Nearly all scientists who study global warming/climate change have been warning that most of it is due to humans burning fossil fuels since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, 150 years ago. One of its destructive results is that it is causing oceans to rise as a threat to flooding coastal areas. In the U.S. insurance companies are now beginning to withdraw their offerings of flood insurance in some coastal areas of Florida and other states. Yet president-elect Donald Trump constantly touts that the notion of human-induced global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is “a hoax.”
Noah’s Flood
That reminds me of “the days of Noah” recorded in the Bible, which even Jesus mentioned as having historically happened. We read, “And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; … the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits'” (Genesis 6.13-15 NRSV). The royal cubit was 18 inches, the length of a man’s arm and hand. So, the length of the ark would have been 450 feet.
It must have taken Noah several years to build that big boat. What did people think who saw him building it? They all must have scorned him, saying he was a lunatic or whatever. The author of the Bible’s book of Hebrews states, “By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world” (Hebrews 11.7).
U.S. Southeast Ocean Levels Rose Over a Foot
The Washington Post has an article today entitled “Why the Seas Are Surging.” It says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has 127 ocean tide gauges throughout the coastal areas of the U.S., with some of them existing since the Industrial Revolution and therefore providing the heights of the oceans near shorelines.
The article singled out one station in particular, at Fort Pulaski near Savannah, Georgia. It’s gauge tracks high and low tides each day, wind speeds, air pressure, and water temperature. For 90 years, this station has been producing this daily data. During these 90 years, the Atlantic Ocean beside Fort Pulaski over a foot. From 1980 to 2010, thus in 30 years, the gauge data at Fort Pulaski shows that the Atlantic Ocean surface level rose 3.7 inches. But from 2010 to 2023, that water level rose 7.3 inches, thus a total of 11 inches in the last 43 years. Thus, the rise in sea level is increasing at an alarming rate. High tides now regularly flood Savannah’s streets.
This rising sea level is worse in the Southeastern U.S., thus where president-elect Donald Trump has his Mar-a-Lago compound. The article states, “The deluge stretches all across the South and the Gulf Coast; over the past 14 years, sea levels in the U.S. South have risen twice as fast as the global average. ‘It’s really the hot spot, said Ben Hamlington, a research scientist who leads NASA’s sea level change team.”
How High Could Mar-a-Lago Flood
Louise Boyle reported in the Independent on 3/18/2022 that Donald Trump, at a political rally in South Carolina the previous weekend, had mocked warnings of sea level rise by jesting, “The world is going to be destroyed because the oceans are going to rise 1/100 of an inch within the next 300 years. It’s going to kill everybody.” Of course, the statement is nonsensical. He added, “It’s going to create more ocean-front property. That’s what it’s going to do.”
If climate change continues as now, Donald Trump, if he were to live long enough, might be like those people in the days of Noah. They trashed Noah as a lunatic by saying an imminent flood is a “hoax,” only to see their property take on some serious flooding. At the present rate of global warming, many scientists are saying the oceans could rise as high as ten feet since the Industrial Revolution.
*In the above image, Patheos produced an artist’s conception of how high that would flood Mar-a-Lago.
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