Following from Lori’s 15 Inches post, here is a great interactive Google map where you can dial in the sea level rise of your choice and take a look at the resulting baseline submerged and dry areas in your own neighborhood: Sea Rise Map
Please share widely!
I’ll be able to walk to the beach, though.
‘Cause it’s all about your house, of course.
Now where is it you live again?
but Peter, your comment about doing all 14 inches and still being able to walk, umm…
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..ah, never mind.
I should have pointed out that the site uses metric units. The lowest sea level rise one can query is 1 meter (about 39 inches). Apparently one will be able to walk to the beach from your house when there is a 15 yard rise in levels, probably not in your lifetime.
but when I do a mental conversion, a meter is a yard.
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2.2 pounds per kilogram (double the pounds, then add ten percent). When we buy stuff at the local store here in Germany, 100 gram is about a quarter of a pound.
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100 Stundenkilometer is about 60 miles an hour.
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Seconds need no conversion
…I jokingly refer to the fact that I’m looking forward to our property here in Munich as being beachfront property. It never will be. Munich is 450 meters above mean sea level. But our property in Wellesley (much lower) might sometime be.
Could be a good tool for potential homebuyers.
After all, if the sea is going to rise multiple meters, you’ll see lots more action like New Orleans — pumps, seawalls, berms, etc.
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No way the entire city of Boston gets flooded anytime soon — if we do allow the seas to rise, it’ll be cheaper to build giant seawalls around the city and pump the water than it would be to abandon this much infrastructure and building.
That doesn’t make it cheap, just cheaper.
Besides, if the seas rise more than a meter or three within the next 50 years, we’re going to have all sorts of problems before that water gets to your front door.
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I’m not playing down global warming or rising seas… just noting that while this is a fun and dramatic exercise, it’s also a supposition that humanity does nothing to curb global warming and nothing to hold back the water. I think the first will happen, and I know the second will happen if the first does not, at least for densely populated areas.
According to the map, seawater will lap at our door only when the ocean has risen by 14 meters. Still, we depend upon a sump pump to prevent flooding in our basement when it rains very heavily, and the sump pit rarely dries out completely even when it hasn’t rained in ages. Maybe the water table is rather high in this neighborhood that was built on a former apple orchard? Would there be much of a relationship between a rise in sea level and a rise in the local water table, or would climate change affect flooding in the neighborhood more directly through altering rainfall patterns and the amount of water that flows to the area from the adjacent woods that are on higher ground? I haven’t a clue.
…I read somewhere that something like 1/3 of the Niederlaende (the Netherlands, “the lowlands” in German) is below mean sea level. They have “reclaimed” (created?) living space by building dikes, to wall themselves off from the North Sea. Boston could do the same if it wanted to.
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The problem is, as the Dutch learned in the early 1950s and the Americans learned from Katrina, dikes can fail. With devastating repercussions.
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The additional problem that you will begin to see is that, by excessively drawing fresh water from the acquifers in regions near the coastline, aside from subsidance of the land, increased salinity of the acquifers from seawater that will seep in to replace the fresh water that has been withdrawn.
You obviously have no idea as to the topography and geology of Boston.
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Boston would be underwater in no time. No walls. Abandon the city. The stores on Washington St downtown have sub basements where the tide rises and falls. The Children’s FLOATING hospital down at Stuart/Kneeland/Harrison received it’s name because—that’s right–it was floating. And the Back bay? . They have pumps now working overtime on Storrow drive during a moon tide! Get real. Boston is history.
Actually, the floating hospital was originally a boat The name has nothing to do with the current tidal conditions of the area around NEMC.
So this map if accurate shows the fraud that that is the globe map. A 7M or 22.96 foot rise is necessary according to this map, to have the same effect as the map shown in the Globe. I don’t think anybody is predicting an almost 23 foot increase in sea level. So we’ll all be ok.
Thanks for playing.
Weren’t you one of the posters who pointed out the fact that the Globe map was modled using 15 inch rise and a Category 2 Hurricane? How soon you forget. The Google mash-up doesn’t have a hurricane option, so I don’t think you can use the Google map to discredit the Globe map.
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Please tell us again why the Globe map is a fraud?
Global climate change (global warming) implies an increase in surface sea level (SSL) temperatures. That means that, when tropical depressions form off the coast of Africa, they will likely develop into hurricanes of greater intensity than previously. Simply put, more category 2, 3, 4 and, yes, 5 hurricanes.
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Fortunately for Boston, the more intense the storm, the more likely it is to hit the Gulf states*–and the Gulf’s SSL temps are fairly high, which increases a storm’s intensity even further than it would have been if it stayed in the Atlantic. Weaker storms–those that don’t get into the Gulf–tend to go up the US’s Atlantic coast or out to sea, and would probably be substantially downgraded by the time they reach Boston.
