Silver Meteor

Understanding the Paris Accord: https://twitter.com/va_shiva/status/1176506786414825473

Your discussion got me to thinking about sea level change ... which got me to thinking about all I've experienced (from the normal to the freak) on the Mid-Atlantic Coast over the past 66 years. The Delmarva coast was mostly empty in the '50s when I was a kid. Coastal Highway was a two-lane paved road while most side roads, usually only one block long, were dirt/sand. In Fenwick Island at the bottom of Delaware the post office was a small cubicle at the back of the general store. To reach civilization in either direction, Ocean City Maryland to the south or Bethany Beach to the north, one had to first traverse miles of wilderness. The beach was always the same, clean white sand with moderately high dunes that could easily protect the structures behind them. And then came the nor'easter of all nor'easters, the "Great Atlantic Coastal Storm of 1962." That storm leveled the sand dunes and took out most of the structures behind them. The oceanfront motel on my street was reduced to a set of pilings with only a few orange colored pieces of debris in the area that I could recognize as belonging to it. There hasn't been anything near that ferocity since. A monumental effort of man and machinery restored the dunes enough to at least resemble what they once were, and over the years the dirt/sand roads got paved, new houses were built, and new businesses arrived. The coast grew but the beach itself was still pretty much the same except ... it was shrinking a bit. Enough so that once every few years in early summer there appeared ships and barges out over the the deeper water and large pipes running back to the beach. That was the end of our white sandy beaches, diluted by a gazillion tons of offshore dredging. So now the beaches were being "stabilized" even if being turned as much into ugly brown dirt as white sand. But is this ocean encroachment anything unusual? One might think so unless one were to stand on the beach in winter to experience a blowout tide. Get the barometer rising fast with a strong northwest wind and you'll see the ocean literally retreat in front of your eyes. The now barren seafloor reveals much. With the water and sand swept out the ocean bottom unmasks itself to be gray colored peat. It's firm but you can grab chunks of it. Farther out you see tree stumps. Yes, tree stumps. A monster blowout tide on the Mid-Atlantic coast reveals the past. The remnants of a bygone cypress forest are sitting out there where the waves break but we don't see it because it's normally buried in sand. The beach then was obviously farther out. I don't know how many centuries old those stumps are but clearly the beach we know is only a moment in time. So, the ocean level is going to change one way or another given enough time. Will man-made global warming alter this? Perhaps so, but I wouldn't wager I've seen it yet, and rather doubt I ever will (given my age.) This could be a different story for those born today but I've a feeling they will have more than enough problems to deal with otherwise.

Good morning. Long time lurker here, one who prefers listening over talking but do of course appreciate the talkers without whom there would be no thread to begin with. Science has always been "in my blood." It started with my grade school years (1950s) in Maryland with a fascination in the shape of continents which suggested they surely must have moved over time. This idea was proved to be true years later when I was in high school. Also in high school we were taught the "Big Bang Theory" and the "Theory of Global Warming" neither of which were controversial at the time (I'd never heard of such a thing as "creationism", and it would be many years before AGW became politicized.) Over the ensuing decades I continued learning about and keeping up with science at my own pace, first from books then from the internet as it developed. Watching in real time the continuous fine tuning in a variety of subjects as these many years have passed has helped keep my interest alive and healthy. So, what about climate? Oh dear, where does one begin... To avoid dragging this out I'll just say I remain comfortable with my paradigms, none of which are "catastrophic." The best empirical evidence I see for AGW is clearly that which is occurring in the Arctic. Meanwhile, down here in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. the only change of note over the last 60+ years has been our tremendous population growth with its accompanying water pollution and its greatly expanded road networks and heat islands. Overall, I accept AGW but to suggest this is our greatest problem for the future, is, in my opinion, utter nonsense; this reeks of political expedience for the financial gain of a few without regard to the many serious non-climate problems lying in wait, problems our media is loathe to discuss. Moreover it implies technology will not progress, a ludicrous proposition. The good, the bad, and the ugly... The good will be technological improvements with power generation; I see little reason to doubt fusion power plants will be up and running before mid-century. The bad is an historical analysis of currencies that suggests our fiat dollar will not survive to mid-Century (perhaps or even probably not even to 2040.) And the ugly is multicultural demographics which will lead to a Balkanization of the U.S., also before mid-Century (likely to coincide with the economic earthquake of currency collapse.) All of this I'm sure appears fanciful to those who don't study such subjects and believe "tomorrow will always be like yesterday and today", but for them history always provides the rudest of awakenings. However much climate change we see before the widespread use of fusion power will pale in comparison to the socio-political changes that will have staggering effects in the coming decades. I won't be around to see it but eventually the dust will settle and mankind will march forward, wiser and safer into a bright 22nd Century (where technology will be fantastically more advanced than it is today.) What I will do is all I can do, and that is to continue watching, learning, and enjoying science as I always have. To the rest of you, good luck and keep up the good work!