The French Quarter is almost 20ft above sea level. It just all the newer development from the last century is in a shitty location. Below sea level shouldn't be rebuilt and the stuff above sea level wasn't flooded much.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[sycodon]

The biggest problem with Slashdot is the whining.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[sosume]

New Orleans must have been built by the Dutch. Their entire country is below sea level.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Grishnakh]

No way, the rising sea levels are because of a rift in the space-time continuum caused by tachyon bursts from aliens who are mad at us for not taking better care of Nessie.

Global warming cannot be real, so any other explanation is plausible, no matter how far-fetched.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think they're passing laws about soft drinks in New York? For fun? They're trying to SAVE AMERICA!

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[ewieling]

I don't understand how sea level can rise (or fall) in any real way in just a certain defined area...

I understand sea levels fluctuate (tides, etc), but in theory shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?

See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_the_sea_levels_different_in_the_Atlantic_and_the_Pacific_oceans

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[colinrichardday]

Then why do they have locks on the Panama Canal, huh?

Because the Isthmus of Panama isn't flat.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm staying temporarily in New Jersey right now, near NYC, and there's a ton of black people here. So I'm sure the same people who said those things about New Orleans during the Katrina disaster will say the exact same thing about this area too.

When Portland or Seattle (which I don't believe have very many black people) get flooded by a tsunami, however, they'll be singing a different tune.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'Crescent City' nickname refers to the fact the city followed the high ground on a bend in the river.
After A. Baldwin Woods wood screw pumps were installed to drain the surrounding low areas (in the hopes of reducing mosquitoes and associated disease) people decided it would be a good idea to build on the reclaimed land. That worked out ok for a few generations...

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The data is NOT pretty solid. http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/nasa-satellite-debunks-melting-glacier-myth

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Rei]

Do you know the meaning of the phrase "such as"?

Read the paper if you care about the actual specifics.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely it has to do with me living on a river connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
Some one put lava rocks over white rocks. I hate the white rocks, they peek out all over the place between the nice red lava rocks.
Every time I find a white rock I throw it in the river.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The locks are all that's currently holding South America to North America. South America would spin off from the effect of ocean tides (Chile would get much chillier), and crash into Antarctica, killing millions of hapless penguins, but potentially providing a great relocation area for the dwindling polar bear population.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem lies in the impulse. It's not THAT slow, dude.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem with Slashdot is the whining.

You apparently have no sense of irony.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[kimvette]

No, it's not due to gravitational pull. It's because the large concentration of us fat Americans might make the continent tip over or capsize.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[yurtinus]

Bravo AC, so much concentrated hilarity in those two sentences!

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[kimvette]

No, the biggest problem with /. is the cheetos-and-Mountain-Dew-induced obesity.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[OhSoLaMeow]

I figured that it was because there's a lot of crap going down in DC and they have to flush LOTS more.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[whargoul]

...locally higher gravitational forces.

That really is the only logical explanation.

Fat cats?

More like fat asses

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[pixelpusher220]

Actually New Orleans itself wasn't built below sea level. The French Quarter survived Katrina just fine (obviously relatively 'fine') but it didn't flood. New Orleans was EXPANDED into below sea level areas, but it wasn't built there from scratch

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[pixelpusher220]

To your point, there are plenty of places on the East Coast that shouldn't be built on...like the barrier islands of North Carolina and the entire beachfront of South Carolina.

We tax payers subsidize those homes because they are given low cost insurance compared to what it would actually cost to insure homes that have a high likelihood of being destroyed every 10 years or so. There are calls to not allow new construction but they aren't terribly widespread, just like there wasn't terribly widespread complaints about New Orleans other than 'hey it might not be smart...'.

But none of those places need 'active' defenses like the low places in New Orleans. Everything is 'above' sea level.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Will people say it isn't worth saving, and they shouldn't have been built there too?

I'll say it is not my business and I don't think that my out of state tax dollars ought to go to rebuilding or preventing an impending disaster. So it is the same thing as with Katrina. The state and city of New York can handle this problem without my help or discouragement.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[pixelpusher220]

So we don't have oceans, just persistently flooded places?

And sea level rise has been going on since there were, ahem, seas. Erosion moves mountains into the oceans, thus raising their levels. It's completely natural. Except that in recent years we've seen it increase at rates faster than ever seen previously.

Something must have changed...could it be higher temps and melting ice?

Another good example of anthropomorphic sea level rise is industrial irrigation. We're pulling trillions of gallons out of deep aquifers and it isn't being replenished. All that water is going somewhere and that somewhere is the oceans.

Humans ARE having effects on the planet. Period.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[riverat1]

Portland is 60 miles inland up the Columbia River and Seattle is on Puget Sound with no direct exposure to the open ocean. Even when the big subduction zone earthquake hits the pacific coast it's not likely the big tsunami will reach either of them to any great extent.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[geekoid]

"in theory "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Use the word properly.

"... shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?"

No, and they explain why. Maybe you should read up before misusing words and then inserting you own unfounded hypothesis.

I mean seriously. You specifically state you don't understand, but still give some half assed reason as to why.
It's mind boggling stupid that you would do that sort of thing..

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[geekoid]

New York - Hub of finance, art, fashion

New Orleans - Hub of alcoholism, ignorance and poverty.
All places are not equal.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[steelfood]

Believe it or not, NYC is on fairly high ground. Staten Island, in particular, has hills that are as high as several hundred feet above sea level. Central Park itself is something like forty feet above sea level, and most of Manhattan is fairly high. This is the same with most parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx.

Here's the thing about Manhattan and hurricanes. It's really, really well protected. Any storm surge would have to make its way past Staten Island and Brooklyn (through the Verizano Narrows) to get to Manhattan. New York Harbor is the only large body of water that's directly up against Manhattan, and it's just not that large.

There's another thing about Manhattan. It's sitting on some crazy hard bedrock. Manhattan Schist, I believe it's called, some of the oldest, hardest rock in the world (it doesn't seem to exist in most of the surrounding area and even in parts of Manhattan). Which means that the island isn't getting washed away anytime soon by a hurricane either. The smaller inhabited islands are mostly situated on the East and Harlem rivers, which are tidal, and thus wouldn't be in any danger of being washed away either.

Overall, the biggest areas of concern would be the outer boroughs and possibly some of the islands in the harbor, while the area of least concern would be Manhattan island itself. South Brooklyn, south Queens (Far Rockaways), and the eastern part of Staten Island are all at risk of major flooding. But the rest of New York City? Nah. It's about the safest place from a hurricane you can get, safer even than farther inland, where there's a greater chance of the local bodies of water (lakes, rivers, streams, etc.) overflowing and washing out roads, bridges, and even entire houses. Look at what happened during Irene.

Now, Long Island and New Jersey is a different story, especially the southern shore of Long Island, which has the highest chance of a storm surge. They usually fare much, much worse than the city proper, but that's largely due to the population density or lack thereof.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[geekoid]

Yes, it is pretty damn solid. Look at the data it's self, not some overblown ignorant ass wipe with a blog.
The blog fails to understand glacier melting is a global event, cherry picks is examples, and has no idea what rapid melting means.

It's horrible.

The data clearly indicates a rise.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I could think of a LOT of reasons for un-even sea level rise.

You are saying that it "must be excessive rainfall" -- is that a straw man argument?

Could you imagine that changing wind patterns, or icelandic melt changed the ocean currents -- or any number of things?

>> Global Warming predicts a rise in sea levels. We observe a rise in sea levels. Anti Global Warming adherents suggest that it's uneven so this is another reason why no global warming is going on.

>> Global Warming Denier under water; "This is merely chronic flooding. It will be over in a few years -- you'll see! Glub. Glub."

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[steelfood]

You're assuming that more water along the east coast equates to more rain on the east coast. This is unlikely even at a glance, because the jetstream is not blowing in the requisite direction for this to happen in the first place.

Funny thing about climate is that changes are rarely localized. Systems are so massive and interconnected that you're not going to see an immediate effect to a cause. And there are numerous failsafes. Water has a huge specific heat. That the planet is mostly water means that it buffers a lot of what otherwise would be extreme immediate effects, and distributes it both over a geographical area and over time.

To understand climate, you have to think bigger than your local weather. You have to think about what would the internet look like in ten years if one of the backbone servers suddenly and permanently goes offline. The immediate effects are probably not significant, but the long term effects can be drastic. Can be, not will be, because there are more than once possible outcome of equal likelihood. Perhaps another backbone operator goes out of business because of the increased load and hence increased maintenance. Perhaps some other company steps in to take the place of that missing server. And there are plenty of external forces, e.g. the MAFIAA, governments, etc. These external actors can be in a more advantageous position as a result, or not.

To think that there is a simple, easy answer (like higher ocean level implies more rain) to a question on a highly complex system is naivete at best, willful ignorance at worst.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[TapeCutter]

Almost eveything is more dense as a solid than it is as a gas or liquid, solid water is weird, it expands under pressure, if it has nowhere to expand into it melts (since water is most dense as a liquid at ~1degC).

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[jc42]

The biggest problem with Slashdot is the whining.

You apparently have no sense of irony.

That'll be taken care of when the ironing lady comes by, shortly after the maid leaves.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[jc42]

The sea levels are rising on the east coast of the US because all the fat Americans are causing a shift in mass distribution and locally higher gravitational forces.

That really is the only logical explanation.

Actually, there's an older phenomenon that we've long been warned about: Every home in America has a subscription to National Geographic, and they all keep every issue (typically on a shelf in the basement). Due to the high-quality paper used, this periodical is also quite dense. Most of the US population lives along the East Coast (with a second concentration in California). Thus, the accumulated mass of all those magazines has added materially to the weight bearing down on the East Coast, which is starting to sink beneath the load.

