©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013
The Elliot Bay Seattle Seawall &
The Indisputable and Very Inconvenient Truth about Sea Level Rise By Jeffrey S. Juel, PE (Civil Engineer) Abstract: This paper discusses the proposed half billion-dollar seawall that will replace the 1930’s-era seawall on the waterfront of downtown Seattle in Washington State. The existing seawall is dilapidated and it must be replaced. The replacement seawall should have a minimum design life of 100 years, thus it is obvious that it should be constructed to accommodate a rising sea level through the year 2100. 1
Everyone knows that Global Warming and Climate Change are causing the polar ice caps to melt. “The science is settled.” Sea level rise is 2 actually happening. It seems reasonable that the new seawall should be constructed at least a few inches higher than the existing seawall; however the proposed new seawall will be constructed no higher than the existing sea wall. How is that possible? Keywords: Elliot Bay Seawall; Seattle; Global Warming; Sea Level Rise; Al Gore; Emperor’s New Clothes; Swindle; Charlatan; Hoax;
The Elliot Bay Seawall in Seattle The existing Elliot Bay seawall was constructed along the Seattle waterfront in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Today it is severely deteriorated and plans have been prepared for it to be demolished and replaced.
Photo 1 - A portion of the existing Elliot Bay Seawall (Photo from SDOT) 1
“The science is settled.” Gore told the lawmakers. “Carbon-dioxide emissions — from cars, power plants, buildings and other sources — are heating the Earth's atmosphere.” (NPR Story: Gore Takes Global Warming Message to Congress - by Andrea Seabrook March 21, 2007) 2 The present rate of sea level rise is approximately 2 mm/year, or 8 inches in a century.
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The Seattle Department of Transportation has a web site containing a blog entry dated 1/23/2013 which says that the new seawall will be constructed to accommodate the largest predicted amount of sea level rise: 50 inches. If 50 inches of sea level rise occurs, it is reasonable to assume that future tidal heights - including MHHW and extreme high tides will be roughly 50 inches higher than their present elevations.
The graphic included in the SDOT Blog (above) is missing a key piece of information: the vertical datum for the elevations.3 Adding 2.34 feet to the elevations shown presumably converts the elevations to heights above mean lower low water (MLLW)4 for the current tidal datum (at which MLLW = 0.0).
3 4
It could be National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD29) or some other local vertical datum. References to MLLW are for the current tidal datum - not for a future tidal epoch reflecting the presumably higher sea level.
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Note that the High Estimate for MHHW in 2100 (13.22 ft) is 4.2 feet higher than MHHW Present (9.02 ft); and 4.2 feet equals 50.4 inches. The table below lists the key elevations for the seawall at present; and after 50 inches of sea level rise (relative to the current MLLW datum).
Top of wall elevation Highest Observed Tide (from graphic above) Highest Observed Tide (NOS5 1/27/1983) MHHW MLLW
After 50 inches of sea level rise
At present
graphic datum
Elevation above MLLW (in feet)
16.1
18.44
18.44
12.17
14.51
18.68
9.02 -2.34
14.65 11.36 0.00
18.82 15.53
Per the graphic from the blog on the Seattle DOT website, the historic “Highest Observed Tide” was a still water level (SWL) of 12.17 feet (on some unnamed vertical datum) or 14.51 feet above MLLW. NOS reports that the highest observed tide at their tide gage located at the Coleman ferry dock 6 was 14.65 above MLLW. (See Appendix B) The highest previously observed tide (per NOS/NOAA) was 3.79 feet (or 45.5 inches) below the top of the existing seawall. The slightly lower (by 1.5 inches) “highest observed tide” per the SDOT graphic (14.51 feet above MLLW) is 47 inches below the top of the seawall (16.10 – 12.17 = 3.93 feet or 47 inches). Both of these water levels are less than 50 inches below the top of the existing seawall. It should be obvious that in the future, during extreme high tides, the new seawall will not accommodate 50 inches of sea level rise. The height of the higher high water varies from day to day with the phases of the moon and inversely to the square of the changing distance between the earth and the moon. The distance between the sun and the earth also has a similar but lesser effect on the tides. A low barometric pressure increases the observed tidal heights, and a high pressure suppresses the tidal heights.7 Anyone who lives near Puget Sound knows that from one day to the next, some high tides will be higher than MHHW, and some will be lower than MHHW. In addition, the actual tides can be higher or lower than the predicted tidal heights.
5
The National Ocean Service (NOS) - an office within the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOS/NOAA predicts tidal heights and records water levels at tide gages around the country. 6 The Coleman ferry dock is located just a few feet from the existing Elliot Bay Seawall - NOAA tidal station “Seattle” is station number 9447130. 7 Future storms will supposedly be more intense due to ongoing “climate change”. If this is true, it is reasonable to presume that extreme low barometric pressures will be more common than they are at the present time. This will make over-topping events more frequent.
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If the worst case scenario 8 for Sea Level Rise predicted by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group actually materializes, in 2100, the extreme high water levels will be at least 50 inches higher than they are today. Suppose that it is the year 2100 and it is the day of the year when the sun and the moon are closest to the earth and together they generate the highest predicted tide – the perigean spring tide.9 Imagine that a significant low pressure system10 rolls into Seattle in sync with the high tide and this extreme high water level equals or exceeds the historic highest observed water level - plus 50 inches due to the now higher sea level. If the new seawall is no higher than the existing seawall, it will be overtopped by at least 0.38 feet (18.82 - 18.44 = 0.38), or 4.5 inches. Imagine water four inches deep pouring over the top of the seawall and into the waterfront area. If the still water level of an unusually high tide is within a foot of the top of the seawall and there are large waves during this unusually high tide, the waterfront area will be awash in sea water. The photo below was taken from the NE corner of Yesler Way and Western Avenue, looking beneath the Alaska Way Viaduct towards Elliot Bay just south of the Coleman Dock.
The inset detail to the left shows the railing atop the existing seawall. Note that the shoreline across Elliot Bay is just above the top of the railing. I personally took this photo from a crouched position; hence the camera was effectively at a height above the sidewalk equal to the height of the railing in the distance. Given the location of the shoreline in the photo relative to the railing, the sidewalk located east of Western Avenue (where
8
As of 2008. In the common vernacular, this is known as the “King Tide” 10 An unusually low barometric pressure can add a foot or more to the predicted tidal heights. 99
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I took this photo from) is at approximately the same elevation as the top of the existing (and the proposed new) seawall. When the proposed new seawall is overtopped by an unusually high water level and waves, a shallow pool will be present from the seawall to the foreground of the photo including the sidewalk and businesses east of and along Western Avenue. If the new seawall is no higher than the existing seawall, and Elliot Bay experiences 50 inches of sea level rise, the new seawall will not perform well during extreme high tides.
What in the World is Going On? Per the Seattle DOT website:
*Source: Sea-level rise in the Coastal Waters of Washington State, by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, January 2008. Mote, Philip, Alexander Petersen, Spencer Reeder, Hugh Shipman, and Lara Whitely Binder (the “Climate Change Experts”) See: http://www.cses.washington.edu/db/pdf/moteetalslr579.pdf The “new still water level” that the new seawall will be three feet higher than, is at an elevation 15.44 feet above MLLW (18.44 – 3.00 = 15.44). If 50 inches of sea level rise occurs, the resulting new MHHW will be at an elevation of 15.53 feet above present day MLLW. The “new still water level” is only marginally higher than the future MHHW. Using the future MHHW as the design still water level for the sea wall is an astounding engineering blunder. The seawall should not be designed for still water at the future MHHW; it should be designed for future extreme high tides coincident with a low barometric pressure and waves! An extreme high tide that is likely to be equaled or exceeded once each decade would be a sensible thing to design for. Unusually high water levels (within one foot of the highest observed tide) occur several times each decade. 11 Less than one year ago, on 12/17/2012, the predicted high tide was 12.92 feet and the observed high water level was 14.51 feet.
11
The monthly extreme high tides from 2002 thru 2012 exceeded elevation 13.72 feet 12 times.
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This observed water level on 12/17/2012 was a mere 0.14 feet lower than the highest observed tide (14.65 – 14.51 = 0.14), and it was 3.16 feet higher than MHHW (14.51 – 11.35 = 3.16). If the water level on 12/17/2012 had been 50 inches (4.17 feet) higher, it would have overtopped the existing seawall by about three inches (14.51 + 4.17 – 18.44). SDOT, we have a problem… Still water is unusual along the Seattle Waterfront. Wind waves, swells, and ship wakes are common, and they will make matters even worse. Just to be sure that I wasn’t misinterpreting things;12 on June 9, 2013 I sent the SDOT an e-mail asking how much higher the new seawall would be compared to the existing dilapidated sea wall. Below is their reply:
This is not a trivial issue. If the waterfront area is awash in salt water one or more days between 2090 and 2100, the impacts to businesses along the waterfront will be significant.
Tunnel Flooding In the very near future, Seattle’s above-ground Alaska Way Viaduct will be torn down and traffic will be carried in a roadway below ground in a new billion-dollar plus tunnel that is presently under construction. A significant portion of this tunnel runs parallel to and roughly 100 feet from the new seawall. If 50 inches (or more) of sea level rise occurs, an extreme high tide with waves (or a modest tsunami during an average high tide) could result in the flooding of the new tunnel.
12
Or the SDOT website was out of date, or incorrect.
