The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 10

Current Civilization's Endangered Lifeline

The general subject matter of this series took embryonic form in the Dredd Blog series Will This Float Your Boat? in May of 2011.

Eventually some research I did during that series led to the more specific subject matter focus of this series.

That is because, for one thing, I ran across the following statement on a government site:

"By volume, more than 95 percent of U.S. international trade moves through the nation's ports and harbors, with about 50 percent of these goods being hazardous materials." [quoting NOAA 'Ports']

(Will This Float Your Boat - 10; cf Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization). The specific subject matter of this series began several months after I read and posted that quote (about two and a half years ago).

At that time I am sure that the subject matter sounded like science fiction to those who satiate themselves with daily doses of main-stream pabulum.

Those who are even more out of touch with reality, those who would call this subject matter "climate porn," are also incensed by exacting Dredd Blog lab work (Pole Dancing In The Lab).

That could be because this series started with these words:

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."

(The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports). This series never did get any less favorable to those whose minds have been corrupted by fear and its subsequent denial (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

So, they will have to be happy with their own version of Stormy Waters' (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) version of sea level rise because she loves the preznit bigly like they do (sorta).

Meanwhile, back in the old timer world of science, the big boys are coming around to the subject matter reality:

"There is a general consensus among Earth scientists that melting of land ice greatly contributes to sea-level rise (SLR) and that future warming will exacerbate the risks posed to human civilization." (Abstract)
...
"Our goal is ... to improve our understanding of the connection between global cryospheric changes and [local sea level] at major port cities around the globe." (p.1)

(Should coastal planners have concern...?, emphasis added). That article in Science Advances focuses on the varying degrees of sea level rise at various seaports around the globe, with some ideas, formulas, and tools for calibration and calculation.

Isn't that the nastiest porn ever?

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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I hereby name the Climate Porn trance "Dido" ... which was the name of the Queen of the sea trade civilization: Phoenicia. She left over internal disagreements to form another sea trade civilization: Carthage. She "went down with the ship" just like those in the climate porn trance will.

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