Aristophanes “Youth
ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness
sobered, but stupid lasts forever.”
I watched a TV documentary on how the Somerset Levels were
coping a year after the floods. I
noticed a few things.
- One, how brave the guy from the Environment Agency was in talking to the residents. A few had a real go at him and he remained polite and sympathetic. Sadly few of the locals wanted to listen.
- Secondly, there was very little mention of global warming and no mention of sea level rise. I think this is a political failure. Our politicians lie to us and it is easier for us to live with that lie than face up to the awful truth. The Levels are almost at sea level now and very soon will be below sea level. Which bit of that do you not understand?
- Third was how people in denial are making such stupid decisions. Dredging a river which is below sea level can only speed up the ingress of the sea.
- Lastly, it was all about the Levels with no mention of other areas flooded or of homes lost to the seas on the east coast. Okay Somerset is what the program was about but it reinforces the poor us attitude of the Somerset Levellors.
I am 62 and if I live to be 85 I will see the Somerset
Levels reclaimed by the sea. I feel sorry for the people living there but they
are ignorant of the facts.
Over the last 100 years sea levels rose by 20 cm.
But the rate of increase is accelerating at a very fast rate. Over the next 20
years expect a 30 cm rise as a minimum. The IPCC predict a rise of between 75
cm to 1.80 metres by 2100. We are currently tracking at the top of this range.
A
different method a calculating sea levels is based on looking at the
relationship between global average temperature and sea levels. This
semi-empirical method maps closely to the kinetic figures used by the IPCC
effectively confirming them to date. However the projections from the
semi-empirical data predict a sea level rise three times greater than the IPCC
predictions in the future.
Latest science has
yet to be reviewed by the IPCC, but if its valid the 1.8 metres is an
underestimate. 6 metres is possible by 2100.
Interesting footnote - Iceland is actually rising. Thats a result of a bounce as heavy ice retreats and the land thaws. Anticipate Bjorn Lomborg, Christopher Monkton and the rest of Nigel Lawson's crazy gang to bring that up as evidence of a conspiracy. Truth is that the land disturbance will drive more volcanic activity. Also sea levels in the Arctic are rising more slowly than the global average, which is a really interesting result of reducing mass affecting local gravitational attraction. Wow! Sea level rise is not uniform across the planet.
Here is a prediction - Miami is only around 1.10 metres above sea level. It will be the first major western city to be abandoned despite spending billions of dollars to try to save it.
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/01/sea-level-rise-models-and-observations-are-starting-agree
A must read: http://charlesrangeleywilson.com/2014/01/11/a-flood-of-misinformation/
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