GeoSpace reports on a detailed look at Boston tide records - which date back to the 1825 - and which show that the sea level in Boston Harbor is rising.
And as we found out this past winter, that means trouble, especially when we get nor'easters that hit at high tide.
The study found that Boston is uniquely vulnerable to sea-level rise because the land is sinking slightly due to after effects of the last period of glaciation. And while a sun/moon cycle means slightly less risk of catastrophic flooding in the 2020s, all things being equal, it will mean more of a risk in the 2030s, even without taking into effect the increased severity of storms due to climate change.
Using newly-discovered archival measurements to construct an instrumental record of water levels and storm tides in Boston since 1825, researchers report that local averaged relative sea level rose by nearly a foot (0.28 meters) over the past 200 years, with the greatest increase occurring since 1920. The work also highlights tides and their significant effect on flooding in the city.
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Comments
anyone have a kayak?
By Frank Rizzo
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 9:45am
anyone have a kayak?
Just to point out
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 9:52am
That's not much of a rise.
1 feet over 193 years = 0.061 inches a year or approx 1.5 mm per year or about the size of 3x rain drops.
Not saying it not a increase it just doesn't support impeding doomsday predictions by many.
Re-read the report
By adamg
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 11:27am
Most of the recorded rise has been since 1920.
Ok
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 11:54am
So 6 raindrops per yr or 0.122in/ 3mm per yr, hardly doomsday stuff!
Not doomsday. Just really
By Omri
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 2:26pm
Not doomsday. Just really expensive damage to valued real estate.
Let's try some science.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 2:50pm
Here's a map of the northern east coast from NOAA. It covers 1921-2016. Looks like anon is right about the sea level rise for Boston.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/bn0cPtW.jpg[/img]
Try this science
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:15pm
Science isn't just past - it is future.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/vp/sl...
Facing reality isn't partisan, either
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:46pm
Our Republican Governor and his administration are pretty gung ho about mitigation and adaptation. Ask Republican Minority Leader Bruce Tarr about self-nourishing salt marshes sometime!
Here's Executive Order 569:https://www.mass.gov/executive-orders/no-569-estab...
Here's the website for operationalizing EO 569: https://resilientma.com
From the Sea Level Rise section:
[img]http://www.resilientma.org/static/media/slr_graph....
See the NOAA map?
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 6:15pm
Not partisan. It was from the Obama era. It bolsters anon's '3mm/yr' estimate.
EO 569. Very nice. Very resilient. Bummer about that New Hampshire electric transmission line.
Also too bad that Russian natural gas was unloaded here last winter. This is what happens when they [i]need [/i] to keep the lights and heat on in the face of global warming...and pipeline protests.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1N2lgpd.png[/img]
Awww
By anon
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 8:53am
Climate deniers are so cute when they use photoshop.
Do a demonstration!
By Angry Dan
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 6:43pm
Plug your bathtub drain, turn the water on, and go out for dinner and a show. The water will NEVER reach more than a millimeter higher than the top of your tub (as long as it's not in the basement). Checkmate scientists!
Checkmate engineers.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 6:47pm
The water will flow into the overflow located several inches below the rim of the tub.
You will come home to a dry floor and an expensive fuel bill.
Rationalizing away the
By tape
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:25pm
Rationalizing away the problem will definitely help.
Rationalizing
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:59pm
And questioning the sensationalizing and over dramatization of the actual situation are not one in the same.
I bet you had the same argument during the Global Cooling era too.
Not sensationalizing
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:48pm
We are pretty much on track with earlier predictions - in fact, SLR and temperature (which are related, if you have the brain cells to figure out how) are considerably higher in the Gulf of Maine than they are in Florida.
I read the Press Herald story.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 7:41pm
I also saw this in the BDN from today.
https://bangordailynews.com/2012/03/29/news/state/...
"Gulf of Maine water temperatures have been rising gradually since at least the 1870s, with ups and downs along the way. But the increase has been pronounced in the past decade or so, in the general range of 2 to 5 degrees depending on the ocean depth, Runge said.
The temperature rise in recent years is similar to the 1950s, when the Gulf of Maine warmed up rapidly before falling later, Runge said Thursday in a phone interview from Spain, where he was attending a marine science meeting."
So, since the 1870's the temps have been rising. Went up in the '50's then dropped.
Been rising again. There are indications it's a Gulf Stream incursion. It's warming deep and shallow.
So, as far as brain cells go, insulting people will get you nowhere. It doesn't work. It just gets you more Trump.
The difference between math and science
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:45pm
Any idiot can do math.
Science requires additional information which you are ignoring to make inferences from measured phenomena.
You are clearly avoiding that additional information - probably because you can't handle it.
You are right. BUT...GIGO.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 6:55pm
"Science requires additional information which you are ignoring to make inferences from measured phenomena."
