Oregon, My Oregon

At WUWT, Wrong, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Oregonians Are Not Being “Hit Hard” By Climate Change

A recent article posted by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), titled “Climate change will keep hitting Oregonians hard, but the exact impact will depend on where you live,” claims that Oregon will be impacted severely on multiple fronts by climate change. Areas of concern include increased wildfires, sea level rise, and water shortages, among others. This is mostly false, as many of the problems listed are not worsening and those that are have nothing to do with climate change.

OPB writes that different regions of Oregon will face different effects from climate change, which is reasonable; coastal communities will have to worry about sea level more than those in Eastern Oregon, for example. But the caveats listed by OPB are interesting. The story doesn’t just discuss geographic and natural climate differences, but also differing effects based on demographics, such as, “how many people live there, and how much money their local governments have on hand.” Those two variables, and others like population growth and relative incomes, are totally independent of long-term climate change and even short-term weather events.

Regardless, the article goes on to make several false claims regarding the direct effects of climate change:

“The Oregon Coast faces sea-level rise, algal blooms and shellfish biotoxins. The northern Willamette Valley faces heat waves, higher landslide risks and increased water demands as the population grows. Northeastern Oregon faces longer fire seasons, scorched crops and increasing numbers of destructive pests.”

For the sake of brevity, we will not go into each in assertion made in this post, but almost every one of these supposed hazards are overblown at best, and or simply not occurring, at worst.

Beginning with sea level rise, the average absolute sea level rise globally is about 1.7+/-0.3 millimeters per year. Two out of the five available National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sea level monitoring stations in Oregon are slightly above that rate, at 1.78 +/- 0.58 and 2.52 +/- 0.61 mm/year or The rest are below the average global rate. These rates equate to a rise of about 0.58 ft and 0.83 ft over the course of 100 years, respectively

Monitoring stations at Port Orford and Astoria both show negative sea level rise, which means land is likely rising faster than absolute sea levels, making a net drop in relative sea level. . . .

OMG, in a few thousand years, Port Orford and Astoria will be inland, cut off from the Pacific! If the Cascadia Fault doesn't wipe them out first...

And warmer weather? Too bad the Californians who moved to Oregon for the cooler weather will have to move on the Washington state.