Friday, April 04, 2014

North Carolina, Gluttons for Punishment

Eli has an interesting post about the troubles North Carolina is having with sea level rise. The eastern U.S.  seaboard is a hotspot for sea level rise, and it seems there is a little problem with houses falling into the ocean. Eli quotes the Nags Head Town Manager Cliff Ogburn asking for guidance:
"Pick the number. ... We're just waiting for somebody to decide an accurate projection," he added. "I wish people 40 years ago would have imagined that we'd have houses falling into the ocean."
Of course, people 40 years ago did warn about sea level rise, like in this 1977 report by the National Academy of Sciences, Energy and Climate, which says (pg 8):

from a 1977 NAS report on climate change














Few listened.

The report couldn't have been more clear (pg 11):


Nobody listened. And this is from the National Academy of Sciences. Yet nobody listened. And still they won't listen.

We will pay for climate change one way or the other. We can pay to build a low-carbon economy, or we can pay for houses that wash out into the sea.

P.S. Eli also quotes a vice president of an economic development group saying
"There's been no signal of CO2 increase with any signal of temperature increase or sea-level rise," said Larry Baldwin, NC-20's vice president of regulatory affairs, who is also one of the four holdover members of the CRC.

"We need to hear not just one side of the facts, we need all of the facts," Baldwin added. "One of the things we'll hopefully be able to do is get people with the minority opinion on there."
Who knew facts have two sides?

6 comments:

Dano said...

Remember: the landslide in Oso, WA was predicted and few listened. There's even a story out about the state wanting to purchase the properties to allay the risk. And there's people whining that nobody there knew.

Anyhoo, speaking about nobody knowing, how's the David Rose Hole Closing Watch coming? Room booked and caterer lined up?

:o)

Best,

D

David Appell said...

Dano: Wow, I haven't heard about the state wanting to purchase the land above Oso. Do you recall where you read that?

Charlie Martin said...

Now, David, make a quantitative comparison of the predicted sea level rise, and the actual.

David Appell said...

Charlie:

http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/04/eastern-us-sea-level-rise-modelling-vs.html

David Appell said...

Dano: The David Rose Hole is down to 4 months, July-Oct 1997.

But most people nowadays are including autocorrelation (since it makes the error bars higher), which is something I haven't done.

If you use Cowtan & Way's adjustments to HadCRUT4, there is no David Rose Hole -- at least, without autocorrelation.

Dano said...

David here is the story I saw about the properties. I mistakenly wrote "state" instead of "county".

Best,

D