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The Science of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise Back in the 1990’s the theory of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise was straight-forward: 1) Projected future rates of anthropologic burning of fossil fuels will result in an increasing concentration in the earth’s atmosphere of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) an odorless, colorless, inert gas. 2) CO2 traps the sun’s energy in our atmosphere like a greenhouse. 3) The “greenhouse effect” is causing the world’s glaciers and the massive ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica to melt. 4) The melting ice is causing the sea level to rise. (This is what is now known as the “Cryospheric Contribution” to sea level rise.) Sea-level rise in the Coastal Waters of Washington State by The University of Washington Climate Impacts Group (CIG) was published in 2008. This document explains that Global Warming and Sea Level Rise are much more complicated than just melting ice. For example: at any given location, sea level rise is relative to the “vertical land movement” of the shoreline in question. Due to plate tectonics, land may be falling or rising. If the land is sinking at a rate of several mm per year, the net sea level rise could be significant.13 If the land is rising faster than the sea level is rising, the local sea level will appear to be falling.14 People living in Seattle have the good fortune of being on a piece of the Earth’s lithosphere that has not been sinking or rising significantly over the past century. On the other hand Seattle has the misfortune of being situated along the “Ring of Fire” which surrounds the Pacific Ocean. Geologic activity (plate tectonics) on the Ring of Fire results in comparatively frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Major earthquakes have been known to produce very large vertical land movements.15 A large vertical land movement at the Seattle Fault (or other nearby faults) due to a major seismic event could make 50 inches of predicted gradual sea level rise seem absolutely irrelevant. The CIG’s report mentions that: “large subduction zone earthquakes of magnitude > 8.0 in the region have resulted in sudden land subsidence of 1 meter or more.” Restoration Point on Bainbridge Island, located just 7 miles west of Seattle, is physical evidence of the Seattle Fault. This point is a relic of a historic vertical land movement caused by a major earthquake that occurred in Elliot Bay around 900930 AD. To simplify things, I will ignore the possibility of sudden vertical land movement(s) in the next century and I will assume that the tectonic plate(s) below the Seattle water front will be well-behaved over the next century.
13
And our unbiased media will report that the apparent sea level rise was caused by “climate change”. There will be no media coverage of this. 15 The 1964 earthquake in Anchorage Alaska resulted in vertical displacements of over ten feet in a few minutes. A large earthquake with a large downward vertical displacement would be catastrophic for Seattle. 14
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The Ice on Antarctica isn’t Melting After All Per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (The IPCC), the magnitude of the projected sea level rise contribution associated with the melting of ice on Greenland and Antarctica is not what it used to be… In the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007), Table 10.7 shows that the Antarctic ice sheet represents a negative contribution to sea level rise. (Note the minus sign on the figures for sea level rise contributions from the “Antarctic ice sheet” in the table to the right.) The IPCC has officially determined that the volume of ice atop Antarctica will increase over the next century. The idea that the ice sheet on Antarctica will not contribute to the rise in global sea levels should have been obvious right from the start (circa 1990). The air temperature over most of Antarctica is rarely ever above freezing and it is usually many tens of degrees centigrade below freezing. Melting of ice is very unusual and virtually all of the precipitation that falls on Antarctica is and will continue to be frost or snow. Precipitation will add to the volume of ice there. A few degrees of warming will not change this fact. 16 Per the IPCC, the increasing volume of ice on Antarctica will effectively lower the sea level by twice the amount that the sea level will rise due to the melting of ice on Greenland. This truth was inconveniently left out of Al Gore’s award-winning movie. The total volume of ice on land and above sea level in Antarctica, and the fraction of this ice that will melt by the year 2100, is the key to understanding Global Warming and Sea Level Rise - and why it is now more commonly referred to as “Climate Change”. A detailed analysis of data compiled during 50 years of exploration shows the White Continent to contain about 26-and-a-half-million cubic km. It is a colossal volume, and to put that in some sort of context:
if this ice was all converted to liquid water, it would be sufficient to raise the
height of the world's oceans by 58m.17 In the above paragraph, the operational word is “if”. There is no reason to believe that all of the ice on Antarctica – or even a substantial fraction of this ice - will actually convert to liquid water because of global warming.
16 17
A few thousand biased news stories about ice melting on or near Antarctica will also not change this reality. Antarctic Ice Volume Measured - By Jonathan Amos, Science Correspondent BBC News (3/8/2013)
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Desperately Seeking Sea Level Rise There must be some other way to explain why the sea level will rise due to man-caused Global Warming… The IPCC claims (and the CIG agrees) that the most significant component in the projections for future sea level rise will be due to the thermal expansion of sea water. Per the table on the preceding page (cut and pasted from the CIG’s 2008 report - which was reformatted from the IPCC’s 2007 report), the thermal expansion of sea water accounts for more sea level rise than the total melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps. (Note that the “B1” and “A1F1” column headings are two of the alternative future CO2 emission scenarios considered by the IPCC.) Above 4 degrees centigrade, fresh water expands as it warms. Below 4 degrees C, water also expands as it cools. Sea water behaves this way as well; however it freezes at a slightly lower temperature – a bit below 0 degrees C - and the maximum density of sea water occurs at a temperature slightly lower than 4 degrees C. 18 If a column of sea water that is at or above a temperature of 3 degrees C becomes warmer, the elevation of the water surface will rise due to the increased volume of the column of sea water below the location in question. If sea water that is cooler than 3 degrees C becomes slightly warmer, the volume will actually decrease, and the sea level will fall. A large and deep body of sea water that is just above freezing temperature will occupy a slightly smaller volume if it only warms by a few degrees in the future. The volume will decrease until it reaches about 3 degrees C (or the temperature corresponding to the minimum density). In very cold seas, warming will initially contribute to a lower sea level. (If the IPCC neglected to account for this in their models, that would be a major blunder.) Ocean temperatures typically vary with depth; thus the change in volume of a column of sea water must be calculated by integrating the layers of water over the full depth while accounting for the change in temperature (and salinity and density) over the profile. The ice floating in the Polar Regions is salt-free, so as the ice melts, the salinity of the sea water below the melting ice will decrease. The decreasing salinity will result in a reduction in the density of the diluted sea water. The salinity, and thus the density, will also vary with depth. In my opinion, accounting for changes in the volume/ density of the water in all of the oceans of the world by predicting future water temperatures and salinities is an act of desperation. The effort required to simply measuring the present salinity and temperature of sea water as function of depth over all of the world’s oceans is hard to imagine. Oceans cover nearly 70% of the Earth’s surface, or one hundred and forty million square miles. Imagine that you have an unlimited budget and that you are tasked with collecting water temperature and salinity data as a function of latitude, longitude, and depth (water temperatures and salinity varies with depth). You purchase 1,000 ships, hire crews to pilot these ships, and they set out to sail the seven seas and collect data. Imagine that each ship positions itself at a designated point, holds position, and lowers a sensor to the bottom collecting water temperature and salinity over the depth of the water column. Assume that the winches operate at a very high speed, so it only takes an average of an hour to lower and raise the probe. If the spacing between each point where temperatures and salinity is recorded is ten miles 19, and each ship averages a 20 miles an hour cruising speed, how much time is required for your fleet of 1,000 ships to collect this data?
18
The increasing salinity results in a lower freezing temperature.
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Consider the fact that the water moves and changes temperature while your fleet is attempting to collect this data. This flawed data set represents a fraction of data required for the initial conditions for an amazing and very complicated computer model. (Current velocities and direction as well as tidal water levels are also necessary to define the initial conditions for a computer model.)
The above graphic was included in the CIG’s report. It shows the local sea level change relative to global average sea level due to ocean density and circulation changes. I am not familiar with the computer model behind the IPCC’s Figure 6, but in the past I have worked with 2-D and 3-D finite difference and finite element hydrodynamic flow models.
19
One position per 10 square miles.
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This graphic is the output from what has to be a remarkably complicated computer program20 that models 3-D flow and calculates a number of variables that vary spatially over the earth’s ocean depths and temporally over a century. The model accounts for the following physical processes: 1) Shorelines and bathymetry; 2) Mass balance of water; 3) Conservation of momentum; 4) Earth’s rotation, the conservation of angular momentum, and the Coriolis Effect; 5) Thermal expansion of water; 6) Water temperature variations as a function of depth; 7) Salinity variations and the diffusion of dissolved salts 8) Cells of denser surface water down-welling and less dense water at depth, upwelling; 9) Existing and future shallow and deep ocean currents (like the Gulf Stream); 10) Wind; 11) Cloud cover; 12) Air temperatures immediately above the water; 13) Ice and snow melting above the waterline of floating ice due to warm air; 14) Ice melting below the waterline of floating ice due to warm water; 15) Snow (and frost) accumulation and snow loss (by melting or sublimation21) on top of floating ice in Polar Regions; 16) Seasonal changes in the extent of ice cover and its reflective properties (albedo); 17) Variations in solar radiation; 18) Convective heat transfer; 19) Radiant heat transfer; 20) Astronomical tides, and; El Niño and La Niña. It may be possible for a team of very clever people to create a non-stochastic computer model that can correctly and accurately model a few of the pertinent physical processes listed above. Using said model to predict the future would be preposterous. The people who modeled “local sea level change (m) due to ocean density and circulation change relative to the global average during the 21st century” undoubtedly simplified things and made a number of very bold assumptions assumptions that may or may not actually occur in the future. All complex computer models should be suspect until they have been calibrated and shown to be capable of making accurate predictions. A computer model based on bogus assumptions and gross simplifications is, for all intents and purposes, worthless. Unfortunately, modern computers are becoming spectacularly powerful and they are capable of performing remarkably complicated calculations and eye-catching, compelling (and fatally-flawed) multi-color graphic output from these models is also relatively easy to generate. (See Figure 6 on the preceding page.) One must never forget the first rule of computer modeling: “Garbage In and Garbage Out.” The unwritten second rule of computer modeling is: “When the garbage out is what the modelers were hired to find, the modeling effort was a success.” The predicted average change in sea level due to thermal expansion of sea water over the next century for the A1F1 scenario22 is less than a half meter per century. This works out to a mere 2.9 mm per year. The uncertainty shown in the table is 40% (±1.2 mm/yr). This low number and the high uncertainty suggest that even the IPCC doesn’t have much faith in this model. It would be entertaining to hear someone explain the basis for how they quantified the uncertainty.
