Sea levels and impact on the United States.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

As a follow-up to airiefairie's excellent post on March 11, 2012 ("The drowning country: a case of climate migration"), I wanted to share a new report that has been released in the interim.


NBC Nightly News featured a new scientific report suggesting significant changes in sea levels will impact the United States much sooner than thought. The report entitled Surging Seas

finds the odds of “century” or worse floods occurring by 2030 are on track to double or more, over widespread areas of the U.S. These increases threaten an enormous amount of damage. Across the country, nearly 5 million people live in 2.6 million homes at less than 4 feet above high tide — a level lower than the century flood line for most locations analyzed. And compounding this risk, scientists expect roughly 2 to 7 more feet of sea level rise this century. [see graphic below]

The report has been made available online, and Climate Central has designed a super elegant and user friendly interactive map to see what impact sea level changes will have on your own community. The map draws its information from a peer reviewed study. And it uses the National Elevation Dataset, a product of the U.S. Geological Survey.



The effects of a five foot sea rise on my home town of Hampton, Virginia. The solid blue line indicates the current shoreline, gray shows the areas affected by rising sea levels with the interior blue line the new coast line. The "city" of Poquoson would be completely wiped out. This portion of Virginia is called "Tidewater" and it would be affected the most because of the low laying tidal flats and swampy areas. On a personal note, two weeks ago, my insurance agency dropped home coverage due to my proximity to living near a flood zone in Brooklyn. The letter cited increased risks from hurricanes and other issues associated with climate change (i.e. rising sea levels).

Here what happens to Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens (5 foot rise):




This is the full feature from NBC Nightly News (you *MAY* have to refresh your browser page to reload the embedded video correctly ;)

Comments

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

"My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge"


Unless you're trained in the field, or a related field, then you're
not qualified to debate the findings

Critiques only make sense if they can be given with someone type of
backing that isnt nonsense.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

That certainly often seems true in domains in which I lack expertise, but I have not found that to be true of any domain in which I actually have meaningful expertise.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Most people dont understand "the logic" well enough to understand
complex inter-related systems.

You're giving a lot too-much credit to people's understanding of analyzing
science they've never studied.

In other words, "It's not that simple"

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

It's not that hard to judge complex arguments if you take the time to read the logic behind it and read critiques of it.

I've noticed that it's only ever laymen who think this.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Logic and common sense should be left out the door when approaching complex scientific matters that have little to nothing to do with the everyday life. Reference: quantum physics.

Logical equilibristics and solipsism for its own sake often leads to dead ends. Empirical data is the key to building sustainable hypotheses that could be used as a launching pad for the next stages of understanding of reality. Leave logic to philosophers.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Unless you're trained in the field, or a related field, then you're
not qualified to debate the findings'

We're not arguing string theory or mathematical constructs.

Everyone here is arguing over what others have argued. So yea, I'm saying my guys' critiques are better than your guys' critique. Saying "lol, I have more" isn't a good argument.

Let's look at 911 Truthers. Sometimes they bring up interesting arguments that rely on experts. Such as one about metallurgy. None of us here know metallurgy to the degree we could argue it. Yet there are others out there who do and they answer those critiques and we can adopt their criticisms. For instance, they say that jet fuel does not burn that hot. "experts" will agree that that is normally the case, but they can then give an argument that does answer it. That being that jet fuel can burn hotter if there are other material added and multiple layers of fire causing a furnace effect.

Though your argument has merit. You're not trained in environmental sciences, so shut up.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Please clarify: are you saying that there is no argument so complex or specialized, that you would ever actually have to take someone else's word that it's sound?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You know how I know you don't know the definition of "laymen".

It's not a synonym for "an idiot".

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Logical equilibristics and solipsism for its own sake often leads to dead ends. Empiric data is the key to building sustainable hypotheses that could be used as a launching pad for the next stages of understanding of reality.'

Random sentence generator?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I'm saying there's no argument so complex that I could exclude criticisms of it from other people knowledgeable in the field.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

from other people knowledgeable in the field.

except, you have to be able to tell if those people are knowledgeable too in order to determine if their criticisms are valid - for if you could determine that based on the merits of the criticism itself, you wouldn't be a layman.

