Month: August 2024

Variation of 50-Year Relative Sea Level Trends  — Northeast United States

Note by Kip Hansen — 11 August 2024 — 800 words

I was checking to see if the Water Levels at the tide gauge at The Battery, New York had come back into its normal range – it had been running exceptionally high and out of line with the long-term trend:

And, as we can see, the latest datum is right back in line with the trend, as expected.  There are reasons for the spike that lasted a couple of months.  Savvy readers can inform us in comments.

Since I was in the NOAA Tides and Currents site, I took a look at the database view called “Variation of 50-Year Relative Sea Level Trends”, seldom visited.  Here it is for The Battery:

Do you see that interesting wave shape?   I do.

What exactly is this?  NOAA says:

“Linear relative sea level trends were calculated in overlapping 50-year increments for stations with sufficient historical data. The variation of each 50-year trend, with 95% confidence interval, is plotted against the mid-year of each 50-year period. The solid horizontal line represents the linear relative sea level trend using the entire period of record.”

Curiosity took hold and scrolling down the page, I see that NOAA had supplied the same view for 40 tide gauges around the United States.

Here are 12 selected from the Northeast coast of the United States, first in a PowerPoint slide show, one after another:

They all have the same/similar wave form, or the segment of the wave over shorter time periods.  How similar?  Let’s see.

Putting all 12 images on top of one another, aligning the vertical scales in millimeters:

Visually, we can see the wave form repeated at each gauge.  As we get closer to present time, more tide gauges are added to the mix and we see more variability. 

One more look:

In the image above, I have aligned the “linear sea level trend using the entire period of record” for each gauge (the arrow points to that line).

With this view, collectively, we reveal remarkable similarity across the entire range of tide gauges. 

It is possible to see what looks like higher Rates of Relative SLR in the 1950s and the 1960s  than those we see in the latest 50 year period. 

It is also possible to chop off the earliest portions of the chart, leaving only the time period that the tide gauge record shares with the satellite sea level measurement record.  Doing that results in graphs like this one from NASA:

This graph starts in 1993…and shows that rising trend in the last three 50-year periods of the tide gauge graph.  I have blown up the lower right corner, just because it seemed odd to me that NASA drops the first few data points below zero and they are obscured by the white tick mark for 1993. 

Remember, Relative Sea Level Rise is the additive product of Vertical Land Movement (VLM, land moving up or down) and any change in the actual height of the sea surface (up or down).    For a tide gauge, the measurements must be taken at the same place on the same structure (pier, dock, wharf):  Sea Surface Height by a modern tide gauge and VLM by a Continuously Operating GPS station attached to the same structure.   NOAA attributes the differences in RSLR rate to differences in the rate of VLM (in most cases, “negative VLM” or  downward).

NASA explains East Coast VLM in an article titled: America’s Sinking East Coast

The press however, urged on by the major Climate Crisis propaganda outfits, gives us stories like these:

Northeast is likely to experience more than a century’s worth of sea level rise from 2000 to 2050, report finds

Federal report predicts a foot of sea level rise by 2050, with higher levels in the Northeast

It is an interesting way to look at the NOAA tide gauge records for the Northeast United States and the rate of relative sea level rise revealed in it.

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Author’s Comment:

What do you make of that?  I’ll try to get time to do the same for the West Coast, and the Gulf Coast.  If I can find similar data, for Europe and Asia as well.

NASA has added the absolutely required “acceleration curve” as a thin red line.  That line is entirely subjective, a matter of opinion and some fancy statistical skullduggery – which involves all the primary sins of time series analysis – most importantly, using a very short time period, 30 years,  for a phenomenon that operates over centuries. 

The graphs of Rates of RSLR from the tide gauges show that there is a cyclical patter to the rate of rise – at least in the NE U.S.

Thanks for reading.

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August 11, 2024 at 12:07PM

Update: Woke Tyranny Vs. Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson writes this update on his battle against censoring bureaucrates at National Post I will see this contemptible ‘re-education’ process through to its absurd end.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Having failed to persuade the Supreme Court, I am going
to see what constraints are put on my speech,
and I am going to make it as public as possible.

On Thursday, my attempt to defend myself against the ideologues and petty tyrants that now occupy so many positions of authority in Canada came to an end — or I finally got what I deserve, due to my incautious verbal utterances, depending on your stance. I am (still) a licensed psychologist in Ontario, and was once a full professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Back in 2016, both of those occupations basically came to an end, when I had the temerity to object to the idiot legislation passed by our jackanapes prime minister, Justin Trudeau, the worst leader Canada has ever had, and a contender for the worst in the western world. His moralizing compatriots decided at the time that it was a good idea to rejig the very definition of sex — what could go wrong with that? — and to simultaneously compel everyone to accept that redesignation, on pain of law.

