“It gets higher every year. I imagine it will be worse next year.” Guido Pena, Miami marina employee commenting on water levels during king tides.
*****
King tide. It’s a new term for an old phenomena. One that few people noticed before human-forced climate change began to push the world’s oceans higher and higher.
During spring and fall, the sun lines up with the moon and other astronomical bodies to produce a stronger gravitational pull on the Earth. This pull, in its turn, affects the tides — generating higher and lower tides over certain regions of the world.
(Rising ocean levels due to human-forced climate change is resulting in worsening instances of tidal flooding at times of high tide. In this video, a simple seasonal high tide is enough to flood major roads in Fort Lauderdale on October 17.)
King Tides — Turned into Flooding Events by Climate Change
During past years, these events were called astronomical high and low tides. They weren’t typically a news item because such tides often did not produce flooding. Past construction had placed buildings and key infrastructure above the typical annual range of even the astronomical high tides.
However, during the past century and, ever more-so during recent years, seas have been rising more and more rapidly due to human-caused climate change. A warming of the Earth due to fossil fuel burning that has melted glacial ice — flooding the oceans and causing its waters to thermally expand. As a result, parts of the U.S. East Coast now see ocean levels that are 1.5 feet or more higher than they were at the start of the 20th Century.
This rise, though modest compared to what will happen if global temperatures and greenhouse gas levels remain at currently elevated levels or continue to ramp higher, is now enough to turn astronomical high tides into a notable flooding event. An event that we have begun to call a king tide.
(In places like Miami along the US East Coast, sea levels are rising at a swifter and swifter rate due to human-caused climate change. Note the acceleration in the rate of water rise since 2008 indicated in the above graph. Image source: FSU.)
A Climate Change Enabled Tidal Flooding Event Impacting Most of the U.S. East Coast
And over the past few days, from Florida to Boston, the US East Coast has been feeling the effects of just such a climate change caused sea level rise. In Florida, a debate between climate change denier republican Marco Rubio and his democratic opponent Patrick Murphy was held at a site where the local street was flooding due to salt water incursion. Murphy, responding to his opponent’s doubts that seas were actually rising stated:
“Look out your window, right? There’s two or three inches of saltwater on the roads right now. They were not built underwater. Go down to the Florida Keys. The reefs are dying from acidification and bleaching.”
All across Florida, residents were posting pictures on twitter of the rising ocean waters and commenting on the intensification of coastal flooding due to sea level rise during recent years. “It gets higher every year,” said Guido Peña, a Miami Marina employee where the water was shin deep Monday morning, in a statement to the Miami Herald. “I imagine it will be worse next year.”
All up and down the coastline, communities reeling after a raking blow from Hurricane Matthew were again seeing waters rushing up and past the dune line or invading low-lying streets and neighborhoods. But this flooding was due to no hurricane, just the added rise of waters caused by a fossil-fueled warming of the Earth, a melting of her glaciers, and the thermal expansion of her seas.
https://twitter.com/jeannagy/status/788436304413487104
(King tide flooding enhanced by climate change is now able to completely submerge Long Wharf in Boston.)
In Boston, residents took pictures of a completely submerged Long Wharf yesterday. Mentions of climate change came along with the observations of flooding waters. These included some ominous notes for a future in which scientists are projecting at least another 2 feet of sea level rise for the US East Coast by mid-century (and possibly quite a bit more).
High Vulnerability for U.S. East Coast
Overall, the US East Coast is particularly vulnerable to climate change induced sea level rise. Much of the southeast is subsiding due to crustal rebound following the last ice age which compounds any overall ocean rise. In addition, changes in North Atlantic Ocean currents and wind patterns due to climate change will tend to cause water previously pulled north by the Gulf Stream to rebound against the coastline. An effect that could also add another 1-3 feet of water rise to any baseline total provided by glacial melt and thermal expansion.
