Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
–Warren Buffett
“Miami is going to flood tonight,” my alarmist friend Annabelle Proctor said. “It’s proof of Global Warming!” Ashley’s mother is a retired state employee and adjunct instructor with an undergraduate degree in dance from Bennington College and a graduate degree in Social Justice from Planet Marlboro, Vermont’s two most liberal and free-thinking schools.
And her consternation is partly accurate. The high tides this week are higher than I’ve ever seen ever before. Ever in my lifetime! That means in forever!
Tides are interesting. A spring tide is a common historical term that has nothing to do with the Vernal season. “The term derives from the concept of the tide ‘springing forth.’ Spring tides occur twice each lunar month all year long without regard to the season. Neap tides, which also occur twice a month, happen when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other.”
A spring tide conjoined with a Supermoon is worth writing home about. When a full moon is the closest it ever gets to Earth — at perigee — it seems bigger and brighter than usual. We’re seeing the biggest and brightest full moon since 1948.
Yeppers, must be Global Warming.
Lake Champlain water levels approached but didn’t quite hit a “record all time low.” The last time the water level was this low was over a century ago. That follows on the heels of a 100-year high set when Lake Champlain crested at 103.2′ in May, 2011, shattering the previous record high level in May of 1869
Contemporaneous quotes: “The lake is lower than I’ve ever seen ever before. Ever in my lifetime!” “The lake is higher than I’ve ever seen ever before. Ever in my lifetime! That means in forever!” Well, of course it is. Not many of us have been around for a century or more.
Yeppers, must be that Global Warming.
Yet another slow moving storm system is bringing rain, wind, and accumulating mountain snow to most of the Pacific Northwet and the northern Rockies for the first part of the week. And that eastern Cold Front that had mostly moved into the Atlantic has backed up a bit so it’s now curving from Lake Okeechobee up to a Low right over the Outer Banks. Lot of rain over eastern North Carolina right now. They need it.
And NOAA predicts minor coastal flooding of low-lying areas here in South Puffin.
* Coastal flooding…elevated saltwater levels tonight will result in nuisance tidal flooding of low-lying areas throughout the Florida Keys.
* Timing…saltwater levels will peak near the time of the higher high tide early tonight…and again at the next higher high tide mainly between 7 p.m. and midnight. Saltwater levels will likely remain elevated Monday through at least Thursday.
* Impacts…minor tidal flooding of low elevation streets and lots is likely. Some storm drains will overflow…and some docks and seawalls will be overtopped.
It was a cool 76°F with plenty of black bottomed clouds here in South Puffin this morning but the clouds have already burned off so it is mostly sunny now. Our sea walls are about five feet above sea level so I doubt they will be overtopped. Tomorrow’s rain may exacerbate it, so I figure the Inch Beach lawn will be awash again. It drains back very quickly and the grass is very salt tolerant.
The tide was very high when I shot the moon last night and it got my feet wet when I walked along the beach.
Yeppers, must be that oh-so-political Global Warming. Or maybe we should take a longer view than your lifetime or mine.
Hidden on climate.gov are these tidbits.
“Even after those first scorching millennia, however, the planet has sometimes been much warmer than it is now. One of the warmest times was during the geologic period known as the Neoproterozoic, between 600 and 800 million years ago. Another ‘warm age’ is a period geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which occurred about 56 million years ago.” The average global temp was around 73°F then.
Palm trees and crocodiles lived above the Arctic Circle then.
“Between 600 and 800 million years ago—a period of time geologists call the Neoproterozoic—evidence suggests the Earth underwent an ice age so cold that ice sheets not only capped the polar latitudes, but may have extended all the way to sea level near the equator. Reflecting ever more sunlight back into space as they expanded, the ice sheets cooled the climate and reinforced their own growth.” The average global temp was around 54°F then.
Today’s political scientists pushing man-made Global Warming think we humans will sink the planet with a 2°F temperature rise. Today’s political scientists have their heads where the sun doesn’t shine. A 2°F temperature drop would change global food production and increase energy consumption enough to kill us.
It appears that 2-3 billion years ago was significantly colder than the last 500 million years. Why? Solar radiation was some 20% lower than today and 30% less when the Earth formed. Most solar scientists expect solar radiation (heat) to increase another 10% per billion years going forward.
Today’s global average temp is just under 60°F.
Bottom line? We have a little bit of data that shows some minor global warming and (to us) more extreme weather than we have ever experienced in out lives. We have a lot of models that don’t rationalize that data very well and not a lot common sense.
So far, as long as you believe the make-believe, the political scientists are winning.
“Lake levels are closing in on a record all time low from over a century ago.” Really. An actual quote from the local newspaper I used to write for. The lake had dropped to 92.4 feet back in 1908; it went below 93 feet several times this year.
Somehow I have trouble believing the water level 100 years ago was the lowest it has ever been in all times. Ever.
Even the local newspaper blames it as “one of the consequences of climate change.”
Errr?
The average annual rainfall the paper quotes is 36.79 inches although the average rainfall through October 31 is 31.28 inches. We’ve gotten 21.04 inches so far this year meaning the deficit is two-thirds of what the reporter would have us believe but 10 inches is still a lot. 150 inches of snow before Christmas would make up for it. I’m thinking no one hopes that happens.
This photo shows a “walking path” that has opened up between Kamp Kill Kare State Park and an island in St Albans Bay. Residents spent the afternoon in the sunshine there, driving RC cars across the land bridge.
The lake hit a 100-year high just a few years earlier. Is that the other consequence of climate change? The political scientists are indeed winning.