Boston Harbor Flood Protection Projects

[Mongo]

KMP -- I doubt if many -- outside of people of independent wealth and no need to work -- if given option "do you want your taxes raised to pay for something concocted by the CLF" would say yes [on a binding ballot question]

And you would be completely wrong, transit ballot questions (like the green line extension that the CLF won through a lawsuit) pass about 70% of the time.

http://www.cfte.org/elections

 

[DominusNovus]

Over the top talk like this damages our civil society. Please stop doing it. You know better than to compare civic-minded fellow citizens you don't agree with to the most vile people on earth. Shame.

I've read plenty of invective levelled at whighlander on this very forum in the last few days.

 

[GW]

I've read plenty of invective levelled at whighlander on this very forum in the last few days.

Does any of it liken him to mass murderers and rapists?

 

[whighlander]

Re: Storm surge in Boston

If you actually want to take a science-based view that relies on data, you wouldn't say we don't know #1. Even scientists who Ed Markey tried to crucify agree we know #1 and there are aspects of our climate that are outside normal variability (#2). If you want to listen to good scientists that have skepticism about #4, you should look at the work of Judith Curry or Roger Pielke. As it stands, you're babbling nonsense that is clearly politically based and not based in science. You're on no more solid footing than Markey or Grijalva.

Dwash -- Unfortunately -- if you think Ed Markey knows anything of any interest to anyone -- you are hopelessly lost

I once asked my then esteemed Congress Person a question at a fancy talk he gave headlining some fancy initiative at a fancy downtown highrise venue -- his response told me all that I needed to know about his competency. Let's just say I regularly meet 8 year olds in my volunteer work at the Museum of Science who could explain why the Congress Person was an idiot in a field which he ostensibly should have had at least a modicum of knowledge -- he was at the time the Ranking Member and former Chair of the Subcommittee on Telecom.

He had made some blathering remarks about concentration in the media leading to ossification of our views through lack of competing sources. I prefaced my remarks by saying so you are implying that just because most of the TV and Radio stations are owned by a few corporations that there are no alternative possible sources [this was at the beginning of the explosive growth of the Internet circa 1997]. He seemed confused so I gave him a second chance I said what about satellites and he said something about control over them. So I said what you suggest would require an Aluminum Astrodome over the Boston Metro -- and it blew in the right ear and out the left -- there is no there there in the now esteemed Senator.

As to rest of what you are alleging -- there is wide spectrum of views about all of my questions. Many highly qualified theorists [e.g. Richard Lindzen] -- tend to take the GISS surface temperature record at face value -- they have objections about what is an is not included in the models. However the surface temperature record as "packaged" by entities such as GISS is full of at least negligence if not corruption in the "adjustments to the data". The raw data itself is full of stations which would not meet any reasonable criteria for good siting and maintenance practices. However, theorists can be excused for their lack of concern over these kinds of thing -- they don't really come into contact with data so its "nasty/dirty" features seem foreign to their mindset.

There are more subtle matters embedded in even the best of the "data packages" such as the loss of many of the Northern Hemisphere's coldest reporting stations post the end of the Soviet Union. It might have been "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work" during the "Evil Empire" -- but at least there was some funding as the Soviet Union was quite justifiably proud of its standing in the scientific world. After the Soviet Union ended -- the former Republics then mostly relatively poor independent countries quickly abandoned many remote stations with human data collection. Even Russia abandoned stations which had been operated since the days of the Tzars.

In addition there is the now admitted "Climategate" involving outright scientific fraud by people like Michael Mann who changed data to suit their Politically inspired theoretical positions.

So if the traditional thermometry based land surface temperature record is in question and similar though different issues cloud the ocean surface temperature record -- what about the satellites? Satellite Microwave Radiometer data gathering has been fine tuned to an amazing level by criticisms and improvements as a result of the criticism -- BUT its of quite limited duration the continuous cross calibrated data sets only go back about 25 years and there is the matter that each measurement integrates the temperature profile and so can not provide a direct comparison with ground based measurements.