Larger news sources like The Weather Channel have provided little context with regards to the impact of climate change on current king tides — simply stating that climate change may affect king tides in the future. However, we should be very clear that without climate change we would not see the flooding from these tides that is now apparent today.
Links:
When the Ocean Rolls onto the Roads, King Tide Sends a Message
What’s a King Tide and Why is it Flooding Boston’s Waterfront?
Marco Rubio Denies Climate Change as King Tides Flood Miami Streets
Hat tip to Jack Ridley
Hat tip to Greg
Hat tip to DT Lange
Hat tip to Jean Nagy
Hat tip to Ben Kennedy
Andy_in_SD
/ October 19, 2016It makes me think of frogs and slowly boiling water, in a month it’ll be forgotten only to occur again in the spring a tad worse, forgotten, a tad worse next fall. Eventually regular tides start doing the same, but forgotten during low tide….(rinse / repeat).
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DJ
/ October 19, 2016The variability and timelines are what makes it so hard for people to take climate change seriously (and so easy for deniers to cause doubt). Everything just becomes ‘the new normal’. In 10 years – ‘the streets have always flooded in the spring and fall’.
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robertscribbler
/ October 19, 2016I don’t buy it. People are starting to wake up. The only reason denial is such an issue is due to advertising and political money by fossil fuel special interests.
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DJ
/ October 19, 2016I hope you’re right. There’s no doubt the advertising and money pushing fossil fuel interests is a big factor. My point was just that the natural variability in the day-to-day weather, coupled with our amazing adaptability to changing circumstances, and the ability to normalize whatever situation we’re living in unfortunately makes their job easier.
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robertscribbler
/ October 19, 2016Well that bit is certainly true.
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mulga mumblebrain
/ October 20, 2016There was a program on local TV lately concerning farmers here in southern Australia. They were universal (the ones interviewed) in their belief in climate destabilisation. They had seen the changes in climate and weather in recent decades, affecting their operations, for example driving vineyards south to Tasmania, or up the mountains, to get cooler conditions, etc. Amazingly, as this happens, and fisheries are rapidly disrupted and kelp forests die off in a few decades, caused by the intrusion of hotter waters, the supposed ‘representatives’ of the ‘man on the land’, the National Party, remain fanatic and totalist deniers (in league with the Murdoch apparatus)and enemies of renewable energy. They have shifted their loyalties to the more lucrative grounds of the coal industry.
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Abel Adamski
/ October 19, 2016The insurance premiums and rusting and corroding metal will tell a harsher more in your face story
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Andy_in_SD
/ October 19, 2016I was thinking of the salt water on that road as well. That will eat those vehicles alive.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ October 19, 2016Historical data under estimates sea level rise worldwide and suggests ice melt in Greenland may be considerably greater
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6650
Plus, and I missed this and apologise if mentioned before, I would not want to live below a surging glacier as this double avalanche in Tibet shows
https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2016/09/twin-glacier-collapse-in-tibet.html
What I have not noticed is any mention of the Greenland melt having the greatest affect in raising sea level around Antartica and destabilising the ice shelves.
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Kevin Jones
/ October 20, 2016Jeremy. Your last point is one I have long pondered. The West Antarctic Ice Shelf is a moored raft…..
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016South Florida was completely back to normal about 12 hours after the storm had passed.
Yep, and the bullet zoomed right past, them and hit North Carolina in the forehead.
Which brings me to my hobby horse, the costs. Take this headline from UPI :
Hurricane Matthew damage estimated at $1.5B in North Carolina
That’s just a rough number of buildings damaged, UPI has done a real disservice to it’s readers here. There are 3 small towns still under water . The water will take another week to finally go down. In that number there are no costs for roads, sewer & water lines, power lines, dead chickens, household goods, vehicles of every kind, ……………… dead pigs, dead crops, etc, etc, etc. Plus this storm hit the the heart of farming in North Carolina, so the soil took a hit.