And if your solution to this problem is to prefer those criticisms which are more understandable to you, i'm afraid you're caught in a regress which leads all the way down to that "Heat comes from the SUN" guy.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

I'm an engineer, jerk, with a science background.

So .. uh... you're full of shit on your assessment of me. Thanks for trying.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Like Jonathan said above. If you can find someone who has devoted years of study to a particular topic and afterwards said that years of study are not necessary to understand the topic as they do...




then you've probably found a Kinesiology student. BAM

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

jet fuel can burn hotter if there are other material added and multiple layers of fire causing a furnace effect.

It's also been noted that the steel's structural strength starts falling at temperatures far below its actual melting point, but that's a satisfying flaw too.

I could have come up with that response myself, and I could have come up with it without actually knowing whether any other building or office materials have such properties, and without knowing whether the architectural design of the tower is one that would create such a furnace effect. Which means that anyone reading it, unless they have the relevant backgrounds in, respectively, chemistry and fluid dynamics, is likely to accept such an explanation as plausible whether it is true or not. Now, the people with credentials in those fields who endorse this explanation far outnumber the people with credentials who dispute it. Which pragmatically speaking, is good enough for me.

But as someone who picks up jargon very quickly, if I read one of these experts' defense of the furnace-effect story, I bet I could write a rebuttal which would be nonsense to anyone much better versed than me, but would make things look reasonably controversial to anyone at my level of understanding or below. This was done quite successfully on an industrial scale by tobacco manufacturers for decades.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

The fact you seem them as "random" gives more credence
why people not trained on the topic, or a related topic, should 'argue' the points.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I was relying that you'd use your exceptional intellect but alas.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

:-(

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

THIS.

You are correct - important but subtle facets to a problem may be overlooked
and the "consensus" given will be meaningless (ask a dark Ages mob if the world was round, or the Sun not the center of the universe)...


If you are trained in science, you can speak on the technical facts
If you are trained in experiment construction and methodology, you can speak
on the methodology or problems with how the data was gathered

If you are trained in statistics or data analysis, you can speak to the conclusions or certainty of the data being discussed


If you are trained in NONE of these things -- you can reference another study, but it's not up to someone to "common sense" argue the points as it sounds like is being advocated

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I think you'd have to be incredibly dumb or the argument really esoteric for it not to be understand.

If you get to the point where your argument is "how do we know anything" then we're all fucked and we may as well lay down and stare at the sun.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

I sit there and make the point people should have training in the field discussed or in a related field...

and knowing nothing about me he turns around and pulls that last sentence out of the air?


That 8-( I feel is more deserving of the comment I am responding to

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Tell me honestly. Does responding with "jerk" achieve anything for you?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You said that unless you're knowledgeable in the field you can't argue effectively.

We both have an engineering background however you're the one saying you're not capable of arguing environmental science.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I felt better.

But where is the question about "shutup" in the statement I was responding to?

I'm sure you certainly didnt mean to single me out in this and saw what I was responding to, including tone, right?

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I am responding to a situation that I am seeing. Would you like me to remind you of the most important rule of this forum?

Why should it be so hard to respond to a weak point by easily demolishing it, as opposed to turning yourself into a verbal villain?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'If you can find someone who has devoted years of study to a particular topic and afterwards said that years of study are not necessary to understand the topic as they do...'

Actually, I said that understanding the subject as they do is not required to highlight arguments that critique their knowledge.

We have amazingly skilled experts on macro-economics who have won multiple awards including the highest honors for their field, and yet "Lol, Krugman said you're dumb" is the type of rebuttal they get by laymen online. Why does this work only for environmental issues? Macro-economics is just as complex as climatology and yet we're allowed to crib arguments from people smarter than us all the time.

Keeping in mind, at least with economics, the political background of "experts" is far more varied. Climatology has always attracted politically left people who generally accepted disastrous anthropogenic climate change to begin with. Not too many cynics at any level.