There is one additional source of ground temperature data and it comes paradoxically from balloon-borne radiosondes. Before a weather balloon is launched a calibration reading is taken while it is still tethered at an altitude above the ground just slightly above the standard height for ground based thermometry. This practice began during the IGY and so the data set goes back to the late 1950's. However, as satellites and radar data has taken a larger role in weather forecasting the weather balloons are fewer and further between -- the nearest launch site is Chatham on the Cape.

US Navy EC's [the Navy version of AWACS] do take temperature data on the climb to their operational altitudes -- but the profiles are inconsistent.

Finally, there are proxies [tree rings] which need to be interpreted due to other factors and anecdotal evidence such as the varying price of the leases for Scottish Highland fields and the price of goods sold by Cistercian Monks.

All of the above contributes to real questions about the historic climate.

And if you can't really be clear of the historic climate -- then all of the rest becomes pure speculation and not science.

The above is a small sample behind my suggestion of a 50 year plan:

• 10 years of prep
  • to develop a good set of instrumentation -- designed for widespread deployment over all terrains, and to give automated directly accessible over the web global coverage
  • simultaneously a well-funded Challenge to develop reliable satellite based ground measurements
  • simultaneous development of commercial air carrier based mid Tropospheric data collection system
  • simultaneous selection of best of the existing data sets -- freed of political adjustments
• 10 years to get all the equipment working and collect a baseline [equivalent to the balloon still being tethered] for the models to tweak on
• 10 years for the Modelers to run and predict the recently gathered data -- followed by bracket run-off to pick the most reliable models based on predicting the past
• 20 years to see if anything is really happening which is outside normal variability

as an aside I suggest the following website as good source for the dissussion of the issues from a number of different perspectives:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I've read plenty of invective levelled at whighlander on this very forum in the last few days.

Because we now have TWO storm-surge threads simultaneously derailed by one person's horseshit ideological talking points-trolling of the exact kind Admin created a politics thread on the Gen. subforum to keep from mass-derailing the main forum.

Do you somehow think one person's belligerent and chronic thread-derailing is problem of the community not giving enough affirmation to the perpetrator's fee-fees??? We can't talk about the dev-related implications of sea-level rise despite that being very much current events for every goddamn thing we talk about on the main board. Is that not a problem? Look...I'm as firm a believer as anyone that Admin's explicit choice of a light moderation hand for AB is the right one, but you're sadly mistaken if that somehow entails misguided obligation to overcompensate by giving the bad actors a hug as positive encouragement to stop. All that does is ensure the range of permissible topics on the board gets narrower and narrower by encouraging the bad actors to take their agenda-driven political shit-stirring up a notch to wider range of topics.

Which...lo and behold!...is exactly what's happened with spiraling frequency for this one poster over the last couple months. Please do thoroughly enjoy the fruits of stoking the trolls' self-esteem.

 

[atlantaden]

Thanks for mentioning the multiple threads of basically the same topic, this back and forth between the two is a pain. Would it be possible for a moderator, at the very least, to merge the two together? Flood Barrier/Storm Surge or something similar? Thanks.

 

[GW]

Re: Storm surge in Boston

As to rest of what you are alleging -- there is wide spectrum of views about all of my questions. Many highly qualified theorists [e.g. Richard Lindzen] -- tend to take the GISS surface temperature record at face value -- they have objections about what is an is not included in the models. However the surface temperature record as "packaged" by entities such as GISS is full of at least negligence if not corruption in the "adjustments to the data". The raw data itself is full of stations which would not meet any reasonable criteria for good siting and maintenance practices. However, theorists can be excused for their lack of concern over these kinds of thing -- they don't really come into contact with data so its "nasty/dirty" features seem foreign to their mindset.

