While the seas rise in the Outer Banks and elsewhere in NC, science treads water

News and Observer ^ | 3/16/14 | Bruce Siceloff

[okie01]

When I was in school they said that much of the east coast sea floor was subsiding. Kinda like the Mississippi delta.

Given that continental drift remains in effect, the east coast is on the "trailing edge" and would be subsiding naturally.

The coast is sinking -- a far more likely conclusion than the sea is rising.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

All all this excitement over 5 inches?

Review the chart again. At most one of those five inches can be attributed to anthropogenic CO2, in reality, probably a lot less. The sea was rising quite smartly without human encouragement. Soon the solar cycle will turn down and we will miss those few inches. Not all that long ago, the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine, joining it on the great alluvial plane that is now the North Sea. The only country actively fighting the encroachment of the seas is Holland, and one day they will the largest country in Europe. It was about that time that one could walk from what is now Cape Dezhnev to Sarah Palin's house.

[fredhead]

This is nothing new. The late David Stick, a prolific writer about the Outer Banks, stated that many years ago one could see tree stumps in the surf north of Corolla. Evidence that it had once been a forest. Early bankers built their homes on the sound side. The Banks are barrier islands, made of sand. The sand erodes on the ocean side, and builds up on the sound side from sediment washed down the rivers that empty into the sound. Been happening forever. The islands are constantly changing. One piece of evidence of this is that there have been 27 inlets through the banks (NC/VA line to Cape Lookout) since the first Englishmen came here in 1585. Most of these have closed, and the only one to remain open during that entire time has been Okracoke inlet.

Even the term inlet is incorrect. It is really an outlet for the river water to exit back to the sea.

[UCANSEE2]

Sea levels have certainly risen over the thousands of years, even hundreds.

Some rise, some fall. The 'sea levels' rise on one coast, yet fall on another. Yet it is all 'point of view'. It is not the water that is moving, it's the land.

Excluding the tides and winds, and short duration natural landfall events, the average sea level around the globe has not changed significantly in a long, long, long time.