Friday 26 February 2016

"Sea levels are rising at their fastest rate since this morning"

From qz.com

The global sea level rose approximately three feet (90 centimetres) in the last eight hours, a greater fluctuation than had been observed all morning, according to a family picnicking on a beach near Sydney this afternoon.

Led by maths teacher Bruce Kopp and his wife, insurance actuary Sheila Kopp, the family was forced to gather up its windbreak and blankets and move several yards up the beach. Their eldest daughter Rebecca, 13, confirmed that a three foot high sandcastle she had constructed earlier in the day disappeared from view several minutes ago, enabling them to reconstruct a history of global sea level fluctuations going back to ten o'clock in the morning...

Extrapolating their findings, Mr Kopp predicts that the sea level will rise between 24 and 131 feet (7 and 40 metres) by the end of this week. This range is based on a set of projections which Mrs Kopp was able to calculate in her head and were verified by her husband, who added that he had then factored in a margin of error of fifty percent either way because they were not sure about the precise height of Rebecca's sandcastle.

6 comments:

Graeme said...

it's naughty to take the piss out of sea-rise scare-mongers like this! The latest thing is to look at satellite measurements, while seeming to forget that during a gale, the effective sea-level can change by about 8 metres. Try picking a "signal" of a millimetre out of that.

Penseivat said...

I think it's called "a tidal flow". Bloody Australians!

Mark Wadsworth said...

G, what you just said is even naughtier. Questioning their accuracy, pshaw!

PS, yes, and their desert is very hot thereby contributing to global warmening. Case closed.

Bayard said...

"Extrapolating from the historical rate of fluctuation...."

I'm sure we were taught at school not to extrapolate. I think it was supposed to send you blind.

Ralph Musgrave said...

Calm down everyone. I just discovered that the Moon is in the part of its orbit where it is heading directly for the Sun. Notwithstanding the dangers of going blind, I’ve extrapolated from that, and reckon the Moon will be swallowed up by the Sun in about two week’s time. Then there’ll be no more tides.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, no, that's starting at the sun. Or indeed page three of The Sun.

RM, you had my hopes up but I checked this morning and the moon is still there. I think you should apply for more funding to improve your computer modelling techniques to settle the matter.