This was a one in a thousand year event, what is interesting . 12 months ago South Carolina had a one in a thousand year event.
So South Florida, did you hear the bullet go by your head ?
Plus all those souls who still drive into flood waters. Their love ones tears are in the the rivers to night.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016All the beach heads in South Fla. are feeling rather happy at Cat 6, that a 50 cal. bullet just zoomed by their heads. While the “King Tides” are killing all their lawns.
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Paul Briggs
/ October 19, 2016There’s a documentary I’ve seen recently called “Facing the Surge,” about neighborhoods that are having to adapt to this problem. I watched it as research for my own climate fiction novel. It focuses on Norfolk, Virginia, but it’s relevant to any community at or within a few feet of sea level.
It’s a big problem. The houses themselves can be raised individually, if you’ve got $100,000+ dollars you’re not doing anything with. But if your house catches fire and the fire truck can’t get through because the streets are flooded, well…
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robertscribbler
/ October 19, 2016We’ve had disappearing islands in the Bay that face the same problem. But now it’s an issue for whole cities. Sure, you can elevate your home. And that may help for a while. But the primary issue for city vitality is infrastructure. And this kind of flooding increasingly disrupts transportation, energy, businesses, you name it. It’s tough to run a city that’s basically a slow motion Atlantis. You can invest in defense for the entire region. Do what the Dutch do, for example. But with climate change there’s no end to the rising waters. Defending the entire east and gulf and west coasts is a multi-trillion dollar proposition. And if you get multi-meter sea level rise eventually, then there’s no coastal defense that can defend against that.
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Spike
/ October 20, 2016Large and currently very prosperous areas of eastern England N of Cambridge are at risk with 1m plus SLR. Nobody mentions it.
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016A house in Norfolk, Va., that has been repeatedly hit by tidal floods sat on temporary supports as workers prepared to elevate it permanently in June. Credit Eliot Dudik for The New York Times
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016Norfolk alone, a town of 250,000 people, has a wish list of $1.2 billion — or about $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the city.
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Scott
/ October 19, 2016There was a very modest but real nuisance flood in Portland, Maine a couple days ago. First time I’ve noticed it there. It won’t take too many more inches before Jay’s Seafood’s patio is flooded during King Tides. That will be unfortunate.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Damn I hate typos, “Kind Tides”, there ain’t nothing kind about “King Tides”.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016A Slow Motion Atlantis.
Now there’s a book title.
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Andy_in_SD
/ October 19, 2016I just clicked the “Like” button that isn’t there…..
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Tom
/ October 19, 2016[Off topic, but . . .]
Kansas Town Decimated by Tornado Now Runs on 100% Renewable Energy, Should Be Model for Frack-Happy State
http://www.ecowatch.com/greensburg-kansas-renewable-energy-2051037395.html
A little more than nine years ago, an EF-5 tornado ripped through Greensburg, Kansas. The massive, May 4, 2007 twister leveled the small town, and half of the town’s population of 1,500 residents escaped and never came back.
But from the rubble, opportunity emerged. Greensburg is now one of the greenest towns in the U.S. and serves as an actual role model for renewable energy and sustainable development. Greensburg could also teach its frack-happy, earthquake-riddled home state a lesson or two about better energy choices. [more]
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robertscribbler
/ October 19, 2016Thanks for this, Tom.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Me too Tom good catch.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Something to cleanse the pallet ………………… Chuck Berry turned 90 yesterday .
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marcel_g
/ October 19, 2016Thanks for all the updates RS!
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Art and science are the two twins that give us hope, Art came first. By At least 59,000 years.
Art unleashed the fire in our hearts. It never went out , then science caught fire , just 4,000 years ago.
Art and science have never let grim times stop us .
I can’t believe I’m writing this .
