If only Drax was a Period Property

[skier-hughes]

Or the judge was applying the law as he saw it fitted?

 

[Flyfisher]

Ultimately, when all the Antarctic ice is gone (yes it has happened before), the extra 70 metres of water will not leave a lot of the Netherlands showing, though that will take several centuries.

Why assume that the Dutch (or other countries) will do nothing and simply watch the rising sea levels inundate their country? My earlier point was that they are already largely below the current sea level yet have successfully held the sea at bay for decades. Why do we suddenly think this will change and they'll no longer be able to cope?

Looking to the future is fraught with difficulty and there are countless example of doom-mongering based on extrapolation of a particular set of circumstances 100 years hence (or less) but without extrapolating the corresponding (albeit unknown) advances that we'll undoubtedly make in response. This is why, despite all the dire predictions when I was at school, we're not all starving today.

This might sound blindly optimistic and perhaps it is. But given that the climate change debate has moved on from prevention, because it can't be, to amelioration, because it might be, then we might as well 'look on the bright side of life'.

 

[biffvernon]

As sea level rises the costs of coastal protection increase - and costs do not just rise linearly with water level. Every extra centimeter is more expensive than the last. The risk of tidal surges is what counts. Some assets, such as London, will have more spent on them than others, such as the Lincolnshire Marsh. There comes a point when the cost of protection is greater than what is being protected. And the real world being what it is, the sums won't be well done and we will experience an increasing frequency of Katrina/New Orleans type events.

The forecasts of sea level rise are not based on the extrapolation of past trends but on an understanding of the ongoing processes.

 

[Flyfisher]

My use of 'extrapolation' wasn't meant to imply a simple historical progression; but even if based on solid data and current science it's still an extrapolation. However, I wasn't trying to imply anything particular about the climate change predictions per se. My point about global starvation predictions in my schooldays was to highlight the fact that as welll as known (or likely) future events that can be predicted based on currently known facts, there is little attention paid to unknown advances that may be made in the same timescale that could be used to help solve the dire predictions. Hence, starvation based on extrapolating population and current production capacity proved to be incorrect because of unknown (at the time) advances in crop science.

So, yes, climate change will cause big changes but we don't, and can't, know what other things will occur during the next 100 years that we might be able to harness to adapt.

 

[biffvernon]

The predictions about starvation that you may have heard as a schoolboy were not based on science. And they were, unsurprisingly, wrong.

Are predicted sea level rises based on extrapolation? It's actually quite complicated but at least in part, probably the greater part, they are not. Extrapolation implies observation of a past trend and making the assumption that the trend will, to some degree, continue into the future. The ice melt is partly like this, but increasingly we are becoming aware of new dynamic processes that will greatly accelerate ice melt in the future. In this area the predictions are not based on extrapolation but are based on calculations of the effects of processes that are yet to occur.

This is explained in the New Scientist article I linked to.

One could have foreseen, indeed many people did, that agriculture might be improved. The predictions of starvation have never been made by a consensus of the relevant scientists. It is rather hard to trust to unknown things that could be harnessed to adapt to rising sea level, at least for those who live on low ground and for those whose economy is based on the low lying cities. I think we may all be touched by the loss of London, New York and Shanghai.

 

[Flyfisher]

My use of 'extrapolation' wasn't meant to imply a simple historical progression;

Use 'prediction' as an alternative if you wish. I've read the NS article (subscriber for 30+ years).

I think we may all be touched by the loss of London, New York and Shanghai.

I doubt it, in our lifetime anyway.
But even if these cities are relocated somewhere, it won't be the first time major centres of population and historic architecture have been lost. It's a grim prospect, I agree, but it'll happen over so many decades that the disruption in practice might well be more manageable than we give ourselves credit for.

 

[biffvernon]

Prediction is fine. That's the great thing about our English language, different words mean different things.

I agree, we won't lose these cities in our lifetime. I don't think we will lose my bit of the Lincolnshire Marsh in my lifetime either and I don't think thoughts of inheritence were upermost in the mind of one of my children when he decided to make his Phd subject the measurement of the ice mass balance of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

But as the NS article points out, now is a stupid time to build vast new urban developments in the Yangtze delta. In Lincolnshire, my District Council has a policy of not allowing significant new developments in the 'at risk' areas and no bungalows at all.

