The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports

Fig. 1 CMA CGM Jules Verne

I. Intro

The business end of the scientific microscope is made of intense efforts to acquire funding.

Which weakens the scientific end of the scientific microscope into timid revelation.

Regular readers know that I have breached subject matter that "typical" (translation: lightweight, timid, and incomplete) analyses of fossil fuel induced global warming induced climate change induced sea level change (SLC)  does not consider.

That subject matter is the vast array of sea ports that unfortunately find themselves placed at the sea level which existed when they were built back in the dark ages.

A sea level which is now "sooooo yesterday."

II. Retro

In current climate change science, the practice of ignoring or shying away from sea port extinction could be because "sea port science" is outside the purview of their somewhat scripted repertoire required for funding.

Funding that is attached to strings which are attached to "string pullers."

This is not my opinion, it has been studied and written about:

"I suspect the existence of what I call the `John Mercer effect'. Mercer (1978) suggested that global warming from burning of fossil fuels could lead to disastrous disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, with a sea level rise of several meters worldwide. This was during the era when global warming was beginning to get attention from the United States Department of Energy and other science agencies. I noticed that scientists who disputed Mercer, suggesting that his paper was alarmist, were treated as being more authoritative.

It was not obvious who was right on the science, but it seemed to me, and I believe to most scientists, that the scientists preaching caution and downplaying the dangers of climate change fared better in receipt of research funding. Drawing attention to the dangers of global warming may or may not have helped increase funding for relevant scientific areas, but it surely did not help individuals like Mercer who stuck their heads out. I could vouch for that from my own experience. After I published a paper (Hansen et al 1981) that described likely climate effects of fossil fuel use, the Department of Energy reversed a decision to fund our research, specifically highlighting and criticizing aspects of that paper at a workshop in Coolfont, West Virginia and in publication (MacCracken 1983).

I believe there is a pressure on scientists to be conservative. Papers are accepted for publication more readily if they do not push too far and are larded with caveats. Caveats are essential to science, being born in skepticism, which is essential to the process of investigation and verification. But there is a question of degree. A tendency for `gradualism' as new evidence comes to light may be ill-suited for communication, when an issue with a short time fuse is concerned."

(Scientific reticence and sea level rise, emphasis added). Remember that "the glacier decline bone is connected to the SLC bone."

III. Meanwhile Sea Port Extinction Looms

But, the significance of sea port science is so weighty that it is ignored or denied at the peril of civilization itself, as Dredd Blog points out in a series of posts (Series Posts page, @ EXTINCTION (Sea Ports ... "its the economy sea ports stupid")).

The demise of sea ports is the expressway that leads back to the dark ages (Expect Civilizations' Collapse By 2040, The Hoax of Climate Denial, The Technological Stairway To Heaven?).

And beyond.

IV. New Software SLC Model Updated

Regular readers know that I have been changing the Dredd Blog sea level analysis and projection model.

The basic essence of the change was to remodel it to begin with historical tide gauge records that have been kept for decades and centuries.

That body of historical data is placed in libraries at the Internet site Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL).

That history recorded, and the future projection, is "mean" alright.

Anyway, I have brought the projection model up to the expectations of Hansen et al. 2015 (A Paper From Hansen et al. Is Now Open For Discussion).

V. The History Remains History

This year, regular readers have seen scores of graphs of SLC here on Dredd Blog, in multiple posts.

Those graphs, made from data generated by the new SLC software model

Fig. 1

architecture, first contain the history of each PSMSL tide gauge station, then they also contain a projection into the future, based on expected acceleration of SLC.

The base context which the model uses is competent history recorded by individual tide gauge stations located around the world.

This, IMO, is superior to models that only generate from the fabled global mean average ("no location on earth will observe this average value" - PSMSL FAQ page).

VI. The Future Remains The Future

The projection logic (calculated future SLC) is built upon that historical foundation, enhanced by a knowledge of acceleration merged with the historical pattern.

An acceleration which could be far more intense than the IPCC projection model

Fig. 2

generates (which is ~3ft / ~1m by 2100).

The characteristics of that PSMSL history (e.g. highs and lows) at each tide gauge location, is detected and then collected for use in the projection phase where the historical pattern for each location is used to make a pattern for the future.

It tests future expectations by adding accelerations of various degrees to those historical characteristics, producing a continuum (e.g. 10 yr., 7 yr., 5 yr, 20 yr., etc. "doubling").

The result, as shown in graph after graph, is not only the preservation of the pattern of history, but a remembrance of that pattern within the future projection portion of the graphs.

Nevertheless, the graphs are different in the quantity of sea level rise (SLR) and sea level fall (SLF), because the ice sheets are and have been melting at an accelerating rate.

VII. Conclusion

Check out the graphs I produced with two different "doubling" settings.

Compare them to the IPCC settings, and then you can see why Dredd Blog rings the alarm bells that are meant to inform sea port authorities of the enormous, and perhaps insurmountable, problems they face.

The graph in Fig. 1 shows a 3.1 meter (10.17 ft.) increase in SLR at the New York tidal gauge station #12 by 2100.

The graph in Fig. 2 shows a 9.08 meter (29.79 ft.) increase in SLR at the New York tidal gauge station #12 by 2100.

(The 3.1 m and 9.08 m values are derived by subtracting the beginning sea level from the ending sea level,)

Both of these values show a higher SLR than the IPCC 2015 report shows.

Anyway, the software will have a 2,3,5,7,10, and 20 year doubling acceleration graph for each station.

So, there will be plenty of acceleration projections to choose from.

The next post in this series is here.

---

---