Arnold needs to stop reading the propaganda and get some facts.
In his LATimes op-ed, Ah-nold says:
This report spells out many other negative effects that rising temperatures will cause in California. Over the last 100 years, sea levels have risen about 7 inches, and the San Francisco Bay Area is already feeling the effects. A sewage system there was flooded with saltwater, and the 101 Freeway has seen flooding. This isn’t a distant threat.
Check out the data for yourself. Show us the sea-level rise.
So what if global sea level rose 7″ in 100 years, the data I have is for 21 centimetres, 8 1/4″ in old money.
My money’s on the same amount of rise rise this century, nothing to worry about.
In an unstable geological area, how would you be able to tell if the sea level was rising and the land was not sinking?
If “sea level” has risen, wouldn’t it have risen on every shore in the world?
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/
Much of northern Santa Clara Valley sank at least eight feet
Problem of Subsidence
Since the day in 1854 when the first well went in, the Santa Clara Valley has subsided up to 13 feet as groundwater was pumped for agricultural and urban use. Over-pumping of groundwater during the early twentieth century lowered the pressure in the groundwater aquifer to the point that deep layers of alluvial sediment settled, causing the land surface to subside, that is sink relative to the surrounding terrain and sea level. Only through extensive groundwater recharge has land subsidence been curtailed.
Groundwater Abundance
Flanked by mountains on either side, the Santa Clara basin lies in a trough that is underlain by many hundreds of feet of alluvium, layers of sand, gravel, silt, and clay. Winter rains that fall on the basin either flow to San Francisco Bay via surface creeks and rivers, or soak into the porous alluvium joining the groundwater system. In the second half of the nineteenth century, most wells tapping this groundwater system north of San Jose were artesian — water under pressure beneath the surface rose up in wells and gushed out on the surface.
In the early twentieth centuries, however, groundwater levels dropped dramatically as irrigation-intensive fruit and vegetable cultivation expanded and wells extracted groundwater faster than it could be replenished. In just the nine years from 1919 to 1928, the water table dropped over 60 feet in the Mountain View-Milpitas area. The drawdown in water levels led to an increasing area and amount of land subsidence, well failures, and a greater hazard of flooding by rivers or the bay.
Restoration Measures
Beginning in the 1930s, local, state, and federal water agencies constructed dams, canals, and groundwater recharge ponds to replenish the groundwater. Later, aqueducts were built to bring additional water into the valley from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta. The imported water helps by reducing demand for groundwater as well as by supplying more water for recharge. The current recharge program includes 10 reservoirs, 393 acres of percolation ponds, and 159 miles of conduits and pipelines.
By 1969, groundwater levels recovered and ground subsidence largely ceased. Land subsidence cannot be reversed, however. The subsided lands along the mouths of major rivers and the southern margin of San Francisco Bay remain susceptible to flooding by the rivers and tides. The cost for bay levee construction and maintenance represents about three-fourths of the calculated direct costs of land subsidence, or about $300,000,000 in 1998 dollars.
It does look like, for a year or two in the 80’s the sea level in the Bay was about 6″ higher than average. Of course it is really difficult to separate out the effects of the Sacramento river. The mouth of the Bay is very constricted, so if you get a lot of flow from the river, which means you had a lot of rain in the Bay Area as well so there is extra runoff all over the Bay region – then the Bay could be much higher for temporary reasons that have nothing to do with general sea level rise, but just that years weather. In fact you can see the Bay water level lower during the late 1970’s drought period. That is why he mentioned Alameda station, and not the station on the Ocean side in say Half Moon bay, which is more stable and less affected by rain.
It does look like the Alamada station “increase” is sea level in the Bay is subtle, at best.