Pictures of the Moon – Pleasant end to September – Super High Tide Tuesday/Wednesday a preview of sea level rise.

Did you see the Lunar Eclipse?

Even thiugh we only got to see half of the show, the moon did rise just in time over the left limb of Mt. Arrowsmith right before totality which was at 7:47PM..

It made for a pretty special entrnace even if it blended in so well in brightness with the sky that it was difficult to see, even with a telescope.

I had set up my telescope to look out our bedroom window. This was the first time since the kids have been big enough to really care that I had set it up for an event like this.

The payoff was good.  They got to see the transitions through the red (more mauve in the telescope) penumbra near totality, to the grey umbra, and finally the stark change back to full brightness which I think they found the most impressive thinking this was the shadow of the earth pulling away revealing the craters and patches of the moon.

I even managed to get a picture of the image we saw through the telescope.  It was very difficult to get one thwt was in focus, but this is the best, just as the moon was rising to far for me to see it through our window.

image

Pleasant day after the fog burns off.

There will be a few cool mornings this week and that is leading to fog in the morning.  It should burn off fairly quickly and we should get over 20°C with sunny skies.

There is no rain in the forecast for at least the next week.

Big Tuesday and Wednesday Tide!

Do you want to know what our normal sea level could look like in 30-50 years if nothing is done to stop the increase in warming in the earth?

Well, of course with the full moon and lunar eclipse comes an effect on our tides and the Mayor of Tofino, Josie Osborne, passed along this link which says:
“the apex of an 18-year cycle … will make for the highest global tides in almost two decades, peaking on Tuesday, September 29.”

Screen Shot 2015-09-28 at 8.27.59 AM

The highest high tides will occur on Tuesday at 1:54PM, and Wednesday at 2:36PM with heights of 3.51m and 3.53m respectively.

That 3 metres was specifically referred to in the Building Green communities forum last monday at UBCM.  While the current conservative estimate for sea level rise is “only” 1 metre but new work by Hansen et al which has not yet been published in peer review but is available here and explained and analyzed here:

Some of their conclusions:

Even if the Anthropocene began millennia ago, a fundamentally different phase, a Hyper-Anthropocene, was initiated by explosive 20th century growth of fossil fuel use. Human-made climate forcings now overwhelm natural forcings. CO2, at 400ppm in 2015, is off the scale in Fig. 24c. CO2 climate forcing is a reasonable approximation of the net human forcing, because forcing by other GHGs tends to offset negative human forcings, mainly aerosols (IPCC, 2013). Most of the forcing growth occurred in the past several decades, and two-thirds of the 0.9 ◦C global warming (since 1850) has occurred since 1975

Humanity faces near certainty of eventual sea level rise of at least Eemian proportions, 15 5–9 m, if fossil fuel emissions continue on a business-as-usual course

If the Southern Ocean forcing (subsurface warming) of the Antarctic ice sheets continues to grow, it likely will become impossible to avoid sea level rise of several meters, with the largest uncertainty being how rapidly it will occur.

even a slower Greenland ice sheet response is expected to be faster than carbon cycle or ocean thermal recovery times. Therefore, if climate forcing continues

5 to grow rapidly, amplifying feedbacks will assure large eventual mass loss. Also with present growth of freshwater injection from Greenland, in combination with increas- ing North Atlantic precipitation, we already may be on the verge of substantial North Atlantic climate disruption.

So if you want a glimpse of what the future may look like on our waterfront, go down to the water in the afternoons this week and witness.  And then consider that when the average level reaches that height, the high tide level with be 3.5 metres above that, because the moon and sun are not going anywhere. 😉

Happy Monday! (lol)

 

 

About The Author