There are more subtle matters embedded in even the best of the "data packages" such as the loss of many of the Northern Hemisphere's coldest reporting stations post the end of the Soviet Union. It might have been "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work" during the "Evil Empire" -- but at least there was some funding as the Soviet Union was quite justifiably proud of its standing in the scientific world. After the Soviet Union ended -- the former Republics then mostly relatively poor independent countries quickly abandoned many remote stations with human data collection. Even Russia abandoned stations which had been operated since the days of the Tzars.

In addition there is the now admitted "Climategate" involving outright scientific fraud by people like Michael Mann who changed data to suit their Politically inspired theoretical positions.

So if the traditional thermometry based land surface temperature record is in question and similar though different issues cloud the ocean surface temperature record -- what about the satellites? Satellite Microwave Radiometer data gathering has been fine tuned to an amazing level by criticisms and improvements as a result of the criticism -- BUT its of quite limited duration the continuous cross calibrated data sets only go back about 25 years and there is the matter that each measurement integrates the temperature profile and so can not provide a direct comparison with ground based measurements.

There is one additional source of ground temperature data and it comes paradoxically from balloon-borne radiosondes. Before a weather balloon is launched a calibration reading is taken while it is still tethered at an altitude above the ground just slightly above the standard height for ground based thermometry. This practice began during the IGY and so the data set goes back to the late 1950's. However, as satellites and radar data has taken a larger role in weather forecasting the weather balloons are fewer and further between -- the nearest launch site is Chatham on the Cape.

US Navy EC's [the Navy version of AWACS] do take temperature data on the climb to their operational altitudes -- but the profiles are inconsistent.

Finally, there are proxies [tree rings] which need to be interpreted due to other factors and anecdotal evidence such as the varying price of the leases for Scottish Highland fields and the price of goods sold by Cistercian Monks.

All of the above contributes to real questions about the historic climate.

And if you can't really be clear of the historic climate -- then all of the rest becomes pure speculation and not science.

The above is a small sample behind my suggestion of a 50 year plan:

• 10 years of prep
  • to develop a good set of instrumentation -- designed for widespread deployment over all terrains, and to give automated directly accessible over the web global coverage
  • simultaneously a well-funded Challenge to develop reliable satellite based ground measurements
  • simultaneous development of commercial air carrier based mid Tropospheric data collection system
  • simultaneous selection of best of the existing data sets -- freed of political adjustments
• 10 years to get all the equipment working and collect a baseline [equivalent to the balloon still being tethered] for the models to tweak on
• 10 years for the Modelers to run and predict the recently gathered data -- followed by bracket run-off to pick the most reliable models based on predicting the past
• 20 years to see if anything is really happening which is outside normal variability

as an aside I suggest the following website as good source for the dissussion of the issues from a number of different perspectives:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/

Sorry to keep this going, but Whigh is so painfully wrong that I can't leave his word soup unchallenged. So, quickly, a few points:

You are completely wrong about the GISS data. Here's a fairly extended explanation of why: https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=255

The same page also debunks the assertions in your weirdly rambling second paragraph about Russian stations and Tzars and the Death Star.

Second, there's nothing "admitted" about "Climategate." Do you just add words regardless of meaning? Mann, for instance, never "admitted" anything, and was cleared of all charges by a half dozen separate inquiries (if not more). There are helpful links on this page: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.WG_0j5Ip-Ic


So, the data really isn't in question, and the prolix, speculating paragraphs that follow, about satellites, balloons, Navy surveillance aircraft, Cistercian monks, and Whigh's 200-year plan to diagnose the planet, can be disregarded as what they are: the ramblings of a sadly misinformed and parochial old man who loves to hear himself talk.

 

[GeneseeJunction]

Re: Storm surge in Boston

simultaneous development of commercial air carrier based mid Tropospheric data collection system

You do know that TAMDAR (Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting) systems are already deployed on aircraft fleets and reporting back live atmospheric measurements?