 

[robgil]

and no bungalows at all.

its not all bad then.

 

[Flyfisher]

I entirely agree it's stupid to build on flood plains, but developer's have been doing this for years. Remember those photos of Tewkesbury in the 2007 floods? The Cathedral was almost alone in being on the highest spot around. I presume people back then daren't risk such a massive investment, as a Cathedral must have been, to the flood plains of two large rivers, yet we seem happy to build on them today - even without the threat of climate change to make things even worse.

I guess it's a matter of perspective. Perhaps it could be argued that Lincolnshire shouldn't allow any significant new developments at all? How about a central government dictat for no new planning permission for any land below, say, 10m? That should keep new builds safe for a few centuries.

 

[biffvernon]

Perhaps it could be argued that Lincolnshire shouldn't allow any significant new developments at all?

Contrary to common misconception, quite a lot of Lincolnshire is quite hilly, though of course it could be argued that Lincolnshire shouldn't allow any significant new developments at all, but that's got nothing to do with flooding.

 

[CHRIS]

I did some Survey work this week in Linconshire and it was at -1.2m below OD so they are stuffed from the start!

 

[biffvernon]

OD is a rather arbitrary position, relating to a line in the side of Plymouth Dock. My house is above OD but goes below sea level about twice a day. What counts is the when high spring tide coincides with a north-easterly gale, low pressure in the central North Sea and high pressure in the Irish Sea. The perfect storm has not happened for a very long time. Even 1953 was not quite as bad as it could have been.

 

[Wren]

Saw the Timewatch programme on the 1953 storm several years ago, and has stuck in my memory (descriptions of walls of water, and people trying to make it onto the roof of their house in the middle of the night):

Quotes from wiki:
"A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm caused a storm tide. In combination with a tidal surge of the North Sea the water level locally exceeded 5.6 metres above mean sea level. The flood and waves overwhelmed sea defences and caused extensive flooding. Officially, 1,835 people were killed in the Netherlands. 307 were killed in the United Kingdom, in the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. 28 were killed in West Flanders, Belgium. Further loss of life exceeding 230 occurred on watercraft...
In the United Kingdom...Flooding forced 30,000 people to be evacuated from their homes, and 24,000 properties were seriously damaged.
....two risk factors could increase the likelihood, or the severity, of another incident. Firstly,.... Secondly, sea levels may be rising as a result of climate change, which may also cause more frequent and more severe storms.
Flood barriers, improved weather forecasting, modern communications and sophisticated emergency services may help to reduce the potential loss of life from a future flood. However, this must be balanced by the impact of higher population densities, intensive building in coastal areas and, for the UK, by the decay of coastal defences since the 1950s improvements."

 

[biffvernon]

decay of coastal defences since the 1950s improvements

I think that's a bit unfair on the Environment Agency. The bit that I know about in Lincolnshire is constantly monitored and a great deal of work has been done in recent years and is on-going. I'm pretty impressed with the way the EA works on our sea defences at present, but it's an ongoing struggle. One high tide in November 2007 removed a year's worth of 'beach replenishment that had cost millions.

 

[wobs]

Learned yesterday that Lincolnshire has some of the highest CO2t per capita in the country.

England on average: 8.9 CO2t/capita
N.Lincs: 68.8 CO2t/capita
N.Lincs: 13.1 CO2t/capita
While-
Hull: 6.9CO2t/capita

Might have a bit more detail later.

 

[wobs]

More detail here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/download/regionalrpt/local-regionalCO2emissions05-06.Xls
See sheet for 2006 summary, and shows full country, and how it's broken down.

 

[biffvernon]

N.Lincs has an oil refinery and a steel works but a small population. I should think it would have the highest per capita CO2 emissions.

 

[wobs]

You might find it interesting how Leeds compares with N. Lincs on domestic and transport figures.

However, how much an area can improve will depend, in part on how much they are actually wasting.