If it ain't measured, it ain't science. This 'additional information' has to be quantifiable. If not, it's just pure guesswork.
We are too stupid. Nope. Real problem is climate charlatans, whose bread is well buttered (ahem Michael 'hockey stick, hide the decline' Mann) decide that bullshit is good enough to sell the rubes.
Here's a geology site concerning glaciation and Jamestown RI.
http://www.jamestown-ri.info/glaciation.htm
Nice, lots of fun, with an interesting graph of temperature change on the planet.
First, the graph:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/sX9BkcN.jpg[/img]
Now, my 'temperature panic massaging' of it.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/A2t9H8N.jpg[/img]
Orange line shows a huge climb in temps over a 450,000 year period. Over 1.75 million years, essentially flat. Global cooling, which 'peaked' at about 600,000BCE so we've finally just regained our heat.
THESE are the type of shenanigans that make people question things, especially when holier and smarter than thou types, like Michael Mann and his 'hide the decline', or someone here that tells us repeatedly, "I make a [i] very good[/i] living doing just this thing." after telling us that she's an 'air pollution expert' in some Revere junkyard thread from a while back. I guess people can evolve to fit the job market.
The problem is the level of BS from the Very Smart People.
You are an idiot
By Kaz
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 7:58am
That is all. Anything more would be lost on you anyways.
Air pollution is related to climate
By anon
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 8:51am
Um, duh?
And only 0.05 nanometers per second
By Tim Mc.
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:59pm
If we divide it finely enough, the numbers no longer make any sense and we can ignore everything! Yay!
Well...
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:16pm
...mm/year appears to be kind of an industry standard.
got a point
By sam murphy
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 2:14pm
If it was just a small point or a bucket or a large lake, but it's the ocean and a millimeter spread across thousands of square miles is a lot. At low tide or on a dead still high it'll be a non issue but it's just that much more on top of stronger weather. At the highest of tides during storms it'll just mean more building will need to be pumped out each year.
And yet...
By karenz
Sun, 06/24/2018 - 1:28am
I live in Eastie, and during that last Nor-easter at high tide the water was so high neighbors were kayaking in the streets.
You know what Mahty Walsh
By Brian Riccio
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 10:03am
and the teeming throng of leeches that keep him in office will say to this?
"This devastating report only illustrates the dire need of sky gondolas in the Seaport District!!"
Seaport district? Let's
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 10:38am
Seaport district? Let's cover the entire city.
.
By Lee
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 10:51am
.
Brian Riccio
By Lee
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 10:50am
You crack me up! :)
Nah
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 2:05pm
There have been crazy advocates who pitched that before. They were laughed down. Seriously. I think Boston City Hall is starting to scale down the rhetoric. Especially after the UMASS harbor wall findings. Arcadis, one of the UMASS report affiliates has been handling post-Sandy rhetoric in stride after hitting alot of turbulence. The trashed Rebuild By Design and Resilient Bridgeport New England material closer to Sandy-land has had one good outcome. The B.S. is being held up, analyzed, and separated from fact
Dredging the harbor to make
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 10:21am
Dredging the harbor to make it deeper combined with massive amounts of made land is going to mess with the proportion of sea level rise with the tides. Somehow I doubt researchers accounted for these changes while reviewing the data.
We would be seeing flooding up and down the entire MA coastline if sea level rise wasn't localized due to these issues.
^ Nonsense. First of all,
By Csth
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 11:31am
^ Nonsense. First of all, the dredging / filling affect has been well understood for decades.
Second, the impact of sea level rise actually is being seen up and down the coast. The causeway in Essex flooded 5 times this winter - more than in the last 100 years combined. Or look at duxbury. Or plum island. Or Hampton beach. Or Nantucket harbor.
And the real issue is that sea level rise is accelerating.
It's not total nonsense.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:35pm
Actions have consequences.
All the dreging of the Mississippi River (heh. I can spell Mississippi but not dredgeing) might have made it more navigable, but it is taking its toll. Swamps and bayous that would absorb storm surges have been destroyed, enabling a surge to roll for miles unimpeded. Not the same as cleaning up the harbor, but most of Boston is filled in land that at one time years ago would absorb a storm surge.
Geology plays a role. Look at the tides in the Bay of Fundy. Fifty feet. Imagine one that is driven by an astronomically high tide and the correct winds.
"And the real issue is that sea level rise is accelerating."
Well, I suppose, but look at this graph of the last ten thousand years. Between eight and seven thousand years ago the oceans rose almost ten meters.
That's a lot.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/8k3DHxp.png[/img]
Time to stop playing dumb
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:38pm
The grown ups in the room, including us professionals, know better than to buy your "but holocene blah blah" reductionist denialism.
