How rising sea levels could affect Seattle-area rails

[Bob Dylan]

In addition to jis' year in New Delhi (not Deli! LOL),I think that the armchair scientists that are in denial about climate change being man made should have to watch a Classic Movie called "Soyent Green" followed by that Communist All Gore's "An Inconvient Truth!"

Of course Dr. Limbaugh and Professor Palin disagree!

 

[MattW]

What about the climate scientists that dissent? Are they to be disregarded since they don't fall in line with the hype?

They don't exist. There's really only the one guy, and I bet you know his name. One guy does not make "dissent". The numbers are padded by the fossil fuel industry by including people who aren't actually climate scientists and saying that they are climate scientists, which they aren't.

Years ago, I actually did some digging into who was pushing what. Just like certain issues in this country largely fall out along political party lines, the issue of human-caused global warming or not mostly fell out along three categories: scientists employed by those with a vested interest in pushing it, scientists unconnected in any way to a vested interest either way, and scientists connected to those with a vested interest in disproving it (oil companies mostly).

All the climate scientists in the middle now agree that global warming is both real, and caused by humans. That's the problem with "years ago".

There's still some debate over whether burning fossil fuels or chopping down the forests is the larger cause of the problem.

There was a dataset published a week or so ago that showed that there has been no average warming in 17 years,

No, there wasn't. You're misreading the dataset. Please get a copy of _How to Lie With Statistics_. I'll wait while you read it and then figure out how you've been bamboozled. Hint: 17 is a pretty weird number, and not one normally used for time series. If you cherry-pick an unusually hot start year and an unusually cold end year, you can make it look like there's been no warming trend... if you're a dishonest hack. I can also "show" that there was no inflation in the 1970s the same way.

What one guy? I don't know of just "one" guy, I know of many who dissent, they just tend not to draw much attention to themselves because they get reactions just like this one.

No, not all the climate scientists do, the ones that don't are just being out shouted by the others. Think about it logically. Where's the money in denying it? There is no new money to be made by being on the side of science here.

I'm sorry but it is you who are misinterpreting it. A trendline is not simply a line from start point to last point, it takes into account all of the data, it's part of a field known as linear regression. To be exact, the trendline from the data in question is actually -0.00012 so if you want to split hairs, it actually shows a COOLING trend. As to the time span of the dataset, why shouldn't we look at the most recent on back? Wouldn't that show future trends better than measuring another period years ago? I'm sorry if you think it's cherrypicking, but just because the data doesn't support your alarmism, doesn't mean it isn't accurate.

 

[NW cannonball]

All this shouting by ignorant persons won't change anything.

Anybody with half a wit can see that by digging up anything inflammable and burning it to get the energy out -- going to make things hotter.

Whether sooner or later, whether ameliorated by the great polar ice-cubes, whatever --

Burning everything in sight might possibly make the environment warmer. Possibly? No, for sure. Obviously.

However the carbon owners spin it, the sea-level rise is small but inexorable. Nobody, paid by anybody, is denying the sea-level rise. (but they could if you paid them)

Seattle will deal with it.

Bangladesh, sorry, lots less of Bangladesh in the next 10-20 years. No denying, just fact.

Seattle, no worries. Miami, will be screaming for subsidies in 5 years. NYC - they got all the money - no clue what they'll do.

Charleston, SC. -- good chances to sell upland properties.

 

[George Harris]

All of you that seem to think that Global Warming is the only thing that is real and all else is incidental or resultant therefrom: The main issue is and should be consumption of fossil fuels and covering more and more of the planet with roads, shopping center parking lots, runways and other large areas on non-permeable surfaces. To make an issue of global warming is like treating a fever instead of the disease. Further, it could well be that by going after the fever we are completely missing the disease.

If we are not going to reduce fuel consumption by driving people into poverty, then we need to provide alternatives where quality of live is achievable with lower, and preferably much lower energy consumption rates, and it be done by choice, not compulsion.

