Dredd Blog: The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports

When I originally contemplated using World Ocean Database (WOD) records, I wanted to research the oceans down under, as well as at the surface in the area of of the world's top sea ports (World Ocean Database Project - 2).

One reason for researching sea port environments is that our particular civilization, like ancient Phoenicia and Carthage, is based on international sea trade (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 3).

Fig. 2 WOD Zone 1010

The sea level change around major sea ports was also considered (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 6).

Which meant of course that the causes of sea level rise would have to be included in the research.

Fig. 3 Wod Zone 1205

Fig. 4 WOD Zone 1211

Older beginnings of that exercise were conducted before I had learned to use the WOD database.

Since I now have that WOD data available for increasing my understanding of sub-surface ocean realities, I now use it in the research involved with discovering what really causes the most and the least sea level change.

So, today I want to show Dredd Blog readers what the WOD database tells us is going on down under the ocean surface in some areas around major sea ports of current civilization.

Fig. 5 WOD Zone 1212

Especially in areas where the top ten sea ports are located.

The graphic at Fig. 1 lists the top ten container sea ports.

The ranking of ports changes from time to time, but the area where most of the ports on that list are located tends to host the busiest ports (China, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.).

Surprisingly, the data from WOD zones in that area are not as robust as one would imagine.

That is, since civilization as we know it would fade away if the sea ports faded away due to sea level change, one might expect those areas to be more heavily studied than other areas (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 5).

Fig. 6

As I wrote in an earlier post, I have added a software module to the toolbox that processes WOD data.

It goes through the data concerning temperature changes, in any WOD zone, and calculates results of up and down changes there.

Fig. 7

While doing so it calculates averages at depth levels that have taken place over a span of years, then finally does an annual net average temperature change (x degrees increase, or x degrees decrease).

I did some screen captures of the results which that module calculated and printed (Fig. 7 - Fig. 11).

The way to use them is to compare the WOD graph of subsurface temperatures over the years with the temperature-change analysis.

That is, compare Fig. 2 with Fig. 7 (WOD Zone 1010), Fig. 3 with Fig. 8 (zone 1205), Fig. 4 with Fig. 9 zone 1211), Fig. 5 with Fig. 10 (zone 1212). and Fig. 6 with Fig. 11 (zone 1312).

Fig. 8

The take home from these observations done by scientists over the years, is that the ocean does not warm like a bathtub.

When the cold waters from ice sheet melt and calving are released into the oceans around Greenland or Antarctica, it can flow far away in currents under the surface (Humble Oil-Qaeda).

Even the icebergs on the surface can float far away (ibid).

Thus, as the graphs show, the thermal expansion of the oceans is more complicated than water in a bathtub (The Bathtub Model Doesn't Hold Water).

I have included some sea level rise graphs from the PSMSL tide gauge station database at Fig. 12, thru Fig. 15.

These graphs show that sea level rise is taking place even though no major ocean water net-warming is taking place in the zones in the China area.

Fig. 9

The port involved where warming is taking place is Jebel Ali, number nine of the top ten (Fig. 1).

It presents a different story, being there in zone 1205, which is an area off the coast of Dubai, UAE.

It is in the Persian Gulf.

It is naturally warming more there (Fig. 8) because it is enclosed on three sides by land, and only has the narrow Straits of Hormuz as a way to interact with the Gulf of Oman and the larger Arabian Sea.

Nevertheless, I included it because it is in the top ten seaports, not because it is like the others in terms of being located on open waters of the ocean.

I think by now regular readers, as I am, are seeing that the oceans are going through less than expected warming changes as cold water and icebergs are entering them in more and more massive quantities.

Fig. 10

Some errors in scientific papers did not take into consideration global subsurface changes as a result of this cold water infusion and other factors:

With recently improved instrumental accuracy, the change in the heat content of the oceans and the corresponding contribution to the change of the sea level can be determined from in situ measurements of temperature variation with depth. Nevertheless, it would be favourable if the same changes could be evaluated from just the sea surface temperatures [WRONG! stop being a lazy scientist !] because the past record could then be reconstructed and future scenarios explored. Using a single column model we show that the average change in the heat content of the oceans and the corresponding contribution to a global change in the sea level can be evaluated from the past sea surface temperatures.

(Ocean Science, 6, 179–184, 2010, emphasis added). There has been some recovery from that obvious error.

I mean the error in thinking that we can tell what is going on deep down by measuring only the surface temperature:

"On the basis of the GRACE data, we conclude that most of the change in ocean mass is caused by the melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers." Nature, GeoScience
...
"Comparing the two over the seven year period this study looked at, the authors found that meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets contributed more to sea level rise than thermal expansion" - Carbon Brief

That is, we must not only lose the myth of thermal expansion as the source of "MOST"

Fig. 11

sea level rise in the past century," but we must also lose the notion that it is the source now (or ever was for that matter).

Based on surface measurements alone, one might erroneously conclude that, as has been mistakenly done by some.

But it is an error prone misadventure to ignore the observations in millions of measurements at many depths which are available in the WOD.

Observations made by valid scientific expeditions over years of time are superior to mathematical modeling that takes only a tiny part of the picture into consideration.

That is the point I am making.

Sea levels are changing because of vast quantities of melt waters and ice entering the ocean from land masses.

[Don't forget ghost-water (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).]

In conclusion, I included (below) some sea level rise graphs from the PSMSL Database.

They show sea level rise taking place in the areas where most of the sea ports are located and that were written about in today's post.

The sea level is rising regardless of the thermal underpinnings of the ocean depths.