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The Globe’s graphic regarding Boston was interesting, but a more interesting graphic would have one concerning Florida. Sea level rises would be devastating there.
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*That’s probably one reason why property insurers are increasingly reluctant to write policies for Gulf state property owners.
See the comment below.
It’s Mr. Look at facts. The Tsunami in Indonesia was in the 22 foot range. The storm surge from the hypothetical Cat 2 hurricane in the globe story was 4.5 feet with 15 inches of sea level rise projected and 6 inches due to settling of the land. That is a grand total of approximately 6.2 feet or 2 meters. Below you will find what happens with 2 meters on the Google map. All I am pointing out is someone is wrong here, either the google people or the Globe’s people.
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Boston Globe Map
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“Google” Map link to a larger interactive version is here
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raj has implored me to use facts. So that’s what I’m doing.
but the Globe and the Google may both be right.
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Google’s model is a gradual rising of the seas, with no sudden dramatic event (sudden measured in days, not years).
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The Globe’s model is more complex, because it includes the 6″ settling (which isn’t uniform and may have far more complex ramifications), and the storm surge. 4.5 feet is an average, but storms don’t surge calmly, uniformly, or gently. It’s entirely possible in my mind for them both to be right precisely because the Globe scenario involves multiple types of events on different timescales converging in complex ways, and a violent event.
I’m not saying that both are right — I’m merely suggesting that your concerns about accuracy, while valid and interesting, don’t imply that at least one model is wrong because you’re oversimplifying the complex interactions involved with the Globe model.
Here is the Google map at 22.5 feet or 7 m. Only at this level does the map look like the Globe map. I should have put this map in my last post as well.
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Link to map
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What does a category 2 storm surge look like modeled with today’s sea levels? The google map that is based only on sea levels and land elevation shows my street remaining dry until the ocean rises by 14 meters. On the other hand, my neighbor told me that our street has become a river a couple of times in the last thirty years. Did the group that the Globe hired model other variables besides sea, land, and surge elevation to capture reality in a way that you cannot by simply using the Google tool? I would think that they would have, but I don’t see any documentation of the methods at the Globe link.
Perhaps the model the Globe used considered the reduced drainage possibilities from a higher sea level, and resultant higher groundwater table. This may mean that localized street flooding would be more apt to occur. The Globe would have been smart to include that in its story.
are you ready to give credence to theories that show that Global Warming may be a natural cycle not caused exclusively or definitively by mankind? That perhaps increase solar activity has a role to play.
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You see the maps like the globe showed are part and parcel of the scare tactics that Gore uses in his movie. When you scratch the surface some of them go away, like the covering on a lottery scratchie.
Well said. The global warming discussion is handled more like the Salem witch trials. What masquerades as science, doled out by people that live in mansions and travel by Hummer limousines, is that “all real scientists” or “the overwhelming majority of science” prove that global warming caused by mankind is a fact. Last I checked, the laws of science didn’t obey the public opinion polls.
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Whether warmer weather in some parts of the earth is caused by mankind or part of a larger cycle should stand for open investigation. The photo ops of politicians with their solutions would be laughable were it not for their history of making matters worse while they and their lobbyists profit.
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I’m open minded. I don’t know:
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1.Is there a problem?
2.What is the cause?
3.Is there a solution?
4.What is the cost in human life or wealth?
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The laws don’t obey polls, but the last time I checked, what we believe to be a law of science is determined by consensus. This is really a side topic, but in short, if most scientists who study something believe a certain theory to be true, it probably is true. Sure, we all can come up with counterexamples, but at the end of the day, what we take as scientific fact is what everyone believes in.
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You may be interested to know that real scientists have in fact been studying this very question! Did you know that Svante Arrhenius wrote a paper in 1896 titled “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground”?
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Here are some other places to look:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www.realclima…
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But here are the Cliff Notes:
1. Very likely
2. Mostly humans
3. Yes
4. Are you talking about #1 or #3? The open question is which is more expensive- business as usual or moving to a low-carbon economy. I can’t pretend to know the answer to that, but I would submit it’s possible that the latter course is in fact cheaper, when all cost are tallied.
How darest thou say you knowest how to tackle problems best. The greatest minds in Hollywood, Beacon Hill and Washington are on this matter.
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Have they ever been wrong? Knowest your placest!
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To the gallows with the non-believer!
Al Gore got an academy award for his scientific research.
Everyone know that an academy award is bigger than that Nobel thing. So AL GORE IS RIGHT and you buffooon naysayers are WRONG! We are all doomed unless we go back to horses and carriages and chopping wood———-
and no planes.
…EaBoClipper @ Sun Apr 08, 2007 at 08:58:15 AM EDT
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raj has implored me to use facts.
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And, quite frankly, I salute you for doing so. (That’s a serious salute, by the way.)