If these environmental fanatics were honest they would be doing all they could to promote rail projects as an alternatve to flights and freeways instead of simply being obstructionists to everything everywhere.

I recall back in the "oil shortage" days of the 70's there was talk about the need to go back to animal powered farming as there would not be the fuel to run mechanized farm equipment. My grandfather was sitting out there looking over his fields and said, "It is not possible. The breeding stock for the mules and draft horses is gone. It would take at least 100 years to get back to animal powered farming, and by then the US population would be half what it is now because we could not feed them.

There needs to be a lot more reality and a lot less feel good faddism on this entire subject.

 

[sechs]

If we are not going to reduce fuel consumption by driving people into poverty, then we need to provide alternatives where quality of live is achievable with lower, and preferably much lower energy consumption rates, and it be done by choice, not compulsion.

Energy consumption rate is not the problem, per se. About 174 petawatts of solar energy reaches the earth. If we grabbed a couple hundred exawatts of that in a reasonable fashion to meet our needs, global climate change wouldn't be nearly the problem.

There really needs to be a lot more knowledge and lot less ignorance of reality on this entire subject. Arguing from a position of ignornace is all too common, as we've seen here.

 

[CHamilton]

From Gizmodo:

For years, scientists have feared the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet—a vast swath of ice that could unleash a slow but unstoppable 10-foot rise in sea levels if it melted. So here is today's terrible news: we now know the ice sheet is melting. And there's pretty much nothing we can do to about it....

This is no longer just speculation or the plot of a blockbuster film. "This is really happening," NASA's Thomas P. Wagner emphasized to the New York Times. "There's nothing to stop it now."

The relative good news is that the melting will take place over a few hundred years—so take a breath—but it means an inevitable 10-foot rise in sea level. That's enough to engulf large tracts of coast all over the world. Plan accordingly, humans. [Science and NASA via New York Times]

 

[jis]

Energy consumption is not the problem. It is the byproduct of the methods used to store and convert energy for consumption that is the problem. Once we master energy storage and conversion which does not involve releasing enormous amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere we'd be in good shape. Also if we are able to stop destroying all the masterful CO2 to O2 converters on the planet (you know those familiar green things?) for short term gains we'd be in better shape even if some CO2 is released. The problem is that at present we are collectively indulging in a lot of activity that is trending in a direction opposite to our long term well being.

We know for sure that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing.

The correlation between CO2 concentration and capture of heat in the atmosphere is relatively well established.

What is not quite well known is the micro effects of such on everything as the macro transformation takes place over centuries. This is what most of the immediate argument is about.

There is very little uncertainty about the end result if the trend of increasing concentration of CO2 is not somehow reversed either by natural or man made processes being put in [place.. Get on a telescope and look at Venus. It's beautiful to look at, from far far away!

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Energy consumption is not the problem.

I'm not so sure about that. The US represents around 5% of the Earth's population while being responsible for roughly 20% of global energy consumption. We have done far less than most industrialized countries to promote reduced consumption and increased efficiency among our citizens and businesses and it shows. I'd say that consumption is absolutely part of our problem. We're so far behind the curve that US spec vehicles and appliances wouldn't even be legal to sell as-is in many countries, including China of all places.

Once we master energy storage and conversion which does not involve releasing enormous amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere we'd be in good shape.

I would say it's important not to simply kick the problem down the road toward some unexplainable future solution. We've already done that for several decades now and should instead work to solve the problem with technologies that already exist today. Between geo-thermal, solar-thermal, photovoltaic, land based and off-shore wind turbines, hydro-electric, oceanic hydropower, conventional (non-fractured) natural gas, methane capture, and locally produced waste based bio-fuels we already have many "green" options to work with that would pollute a lot less than fossil fuels. In many cases they would create almost no measurable pollution at once they're up and running.

 

[CHamilton]

If I may get back to the original topic.

