Virginia Governor Fighting The Wrong Problem

By Paul Homewood

 

http://www.sfgate.com/business/energy/article/Va-climate-change-focus-of-panel-s-meeting-5745465.php

 

 

SFGate report:

 

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Gov. Terry McAuliffe launched his climate change commission on Wednesday, urging the panel to develop concrete ideas to blunt the impact of rising seas along Virginia’s threatened coast.

The Democrat made it clear he’s no climate change skeptic.

"I believe it when scientists say climate change is real, it’s happening and it’s caused by human actions," he said, calling the science "settled on this."

McAuliffe addressed the Climate Change and Resiliency Commission, which met for the first time. The panel’s 30-plus members include utility officials, environmentalists and climate scientists, among others. Two McAuliffe Cabinet secretaries co-chair the commission…..

Virginia’s coast is among the most vulnerable in the world to rising seas, not only because of climate change but because of sinking land mass caused by the creation of the Chesapeake Bay millions of years ago.

Rising seas already cause widespread flooding in Hampton Roads during routine rains, but also threaten historic sites such as Jamestown.

McAuliffe said battling climate change will involve more than building new seawalls to preserve coastal properties. He said clean energy solutions, including nuclear power, energy efficiency, and better land use decisions should be a part of the solution.

 

 

I’m not sure how much difference it will make to sea levels if he builds his “clean energy solutions”, but I wonder if he realises just how much of the problem of rising seas is due to subsidence, both due to isostatic factors since the end of the ice age (areas such as Canada now rising as the weight of the ice cap is gone, with the result that the eastern seaboard is sinking), and local factors in Chesapeake Bay, which is the site of a 35 million year old impact crater, caused by a large comet or meteor. (More detail on this here.)

A study by Boon, Brubaker and Forrest in 2010 found that at Sewell Point (Hampton Roads) the land was subsiding at the rate of 2.72mm a year, accounting for 60% of the relative sea level rise of 4.52mm, i.e. the amount measured by tide gauges. [Sewell Point is SWPT]

 

 

http://web.vims.edu/GreyLit/VIMS/sramsoe425.pdf

 

Furthermore, the overall rate of sea level rise has effectively been constant since 1944.

 

 

The longest running tide gauge in the region is Baltimore, and NOAA show that sea levels in the last 50 years have been rising more slowly than in the first half of the 20thC. The evidence would suggest that at least part of this rise is a natural recovery since the end of the Little Ice Age.

 

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.shtml?stnid=8574680

 

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8574680

 

 

 

Sea level rise along the coast of Virginia is a very real problem, and deserves very real solutions. Unfortunately, fighting climate change is not one of them.

Perhaps the money he proposes to spend on his “clean energy” solutions would be better employed addressing the real problems.