Sea Level Rise Public Meeting

By an edhat reader
 
There is a really interesting new City Sub-Committee that is meeting on Tuesday morning at 10am at City Hall. It is the Sea Level Rise Sub-Committee’s 1st meeting. The City really wants the public to provide input. It has Agendized multiple opportunities for Public Comments.

The City Presentation includes: 1) History of the City’s planning and policy guidance for the shoreline, and 2) How shoreline hazards are addressed.

The Sea Level Rise Adaption Plan Subcommittee includes: 1) Introduction of the Guiding Principles for Adaption, 2) How policy guidance may have to change in the future, and 3) Public Engagement.

 
The overall project is to determine:
     How the City is going to adjust when the ocean is higher than it is now
     How far and fast the bluffs will erode
     How severe flooding will be and what new areas will flood that don’t currently floods
     What limits on development will be needed in these new flood areas
     And other similar questions
 
Many people remember when the City considered painting a Blue Line on City streets to highlight which properties would be underwater in the future.  For this reason alone it is really important for members of the public to attend and bring their common sense.

Here are the members of the Sub-Committee  to give you a sense of how serious the City is taking global warming and sea level rise: City Councilmembers: Jason Dominguez, Eric Friedman and Kristen Sneddon. Planning Commission Members:  Deborah Schwartz and Lesley Wiscomb.  Water Commissioner: Dave Davis.  Parks & Recreation Commissioner: Beebe Longstreet.   Harbor Commissioners: Betsy Cramer and Jim Sloan.

Meeting Date: September 11, 2018
Meeting Time: 10:00AM
Meeting Location: City Hall 735 Anacapa St.
Meeting Room: Room 15

 
 

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Written by Anonymous

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29 Comments

  1. This article does not help me understand why the price of beacfront homes along the entire West Coast continue to go up, up, up…and up. You would think the prices would be crashing…but they are not. Scoop-diddy-whoop, whoopity-scoop…

  2. TMO is correct. The lack of sand is from the drought. No sand down the rivers into ocean , no sand on the beach. Sure the ocean is rising, from NOAA and Nat’l Geographic an 1/8 or .13 of an inch per year which is an increase in the last 20 years. Thermal expansion is indeed one of the 3 factors, the other 2, melting glaciers and melting ice from Greenland (Iceland has no ice) and Antarctica. And the comment about “increased energy” below is a totally pointless response as maybe in 20 years one might see some difference. I guess they’re new here as the sand comes and goes every year and it’s not rising temperature or PFM.

  3. Missing the point: the earth has been cooling and contracting since it was formed. Hence an apparent rise in sea level. Geology is cool…er, pun intended. The hills behind La Conchita to Ventura river are rising at an alarming rate; note the steepness, erosion, and landslides along the entire stretch. Mesa and La Vigia faults give rise to …drumroll please, the Mesa and More Mesa, the uplifted UCSB plateau. Makes my knees wobble just thinking about it. Note: Nary a geologist on the panel despite UCSB’s outstanding department of geological sciences! Shakes head…slowly with wry smile.

  4. TMO and Tadges, here’s the data directly from the source: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.html This is the NOAA directory of all the tide gauges in the US and territories. You can browse many locations and see the data yourself. If you select California then select San Diego, you get data going back to 1906. It’s been in a linear trend with no acceleration at all: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=9410170 . There are even gauges in the middle of the Pacific with data going back to 1950 with no apparent acceleration in the natural upward trend. Places where there is substantial change (up or down) are locations where the land is rising or sinking at the location of the gauge. Check out the gauges in Louisiana, you definitely would have troubles there. If you attempted to paint a “blue line” there, the beginning point would be underwater before you finished the whole thing.

  5. Just like with atmospheric heating and making simple plots from the data, ocean level is a bit more complicated than you’re implying here, with inputs needed from current flow, changes in water storage on land, wind patterns, undersea topography, …

  6. The NOAA site links to sea level gauges all over the world, and some of the european gauges have measurements going back to the early to mid 1800s. There are a few gauges going back two centuries such as this one from Brest, France: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=190-091 Other gauges going back 200 years are the same, no change in slope. Many gauges going back ~150 years such as the one in San Francisco also show no apparent change in slope. Yes, many factors impact the overall rate of change, but an increased rate of rise should produce a distinct change of slope. I looked at with a 100 years of data or more shows no change in slope over the period of data collection. It’s not just one or two, it’s dozens. If within the last 100 years there was an increase in the rate of sea level rise, it’s not apparent in the gauges going back 200 years. Peruse them yourself.

  7. Well, you obviously didn’t read the link, because it addresses your misconceptions, both in terms of the lack of data coverage in times past and the noise in the data from individual gauges. It’s really tedious playing whack-a-mole with people who are fact-resistant, and think they can replicate decades of scientific work within minutes because they know how to make a simple graph. And the idea that hordes of scientists are fabricating results is even more ludicrous, given that it would be career suicide. Scientists, by nature, check and re-check their results, which aren’t accepted until they are replicated.