But we have become such fools in Canada, moralizing blindly and pridefully while inverting our traditions and perverting our legal system. Who cares? Why die on that hill? People asked me such things when I said very publicly that I would rather rot in jail than use the bloody pronouns demanded of me by people too stupid to understand what they were doing — the outright metastatic communists of the progressive liberals and the minor moralizing tyrants of the elite liberal bureaucracy. I care. Why? Because I could see where all this idiocy was headed, as clear as day. I told the arrogant fools in the Canadian Senate (and a hostile and dismissive bunch they were) that confusing young people about their sexual identity would lead to an epidemic of gender dysphoria among young women, and that is precisely what has happened.

I use social media regularly — and well. I have literally tens of millions of people who subscribe to my various channels, and hundreds of millions who listen to and watch my YouTube videos and their derivatives. I have used those channels to voice my thoughts about such affairs of sex and gender, criticizing the ideologues who are practising their evil craft on the most vulnerable members of society. I believe that the ”transing” of minors is: first, a crime against humanity (as the involuntary sterilization of human beings is so defined by the United Nations); and second, the worst moral crime that the medical community has ever committed.

There were some people, out there in the wide world, who objected to my tweets. The College of Psychologists of Ontario has a convenient complaint portal on its website that anyone, anywhere can use to inform and carp about my behaviour (and that of other psychologists) for any reason at any time. This is true whether they were one of my clients or not — or even knew anyone who had been one of my clients. Such complaint processes regarding professional conduct have been weaponized by the Machiavellian left, experts as they are at the kind of covert warfare that characterizes those with so-called Cluster B psychopathology: the histrionic, borderline, narcissistic antisocial types who use gossip and reputation destruction to carve their destructive swath through their own lives, the lives of others and the general social world.

So they submitted their complaints, electronically, at no cost to themselves, with no risk of public exposure, and to my detriment. The College of Psychologists of Ontario is duty-bound to investigate every complaint, no matter how trivial or falsely motivated, and then to decide what to pursue.

Unfortunately, that body has also been taken over by the same ideological types, and at least a small coterie of them (and it is so often now exactly that small coterie) have decided that holding my clinical license hostage, attempting to destroy my reputation and subjecting me to tremendous legal expenses (I have already spent more than $1 million defending myself against this lawfare), insanity-making stress and interference with my livelihood is something well worth doing, given that I have had the constant temerity to inform the public — as is my duty — about just what the hell is transpiring on the psychological front. Hence the series of complaints that have been upheld by this delightful board, even after my insistence that all of this is politically motivated, as it is, culminating in the college’s decision to subject me to indefinite “re-education,” at my own expense, at the hands of one of their so-called social media experts (a professional designation that in no way even exists), until I have learned whatever lesson I am supposed to learn, which I suppose is to hold my bloody tongue.

I objected to such cavalier and ideologically motivated treatment at the hands of an ideologically captured and essentially anonymous accusatory mob, and pushed my objections through the provincial court of appeal, which rejected them, to the Supreme Court itself, which did the same thing as its provincial counterpart on Aug. 8. I am now subject to the re-education process, and have no further appeal. I have no idea how this charade is going to play itself out.

Who is going to teach me? What am I supposed to learn? Do not fool yourself into thinking that there is any precedent to this, or any plan. It is all being made up by the subterranean prosecutors who are pushing their ideological agenda. Where will it end? I cannot say, but I can tell you this:

Canadians once again have a very hard choice in front of them. The Supreme Court has essentially decided (or, more accurately, failed to take responsibility and therefore decided by default) that the much-vaunted Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be completely ignored by the regulatory bodies that license professionals in Canada. There are two conclusions that must be drawn in the aftermath of this decision. The first is that the Charter itself is not worth the paper it is written on. If comparatively low-level bureaucrats can suspend its most important provisions, more or less at will, it is a document with no real force whatsoever. I suspected as much when it was implemented back in the 1980s, and it is certainly the case that my worst suspicions have been justified.

Worse, however, is the clear consequence for professionals and those they serve in Canada. My fellow citizens: it is now a legal requirement in your sad state for the lawyers, engineers, teachers, physicians, psychologists and social workers who serve you — often in your hours of most desperate need — to lie to you, in order to ensure they are not transgressing against the ideological assumptions of those who fly the flag of the radical left. This means that if you have a child in psychological trouble, for example, you will not get the truth from the professionals whose counsel you may be driven to seek. The same applies to lawyers — and even more so to the physicians who will now be more likely to castrate and slice off breasts and sterilize when children present themselves with the typical confusion of adolescence.

Why believe me? If I was in the position of the average Canadian, I would be unlikely to do so. Here is the terrible conundrum such individuals now find themselves in: either Jordan B. Peterson is an unreliable purveyor of paranoid fantasies, and rude to boot, or the entire Liberal party, Justin Trudeau, the higher education system itself (and let us not forget about the appalling K-12 leftist teacher-led propaganda venture) has become unreliable to the point of inviable corruption.

It is much easier to believe the former.
Unfortunately, the former is not true.