UW research projects ice sheet collapse, Seattle flooding

[T]he first to flood [would] include places like Discovery Park, the Wheel and the Aquarium [and BNSF's waterfront tracks!].

At six feet, Alki and parts of West Seattle would flood. The next levels, nine to 12 feet, would include Pike Place Market, Safeco Field and Century Link Fields.

The worst case scenario is 15 feet of sea level increase, and that would include much of downtown.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Huffington Post has a story on the national security implications today...

A report released Tuesday from an advisory group of retired U.S. military leadership echoes the findings of other recent reports on climate change: It is real, it is already happening and it poses major threats to the U.S. and the rest of the world. The federally funded Center for Naval Analyses and its Military Advisory Board, a group of 16 retired three- and four-star generals and admirals, affirm in the report that climate events like flooding, prolonged drought and rising sea levels, and the subsequent population dislocation and food insecurity, will serve as "catalysts for instability and conflict" in vulnerable regions of the world. "We no longer have the option to wait and see," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta write in a foreword to the report, which they describe as a "bipartisan call to action." The report laments the politicization of climate change and continued inaction from Congress on the issue. "Politically charged debate has silenced sound public discourse," it reads in part.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/climate-change-national-security_n_5323148.html

Also saw this link recently for those who are interested: http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/

 

[chakk]

As someone who spent much of my career in sponsoring research on climate change, I will state that the majority of evidence that I have seen supports the presumption that it is really happening in many place around the world. And this same body of research also shows that it will be virtually impossible to stop, or even to slow down from its currently accelerating pace. From the modeling efforts that I have seen (and some of which I supported financially through my then-employer), even to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at twice the pre-industrial level would require about a 90% reduction in global emissions -- back to the level of emissions that existed globally in the year 1927. In today's world, this means that every country that emits more than 1% of the global total (numbering several more than a dozen) would have to reduce their emissions to zero, and every country that emits less than 1% of the global total (the other 150 or so countries in the world) would have to hold their emissions constant at current levels, just to reduce annual emissions from the current 9 billion tons per year (expressed as carbon) to the 1 billion tons per year that would be needed to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at 550 part per million (twice the pre-industrial level from the 17th century). And this says nothing about the other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, and many chlorofluorocarbons.

I truly believe that neither of these emission-reduction scenarios has a ghost of a chance of being achieved -- in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren (no great-grandchildren for at least the next 20 years). So, atmospheric concentrations will not only continue to grow, but continue to accelerate in their growth. Just when the really disasterous effects of such accelerated growth of concentrations is very difficult to say, but there is certainly no evidence that increased concentrations will lead to a reduction in climate effects.

 

[George Harris]

George is an engineer and from Missouri when it comes to this stuff. Despite what the short term feels like, these changes are 1) in the statistical noise on a Geological timescale and 2) there cause is not proven with much direct empirical evidence at all. Since what George says is eminently reasonable and logical, I respect what he says.

I disagree with his stance, but I can't attack it in any way other than my gut says he is wrong.

But more over, the pollution generated global warming is a dangerous argument to fall in to. Why? Because what it asks for is too important to rest on anything we can't scientifically prove.

We need less greenhouse gas emissions and all other kinds of emissions too. We need less pollution. And we need to prepare better for handling nature and all she throws at us.

If we rest all those needs on the legs of an argument we can't yet prove, what happens if we are proven wrong? All the people who reluctantly were doing it because of global warming stop.

It's like the peak oil argument. We need to work on controlling our fossil fuel consumption for myriad reasons, regardless of whether we have 10 years more oil or ten million. I think George actually agrees with everything I'm saying about this, too.

So instead of wasting time trying to argue for the unproven, argue for fixing things because they simply need to be fixed.

I am in full agreement with you on the things where you say I am.

 

[neroden]

I'm sorry if you think it's cherrypicking,

It's cherrypicking. Try any other 17-year period. Try any 20-year period. Try any 50-year period. Enjoy looking at the warming trend.