  8. The argument of the article is against the claim that the rate of sea level rise is decelerating, something that I am not stating. The article uses ~1880 as its starting point which eliminates the longest continuous data going back to ~1810 or so. Ignoring data prior to 1880 is tantamount to cherry picking.

  9. The climate effect is getting worse. There are a couple of islands where all the residents have evacuated because of the rising water, covering their land. Getting advice on sea level rise is like preparing for earthquakes, better to be ready than not, even though a major one may not happen in our lifetimes, or it could be tomorrow.

  10. I read the link plus all the comments. Again, the premise of the article was to deal with the question of the deceleration of the rate of rise. There are multiple useful comments on his methods that suggest that there was oversampling of more recent data relative to older data, and that his data set was not geographically diverse. It would have been better for him to apply his methodology on gauges with at least 100 years of data. If the conclusion he draws that rate of rise has increased “recently” then it should be apparent in the data from all the oldest gauges. It looks like he did not back test his results against the oldest data available, and the oldest data available does not appear to support his conclusion.

  11. Pardon the lengthy post, but I did a 100% review of the NOAA site on sea level gauges listed in this site for NOAA Sea Level Trends for US and Global gauges: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.html My criteria was to look only at gauges with at least 100 years of continuous sea level measurements. 52 sites have 100 years of data: 12 sites have 150 years of data. 3 sites have 200 years of data. In a couple cases a short gap in the record was allowed if it did not cast doubt on the direction of the trend. 100% of them show a linear change in sea level for the date range. None of them have dual slopes which would suggest a change in the rate of the sea level. My goal was to look at the records with the longest continuous history and see if current sea level rise is any different that it was 50, 100, or more that 150 years ago. From this data set, the answer appears to be no. The list of the locations where the sea level records are taken follow are below, and you are encouraged to look at them yourself if you do not believe me. The disclaimer found each chart is found at the end. It is a global list, but Asia and South America do not make the list due incomplete sea level records for a minimum of 100 years. Locations: 100 years: San Diego, Fernandina Beach FL, Key West FL, Galveston Pier 21 TX, Baltimore MD, Charleston SC, Portland ME, Altantic City NJ, Philadelphia PA, Oslo Nor, Smogen Swe, Goteborg Swe, Kungholmsfort, Swe, Olands Norra Udda Swe, Visby Swe, Landsort Norra & Landsort Swe, Stockholm Swe, Ratan Swe, Fururogrund Swe, Oulu/Uleaborg Fin, Pietarsaari/Jakobstad Fin, Vaasa/Vasa Fin, Mantyluoto Fin, Hanko/Hango Fin, Helsinki Fin, Tuapse RU, Klaipeda Lith, Gedser Den, Kobenhavn Den, Hornbaek Den, Korsor Den, Slipshavn Den, Fredericia Den, Aarhus Den, Frederikshavn Den, Hirtshals Den, Esbjerg Den, Ijmuiden Hol, Vlissingen Hol, North Shields UK, Newlyn UK, Marseille FR, Sydney Fort Denison 1&2 AUS, Fremantle AUS, Dunedin NZ, Prince Rupert Can, Port Atkinson Can, Victoria Can, St John NB Can, Charlottetown Can, Quebec Can, Balboa Pan, ****
    150 years: San Francisco CA, The Battery NY, Wismar Ger, Travemunde Ger, Cuxhaven 2 Ger, Delfzijl Hol, Harlingen Hol, Den Helder Hol, Hoek van Holland Hol, Maassluis Hol, Aberdeen I II UK, Trieste IT, **** 200 years: Swinoujscie Pol, Warnemunde Ger, Brest FR. ++++++ The disclaimer found on every plot is: The plot shows the monthly mean sea level without the regular seasonal fluctuations due to coastal ocean temperatures, salinities, winds, atmospheric pressures, and ocean currents. The long-term linear trend is also shown, including its 95% confidence interval. The plotted values are relative to the most recent Mean Sea Level datum established by CO-OPS. The calculated trends for all stations are available as a table in millimeters/year and in feet/century (0.3 meters = 1 foot). If present, solid vertical lines indicate times of any major earthquakes in the vicinity of the station and dashed vertical lines bracket any periods of questionable data or datum shift

  12. Again, SG is relying on denier sources that rely on simple-minded analysis of data, ignoring the fact that this is very noisy data at the level of precision needed to detect such small changes worldwide, and totally ignoring the other factors such as current, wind, and topography that contribute to what is measured. Some areas of the world may actually experience a drop in sea level because of these other influences. These charlatans cherry-pick both the data and the applied analysis to further their denialist agenda. If you have any critical thinking skills at all, you realize that simplistic amateur snipers like this, with no background in the science involved, are just trying to spread FUD. Facts that contradict their politically-inspired, greed-based beliefs are conveniently swept under the rug. Relentless willful ignorance is their hallmark.

  13. So how does you explain the tens of thousand of undersea volcanoes, and above sea volcanoes filling up and filling in our oceans? Wouldn’t that cause the sea level to rise…not to mention increasing the water temp? If I fill up one of my pools with dirt and rock, the water level would rise…no? Give me free money and I will make a career out of studying this “phenomenon” and stay at The Bacara after flying in to SBA in my private jet to meet with my rich buddies.

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