By Paul Homewood
Jamie Jessop has written the first of what may be a series of posts on Attenborough’s documentary the other day.
He has taken a close look at the Isle de Jean Charles, which you will recall is gradually being flooded:
Well, I sat through it, much to my disgust. It wasn’t easy. I don’t really know where to begin with the dissection of this truly awful climate change documentary from the BBC, so I guess I’ll just fire off this initial post picking up on one of the more obvious and egregious attempts to misinform the public.
The Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana. It’s been largely submerged beneath the sea over the last 6 decades. The program gives the definite impression that the main reason for this inundation is sea level rise due to melting ice and thermal expansion of the oceans – driven by man-made climate change. Attenborough does mention oil extraction as a cause but his narrative is lost to the general tone of the messaging that this is a “climate catastrophe” and that the families driven from their homes in this part of Louisiana are some of the world’s first “climate refugees”. This is palpable bullshit.
Read the full post here.
I would two factoids:
Sea levels in the Mississippi delta have been rising at 9.08mm per annum, with no sign of acceleration.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8761724
Global sea levels are, of course, rising at about 2mm a year, so only about a fifth of the rise at Grande Isle (one of the barrier islands) is due to absolute sea level rise.
Most of the rise is due to the land sinking. This can be clearly seen on the map below:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
Whereas most global sites are seeing relative sea level rise of between 0 and 3mm pa, the east coast of the US is slightly higher, between 3 and 6mm. This is because the east coast has been tilting downwards since the end of the ice age, as the NW rises as a result of ice melting.
However, you will note those two red arrows off the Louisiana coast, denoting a rise of above 9mm pa. They represent Grande Isle and Eugene Island, which I gather is actually an oilfield on top of a submerged mountain!
Clearly whatever local factors are at play, they have nothing to do with climate change.
The Isle de Jean Charles is also badly affected by coastal erosion and the dredging of canals, which prevents sedimentation from rebuilding the Isle. A double whammy, in other words.
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April 20, 2019 at 01:12PM
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