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016LikeLike
coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016LikeLike
coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Sorry this come next –
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=off&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=913&bih=404&q=altermia+spain+cave+paintings&oq=altermia+spain+cave+paintings&gs_l=img.12…1815.36579.0.40400.31.9.0.22.0.0.293.1414.0j8j1.9.0….0…1ac.1.64.img..0.7.970…0j0i10k1j0i10i24k1.RxX4k8WA_C8#imgrc=p0kROTkt-ud0uM%3A
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Sorry this come next –
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bostonblorp
/ October 19, 2016I was in Ft. Lauderdale a couple months ago. They would close a section of beach so that giant payloaders could come along and re-shape the beach with sand dredged up from out to sea. These giants machines would be belching carbon in a real display of hubris and irony. Once finished with one section they would move on down the beach. They call this “beach renourishment” instead of “Sisyphean idiocy.”
Meanwhile cranes were building the next high-rise.. you guessed it.. just 30′ from the ocean.
Are developers totally oblivious to climate change and sea-level rise? Or do they just figure they will sell all their condos within a few years at GTFO? Either way it was totally disheartening.
The lower half of Florida has almost zero elevation. They will need to re-make the map of the US in decades to come because it will not look the same.
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016Andrea Dutton, a University of Florida climate scientist, beside an ancient coral reef in the Florida Keys, evidence that the sea level was once far higher than today. Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times
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bostonblorp
/ October 21, 2016Beautiful and tragic. I bet it took millennia for the water to come and then the reef to form. Meanwhile we are intent on flooding FL within our lifetimes.
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Stephen
/ October 20, 2016The developers don’t care as long as people are willing to buy similar to heroin dealers. The other side of it is finance. The bankers give out mortgages to people who want to buy. Then they bundle the mortgages into mortgage backed securities and sell them to investors. The big crack in it all happens when some people start to default on their mortgages and the smart investors sell off their MBS (home mortgage defaults mean the MBS aren’t making a positive cash flow for the investors). Then there is a rush to the door of investors selling their MBS while homeowners continue to either default or are stuck with a home that is worth less or worse, worthless.
Big finance meets climate change.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Al of this is ib a cave in Spain –
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016We are not what Mr.Trump thinks we are.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Cave of Altamira
Some less famous paintings in the cave are at least 35,600 years old.[1]
Altamira was the second cave[2] in which prehistoric cave paintings were discovered. When the discovery was first made public in 1880, it led to a bitter public controversy between experts which continued into the early 20th century, since many did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression. The acknowledgment of the authenticity of the paintings, which finally came in 1902, changed the perception of prehistoric human beings.
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mlparrish
/ October 20, 2016A nice example of comparative intelligence.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016My point in all this , we are not the beasts we think we are, we are in fact clever artists/
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016The clever artists, made the first cuts in mud. to keep the king’s tally of grain. Today we call it writing..
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Cate
/ October 19, 2016Long long before the internet came along and ruined various astronomical and atmospherical pursuits, I lived out of the Old Farmer’s Almanac which appeared in my stocking every Christmas.
So the name “King” tides puzzled me until I realised it’s just a moniker for spring tides, which confuses the internet generation because it has nothing to do with the season.
Btw (RS knows this, I know)—- the complement of spring tides are neap tides. The internet hasn’t noticed them yet. And probably won’t
😉
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robertscribbler
/ October 20, 2016It’s probably fair to say that the term King Tide is still evolving. The term appears to have originated in the southwest Pacific and Indian Oceans when freak and unpredictable high tides began to occur in the mid 2000s. However, the term in the US has come to be used during times of seasonal astronomical high tides — which due to sea level rise have generated these big floods all up and down the US East Coast. The term could use some more refining. My particular issue with its use currently is that King Tide is basically being used (intentionally or unintentionally) in a way that obsfucates what’s going on. In effect, what we’re seeing is sea level rise’s first impacts — flooding at times of astronomical/seasonal high tides, flooding that will start to occur at times of normal high tide in just 1-3 decades depending on how rapidly glacial melt ramps up.