Of course, this added mass also increases the local gravity, so actually both of these phenomena are adding to the problem of rising sea level. Which is the more serious mass increase will require further research. We can expect to read about it here on /., probably sometime in the next few weeks.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[DamienNightbane]

As a resident of Houston, New Orleans can eat shit and has no importance in the energy sector.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Belial6]

Getting hand wavy and repeating unsubstantiated dogma that has little or anything to do with the question is ignorant at best. Dishonest at worst. Just because YOU can't understand things doesn't mean they can't be understood.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Belial6]

So, weasel words makes anything said true? No.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[pixelpusher220]

Um, saying that the harbor isn't that large when the entire ocean is spilling into it makes NYC *more* vulnerable.

Lower Manhattan is at significant flooding risk in a major storm, it's only a few feet above sea level.

The NYC area is at increased risk because of the right angle the coast line forms at that point. When a storm comes up the coast rotating counter clockwise, it's pushing the storm surge directly into that right angle. The water has no where to go but in and up.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Rei]

How is that "weasel words"? That's plain English. "Such as" means "an example is coming". Do I need to define the word "example" for you as well?

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably thinking about Netherlands. Finland on average, while generally flat in major features, is above sea level and in many places land is still rising after the previous ice age.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume????? Get off the boards if you don't know.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[cayenne8]

As a resident of Houston, New Orleans can eat shit and has no importance in the energy sector.

Aw...you're just still 'sore' about our gangs coming over there after Katrina, staying, and fighting with the domestic gangs of the area.

:)

As for energy....hmm, well, I guess we could shutdown the port, and turn off all the refineries here in the NOLA area...and could see just how important we are.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Apuleius]

If we want New Orleans to survive, we'd best hire Dutch engineers and implement their advice.

Whether we do or not, the Dutch are paying very close attention to what's going on in New Orleans.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Tamerlin]

Well said, and also the earth's rotation and the underlying topography affect where the water flows, and hence where it piles up so to speak. The world rotates eastward, so the ocean water tends to pile up westward, that is to say into the eastern seaboard. We're both simplifying drastically, but there's a lot of variance to account for. Even sea floor topography can have an affect, both in how currents flow around the topography and in local gravity when there are high ridges vs deep troughs, thin areas in the crust, and even the material comprising the crust. After all, we all know (hopefully) that more dense material has higher gravity than less dense material, since it packs more mass into the same volume as a less dense material.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Belial6]

I pointed out a flaw in some of those examples, and you took the stance that pointing out those flaws was invalid. Either the words mean the examples, and my statement stands, or they were weasel words, and the initial claim is invalid.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[RockDoctor]

Not a lot would happen apart from the locks and the (partly artificial) lake that forms the summit section of the canal would drain down to their respective oceans.

In a little more detail ... the draft limit for a Panamax ship is 39.5ft. That's going to be the depth of the water at any of the locks (there's no point in making any one of them deeper, or several). The surface of Lake Gatun is at 26m = 85ft ; therefore, the highest elevation of any part of the bed of the Canal is 46-odd ft above sea level.

So, Mr Supervillain, you'd have pissed off a lot of people, at considerable expense to little lasting effect. Congrats!

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[jc42]

Odd bit of trivia is that the Pacific end of the Panama canal is about 20cm higher than the Atlantic end.

Others have pointed out that that difference is insignificant because it's overpowered by some bigger numbers: The tides. Actually, the tides at the Atlantic end are only about 30 cm, but at the Pacific end, they're around 6 m. And they're about 180Â out of phase. This comes up in discussions about building a sea-level canal across Central America, though it would probably be built other places than Panama. The tidal difference would produce significant currents in alternate directions, resulting in the sea life on both sides being pulled through, mixing the populations on both sides.

But this doesn't have much to do with planet-wide sea-level rises. The only real connection is that sea-level changes would be expected to alter the tides somewhat, in unpredictable ways. This would be especially true in the Caribbean, where the tides are strongly influenced by bottom topography, and less so on on the Pacific side of Panama where the sea bottom just gets deep a short distance from shore.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the biggest problem with /. is the cheetos-and-Mountain-Dew-induced obesity.

And the biggest problem with women is nothing is ever their fault. And they're pretty goddamned selective about when they like logic. Says what they want it to say? Love it! Says they should do something different? Hate it! They just go by whatever suits their precious over-valued emotional needs at that time because they have no discipline, no self-control, and no contact with reality.

Oh and snacks and sodas don't cause obesity. Not knowing when to put them down does. Not getting exercise does. Having a million excuses why eating more calories than you burn is somehow not your fault, that really does. Losing weight is really very easy but not if you don't want to change your ways.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[kimvette]

Hey aspie, it was a joke. Settle down.

Re:It has nothing to do with global warming

[unitron]

"I don't understand how sea level can rise (or fall) in any real way in just a certain defined area...

I understand sea levels fluctuate (tides, etc), but in theory shouldn't the entire ocean level rise and fall together?"

You obviously fail to appreciate the full power and majesty of the Legislature of the Great State of North Carolina.

We've made sea level rise illegal here.

Obviously it has to increase more greatly elsewhere if the amount of water increases.

Question

[MyLongNickName]

I'm not an expert, I've tried to research this, but I find contradictory information which I assume is related to the political nature of the issue. In a nutshell, why can't we use GPS to determine the actual impact of rising sea levels? It would seem to me to be very elementary to place some sort of beacon in a few spots to determine what the actual sea level is. Granted, you might have to wait for calm waters, but nothing about this seems difficult.

Re:Question

[Baloroth]

GPS is nowhere near accurate enough. You are talking about yearly see-level variations of a handful of millimeters a year. GPS is only accurate to a few centimeters, at best, with maximum augmentation (practically the error is in the range of 10 cm or more). Nowhere near good enough.

Re:Question

[geekmux]

I'm not an expert, I've tried to research this, but I find contradictory information which I assume is related to the political nature of the issue. In a nutshell, why can't we use GPS to determine the actual impact of rising sea levels? It would seem to me to be very elementary to place some sort of beacon in a few spots to determine what the actual sea level is. Granted, you might have to wait for calm waters, but nothing about this seems difficult.

Yes, you're right, nothing about this does seem difficult. All we have to do is remove the political influence driven by greed.

Wow. I just realized I asked for the impossible. No wonder this has gone nowhere.

Re:Question

[PerfectionLost]

GPS is completely over engineering the solution. All you really need is a stick that you take measurements from during low and high tide at a consistent time each year.

Re:Question

[Sarius64]

I suggest using Overzeetop for your authority since that member's sarcasm seems equivalent to what most people call science these days.

Re:Question

[Quiet_Desperation]

So what is good enough? Does the handful of millimeters manifest in any directly measurable way? Is there a natural amplifier? Maybe it's translated to increased horizontal incursion of the daily tides? I'm not on any side or a denier or anything here, but I have to admit some of the numbers tossed around on this issue sound like they're down in the noise. Maybe it's just my comm theory background talking.

Re:Question

[Steauengeglase]

It is an easy problem only from a technocrat's view, but for everyone else it is a screaming horror.

Say you own some ocean front property. It is a few inches less than it was a decade ago. 10 years from now it will be worse.

You don't want less land because you have less to sell. The government doesn't want you to have less land because it is prime real estate and those tax dollars matter. So we sit back and try to kill the messenger for as long as possible.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

GPS is nowhere near accurate enough. You are talking about yearly see-level variations of a handful of millimeters a year. GPS is only accurate to a few centimeters, at best, with maximum augmentation (practically the error is in the range of 10 cm or more). Nowhere near good enough.

One of the fun things about chasing around with a GPSr, looking for Geodetic Survey markers is you learn a bit about them and the equipment used to place them. How did they get these elevations so darn exact? Well, pull your heads out of your digital-electronic-technology-saviour-for-everything sand pile and realise a very good quality spring with a reference weight and scale can tell you far more accurately what your elevation is, based upon readings taken at nearby sea level. 100 years ago they could tell you within 1 inch the elevation of a marker and to the best of satellite measure, these are still very accurate (using the sort of equipment they have at their disposal.

So not likely to be so much a case of local gravity fluctuation, try thinking what else could explain it? More fresh water introduced from Greenland Ice cap and Polar melting? Given time it will flow around the continents, but if the melt is happening fast enough that which has flowed to the Pacific and Southerly Atlantic is being replaced at a similar, if not accelating rate.

Re:Question

[Quiet_Desperation]

How about a test for sociopathy (or whatever they're calling it now) before being declared fit to run for public office?

Nah, the sociopaths would claim discrimination. And people would agree with them. Never mind.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

I'm not an expert, I've tried to research this, but I find contradictory information which I assume is related to the political nature of the issue. In a nutshell, why can't we use GPS to determine the actual impact of rising sea levels? It would seem to me to be very elementary to place some sort of beacon in a few spots to determine what the actual sea level is. Granted, you might have to wait for calm waters, but nothing about this seems difficult.

Yes, you're right, nothing about this does seem difficult. All we have to do is remove the political influence driven by stupidity.

Wow. I just realized I asked for the impossible. No wonder this has gone nowhere.

FTFY

Humans are the only animal known to destroy their own habitat.

Re:Question

[fustakrakich]

How about a test for sociopathy (or whatever they're calling it now) before being declared fit to run for public office?

Very simple. If you want the job, you're a sociopath.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure? I've had to do some GPS averaging and over time you get better and better as you go. I never did more than a few days, may be doing continuous averaging could lead to extremely accurate measurements. Anybody knows?