[img]http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/made/9_13_...
"Time to stop playing dumb"
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:58pm
"The grown ups in the room, including us professionals, know better than to buy your "but holocene blah blah" reductionist denialism."
I admit, this one is just painful to respond to.
I didn't draw the graph, I just posted it. It also happens to be quite correct. See, since my opinion is a piece of shit to your superiorness, I have to rely on the work of others, others that might be smarter than you.
So, just for shits and giggles, maybe you can explain two things...one is this graph, which dovetails nicely with sea level rises as measured rather than your swirled peas. This one looks to be about maybe 170-200 mm in a hundred years.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/tHY9ybn.png[/img]
You are ignoring some very important trends
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 4:06pm
And you are basing everything on the past when we know damn well what the lags are for these things and the rates of emissions.
I'd like to say that you are smarter than this, but ... maybe you aren't playing dumb?
Go to Mass.gov and type in "climate change". Plenty there, very locally focussed. Or is that just a conspiracy, too?
Reductionist denialism - just like your cute little Alaska graphic is factual, but monotonically misleading.
LOL
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 7:59pm
"... your cute little Alaska graphic..."
Cute little Alaska graphic was a NOAA map. I can't take credit for it. You should not belittle it, hell, it actually backs up some of your arguments, if you would take your blinders off and see reality.
But, you can't. Maybe you can post some really well researched Comm of MA propaganda/grant applications.
Well, since you changed the subject...
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 4:08pm
...as it was about the oceans rising and not the actual temperature changes, as cited by noted climatologist Randall Monroe, I offer this paper for your intellectual incontinence...
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ef...
It questions the validity of the temperature data that the research is based on. As they used to say in the FORTRAN days...GIGO.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/deOpuz8.png[/img]
What next, posting the 'longcat' jpg from the dial up days?
Same subject
By perruptor
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 6:36pm
Know what happens when you warm water up? Just like most everything else, it expands. Which means the surface rises.
Absolutely true.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 7:53pm
The study cited calls into question the data backing up other studies. In other words, the paper is questioning the data itself and they have some heavy duty people signing on to the report agreeing with it.
See? When you heat water, it expands (mostly...) and when you cook the books, any results that any researchers get are a big steaming pile of failed science.
To explain it in a grrl way, 'Maybe you are just too stupid to understand that.'
I love the fact
By Brian Riccio
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 9:05am
that you'll be dead by the time you're proven wrong.
No maybe
By anon
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 9:25am
No maybe involved.
Opinions of scientists are not science. Opinions of a handful of scientists are often a well-funded joke.
Similarly, James Hansen throwing tantrums because his work wasn't included because his extreme predictions had not been peer reviewed is a case of self-correction - see above.
The body of evidence from a large number of scientific studies are science.
Five or six scientists
By anon
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 8:49am
Not definitive. Not a body of evidence.
Scientists are not science.
Meanwhile, as for Randall Munroe, ex NASA, etc.: when was the last time a major peer-reviewed science publication like Science or organization like the NAS asked you to create a scientifically sound and peer-reviewed information graphic or graphics on a tricky complicated subject?
About your "research paper"
By anon
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 10:24am
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/climatology-frau...
I prefer to get my information from the National Academies, not a wordpress blog ghosting for the Cato Institute spewing a white paper.
You need to learn how to do research
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 12:08pm
Sea level rise isn't just being seen in local places - IT IS BEING SEEN FROM THE TIP OF FLORIDA NORTH TO THE BAY OF FUNDY.
And that's because measurements are being made.
Miami is in trouble. So are huge naval bases in the Mid-Atlantic where neighborhoods are starting to be abandoned.
Geesh. Seriously geesh.
Miami's been in trouble in the past.
By dmcboston
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 3:39pm
Again...the earth is not a stagnant ball of dirt. It's a dynamic and evolving geosystem. Florida has had its good times and its bad.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/T8sHeva.jpg[/img]
Regarding your first point:
By tape
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:30pm
Regarding your first point: uh, what?
As for the second, I'm curious how you're forgetting about the numerous instances of coastal flooding all over MA from just about every one of the recent nor'easters.
Either you're trolling or a world-class idiot.
You can have it all!
By perruptor
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 2:04pm
You may not have to make that choice...
Sounds as if someone is
By anon
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 11:25am
Sounds as if someone is looking for a good reason to tear down a lot of little old buildings and build huge towers. "newly-discovered archival measurements".
You sound like you object to things being discovered
By adamg
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 11:43am
Paper documents related to coastal issues go missing all the time. Ask the BPDA.
It's rocks
By Stevil
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 1:23pm
It must be due to erosion and rocks falling in the ocean.
https://splinternews.com/congressman-says-rocks-falling-into-the-sea-contribute-1826125767
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