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Greg Simpson
/ October 20, 2016“So the name “King” tides puzzled me until I realised it’s just a moniker for spring tides”
Not really. King tides are the highest spring tides, more formally know as perigean spring tides. That’s a mouthful, though.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016I preach a lot of doom, but as I think about it , we have no idea what;s coming from those cave painters 13,000 years ago.
And they are lose in our world.
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Steve Jobs was a homeless baby , what if he fell into hands of meth heads?
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PlazaRed
/ October 20, 2016Try these ones from France, I have been to see both these and the ones in Spain and they are beyond description when you stand in from of them.
Lacroix cave paintings France.
https://www.google.es/search?q=Lacroix+cave+paintings+France&client=firefox-b-ab&biw=1296&bih=671&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiP4oW-j-rPAhUGD8AKHWt4DoAQ_AUIBigB
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coloradobob
/ October 19, 2016Hell Comes to Breakfast.
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coloradobob
/ October 20, 2016What a world, what a place, what a fate,
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June
/ October 20, 2016I think someone might have mentioned the Arctic Circle Assembly conference held earlier this month in Reykjavik. Stefan Rahmstorf has a nice post at Real Climate giving an overview of the issues discussed.
Q & A about the Gulf Stream System slowdown and the Atlantic ‘cold blob’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/10/q-a-about-the-gulf-stream-system-slowdown-and-the-atlantic-cold-blob/#comments
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robertscribbler
/ October 20, 2016Thanks for this, June.
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dtlange
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
dtlange
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
June
/ October 20, 2016Piteraq
That which attacks them
…Such storms are caused when cold, high-density air from the ice sheet is streams down to the coast. Typically, this happens in the autumn, when a low-pressure system moving up the eastern coast sucks air off the icecap. As the winds move to lower elevations, they pick up speed, sometimes being squeezed into long fjords that amplify the effect. By the time the winds reach the coast, they have often reached hurricane strength.
http://arcticjournal.com/culture/2629/which-attacks-them
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wili
/ October 20, 2016So when will realestate values in some of these areas start to collapse?
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entropicman
/ October 20, 2016For 60 years my parents have lived in the East Anglia Fens .in a few years I will be selling their house. Please keep quiet about the inundation risk until then. 🙂
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robertscribbler
/ October 20, 2016It’s a good point. Florida provides some basis for what may happen. In the past, periods when multiple hurricane strikes impacted the state, inusurers pulled out and real estate values collapsed. There’s a base level of damage/risk that seems to make the insurers run. But with sea level rise, it’s almost certain that they won’t return once they pull up stakes due to the scaling nature of the problem.
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wili
/ October 20, 2016” But with sea level rise, it’s almost certain that they won’t return once they pull up stakes due to the scaling nature of the problem.” Important point! Anyone buying low lying property in these coastal areas is basically betting that the panic won’t start till after s/he has successfully onloaded it, and that s/he will be able to find a ‘greater fool’ who is willing to take an even bigger risk than they did on timing getting out before the eventual and inevitable (as far as I can see) panic.
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Kevin Jones
/ October 20, 2016Inusurers. I like it!
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
Vic
/ October 20, 2016As of today all Teslas coming off the production line will be capable of full level 5 autonomy.
The self driving car is here.
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016Tesla put a supercomputer in these cars now that operates at 12 trillion operations/second.
We went to the moon and adjusted calculations with a slide rule. The car “sees” the world in a different way than we do. Perhaps if we could see the world in radar, see it in timelapse, see it in microwaves, see it in infrared we too would navigate the future smartly
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Dredd
/ October 20, 2016“King tides” in the N. Indian Ocean do not seem to be as well understood (Questionable “Scientific” Papers – 11).
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Ridley Jack
/ October 20, 2016Mr Scribble Thank you so much for article didn’t realize you were going to post it so soon, starting this year until to 2030 how much sea level rise do you expect to see on the florida coastline?