Combine this with the rapidly expanding satellite internet backhaul networks being built out with (Iridium lofting 75 Satellites starting Monday), OneWeb's 648 bird constellation to start operations in 2019, and SpaceX's planning 4000+ bird LEO constellation. In a few years, global weather models will have thousands of samples being provides in real time.

But we don't need the future as a guide. Once the US Navy and Soviet Navy realized the practicality of launching ICBM's from under polar pack ice, they started mapping ice thickness in great detail for the last 50 years.

There is plenty of data and soon will be a tidal wave of such data.

 

[Scipio]

Here's the Barr Foundation with a comprehensive post on their strategy to support climate change resiliency in Boston: https://www.barrfoundation.org/blog/climate-resiliency-efforts-in-boston

In addition to the $336K they gave UMass to study harbor barriers and financing, they also gave the city $500K and could provide up to $400k more for:

• an initiative to expand education and engagement of Bostonians about the climate hazards the city will face in the decades ahead;
  
• more detailed resiliency planning in vulnerable neighborhoods, including those proposed for new growth in one of the City’s other major planning efforts, Imagine Boston 2030;
  
• development of new regulatory tools to promote best practices in the siting and design of new development; and
  
• an assessment of inner-harbor coastal protection measures that can defend parts of the city most vulnerable to flooding in the near term, such as in East Boston and Charlestown.

 

[stellarfun]

Lengthy Globe article.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ston-harbor/dxtlbGrfSmYE2zacwUKakJ/story.html

Some of the costs discussed indicate this project would suck up available dollars for other major infrastructure proposals, such as N-S rail link.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Maybe build the N-S rail link on top of it, connecting to rail lines at its north and south ends. The rail line could go by Logan with a station there.

 

[Equilibria]

Maybe build the N-S rail link on top of it, connecting to rail lines at its north and south ends. The rail line could go by Logan with a station there.

I think you want to do this as cheaply as possible, which is why the dike made of boulders idea the Globe mentions is interesting. At $5B, we can afford it.

The other obvious issue is that every barrier proposal ends at Deer Island on the north, and there's no good way to get either a highway or a railway approach through Winthrop.

 

[George_Apley]

I think you want to do this as cheaply as possible, which is why the dike made of boulders idea the Globe mentions is interesting. At $5B, we can afford it.

The other obvious issue is that every barrier proposal ends at Deer Island on the north, and there's no good way to get either a highway or a railway approach through Winthrop.

Or through Hull for that matter. Even Quincy would be politically infeasible. Just because I-93 is there doesn't mean a highway can be bulldozed through the neighborhoods between it and Moon Island...

 

[Scipio]

The harbor barrier sketch maps look like great hosts for a new rail line, highway, or recreational path. But the nature of the harbor and heavy boat traffic mean that the barrier will be left in the open position unless there's a significant storm surge forecasted. There would have to be either huge bridges with clearance for ships, or tunnels diving beneath the harbor to get around these gaps.

The only affordable way I see the barrier being useful to transportation is if there's a ferry connecting the halves of the causeway. The boat that Local Motion runs to connect the two halves of the Island Line Causeway in Lake Champlain is similar.

 

[tangent]

Better to pay for expanding the capacity of Pilgrim nuclear power station and thus doing our part to limit future global warming while also providing reliable and safe electricity.

Talking about a barrier is pointless if we don't know if, when and by how much sea levels are going to rise. Better to wait until it actually starts happening and focus on prevention that has the added benefit of providing us with reliable power in the meantime with a quadrupling of nuclear power capacity along with renewables in the next twenty years.

Even then, relying on a storm gate at the entrance of Boston Harbor sounds like adding a risk of single point of catastrophic failure in a challenging stormy and saltwater physical environment versus simply building some piles of rocks along the immediate coastline as needed.

3 to 5 feet of sea level rise is manageable with immediate shoreline protections...

