From the comments:
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pwl says:
Allegedly due to the recent 9.0 Japan Quake much of the coast affected not just moved up to 8ft – 12ft sideways towards the USA but also subsided up to 1 to 2 meters downwards which helped to defeat some of their tsunami sea walls in some locations and enabled the tsunami to encroach further inland than otherwise would have been expected.
Information alleged in the new documentary “Japan’s Tsunami, How It Happened 2011″ (http://www.freshwap.net/documentaries/625490-channel-4-japans-tsunami-how-it-happened-2011-ws.html). Definitely worth watching. Excellent first ever close up live footage of earthquake cracks forming and ground moving back and forth due to liquefaction of the ground with liquid emerging from the cracks.
So Japan or parts of it sinking is a sea level issue that will have to be properly adjusted for and well documented with new 3d survey data, not to mention new GPS location data. It will be interesting to see a 3d deformation map of the entire region as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami (which may have also scraped soil or deposited new surface material in various places complicating these computations).
“Documentary exploring the scientific factors behind the magnitude 9 earthquake and the resultant tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. Professor of geological sciences Roger Bilham views the effects of the devastation from the air, and journalist Callum Macrae travels to the north of the country, where survivors in the fishing villages Sendai and Ofunato are struggling to cope in the aftermath
On Friday 11 March 2011, an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale triggered a tsunami that devastated parts of coastal Japan.Japan’s Tsunami: How It Happened investigates the science behind the earthquake and tsunami. The programme follows Professor of Geological Sciences Roger Bilham – who arrived in Japan days after the earthquake struck – as he sets off to view the devastation from the air.
The earthquake moved Japan 12 feet closer to the USA. The earth was knocked off its axis and the rate of the earth’s rotation was changed. This was one of the biggest earthquakes ever measured; the ground along the east side of Japan dropped by almost 10 feet, making the tsunami catastrophic.
The documentary also follows renowned journalist Callum Macrae as he travels to the north, where the towns of Sendai and Ofunato used to be bustling fishing villages. Here he views the destruction first hand and meets the locals struggling to cope in the aftermath.
Japan lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire where the Pacific Ocean plates meet the land. The ocean floor dives beneath the volcanic chain of islands that make up Japan. And when the tension builds up between the two plates the energy is released as a massive earthquake.
The programme provides the science and analysis to explain why this happened where it did, and why it was so devastating, hearing from the scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii who tracked the deadly wave as it raced across the pacific, and scientists at the Tsunami research facility in Oregon who study the dynamics of earthquake-generated Tsunamis.
As Japan is lives with the consequences of this terrible force of nature, the film reveals how it has changed the country forever.”
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Latimer Alder says:
@marchesarosa
My understanding is the same as yours.
Sealevels have been rising for hundreds of years without anyobody really noticing. It is such a slow effect that periodic renewal of sea defences has been sufficient to render it a nuisance rather than a catastrophe.
AGW catastrophists require the rate of rise to increase (accelerate), because otherwise there will be a collective vast shrug…if we could happly handle the current rate of rise in say 1750, why shoudl we not be able to in 2050 – with all the advances in enegineering and technology since then.
So the fact that the rate of rise is not increasing, but decreasing, is yet another blow to the catatstrophist case. If sealevel rise is not something to metaphorically wet one’s knickers about, there isn’t much else left to scare people with.