I am merely saying publicly, however badly, what all my cowardly, craven, lying colleagues know full well to be true: that all this “gender-affirming” nonsense is not only a lie, but a foul, dangerous lie; that the overwhelming majority of children with so-called gender dysphoria will grow out of it by the time they are adults; and that the course of action with the least possible damage is the right response to such confusion. The right response is anything but the identity transformation, puberty blockers, hormonal interventions and grotesque and brutal surgical procedures that are far too often recommended by those who should, and likely do, know better.

Why are all the professionals — psychological, legal and medical — going along with this madness? Because they do not want to suffer the same fate — loss of employment, loss of practice, complex legal entanglement, severe stress, unsustainable financial expense — that has come to visit my family and me. So they lie through their teeth, to ensure the demented propositions of the radicals can remain unchallenged, and their destructive and increasingly deadly ideology can continue its propagation through our once-great institutions.

Here’s where we are, Canucks. To reiterate: on Aug. 8, your Supreme Court determined that professionals practising in your country cannot rely on the most fundamental document of our polity — the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — to protect them against the nonsense-purveyors of the idiot left. If your professionals cannot speak their minds, not only can they not do their jobs, but their fate indicates yours. If lawyers, physicians, psychologists, engineers and other highly skilled, licensed people have to lie in order to maintain their standing — to ensure their livelihoods, to maintain their reputations, to stay free of the long and increasingly corrupt hand of the law — what makes you think you have any chance whatsoever to maintain a relationship with the truth?

I really do not have an iron in this fire, practically speaking. I could escape to the United States (an increasingly tempting alternative), or tell the college to go to perdition and renounce the professional license that I am more and more embarrassed to have, given the stunning cowardice of my compatriots, and which I really do not use in any case, because working as a practising psychologist has become something untenable for me. But I am instead going to see this contemptible process through to what will almost certainly be its absurd end. I am going to find out just what sort of person will step forward to “re-educate” me. I am going to see what constraints are put on my movement, and the sound of my tongue, while all that unfolds, and I am going to make it as public as possible.

But in the meantime, my fellow citizens, you might consider awakening from your slumber. The Canada of today is not what it was 20 years ago — even 10 — and its new configuration is not one that will bring you the benefits to which you have become accustomed. We now live in a land — not least courtesy of Bill C-16, which I warned you about, to my great peril — where it is potentially illegal to insist that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, or to object to the castration and mutilation of children. We now live in a land where the federal government is essentially in opposition to the economic engine of the land (dependent as we are, for better or worse, on the resource economy). We are poorer than our American cousins.

Our real estate costs have spiralled out of control.
Our borders are open.
Our leader is a juvenile narcissist.
Our finances are a mess. And,
Our Charter of Rights is not worth the ink that was spilled in its production.

 

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August 11, 2024 at 11:18AM

German Green Raw Deal: First Half 2024 Insolvencies Skyrocket 30%, Near 10-Year High

Germany’s Creditreform registered 11,000 corporate insolvencies in the first half of 2024. This is an increase of almost 30 percent compared to the same period last year (8,470 cases) and marks the highest level for almost ten years.

The number of consumer insolvencies has also risen again.

The weak economic development and the persistently high burdens have caused insolvency figures in Germany to rise further. “Insolvencies in Germany have reached their highest level for almost ten years. In the first half of 2024, companies are continuing to battle against the effects of the recession in 2023, ongoing crises and the weak economic development this year,” says Patrik-Ludwig Hantzsch, Head of Creditreform Economic Research. “Taken together, all of this is breaking the back of many companies.”

High inflation, interest rates

The insolvency figures for consumers also rose. At 35,400 consumer insolvencies, 6.7 percent more cases were registered than in the same period last year (33,180 cases).In addition to inflation and the turnaround in interest rates, the amendment to consumer insolvency law at the end of 2020, which enables private individuals to discharge residual debt more quickly and thus makes the process more interesting for debtors, is likely to be responsible for the current increase.

The Creditreform Economic Research study also shows an increase in bad debt losses and the number of employees affected in the first half of 2024. This is due to the significant increase in the number of insolvencies among medium-sized and large companies.The number of cases among large companies (more than 250 employees) has doubled compared to the previous year.

Prominent major insolvencies in recent months were GALERIA Karstadt Kaufhof and FTI-Touristik. “We can see that it is not the sheer number of insolvencies that is decisive. The impact of a company going bankrupt is significantly greater than, for example, during the global financial crisis in 2009,” explains the Creditreform spokesperson.

In the first half of 2024, an estimated 133,000 employees were affected by insolvency (previous year: 125,000). “The focus of insolvency law on restructuring and preserving companies and jobs is primarily aimed at larger companies, which could explain the increase in the number of cases in this segment in recent years,” explains Hantzsch.

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August 11, 2024 at 10:04AM

Monday

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August 11, 2024 at 09:26AM