No Global Warming? Tell that to Norfolk . . . .

[no_hypocrisy]

Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea

As sea levels rise, tidal flooding is increasingly disrupting life here and all along the East Coast, a development many climate scientists link to global warming.

But Norfolk is worse off. Situated just west of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, it is bordered on three sides by water, including several rivers, like the Lafayette, that are actually long tidal streams that feed into the bay and eventually the ocean.

Like many other cities, Norfolk was built on filled-in marsh. Now that fill is settling and compacting. In addition, the city is in an area where significant natural sinking of land is occurring. The result is that Norfolk has experienced the highest relative increase in sea level on the East Coast — 14.5 inches since 1930, according to readings by the Sewells Point naval station here.

Climate change is a subject of friction in Virginia. The state’s attorney general, Ken T. Cuccinelli II, is trying to prove that a prominent climate scientist engaged in fraud when he was a researcher at the University of Virginia. But the residents of coastal neighborhoods here are less interested in the debate than in the real-time consequences of a rise in sea level.

-more-

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/science/earth/26norfolk.html?hp

[dgibby]

1. I'm moving back to the mountains of Va soon.

If this keeps up, I might have some nice oceanfront property in the next few years.LOL! Seriously, this is a real problem, and only destined to get worse, especially with the present Gov and the "Cuch" running the show.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. relative increase are your keywords here...

the vast majority of this 'rise' of 14.5" is due to the land sinking...


sP

[moparlunatic]

4. This seems like

a job creator to me.

[DCKit]

6. The central, eastern seaboard had been subsiding for the past 12K years.

Once the glaciers that ran all the way down to NYC began melting, that area began rising (albeit slowly), but the entire Chesapeake region is sinking.

Please also note that sea levels do not rise in unison. Different areas have already experienced wildly different effects. It's gravity.

[elocs]

3. Climate change is not only here, it's unstoppable,

and little or nothing is being done to address its consequences. The attitude of most naysayers who are not directly impacted is generally, "too bad, so sad, why do you live there?"

When it comes to global warming the naysayers believe it must be warming everywhere at the same time. We have all heard them in the summer or spring if it is cooler than normal, "so much for global warming", but there's never any complaint when a winter is warmer or more mild than normal.

Then there is the rub over whether climate change is a natural occurrence or is man-created. The city where I have lived nearly all my life, La Crosse, Wisconsin, is on the Mississippi and a large marsh separates the north and south sides. Usually in the spring it floods here and the marsh becomes like a large lake and a very large measure of the floodwaters go there rather than in the residential or business areas of the city. The marsh is also a natural filter for this water.

Years ago there were people here who if they had their way would have filled in the marsh in order to develop business, but the DNR stopped them and was very strict about any portion of the marsh which could be filled. Had this marsh been filled in it would have been a disaster in times of flooding and although flooding here is natural and has always occurred, this particular disaster would clearly be man-caused.

[bluedigger]

5. Norfolk should be abandoned.

Sounds even crazier when it isn't New Orleans, doesn't it.:shrug:

[90-percent]

7. I'm confused

I thought tax cuts for the rich would curb global warming?

Tax cuts for the rich fixes everything else, why not use it to fix global climate change?

-90% Jimmy


:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[pintobean]

8. Gilligan is moving The Professor's stakes again. eom

[guardian]

9. put it in context

The sea level change is neither surprising or necessarily attributable to AGW.