Since the House spurned a Senate proposal to put strict controls on the science of predicting how fast the seas will rise along North Carolina's coast, legislators have been working on a compromise. They are preparing next week to consider a gentler but more complicated approach toward the same goal: slow down that scary forecast.
The state Coastal Resources Commission would be required to wait four years, until July 2016, before it authorizes any sea-level forecast to be used as the basis for coastal regulations, according to legislation worked out this week by a House-Senate conference committee. Scientists would be required to consider a sweeping range of views -- including predictions that the sea level will fall -- as they develop new forecasts.
It was the Coastal Resources Commission that asked a panel of scientists for a prediction that caused alarm among coastal economic development interests. In 2010, the panel urged North Carolina to prepared for a 39-inch rise in the sea level by 2100. (See CRC information page on sea-level rise.) Senate leaders and a coastal group called NC-20 favor a more conservative forecast -- 8 inches -- which is a straight-line projection of the slow rise that has been charted over the past half century.
The 39-inch forecast was built around a prediction that the annual rate of sea-level rise would curve upward toward the middle of this century, rising at a more rapid rate than in the past. The Senate proposed to outlaw any forecast that included this acceleration, insisting that growth projections must be based only on historic trends.
The CRC would ask its panel for a forecast update in 2015, and submit it to public comment for a year. The CRC panel scientists would not be barred from predicting an accelerated growth rate, but they would be required to consider a broad range of views:
The Commission shall direct the Science Panel to include in its five-year updated assessment a comprehensive review and summary of peer-reviewed scientific literature that address the full range of global, regional, and North Carolina-specific sea-level change data and hypotheses, including sea-level fall, no movement in sea level, deceleration of sea-level rise, and acceleration of sea-level rise. When summarizing research dealing with sea level, the Commission and the Science Panel shall define the assumptions and limitations of predictive modeling used to predict future sea-level scenarios. … Prior to and upon receipt of this report, the Commission shall study the economic and environmental costs and benefits to the North Carolina coastal region of developing, or not developing, sea-level regulations and policies. The Commission shall also compare the determination of sea level based on historical calculations versus predictive models.
The Senate was ridiculed by critics foreign and domestic -- including British commentators and American TV satirist Stephen Colbert -- for its attempt to quash a science panel's 39-inch prediction. The language was part of the Senate's complete rewrite of more limited coastal legislation that had been passed by the House last year. The House bill sponsor was Rep. Pat McElraft, a Carteret County Republican, who persuaded the House to reject the Senate rewrite. McElraft said she expects the conferees' proposed substitute to be taken up by the House and Senate Monday or Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that the sea level is rising faster along the northern Atlantic Seaboard, from Cape Hatteras to Boston, than elsewhere in the world (see 6/25/12 story).
Bruce Siceloff reports on traffic and transportation. A News & Observer reporter, editor and blogger since 1976, he took over the
Comments
Sea Level Used to be Much Higher Than Today
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 10:32 — jepthasThe sea level in NC has risen at least 200 feet since the early inhabitants lived here. It happened about 4,500 years ago. And the sea level used to be about 200 feet higher than it is now. So why not expect that, until the next ice age, the sea level will continue to rise? After all, the globe has been warming since the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. And the warming continues. So what?
Opinion or Fact?
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 09:41 — RockyRoadDave that's your opinion. I am free to accept or not, also to challenge and if possible refute it via the scientific method.
The legislature is essentially repealing science and scientific method by picking and choosing the findings and conclusions they support.
Sure, if you think the earth is flat you are more than welcome to believe it. Also, you are free to voice your support. However, you cannot tell me to ignore the other 99% of scientists, or even 1%.
All the facts and findings must go on the table. That's how knowledge and science moves FORWARD not regress BACKWARD.
To be frank, I think your opinion that the ocean level rate of rise is getting lower is bunk. But, you are entitled to that opinion and I certainly don't have the right to outlaw your opinion, scientific or not.
about that bogus consensus claim...
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 15:44 — dave36It's funny, RockyRoad, that you should bring up the Climate Movement activists' frequent claim that the vast majority of experts agree with predictions of wildly accelerated sea level rise and other scary climate changes. (You said "99% of scientists," but "97%" is the number they usually use.)
Well, guess what? They're just plain lying, like they lie about what the NC Senate said.
The truth is that the Senate's bill would have required that real scientific data be the basis for regulatory policy. The Left opposes sound science, but they won't say so right out loud. Instead, they just lie. They turned the truth on its head, and claimed, with Orwellian dishonesty, that the bill was "anti-science."
Likewise, the truth is that the scientific community is deeply divided about climate change. The Climate Movement activists' predictions of dangerous, anthropogenically-triggered temperature and sea-level increases are not only unsupported by the available evidence, they are widely disputed in the broader scientific community. But that doesn't keep the Climate Movement activists from lying about it: they very frequently claim that a scientific consensus supports their positions.
It's not true. Google for "I bought the Zimmerman report to find out" (including the quote marks!) and you'll learn about the blatant fraud behind the oft-repeated claim that "97%" of experts agree with the alarmists. I think you'll be shocked.
Imagine an election for which there are 10,257 registered voters, in which 30.67% (3146) bothered to vote. Now imagine that the Board of Elections discarded 3067 of those 3146 votes, and counted just the remaining 79. Would you say that was an honest election?
Well, believe it or not, the "study" that the Climate Movement alarmists use to support their claim of "97%" agreement was even more fraudulent than that.
But if you know your scripture, you shouldn't be shocked. It's what they do. Read Luke 16:10.