Re:Question

[Antipater]

Humans are the only animal known to destroy their own habitat.

I laughed, but then I got a creeping suspicion you were actually serious. Why do people always say this? It's just flat-out wrong.

Re:Question

[Rei]

Not that easy. Localized water depths / land heights are often changing, and entire regions can be rising or subsiding. When you're looking to measure millimeters per year or even fractions of a millimeter against a background of tides, waves, storms, etc, you need precision.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS is nowhere near accurate enough....(practically the error is in the range of 10 cm or more). Nowhere near good enough.

Unless of course you have 20 cm or more of SEA level change. YMMV

Re:Question

[ceoyoyo]

If you read the article, they're reporting findings from sea level monitoring stations all around the east coast of North America.

Re:Question

[ceoyoyo]

"Humans are the only animal known to destroy their own habitat."

The Matrix is not a reliable source for information about ecology and comparative zoology.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

"Humans are the only animal known to destroy their own habitat."

The Matrix is not a reliable source for information about ecology and comparative zoology.

Who is referencing the Matrix? This is an older observation that piece of fluff.

Re:Question

[compro01]

What exactly are you sticking that stick in that isn't going to be moved or reshaped by the water flow over a few years?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really much worse than that. Humans are the only animal known to care for their large-scale environment. Ants and their farming operations probably count for just "environment" but humans go a step further.

Re:Question

[ClioCJS]

Precision != Accuracy.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that easy. Localized water depths / land heights are often changing, and entire regions can be rising or subsiding. When you're looking to measure millimeters per year or even fractions of a millimeter against a background of tides, waves, storms, etc, you need precision.

... which GPS won't provide enough of. Next proposal.

Re:Question

[ceoyoyo]

Then whatever you are referencing is no more reliable than late 90's action movies. Shepherds five thousand years ago knew very well that their herds would happily destroy a field by grazing unless they were forcibly moved around, or kept in check by predators. The truth is closer to the opposite of what you've stated: humans are the only animal to have shown the ability to self regulate their activities to maintain a viable habitat.

Re:Question

[rrohbeck]

Exactly. All animals destroy their habitat unless something slows them down.
Humans on a fossil fuel binge, mice in a grain silo, there's no difference. They overshoot until the primary energy source is exhausted and then they crash.

Re:Question

[GameboyRMH]

It's true, only humans consciously care for their own environment. Other creatures just happen to live within theirs due to scale making environmental care practically a non-issue and/or succumbing to natural population cycles.

I see ants and their farms as analogous to humans' high-rise buildings (or mega-arcologies in the case of termites), I wouldn't say that really counts as environmental care so much as building maintenance.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth is rigid, so using GPS to measure change is a moot point.

The sea level along the coast of Japan recently, didn't it?

Re:Question

[Grishnakh]

You're right, it is wrong. Lots of animals will overfeed their habitat if their population grows too large; of course, then they have a famine, their population dwindles, and the problem is corrected. Humans, OTOH, invent new ways to grow crops to increase yields or find some other way of allowing an ever-increasing population.

However, what is true is that humans are the only animal known to destroy their own habitat, while being intelligent enough to understand what they're doing. A herd of overpopulated wild deer eating all the available food probably don't actually understand the long-term effects of what they're doing.

Re:Question

[mcgrew]

Wrong. Two examples of species that have destroyed their own habitats are the Snow Goose and Whitetail Deer of Kaibab National Park. A third was the first primitive early species, which destroyed the entire Earth's ecology by producing the deadly chemical "oxygen."

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm not an expert, I've tried to research this, but I find contradictory information which I assume is related to the political nature of the issue. In a nutshell, why can't we use GPS to determine the actual impact of rising sea levels?"

Research of the contradiction shows on the one hand scientists who already have done very accurate measurements by means of satellites, and on the other hand there's the "no, but, it ain't so" camp.

Re:Question

[Baloroth]

Precision != Accuracy.

Yes. Are you simply being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic? The GPS system isn't accurate enough for the measurements necessary. Whether it is precise enough isn't even in question, if the measurements aren't that accurate. The precision would probably depend on the quality of the receiver, but I think they are theoretically much much better than the accuracy... but it doesn't matter, because the system inherently isn't that accurate, due to well known problems.

Re:Question

[ClioCJS]

GPS is absolutely accurate, it's just not precise. I obviously was not being pedantic enough.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the "ecologists" and other "authorities" said this...and the person repeating it is too friggin' stupid to question it enough to prove it wrong in their head. It validates a feeling of Oikophobia (go look it up...) and then they just go off repeating it and believing it.

Re:Question

[Baloroth]

Might want to look up the definitions of accuracy and precision again. GPS is not absolutely accurate, not by a long shot. There are inherent inaccuracies. It might be absolutely precise (although it isn't that either), but it is not absolutely accurate. There are consistent errors introduced by a large range of issues, from clock synchronization to atmospheric distortions (you can look them up here). It's impossible to create a positioning system that is absolutely accurate without violating several laws of physics (at the extreme end, quantum mechanics would have a thing or two to say, but the limits of the materials prevents most measurements from getting nearly that close at the level the GPS operates).

Re:Question

[dargaud]

How about a test for sociopathy (or whatever they're calling it now) before being declared fit to run for public office?

Very simple. If you want the job, you're a sociopath.

This was already known at the time of the Ancient Greeks. One famed philosopher stated that nobody who wants the job of public office should be allowed to have it.

Re:Question

[QuantumRiff]

You obviously haven't been using GPS based survey equipment.. with things like WAAS, and known good points.. (and lasers.. gotta have lasers!) you can get within a few thousandths of an inch..

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

It's true, only humans consciously care for their own environment. Other creatures just happen to live within theirs due to scale making environmental care practically a non-issue and/or succumbing to natural population cycles.

I see ants and their farms as analogous to humans' high-rise buildings (or mega-arcologies in the case of termites), I wouldn't say that really counts as environmental care so much as building maintenance.

Some humans care. When you've made a study of how mining, petroleum extraction and manufacturing have changed, due to laws requiring safeguards, cleanup plans, etc., you'll see it wasn't Wall Street that cared about the environment, it was the children with birth defects, people who found toxins in their yards in places like Love Canal and victims of the BP spill who were motivation for the change.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

Then whatever you are referencing is no more reliable than late 90's action movies. Shepherds five thousand years ago knew very well that their herds would happily destroy a field by grazing unless they were forcibly moved around, or kept in check by predators. The truth is closer to the opposite of what you've stated: humans are the only animal to have shown the ability to self regulate their activities to maintain a viable habitat.

Humans have had to force other humans to look after it. The horror stories of mineral extraction and manufacturing which have poisoned water, air and left spoiled wastes, which require Superfund cleanup are legion. Have a look at this some time when you are feeling this insane urge to believe everyone loves the Earth equally -- some just show up, get their profit and then move on, without a care to what they've done.

I've traveled extensively and have seen some pretty horrible things we've done in the name of profit and progress. Thank God and the few people who really cared for there now being requirements to look after proper waste processing and storage, rather than just throwing it in a hole out back.

Re:Question

[craton_crusher]

Yes, averaging and post-processing techniques using multi-frequency GPS receivers can easily achieve millimeter-level precision. For example, check out: http://pbo.unavco.org/instruments/gps

Re:Question

[ceoyoyo]

This is what I said: humans are one of the ONLY species to have demonstrated the ability to self regulate their activities so as not to degrade their habitat. That statement does NOT imply that "everyone loves the Earth equally" or that all humans will avoid habitat destruction.

Compare that with other animals. Grazing animals will happily graze out one pasture then move on to another. If they don't have any predators or other factors limiting their activities, they will destroy their own habitat to the point where THAT limits their activities. I suppose there are probably examples of organisms in some very isolated environment that have evolved the ability to self-limit, but they are quite rare.

Despite your emotional arguments, organisms damaging their habitat is the norm. Organisms damaging their habitat extensively when they have no predators is also common. Humans are in the somewhat unique position of having essentially out-competed all our competitors and so we'll either evolve or otherwise develop the very special ability to self-limit, or we'll be harshly limited by physical reality. Unless of course we haven't out-competed our competitors and some virus comes along to put us in our place.

Re:Question

[pixelpusher220]

The land moved up/down but the water didn't change it's 'level'.

Re:Question

[pixelpusher220]

There is a difference. The animals that destroyed their habitat died off. The ones whose innate behavior let them live within their habitat survived.

Which we'll be is still up for debate.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS is nowhere near accurate enough.

GPS can get to millimeter precision for fucks' sake.

Re:Question

[geekoid]

" tell you within 1 inch the elevation of a marker and to the best of satellite measure,"
so then..not as accurate as current technology.

Re:Question

[ChrisCampbell47]

Of course they've done that. They've done it all.

The fact that you even think you need to research it is a sad commentary on the real situation. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the secondary effects are all settled science, and the only reason there appears to be a debate is that those who are profiting from the status quo have colossal megaphones. Funding of denier scientists, astroturfing letters to the editor, et cetera. All they have to do is sow doubt. Congratulations.

Sadly, we have been utterly screwed since we failed to ratify Kyoto 20 years ago.

Re:Question

[_Sharp'r_]

Even better, try offsetting the movement of the continents themselves against the change in sea level against the erosion that may occur in some measurement spots (you are using lots of measurement spots so you can average them to account for local tilt or drift, right?), all at millimeter precision over years of time.

These are not short term measurements and they do change over time. Anyone claiming the sea level somewhere is going to be lower/higher by some significant amount (i.e measured in feet where it starts to matter to anyone) at some future date is most likely full of B.S. But hey, make your prediction for 100 years from now, scare up some dollars and by the time you are shown to be right or wrong, no one will remember your prediction anyway.