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I’m not going to quibble with you over the various maps–they don’t particularly interest me–but I will quibble with you over the following:
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EaBoClipper @ Sun Apr 08, 2007 at 09:41:05 AM EDT
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If you believe in complex interactions… are you ready to give credence to theories that show that Global Warming may be a natural cycle not caused exclusively or definitively by mankind? That perhaps increase solar activity has a role to play.
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Let’s examine this, piece by piece, and then draw it together.
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Yes, there are complex interactions, and I have mentioned some of them. Increases in CO_2 levels, resulting in increases in temperatures, tend to increase in increased amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor is another greenhouse gas. I’d go with the methane issue, but that would be merely a repeat of what I’ve posted here before.
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Yes, there are cycles in the Earth’s revolution around the sun–called Kondratiev (sp?) cycles–that influence the amount of insolation on the earth. But, it seems to me (I don’t do astrophysics, by the way) that cycles like those would involve much more than a few decades.
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I’m not exactly sure what “increase(d) solar activity” is supposed to refer to, but unless we have entered a region of spacetime in which the curvature of spacetime has increased, there would be no increase in solar activity*.
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Your most interesting point is the one I have made elsewhere: …not caused exclusively or definitively by mankind…. Um, OK. Let’s examine this. I realize that correlation does not definitively prove causation, but there is something definitely suspicious about the fact that the uptick in temperature over the last century or so corresponds pretty much to the increased use of fossil fuels, spewing CO_2 into the atmosphere from carbon that had previously been sequestered. And given the fact that CO_2 was known to be a “greenhouse gas” over a century ago, (Arrhenious, remember?) that strikes me a pretty good evidence that at least some portion of global temp increase is due to combustion of previously sequestered carbon (i.e. fossil fuels)
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Let’s assume, for the sake of argument that the climate change is not exclusively due to human activity. Are you suggesting that humans should not try to ameliorate the damage that is being done by their activity? If so, say so.
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*Relates to general relativity.
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Note to MCRD downstream, don’t be a jackass. Gore did no scientific research. He popularized existing science. When I was a kid in the 1960s, there were publications like PopSci (Popular Science) and Popular Mechanics (build your own airplane!). Gore did a pretty good job of popularizing the science. His explanation of the science was pretty much on mark. I did find the fawning over him in the documentary annoying, however.
From space.com
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We’ve only been able to track this since the 1970’s.
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Also, how much CO2 has been released by melting ice. And is the ice melting due to human function or the increased solar activity.
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I have never and will never say that mankind does not have a part to play in warming, I just believe it is small component. I will say, and will continue to say that to treat those who have differing views is counter productive.
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I will continue to make the claim that the left, who normally abhors such practice, is acting like religious zealots on the issue.
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I think both you and I can agree that Al Gore was the wrong person to take a fore-front on this issue. For both the polarizing nature of his position in society, and his glaring hypocrisy on the issue vis a vis his personal life style.
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Looks similar to the CO2 chart that Gore used in his movie.
you draw exactly the wrong conclusion from the data available to you.
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Your logic appears to be: hey, it’s the sun’s fault, and human activity’s contribution must be a lot smaller than the sun’s (presumably because the sun is big), so why should we worry.
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But Dr. Willson himself trashes that idea (emphasis mine).
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So. The rational response: “Solar radiation may be a significant contributing factor to global warming, about which we can do nothing. However, the human impact is still the most important factor, so we should do whatever we can about it.”
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EaBo’s response: “It’s all the sun’s fault! We can’t do anything about it! So let’s belch out greenhouse gases ’til the freakin’ cows come home!”
It is not all caused by human kind, although some of it probably is.
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Here is another article that purports that ice sheets drive atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
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blockquote>Scientists have since turned to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a possible explanation. Carbon dioxide concentrations can be measured in ancient air bubbles preserved in sequences of cores drilled into the Antarctic ice sheet. Because some changes in carbon dioxide have been found to occur slightly before changes in ice volume, the prevailing interpretation has been that carbon dioxide is an additional independent ‘driver’ of the size of ice sheets, along with solar radiation.
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Now, a new hypothesis inverts this view.
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William Ruddiman, an environmental scientist with the University of Virginia, provides a novel explanation for the rhythms of the ice ages in a paper just published online in the journal Climate of the Past. Ruddiman found that carbon dioxide is a driver of ice sheets only at the relatively small 23,000-year cycle, but not at the much larger ice-volume cycles at 41,000 years and approximately 100,000 years. In those cases he found that ice sheets instead control atmospheric carbon dioxide and drive feedbacks that amplify ice growth and melting. He says his carbon dioxide feedback hypothesis explains why the strongest cycles of ice response are not in correspondence with those in the orbital cycles.
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Ruddiman concludes (as Milankovitch proposed) that ice sheets are initially driven by the Sun, but then the ice takes control of carbon dioxide changes, producing its own positive feedback (the amplifying effect) at the 41,000-year cycle.
