Originally posted at Climate Realism
Image: The shoreline of El Bosque, showing houses destroyed by the eroding beach. Source: The Guardian/Gustavo Graf
In an October 24 Amnesty International News article, titled “We may be the first people displaced by climate change in Mexico, but we won’t be the last,” Guadalupe Cobos Pacheco claims that the tiny seaside fishing town he lives in, the El Bosque community in Tabasco, Mexico, is being overwhelmed by sea level rise driven by climate change. Data and historical imagery show this to be false. Other factors, such as choice of building location, prevailing ocean waves, and beach erosion are the cause.
Pacheco writes:
Before climate change, our daily routine was to go fishing and sell our produce. Like any community, we celebrated our customs and traditions. We celebrated important dates such as Christmas, New Year or the Day of the Dead. We heard about climate change on television, but we never thought it would destroy our community. We could sleep easy.
Since 2019, our lives have completely changed. Now our lives revolve around climate change. That year, a storm swept away the first row of homes, and rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and northerly winds have continued to destroy our community. Our only option now is to leave.
The most important point that Pacheco fails to recognize in his own writing is that one storm in 2019 is not the same as climate change. The World Meteorological Organization clearly defines that single weather events are not the same as climate change. There has been no long-term trend in greater numbers of or more severe storms striking this area during the past few decades that would suggest climate change was causing an issue.
Rather than climate change, Pacheco should blame simple beach mechanics for what is happening at the El Bosque community in Tabasco.
El Bosque is built on a peninsular sand bar, jutting into the ocean. Sandbars are formed from the combination of erosion and deposition processes, which are driven by wave action. That particular section of beach is steeply sloping into the sea, and it is well known that a steeply sloping shore will cause waves to break closer to shore, causing more erosion than on a gently sloping shore.
The storm in 2019 started the process of beach scouring, making the slope steeper, and accelerating the process.
An article in The Guardian illustrates the process that has happened since:
But since 2019, residents of El Bosque say a series of severe weather fronts, bringing heavy rain and powerful winds, have been eroding the shoreline. As the ocean has encroached, more than 60 homes in the village have been destroyed by the waves.
With a steeper beach slope, additional storms have more impact than they have had in the past. Since 2019, the shoreline has eroded faster. This is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below.
Figure 1, from a 2015 study, published in Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica, titled, “Mexicana Cambios morfológicos y sedimentológicos en playas del sur del Golfo de México y del Caribe noroeste,” shows how that particular section of beach where El Bosque was built has both expanded and eroded at different periods of time.
In Figure 1, note that on the south side of the peninsula, in the cove area, there is essentially no beach erosion, or significant growth through deposition, over time. This suggests that the prevailing wave action comes from the north, driven by weather systems.
Figure 2, from Google Earth, shows satellite imagery from February 2023 of the peninsular sand bar that El Bosque is built on. Note that in this image, strong waves are present coming from the northwest, this creates a wave scouring action that rips sand from the beach and deposits it elsewhere, in the direction of the waves. The beach to the far right, as illustrated in Figure 1, is actually growing, as indicated by the black line beach profile.
This is not climate change, climate change does not reach out to affect a small section of beach, shrinking one part, and building up another less than one mile away. This is simple and well-known beach mechanics of sand bars. It is established by ocean science that sandbars shift regularly over time.
The article also claims, “Rising sea levels caused by climate change have swept away more than 200 meters of coastline here, destroying more than 50 homes.”
Examining the data for sea level rise in the region, one finds no supporting evidence for that claim. In fact, there is no data available for the last 30 years at all from the two closest tide gauges at Ciudad del Carmen or Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. This is shown in Figure 3 below:
Without such data, it is impossible to honestly claim that sea levels are rising, much less rising at an unusual, global warming accelerated rate.
Looking at the latest available data, however, one can, playing Devil’s advocate, assume that the trends indicated at those two stations has continued rising unchanged since the last readings were available around 1988. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tides and Currents website has this to say about the data at each station:
Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico: The relative sea level trend is 3.6 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.94 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1956 to 1988 which is equivalent to a change of 1.18 feet in 100 years.
Coatzacoalcos, Mexico: The relative sea level trend is 2.86 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 1.06 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1952 to 1987 which is equivalent to a change of 0.94 feet in 100 years.
The 100 year sea level rise between the two stations averages out to 1.06 feet per century (1.18 + 0.94 /2 ). For the 35 years since the last data available in 1988, that would be 0.37 feet or 4.45 inches. This is near or well below the average sea level rise that the IPCC projects to occur over the 21st century, so unless the rates of rise have increased dramatically, climate change isn’t causing much sea level rise at El Bosque. In addition, the small estimated amount of rise certainly cannot account for the beach erosion and loss that has happened there. It is far below the average daily tidal variation, which can vary as much as 1.77 feet in a single day according to tide tables for Ciudad del Carmen.
