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Boston tides getting higher

Sugar Bowl at high tide in Dorchester Bay

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?

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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.

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Most of the recorded rise has been since 1920.

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So 6 raindrops per yr or 0.122in/ 3mm per yr, hardly doomsday stuff!

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Not doomsday. Just really expensive damage to valued real estate.

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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.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/bn0cPtW.jpg)

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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:
IMAGE(http://www.resilientma.org/static/media/slr_graph.fda332b9.png)

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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 need to keep the lights and heat on in the face of global warming...and pipeline protests.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/1N2lgpd.png)

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Climate deniers are so cute when they use photoshop.

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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!

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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.

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Rationalizing away the problem will definitely help.

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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.

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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.

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I also saw this in the BDN from today.
https://bangordailynews.com/2012/03/29/news/state/gulf-of-maine-ocean-te...

"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.

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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.

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"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:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/sX9BkcN.jpg)

Now, my 'temperature panic massaging' of it.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/A2t9H8N.jpg)

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 very good 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.

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That is all. Anything more would be lost on you anyways.

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Um, duh?

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If we divide it finely enough, the numbers no longer make any sense and we can ignore everything! Yay!

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...mm/year appears to be kind of an industry standard.

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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.

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I live in Eastie, and during that last Nor-easter at high tide the water was so high neighbors were kayaking in the streets.

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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!!"

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Seaport district? Let's cover the entire city.

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.

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You crack me up! :)

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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

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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.

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^ 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.

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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.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/8k3DHxp.png)

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The grown ups in the room, including us professionals, know better than to buy your "but holocene blah blah" reductionist denialism.

IMAGE(http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/made/9_13_16_Brian_xkcdearthtemperaturetimeline_740_14957_s_c1_c_c.png)

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"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.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/tHY9ybn.png)

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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.

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"... 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.

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...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.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/deOpuz8.png)

What next, posting the 'longcat' jpg from the dial up days?

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...it was about the oceans rising and not the actual temperature changes...

Know what happens when you warm water up? Just like most everything else, it expands. Which means the surface rises.

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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.'

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that you'll be dead by the time you're proven wrong.

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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.

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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?

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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/climatology-fraud-global-warming/

This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D’Aleo — a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document’s cover page — is not published in a scientific journal.

Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. “This study was not published by the Cato Institute,” a representative of the libertarian think tank told us.

I prefer to get my information from the National Academies, not a wordpress blog ghosting for the Cato Institute spewing a white paper.

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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.

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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.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/T8sHeva.jpg)

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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.

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Either you're trolling or a world-class idiot.

You may not have to make that choice...

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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".

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Paper documents related to coastal issues go missing all the time. Ask the BPDA.

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Look at the problem the south coast of Alaska is having. Since the land is rising at what is a hell of a clip geologically, the ocean is actually receding at a pace of maybe 10mm a year.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ZOxDpVq.jpg)

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Idaho why you posted this past trends piece, but the reality is that Alaska is already suffering serious climate change consequences, perhaps more so than any other state.

Wildfires are becoming a severe problem, permafrost is melting and roadways are being lost, and sea level rise and loss of arctic ice that sheltered some coastal communities from coastal surges is also endangering coastal communities. Alaska is already relocating and abandoning villages because of this, and putting adaptation plans in place: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/climate/alaska-climate-change.html

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OK, whatever...anyway, ya, Alaska is being twisted like a pretzil. Anyway, the Obama era (2016, so long ago) NOAA map is actually quite precise if you go to the website and focus in on it. As far as it being a 'past trends piece', as the smartest person here, statistically speaking, well, then you must know that ALL future predictions, to have any more probability than a dice roll, must be based on good data.
Oh, FYI...data is a set of measurements of something that has already happened.

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Look at the problem the south coast of Alaska is having. Since the land is rising at what is a hell of a clip geologically, the ocean is actually receding at a pace of maybe 10mm a year.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ZOxDpVq.jpg)

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Try this for size: ALASKA is already RELOCATING communities due to sea level rise:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/climate/alaska-climate-change.html

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IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/5OWkXBZ.jpg)

Try this on for size...from the NY Times article you cite (Democracy Dies in Darkness)...
..."cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, as protective sea ice vanishes and fierce waves erode Alaska’s shores."

...which is not really the same as "RELOCATING communities due to sea level rise:"

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The world, and this country will change dramatically in our lifetimes. I wish I had the energy to go into details and over the data but it's depressing just thinking about it.

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The same people that were selling us armageddon 30 years ago (I'm looking at you, Erlich) are selling us armageddon now. It's very lucrative.

It's real, but they have an agenda. To the practical person, clean, fuel efficient cars are a way to go. Well insulated houses are a way to go. I have a gas heater that runs so efficiently that it uses plastic plumbing pipe for an exhaust pipe.Telling Berkowitz to not store his legal fish in the damn basement on the waterfront sounds like a way to go. Maybe he can block the windows. I dunno. I don't care.

Planning for a future where ocean levels on the waterfront are higher is a logical and good thing. Raise foundations, new buildings have utilities on the second floor, all great...

Building the fucking Zuider Zee in Boston Harbor is just plain dumb.

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Sure could use some of that Global Warming today. Too bad they rebranded it to Climate Change to cover everything.

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"They" are the Frank Luntz and the Republican party.

Ask him. He's around. He got the W administration to use the term "climate change," and the rest of us got used to using it.

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The locals who actually care about the Commonwealth are pretty freaked out by the constant onslaught of perils: Snowmageddon, two-year drought, and the Noreaster Surge Fiesta that we called March.

Know who took that picture of the last bad surge up to that Sea Level Rise in Boston Harbor sign at the Aquarium?

A fairly high ranking Republican in state government.

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is strong in this one.

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You are an idiot AND a troll. I hope to god you're not breeding.

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The Gulf of Maine is warming at an accelerating pace

IMAGE(<a href="https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/4/2015/10/250332-GulfOfMaineTempTrend.jpg)">https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/4/2015/10/250332-GulfOf...

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they re named it because people like the President could not grasp that global warming didnt mean it was going to be hot all the time. Oh and today's storm is very unusual. following the normal pattern of a winter North Easter.

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We aren't just warming the planet, but perturbing our entire climate system in doing so.

The NOAA and NASA folks that I know are currently looking into whether we are not just making everything warmer (like that Union of Concerned Scientists graphic where MA gets relocated to the south over time), but changing our climate classification as well. We have been seeing a trend toward dryer summers in the last decade - a concern for an area that has historically seen rainfall amounts distributed throughout the year. No firm determination on that just yet - but it is something that we would need to plan for in the future.

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The Sugarbowl is built on sand, it could be sinking too!! Save the sugarbowl!!

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