CNN
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The day after their CNN presidential debate, former President Donald Trump cited a wildly inaccurate determine about sea ranges to mock President Joe Biden’s debate claim that “the one existential risk to humanity is local weather change.”
Trump said at a Friday rally in Virginia that “world warming is ok,” rejecting the view of the overwhelming majority of scientists.
And he stated of Biden: “He stated it once more final evening, that world warming is an existential risk. And I say that the factor that’s an existential risk just isn’t world warming, the place the ocean will rise – perhaps, it might go down, additionally – however it might rise one eighth of an inch within the subsequent 497 years, they are saying. One eighth.” He added what gave the impression to be a joke: “Which supplies you just a little bit extra waterfront property when you’re fortunate sufficient although.”
Details First: Trump’s declare in regards to the anticipated tempo of sea degree rise is not even near right. The worldwide common sea degree is at the moment rising extra per 12 months than Trump claimed that folks say it’ll rise “within the subsequent 497 years.”
NASA reported in March that the present world common sea degree rise in 2023 was 0.17 inches per 12 months, greater than double the speed in 1993. And a World Meteorological Group report this year stated the speed of sea degree rise between 2014 and 2023 was about 0.19 inches per 12 months.
In different phrases, sea degree rise is already greater than an eighth of an inch yearly – and it’s accelerating. NASA found a soar of 0.3 inches between 2022 and 2023.
Gary Griggs, a College of California, Santa Cruz professor of earth and planetary sciences who research sea degree rise, said final 12 months that Trump’s related claims “can solely be described as completely out of contact with actuality” and that Trump “has no thought what he’s speaking about.”
Sea ranges rise by totally different quantities in totally different areas. For the US, sea ranges are expected to rise particularly fast for the east coast and Gulf of Mexico coast – and Trump’s state of Florida, which is bordered by each of these coasts, is anticipated to be affected more severely than many different coastal states.
In actual fact, Trump’s claims about sea ranges are extremely inaccurate for the world close to Mar-a-Lago, which is on the Atlantic. Griggs famous in a June electronic mail that data from the closest Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide gauge to Mar-a-Lago reveals a rise of an eighth of an inch roughly each 9 months.
Trump has made similar claims since his final presidential marketing campaign – typically saying the estimate is an eighth of an inch enhance over 200, 250, 300 or 400 years.
Trump has additionally previously made the joke about rising seas creating extra waterfront property. In actuality, rising sea ranges are anticipated to have devastating penalties not solely for a lot of seafront properties however for areas additional inland – rendering some communities uninhabitable and others extra harmful, growing the frequency and attain of flooding, making hurricanes more destructive, and damaging infrastructure and ecosystems.