Look, I studied statistics. You obviously didn't. Cherrypicking your time period is actually listed in _How to Lie With Statistics_ as one of the standard methods of lying.

You can bet the people who published that 17-year number tried every single other time period they could think of, until they got one which gave them the result they wanted.

And apparently their scam worked on you. Because you are a fool. The sort of easily-scammed fool who makes life easy for con artists.

What one guy? I don't know of just "one" guy, I know of many who dissent,

No you don't. Now that I know you're a fool, I'm guessing you've been fooled by another classic scam.
There are a bunch of people who ARE NOT climate scientists who are being promoted by the fossil fuel industry, who pretends that they are climate scientists. You've presumably been fooled by this.

Or you might have been fooled by mispresentation of people's statements; there are a number of climate scientists who are quite certain that humans are causing global warming, but have been deliberately misquoted in various places.

 

[MattW]

It's cherrypicking. Try any other 17-year period. Try any 20-year period. Try any 50-year period. Enjoy looking at the warming trend.

It's simply the number of years from now until the last time it was warming. That just happens to be seventeen. Next year will probably be 18, then the year after will be 19 or the line might show the start of a cooling trend.

Look, I studied statistics. You obviously didn't. Cherrypicking your time period is actually listed in _How to Lie With Statistics_ as one of the standard methods of lying.

Uh, I'm sorry, I did, and I also studied calculus, which you obviously didn't. If you had, you would have known that the slope of the line is equivalent to a straight line tangent to the data line. So on a cyclical graph such as that of a sine wave, which is the trend that Earth's global temperature has followed, there is a point where the slope levels off, then goes negative. These past 17 years just happen to be when we've reached a peak, and are leveling off and will probably go negative again as much of the global warming folks' own data shows.

If you studied statistics as you also claim, you would have an understanding of sample size and how to interpret it. It is clear by your postings that you do not. Given a cyclical dataset, you could draw a trendline across the entirety of it and claim the Earth's temperature has remained steady and never increased or decreased. Likewise if you took a tiny sample of data at one of the peaks, you would also see a steady trend. If you took a tiny sample at one 0 point (assuming a true sine function) you'd see a rapid warming trend, then if you took a sample at another 0 point, you'd see a rapid cooling trend.

You can bet the people who published that 17-year number tried every single other time period they could think of, until they got one which gave them the result they wanted.

As I said before, they simply watched the data as it accumulated and noticed the slope getting shallower and shallower. If you actually looked at the data (which you obviously didn't), you would see that the right-hand side begins with the most recent data, and extends to the left as it goes back in time.

And apparently their scam worked on you. Because you are a fool. The sort of easily-scammed fool who makes life easy for con artists.

When people starting flinging baseless personal attacks, that's usually a sign that they know they've lost, or at least can't bring any good information so have to resort to such tactics.

No you don't. Now that I know you're a fool, I'm guessing you've been fooled by another classic scam.
There are a bunch of people who ARE NOT climate scientists who are being promoted by the fossil fuel industry, who pretends that they are climate scientists. You've presumably been fooled by this.

Or you might have been fooled by mispresentation of people's statements; there are a number of climate scientists who are quite certain that humans are causing global warming, but have been deliberately misquoted in various places.

So go prove it then. Just claiming "all the scientists say this" isn't proof. Go look at a lot of the "deniers" and find out where they're coming from. Until you do, you are just as bad as what you are accusing I and other "deniers" of. Yes, I don't deny that a lot are oil company shills, but frankly, that's no worse than the shills from the solar panel companies, or wind turbine companies, or any of these other companies that will profit off global warming. But there are many scientists who have no stake in the game, that are calling out the global warming folks.

GAH! Something's wrong with the quotes, the board is interpreting the quote tags weirdly. Fortunately, things still mostly line up, just everything above is inside one giant quote tag that says "neroden."

