Under water by 2100? Risk of the rising sea (CATASTROPHE LOOMS!!!)

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 1/26/07 | Mike Taugher

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The seas have been rising for 18,000 years, but the pace has quickened.

At the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean crept seven inches higher during the past century, as global warming melted glaciers and expanded ocean waters.

Californians are taking notice. In one of the first efforts of its kind in the state, officials are starting to address the threats rising seas pose to the Bay Area.

One of the first steps was to compile maps that show what would happen if the sea level rose three feet -- the upper limit for what might occur by 2100, according to computer models of climate used by the state.

The maps show a dramatic level of inundation: San Francisco and Oakland international airports would be under water, along with Foster City, parts of Redwood City and virtually all the bay wetlands, many of which have been restored at great public expense as habitat for wildlife.

Also at risk are railroad tracks running through Alviso, highways, buildings, and public works projects, such as the East Bay Municipal Utility District sewage-treatment plant in Oakland.

“There are some areas that are extremely vulnerable,” said Leslie Lacko, a coastal planner for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

According to a 1990 study, a three-foot rise in sea level would threaten $48 billion in real estate, roads and pipes around San Francisco Bay.

[roadcat]

How can there be a century of data regarding water levels at the Golden Gate Bridge, when construction began in 1933?

Because the GG Bridge was built at Fort Point, where the U.S. Army kept records from before the Civil War. They modified plans for the bridge by arching it over the fort, in order to preserve it (some people wanted to demolish the fort).

Aside from that, SF City leaders and others have been filling in the bay and inland waterways for the last 230 years. Much of SF was criss-crossed with streams and lakes, all gone now. Most districts on the waterfront are built on bayfill. Nature is just trying to restore the status quo by raising the bay waters so the SF Bay will be as large as it was in the past.

[Jeff Chandler]

Change is Good.

[Jeff Chandler]

Please stop with the Helen Thomas pics.

[eartotheground]

ROTFL! San Francisco floods, put up dykes!

[TigersEye]

Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance (yep, it's growing)

[AmeriBrit]

If global warming was going to be as bad as algore says it's going to be, wouldn't that cause a lot more evaporation????????

[TigersEye]

Change is Good.

Change is constant. In fact change is the only constant.

[Jeff Chandler]

Change is constant. In fact change is the only constant.

"Change is Good" is a liberal mantra meant to bolster support fot deconstructing Western Civilization. It is also the philosophy of a cancer cell.

I like to use it to tweak the Global Warming koo koos.

[highlander_UW]

Hey now! They never told us that San Francisco would be destroyed...I've just become all in favor of global warming, how can I speed it up?!

[TigersEye]

That's kind of funny. 'Change is inevitable' is somewhat of a Buddhist precept. But it isn't used to support the intentional destruction of anything. It is meant to give a clear view of the way things are in order to prevent the emotional self-destruction of anxiety over things that...change.

Liberals are so stupid. Our representative republic was designed to accomodate change in a positive way. Communism/socialism are so rigid they can hardly adapt at all. It's amazing; for people who revere the idea of evolution so much they couldn't have picked a more stagnating political ideology. There are almost no feedback systems unlike the seemingly endless and overlapping feedback systems of biological organisims and the environment itself. Much like how our republic was made to be.

[wodinoneeye]

Field elevation is 13 feet. So a sea level increase of 3 feet will put the airport "under water". Great math there folks! And at the minimum rise of 4", they can turn the airport into a marina.... RIGHT!
Ooh! I hate when I have to take the wrong side here, but the 13 feet is probably an average elevation. Portions of the airport could possibly be close to sea level. I Google Earthed the airport and it appears that this could be the case. I'm not sure how accurate the Google Earth database is for SFO. Are there any Freeper pilots out there who have used SFO?





Im just making a quick guess, but runways have very thick concrete (like 10 feet thick) to support the massive load and impacts that large planes require. I would think that they would want ALL of that concrete above the water table level (and near the bay THAT is sea level) as part of its structural requirements.

Other parts (foundation) extend deeper (thick layer of gravel) and even some of that probably would be designed to be above the water table to allow proper drainage.

[kanawa]

Mecca is at an elevation of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level.

Darn

[DWPittelli]

"your case also allows for a rise of even bigger than 7 inches over the last century."

Actually, my argument is that "sea level" is an amorphous construct at the scale in question, that even if we had perfect information we would disagree about what number to attach to the rise, but that for several reasons the coast of California is a particularly bad place to consider a bellwether of sea levels. Better (mid-ocean) places give us much less rise, or even a fall, in sea level.

[MSM Hater]

Mecca is at an elevation of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level.

That could be brought down to sea level with a few well-placed nukes.

[MSM Hater]

However, you still bent to the will of the parrot flock a little.

I think you've got it backward. The parrots are the ones who blindly accept and push the human-caused global warming theory, since that is the majority opinion. Most of the people here at Free Republic have done their own research and have either discarded the human-caused global warming theory or are waiting for convincing scientific evidence. The beauty of Free Republic and why I come here so often is that there are so few Koolaid drinkers.

[GregoryFul]

They made it up - just like all the other phony baloney spread by the MSM.

[GregoryFul]

I agree with you. The whole mess of global warming has been so polluted with politics to the extent that an accurate take is not out there. It is too bad that know-nothings with shrill voices are ruling the coop these days.

[Coyoteman]

Coyoteman said: "For some historical perspective, sea levels have risen on the close order of 400-440 feet since the last ice age (12-15,000 years)."

Let's see...

That would be a 400 foot rise over about 150 centuries, or about two and a half feet per century.

I wonder how they explain the sudden slowing of the rise at the Golden Gate, with only about one-fourth of the expected rise?

The sea level rise has not been uniform. the majority of this ca. 400 feet was at the beginning.

There is a good chart on Wikipedia.

[staytrue]

Most of the people here at Free Republic have done their own research

You are joking. Most of the people here at Free Republic don't bother reading the article, and instead post their canned responses.

[GregoryFul]

There have been umpteen global warming threads on FR, many have had lots of references, pro and con, wrt human caused global warming. The canned responses you speak of are likely due to that the preponderance of evidence shown on FR weighs against human causation. How do you accept the statement: "the Pacific Ocean crept seven inches higher during the past century", what's that, high tide, low tide, average? Was there subsidence of the land? Did the ocean change temperature?

I mean, good grief, the land changes, the ocean changes, the rivers and lakes change. The whole world is in constant flux - note the historic record of global temperatures, global atmospheric composition, plate tectonics, volcanic activity, asteroid strikes, solar super storms, nearby supernova, to name a few catastrophic events. To maintain the conceit that the earth's climate is constant is a total and ludicrous fantasy.