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So the reverse may be true that as ice melts more carbon dioxide may be released into the air, which causes increased atmospheric carbon. Is that contributing as well?
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There are many complex factors at work here, the earth has cooled and warmed many times over the millions of years of its existence. It will continue to do so.
You linked to that article through the EurekAlert, which is the news ticker of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. Good source.
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Now, what’s the AAAS saying about climate change?
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This is what the scientists are saying, EaBo. You just don’t want to listen.
Let’s start with the basics:
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1. CO2 is known to be a greenhouse gas, in that it traps longwave radiation. No one debates this.
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2. The modern increase in atmospheric CO2 tracks quite well with human CO2 emissions, once you account for the excess that is getting absorbed by the oceans. The increase is due to human emissions. You can try to argue this point, but I will be happy to pile it on in response.
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You may point to historical climate events, where CO2 concentrations were not the initial driver of climate change. What this obscures, however, is that increased CO2 in these situations did act as a positive feedback of warming. What is different this time is that we are causing CO2 to the leading driver.
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3. There is no negative climate feedback that is known to be capable of damping the increase in radiative forcing caused by #1 and #2, above. There very well may be one (or more) such feedback, but no one’s proved it yet. MIT’s Richard Lindzen, one of the most prominent skeptics of global warming, claimed to have found such a mechanism, but it hasn’t been supported by following studies.
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4. If you want to be a skeptic, forget about solar radiation, that one’s largely understood (and it’s not the primary mechanism of the present warming). Your best best is ‘cosmic rays,’ that’s the hot skeptic talking point.
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Given the above, I think it’s a reasonable position to take that our CO2 (and methane, etc.) emissions are driving some degree of warming.
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I am happy to discuss how sensitive the climate might be to CO2 forcing (there’s still a broad range of possibilities), what if anything we should do in response, and so forth. But to waste time debating first principles is, in my opinion, a waste of time.
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The wikipedia article on attribution of recent climate change is a pretty good read.
…Gore is not a scientist, and he does not purport to be one. He is a popularizer of the science. If you want to argue the science, let’s argue the science. Not the popularizer. I have never fawned over Gore, although he’s doing a yeoman’s job popularizing science done by others.
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Point one. Unless the sun is imploding or accreting hydrogen (which would increase its mass), it’s difficult to believe that its radiative power output is increasing substantially*. I have seen little to suggest that it is accreting hydrogen, and little to suggest that it is imploding (hence my general relativity reference). So I doubt that the sun’s power output has been significantly increasing. Your graphic downstream is interesting, but I’ll merely point out that it merely purports to describe temperature changes on land masses in the northern hemisphere, ignoring the southern hemisphere, and that is not science.
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Point two. The temperature reconstructions in the Wiki graphs that I had pointed to many times here before (don’t have the URL at the moment) suggest a global temp fluctuation between the middle age warming period and the little ice age of about 0.2 degrees (all celsius). The temp fluctuation between 1880 or so and now is on the order of 1 degree. A significant rise, which corresponds precisely to period during which previously sequestered carbon (fossil fuels) that have been burned during the industrial revolution. Causation? no. Correlation? yes.
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Last point. Why are you unwilling to just admit the obvious? The issue isn’t the science–which from all the data is pretty much correct. The issue is the political. And the economic. What you get from the Gore documentary is the idea that the USofA–the primary source per capita (my “pro Kopf”) of CO_2 emissions–should voluntarily bear the brunt of the economic consequences of reducing CO_2 emissions. Admit it, and we can discuss the political implications of that. I, for one, believe that anything the USofA will do to reduce CO_2 emissions will be overshadowed by the increase in emissions by China and India. (Re China: there was an interesting series in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung here in Munich recently about the fact of China’s increased usage of coal and the devastation of minors trapped in mine collapses.)
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Admit or ignore the science, I really don’t care. I understand the science. The issue is: let’s discuss the political and economic issues. And, quite frankly, I probably would not disagree with you about them. But don’t get side-tracked on (scientific) issues that have pretty much been laid to rest.
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*Using the usual inverse-square rule, it would appear that an increase in radiative power predicted by your source (0.05% per decade) of the sun as received at the earth would be, as engineers would say “in the noise.” In other words, undetectable.
As becomes apparent with your subsequent posts about solar insolation, etc., methinks you are too quick to grasp at factoids that support your position.
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Regarding the sea-level rise mashup, it may be helpful to < a href=’http://blog.firetree.net/2006/05/18/more-about-flood-maps/’>read the background behind it. Specifically,
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and so forth. It’s an interesting site, but it’s a simple application of Google Maps and some altimetry data. I have not reviewed the logic behind the Globe map, so I can’t comment on how accurate it may be, but using this site to prove anything about the Globe map is a pretty big stretch.