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robertscribbler
/ October 20, 20166-12 inches through 2030 as most likely scenario depending on location, rate of Gulf Stream slowdown, and rate of glacial melt in Antarctica (and, unfortunately, there are some low but concerning outside risks for more over this time-frame). Due to the variable nature of coastal terrain, currents, and local subsidence in FL, different locations could see widely varied impacts. But since so much of South Florida is already seeing flooding even SLR over the next 14 years is going to present problems. The 2030 to 2060 timeframe looks quite a bit worse.
The following report provides a good basis expectation for South Florida: http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Compact-Unified-Sea-Level-Rise-Projection.pdf
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smallbluemike
/ October 20, 2016http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/slct.201601169/full
is this for real? any thoughts on nanotechnology capture of CO2 and conversion to ethanol fuel? Seems to good to be true, there must be issues with scaling up, etc.
A carbon neutral fuel for ICE engines would be a good thing, but I think the ICE engines are giving way to electric propulsion, so this would appear to be more useful for creating electricity for all the things that we plug in and use, including cars.
Mike
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016Combustion of liquid fuels is just so inefficient comparatively, never mind the pollution. This seems like another technology to extend liquid fuels and to support carbon capture from fossil fuel extraction. The breakthrough will come in efficient capture of diffuse CO2 from the air and its containment into useful building materials such as concrete.
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Abel Adamski
/ October 20, 2016Lets see how it pans out.
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20161010-driving-the-saltwater-sports-car
Top Gear’s Ollie Kew tries out the ‘world-saving’ NanoFlowcell Quantino.
So when a startup called NanoFlowcell arrived in Geneva back in 2014, pulling the wraps off a battery electric grand touring car called the Quant e-SportLimousine, the world was intrigued, if unsurprised. But beyond its dramatic looks and outlandish performance claims (zero to 62mph in 2.6 seconds, a 236mph top speed) this design study made a genuinely audacious promise: It could run on saltwater
This has an economic chance as it still has to be refilled at fuel stations, keeping all those station operators at least partially on side
.
.
.
[The liquid fuel] is safe – not volatile like petrol – so it’s easy to store and transport around. The bi-Ion doesn’t have a shelf-life either, unlike petrol. And that’s before you get to putting it into the car, which you do via a twin-nozzle pump. Just like filling your car with petrol or diesel, it’s a five-minute pit-stop with no cable adaptor or charging bay anxiety.
On the Quantino’s future
NanoFlowcell is adamant they are a tech company, not a carmaker. And the Quantino, and its 920bhp super-limo sister, the Quant e-Sportlimousine, are merely demonstrators of the tech. Both have been road legalised, but will never be sold. Instead, la Vecchia tells us that the company is in talks with a major automaker to sell its propulsion concept on in 2017.
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
Greg
/ October 20, 2016LikeLike
George W. Hayduke
/ October 20, 2016Very disappointed but not surprised…
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/10/20/feds-only-those-committed-destroying-planet-can-bid-fossil-fuel-leases
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12volt dan
/ October 20, 2016I admit I’m intrigued by this and while I don’t understand the working of this co2 capture appears more likely with an overshoot of emission targets. this would be a carbon neutral approach to burning fuels but if I read the conclusion correctly then its not economically feasible yet.
“We report an electrocatalyst which operates at room temperature and in water for the electroreduction of dissolved CO2 with high selectivity for ethanol. The overpotential (which might be lowered with the proper electrolyte, and by separating the hydrogen production to another catalyst) probably precludes economic viability for this catalyst ”
However it seems to my layman eyes that there is a new field of electrostatic conversion opening up
But what do I know
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12volt dan
/ October 20, 2016that was in reply to SB Mike
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016The debate last night was a train wreck. Trump 0, world 1. Climate 1
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016Delete Robert if this gif drives everyone nuts.