The Science is Settled??? The summary from the CIG’s report says:
20
I am being facetious. No one in their right mind can claim to have a computer model that can do this! Sublimation is the evaporation of frozen water. Sublimation – not melting - is what happened to the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro. 22 A1F1 is only a plausible scenario for increasing CO2 considered by the IPCC. 21
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“The fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects global SLR over the course of this century to be between 18 and 38 cm (7-15”) for their lowest emissions scenario, and between 26 and 59 cm (10-23”) for their highest emissions scenario.” The IPCC supposedly includes many of the world’s most qualified and capable scientists. In 2007, their worst-case scenario (which assumes continued high emissions of CO2) is only 10 to 23 inches of sea level rise. The IPCC’s projection for the high emission scenario is less than half the amount of the worst-case sea level rise of 50 inches predicted by the CIG for the design of the Seattle Seawall. What does the CIG know that the IPCC doesn’t? Are they simply more optimistic23 about sea level rise than the IPCC? (Or has the IPCC been infiltrated by Global Warming and Sea Level Rise Heretics – like me?!) Below is an important (and revealing) excerpt from the CIG’s report:
In making their estimates, the University of Washington’s Climate Impact Group rejected the IPCC’s estimates for ice loss from Greenland and ice gain in Antarctica. It appears that new observations of rapid ice loss were made between 2007 (when the IPCC published their IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007) and 2008 (the date on the CIG report). I believe that scientists should be allowed to disagree with other scientists 24, but the above is a very important and revealing disagreement. The science is clearly NOT settled. After reading and re-reading the CIG’s report, it is apparent that the upper limit of 50 inches of sea level rise by 2100 is based on: science; science fiction; wishful thinking; and uncertainty. It is, at best, an educated guess. It is also apparent that the CIG was desperately seeking sea level rise.
23
Or does their projected 50 inches of sea level rise make them more pessimistic? (Bias is everything!) There should also be consequences for scientists who knowingly promote flawed science. Not being able to differentiate science from political propaganda should also be grounds for demotion. 24
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The UW CIG’s desperation to find sea level rise is apparent in the section below:
A significant “wind-driven enhancement of sea level” is patently ridiculous. It is easy to show that this is preposterous. The CIG claims that the north wind during El Niño events at the present time is responsible for more sea level rise (12” on the outer coast of Washington) “for several months at a time” than the IPCC’s low range prediction for a century’s worth of sea level rise (0.28 meters, or 11 inches). A Northward wind25 along the coast of Washington does not push water towards the coast – it pushes water along the coast. A northward wind combined with the effects of the Earth’s rotation will cause the wind to veer to the right (eastward) due to the corliolis effect. The eastward component of this wind may push some surface water towards shore due to the shear force between the wind and the surface of the water. If the water has any depth near the coastline, a circulation26 will develop which will prevent the water from “piling up” on the shoreline. The water will pile up in the surf zone, but any significant amount of water that is pushed towards the coast by wind shear will be replaced by water flowing away from the coast at depth.
25
To clarify: A Northward Wind is a wind blowing towards the north. The North Wind and a Northerly Wind blow from the north towards the south. 26 Water moving shoreward at the surface and water moving off shore at depth.
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Wind/wave set-up and a somewhat higher still water level (SWL) in the surf zone within a few dozen feet of a beach experiencing very large breaking waves actually does occur; however this effect does not significantly change the SWL a few hundred feet from the shore. It appears that the CIG has attempted to use wind shear and surf-zone wave setup as means to justify an inflated estimate for sea level rise on the coast of Washington. Wave heights and wave setup should only be factored into a water level estimate after the future SWL due to sea level rise has been determined.
The Monthly Mean Sea Level at La Push Figure 5 from the CIG’s report is interesting and deserves comment.27 This figure supposedly documents seasonal windgenerated higher sea levels. The NOS Station at La Push (Station ID: 9442396) is located in the vicinity of the Quileute Marina and the Coast Guard Station. I know this site well, since I served as the Project Engineer during construction for two large USACE construction projects at La Push back in 1996. The tide gage in the marina near the Coast Guard Station is located over a half mile from the mouth of the river.
27
The two anomalous data points in Figure 5 (bottom right of plot) for Toke Point for July and August 2007 suggest that the tidal gage began to malfunction there sometime in July.
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La Push Washington and the mouth of the Quillayute River
The water level within the marina is always flat due to the reasonably water-tight timber training wall situated between the marina and the river. On the outside of the training wall, the Quillayute River has a relatively steep gradient during high flow events. The sea level measured at the La Push tide gage is effectively the water level at the mouth of the river plus the height of the backwater curve at the entrance to the marina. The magnitude of the backwater curve of the Quillayute River can be considerable during the winter when high river flows are fairly common. I have seen the Quillayute River during moderate and high winter flows. It is impressive! I recall observing a differential head (Δh) of 6 to 12 inches inside and outside at the upstream end of the 1,000 foot-long training wall during a moderate river flow. Δh divided by the length of the wall is a direct measurement of the slope or gradient of the river. The distance from the marina entrance to the end of the jetty is 2,500 feet. If the gradient of the river along the training wall is comparable to the gradient of the river between the marina entrance and the end of the jetty, the water level at the tide gage will 2.5 x Δh higher than the sea level off-shore from La Push. During low tides28, for a given flow, the river’s cross sectional area will be reduced hence the flow velocities will increase. Higher velocity flow will cause more head loss, and increased head loss implies a steeper gradient. High river flow during low tides will result in an even greater difference between the SWL at the tide gage and the SWL off-shore. During summer months, the Quillayute River is comparatively passive due to lower flows, and the difference between the sea level off shore and the water level in the marina will typically be a few inches – or less. During the latter portion of the flood tide, the river flow near the marina can be negligible.
28
Especially late during the ebb tide.
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This is a much more plausible explanation for a 0.5 meter seasonal difference in tidal elevations at La Push than El Niño and/or northerly winds causing water to pile up along the coastline. If NOAA or the CIG were interested in getting to the bottom of this, it would be relatively straight-forward to obtain the predicted and observed water levels for the La Push tide gage (NOAA Station ID: 9442396) and obtain stream flow measurements for the Quillayute River from the USGS. With this data, the backwater effect (associated with higher winter river flows) on the observed water levels at La Push will be easy to quantify. A water level measuring device deployed on the river-side of the training wall at the upstream corner of the training wall would also be useful for testing my hypothesis. The bathymetry and hydraulics of the site of the tide gage at Toke Point on Willapa Bay are different from La Push.
I have minimal first-hand knowledge of the hydraulics of Willapa Bay. It is possible that the backwater curve(s) of one or more of the rivers that discharge into Willapa Bay would explain the 20 inch higher wintertime sea level described by the CIG. The backwater heights would be greatest during low tides with high river flows. If the sea level is elevated along the outer coast of Washington due to a northward wind “common during winter months (and even more prevalent during El Niño events)”, it is logical to presume that observed tidal water levels would be higher for all of the tide gages in Puget Sound. NOS performs calculations and publishes predicted tidal elevations for a number of stations in Washington State. The predicted tidal heights are based entirely on a harmonic analysis of historic tidal water level observations. NOS’ predictions do not attempt to account for highly variable wind effects or El Niño events. If El Niño events and/or a Northerly wind routinely elevate the observed water levels off the coast of Washington by 12 inches for several months at a time, this would be readily apparent in the plots of predicted vs. observed water levels from NOAA tidal stations.
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The most recent moderate El Ni単o year was 2009. A plot of the predicted tides vs. the observed water level for the tidal station in Seattle (Station 9447130) for January 2009 shows that the observed water level was actually lower than the predicted tide for nearly the entire month. The 2009 El Ni単o event did not elevate sea levels in Seattle.
If there was a higher than expected sea level on the coast of Washington due to the El Ni単o of 2009, it did not propagate to the water levels inside Puget Sound at Seattle. If the sea level was significantly higher on the coast of Washington, the sea levels in Puget Sound should have been higher as well since Puget Sound is connected to the coast of Washington.
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In the final section of the CIG’s report: “5. Unknowns and additional considerations”; the CIG authors confide that the CIG’s analysis is riddled with uncertainty:
The final paragraph in the above excerpt brings up a very relevant and important consideration – but it is simply wrong. If the sea level gradually rises by as much as 50 inches, coastal inundation will occur, at times, during moderate and exceptional high tides. The flooding will depend on the magnitude of the concurrent barometric pressure, wave height and storm surge, but the flooding will be much more likely in 2099 compared to 2009. It is disturbing that SDOT and the CIG were unable to comprehend that if 50 inches of sea level rise occurs, coastal flooding will become more and more common as time rolls on. It is also very likely that with 50 inches of sea level rise, in time, an extreme high tide with storm surge will result in unacceptable inundation of the Seattle waterfront.
What is the Solution? From an engineer’s perspective (mine), the sensible response to the very remote possibility of 50 inches of sea level rise is to have a contingency plan ready in the event that the sea level rises by more than a few inches and/or the Seattle waterfront subsides.
