At the current rate, the sea is predicted to rise less than four inches in 30 years. If Jakarta has sunk seven feet in 30 years, I suggest that sea level rise ought not be Jakarta's major concern.

This story was covered back on April 15 by ABC News (oh no, the main stream media):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/15/2217414.htm

"December 6 will be the highest point of the tidal cycle, but Mr Brinkman warns there are likely to be plenty of floods before then."

"Mr Brinkman blames the swelling city's over-development, which is compressing the land it is built on."

"The problem has been exacerbated by factories, hotels and wealthy residents drilling deep water bores to bypass the city's shambolic water grid, sucking out the groundwater and causing further subsidence."

"If you do nothing about the groundwater problem, parts of Jakarta will sink five metres (by 2025)," Mr Brinkman said.

That's another drop of 16 feet in the next 17 years!!!

Outside of the 18.6-year natural tidal cycle, the main cause of this potential disaster appears to be anthropogenic.

Similarly, the reported sinking in New Orleans:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5035728.stm

"...based on new satellite radar data taken from 2002 to 2005, which shows that New Orleans sank by an average of 0.22 inches (0.5cm) a year during that period. But the study says some low-lying areas are subsiding by more than one inch (2.54cm) a year - raising concerns about the city's future."

"According to the report, one of the city's levees has sunk by more than 3 ft (0.91m) since its construction three decades ago."

"The scientists name overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts as the main causes."

The big question is as the need for more water continues to grow in our urban areas (due to increasing worldwide demand and drought), will other coastal urban centers suffer similar fates?

Will we also start to encounter a new group of skeptics that say:
"It's all global water bull!!!
Deny! Deny! Deny!
I will not sacrifice my lifestyle choice of drinking and using all the water I want, because I earned the right to use as much as I wish as long as I can afford putting into my sport utility pools. The poor people in the developing countries will just have to deal with their flooding cities without us taking into consideration how much water we are using. We as a nation should start piping our water in from the melted polar regions, but those liberals are preventing us from doing it. As a result worldwide water prices are just sky-rocketing because they want us to believe that we are running out of water. All of those alternative water sources will also make things even more expensive and are completely unnecessary."

"You don't believe me, well look at the historical record for the past 100,000 years. There is simply no correlation in the ground water use and city developments because the hockey-stick curve in the ground water usage since the cities have been created has to be taken out of the data because it is highly biased to the upside and the IWCC is fudging their data to get more research money."

Oh yes, and Tuvalu continues to be threatened by rising seas -- that aren't. Sea levels around that tropical atoll have dropped an inch or two, what's happening to Tuvalu is the same thing thats happening to Jakarta, ground water extraction and removal of stone for building materials is causing the island to sink, yet the PM of Tuvalu is continually claiming its 'global warming'. This is primarily so that the UN will be more inclined to give him money. Given the latest projections even by the IPCC I think this claim is pretty lame.

You should have reserved this for Friday’s laugh.
So let me get this straight. Jakarta’s is in an 18 year Astronomical cycle causing higher tides and the city is sinking at 50mm a year because they are drawing water out of their aquifer at an unsustainable rate while the sea MAY be rising at 0.3-3mm a year! So obviously we must blame Global Warming!
Yup that makes perfect sense. I guess if the AGW crowd can manipulate data, statistics, the media and physics why not branch out and have Hansonian science take over logic and rational thought!
What obtuse and convoluted nonsense. Now if they can just explain the frost we had last week and the 23 days below normal temps (May averaged -5 degrees below normal) …oh I am sorry that is weather…..climate is reserved for Hansonian science, spin and climate models none of which will mean anything if the weather doesn’t warm up allowing the crops to start growing.
LOL you really started the week off with a laugh.
Folks read learn ask questions and think. You don’t need a college degree to know when manure is being spread in a field anymore than realizing blaming AGW for Jakarta’s problem is just plain stupid.

So what's the number? 2mm/year? Lets see..... over thirty years that's.... ummmmm 60mm. Let me get my HP out here..... ummmmm..... 6 cm and that's (those pesky shift keys always confuse me.) 2-3/8 of an inch (for the metrically challenged)

2-3/8 of an inch compared to 7 feet (84 in). That works out to about 3%. 97% subsidence, 3% sea level increase. Yep. Just as I thought: GLOBAL WARMING. The models ALL said this would happen with frightening accuracy.

Sheesh.

Everything perceived to be bad in the world can be blamed on global warming, without any question from the press or most politicians.

Questioning global warming is the western blasphemy equivalent of publishing an image of Mohammad or naming a teddy bear after him. It just isn't done, and for the same reasons - religious dogma.

Many westerners have lost their faith in God, and thus cling to any excuse for religion that happens to come their way. Imagining themselves "saving the world" is a fantastic opiate for the spiritually clueless.

