Well, this is a new Talking Point, which builds on the whole “climate change is here, now! Yearrrrrrrggggg (Howard Dean style scream)”
RISING WATERS
Forget about climate change. The real story is climate speed.
A two-hour cloudburst drenched Charleston on Wednesday, turning downtown streets into swirling rivers. Nearly 5 inches fell over the city’s hospitals, turning the medical district into an island. Five inches fell on Johns Island, turning parking lots into lakes. It was a mess. And it’s not normal.
Set aside the notion of climate change. The climate has always changed. The real story is about speed. The pace of change. From rain bombs to higher sea levels, the impacts are coming faster. This is as real as Wednesday’s storm. And the one four weeks ago. And so many others in the past five years.
In the coming months, The Post and Courier will explore these accelerating forces and their many ripple effects. We’ll explore the underlying science and responses by our elected leaders. We’ll look at the winners and losers. We’ll examine potential course corrections.
And we’ll do this in real time, as the king tides rise, the hurricanes gain strength, amid the thunder and lightning. Why? Because a breaking news story only skims the surface of what’s really happening. Deeper currents can remain hidden amid the immediate need to stay dry or move your belongings to higher ground.
In other words, they’ll assign witchcraft, er, anthropogenic causation, to ever storm and tide. Especially in Charleston, where the Post and Courier is located, which is only a few inches above sea level, but is now flooding more than ever. Couldn’t have anything to do with all that construction, could it?
And given what scientists have learned in recent years, big changes are happening now: Seas are rising faster than they did a few decades ago.
And the pace is picking up.
Scientists have good data on this. They’ve been measuring the sea level in Charleston Harbor continuously since 1921. Since then, the sea level here rose about 1 foot.
Part of this has nothing to do with saltwater. When the last ice age ended 20,000 years ago, sheets of ice melted in what today is New England. Freed from the weight, land there moved upward while land to the south, including South Carolina, sank like the lower end of a seesaw.
Known as subsidence, this sinking has happened at a relatively slow rate — about 5 inches during the past century. This gives marsh-building sea grasses time to trap sediment and rise with the water, as long as the pace isn’t so quick.
Hmm, subsidence. They do do something you almost never see: attempt to offer data
From 1990 to 2000, the sea level rose 1.4 inches.
From 2000 to 2010, it added an additional 2 inches.
From 2010 to now: 2.7 inches more.
But, where’s the data from before 1990? Because there are peaks and valleys. And it is still below the rate one would expect during a Holocene warm period.
The sea level data from NOAA actually doesn’t show any real acceleration.
Follow this curve into the future, and you see a growing threat — a sea level that rises an additional 3.2 inches by 2030.
Then 4.1 inches between 2030 and 2040
And 5.3 inches between 2040 and 2050.
And now we’re into prognostication. But, climate speeding, people! Will it catch on?
Until AGW can prove they are not paid lackeys for CHINA to falsify information. I do not trust or believe a GAWD DAYUM thing they say.
China has infiltrated every college and university in the west, buying their loyalty.
The Chancellor of HARVARD goes to CHINA every year and praises China and kisses their fuking flag for all the MONEY CHINA is feeding them.
Harvard professors are now in jail for treason.
Professors all over our country are being arrested. The China 1000 talents program has been taken down.
CHINA cant see the stars and havent been able to for 30 years because of their pollution and co2 usage.
They certainly have every reason to make the west destroy their own economies.
FUNNY how co2 suddenly started rising when two things happened simultaneously.
The burning of the RAIN FOREST and the industrialization of CHINA into a raging economic superpower.
But Heres and idea….Lets destroy Americas economy instead of pointing a finger at the criminals. CHINA.
WUHAN FLU. WUHAN FLU. WUHAN FLU.
FUK YOU KAMALA HARRIS. HOW MUCH CHINA DIK DID YOU SUCK THIS WEEK????
Well, Klem with the rate of exchange between America and China being what it is if Kamala sucked a million it would equal 2.2 Americans. And that’s including the centimetres to inches conversion. But she goes for quantity not quality.
Until Klem can prove that he is not paid by an anti-US government extremist organization no one should believe a word he capitalizes!
And isn’t it Ivanka Trump Kushner who sucks a lot of Chinese dong? Where’s she supposed to get some these days now that daddy is impotent, hubby prefers “others” and Justin Trudeau turned her down? How else does she get all those trademarks approved in the world’s largest market? She’s not taking advantage of her daddy’s position, is she?
