Canute comes to North Carolina
News networks across the UK yesterday were picking up on Professor Richard Muller’s Berkley Earth Project, the results of which have led him, a man who once doubted the existence of climate change, to reverse his opinions and refer to himself as ‘a converted sceptic.’ This stands in poignant contrast to other parts of the world, which suffer from continuing and purposeful ignorance on the topic.
31st July 2012 | Peter Rolton: Chairman, Rolton Group
Recent US reports by governmental scientists are warning that sea level rises along the eastern coast are accelerating three to four times faster than on other US coasts. They say that the ocean from Boston to North Carolina is set to experience a rise up to one- third greater than that seen globally, with potential threats to major cities along the eastern seaboard, including New York.
Predicting just how much sea levels will rise along coastlines is not a simple matter akin to filling up a bath. Asbury Sallenger, who led the study at the US Geological Survey in Florida, said: “This hotspot along the north-eastern coast makes storm surges much higher and the reach of the waves that crash on to the coast that much higher. Some places will rise quicker than others and the whole urban corridor of north-east US is one of these places.”
The rapid acceleration, not seen before on the Pacific or Gulf coasts of the US, may be the result of the slowing of the vast currents flowing in the Atlantic. The currents are driven by cold, dense water sinking in the Arctic, but the warming of the oceans and the flood of less dense freshwater into the Arctic from Greenland's melting glaciers means the water sinks less quickly. That means a ‘slope’ from the fastest-moving water in the mid-Atlantic down to the US east coast relaxes, pushing up sea level on the coast.
Meanwhile, a separate report from Germany which has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that even relatively limited climate change (to 2C), would cause global sea level to rise between 1.5 and four metres by 2300. If nations acted on this, cutting carbon emissions so that the temperature rise was only 1.5C, the sea level rise would be halved, the researchers found.
In the face of such dire warnings, North Carolina has unilaterally come up with its own innovative solution: ignore the problem altogether and make it illegal to acknowledge the issue. In a move worthy of King Canute’s advisors, the state’s lawmakers have proposed a new law that would require estimates of sea level rise to be based only on historical data, rather than on all the evidence which demonstrates that the seas are rising much faster.
Sea levels along the coast are predicted to rise by one metre by the end of the century, which would put a crimp (to put it mildly) in local development. The solution, say the politicians in a move welcomed by local businesses and developers, is to ignore recent data and only use straight-line projections.
As an article in the respected journal Scientific American pointed out, this is like saying: “Do not predict tomorrow's weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don't use radar and barometers; use the Farmer's Almanac and what grandpa remembers.”
Having become the laughing-stock of the rest of the world, North Carolina's legislature is now reworking the bill, inserting a “need for additional studies” that will take three to four years to complete. Nevertheless, a moratorium is to be slapped on the predictions of a one-metre rise in sea levels, made by the State’s own scientists which is in line with US national calculations.
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