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The existing Elliot Bay Seawall has a railing atop the wall. I presume that the new seawall will have a similar railing.29 The new seawall should be designed so that the railing can be replaced with a water-tight wall at a later date if the sea level actually rises significantly. This contingency plan would also be helpful if substantial land subsidence occurs during a future major seismic event. If it becomes apparent that the new seawall will be overtopped by extreme high tides, the railing would be removed and replaced with a water-tight wall. Note that the seawall structure that the wall would be attached to must be designed and constructed to carry the hydrostatic load and wave load associated with water up to the top of the wall. This contingency plan is a prudent response to potential sea level rise. Redesigning the seawall so that it can support a water-tight wall will not be particularly expensive.
True Belivers? If SDOT and the CIG truly believed that 50 inches of sea level rise was even remotely possible, SDOT would have designed the Elliot Bay seawall to be at least a few inches higher than the existing seawall - or they would have come up with some sort of contingency plan. SDOT’s response to predictions for future sea level rise issue is not unique. Many local, state, and federal government entities are effectively giving Global Warming and Sea Level Rise lip service. It is politically-correct to acknowledge the threat of sea level rise, but it is not necessary to take it seriously.30 Openly proclaiming that the Emperor has no clothes would create a ruckus with political overtones. (I have nothing left to lose, so I am fearless.) The political party that currently controls the state of Washington and the Federal government has doubled-down repeatedly on the notion of catastrophic sea level rise. They will destroy any and all non-believers. So what do the people at SDOT and the UW CIG actually believe? 1) The new seawall will accommodate 50 inches of sea level rise. 2) They will be dead and gone before the sea level rises 50 inches and flooding results. 3) They will not be held accountable for their blunder and the political machine will reward them for their orthodoxy. 4) Global Warming and Sea Level Rise are a hoax (and they know it) – so there is no chance that the sea level will rise 50 inches by the year 2100. 5) The truth and science are not as important as political intrigues.
29
Without a railing, there would be several accidental drownings every day. I am not taking Global Warming and Sea Level Rise seriously – but I would hedge my bets if I were designing the Elliot Bay Sea Wall, or a levee. 30
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Wiley Slough and The Skagit River System Cooperative The recently set-back levee at Wiley Slough is a conspicuous example of a complete and reckless31 disregard for the possibility of future sea level rise. In 2008, The Skagit River System Cooperative created 57 acres of habitat for salmon by setting back a levee on Fir Island with the $4.3 million32 Wiley Slough Project. A portion of the new set-back levee was awash33 during an unusually high tide with low barometric pressure and high winds less than a year after the levee was constructed. If the new levee could be awash a few months after it was constructed, the Skagit River System Cooperative’s designers and the “Project Partners” 34 obviously did not take the possibility of 50 inches of sea level rise by 2100 seriously when they designed35 and constructed the set-back levee.36
Photo of debris deposited within one foot of the top of a new levee constructed at Wiley Slough. (Photo taken by Jeff Juel on November 17, 2009)
In November of 2009 – just a few months after the Skagit River System Cooperative had raised the newly constructed levee by a few additional inches - an extreme high tide deposited debris within a foot of the top of the levee. A properly31
Possibly malicious. Your state tax dollars at work. 33 In places, flotsam was deposited to the center of the roadway atop the levee. 34 Partners on the project included: the State Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Skagit Wildlife Area Office, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program, Natural Resource Conservation Service and Seattle City Light, among others. 35 The only feature of this project that was actually designed by an engineer was the flap-gated culverts – and they failed spectacularly while the project was under construction. (Personal communication with Steve Hinton - Director of the Skagit River System Cooperative.) 36 The Skagit River System Cooperative and their “designers” also did not anticipate that the subgrade would consolidate due to the weight of the new levee. 32
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engineered levee built to Corps of Engineers Standards should have 1.5 feet of freeboard and 1.0 foot of over-build. This levee was not built high enough to protect Fir Island from the current sea level – let alone 50, or even 5, inches of future sea level rise. It is plausible that this oversight was a matter of simple incompetence.37 It is also possible that the Skagit River System Cooperative would prefer that the levees that protect Fir Island were “accidentally” breached sooner rather than later. This could result in the abandonment of the farms on Fir Island and the land reverting to wetlands. It is also possible that the Skagit River System Cooperative, the State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Seattle City Light, the affected farmers and any other organizations that had a hand in this project all believe that sea level rise is a hoax.
Sea Level Rise and Coastal Levees in Washington State In the spring of 2013, I sent the e-mail below to the contact person for Global Warming/Climate Change with Washington State’s Department of Ecology (Stuart Clark):
Mr. Clark was very helpful and responsive. He did some research, spoke with others at the DOE and reported back:
“We are unaware of any levees in design for managing coastal flooding from Sea Level Rise.” … “We have also sent your request to WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife to see if they have any info.”
37
Nearly all of the features of this project were designed without the help of a licensed engineer. By definition, incompetence is the lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications.
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The WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife did not provide any info on this. What on Earth is going on?! Is the sea level rising or isn’t it? Answer: It’s rising at a trivial rate and it is becoming more and more obvious that it will continue to rise at a trivial rate over the next century. The inconvenient truth is that Al Gore’s Global Warming and Sea Level Rise theory was bad political science.
The Indisputable Truth About Global Warming and Sea Level Rise I have followed the news stories and prognostications regarding Global Warming and Sea Level Rise very closely for over 25 years. From 1989 thru June of 199538 I worked on (and eventually became the lead designer for) the largest flood control project constructed by the Seattle District US Army Corps of Engineers in the past 50 years: The Chehalis River at South Aberdeen and Cosmopolis.39 The General Design Memorandum and the Plans and Specs for this project were developed just a few years after the point in time when news stories about Global Warming and Sea Level Rise first began to appear in the main-stream media.40 Predictions of sea level rise of ten feet or more within the next century were fairly common in this era. Former Senator and two-term Vice President Al Gore Jr.’s Oscar-winning video: An Inconvenient Truth,41 (2006) shows maps of Florida, New York City and San Francisco with 20 feet of sea level rise. When designing a levee, global warming-induced sea level rise complicates things – to say the least! Determining how high the levee for the Aberdeen flood control project should be was already a very interesting engineering problem. The peak elevation of a design flood with a specific return period for the Chehalis River at Aberdeen is a combination of an extreme astronomic high tide concurrent with a storm surge. Storm surge is caused by a low barometric pressure and high wind. Then there’s wave set up. Add a few tenths of a foot due to the backwater curve caused by concurrent high flow of the Chehalis River and you have a design flood profile for a flood having a given return period.42 The Project Manager and the Engineers on the design team considered the prognostications for Global Warming and Sea Level Rise, consulted with the Corps’ best and brightest, and they determined (correctly) that Global Warming and Sea Level Rise was science fiction. The consensus was that it was unlikely that the actual sea level rise would be more than a few inches over the next century. 43 The subgrade in South Aberdeen consists of a very thick layer of soft silty soil. This soil was expected to consolidate over time, so the levee was constructed with an additional foot of height, or “over-build”. The levee could settle a bit and still protect property from the design floodwater level. The levee crest would be monitored over time and embankment 38
Construction began in June of 1995. I was the project engineer overseeing construction of the flood control project from June 1995 through October 1996. 39 I have a plaque with my name on it that says: “Seattle District USACE Engineer of the Year” because of this project. 40 NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate - specifically referring to “global warming” in June of 1988. 41 I strongly recommend: The definitive response to the errors and omissions of An Inconvenient Truth by a mechanical engineer Charles S. Opalek, PE 42 It is actually a bit more complicated than this. What return periods for the tide, wave height, river flow, and barometric pressure should be combined to produce a flood with a 100-year return period? (Deep Thought, where are you?) 43 On par with the sea level rise that occurred between 1900 and 2000.
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material added to raise the levee as needed to address settlement. The levee could also be raised a few inches in the unlikely event that the sea level became higher. As it turned out, we wisely ignored the over-blown predictions of sea level rise due to Global Warming. At the peak of the Global Warming and Sea Level Rise hysteria, I remember hearing and reading dire predictions of the coastal flooding that would result from 10 to 20 feet of sea level rise due to melting of the ice on Greenland and/or Antarctica. I smiled and imagined what would happen to these charlatans when time ultimately exposed them as frauds – or at least as fourth-rate scientists. I distinctly remember seeing an insane number of copies of An Inconvenient Truth on the shelves of the local Blockbuster Video Store. It made me furious!44 My only consolation was imagining the inevitable backlash in the future when it was undeniable that the predicted sea level rise would never actually materialize45 That day has come … and gone. Global Warming morphed into the more nebulous “Climate Change” and the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions for sea level rise (published in 2007) are nowhere near the 20 feet that Al Gore suggested was possible: Sea Level Rise (m at 2090-2099 relative to 1980-1999) Model-based range Case excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow B1 scenario 0.18 – 0.38 A1T scenario 0.20 – 0.45 B2 scenario 0.20 – 0.43 A1B scenario 0.21 – 0.48 A2 scenario 0.23 – 0.51 A1FI scenario 0.26 – 0.59 (from the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers, February 2007) Two tenths of a meter is about 8 inches. 0.59 meters is less than two feet.46 The above summary from the IPCC was released early in 2007 – less than a year after Al Gore released his infamous science fiction movie - An Inconvenient Truth -in 2006. Something was rotten in Denmark… Actually it was rotten in Stockholm – the city where the Nobel Committee met at and decided that Al Gore deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.47
44
I think of this and smile every time I drive past another boarded-up Blockbuster Video Store. (Karma!) Schadenfreude - Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. 46 Note that the U of W Climate Impacts Group believes that 50 inches of sea level rise is possible in spite of the fact that the IPCC’s worst-case scenario (circa 2007) was less than 24 inches. 47 I hope that Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize will be retracted – but I won’t hold my breath. 45
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In my humble opinion, sea level rise due to Global Warming will continue to be a major disappointment… for some – BUT NOT ME! Science will ultimately prevail!
