Short message from Kip Hansen – April 30, 2021
Dr. Judith Curry tweeted this article on The Conversation: “This supermoon has a twist – expect flooding, but a lunar cycle masks the effects of sea level rise”. The piece was written by Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami, and written in conjunction with Covering Climate Now – the climate news propaganda effort directed by Columbia Journalism Review and The Guardian. The Conversation is a member of Covering Climate Now and a search on their website shows that they have published all of them so far 86 Article in collaboration with this organization.
McNoldy does a good job explaining what the lunar nodal cycle is and how it affects the apparent local relative sea level rise. McNoldy claims:
“At the moment we are in the phase of an 18.6-year lunar cycle that is reducing the moon’s influence on the oceans. The result may make it seem that the risk of flooding on the coast has decreased, and this may make the sea level rise less noticeable. “
“Global sea levels are still rising as the planet warms, and this 18.6 year cycle will soon be working against us.”
“Once we hit the bottom of the cycle around 2025 and begin the upward phase, the lunar nodal cycle will begin to add more and more to the perceived rate of sea level rise. Over those years, the rate of sea level rise has effectively doubled in places like Miami. ” [source ]
All of that is absolutely true and McNoldy gives us some nice graphics (also available on the wiki) and the de riguer photo of Miamis under normal flood crossing floods at Spring or King Tide.
The problem with the article is that it does not indicate that the lunar modal cycle contribution is plus or minus one inch. The data is “hidden” here in his otherwise deceptive diagram:
Why do I call this graphic “deceptive”? I’m doing this because for Miami Florida it shows a 5 inch rise in sea level from 1996 to today, which is a bit high – the actual data shows maybe 4 inches. But McNoldy gives the trend as 5.84mm / year.
Let’s see what NOAA says for tide station 8723214 Virginia Key, Florida (the official station for Miami, FL):
McNoldy’s annual trend is given at twice the NOAA rate of 2.97 mm / year for Miami. McNoldy references a 2018 study by Steven Nerem and his team, “Sea Levels Always Accelerate” at the University of Colorado Boulder.
And yet:
According to NASA, the current satellite-measured sea level rise is around 3.3 mm / year, with a centuries-long trend of “almost” 1.78 mm / year. There have been several attempts to have the data for the past 25 years suggest a dangerous acceleration – but anyone with an eye can see that this is simply not the case. Note that the 1993 start date for the graph above is determined by the start of the satellite sea level dataset. To go back a century, tide measurement data must be used, and patching the satellite record to the tide measurement data set results in an invalid time series (apples and oranges).
McNoldy confuses speculative measures of future single-lens reflex cameras with the actual relative sea levels measured on-site at a specific location and at a specific location Try to scare people with the supermoon and the lunar modal cycle (a full inch, currently down and up in another five years).
And that, to make harmless information scary, is the whole purpose of the Now cover the climate Propaganda machine.
Bottom line:
Flooding occurs in Miami, Florida because much of Miami Beach (especially) is only a foot or two from normal high tides and some parts are below normal high tides. Of course, at these predicted higher tides, Miami will experience tidal surges again. For Miami’s true story about sea level, see my previous essay: Miami’s Vice.
# # # # #
Author’s comment:
I’ve written a lot about sea levels and sea level rise here at WUWT. This link takes you to a search result list of my essays on sea level. This link covers all of the WUWT sea level rise essays.
Much nonsense has been published in the mass media about dangerous sea level rise – and it is mostly – not scientific.
We are happy to answer your questions and send them to “Kip …” so that I can see them.
Thank you for reading.
# # # # #
4.7
3rd
voices
Item rating
Like this:
Loading…
Comments are closed.