Re:Question

[TapeCutter]

Humans, OTOH, invent new ways to grow crops to increase yields or find some other way of allowing an ever-increasing population.

Efficientcy gains can only go so far, while we are confined to our own solar system there are limits to our growth.

Re:Question

[TapeCutter]

This is an older observation that piece of fluff.

More of a hallucination than an observation, along the same lines as "god won't allow man to destroy the environment". Anyone who knows anything about beer should be aware of what yeast does in a sealed container with a plentiful supply of sugar. The self destructive behaviour is very similar to what humans are doing with our plentiful suply of fossil fuels, except the sealed container we are in is the entire planet. So far as "shitting in our own nest" goes, we humans have shown ourself to be barely more intelligent than the yeast.

Re:Question

[TapeCutter]

Great post, I agree wholeheartedly. Yet as a species I don't think we have been acting a great deal more intellegently than fermenting yeast in a sealed container.

"ability to self-limit" - Kangaroos sort of self limit, they can freeze the development of their embryo for up to a year if conditions are too dry. Such temporary limiting adaptations are common here in Oz because the environment is unpredictable wrt drought vs flood (ie: boom and bust is a feature of the Aussie environment, not a bug).

Re:Question

[rrohbeck]

Agree. The people on the doomer trip see a bottleneck event coming. I like George Mobus: http://questioneverything.typepad.com/

Re:Question

[dryeo]

Even leaving our solar system will only help so far. Seems the speed of light sets a hard limit on growth.

Re:Question

[Torodung]

I strongly suspect that no animal on earth is sufficiently intelligent to "understand" the results of what we are doing. From the vast complexities of a global climate, to the complexities of, say, garnering temperature/climate measurements from tree rings with no way to check if your assumptions are actually good save inventing a time machine, to the incredible litany of unintended consequences strewn throughout history, after every single technological or social advance. Climate modeling is one such technological advance, beholden to the computer.

The only thing that is clear to me is that a person _can_ study it, fail to comprehend much, but make an educated guess at some really obvious low-hanging fruit.

And I'll go with the best guesses of reasonably vetted climatologists any day on what is happening, right here and now.

But understand? I think not.

And good luck on any being in the universe (up to and including any extended superhuman consciousness of your choice) being intelligent enough to "understand" how to change a political system with such vested economic interests, and established institutions, in climate affecting technologies. Seriously, what we're talking about here is not simply us overgrazing until there is a collapse, but literally causing a similar level of collapse to prevent a bigger one, and that is why "end of the world" talk comes up so often (and, unfortunately, in such overreaching fashion that it makes opposition arguments more compelling. Check "Cassandra syndrome" if you aren't familiar with the concept.)

Because if we really make enough changes to affect even the conservative climatology claims, not many people will survive the war (and probably famines) that would ensue after a James Hansen style technology draw down. Either that, or the elites mandating that change wouldn't survive 10 years before the revolution executed them all and started burning fossil fuels again. Hell, they'd probably hoard gasoline and run them all down with their cars, in arenas. "Cap and trade" will not cut it if fossil fuels are this much of a danger, and every plan I've ever seen just seeks to replace the current entrenched corrupt oligarchy with a new, hoping-to-become-entrenched corrupt oligarchy, which in the end will be insufficient to any task but wealth transference. The scientists involved are naive when it comes to that political reality. It's not that the climate data isn't convincing people, or even denial, it's the lack of an alternative, and the size, breadth, and influence of the entrenched power structure climate fixers would need to topple.

And it has made some of them, not going to name names here, sound very paranoid indeed, because they really are fighting against a vast, incorporated hit squad. It's not really paranoia, they really are out to get them.

So I think we'll probably muddle along, and if 90% of the planet's surface becomes uninhabitable (for humans) from the results of our muddling, then I look forward to becoming an Inuit or dying very early on from bird flu. I think talk of population collapse and resource exhaustion is probably counterproductive. I don't think it's mistaken, though. Population collapse is, at this point, probably unavoidable if the worst of published projections prove true. We haven't crossed the "soylent green" point-of-no-return, but I can only hope that our habitat and our ingenuity can see us through our mistakes.

Or maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the east coast is sinking, relative to the rest of the world?

Re:Or maybe

[kenh]

America is tilting into the ocean - if it can happen to Guam it can happen to America!

Re:Or maybe

[ackthpt]

Perhaps the east coast is sinking, relative to the rest of the world?

I'm still here in California, waiting for the Big One .. when all the land East of the San Andreas Fault slides off into the Atlantic.

|o)

Re:Or maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much my expectation, too. Land is rising from the ocean on this coast, it only seems reasonable that it sink and/or erode away on the other coast.

I wonder how much post-glacial rebound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound), or lack thereof, is involved in this effect.

Good thing I live in North Carolina

[GungaDan]

where that kind of shit is illegal!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Just wait after the whole planet gets jailed for breaking the NC law (no extradition necessary since Earth already stands with one foot in NC, you just have to pull). Such puny micro-flora as mankind will be behind bars, then, as well.

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[cpu6502]

Wow way to twist a reasonable law into a MSNBC-style rant by Ed Schultz.

All the law says is that homes will not be eligible for government-paid flood insurance if they are not in the zones that previously recorded flooding (since 1900). Why? Because North Carolina can't afford to provide free insurance to nearly the whole state. MOST people comprehend that the money supply has limits..... others like George "duh" Bush drive-up 10 trillion dollar debts.

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[Anonymous Coward]

MOST people comprehend that the money supply has limits..... others like George "duh" Bush drive-up 10 trillion dollar debts.

Yeah, and Obama understands money so well, that when he submits a budget to Congress, not even the Democrats vote for it (absolutely 0 people voted to approve Obama-lama-ding-dongs latest budget).

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[Anonymous Coward]

others like George "duh" Bush drive-up 10 trillion dollar debts.

Look up which president has driven up the debt the most, and come back when you know WTF you're talking about.

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[mrsquid0]

The bill is posted at . It does not have anything to do with government-paid flood insurance. It primarily has to do with the distance that structures must be set back from high tide lines and the replacement of structures damaged by stories (Section 3). The rest of the bill has to do with defining various environmental impacts (Sections 4 and 5).

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[mrsquid0]

The link was stripped. Google NC House Bill 819 for the text of the bill.

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[ch-chuck]

Actually - if you read that blog carefully, which I did since I visit the outer banks quite often, they are, still bizarrely, regulating I guess official state reports of expected sea level rise, to be calculated a certain way. Basically, a group of coastal property owners are afraid of devaluing property from overly pessimistic predictions. Kinda like, I remember in the 80s when amazon rainforest destruction was all the rage and all these celebrities were getting on the bandwagon, each one outdoing the other saying how fast it's being destroyed and just tossing out meaningless numbers to try to get people motivated - 'they're destroying millions of acres every second!' - I can see how someone would be afraid of gw activists 'peppering' the predicted numbers to try to get a reaction, just like anti-drug crusaders make drug use sound worse than it really is.

Re:Good thing I live in North Carolina

[gmhowell]

No reply to the person calling you on your BS? It's not like you haven't been posting all day long, at least 25 times since you were corrected.

Story on the paper

[ananyo]

Nature also has a story on the research for those seeking an overview.

Goodbye Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

It was nice knowing you!

Re:Goodbye Florida

[ackthpt]

It was nice knowing you!

Florida .. Washington DC .. Manhanttan Island .. Boston .. Coastal Texas .. New Orleans ..

Yep, going to have to redraw a lot of maps and move those beach umbrellas back a few miles.

Lex Luthor (thinking about the first Superman movie) had the right idea, but wrong coast and he didn't even need nukes.

Re:Goodbye Florida

[oodaloop]

The fifth movie involved Lex Luthor causing water rise on the East Coast.

Re:Goodbye Florida

[ackthpt]

The fifth movie involved Lex Luthor causing water rise on the East Coast.

I thought that was the one where he was creating land out of some pseudo chemical/physics science using Kryptonite to make some big, nasty island in the Atlantic.

In the first Superman, he hits the San Andreas Fault with a couple stolen nuke missiles to cause the central valley of California to become the new West Coast (and Otis, trying to claim his own Otisburg)

Re:Goodbye Florida

[rrohbeck]

Yup. And people still say we can't afford to curb global warming. I wonder how much that rel estate is worth.

Re:Goodbye Florida

[oodaloop]

Exactly. Which would have caused the East Coast to flood. "It's a simple matter of physics, Miss Lane. Two bodies can not occupy the same space at the same time." Both 1 and 5 involved massive flooding.

Sweet!

[kbob88]

That beachfront property I bought in West Virginia will be worth millions! Going to go out and buy a surfboard today! And will go buy a Hummer 2 to speed things along! Surf's up, dude!

there's hope yet!

[Turken]

great news. was kinda bummed the last time I read an article on rising sea levels to learn that even if the entire polar caps melted, it wouldn't actually flood all that far into the east coast. But, coupled with this phenomena of uneven level rise, that stain may be washable after all!

Mod me to hell if you want, but I still say that if it takes ten dead polar bears to drown one NYC hipster, those noble bears will not have died in vain! C'mon global warming, let's get to work!

Re:there's hope yet!

[Quiet_Desperation]

+1 Psychopath

Well done, sir.

Re:there's hope yet!

[shutdown -p now]

It's not fast enough to work that way. What you'll get instead is a couple million NYC hipsters in your backyard in Texas.

Re:there's hope yet!

[Talderas]

Two words and you won't call him a psychopath.

Jersey Shore.