The Senator has No Clues (and the Emperor has No Clothes) A fascinating opinion piece written by Senator Al Gore, Jr. was published in the NY Times on 22 April 1990:
This article is included in its entirety in Appendix A. (See http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/22/opinion/to-skeptics-on-global-warming.html for the archived NY Times story.) The opinion piece included nine typical “skeptic’s questions” followed by Al Gore’s answers. As I write this, the year is 2013. It’s been 23 years since the NY Times published Al Gore’s opinion / hypothetical Q & A bull session. With the exception of the Aberdeen and Cosmopolis project, since 1990 we have not raised any levees and we are not planning on raising existing levees (or building new levees) to protect people and property in Washington State from sea level rise caused by global warming, it would appear that President Bush’s wholehearted endorsement of delay and inaction was appropriate! It seems strange that after 23 years of government inaction with respect to coastal flood control, the Sea Level Rise due to Global Warming theory lives on.
The Sketics Questions and Answers Many of the “facts” contained within Al Gore’s questions and answers within his letter are easily discredited: from answer 1: “carbon dioxide and temperature have gone up and down in lockstep for as far back as scientists can measure.”
Scientists were measuring carbon dioxide and temperature as far back in 1974. Time Magazine (dated June 24, 1974) included this story:
“… a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when
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meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades.“ During the three decades prior to 1974, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continuously increased while temperatures went down.
“The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another Ice Age.” An Ice Age? Really??? To be fair, it is true that, in general, warm periods in Earth’s past correspond with periods of higher CO2 levels. A close examination of the data sets shows that the temperature has always gone up before the atmospheric CO2 levels increased.
“Our analyses of ice cores from the ice sheet in Antarctica shows that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere follows the rise in Antarctic temperatures very closely and is staggered by a few hundred years at most,”48 In real science, cause always precedes effect. If there is a cause and effect relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and warming, then warming caused the increased CO2 - not the other way around. How a scientist can accurately date the bubbles of gas trapped in the layers of ancient ice is intriguing. For Al’s sake, and for the sake of the argument, I’ll assume that the dating of ice layers is an inexact science and The Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen is less credible than the IPCC or Al Gore.
What Came First: The Warming or the CO2? Humans allegedly have only had the ability to change the global climate since we began burning coal (a fossil fuel) in large quantities after the 19th century. Prior to this, the earth experienced periods of warming and cooling and Carbon Dioxide levels went up and down long before humans began to burn fossil fuels in large quantities. Actual science is never settled. (Sorry Al.) It’s possible that we’ll never know with 100.00 percent certainty what came first: The Warming or the CO2. But which is more plausible? A or B:
A: During warmer periods, the rate of biological activity increased and this resulted in more CO
2
in the
atmosphere. Using photosynthesis, plants take in CO2 from the air and release O2; the carbon is then used to increase the plant’s biomass. With respiration, animals do the opposite; we take in O2 and exhale C02. Decaying organic matter releases C02.49 Some of the carbon on planet Earth is not in the atmosphere as CO2 (or CO) or
48
Sune Olander Rasmussen, Associate Professor and centre coordinator at the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. 49 This is a gross simplification of what is known as the Carbon Cycle.
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dissolved in the oceans. Examples include oil and natural gas as well as peat and some minerals. During periods of increased biological activity this carbon becomes part of the active carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2 levels increase. During cooler periods, biological activity decreased considerably - especially when much of the earth was covered in ice sheets. The net effect of the suppressed carbon cycle resulted in less carbon in the form of atmospheric CO2.50
B: CO
2
in the atmosphere causes the earth to reflect less energy from the sun back into space. Nothing else
that could affect earth’s climate matters very much: increases or decrease in the output of the sun, ice sheets, cloud cover/water vapor, volcanic activity, meteor impacts, etc. Over the past millions of years, with uncanny reliability, whenever the CO2 level increased, the Earth’s climate always warmed; and when the CO2 level fell, the planet always cooled. CO2 is an amazing substance. At a concentration of only 600 parts per million (0.06%) it is the key factor controlling global temperatures. I personally think that A makes much more sense than B… but I am not a climatologist - and neither is Al Gore. Unlike Al, I do not accept the notion that the science of Global Warming Climate Change is settled. 51 And unlike Al, I believe in science and the proper application of the scientific method. I also believe that the proper application of the scientific method should be free from political manipulation, press bias, and coercion.
Getting back to Al’s letter….. from question 2: “Do we know enough to act?” and from answer 2: “… A draft of the scientists' long-awaited report, leaked to the press this week,
concludes that we must act now. The scientists say there's still a chance that the problem won't be as bad as they fear, but there's an equal chance that it will be much worse than predicted. Al’s reference to “The Scientists” is ambiguous. Who are these scientists? Are they a representative cross section of the scientific community, or are they a select group of scientists with an agenda - or delusions of grandeur? A few scientists leaking a report to the press is not how science is settled. There’s this process called “peer review”. And if “we must act now” (in 1990), surely Global Warming and Sea Level Rise must be well under way by “now” in 2013. Why are we not raising our existing levees and building new ones to protect America’s coastal communities from flooding? And why will the new seawall in downtown Seattle be no higher than the existing seawall? Maybe I missed it and we really did act! We markedly reduced the global CO2 emissions and we saved the planet. (I’m joking.)
50
There is also a marine carbon cycle. During warmer periods, the net effect may be that oceans give up dissolved CO2 - which would increase the concentration in the atmosphere. 51 They can’t even decide what to call it. (Global Warming? Or Climate Change?)
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And then there’s this open and shut case of disinformation: from answer 1: “Even the skeptics agree that concentrations of carbon dioxide will be pushed to levels of 600 parts per million within the next 35 to 45 years.”
The graph below was taken from the IPCC website for their Fourth Assessment Report (2007). The different colored lines are for the various scenarios for fossil fuel use and the resulting CO2 emissions. “the next 35 to 45 years” that Al Gore referred to (in 1990) would be 2025 to 2035.
Al Gore and his imagined agreeing skeptics were mistaken about the projected CO2 level reaching 600 ppm in 35 to 45 years. The current atmospheric CO2 concentration is only 398.58.52 Per the above plot, CO2 levels won’t even break 500 ppm by 2035.
His whole retinue stared and stared. One saw no more than another, but they all joined the Emperor in exclaiming, "Oh! It's very pretty," and they advised him to wear clothes made of this wonderful cloth especially for the great procession he was soon to lead. "Magnificent! Excellent! Unsurpassed!" were bandied from mouth to mouth, and everyone did his best to seem well pleased. 53 None of the latest models54 used by the IPCC predict a level of CO2 approaching 600 ppm before 2035. Is it possible that the climate models that were used by the IPCC in 2007 are wrong? (I personally suspect that Al Gore was wrong on this point.)
52
Value obtained from http://co2now.org/ on 8/4/2013 The Emperor’s New Clothes – by Hans Christian Anderson. (I would think that the people in Stockholm are familiar with this story.) 54 Maybe Al is right about Global Warming and the skeptics are right about the computer models. The computer models are unreliable after all! (We’ll find out in another 12 to 22 years.) I believe that Al Gore will continue to be dead wrong. 53
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Answer #3 is particularly disconcerting: “While the Earth is indeed vast in size, the atmosphere surrounding it is less than one onethousandth the thickness of the Earth's diameter.”
Everything is relative; the earth is actually tiny compared to the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn. On the other hand, “the Earth is indeed vast in size” compared to Al Gore’s intellect. (But it is not vast in size compared to his ego or his carbon footprint.) The earth’s diameter is 7,918 miles. Divide 7,918 miles by 1,000 and you get 7.9 miles. Here’s the problem: The earth’s atmosphere does not suddenly end at some specific elevation. The gasses that make up the atmosphere become less concentrated and the pressure decreases with increasing elevation. Real scientists describe the earth’s atmosphere as a sequence of layers: The lowest layer of the earth’s atmosphere is called the Troposphere – which is about 10 km thick55. The Stratosphere lies above the Troposphere and the thin Ozone Layer lies between the Troposphere and the Stratosphere. Above the Stratosphere lies the Mesosphere, and then the Thermosphere. Beyond the Thermosphere is what is known as the Exosphere – which is, arguably, not part of the atmosphere. (The prefix “exo” means “outside”.) The approximate thickness of earth’s atmosphere as defined by atmospheric scientists is about 500 kilometers. Converting 500 km to miles gives 310 miles56 - not the 7.9 miles that Al and (allegedly Carl Sagan) describe. Al Gore never did get this straight. In his movie An Inconvenient Truth (released in 2007) Al said:
“My friend the late Carl Sagan used to say if you had a big globe with a coat of varnish on it, the thickness of that varnish relative to that globe would be pretty much the same as the thickness of the earth’s atmosphere compared to the earth itself.” Imagine an 18-inch diameter “big globe”. The atmosphere would scale to be 0.7 inches thick. It would take 3.36 gallons of varnish to model the atmosphere. It would take 13 coats of varnish (at 1 mil per coat) just to model the troposphere. Here’s the math:
where T is the thickness of the varnish/atmosphere surrounding the globe. The volume of varnish required to model the atmosphere is the difference between the volumes of the two spheres: ⁄
55 56
(
)
⁄
(
)
If we were to use India Ink to model the concentration of CO2 in the 3.35 gallons of varnish/atmosphere, we’d need about one half tablespoon to simulate 600 ppm of CO2. To model 600 ppm of CO2 in the troposphere would require less than three drops.