Some sites on ocean level
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 12:41 — CrashjHere is some discussion with links to the science.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/29/cooling-that-east-coast-sea-level-hotspot/
Latest proposal
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 08:56 — CrashjThis is an appropriate response. There is no way the level of the sea can be radically different in one stretch of the East coast. Recent reports make it clear that the effect is due to the rebound of the land from the removal of the mass of glaciers around the Great Lakes. The East coast is sinking, not due to global warming, but a natural effect of the last ice age.
"It is a bigger picture than you see"
The legislature supports science over ideology...
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 08:44 — dave36...but the Senate version was better.
The Senate version would have required that sea level forcasts used for regulatory puposes be based on actual scientific measurements, rather than ideologues' hand-waving, but Climate Movement activists don't believe in sound science. It is a shame that they've succeeded in killing that requirement.
This version is better than nothing, in that it requires a broad range of views to be considered. But it has one huge problem: it does not requare any balance on the Panel which is to consider those views.
The CRC "Science Panel" is ill-equiped to handle this issue. It is stacked with Democrat ideologues. No Republicans at all were involved in writing or reviewing their infamous botched 2010 sea level Report. Instead, the Panel brought in six "invited contributors" to assist. Predictably, all six are Democrats.
Is it any wonder that the product of such a Panel looks like it could have been written by Al Gore (who infamously claimed that magma in the earth is "several million degrees" hot)?
4004 BC
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 06:50 — qvorawWe see the 'intellectuals' on Jones street can draw straight lines. Good for them. Had they stayed in school beyond their primary education, they would have discovered algebra, geometry, and perhaps that the world isn't given just to developers with a penchant for building where we taxpayers shouldn't have to cover the cost of their perpetual rebuilds. Like the ever-moving seashore. Or areas where sea level changes due to climate change may not follow the Jones' boys and girls simple x+8=y curves. They clearly never made it to more complex math such as exponential growth, let alone differential equations. Exponential growth, as in paving all the lowlands for quick profits with structures that should never have been approved -- but were because CAMA and CRC recommendations get in the way of developers and their re-election money. Exponential growth, as in the costs to the rest of the NC taxpayer when all this stuff eventually gets washed away, maybe in this years storms, or a high tide 20 years from now. Yep, even the CEO of Exxon (an engineer who did stay awake in class and went on to use science to be both successful with the second-largest company in the world, even this CEO publicly states ignoring global warming (that is very real) and its effects on both land and sea is folly. Good thing we have the Jones Street crowd to overrule science and education. Perhaps next they'll put that whole age of the earth discussion to bed and just settle on some arbitrary value like 4004. Fantastical belief systems belong in childrens fairy tale stories, not public policy we tax payers must fund for their unicorn follies.
Now, about that math...
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 15:59 — dave36Qvoraw, "x+8=y" is not the equation of a curve, or of actual linear sea level rise. (If y were sea level and x were date, that equation would be a graph in which sea level was zero in 9 BC.) Maybe instead of insulting people who understand the issue, you should have paid more attention in school.
I've done the math. I've looked at individual tide gauges, like Wilmington (NC's best sea level record). It shows a 77-year linear trend of just +1.98 mm/year (i.e., less than 7 inches by 2100).
I've also looked at averaged data sets, like "Church & White 2006" (using data from 1925-2001), and "Church & White 2009" (using data from 1925-2007). For the Church & White data, I used their preferred statistical method to reanalyze their own data, but starting in 1925 (i.e., before major anthropogenic GHG emissions), rather than starting in the 19th century, so that I could avoid erroneous conclusions due to the influence of the end of the LIA. I did a minimum-variance unbiased estimator quadratic fit regression analysis, and -- like most other investigators -- I found a slight deceleration in rate of sea level rise.
BTW, the code and data from my analysis is on my web site, and there's a link to it in my J. Natural Hazards paper. Just google for "doi: 10.1007/s11069-012-0159-8" to find it.
Dave Burton,
Cary
Legislate Sea Level?
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 08:43 — RockyRoadThis is scary on two levels:
1. The same legislators who won't give up on this were ridiculed all over the world, but apparently are too dumb to know it.
2. It shows some members of the legislature will do anything, no matter how corrupt or stupid, to pander to lobbyists.
Based on these antics I think anyone running for state legislative office ought to be required to take a IQ test. If they score less than 50 (moron level) they would be banned from running for office. That would apparently eliminate about half of the current office holders in the NC legislature.
My thought:
LET IT GO!
What is scary is...
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 09:01 — dave36What's scary is that Climate Movement activists lie so expansively and transparently, and that so many people are nevertheless foolish enough to be duped by them.
The Senate bill did not "legislate sea level." Rather, it would have required that actual scientific data be used as the basis for regulatory policies w/r/t sea level.
But the Climate Movement is adamently opposed to sound science. So they lied outrageously about what the bill said, counting on the leftist press to cover for them, as usual.
It worked.
Careful thinkers could have read the bill, compared it to what the Climate Movement activists were saying about it, realized that the activists were lying, and reached the correct conclusion: liars shouldn't be trusted. (Luke 16:10) Such careful thinkers supported the bill.
Unfortunately, most people can't be bothered, and even if they could they aren't really troubled by such lying. Instead, people like "RockyRoad" just call those who bother to inform themselves "corrupt" and "stupid" and "morons" and even "anti-science." That's what passes for debate, on the Left.
"I know nothing! I hear nothing! I see nothing!"
Fri, 06/29/2012 - 23:54 — NCGAwatcherOur illustrious Legis-lay-chur has, without question, won deservedly the 2012 Sgt. Schultz Award.
Ya vol!