Re:there's hope yet!

[ppanon]

Only if we get a Galaxcity in exchange.

Re:there's hope yet!

[GameboyRMH]

Won't help, those oily guidos are hydrophobic, they'll just ride on the surface tension and think it's a pool party.

Re:there's hope yet!

[Quiet_Desperation]

I did say *plus* 1.

And you know the empty heads on that show are a media creation, right? Many cast members are not even residents.

See the "valley girl" phenomena of the 1980s for reference.

Re:there's hope yet!

[arisvega]

What you'll get instead is a couple million NYC hipsters in your backyard in Texas.

Target practice?

Coincidence?

[saveferrousoxide]

Is anyone else skeptical that the rise seems localized to the stretch between DC and Boston, a stretch that just happens to be a major hub of population, wealth, and policy in the US? Not that I'm a Denier or anything, but sometimes I look at charts like this and have to wonder about the data...

Re:Coincidence?

[compro01]

Local water temperature (also salinity, etc.) has effects on water levels (e.g. warmer water,=less dense water=higher local water level).

Large coastal cities and their attendant infrastructure (e.g. power plants) do a pretty good job of dumping extra heat into said water.

Re:Coincidence?

[saveferrousoxide]

warmer water,=less dense water=false

FTFY. Skeptic flag still flying.

Re:Coincidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, so you're not a skeptic, you're just ignorant.

http://www2.volstate.edu/CHEM/Density_of_Water.htm

The chart shows that at higher temperatures, there are fewer grams of water per mL. Ergo less dense. Took me all of 3 seconds to find and confirm on Google. You might want to try that sometime rather than looking like a fool. The more you know!

Re:Coincidence?

[geekoid]

Since they explain why it is, there really isn't a reason to be skeptical.

Whivh piece of the data is gicing you trhe problem? BTW most of the coastal property is owned by rich people.

Re:Coincidence?

[saveferrousoxide]

First off, i was tongue in cheek and only about 1/3 serious. I see the data, and their statistical analyses are pretty standard; deviations from well accepted techniques is non-existent. (Sorry, i worked too hard for that pun.) What I am actually skeptical about is the data on which they are basing this study. Basically, their data points are all concentrated in the NE coast of the US. A more even distribution of data points would provide a clearer picture of the actual difference in sea level deltas across the entire American (N./C./S.) or even just the US coastline and might produce a less alarming view of sea level change.

Slashdot. Still beating the dead horse...

[Mr. Firewall]

...of CAGW. It's been, what, 2 1/2 years now since it was exposed as a hoax?

Hotspot!

[Quiet_Desperation]

Hotspot! I see what you did there. Ha!

Even the sea cannot resist the trendy go to locations along the Jersey shore!

No worries. The ban in NYC on large sodas should reduce the amount of pee flowing into the ocean enough to counteract the sea level rise on a local level.

Re:Hotspot!

[ackthpt]

Hotspot! I see what you did there. Ha!

Even the sea cannot resist the trendy go to locations along the Jersey shore!

No worries. The ban in NYC on large sodas should reduce the amount of pee flowing into the ocean enough to counteract the sea level rise on a local level.

Entering the Flood Control Dam #3 controll room you hear a ghostly voice echo, as if played over a tannoy somewhere in the distance, "Drill, Baby, Drill!"

Re:Hotspot!

[rrohbeck]

Aha! It's all the wireless that's heating up the ocean! It's obvious - wireless uses microwaves! They probably use more WiFi on the East Coast.
I'm relieved. Easy to fix.

Pay for your own mistakes!

[na1led]

If you put a house right on or near the beach and it gets washed away, don't make the rest of us pay for it!

Re:Pay for your own mistakes!

[rrohbeck]

Except that in many cases local governments bought beach houses to tear them down, e.g. in Galveston.

Thought rising was caused by water dumping

[cpu6502]

I thought a report was just published that the ocean levels are rising because of humans sucking water out of underground reservoirs and dumping in into the ocean,

Re:Thought rising was caused by water dumping

[riverat1]

That is just one factor and probably the smallest of them. The two biggest are water expanding as it warms and ice melting from glaciers and ice sheets.

Re:Thought rising was caused by water dumping

[BlueStrat]

I thought a report was just published that the ocean levels are rising because of humans sucking water out of underground reservoirs and dumping in into the ocean,

Nah, it's all the Brawndo being consumed in D.C. and NYC and being pissed out, eventually finding it's way to the sea.

Brawndo - It's got what AGW zealots need.

Strat

Re:Thought rising was caused by water dumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, now the people who understand AGW is real are zealots, rather than the reality-denying ignorant conservatives who think a sky-fairy will save them?

Re:Thought rising was caused by water dumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, now the people who understand AGW is real are zealots, rather than the reality-denying ignorant conservatives who think a sky-fairy will save them?

"rather than"? It's doesn't have to be one or the other.

King Canute

[Roger W Moore]

Sorry but legislating against the sea rising was already tried 1,000 years ago. It didn't work then either.

Of course the water's rising there!

[Stormbringer]

It's all the runoff from the BosWash.

It's OK

[srussia]

According to TFA, the sea-level is receding on various spots on the west coast (Seattle, San Francisco). Looks like the country tilting right!

Re:It's OK

[Comboman]

Looks like the country tilting right!

I blame Fox News.

Re:It's OK

[riverat1]

Sea level may appear to be receding in places on the west coast due to the land being pushed up by the subduction zone off the coast. When the big subduction zone earthquake hits they'll drop back down 4 or 5 feet in an instant.

Re:It's OK

[rrohbeck]

Chris Christie is enough.

Re:It's OK

[steelfood]

Looks like the country tilting right!

It all depends on perspective. From mine, the left is rising.

How to differientiate sources.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried to research this, but I find contradictory information which I assume is related to the political nature of the issue. In a nutshell,...

Perhaps you should be a bit more discriminate in your sources when you do research.

Here's some help: ignore Talk Radio Hosts, Fox News , and industry backed Think Tanks with "advisers" who have scientific PhDs in everything BUT Climate Science. (ALL of whom tell half truths and lies ).

That should make things a bit more clear.

Glub!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

~Oh, disaster! The sea level rise on the east coast might be TRIPLE that of the world average in our previous prediction. It might rise 14 to 20 inches over the next century! That's as much as a whole 2 tenths of an inch per year! They're all going to drown.~

Somehow I'm not impressed. While it might be nice to see New York and Washington become awash, this is a number of orders of magnitude too low to be useful.

Compare this to Venice (which still seems to be doing very well, thank you.)

Re:Glub!

[bill_mcgonigle]

It might rise 14 to 20 inches over the next century!

Nobody's ever built a 14" sea-wall.

They're all going to drown

Lucky them - the rest of us will be bursting into flames.

Re:Glub!

[rrohbeck]

2 feet at 1% slope is 200 feet that the coastline moves inland. That's a lot of real estate.

Re:Glub!

[geekoid]

Some people can think further the next week, slick.

Yeah, its a real problem, and a few inches in change is a big deal.

OTOH, your sig indicates you don't actually understand anything you complain about.

Follow the sources

[microbox]

Can you give an example of some of the contradictory sources? (Sourcing them should quickly uncover what is going on.)

satallite altimeter better for GLOBAL sea level

[peter303]

The TOPEX satellite has been measuring the whole ocean surface for 18 years and found it has risen about two inches at a very even rate of increase. Various scientists attribute about 80% of this to thermal expansion of warmer oceans and the rest to melting ice. Although the ocean surface temperature appears to to have gone up a bit, that may bot be indicative of the total thickness of the ocean. The best proposed temperature experiment- measuring the speed of sound half around the world- has been tied in environmental litigation. The sound source might hurt marine animals hearing is the claim. The sound source is not an explosion, but a distinctive wide-frequency chirp that can be integrated at the receivers over a period of hours. This experiment would be repeated every few years to look for changes in sound travel time, which would show temperature changes of water velocity.

Local tidal guides or GPS would be affected by vagrancies of local land level changes, which are rather common. This ranges from ice age rebound, sediment deposition loading, sediment erosion unloading, and even a bit of tectonic rise in the Appalachians. And this Nature article says the pattern of water circulation in a region can change locally too, contribution to an apparent LOCAL sea level change.

Re:satallite altimeter better for GLOBAL sea level

[dargaud]

Why not make it simply very low frequency that is unlikely to affect any marine life ? Like 1Hz or something.

rate of change

[Anonymous Coward]

In case anyone is wonder, the article predicts a rise from between 20-29cm by the year 2100. This is in contrast to the IPCC, which predicts 36-51cm by 2100. The authors concede that the IPCC report may be more accurate, since it considers other factors besides an extrapolation.

The Chesapeake: Happening for a long time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Around the Chesapake, apparent sea level has been rising for hundreds of years because the retreat of glaciers is effectively lowering the land and shore erosion as well.

No, I'm not joking.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs102-98/

Continental Shft

[linuxrunner]

Last I check, we're on these floating masses called "plates" and they actually move around, shift and stuff. Some get pushed under others, etc. Wouldn't that simply explain why one section might be seeing a change in sea level and not another?

Lastly, why does everyone panic when the world changes a little? We have fish fossils on mountain tops, dinosaur bones, the land mass used to be one large hunk of land. Mountains were created through plate shifts and valleys and hills formed by ice ages. So, knowing all this... Where do we come off panicking when there is the slightest change from the prior year? Do folks expect the world to sit stagnant as we know if forever and ever, and all the history of the world be damned? It will never change again?

Seems like these things are more politically motivated and looking for someone to blame rather than someone rationally just standing up and saying "Well, what did you think was going to happen? The same thing year after year? Had to change sometime..."