The Earth’s Atmosphere is not the same as the Earth’s Troposphere. The exact thickness of the earth’s atmosphere is indeterminate; however it is effectively the same today as it was in 1990.
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Converting cubic inches to gallons: (
)
Either Carl Sagan wasn’t as brilliant as people thought, or he was misquoted. Below is a much more appropriate and more credible quote that has been attributed to Carl Sagan:
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. 57
Al Gore clearly contributed to Sagan’s belief that “almost no one understands science”. With Al Gore in mind, the last sentence in the above quote may be the most prescient thing ever uttered by anyone, anywhere, at any time!
And then there’s this irrelevant point from Al’s letter: from answer 3: “… air now contains 600 percent more chlorine atoms than it did 40 years ago.” Considering the source, this factoid is probably incorrect – but I cannot prove it. Chlorine (Cl) is an element - an atom with 17 protons which makes up a very minor fraction of the atoms composing the molecules of the earth’s atmosphere. The concentration of chlorine 40 years ago was effectively zero. A 6-fold increase is still… effectively zero. It is interesting to note that just three and a half years after Al’s letter was published, some of Al’s apostles and likeminded useful idiots pushed for a ban on Chlorine.58
Chlorine is used in the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) and plastics – among other unsavory politicallyincorrect things. Bleach and many detergents contain chlorine. Chlorine is also used to disinfect drinking water and chlorine gas, Cl2, is used to kill infectious organisms in swimming pools. Your stomach acids include chlorine. Table salt is NaCl – sodium chloride. It may make sense to regulate the use and manufacturing of some chlorine-containing substances… but ban Chlorine?!
57
It would be a delicious irony if Mr. Sagan was speaking directly to Mr. Gore when he made this observation/prediction. “The International Joint Commission says chlorine should be banned because a majority of the problem pollutants in the Great Lakes are chlorine-based. Industry says the ban would hurt the economy.” USA TODAY, Rae Tyson, Oct 21, 1993. (Beware of international commissions!) 58
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Every penny of George Soros’ vast fortune, every fanatical environmentalist in the world, and a 100-percent obedient, insane, or otherwise incompetent media would not be enough to pull-off a drive to ban chlorine. How do you ban an element? A better question is: Who in their right mind would even publish this story? 59
from answer 4: “Five hundred years ago, most scientists said the world was flat.” Five hundred years prior to 1990 was 1490. This was just two years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue looking for China and discovered the new world. The controversy that Columbus sailed into was not whether the earth was flat, but how large of a sphere it was and how far would a person have to sail to reach the orient by sailing west? Clausius Ptolemy (90 A.D until 168 A.D.) was a mathematician, astrologer (mixed astronomy with astrology), and a geographer. He believed that the earth was a sphere. His theories dominated the world’s understanding of astronomy for over a thousand years. There was never a period in the past 2,000 years when most scientists believed that the earth was flat. Al Gore does not know basic history and he is not even a fourth-rate scientist.60 How he came to within a hair’s breadth61 of being our president is disturbing. The fact that he submitted his letter to the New York Times without having a real scientist - or a person with a 8th grade education level - fact-check it is troubling. This Senator’s Son was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.62 He could have easily afforded to pay an actual scientist63 to write this letter for him – or at least to edit it and correct the most blatant errors before he sealed the envelope and sent his pathetic letter off to the NY Times.
But time was of the essence! Al’s letter had to go out ASAP: from answer 7: The changes could occur so swiftly that effective adaptation might become virtually impossible. The longer we wait, the more unpleasant our choices become.
So… if the changes could occur so swiftly, how can it be that in the past 23 years we haven’t raised the existing levees somewhere – anywhere - in the hopelessly blue and very green State of Washington?64 Adding just a half a foot of height to any levee would be fairly easy. Were the choices were so unpleasant that we were unable to make a choice?
59
A ban on Chlorine would have been an incredible logistical regulatory nightmare. But he is an idiot - a very well-placed and very useful idiot - of the first order. 61 17 more votes for Clinton’s impeachment in the US senate in 1999, or a few hundred more votes from people in the state of Florida in 2000, and Al Gore would have been sworn in as president of the United States of America. 62 Courtesy of a close family friend named Armand Hammer, also known as “Comrade Armand Hammer” as inscribed on a photo given to him by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - but that’s no cause for concern. 63 I have to wonder if one of “the scientists” that Al referred to in Answer #2 may have helped Al write this letter. 64 Washington State’s nickname is: “The Evergreen State” because of the many evergreen trees. In 1936, Postmaster General James Farley joked: “There are forty-seven states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington” because of communists and radicals. 60
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From question 8.: Isn't the cost of preventing this problem too high? and from answer 8.: Many of the solutions, such as eliminating subsidies for clear-cutting forests, actually save money. In any event, the costs of inaction are much higher, even if the skeptics refuse to measure them.
Since trees draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, clear-cutting forests and burying their biomass in garbage dumps would help in “preventing this (imaginary) problem” by reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. Biomass decays very slowly under the anaerobic conditions that exist in cap-and-cover landfills. Clear-cutting a forest, turning the wood into wood chips, and then burying the forest’s carbon-rich biomass along with the region’s trash (including any recyclable carboncontaining paper) in a nearby landfill would be a low-tech and comparatively inexpensive way to sequester carbon. (In case you haven’t noticed, Carbon Sequestration is all the rage.) If the forest was immediately replanted and the landfill capped and turned into green open space (or better yet, a new forest), what would be wrong with that?65 Sequestering the forest’s carbon in the form of lumber to build homes and furniture and paper for books is a better idea – and it’s less wasteful.66 America is on the brink of bankruptcy. Vast amounts of our nation’s wealth have been squandered subsidizing green energy alternatives and inefficient/pointless carbon sequestration schemes that require massive subsidies and do not make any economic sense.
The swindlers at once asked for more money, more silk and gold thread, to get on with the weaving. But it all went into their pockets. Not a thread went into the looms, though they worked at their weaving as hard as ever. 67 When America goes bankrupt, that will be very inconvenient and fatal truth that the cost of preventing the imagined problem of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise was too high!
Question and Answer Number Nine Al’s hypothetical question and answer number nine deserves special attention: Q.: The changes you say are needed are too sweeping to be politically possible. A.: What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people in every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism, sing ''We Shall Overcome'' and embrace democracy within 90 days? Would you have called that ''unlikely?'' We all would have. But it happened because people changed their way of thinking about Communism.
Al Gore’s theory of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise has something to do with communism?! Very interesting…
65
Again, I’m being facetious. There is absoultely nothing to be gained by the sequestration of carbon. That’s pretty-much describes what happens now when we clear-cut a forest. 67 The Emperor’s New Clothes – by Hans Christian Anderson. (I would think that the people in Stockholm are familiar with this story.) 66
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A number of remarkably important events happened in the months just before Al Gore’s letter was published. A timeline is helpful to sort through Al’s very convoluted question and answer number 9: Six months prior to April 22 1990 (The date of Al’s hypothetical question to “you”.) Germans are free to cross from East to West Berlin Dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife are executed in Romania Lithuania declares independence from the USSR The date that Al Gore’s letter is published in the NY Times
Reunification of Germany Armand Hammer dies of bone cancer
Note that I included the death of the American millionaire businessman and pro-Soviet cheerleader for communism, Armand Hammer in my timeline. Hammer kept Gore, as he liked to say, ‘in my back pocket.’ When he said this, Hammer would touch his wallet and chuckle. He was referring to Senator Al Gore Sr. (who died in 1998), but it is likely that he also had considerable influence on Gore Jr. as well. Armand Hammer had to have been appalled by the unraveling of the communist empire in Eastern Europe. Al Gore Sr. and Al Gore Jr. may have been sympathetic. Al Gore Jr. was clearly taken by surprise. He wrote:
“What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people in every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism…” “Abandon” is a pretty innocuous word to describe what the people in Eastern Europe did to their communist dictators. The Romanians tried and executed Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife on Christmas Day of 1989.68 It is deeply disturbing and beyond the Pale that Senator Albert Gore, Jr. opined that communism suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed simply because “people changed their way of thinking about communism”. In 1990, he couldn’t comprehend that for decades the Soviet Union’s empire in Eastern Europe was ruled by dysfunctional repressive tyrannical puppet dictators that desperately needed to be overthrown.
68
Being commies, they probably didn’t have any plans for their Christmas Day anyway.
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This was incomprehensible to Al:
“We all would have called it unlikely that people in every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism.”69 Granted, the implosion in Eastern Europe did happen remarkably quickly - and prophetically. After the door was finally kicked in, the whole rotten structure came crashing down. I never thought that the demise of communism was unlikely. Ever since the Soviet Union was dissolved on the day after Christmas in 1991, I’ve been trying to figure out how communism survived as long as it did! A key factor in the much delayed demise of the Soviet Union and her empire was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to align America with Stalin in the contest70 for world domination under way between Stalin’s International Socialists and Hitler’s German National Socialists which culminated in WWII. The Gore family’s considerable political influence71 and their cozy relationship72 with Armand Hammer before and after WWII likely delayed the demise of the Soviet Empire and prolonged the dictatorships and the suffering of the people in Eastern Europe. Some people could speculate that in April of 1990, while the Gore family and Armand Hammer were watching the collapse of Communism, they commiserated and jointly concocted a scheme to sabotage the resulting American hegemony. This scheme involved sabotaging our energy infrastructure and simultaneously changing American’s way of thinking about capitalism - similar to the way that Eastern Europeans had “changed their way of thinking about Communism”. Suggesting that American capitalism and our remarkably high standard of living were on the verge of causing imminent global ecological catastrophe would be just the thing to change American’s’ way of thinking about Capitalism. I do not subscribe to this conspiracy theory – or to most conspiracy theories. Al Gore’s letter is so incredibly and unbelievably flawed that it could not have been part of a conspiracy. This letter is a case of an inspired useful idiot writing a letter and failing to have his political handlers review it before he sent it off to the NY Times.73 It’s unfortunate that Armand Hammer died just 381 days before his beloved Soviet Union formally dissolved on December 26, 1991. I would have liked for him to see it. It would have been a wonderful parting gift for Armand Hammer.