"The World Bank says this particular high tide period will be enhanced due to slowly rising seas from global warming"

GOod to see a bank not tryign to figure out new fees they can charge me. When you think of climatology, you definitely think World Bank.

That is interesting how much it has sunk though. I wonder what kind of "landscape" effects that has had. Any one have a link to pictures showing the evidence of the sinking (not because I dont believe it, but because I bet the pictures would be cool)

Interesting. As an amateur interested in observing the increase in catastrophic weather events worldwide over the last 5 decades, I'd agree with the likely knee-jerk reaction by the AW blog posse that this appears to be a periodic event. I continue to wish they'd take a look a few times a week over a period of years at weather reports worldwide, which show the predicted exponential increase in extreme weather. People can bury themselves in theory, look only at information that agrees with them, grab every scientific effort at further exploration as evidence that science doesn't work (except when it confirms prejudices) but reality will out, and there is an awful lot of death and homelessness out there. As resources become more scarce, the population is moving and desperate people will get more violent when their families lives are at stake. Of course, a serious population trimming such as the one in progress will only benefit the survivors, but I hope most of you don't like the idea of surviving at the expense of the rest ...

Didn't the earthquake in 2004 change the coastline? I remember reading something about how one of the continental plates shifted vertically several meters. Not sure if that included Jarkarta...Anyone have more details?

Let's see. Sea level is presently rising at a rate of 3mm per year, and Jakarta is sinking at a rate of 2 inches per year. To put things into the same units, we'll multiply 3mm by 0.03937. Sea level is rising at 0.12 inches per year or about 6% of the rate that Jakarta is sinking. Since 6% represents about the total anthropogenic portion of global warming, I don't find it unreasonable for the press to blame Jakarta's flooding problems on AGW.

I would guess that if ANY flooding occurs in Jakarta Tues and Weds, it will be reported to be the result of GW. That little factual item about the astro high tide being unusual due to unique events will escape most of the vociferous reporting.

I mean really, we all know that flooding becomes abnormally bad when you add that one to two inches from the drastic icemelt seen over the last several years.

I agree with A.Fucaloro. Rising seas may be the least of their worries. If the sea is rising less than their land is sinking, then why is this attributed to global warming?

At least the kids in the picture are having fun :)

Devastatingly hot weather on the Greenland ice sheet, as the sun moves to it's zenith for the year. -23C average in May and -20C average so far in June. I can hear those moulins rushing and the glaciers retreating all the way from here..... Oh the horror and devastation. We must raise taxes.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/04416/2008/5/2/MonthlyHistory.html

BTW - who are the big beneficiaries of high oil prices? Government of course. Think of the huge increase in tax revenues. Anyone who thinks that government wants to see lower fuel prices is deluding themselves.

The AGW theory predicts sea level rise of an inch or so per decade, while Jakarta is sinking a couple feet per decade - hmmmm...

The little boys in the picture look like they may be treading water, but there is a man in the back ground that is walking almost normally. Also, the water isn't that high around the cars and busses in the background.

So, the picture is misleading and does not provide good information on the extend of flooding.

Reply: Andrew: The picture was interesting and was related to previous flooding in Jakarta, that's all. I wouldn't look too much into it.

This statement must be true since AGW exists and this would follow the AGW scenario.
The World Bank says this particular high tide period will be enhanced due to slowly rising seas from global warming,
KIPP

Reminds me of the sinking of the Southeast UK and the dire predictions of frequent flooding on Spring highs in the London area in future. At the same time, the environmental lobby is blaming every flooding event in the UK on GW.

What will make me laugh is when the windmills (wind turbines) cluttering that area of the coast disappear under the waves!

This story reminds me of the very early George Carlin skit, "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman". He details on radar an incoming storm. After which he points at the top of the image to incoming Russian ICBMs saying "So I wouldn't sweat the storm".
Indonesia has a dozen volcanoes threatening eruption, including earthquakes in the last week under Toba, the largest on earth. I think 'Global Warming' is not among their more serious worries, 'eh.

Are high tides being enhanced by global warming
Isn't everything?

when are the legal proceddings starting?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAA_Cherry_Picking_on_Trend_Analyses.pdf

Dennis: Your premise assumes there will be droughts in areas that supply water to urban areas. What documentation do you have to support this? And pumping drinking water from below New Orleans doesn't even make your list of causes of its subsidence. Looks like you spent a lot of time documenting faulty premise by projecting skeptical response to a problem that doesn't exist. But that's only my opinion.

Hi Bob Tisdale,

OK you asked me for proof of other cities in danger of sinking. I probably won't have enough space here but here are a few more examples:

1) Mexico City: Because of the emptying of the aquifers the whole city is sinking. This is taking place at alarming rates. Subsidence is a threat to buildings in may parts of the city (a human made addition to the threat posed by earthquakes and the nearby volcano, Popocatepetl). According to the Mexico Valley Water Authority the net subsidence has been an incredible 7.5 metres since 1900. Several lakes have been formed in areas where the ground has dipped due to water pumping, and these lakes are widening.