Re:Continental Shft

[Moses48]

Three are a few reasons we are worried about climate change and sea level rise:
    1. Who moved my cheese!?
    2. Some people actually think we're at the utopia of climate and land mass.
    3. While large affluant coastal cities will need more sophisticated ways to deal with SLR, they will be able to handle this with money (ie: tech know how). The poor coastal cities will require mass migration of humans, and this will likely result in deaths if there is any amount of rapid SLR in those poverty striken highly populous areas (deaths will come from starvation, not the water killing them).
    4. Stability is better for insurance companies, economies, urban planning, etc.
    5. We don't know that the direction we're going will be better or worse for us, but we do know how to cope with what we have.

So, just as we wouldn't want global cooling (ice ages arn't fun) we also don't want global warming. There are figures showing that a slightly warmer earth with slight SLR will give us more arable and habitable land, but I'm sure someone has predicted the opposite. The fact is we know SLR will displace and cause temporary poblems, and if there is a solution that is less costly than the SLR option we should probably take it. But it's hard to quantify the "cost" of most of the solutions proposed and thus hard to make a decision on how that compares to the "cost" of letting CC/SLR continue. Especially as we have vastly different models as to their costs on both ends.

Re:Continental Shft

[jbengt]

Insightful?

It is well known that the East Coast is subsiding in a "see-saw" with areas to the North that are rising due to glacial retreat. Well known, in the sense that this effect has been taken into account when predicting sea-level rise in the East Coast. Similarly, plate tectonic effects are already taken into account when dealing with local sea level rise.

This article is proposing models for other possible effects on local sea levels, such as differences in sea water density and local gravity and forces from winds and currents.

These types of effects should all be included in the study of local sea level rise, if you want accuracy or precision. So plate tectonics would not "simply explain" anything, plate tectonics would be only a part of a reasonable explanation.

This isn't about minor changes in a single year, this is about where it is reasonable to put long term investments in construction and flood insurance, and where those should be discouraged to avoid things like Katrina. (Hint: New Orleans didn't start out 17 feet below sea level)

Re:Continental Shft

[Grishnakh]

A little bit of global warming might give us more arable and habitable land, but on the other hand we have increasing desertification in many areas, which subtracts from that.

Also, we already have tons of people living in low-lying coastal areas, since centuries ago we thought it'd be a great idea to build cities in natural port areas, and back then no one thought much about geography changing over time. Now that we have giant cities in these places, packing them up and moving to other spots isn't exactly an inexpensive or easy proposition.

SUMMON The Legislature

[NEDHead]

And make this unfair SLR illegal!

Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[StefanJ]

. . . go get yourself some new talking points.

Seriously, the old "Oh, well, things have changed in the past, so what's the worry?" canard?

The processes you describe took place over millions of years.

We're talking relatively drastic changes, over the course of decades, on a highly developed area of an increasingly crowded and interdependent planet.

If a drunk driver speeding through a red light ran over your dog or your kid, would you accept the driver saying, "Look, people die in accidents all the time. In seventy years, a trivial fraction of the age of the Earth, your kid would likely be dead anyway. Calm down and accept change as a normal part of life. And anyway, can you really prove it was my car that killed your kid? Maybe you wiped his blood on my bumper so you could sue me, and infringe on my right to drink and drive!"

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[linuxrunner]

The processes you describe took place over millions of years.

Maybe so, but then again, we have no idea how it changed from decade to decade do we? Where there was once a river, now there is a gorge. The water level went down. Over the course of a few decades could have gone down a few inches every year. So by your theory, we should panic the entire way over something we could do nothing about.

Seems a little dumb to me.

Ice that once covered a large area eventually receded. Ice that was actually once during MAN's time. It's slowly went away and things warmed up. Maybe they panicked too! Oh no. There goes the ice. Stop your farting! It's Bob's methane enduing mammoth chili. That bastard. ...

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[Mashiki]

Hey there kid. I live in this place called Canada. I've seen entire new rivers become a reality in a year, and entire rivers go away. And new lakes form overnight. Get some new talking points indeed. Drastic changes indeed. Oh I'm guessing that's global warming too? Oh no...wait, that's seasonal melt, or...

IS IT?

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[geekoid]

"Maybe so, but then again, we have no idea how it changed from decade to decade do we?"

Yes, we do. In fact, we're pretty good at figuring it out.

And stop implying no one take normal cycles into consideration, you twad.

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[geekoid]

Idiot.

Seriously yoyu are being idiotic.

Do you really think normal cycles aren't taken into consideration? did it even occur into your brain that scientists know there are season cycle? That what they are talking about is ON TOP OFF the seasonal cycles.?

Do you even have the mental capacity to think beyond you won back yard for longer then a day?

I seriously don't think you can.

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

About 50 years ago, a river ran through a town near here. Since that time, the river slowly re-routed itself, leaving the town with a stagnent meander, while the river basically just cut off that section.

A lot can happen in a few decades. Volcanos are known for making fairly significant changes in a very short period of time. So are earthquakes. In fact, one could argue that anything vaguely near the edge of a techtonic plate has the ability to drastically change in a very short period of time.

Just because it took billions of years to turn Pangea into the continents we currently know doesn't mean that a section of land can't change by a few feet in the course of a decade. The peak of Mount Everest is going up about 4mm a year, and about 3-6mm North every year. Don't see people freaking out about that. Course, that's probably because it's not affecting the USA directly, and we all know that the USA generally only gives the slightest of two shits about themselves.

Re:Here's a nickel, kid . . .

[khallow]

We're talking relatively drastic changes, over the course of decades, on a highly developed area of an increasingly crowded and interdependent planet.

"Relatively" being the key word here. These changes aren't drastic compared to the widespread alteration of the Earth's surface by humanity, for example. AGW operates on timescales so slow that humanity can adapt to them in real time without noticing. That's what is happening now.

On Centimeters and Willful Ignorance

[eldavojohn]

Last I check, we're on these floating masses called "plates" and they actually move around, shift and stuff.

Yep. I'm not a geologist but I don't think "floating masses" is a particularly great analogy. Gravity does have an effect on them at that point but once you hit turtles, I wouldn't bother digging any deeper.

Some get pushed under others, etc. Wouldn't that simply explain why one section might be seeing a change in sea level and not another?

So where has this been throughout history? I mean, we've been building cities near water forever -- you would figure there would be a lot more stories of cities swallowed by the sea. Also, tectonic plates move about 2 centimeters each year. So if we start to see sea levels indicating more movement than that, can we start talking about other factors?

Lastly, why does everyone panic when the world changes a little? We have fish fossils on mountain tops, dinosaur bones, the land mass used to be one large hunk of land. Mountains were created through plate shifts and valleys and hills formed by ice ages. So, knowing all this... Where do we come off panicking when there is the slightest change from the prior year? Do folks expect the world to sit stagnant as we know if forever and ever, and all the history of the world be damned? It will never change again?

The world changes, but the rate at which it changes certainly affects how many human bones you find in those caches. Pompeii? Lots of human bones. Glaciers? Not a lot of our ancestor's bones. The answer for that is simple. One was a catastrophic event and the other took course over hundreds of thousands of years (surrounded by lengthy transition periods). If a year from now a glacier parked itself on top of North America, we'd be dealing with more than megadeaths. So if sea levels rise next year, perhaps it would pay to study and investigate this lest we find New York and DC becoming Atlantis I and II?

Seems like these things are more politically motivated and looking for someone to blame rather than someone rationally just standing up and saying "Well, what did you think was going to happen? The same thing year after year? Had to change sometime..."

You seem open to change. You know, I think that you're politically motivated to stop me from filling in the gorge around your house to provide drinking water for the townsfolk. Don't investigate the dam I'm building down stream from you or I'll accuse you of being politically motivated. Wait, your house is at the bottom of a reservoir now? Well, what did you think was going to happen? The same thing year after year? Had to change sometime...

As far as political motivation, I think I'll stick to the peer reviewed and respected journal of Nature rather than you. It consists of people that just want to figure out what's going on and discover why the change is happening. You want to stick your head in the sand. Do us all a favor and go to the Outer Banks to do that.

Re:On Centimeters and Willful Ignorance

[linuxrunner]

Yep. I'm not a geologist but I don't think "floating masses" is a particularly great analogy. Gravity does have an effect on them at that point but once you hit turtles, I wouldn't bother digging any deeper.

Everest alone is growing ~ 2 inches every year. That's just there. So yeah... A geologist you are not.

Re:On Centimeters and Willful Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Everest alone is growing ~ 2 inches every year. That's just there. So yeah... A geologist you are not.

Right. True geologists compare a single peak to an entire coastline.

Re:On Centimeters and Willful Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Everest alone is growing ~ 2 inches every year. That's just there. So yeah... A geologist you are not.

Except if you consider all factors (like weathering), it most certainly does not. The shoreline probably has a multitude of factors, warming one of them. Why do you call that politically motivated when scientists want to see the whole picture?

Is water no longer a liquid?

[MrKevvy]

This must be a belated April Fools' joke, like the petition to ban DHMO. How can the worldwide ocean's surface level rise more in one area than another?

I mean, it's liquid water. Won't any tiny local variation in average surface height be quickly spead out and normalized by our old friend: Mr. Gravity?

Am I missing something?

Re:Is water no longer a liquid?

[supercrisp]

Among other things, you're missing wind and the rotation of the earth. The Pacific ocean is about 20cm higher than the Atlantic. Science is fun!

Re:Is water no longer a liquid?