69
If this statement was used in a letter from the leader of the CPUSA to the CPUSA members, it would have made complete sense. Both Stalin and Hitler invaded Poland in September of 1941, marking the beginning of WWII. 71 Gore Sr was a congressman beginning in 1938 and a senator from 1952 to 1971. 72 Al Gore, Jr. rarely uses his middle name - or even middle initial. On his Nobel Peace Prize, his name is “Albert Arnold (Al) Gore, Jr”. “Arnold” is suspiciously close to “Armand”. I’d love to see definitive proof of what Al’s middle name actually is. When Al was born in the spring of 1948, naming him after a Soviet agent would not have been unthinkable. The Soviets were our allies when Germany was defeated less than three years before Al was born. 73 I’m amazed that the comsymps at the NY Times didn’t edit the letter and correct it for Al. (Maybe they did, and his original letter was even more ridiculous!) 70
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A Convenient Hoax In Al’s historic letter to the NY Times, in answer #2 he refers to “the scientists”. These scientists are the equivalent of the swindler’s in The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is possible that Al, unlike The Emperor, never realized that he had been used by devious scientists to promote a scientific hoax.74 “Global Warming and Sea Level Rise” will go down as one of the greatest hoaxes the greatest hoax since The Emperor’s New Clothes.75 This swindle is actually much more complicated than a simple hoax. It is/was a hysteria fed by a biased and unaccountable media; climate researchers competing for attention and government funds; persecution of pessimists and critics; the subversion of the scientific method; useful idiots; run-of-the-mill fools; political subversives; political opportunists; and a gaggle of political hacks. But I digress… It’s fortuitous that the people responsible for flood protection in the state of Washington had the good sense to wait and see rather than waste money raising existing levees and constructing new levees along our developed shorelines in response to Al Gore’s Global Warming and Sea Level Rise propaganda. It would be great for my business if more levees were constructed since I could potentially sell more environmentallyfriendly tide gates. Unfortunately for me, I have standards and I refuse to look the other way and allow bad science and flawed engineering to happen in the interest of me Harvesting Gold.
History Repeats Itself Al Gore’s recent foray into climatology is comparable to Pope Urban the VII’s intervention regarding planetary science in the 17th century. Pope Urban VIII had Galileo Galilei, “The Father of Modern Science”, placed under house arrest after finding him "vehemently suspect of heresy" for postulating that the earth rotated around the sun. I am a modern day heretic regarding Al Gore and his Sea Level Rise theory - and I am in very good company. The Catholic Church eventually came around to Heliocentrism: The Inquisition's ban on reprinting Galileo's works was lifted in 1718 when permission was granted to publish an edition of his works (excluding the condemned Dialogue) in Florence. In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of an edition of Galileo's complete scientific works which included a mildly censored version of the Dialogue. In 1758 the general prohibition against works advocating heliocentrism was removed from the Index of prohibited books, although the specific ban on uncensored versions of the Dialogue and Copernicus's De Revolutionibus remained. All traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the church disappeared in 1835 when these works were finally dropped from the Index.76
Science must never be perverted by religious authorities - or by inept politicians – like Al Gore, Jr! It took the Catholic Church nearly two hundred years to formally give up on their opposition to heliocentrism. How many more years before the Democratic Party finally gives up on Global Warming and Sea Level Rise?
74
There’s a sucker born every minute. For detailed information, see The Great Global Warming Swindle, Martin Durkin (2007) 76 Source: Wikipedia 75
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Conclusions The fact that the new Elliot Bay Seawall will be no higher than the existing seawall is indisputable proof that catastrophic sea level rise is a hoax, the Seattle Department of Transportation knows it; The University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group knows it; and, figuratively speaking, the Emperor has no clothes. It has been 23 years since Al Gore declared that the time to respond to Global Warming and Sea Level Rise was now (“now” = 1990). The fact that the Elliot Bay Seawall does not need to be built higher and there are no plans to raise coastal levees or construct new levees proves that this was, and is, a farce – and everyone in the state of Washington who is in a position to begin planning or constructing coastal flood protection apparently knows it! It is time to face the naked truth. Politicized science is a serious threat to the environment. Incorrect theories (or outright hoaxes – like Global Warming and Sea Level Rise) have resulted in flawed decision-making and wasted resources. In time, bad science is always exposed for what it is. Like Carl Sagan Said:
“… sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” 77 As a result of this fraud, people will lose respect for the ignorant and powerful political machine (The Naked Emperor) as well as for the organizations and scientists that previously endorsed the bad science and thus advocated wasteful policies.
"How well Your Majesty's new clothes look. Aren't they becoming!" He heard on all sides, "That pattern, so perfect! Those colors, so suitable! It is a magnificent outfit." "But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.
77
Sooner would be better than later.
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The fact that I am exposing Al Gore, Jr. as a charlatan and that I can conclusively demonstrate that his global warming and sea level rise theory was political propaganda…
does not mean that I do not care about the environment! I am on a personal crusade to revolutionize drainage systems that have tide gates & flap gates so that wetlands, fish, fowl and fauna benefit from amazing and innovative engineering. I respect and admire the scientific method. I want scientists (as opposed to politicians) to propose, research, debate, and defend competing theories without fear of de-funding or fearing for their careers78 or their personal safety. Science has been subverted and politicized, and the press has been complicit in this. This must be made right! Science is vital for improving the human condition! I think that I have the greenest job in the world and I am 100% confident that great engineering will be instrumental in helping to save the planet - if the political machine will allow it. It is becoming more and more obvious that CO2- caused global warming and sea level rise was a tragic political hoax. The biggest loser in this debacle was the environment:
Government, environmental groups, and science have been thoroughly discredited. We need good government, effective and efficient environmental advocacy groups, and proper science to truly Save the Planet. Incredible amounts of time, money, and lives have been wasted on deeply flawed science. These resources could have been used to do something that really matters. (Like reducing mosquito populations to help control Malaria, Denge Fever, Encephalitis, Elephantiasis, and West Nile Virus.) Resources have been wasted that could otherwise have been used to actually improve the environment, help endangered species, and simultaneously help humanity.
There are a number of very serious environmental problems that, unlike CO2-caused Global Warming and Sea Level Rise, are not fictional.
78
Unless they are corrupt or incompetent.
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Many serious environmental problems can be addressed using my ingenious and simple Variable Back-Flow Flap Gate:
Fish gain access to the watercourses and wetlands behind dikes and levees 79 Tidal flushing can happen without sacrificing flood protection Wetlands are improved and enhanced Invasive non-native aquatic and wetland plants can be suppressed Fish, fowl, and amphibians benefit Aquatic pests and vectors for disease (including mosquito larvae and snails) living in drainage systems behind flap gates can be diluted to oblivion with tidal flushing
For more information, see my website: www.jueltide.com and watch my You Tube Channel: JuelTide.
79
It is estimated that there are 100,000 miles of levees in the United States.