Ahh 50 center defending the honor of a suspected communist agent. Gotta stick together huh 50 center? You always know when you strike home. The chinese goons show up and bash you with racism and threaten you.
WUHAN FLU, WUHAN FLU, WUHAN FLU!!!!!
Shed those china tears Kamala. China is proud of you today.
Klem,
Did someone threaten you??? That’s outrageous.
Can you prove you’re not on Wing-Nut Welfare, paid by some right-wing group to say stupid stuff on the internet?
FUNNY how co2 suddenly started rising when two things happened simultaneously.
The burning of the RAIN FOREST and the industrialization of CHINA into a raging economic superpower.
Certainly neither of these developments helped. CO2 has been increasing since the 1800s. The SA rain forest clearing increased dramatically in the 90s, so there’s about 80% of the pre-1970 Brazilian forest remaining. Chinese CO2 emissions started to rise in the 90s and shot up in the 2000s surpassing the US emissions around 2006. But don’t you agree that Brazil and its people have the right to burn the rain forests? And China has the right to ramp up its economy to enrich its people, right?
And still scientists have calculated that termites alone produce ten times as much carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in the whole world in a year.
Lolgf
Ahh 50 center. I have two words for you.
WUHAN FLU, WUHAN FLU. WUHAN FLU. WUHAN FLU.
All those Chinese people being beaten, robbed of their dignity, forced to starve to death in their homes, lied to, threatened, made to disappear. Yeah all those Chinese people will be sad to listen to you and Kamala Harris as they PRETEND TO DEFEND THEIR HONOR>
I know for a fact that the CHINESE PEOPLE ARE HORRIFIED AND TERRIFIED FOR THEIR LIVES THAT THE WUHAN FLU STARTED IN CHINA and that all Americans BLAME the little mom and pop workers as they struggle each week to feed themselves.
Yeah, were all going to load up our guns and go shoot us some poor starving, abused, beaten and repressed CHINAMEN because our politicians and big businesses turned their heads to the brutal savagery going on in CHINA.
Then DIPSHIT KAMALA HARRIS comes out with this astoundingly stupid resolution in defense of CHINA.
YOU MORONS. There is only one thing that is true about the Democrats. THEY ARE COMMUNIST STOOGES PAID FOR MY CHINA. That definitely includes the Colleges and half the professors all the way into NOAA, NASA and every other AGW agency in the world.
YEAH I REALLY BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU AND YOUR OPERATIVES WRITE 50 Center. KAMALA HARRIS and PELOUSY who lives right next to CHINA TOWN must be frantic that here multimillion dollar empire might come tumbling down if anyone were to actually turn the cover on her page and look at the sewage underneath.
DONT you LECTURE ME shouts PELOUSY. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL…..DRUNK ON POWER, power given to her by CHINA and the CONSTITUTION and a bunch of clueless Democrats who are giving America to Communism. One brick at a time.
50 center. Don’t you agree that the USA and the west has the right to ramp up its economy to enrich its people, right?
So as I suspected you defend China while bashing the west. Its all the wests fault as Brazil burns its rain forest. The lungs of the earth. YOu defend China who is polluting not just CHINA but the world.
Yet its all America’s fault.
Its the wests fault. China and Brazil are to be defended.
The USA and the WEST must be turned to communists to take away their fossil fuels and their power and turned into a third world nation at CHINAS ORDERS.
How much for that post 50 center. It’s one of the stupidest ones you’ve ever posted.
Termites didn’t suddenly appear on Earth a century ago.
What is the source of termite CO2? Coal, oil, gas that has trapped CO2 underground for millions of years… or trees which had trapped CO2 in wood for tens of years? Trees convert CO2 into complex carbohydrates including cellulose. For every molecule of CO2 released by the breakdown (by termites, fungi, fire or bacteria) of wood a molecule of CO2 was recently extracted from the atmosphere. It’s part of the carbon cycle that normally keeps CO2 levels relatively constant. Balance.
Fossil fuel burning releases CO2 trapped for millions of years as hydrocarbons and is causing the current rapid increase in atmospheric CO2. Out of balance.
What would happen if we sprayed the Earth with a potent termiticide? Would CO2 levels drop? Probably, but a century of piled up dead trees could be a fire hazard. And would kill a quadrillion of other insects.
The reasoning of a middle school mean girl.
Lolgfy
Tee-hee, I think we triggered Elwood again. Time for a “safe space”?
and has anyone measured land subsidence