A Sign of Sea Level Rise

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A Sign of Sea Level Rise

Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 10:22pm.

The water was almost up to the boardwalk - about two feet or so shy of the mark.

The water was very high when I took this photo. According to www.saltwatertides.com, the high tide for Sunday August 3rd, 2008 was 15.5 feet at 8:35 pm (about 5 minutes prior to this photo being taken.)

This area is known to have tides of over 17 feet. A 17 foot tide this night easily might have been at or above street level, especially during inclement weather conditions.

If there were to be rain in a high tide situation like this, or in particular a storm with heavy rain and heavy river flow, it would push the water that much higher.

Many buildings with businesses in the area would likely suffer flooding in such a situation.

Is this a sign of impending sea level rise? I don't want to be a fear-monger. But this is a reality that the best science of the day suggests we will have to confront sooner or later. Could it be sooner rather than later? Discuss.

p.s. oh yeah, didn't a big piece of Antarctica break off recently?

Robert Whitlock's blog
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Evolution...............

Submitted by w1r3d1 on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 7:01am.

Evolution...............

Moon gravity

Submitted by Arts From The Heart on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 11:31am.

Maybe they loaded a big ship with logs or something somewhere in the sound,....like someone fat getting in a hot tub. Seriously, reading the tide during this particular cycle means nothing, you need to take into account the mountain run off and weather systems, patterns, pressures and well,..I am not sure I have ever seen data of tidal rising globally. Please enlighten, I do believe that we are causing global warming,...I just haven't seen the tides change. Thanks for the post, interesting. Scott

High Tide

Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 2:47pm.

All I am saying is that if the water was this high at 15.5 with no storm (no wind, no rain) then if it was a 17.5 with a storm (heavy rain and wind), there would almost definitely be flooding.

Now Way....

Submitted by gshafer5571 on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 3:21pm.

There is no way a storm locally would be able to cause a flood from the sound. There is a simple scientific fact that would prevent this from happening. Water seeks it's own level. Puget Sound isn't locked like a lake. Any water that we get from a storm in order to cause a flood locally would have to fill up the entire Puget Sound, Pacific Ocean, well...pretty much any open see in the world before it would be able to flood here. So in order for water to lift a foot here water would have to lift a foot everywhere else around the globe. If you look at the tide charts it was just an extremely high tide. the 3rd and 4th had tides over 15ft but every other day after that drops dramatically. I don't think we need to be worried about a flood in Budd Inlet.

There is a way

Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 3:25pm.

Actually, flooding of this nature has already occurred in downtown. The problem comes when the river (Deschutes in the case of Olympia) is running at high volumes.

That coupled with high high incoming tide and wind driven waves has been known to drive water into low lying areas of the downtown sector.

To be fair, in the case of the photograph above, there might have been high river flow volume... I don't know. But it has been hot recently, so glacier / mountain snow melt and run-off may be affecting things. There are certainly those who follow this closely and would be able to add to this conversation.

Downtown Flooding

Submitted by OlympiaHistory on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 4:46pm.

Waterfront Olympia has seen many above street level floods. If you visit Olympia Supply Hardware on Columbia Street, there are some great photos of floods from recent decades on display in the office.

yeah, but...

Submitted by Kozmo on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 7:08am.

this is because the spillway in the 5th Ave dam doesn't have the capacity, without backing water up, to pass the Deschutes during floods when the tide is high.

uh..

Submitted by Arts From The Heart on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 8:36am.

Let me get this straight The State installs a dike and tide gate so the capital takes nice pictures and ??, they agree to pay the dredging forever,...so now the city doesn't have to dredge their marina as often but floods occur more often because of the dike and flood gate. Am i pretty close? Were there as many floods before the dike was installed? Does the city cover flood damage using what money they would have spent dredging?

river flow

Submitted by IFerguson on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 11:53am.

I was in Tumwater Falls park on Wednesday evening, and the river flow was not at all high. But, checking actual science, it turns out the day before your photo was a little higher than normal:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?site_no=12079000&PARAmeter_cd=00060,00065

It's a normal high August tide.

Submitted by Laurian on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 4:03pm.

Not evience of rising sea levels. If you had taken a picture at the same location 11 hours earlier it would have shown very low water levels. Would you have offered it up at evidence of a sign of plummeting sea levels?

The change in sea level global change will bring will be measured in 10th of inches, a slow but significant change measurable over decades. It's not the rise in sea levels that will cause parts of Olympia to flood but a high tide in combination of heavy rain and low barometric pressure that will allow water reach places it hasn't gone for decades. Winter storms have threaten Oly Supply and surrounding businesses ever since the area was in-filled and is the reason pallets of sand bags are staged nearby.

I don't know how long you have lived near the Sound Bert but as someone who has lived on or near the Sound for most his life, I can say the tide you documented is absolutely normal.

Climate change is real. Rising sea levels are real, but the effects of which will not have a significant impact on Olympia for many decades to come. The crisis looming is much more subtle and therefore much more difficult to address. Sadly your photo and accompanying alarmist comments only provide fodder to climate change deniers.

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