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Appendix A
When environmental and financial experts from around the world gathered in Washington this week for a White House-sponsored conference on global warming, they expected a serious discussion. Instead, they were surprised and angered to hear President Bush wholeheartedly endorse delay and inaction. Global climate change is real. It is the single most serious manifestation of a larger problem: the collision course between industrial civilization and the ecological system that supports life as we know it. The purpose of Earth Day is to alert people around the world to that impending collision. And yet the Bush Administration, according to a leaked memo, is advising its policymakers that ''a better approach is to raise the many uncertainties,'' and argue with other skeptics that nothing should be done until unresolved questions are definitively answered. What are the skeptics' questions? Here are several of the most prominent. None of them stands up under scrutiny. Q 1.: Aren't the dire predictions about global warming based on unreliable computer models? How do we know that there is any correlation between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and changes in temperature? A.: The most compelling evidence comes from careful studies of tiny air bubbles in Antarctic ice. These show what has actually happened to the Earth's climate during the last 160,000 years. As illustrated by the accompanying graph, carbon dioxide and temperature have gone up and down in lockstep for as far back as scientists can measure. Through the last two ice ages and the period of great warming in between, levels of carbon dioxide have fluctuated between 200 and 300 parts per million. Even the skeptics agree that concentrations of carbon dioxide will be pushed to levels of 600 parts per million within the next 35 to 45 years. It is irresponsible to assume that after moving in tandem with carbon dioxide for 160,000 years, temperatures will not be affected by those dramatic increases. Q 2.: Do we know enough to act? Shouldn't we study the problem until we eliminate the uncertainties? A.: That was the Administration's excuse last year, when it asked a distinguished United Nations-sponsored group of scientists to answer that question. A draft of the scientists' long-awaited report, leaked to the press this week, concludes that we must act now. The scientists say there's still a chance that the problem won't be as bad as they fear, but there's an equal chance that it will be much worse than predicted. Q 3.: Come on, isn't this really a little far-fetched? After all, the Earth is a big place and probably has some kind of natural ''thermostat'' to maintain the present climate. Don't some scientists say that clouds or the oceans or sunspots will offset any effect caused by human activity? A.: While the Earth is indeed vast in size, the atmosphere surrounding it is less than one one-thousandth the thickness of the Earth's diameter, a thin blue line around the crust of the Earth. Unprecedented population growth
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and new technologies for burning fuels, clearing forests and manufacturing chemicals have given humankind the ability to alter the composition of the atmosphere. Everywhere on Earth, for example, each lungful of air now contains 600 percent more chlorine atoms than it did 40 years ago - or 3 billion years ago, for that matter. That chlorine is responsible for burning a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer. Similar increases in methane, nitrous oxide and other polluting gases add to the seriousness of global warming. Q 4.: But how can we trust scientists on this issue when some of them say global climate change is real and some of them say it's not? A.: Five hundred years ago, most scientists said the world was flat. Most people believed them because the Earth did indeed look flat. The new ''model'' of a round Earth was based on mathematical calculations that they could neither touch nor understand. Similarly, Galileo was punished for his then-novel view that the Earth orbited the sun, instead of the other way around. In the last 20 years, eminent scientists continued to ridicule the theory of continental drift. The theory of global climate change used to be ridiculed, too. But in the last few years, the overwhelming majority of scientists who have examined the evidence have agreed that the problem is real. Q 5.: Didn't NASA just report that new measurements of the Earth's temperature in the last 10 years showed no evidence of warming? A.: That was the impression some people got. What NASA actually reported was that ''nothing could be said'' about a warming trend one way or another ''due to the relatively short satellite data record.'' Temperatures naturally fluctuate so much from year to year that a single decade is not a long enough yardstick for a long-term trend. The decade as a whole, according to several other studies, was the hottest since temperatures have been recorded. The six hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's. Q 6.: O.K., suppose temperatures do rise by a few degrees. So what? A.: Even small changes in the average global temperature can have dramatic consequences. The last time there was a change as big as the one some now predict, temperatures dropped several degrees and what is now New York City was covered by ice one kilometer thick. But this isn't about temperatures alone. It's about drastically changing climatic patterns that affect the distribution of rainfall, the intensity of storms and droughts and the directions of prevailing winds and ocean currents, which in turn dramatically affect our weather and climate. Some scientists say the first effects will be erratic weather patterns with extremes of heat and cold. Q 7.: Isn't it easier to adapt to these changes than to prevent them? A.: The changes could occur so swiftly that effective adaptation might become virtually impossible. The longer we wait, the more unpleasant our choices become. We are in fact conducting a massive, unprecedented - some say unethical - experiment with consequences for all future generations. As you make your choice, bear in mind that you're choosing not only for your own generation but
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for your grandchildren as well. And remember too that our abuse of the environment could lead to the extinction of more than half of all species within the lifetimes of our children. Q 8.: Isn't the cost of preventing this problem too high? A.: Many of the solutions, such as eliminating subsidies for clear-cutting forests, actually save money. In any event, the costs of inaction are much higher, even if the skeptics refuse to measure them. Q 9.: The changes you say are needed are too sweeping to be politically possible. A.: What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people in every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism, sing ''We Shall Overcome'' and embrace democracy within 90 days? Would you have called that ''unlikely?'' We all would have. But it happened because people changed their way of thinking about Communism. People are changing their thinking about the importance of protecting the global environment. We too are showing our willingness to act. The obstacles may seem immovable, but so did the Berlin wall. With bold leadership and a new political ''ecolibrium,'' we too shall overcome.
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Appendix B NOAA Station “SEATTLE” (9447130) This tide gage is physically located in the Coleman dock ferry terminal building on the Seattle waterfront.
Converting the above tidal elevations from meters to feet gives the following elevations:
HIGHEST OBSERVED WATER LEVEL (01/27/1983) MHHW MLLW
Meters 4.465 3.459 0
feet 14.65 11.35 0
NOAA’s highest observed water level of 14.65 feet above MLLW is reasonably close to the highest observed water level shown on the SDOT graphic (14.51 feet). It’s disconcerting that Seattle DOT and/or the UW Climate Impacts Group were not able to obtain an accurate value for the highest observed tide. This information is relatively easy to find on NOAA's Center for Operational Products and Services website.
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The Highest Tide of 2012 The highest tide of 2012, “the King Tide”, occurred on December 17 th. The chart below shows the predicted and observed tidal water level at the Coleman Ferry Dock in downtown Seattle:
Tide Data Station Date DCP#: Units: Data%: MLLW Maximum: Minimum:
Time GMT
9447130 20121217 16:12 9447130 20121217 16:18
Pred 6 Acoustc 1 1 Feet Feet 100.00 99.792 12.92 14.51 -1.54 0.33
Backup 2 Feet 99.792 14.59 0.34
12.92 12.92
14.59 14.58
14.51 14.51
MHHW at the Seattle Station is 11.35 feet. The predicted high tide on 12/17/2012 was 12.92 feet and the observed high water level was 14.51 feet. The observed water level at the Elliot Bay Seawall was 1.59 feet higher than the predicted tide (14.51 – 12.92). The observed water level was 3.16 feet higher than MHHW (14.51 – 11.35). NOAA publishes the mean sea level difference for the two most recent 19-year tidal epochs. For Station Seattle the difference is 0.18 feet. This difference provides an estimate based on actual observed sea levels for the rate for sea level rise over the past 30 years.
The observed/measured mean sea level increased at a net rate of 0.18 feet over a span of 23 years. This works out to 0.008 feet per year (2.4 mm/year), or 9.4 inches per century. This rate of rise is slightly greater than the best case
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scenario for sea level rise mentioned on the SDOT web site – “as little as six inches”. In light of this, the lower estimate for sea level rise seems quite reasonable. The three highest observed water levels at this NOAA station in the past century are listed below:
The elevations above are on the NOAA datum for the Seattle station. This datum is 7.7 feet (22.42 – 14.65 = 7.7) above MLLW based on the current MLLW datum. It is interesting to note that the two highest tides occurred within a time span of less than 20 years and they occurred relatively recently. Per NOAA, on January 18, 1914 an extreme observed high tide reached elevation 21.80. If the difference between the extreme high tide of 1914 and the extreme high tide observed on January 17, 2012 is entirely due to sea level rise, the rate of sea level rise over the past century was 7.4 inches. This works was out to a rate of sea level rise of 0.0062 feet per year ((22.42-21.8)/100)80 – which is not far from the low range of six inches of future sea level rise by 2100 century mentioned on the SDOT web site.
80
Which equals 0.017 inches per year or 1.9 mm per year.
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Appendix C The Emperor's New Clothes - by Hans Christian Anderson
Once upon a time there lived a vain Emperor whose only worry in life was to dress in elegant clothes. He changed clothes almost every hour and loved to show them off to his people. Word of the Emperor's refined habits spread over his kingdom and beyond. Two scoundrels who had heard of the Emperor's vanity decided to take advantage of it. They introduced themselves at the gates of the palace with a scheme in mind. "We are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality." The chief of the guards heard the scoundrel's strange story and sent for the court chamberlain. The chamberlain notified the prime minister, who ran to the Emperor and disclosed the incredible news. The Emperor's curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see the two scoundrels. "Besides being invisible, your Highness, this cloth will be woven in colors and patterns created especially for you." The "Just tell us what you need to get started and we'll give it to you." The two scoundrels asked for a loom, silk, gold thread and then pretended to begin working. The Emperor thought he had spent his money quite well: in addition to getting a new extraordinary suit, he would discover which of his subjects were ignorant and incompetent. A few days later, he called the old and wise prime minister, who was considered by everyone as a man with common sense. "Go and see how the work is proceeding," the Emperor told him, "and come back to let me know." The prime minister was welcomed by the two scoundrels. "We're almost finished, but we need a lot more gold thread. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, feel the softness!" The "I can't see anything," he thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or, worse, incompetent!" If the prime minister admitted that he didn't see anything, he would be discharged from his office. "What a marvelous fabric, he said then. "I'll certainly tell the Emperor." The two scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. They had almost made it. More thread was requested to finish the work. Finally, the Emperor received the announcement that the two tailors had come to take all the measurements needed to sew his new suit. "Come in," the Emperor ordered. Even as they bowed, the two scoundrels pretended to be holding large roll of fabric. "Here it is your Highness, the result of our labour," the scoundrels said. "We have worked night and day but, at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is ready for you. Look at the colors and feel how fine it is." Of course the Emperor did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth between his fingers. He panicked and felt like fainting. But luckily the throne was right behind him and he sat down. But when he realized that no one could know that he did not see the
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fabric, he felt better. Nobody could find out he was stupid and incompetent. And the Emperor didn't know that everybody else around him thought and did the very same thing. The farce continued as the two scoundrels had foreseen it. Once they had taken the measurements, the two began cutting the air with scissors while sewing with their needles an invisible cloth. "Your Highness, you'll have to take off your clothes to try on your new ones." The two scoundrels draped the new clothes on him and then held up a mirror. The Emperor was embarrassed but since none of his bystanders were, he felt relieved. "Yes, this is a beautiful suit and it looks very good on me," the Emperor said trying to look comfortable. "You've done a fine job." "Your Majesty," the prime minister said, "we have a request for you. The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new suit." The Emperor was doubtful showing himself naked to the people, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about it except the ignorant and the incompetent. "All right," he said. "I will grant the people this privilege." He summoned his carriage and the ceremonial parade was formed. A group of dignitaries walked at the very front of the procession and anxiously scrutinized the faces of the people in the street. All the people had gathered in the main square, pushing and shoving to get a better look. An applause welcomed the regal procession. Everyone wanted to know how stupid or incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the Emperor passed, a strange murmur rose from the crowd. Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!" "What a marvelous train!" And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted. A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage. “The Emperor is naked," he said. "Fool!" his father reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried: "The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!" The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.