Certainly the DEP permitting regime is going to need to be gutted to reduce the costs of coastal protection. We need to have a simple set of rules and lower the cost for making barriers along the shore or even shoreline replacement where there isn't enough room for building up a barrier and we need to fill in ocean to make room.

The current environmental regime is untenable.

 

[West]

I haven't been able to find the actual Barr Foundation grant language to see what they've tasked the study group to do. But I hope to hell they insisted that the study be narrowed down to the baseline: examine the pros and cons of each location and the bare bones cost for each location.

We first need to determine if any of the locations should be eliminated for feasibility reasons. That inner-most site looks very problematic, for instance; if it (or any other option) is just too badly flawed, let's get them off the table once and for all.

Second, we need to have baseline cost estimates established for any option that looks feasible. And that first cost estimate should be just for flood protection.

With that, we can get some sense of the impact on budgets, as compared to the impact over time of doing nothing. That's going to be a difficult enough conversation as it is.

And then, and only then, should anyone in a position of authority start tossing out ideas for highways, rail lines, etc. It will obviously increase pricing massively to upgrade from simplest flood barrier to rail lines or highways. Let's get a baseline first. If folks here at archBoston want to fling around fantasy ideas, no harm no foul. But the experts and the decision makers to whom they'll report need to stay focused on the baseline for the time being.

Hopefully the Barr Foundation tasked the engineers at UMass Boston to do that and only that: baseline cost for flood protection only.

 

[tangent]

The study is a waste of time and money and the only conclusion should be that all the proposals are wastes of time and money. But as long as it is private time and private money then have at it. Probably less of a waste than half the University studies out there, someone has to subsidize grad students.

 

[George_Apley]

Better to pay for expanding the capacity of Pilgrim nuclear power station and thus doing our part to limit future global warming while also providing reliable and safe electricity.

Nope. The plant's getting shut down.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Better to pay for expanding the capacity of Pilgrim nuclear power station and thus doing our part to limit future global warming while also providing reliable and safe electricity.

Talking about a barrier is pointless if we don't know if, when and by how much sea levels are going to rise. Better to wait until it actually starts happening and focus on prevention that has the added benefit of providing us with reliable power in the meantime with a quadrupling of nuclear power capacity along with renewables in the next twenty years.

Even then, relying on a storm gate at the entrance of Boston Harbor sounds like adding a risk of single point of catastrophic failure in a challenging stormy and saltwater physical environment versus simply building some piles of rocks along the immediate coastline as needed.

3 to 5 feet of sea level rise is manageable with immediate shoreline protections...

Certainly the DEP permitting regime is going to need to be gutted to reduce the costs of coastal protection. We need to have a simple set of rules and lower the cost for making barriers along the shore or even shoreline replacement where there isn't enough room for building up a barrier and we need to fill in ocean to make room.

The current environmental regime is untenable.

Your coastline approach takes out the entire harbor walk, so I am not a fan.

Storm surge barriers are well proven technology. There are 5 or 6 major ones in Europe (mostly in the Netherlands, but also the Thames River Barrier outside London). They are typically viewed as more cost effective than directly protecting large areas of complex coastline.

 

[EdMc]

Washington Post, July 4, 2017
"Ancient Romans made world’s ‘most durable’ concrete. We might use it to stop rising seas."

quotes -
"The harbor concrete, a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime, has withstood the sea for two millennia and counting. What's more, it is stronger than when it was first mixed."

"The Roman stuff is “an extraordinarily rich material in terms of scientific possibility,” said Philip Brune, a research scientist at DuPont Pioneer who has studied the engineering properties of Roman monuments. “It's the most durable building material in human history, and I say that as an engineer not prone to hyperbole."

"Modern sea walls require steel reinforcements; a future in which “large relic walls of twisted steel” dot the coast would be “very troubling,” Jackson said. The Romans didn't use steel. Their reactive concrete was strong enough on its own."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-to-stop-rising-seas/?utm_term=.5f07e1db609a