NOAA report and climate change

In terms of the climate, the sky is not falling, its not Armageddon. I view climate claims like the boy who cried wolf. They have been wrong in their crazy predictions too many times to be taken seriously even a little bit. The earth has been here how long??? Millions billions??? Yet here we are and living better than humans ever have since the beginning of time. Hell, we even have air-conditioning. It will be OK.

If you want to make a real difference for our environment clean up the environment around you, street drains, those drainage ditches someone mentioned, a beach clean up.......

To be honest I don't think we humans could effect the climate to an measurable amount if we tried. The earth is too big and we are too small.

 

I have been alive for 51 years and have seen countless 75 - 80 degree winter days as well as locked in ice and cold that lasts until the end of April. These have been spread over the course of these years. I'm pretty sure I've said this here before but I was terrified as a little kid about the coming ice age, then in the eighties about the coming disaster of the earth heating up and the death of surfing. I was worried 20 years ago about buying a piece of land on the bay behind Assateague because of the forecast of sea level rise. I can tell you with no doubt that the sea level has not changed since I decided to take a risk and buy the land. No change as in literally not one difference that I can measure.

 

There are plenty of gauges along the east coast, including the Delmarva that have been measuring sea levels for close to a century. Most of these gauges are in nearly complete agreement with one another: the water levels are rising at about 3 mm. per year which means in that entire 20 year period the water level has risen about 2 inches. And there is almost no widely accepted view that the trend is anything except a straight line increase. YES its rising at 2 inches per 20 years, and it was rising at that same rate before you or I were born..it hasn't gotten worse..In a bay that probably has a 2 foot daily tidal range!

In other words its risen so little that nobody would notice any practical effect over a 20 year period. The constant clogging and dredging of Ocean City inlet with sediment, the jetty modifications, the growth of the shoals, and changes to Assateague island have probably had more effect on bay hydraulics over the past couple decades than the 2 inches of sea level rise. I work in the profession, agree with the data that show SLR is happening, and get irritated at the hype and misinformation that surrounds the entire topic. I'm glad you bought where you did...its a beautiful location...and it would have been a damn shame if a bunch of hype had dissuaded you from it.

 

I've lived at one of the lowest elevations on this island called Ocean City for 21 years. If the ocean were rising any significant amount I'd know it. I'd even call bullcrap on a claim of 1" over the past 20 years. Bottom line the tide comes in the tide goes out. When a norEaster comes my street floods. When a tropical cyclone passes by the street floods. If it rains hard my street floods. When we have spring tides the street floods. I've had water come in my house a dozen times over the past 21 years and actually got a bargain on the house because it had been damaged in the 92 perfect storm flooding. Sandy broke all the records and put almost 4-feet of water in my first floor. It is what it is. No better and no worse. That's the risk you take living near the water.

PS: Even if it really were rising at 1" per 20 years that is really really insignificant given the claims by the hysterical climate nuts.

 

Now that I will agree with, 2 inches makes sense I could see that. But like you said with the variation of the tides, the rise and fall increased by the moon phase and the flooding from long periods of onshore winds 2 inches is believable and could easily be lost in all that water movement. The original lot I was looking at was closer to the launch ramp and had a boat slip. While I was considering buying it went under contract and I bought my current property. In the end I was happy I did because a survey put ground level 8 feet above sea level and my first floor at 12 feet. You wouldn't know it but we are on a little hill and the highest spot on my street. So I get views of two bays and have never had standing water in my yard even in the biggest storms, at the least so far.

 

Not necessarily due to "climate change", but related nonetheless:

There's an area not far from my local that has to be the biggest victim of erosion in the lower 48. It is estimated that this area has eroded 100 feet of beach every year for the last 100 years. Most of that is blamed on the jetties that were built 100 years ago, so it's not a coincidence.

Check this link, very brief but concise:

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/coast/erosion/washaway.html

Yeah, it's called Washaway Beach. And the pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. A brief query gives out tons of info on this area and the forces of nature that are radically changing our coastline.

If a pair of jetties can cause this type of damage, I'm curious what kind of studies have been done on the innumerable amount of jetties on the EC.

 

there is something in your words