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dtlange
/ October 20, 2016Forget it…
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robertscribbler
/ October 21, 2016DT — a while ago you posted a dramatic image of an overshooting cloud top. You still have it?
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Greg
/ October 20, 2016The latest from Peter Sinclair.”I write and report on climate change, not a pursuit that usually encourages optimism, but watching all this unfold with the atmosphere in mind has been particularly bleak. For the past few months in particular, I’ve been thinking: Wow, this is all happening way earlier than I thought it would….I just assumed it wouldn’t pop up until 2040.”
https://climatecrocks.com/2016/10/20/the-first-election-of-the-anthropocene/#more-39404
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June
/ October 20, 2016Bill McKibbon has it exactly right, as usual, expressing so well how most of us feel about voting for Clinton.
The Climate Movement Has to Elect Hillary Clinton—and Then Give Her Hell
The good news is that when Clinton wins, none of us will be under the slightest illusion about who she is…The honeymoon won’t last 10 minutes; on November 9 we’ll be organizing for science and human rights and against the timid incrementalism that marks her approach. It’s clear that we need to beat the creepy perv she’s running against. It’s also clear that we then need to press harder than ever for real progress on the biggest crisis the world has ever faced.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-climate-movement-has-to-elect-hillary-clinton-and-then-give-her-hell/
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Kevin Jones
/ October 20, 2016Not to appear rude, dear June, but there’s no ‘o’ in McKibben. (only point this out because many of his detractors like to spell it that way)
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June
/ October 20, 2016Oops…fingers were jumpy! Thanks for pointing it out Kevin.
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umbrios27
/ October 21, 2016Off topic question: what Kibbon means in English for detractors to spell it that way? Here in Brasil Kibon means ice-cream (not a word much used now, but it was in the 80’s, after the most famous ice-cream factory here).
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robertscribbler
/ October 21, 2016Now, ain’t that the truth.
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Christina MacPherson
/ October 20, 2016Reblogged this on nuclear-news.
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Abel Adamski
/ October 20, 2016Slightly OT but along with so many other recent discoveries, the answer to so many health and life issues lies in the natural environment we have been destroying.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/devils-milk-could-be-the-killer-ingredient-in-war-on-superbugs-20161014-gs29l5.html
Devil’s milk has proved to be an unlikely weapon in the increasingly desperate global fight against superbugs. Australian researchers have discovered that peptides contained in the milk of Tasmanian devils can kill some of the most deadly bacterial and fungal infections, including golden staph.
Having scanned the devil’s genome and discovered the six naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides, researchers from Sydney University set about replicating them artificially. They then tested the peptide’s effectiveness at killing some of the most harmful bacteria known to humans.
“We showed that these devil peptides kill multi-drug resistant bacteria, which is really cool,” she said.
Among the drug resistant bacteria the devil peptides killed was golden staph, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. A potentially fatal bacterium carried by about 30 per cent of people in their nose or on their skin, it is mostly harmless. However if it gets into the bloodstream via a wound, it can be deadly.
The other problematic human pathogen tested was the bacteria enterococcus, which is resistant to the mighty vancomycin antibiotic.
“Vancomycin is a pretty potent antibiotic and if a bug is resistant to that, then there aren’t a lot of drug options available to you,” Ms Peel said.
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mulga mumblebrain
/ October 20, 2016Meanwhile the amount of antibiotics being used, needlessly, in animal husbandry has hit new heights, despite decades of warning about the consequences in creating drug resistant bacteria.
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Abel Adamski
/ October 20, 2016http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-11/could-mangosteen-ease-the-symptoms-of-schizophrenia/7921006
Used by the Asian people for thousands of years to reduce senility and improve mental acuity in the older generation, works well with Cherry juice/extract etc.
It is the skin and rind that has the value and westerners eat the pulp and discard the rind/skin.