 

[Scott Orlando]

Quote from MattW

"So go prove it then. Just claiming "all the scientists say this" isn't proof. Go look at a lot of the "deniers" and find out where they're coming from. Until you do, you are just as bad as what you are accusing I and other "deniers" of. Yes, I don't deny that a lot are oil company shills, but frankly, that's no worse than the shills from the solar panel companies, or wind turbine companies, or any of these other companies that will profit off global warming. But there are many scientists who have no stake in the game, that are calling out the global warming folks"

Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?

And lets not skip over the fact there are lawmakers ready and eager to create billions in taxes which so just might come their way.

Finally, nothing says more about someone who says "You need to educate yourself and read a book!"....coincidentally the book they agree with.

 

[Ryan]

Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?

This line of attack always baffles me. We're going to study the climate, weather it's changing or not. Climate scientists don't have any skin in the game and can go where the data takes them.

If you're going to accuse them of bias in their own self-interest, you're going to have to substantiate that claim.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?

This line of attack always baffles me. We're going to study the climate, weather it's changing or not. Climate scientists don't have any skin in the game and can go where the data takes them. If you're going to accuse them of bias in their own self-interest, you're going to have to substantiate that claim.

I've never quite understood it either. In the case of the US curtailing greenhouse gases would probably start with reducing consumption. Americans use more energy per person than any other country on Earth. So unsurprisingly we have the most to gain by cutting back. Even if we cut our energy consumption in half we’d still be using twice as much per person as the global average. So how exactly does the act of cutting consumption make a climate scientist rich? Instead of increasing publically funded research we’ve actually been cutting back. Drastically so in some cases.

Who in the private market is gearing up to spend hundreds of millions on research that is in all likelyhood going to result in substantially reduced and regulated consumption. It makes no sense to me how most climate scientists are supposed to get rich from this. Every time I try to “follow the money” I end up right back at the corporations who sell us energy from conventional sources such as oil, coal, and nuclear. The folks who have a massive investment in keeping the status quo. The greedy climate scientist angle seems rather perplexing.

 

[MattW]

It's because a lot of the pro-warming climate scientists are attached to companies selling "green" technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, smart grid technology. In other words, if people buy into the nonsense, their companies make money. What these folks never say is what the two of you are saying, to just reduce consumption overall. Any time I've heard talk about reducing greenhouse emissions it's always been in the vein of new technologies such as solar, wind, tidal, never in simply reducing what is put out by existing sources.

 

[jis]

So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?

 

[JayPea]

I firmly believe that had George W. Bush written "An Inconvenient Truth" rather than Al Gore, those who dismiss climate change as a bunch of poppycock would be worshiping at its altar instead. And, as Yogi Berra might say, vice reversa. The debate amongst laymen in mostly political. What I personally believe has absolutely no bearing on the actual facts of the matter, of course. I do wonder about those who believe climate scientists have a hidden agenda on the subject. Their job is to research and report the facts. As to the level of CO2 emissions, there appears to be some good news. While total emissions continue to reach record levels, at least it appears the rate of growth is slowing: http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/2013-emissions-edge-the-world-closer-to-2-degrees/ and http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report and http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/GCP/carbonbudget/2013/ (Wanted to make sure I didn't get accused of cherrypicking nor did I want to get one of Ryan's [citation needed] notations. :lol: The US, while its emissions per capita is second highest amongst the 20 leading CO2 emitters, trailing only Australia, its emissions have decreased over the past few years. Some due to the use of cleaner energy and also, in the last 15 years or so, due to its forestry practices in that reforestation has been on the increase. China, on the other hand, continues to increase its CO2 levels.