Estimates of the amount of water left in the two main subterranean aquifers differ; most agree the total amount is around 200 times the annual water needs of the city. But it would be foolish to imagine that the water can last 200 years. Such calculations leave out the rate of increase of water usage as more people arrive; it also leaves out of account whether the subsidence will make whole areas of the city uninhabitable if the inflow of people is not stemmed.

2) Venice, Italy: The 20th century, with its rampant industrialization and its witnessing of climate shifts, changed all that (see Venice Under Siege). Many scientists believe that global warming driven by the burning of fossil fuels is primarily responsible for the rise in global sea level, which at Venice has resulted in higher and more frequent instances of acqua alta. To make matters worse, Venice has been sinking over the centuries, due to the natural settling of lagoon sediments and the indiscriminate pumping of freshwater from a deep aquifer beneath the city.

3) 46 cities in China: While China's economic star continues to rise, some parts of the country are sinking - literally. Rapid development and overused groundwater supplies threaten to pull the soil out from under the nation's cities.

Alarmed by the grave results of a geological survey that 46 cities in China are sinking due to the excessive pumping of groundwater, the central government recently kicked off construction of two surface subsidence monitoring networks focusing on the Yangtze River Delta and the North China plain, respectively.

4) Shanghai, China: Since 1920 Shanghai proper has sunk over 6 feet (2m). In the 1960's the sinkage had increased to such a rate that people noticed. Limits were placed on ground water usage at that time. If they hadn't, geologists predicted that Shanghai would have already been below sea level today. As it is, the sinkage has slowed, but not stopped. There were a flurry of news stories in 2003 sparked by a government report.

Here are the basics. Shanghai continues to sink. It's called subsidence in polite circles. The primary cause of the subsiding is the combined use of ground water for drinking water, industrial cooling and irrigation for farming. Strong limits were placed on ground water usage in the 1960's which limited it, but not to the levels planned by the government. People continued to dig wells but the Shanghai government has recently put even stronger controls on the practice. It did slow the rate. As of 2003 Shanghai was sinking, on average, 1.5 centimeters a year.

The secondary cause of sinking is the weight of skyscrapers which accounts for as much as 40% of the problem. In areas where there are high concentrations of high rises, such as the Jin Mao Tower, the rate doubles to 3 cm per year. Over the past 10 years, over 3000 buildings over 24 floors have been built and another 3000 are planned. On February 13, 2003 design plans were changed for the Shanghai World Financial Center to increase the height from 460m to 492m. This will make it the world's tallest, at least for the moment. It is due to be completed in 2008 and with 101 floors it will be 233 feet (71m) taller than the Jin Mao Tower. It will be quite near the Jin Mao Tower.

Shanghai isn't the only sinking city. Mexico City, San Francisco, Osaka, and of course New Orleans and Venice are sinking at rates that require intervention. Venice is perhaps the most famous, or was until Katrina. Both New Orleans and Venice, like Shanghai, were built on river delta land. That creates a soft spongy soil given to swampy marshes. When you take the water out, the soil compresses and the swamps dry up but the land level decreases. If you leave the water in and compress the soil with a ton of cement the water acts according the laws of physics and is squeezed out.

These are just some examples. But I am sure there are a lot more that have yet to be recognized.

Remember the word anthropogenic refers to human cause. This means expanding city development resulting in ever increasing water needs for human habitation, compaction of the land due to the increasing weight load from taller city buildings, etc. None of this would be occurring without man's direct effect.

In regards to drought, here is the latest info for the U.S.:
http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/seasonal_drought.html

I also stated that the combination of increasing water needs for our expanding populations along with the potential for severe drought, which is continuing over the SE U.S. and the desert SW, that the biggest threats are. What do you think is causing the sinkholes we hear so much about?

In my travels to eastern Europe few years back, whole cities and towns there were sinking into holes as the result of abandoned underground coal mines caving in underneath them. Because of the never ending demand to get all of the needed coal for their growing power needs, hundreds of thousands of people were eventually forced out of these same cities for their own protection. The resulting sink holes filled up with polluted drainage water from the surrounding manufacturing and power plants. Needless to say, a total economic and environmental disaster for those regions. Again another effect of man's ignorance and uncaring of the environment. Do we want to go down that road ourselves?

Brett:
Anonymous:
I am sorry that they keep putting my posts under your name. I am sure you would not like them to do that either,although you sound more wise.
Skeptics like to mix up facts, or need to, to deny global warming. Yes there is a problem with the hydrology, obviously since the place is sinking, but that does not deny the facts about what was stated. Only that global warming would cause this sinking , but be another reason that
besides the areas Hydrogeology for for this area to sink faster.
Another point, the world bank gets involved, especially in third world efforts, and has a Scientific group within it which is well known.
KIPP

Bob, I'm with you. Dennis realizes he has nothing rational to say about climate chang