I have many happy memories of the Carolinas; the lowlands are magnificent with forests running to the edge of the oceans; the people are warm and friendly and very polite: this is the best of the old South in America. It is therefore odd that the state of North Carolina (I suppose if I were running for office there I would call it the Great State of North Carolina) has achieved a legislature a bit like that of King Canute’s – they have held back the sea.
The state has to draft building regulations governing the building on its lowlands. Being lowlands it is important to predict, in so far as possible, how sea level changes will occur in the next few years for those regulations to enable safe and insurable homes to be built on lowlands. The State’s Coastal Resources Commission, drawing on all the science available to it, concluded that Carolina’s sea levels will rise by 39 inches over the next hundred years.
This conclusion is a prediction, of course and as a prediction it is not unreasonable; most scientists would settle for a sea level rise of only 39 inches (or a metre) in the next hundred years as in most countries we can plan for that and alleviate its effects. Not so, for North Carolina.
Those thirty nine inches in a century creates problems for house builders in North Carolina; it makes sensible building more expensive and might add to insurance costs, if the insurers only took the sea level rise from official North Carolinian sources and ignored the vast body of scientific experience and prediction as well as their own statistics.
As a result the state legislature has passed a law that effectively places a moratorium on sea level rise predictions. The Governor of that Great State of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, did not block the law, thus managing in a moment of doing nothing, to expose her Great State to ridicule throughout the world.
In the short term the law saves money and allows others to make money. Zones that might otherwise be underwater were it not for the law, can be developed; no sewage treatment plants need be rebuilt, because of the law and generally all is fine in North Carolina because there the sea will not rise at least for the time being.
It seems that the present state of science is too uncertain to satisfy the North Carolina’s legislature and the governor of that Great State, and as a result it will be illegal to make sea level predictions until there is better science; this law is being presented as a way of producing better science but North Carolina does not have the resources, unfortunately, to create that better science, and the predicted sea level rise was based on many studies, historical data taking a middle range of seven different estimates.
If you close your eyes the problem no longer appears in your eyes but still exists when eventually you have to open your eyes. It must be what exists rather than invent bits own version of reality; esse quam videri, after all.
The legislation will not hold back any sea rises; the US Geological Survey thinks that sea levels between Maine and Georgia are rising several times faster than the average rate of sea level rise. If that statement sounds odd I understand but nevertheless it does seem to be true. Sea level is not an actual level but varies from place to place; there are differences in sea levels in different parts of the ocean. Local mean sea level in North Carolina’s coast is predicted to rise higher than the present predicted rises over the next ninety or so years. The Dutch, for example (and they know about keep back the sea) are planning for a sea level rise of 54 inches over the next 90 years.
Whether the sea will rise and whether it will rise in North Carolina’s coast is a matter of scientific speculation, not proven fact. We do not know how glacial melt, ice cap melt and the rest will affect sea level but we do know, beyond any shadow of scientific doubt that as sea water is heated above four degrees Celsius it increases in volume so if the planet is warming the increased volume of sea water will inevitably give rise to higher sea levels.
It seems to me that we plan for the worst and hope for the best. North Carolina is planning for the best, with its eyes tightly shut. Legislation can achieve quite a lot but it cannot raise or lower the local mean sea level of North Carolina.
Filed under: climate change, global warming Tagged: | Bev Perdue, Coastal Resources Commission, future sea levels, King Canute, local mean sea levels, North Carolina, sea level
This is something I have been watching and studying develope for some time now. In many of the lower lying areas of the United States one will find copious numbers of sea shells that are relatibvely speaking new, in that they are not fossilised meaning they were deposited in evolutionary terms recent. In a publication by John Gagnon called the ‘Message of The Ancients ‘is similar findings by seasoned experts…. This means at some time these areas have been covered by shallow seas, the estimated time plus or minus a couple of hundred years coencides with the Medieval Warming Period, when the norsehabited Greenland, which ice core data gives a mean temp plus three degrees warmer than today and a north west passage cometely open for the same people to sail to Northern America to start colonies there, and Inuit to paddle in the opposite direction for hunting trips, who often witnessed the Europeans at work on their Dairy farms and lush green meadows.
This tells us that there was a warming period that is likely to happen again and again, and the major oil deposits under the same areas in places like the pan handle and texas are a result of the algae rich shallow seas. If it happens again so be it but please nots blame AGW for the ultimate outcome without including the Sun which they know is going to warm up sooner than later.
Holidays in Greenland anyone, book early to beat the Vikings to the beaches.