As for climate change itself, yes, temperatures are increase. No doubt about that. And I don't see how increasing CO2 levels help the situation. However, I also don't necessarily fall in step with all the gloom and doom either. We simply don't know if sea levels will rise 1 foot in the next 100 years or 100 feet in the next year. It's all speculation and based on models. Only half facetiously, how can I trust the same guys to know what's going to happen far into the future when the weather is wildly different from what they predicted a few hours before? We simply don't know what is going to happen in the future. And, no, that doesn't mean we sit by and do nothing. Be proactive now, as much as possible. And I also don't believe that any one storm (Sandy, as an example) or weather phenomenon that is out of the ordinary is caused by global warming. I have yet to see one scientist who doesn't say it is flatly impossible to attribute any single storm or weather event solely to global warming. It can't be done. The forces that create our weather are so complex that it is impossible to attribute anomolies to global warming. What they will say is that the aspects of a certain storm or other weather event may have been somewhat accelerated or made more intense by the influences of global warming, but to say global warming caused it, can't be done.Think of the Dust Bowl era in the Middle West in the 1930's. I'm too lazy to look up global CO2 emissions in the 1930's but have a slight hunch they might have been just a tad lower. Don't think global warming was a problem then. And the nasty winter just past in the Midwest and East no more invalidates climate change than does the record warm spring in the same places in, I believe it was, 2012 (a spring in which Washington, alone amongst the lower 48 states, was colder than normal) proves it.

My bottom line: Global emissions are a problem and efforts need to be made to control or even decrease them, as has been done in the US and other places such as the European Union. Get China and the Middle East on board and we might see real progress there. Climate change is happening. No disputing that. But no one knows what the future will bring and every time there is a hurricane, tornado, flood, drought,. or other nasty weather event, it is simply impossible to lay it all on global warming. Nasty weather has happened since, oh, at least, the beginning of time. Storms and other such happenings may well be more severe and intense due to climate change, however.

 

[JayPea]

So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?

I think the bottom line is no one knows how much the sea levels will rise now or in the far future.

 

[jis]

It seems to me if global warming is happening then there is a high likelihood that sea levels will rise, if the warming trend continues. If CO2 levels are rising then there is a likelihood that aggregate temperatures will rise, i.e. the warming trend will continue. Things can only be stated in terms of likelihoods and probabilities for sure. So irrespective of who or what is causing the atmospheric changes it seems to me that long term trend at the present time is for a rise in aggregate temperatures and sea levels. Something could happen to reverse such trends, but there apparently is scant evidence that anything of that sort has happened so far.

In the last 45 years I have witnessed with my own eyes glaciers that have receded miles both in the Alps and the Himalayas, both areas that I have had the great fortune of traveling to and through many times.. All that water must have gone somewhere, no? Now where could that be? Either in the atmosphere trapping more heat or in the oceans raising sea levels. Just my simple minded thinking about it.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

It's because a lot of the pro-warming climate scientists are attached to companies selling "green" technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, smart grid technology.

Everything I've read so far indicates that the vast majority of climate scientists are paid through government funded agencies and research grants. Funds that in many cases are being reduced rather than expanded. In order for your claim to be reasonable there would need to be green technology companies which are the financial equivalent of Exxon-Mobile and Peabody. In general green energy tech companies are tiny and finacially insignificant compared to fossile fuel conglomerates. They simply cannot afford to employ hundreds of climate scientists all over the world, let alone make them all rich.

In other words, if people buy into the nonsense, their companies make money. What these folks never say is what the two of you are saying, to just reduce consumption overall. Any time I've heard talk about reducing greenhouse emissions it's always been in the vein of new technologies such as solar, wind, tidal, never in simply reducing what is put out by existing sources.

Reducing consumption is half the problem. The other half is when a power plant has met the end of it's useful life (which is a fairly regular event among hundreds of power plants) then it makes sense to replace it with one that is as clean and efficient as possible.

 

[Ispolkom]

So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?

Doesn't it all depend on what level Seattle area railroads are at when the sea level rises? What if there is a major earthquake, say on the Cascadia fault, with associated raising or lower of terrain. What if Mount Rainier erupts, covering the area with lahars? If BNSF requires 48 hours before passenger travel after a regular mudslide, what is their regulation when a main line is covered by 20 feet of debris?