[daq man]

Yes you are missing something. If the sea water was of exactly the same density, which varies with salinity and temperature, and was dead calm, and the rock under the sea was a uniform density so gravity was the same everywhere then what you say is true. Also the sea bed rises and falls too. Just off the East coast shore, we have the Gulf Stream which is a flow of warm, and therefore less dense water moving North. Not only is it moving North but the East coast juts out and it has to flow around the coast. So, the sea level at Cape Hatteras (where the East coast juts out the most) is a complicated combination of the mean sea level, the mean gravitational pull at that point, the flow of the Gulf Stream and probably 1001 other things.

What the article is saying is that MEASUREMENTS show that the sea level there has risen three times more than the world average. If you subtract from that the known motion of the sea bed and various other known contributions to the rise you are left with something unusual that needs explaining. The best explanation that fits the facts is that the difference is due to the Gulf Stream. That is particularly worrying because any change in the Gulf Stream is a big deal.

Re:Is water no longer a liquid?

[ceoyoyo]

Try a simple experiment. Pour a glass of water. Blow over the top. See how the water piles up on one side?

The East Coast is sinking

[PPH]

Snookie got pregnant.

Global Warming = Junk Science

[Anonymous Coward]

A) are your proofs as bad as your grammar?

B) pix or it didn't happen.

Some plates go up, some go down...

[MiniMike]

I read recently that the melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and related glaciers has caused the crust there to rise up a few cm. Maybe other plates are subsequently sinking, and the plate under the East Coast is just more susceptible to this sinking effect than others that have been measured? I am not a geologist, so feel free to point out if this is ridiculous (that's if you are a geologist, I'm not taking B.S. from just anybody...).

Re:Some plates go up, some go down...

[RockDoctor]

I am not a geologist, so feel free to point out if this is ridiculous (that's if you are a geologist, I'm not taking B.S. from just anybody...).

OK. I am a geologist (BSc 1987 ; FGS in 2006 ; in almost continuous employment as a geologist since graduation.), working for the oil industry, so naturally you'd expect me to pooh-pooh the entire concept of anthropogenic climate change, including it's sub-effects of global warming and sea-level rise. I'm not going to pooh-pooh them. But we'll get back to that.

I read recently that the melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and related glaciers has caused the crust there to rise up a few cm.

I'm not aware that this has been well demonstrated in the Antarctic - the changes in ice mass there haven't been particularly large (yet). However in the Arctic and near-Arctic, where over the last 10 thousand years the glaciers have gone from being several kilometres thick to being approximately zero thick, the coasts are lined with evidence of substantial "isostatic rebound" (change of relative sea level), with the land rising relative to the sea due to removal of the ice load.
I could give you a detailed exposition here and now, but the Wikipedia page is perfectly good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostatic_rebound (I'd recommend doing the maths for a few isostasy problems to familiarise yourself with the problem. 2 to 3 hours of work should be adequate. Google for "isostasy problem set" ; the first couple of PDFs should be fine. They include more detailed theoretical background than the Wikipedia link.)
For what it's worth, I spent several hours fossil-hunting on Sunday, along a fine set of "raised beaches" near my home. Isostatic rebound is an absolutely rock-solid demonstrated fact here. You may not have as much personal contact with the evidence, but it's literally (not figuratively) part of my everyday life.

Maybe other plates are subsequently sinking, and the plate under the East Coast is just more susceptible to this sinking effect than others that have been measured?

There is an effect of sinking around the margins of an area that is rising. It may be easier to think of the process from the other direction : there is an effect of marginal rising around an area that is sinking : i.e. as the ice sheets built up, the mantle that is squeezed out under the ice sheet moves laterally and pushes up an area around the ice sheet. This is called, in some presentations, a "forebulge". So, as the Laurentia craton rebounds upward from the last glaciation, you'd expect downward movement of the land (relative to the geoid and/ or sea level) in a ring around Laurentia.
Whether this local effect entirely accounts for the observed sea level rises in - I've forgotten which State it is, not that it matters - isn't particularly important (to me). However the location of the ice margin (Long Island is a terminal moraine - where the ice margin was at it's maximum for a long period) will be approximately where rebound changes to forebulge collapse.
This sort of local (few thousand kilometre radius) effect is the sort of thing that makes it difficult to measure sea level rise. But as a geologist, I don't feel any worry about details like that. What we can clearly see from both the Keeling curve of CO2 against time and the plain fact of coal mines for burning coal and oil wells for burning oil (my Sunday walk included some open-cast coal workings in the modern sea cliffs ; and I find oil for my living ; they're simple, unarguable, everyday facts) is that we're dumping carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. And we know from past examples that high atmospheric CO2 goes with high temperatures. What we're doing to our environment will have consequences. Looking at the numbers, those consequences will

Anyone think to ask Gilligan...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if he's using the measuring stick for his lobster traps again!

The it?

[oldmac31310]

So, let me try to understand this summary: What is being said is that Information Technology is some how bound up in this rising sea level problem. I don't get it. And, uh, the rising sea level makes it hotter too? Hotspot? Really, I'm not actually as confused as the summary.

The tide in these areas can vary in excess of 15'

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they call a difference of 3-4 inches a hot spot? So, now we can all just panic!!! Science used to be a good career move...

sea level change at New York from 1856 to 2006

[suppo]

Data point: Mean sea level at various harbors has been tracked since the mid 1800s. Sea level rise at New York since 1856 has been quite linear at +2.66 mm/yr (0.91 feet per hundred years).
Link:
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750%20The%20Battery,%20NY

Re:sea level change at New York from 1856 to 2006

[Anonymous Coward]

But... But... They said that we were all going to die!

Do you mean to say that this has been going on for a very long time and that the change is so slow that no one is going to notice? Do you mean to imply that it will take ~800 years for sea levels to rise another foot?

OMFG! Don;t just sit there. Panic!

And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

...As always, more money and power for the government!

Color me surprised!

That seems to be a real popular and universal solution for just about every problem these days, especially among politicians and those on the Left. It seems like every problem...from racism, domestic violence, and economic downturn, to global warming, poor little Trayvon, and terrorism...ALL can be solved, Citizen! Just give us your money & freedom! We'll even throw in some food stamps!

Hey, it's worked great in the US for ~100 years, right? Just look what it's done for Detroit just since 1961!

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does your hatred for sympathy and human collaboration have to do with the reality of rising oceans? What does the fall of the auto-industry have to do with east coast sea levels?

  I suppose any effective action to a major problem requires logic and insight and you have described that as Left Wing politics. You may have fallen for a straw man attack against the idea of sympathy, but it doesn't mean its still not necessary for your survival.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

What does your hatred for sympathy and human collaboration have to do with the reality of rising oceans?

What does an emotional reaction like sympathy have to do with supposedly-rising local sea levels and increasing government power and taxation? I prefer logic and science myself, but I guess YMMV.

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[LanMan04]

That seems to be a real popular and universal solution for just about every problem these days, especially among politicians and those on the Left.

Yeah, taking power away from the government (which by definition gives it to corporations, as nature abhors a vacuum) leads to AWESOME stuff like the Great Recession!

I, for one, hail our corporate overlords! Quickly, to the new Gilded Age!

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

Yeah, taking power away from the government (which by definition gives it to corporations

How is NOT taking power and wealth away from PEOPLE giving it to corporations?

Your logic fails.

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[LanMan04]

How is NOT taking power and wealth away from PEOPLE giving it to corporations?

Because (a) the government IS the people, and (b) corporations are sociopathic. Corps will take and take and take so long as their short-term profit is projected to increase. Unless you make it 100% bold-faced illegal, they'll do it (and sometimes even then).

Someone is going to call the shots. If it's not US, the government/people, then it will be a private entity that, I guarantee, does NOT care about you or me in the slightest (and if you say the gov doesn't either, that's wrong, as again, the gov is US).

And seriously, fuck you on the "poor little Trevon" comment. Show some respect for the dead, especially the ones that were shot for walking home in the rain.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

Because (a) the government IS the people, and (b) corporations are sociopathic.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Like "The People's Republic of North Korea", "The People's Republic of China", and "The People's Republic of Congo".

Yes, I agree. The US *is* headed in that direction at a fairly rapid pace.

Thanks for helping me point that out for everyone.

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's weird that you whine about the Left, when one of our two major political parties has been taken over by far-right lunatics.

At this point we have a centrist party, and a hate-filled white conservative christian creationist party, and you're whining about the centrists.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

Because (a) the government IS the people, and (b) corporations are sociopathic. Corps will take and take and take so long as their short-term profit is projected to increase. Unless you make it 100% bold-faced illegal, they'll do it (and sometimes even then).

I just have to add to my other reply.

By your logic, that means that the government needs to take all the wealth and freedoms from the people, *that the people currently have*, before the corporations do (despite the fact that only the government may use lethal force and imprisonment) because:

Someone is going to call the shots.

This is just so wrong on so many levels one doesn't even know where to begin...

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[EmagGeek]

You clearly do not understand the difference between "collaboration" and "subjugation."

Go do some reading and then get back to us when you have a clue.

Thanks.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[geekoid]

"...As always, more money and power for the government!"
That's a policy decisions.
This is science. Different things.

Detroit is a case of the local economy not thinking about more the one industry. The MARKET caused that problem, not the government. The government was left with thousand of citizen with no where to turn.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[geekoid]

" I prefer logic and science "

funny, you're earlier post flies in the face of logic and science. It clearly shows you spouting off about thinkg you knwo nothing about, and railing against the government because of a market problem.

Logic is useless if you are vapid.

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[geekoid]

Wow, jut wow. Watching you stack up the logical fallacies sis amazing. So, How much science and logic does one need to study before they become so mind numbingly bad at it?