How many other plants have become extinct that could have been of massive value, I always wondered if the “flood” had not wiped out particular plants commonly used in food that enabled the ridiculously long lives recorded pre flood and if those plants still survived , but now for how long
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seal in the Selkirks
/ October 20, 2016June, the trouble with that thought is just exactly how is anybody going to ‘hold her feet to the fire’ when she is owned lock stock & barrel by the wealthy who own Wall St. along with having large bags of money thrown at her by the FF interests. There is only one group that she listens to and we all know it. No illusions.
The US version of Margaret Thatcher is what we’re about to experience I’m afraid.
What the Clinton’s did to the US & world in the 90s was truly despicable. Does anyone really think she’s going to implement any of those cute Bernie ideas she dismissed just a few months ago?
Damned if we do and damned if we don’t is a reality none of us want to contemplate. And the one party system gives us a choice of her good buddy Trump where she & Bill sat in the front row as guests of honor at his last wedding? Love the picture of that I saw…
A REALLY big sigh here. We got Nixon out and this is where we end up 40 years later.
In Hillary’s own words last year:
‘Get A Life’: Clinton Bashed Anti-Fracking Activists During Private Labor Meeting
originally at: https://shadowproof.com/
http://commondreams.org/views/2016/10/17/get-life-clinton-bashed-anti-fracking-activists-during-private-labor-meeting
At a private meeting with the Building Trades Council, Hillary Clinton bashed environmentalists who oppose natural gas fracking and insist the United States must keep all fossil fuels in the ground. She said these environmentalists need to “get a life.”
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robertscribbler
/ October 20, 2016I think this is a bit overblown. We’ll definitely face some challenges, though. Her cabinet prospects are looking pretty decent and she brings in a wave of environmentalist support (if luke-warm). This generates a precedent. Further, she’s pushing to improve on Obama’s polices and making climate a big part of her agenda. Past pro-fracking stances are a concern. But I think the way you’ve defined this is a bit outside of the current context.
I agree with McKibben above. We need to elect Clinton and then give her hell. She isn’t the best choice by far. But she’s the only electable choice that we can work with.
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Exposing the Big Game
/ October 22, 2016Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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plenum222
/ October 23, 2016Hi Robert – You wrote, and meriting a probably correction, “Much of the southeast is subsiding due to crustal rebound following the last ice age which compounds any overall ocean rise.” – – – I thought that the “rebound” meant that there is (normally) a gradual rise in elevation, not subsidence. For example, it is expected, so I’ve read, that the seabed of the Hudson Bay has been rising and will continue rise over the next few thousand years (or, “rebound”) after being pressed downwards due to the massive weight of the glaciers during the last glaciation. It’s my understanding that the subsidence in the southeast, particularly Florida, is more so due to lowered water table, as is occurring in California’s Central Valley.
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robertscribbler
/ October 23, 2016Imagine a see-saw in which the huge Laurentide ice sheet pushed down the Canada Greenland side of the North American plate during the last ice age. The southeast US side of the plate, which is on the other end, was pushed up. When the Laurentide sheet melted, the opposite occurred and the southeast US side of the see-saw has been subsiding ever since.
The rate of subsidence is relatively slow — in the range of inches per century. However, when combined with human caused sea level rise due to climate change, it creates a compounding factor where net levels of ocean rise along the US East Coast are faster than the global average. To be very clear, the primary driver is due to human caused thermal expansion of the oceans, melting glaciers, and climate change induced current change.
It’s likely that climate change deniers will try to confuse the public by falsely claiming that subsidence is the only cause of East Coast sea level rise. If/when they do this, they will be wrong yet again. Climate change is in the driver’s seat for sea level rise everywhere. But due in part to geology, the US East and Gulf Coasts will see first and worst impacts for this country.
Out west, the first impacts will be droughts and loss of water security. In the East, it’s sea level rise, extreme precip events, and related worsening Atlantic storms.
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plenum222
/ October 24, 2016Interesting! Thanks for the explanation, and the see-saw metaphor works for me!
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