Latest data on Auckland sea level rise

Hauraki Gulf islands. Looking much the same after more than a hundred years.

UPDATED 11:30 am 26 June 2021

Dramatic sea level rise is widely considered among the most evil effects of anthropogenic global warming, since warmsters claim that of all the posited effects, rising seas will cause the most widespread, disruptive and costly damage. We’ve seen that the recent alarming advice from the MfE to local bodies around New Zealand cites figures from RCP8.5, the most extreme of the scenarios the warmsters paint for our future, and although there are enormous differences in both the likelihood and levels of danger between RCP8.5 and observed reality, our news media never seem to hear that part and publish only the anxiety. Continue Reading →

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Gareth, who has nothing

I ought to rejoice at the latest Hot Topic post, The Lost Art of Conversation … or a challenge foregone, because, one, it’s all about me and, two, Gareth finally relents on the ban he slapped on me years ago (no longer permitted to comment at his blog—native trolls too sensitive). He allows me to comment on this post as long as I don’t “deliberately misrepresent matters of fact.” Continue Reading →

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Expert opinion against exponential sea level rise

UPDATE below

Letter to Chch Press 4 Aug 2015

Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.

Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.

David Beach sent a letter to the Christchurch Press published 4 August, 2015, which contains grievous errors. Whatever he intends by the use of the term ‘exponential’, we can only take it in its usual sense of increasing at a more and more rapid rate, or a rate expressed by a mathematical exponent. His salient point is this:

First, the 1m figure is absolutely the best case for sea level rise. The worst case (expressed by an expert team led by Dr Hansen) is 5m. Second, it does not stop at whatever figure turns out to be true, as it increases exponentially.

Continue Reading →

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Are 1800 Kapiti homes really threatened by sea level rise?

Seemingly sloppy science seems to have sullied our coastal planning process. Dr de Lange describes, in the polite, scholarly way of his, a scientific blunder in a Kapiti Coast erosion report that anyone less courteous than him would call a dereliction or worse. Why? Because the wrong formula was used to calculate the amount of foreshore vulnerable to damage from sea level rise, and many hundreds of properties are now apparently at risk. The report explains correctly why a certain formula should not be used, but then, in a stupefying about-turn, goes ahead and uses it anyway. Prices for those properties will plunge, yet the new risks just aren’t justified.

The author (or principal author) of the Kapiti Coast Erosion Hazard Assessment 2012 update is Dr Roger Shand, of Coastal Systems Ltd. He said the report was peer-reviewed by “Coastal Scientist Dr Mike Shepherd” – who effectively works for Dr Shand. Why didn’t they admit that they’re colleagues? This isn’t a peer review, it’s a pal review, and if values plummet, land owners will descend on the High Court demanding compensation. Does the District Council realise its exposure?  – Richard Treadgold

Recent news stories have highlighted the redefinition of coastal hazard zones along the Kapiti Coast. The populated region is concentrated on a coastal landform known as a cuspate foreland, which has formed due to enhanced accretion of sediment in the lee of Kapiti Island over the last 7500 years. Examination of the coastal landforms in this region indicates that there has been long-term accretion over the Holocene disrupted by storm-induced erosion associated with large waves from either the southwest or northwest.

Kapiti Island

So has that pattern changed recently? Continue Reading →

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