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

" I prefer logic and science "

funny, you're earlier post flies in the face of logic and science. It clearly shows you spouting off about thinkg you knwo nothing about, and railing against the government because of a market problem.

Logic is useless if you are vapid.

Well, I see a problem when people complain about corruption and corporate greed, but seem to completely ignore that there are two halves to the problem, being that corporations, the rich, etc can only get away with doing the bad things they do with willing accomplices in the government.

You will never remove one without removing both.

Each empowers the other.

Different factions of corporations and special interests exert various levels of control over various parts of government that are divided into competing fiefdoms of various political powers themselves. They all struggle among themselves for supremacy while both enrich themselves on the backs of the people and slowly remove ever more freedom and choice. Your wealth, your freedoms, and control over you and your activities & behaviors are what they use for barter.

When you give government more of your wealth and freedoms, you give the corrupt forces and people inside *and* outside of government your wealth and freedom. Your wealth gets divided up and divvied out to the various campaign donors, favored corporations, etc etc, while the various power blocs in government use your loss of freedoms to exert more control, which in turn provides them something else they can sell to the powerful outside government.

The key first step to breaking this "revolving wheel of shit" is to greatly reduce (not eliminate, not anarchy-levels or anything, reduce) the amount of wealth and control the government (and the corrupt people in it) has.

Why not go after the corporations first?

Well, first you need a government that isn't in their pockets already, because the most powerful political faction in government at the time will simply use it as an opportunity to cripple or eliminate the corporations and special interests that fund their power-competitors within the government.

Second, people need to eat while this all goes down. Destroying/crippling the corporations and what you call "1%-ers" will really put us in deep shit with the economy. What good are government food stamps if the store is boarded up? They also need to pay the rent/mortgage, make the car payment, etc.

Third, eliminating the ability of domestic corporate/special interests to buy influence without first greatly reducing that which the government and politicians were selling in the first place...your wealth and freedoms...will simply cause them to seek a market elsewhere. Most likely foreign corporations and special interests, as they won't be much affected by what we do to our corporations and special interests domestically.

Once you've gotten the government reined in to the point that there's a decent chance that the corrupting forces outside government can actually be held to account without simply slipping a few megadollars to the right government shlubs and walking, then you start cleaning that mess up.

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

Because (a) the government IS the people, and (b) corporations are sociopathic. Corps will take and take and take so long as their short-term profit is projected to increase. Unless you make it 100% bold-faced illegal, they'll do it (and sometimes even then).

I just have to add to my other reply.

By your logic, that means that the government needs to take all the wealth and freedoms from the people, *that the people currently have*, before the corporations do (despite the fact that only the government may use lethal force and imprisonment) because:

Someone is going to call the shots.

This is just so wrong on so many levels one doesn't even know where to begin...

Wow, jut wow. Watching you stack up the logical fallacies sis amazing. So, How much science and logic does one need to study before they become so mind numbingly bad at it?

It it's that bad, you should be able to completely destroy my points...

But so far, I'm seeing nothing but ad hominem and hand-waving.

Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute to the discussion to refute me with, or can I call this one good?

Strat

Re:And The Proposed Solution Will Be...

[BlueStrat]

"...As always, more money and power for the government!"
That's a policy decisions.
This is science. Different things.

I have no doubts that they've measured a sea level rise. I'm not doubting that. I *do* have doubts about what they attribute it to, and the likely consequences. Neither are simple or scientifically settled.

What science am I incorrect on? Enlighten me, O Wise One!

Detroit is a case of the local economy not thinking about more the one industry. The MARKET caused that problem, not the government. The government was left with thousand of citizen with no where to turn.

Maybe you missed my mention of it in posts in other discussions, but I live here just a short drive from the Detroit city limits. This is local for me. I've watched Detroit slowly being destroyed by corrupt Progressive Democrat politicians, labor unions, and Progressive policies over almost my whole life since the early 1960s when the city and county governments were completely taken over by massively-corrupt Progressive Democrats.

Did you know that Detroit was the earliest test-tube for the "Sustainable Development" set of government programs and policies currently being promoted for every US city? Worked well, hasn't it?

Well, get ready for it to come to a city near you. It's on the way, if the Progressive Democrats get their way. Check your own and nearby medium-to-large city's websites for links to "Sustainable Development".

Even in the '80s, long before the recent national economic mess and auto bailouts, Detroit was a disaster area and hellhole. The only thing that kept it from becoming the 3rd-world hellhole it has become now were the auto companies. The recent economic mess and auto bailouts just pushed it nearly into "Somalia" territory. Bears are starting to repopulate Detroit, and there are roving packs of wild dogs, both of which are roaming the streets unafraid in broad daylight.

To take a quote from the movie "The Outlaw Josie Wales";

"Don't piss down *my* back and tell *me* it's raining!"

Here, check out this video. As bad as things look in Detroit in that video, I can tell you it's worse even than the video shows, as bad as that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw

Strat

Re:Slashdot. Still beating the dead horse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you new here? This is slashdot where the global warming hoax and evolution hoax are thought of as fact by the stupid, gullible liberals and statists that make up the most of the people here.

Scientific Proof at Last

[n2hightech]

For the ocean to be rising higher only on the east coast there must be some attractive force acting to cause the water to flow from the rest of the world to accumulate on the east coast of the US. Gravitational surveys show no gravitational anomalies that could explain this. Prevailing winds are usually from the west in this area which would tend to push the water off shore. No evidence has been found to support the possibility that slower off shore wind speed could be allowing more water to flow back to shore. None of these reports show evidence of subduction due to plate movement. That leaves only one possible cause this is 100% scientific absolute proof with no other cause possible that Washington DC SUCKS!!.

Re:Slashdot. Still beating the dead horse...

[rrohbeck]

No, it was an evil plot by murderers and terrorists! Didn't you see the Heartland billboard?

Sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as Global Warming Crap. Its all about the Moon cicles. But hey, who cares about knowledge right...

meanwhile in the bible belt

[perles]

In North Carolina, the rising of sea level is illegal if not following their law. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/

Get Your Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Look around you, if you can lift your eyes away from you smartphone, tablet or game console, and see how many people care, or are waiting for the government to take care of the problem. Don't look pretty does it.

How about we fix the infrastructure of this country and see if that helps the "climate change"? Remember the Garbage Barge!!!!!

Re:Stupid Democrat bashers

[trout007]

Post a link to show it in context.

accidentally

[Kozz]

Quoth TFS:

Nature just published this study of sea-level rise and how global warming does not force the it to happen everywhere at the same rate.

Imagine what would happen if the editors accidentally the whole summary?

Hey guys, Galveston, TX is the worst place

[Anonymous Coward]

I live 30 miles from Galveston. The land rises only slightly between Galveston and Houston. Well, so what. First, I do believe the planet is warming. Second, there is little or no conclusive evidence that we caused this. It is just mother nature doing her thing. Glad I have good flood insurance. ;-)

link to the tomography experiment controversy

[peter303]

This experiment happened early in the web era, so there is not a lot of material on line. See the marine animal paragraph near the end.

ocean has 100 meter hills & valleys due to gra

[peter303]

Here is a map of these sea level variations. A large hole in the Indian Ocean is probably related to the convection cell jamming India into Asia.

Wow...What an amazing study...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you study the charts and associated data you see a very clear trend:

The more measurement stations you install, the more the sea rises!

Stop installing so many damned measuring stations!!!!!!! Do it for the children!!!!!!! Somebody must stop these people before they kill Gaia!!!!

GRACE

[TapeCutter]

The Earth's gravitational field is in constant flux, the exact shape of the field drives the ocean currents. This is where GRACE comes in. Since it's basic data about a basic force that controls so much of what happens on the surface lots of other interesting (and possibly useful) things can be messured, eg: changes in groundwater during a drought, the mass of winter snowfalls, seasonal vs non-seasonal changes in parmenant ice caps.

Re:Slashdot. Still beating the dead horse...

[Mr. Firewall]

Are you new here?

Dude, did you see my /. ID? I was here before the nutcases got here...

Re:Slashdot. Still beating the dead horse...

[Mr. Firewall]

Of course, if NCAR burns down, it could put a whole new twist on the term "global warming," eh? Ha ha!

English mother f***er, do you speak it?

[Anonymous Coward]

how global warming does not force the it to happen everywhere at the same rate

"What" ain't no country I ever heard of. They speak English in "What"?

Rise varies by location

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of the Discovery article is that sea level rise is non-uniform, and certain places on the east coast have a different rate than the world average.

However, average sea level rise has been steady for very many years. http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750 shows a constant rate in NY for 150 years.

Every millimeter costs.

[Apuleius]

Every millimeter of sea level rise means it costs more to pump the tunnels dry in Boston and New York and to maintain them.

Every millimeter means more money spent on the pumps at the Charles River Dam in Boston, the one that keeps the river from becoming a foul smelling estuary at high tide.

Every millimeter degrates the capacity of the storm drain and sewer systems, making the flood damage worse during intense storms.

Doom? No. Serious expense? Yes. Talk to a Civil Engineer some time.

Completely wrong.

[Apuleius]

We have a lot more landmass by the equator than in the polar regions.

What would really give us more land would be an ice age. All that Sahara desert turning into a breadbasket.

Re:Completely wrong.

[Grishnakh]

The only problem with that is that the Sahara is already owned by other people. It's not like they're going to allow people living nearer the poles to move in and set up their own countries there.

With global warming, many vast areas (tundra areas, like Alaska and Siberia and northern Canada) which are currently uninhabited would become habitable.

Re:Completely wrong.

[Apuleius]

That would be news to the Greenlanders and Nunavuuters.