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Some North Carolina lawmakers have accused scientists of using "made up" estimates of sea-level rise. But a top researcher says some of the world's best evidence for climbing oceans comes from the ground beneath their feet.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a German climatologist whose research led scientists to reconsider accelerated sea-level rise, said an embattled report by North Carolina experts, recommending that the state prepare for a 39-inch rise by 2100, is a reasonable policy when building homes and infrastructure.
That level of rise, although a projection, is possible as warmer temperatures expand ocean water and begin to melt the world's supply of ice, which presents the unlikely chance of adding 60 meters (197 feet) to the seven seas if it all turned to water.
That would take thousands of years and considerable warming. The 1-meter estimate under attack in North Carolina, however, is based on "simple physical logic" discerned from the state's ancient salt marshes, not a nightmare scenario, Rahmstorf said.
The 1-meter estimate is being used for future planning in some of Europe's coastal cities and in U.S. states, where creeping saltwater and bigger storm surges threaten to flood homes and inundate lowlands.
"If you want [new buildings] to be there in more than 30 years' time, then you better take this factor into account," Rahmstorf said of accelerating sea-level rise in an interview.
North Carolina launched political debates around climbing oceans last week when the state Senate easily passed a bill prohibiting state officials from planning for a rise of 39 inches, or 1 meter, over the next 90 years.
The legislation rebukes a recommendation by the state Coastal Resources Commission, which stirred economic development concerns and skepticism about climate change in 2010 with a report warning of future threats along the state's coastline. It recommended using a benchmark of 39 inches of rising seas when planning new developments.
The legislation instead requires state officials to consider only historical data when calculating sea-level rise, dismissing the future relationship between climbing temperatures and rising seas -- which was verified in part through traces of the state's salt marshes dating back to 2,000 years ago.
Warming and the seas -- both on the rise
Those ancient samples of sediment from 10 coastal wetlands in North Carolina provide some of the best evidence that sea-level rise closely follows warmer temperatures, Rahmstorf says.
Between 100 B.C. and A.D. 950, sea level was stable. Then sometime between A.D. 850 and 1080, it slowly began to rise by about 0.6 millimeter a year for four centuries. It stalled again around 1400, or perhaps even fell slightly, because of the cooling effect of the Little Ice Age. That period lasted until about 1900, when the fastest rise in sea levels began in the time since 100 B.C., according to a study of the marsh sediment by Andrew Kemp, a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
The rise of 2.1 millimeters per year during that period corresponds to rising temperatures following the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s.
"This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2,100" years, the study says, noting that "modern warming is unprecedented in the past two millennia."
The debate in North Carolina has created tension between scientists and lawmakers. One member of the state House, Republican Rep. Bill Cook, said of the benchmark standard in an interview last week, "Good God, that would have cost this state a fortune for some made-up numbers, as far as I can tell."
The commission abandoned the benchmark earlier this year, but a coastal development group whose chairman rejects human-related climate change pressed for legislation to inhibit similar standards in the future. The group, NC-20, is named for the state's 20 coastal counties.
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8 Comments
Add CommentSo, North Carolina legislators will ignore the laws of physics. This reminds me of the legislature deciding that PI was not what mathematicians calculated. The ratio of the circle's circumference to the circle's diameter is a constant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ratio of the density of water at one temperature to the density of the same water at a somewhat higher temperature is also a constant if all other parameters stay the same.
No legislation can change this.
Who elected the law makers ???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...the state Senate easily passed a bill prohibiting state officials from planning for a rise of 39 inches"
Ahhh, North Carolinians. gotta hand it to them - they made 'Denial' the law of the state. It's gonna be interesting to see the ocean volume expand on the coast of Virginia and South Carolina, but continue to remain steady in No.Car.
How moronic can people be and still be elected to the state legislature? Apparently in the U.S, there is no lower limit.
As an embarrassed NC'er, I have to say that these lawmakers are elected by those few who get off their duffs and vote. In this state, that's mostly whoever can be made afraid of, or angry about something. It's easy to get someone mad that gays might get treated like first-class citizens (witness the latest amendment to the NC constitution). It's easy to get people afraid of losing their jobs to Mexicans (though the outsourcing has been to China). It's hard to get anyone to notice, let alone care, that we are passing the tipping point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, so now we not only see anti-science insanity ruling the day in science classrooms, we see the ignorant anti-science lunatics passing laws to prevent anyone from taking sane or reasonable steps to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey teach anti-science in biology, they teach anti-science in geophysics and now they bar anyone who dares to actually understand the scientific process from making use of the knowledge it gives us.
I always thought the USA was on a long, downward slide. I had no idea the morons would be stupid enough to actually get out and push to try and make it crash faster.
What an embarrassment. Possessing a tiny, evil little mind is perfectly legal, but passing laws requiring *everyone* stoop to the level of a five-time fourth grader is a crime against humanity. Hopefully someday we'll have trials for those crimes.
This new law does not go far enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe law only says that calculations must be a purely linear extrapolation from past experience, with no real calculations. That's not enough. They're ignoring the well-known fact that, when you're near the freezing point, water shrinks when it gets warmer.
For the sake of consistency, the law should add that all calculations must be made by extrapolating from the shrinkage around the freezing point. This way, the sea will subside and recede, and North Carolina will gain lots and lots of valuable new land.
The sea had better comply with North Carolina's linear-extrapolation law, else North Carolina will jail the sea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNorth Carolina legislatures are just protecting the tribute they get from developers. They're not being stupid or crazy, greedy perhaps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just want to know when south CA is gonna sink from "the big one" so I can be like Lex Luther and buy up all the cheap desert land. 90 years is just too long a time to buy and wait ;).
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