Clearly, the claims of climate driven sea level rise are unsupportable. The likely cause of the recent sandbar erosion is the aforementioned wave driven beach erosion, triggered by the 2019 storm which increased the slope of the beach, making it even more susceptible to ocean storms and waves.
Tragically, the homes of El Bosque were built on the edge of the shifting sandbar. The residents were likely unaware of the dangers of building on sands which shift with such ease and passing storms. With the mainstream media blaming climate change for every natural event that can be portrayed as out of the ordinary, it unsurprising Pacheco has mistakenly blamed his village’s plight on climate change. There are several stories in the media recently making the same claim.
The incompetence of the media and NGOs, like Amnesty International News, in doing even the most basic investigation is disturbing and misleading.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
They missed the obvious as in- Why on earth would these purported climate change refugees flee to the ‘Big Polluders’ and their even worse regional bad weather? Duh!
Anthony,
The incompetence of the media and NGOs…is to be expected!
Their purpose, first and foremost, is propaganda; that’s why the ruling elites support and reward them! Thank you for all the work you do to counter the mis-, dis- and mal-information they regurgitate!
I wonder if these people know how all the wiggly bits on coastlines are formed.
Slartibartfast:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slartibartfast#:~:text=3%20Portrayals-,Character%20overview,which%20he%20won%20an%20award.
We may need to move quickly to save his signature, climate change could be melting it away as we speak!
“Since 2019 more than 60 homes in El Bosque have disappeared into the ocean as the climate crisis brings severe weather to the peninsula” (The Guardian).
The cartels that run Mexico don’t care about ‘the climate crisis’.
Articles featuring the non-existent ‘climate crisis’ are routine in the Guardian and are solely for the purpose of keeping the guilt-ridden bourgeois readership happily and sanctimoniously miserable.
You get to visit so many lovely & interesting places via climate change and inland from El Bosque is simply gorgeous – I do want to gather it up in A Big Hug.
OK.
What I’m seeing there with the village is a replication of the River Tyne (NE England) where it flows out into the North Sea.
Going back a few centuries, folks depended on ‘seafood’ and the Noth Sea, being very shallow with immensely fertile mud/silt on its floor was A Fantastic Place to go fishing
Folks did that on the Tyne so as to feed the growing towns/cities but some fishermen were not especially adventurous and stayed on the shore as much as they could.
There are some very big tides in that part the world which makes both for very good fishing but also rather dangerous fishing..
Soooo, the fishermen constructed little semi-permanent shelters (on the banks of the river and as close to the sea as possible) for themselves while they waited for the tide (and the fishes) to do it and their businesses.
These shelters were called ‘Shields‘ and sprung up in great numbers on both the north and south sides of the river
Over time, these shelters became permanent settlements and towns of their own right
(As attached – Just look how those little fishermen’s huts have expanded)
So, is this what happened at El Bosque = a semi-permanent place where fishermen waited for time, tides, seasons, migrations etc of whatever they were after?
After a while, the temporary huts/shelters became permanently habituated.
Does El Bosque translate into something relevant perhaps?
<may be continued below…>
as threatened….
The River is the clue here and also The Villain.
Indirectly, the river was = the gun – but somebody, some many bodies, pulled the trigger
Why I so love that place is, if you take a ride inland, it is (in Ye Englishe vernacular) a marsh, moor, mire or, as I recognise from my new home – A Fen – an (occasionally saltwater) swamp.
The true and very definition of Life on Earth.
Go there and it is a green, fertile, productive flatland, littered with ponds and assorted puddles and also (Ye Englishe again) things called ‘ae’
An ae is an island and (true greatness of English humour) an ae is somewhere/anywhere that is much more than 12″ taller than the area surrounding it
Pronounce ‘aye’ as in what Sulu might say “Aye aye Capt’n, Warp Factor Wobble coming right up”
It often gets added onto the names of notable people who settled there and then becomes = “see’
As such, then landscape there then becomes what you truly see by visiting, it is a “Carr”
i.e Marshy ground with ponds and ‘islands’ but notably there are trees growing on the islands. (See that word on signposts, placenames and people-names all over England)
Even if the island isn’t obvious to me & thee, the tree sussed where it was/is and grew there.
In the UK and N. Europe those trees would be Alnus, Bettula and Salix – not so common in Mexico maybe but they have their own sorts and very lovely they are too.
Seriously
The wetland is the clue – El Bosque has been trashed by ‘something’ that has (man-made) happened to either both the river and the wetland
Has the mouth of the river been dredged to let shipping in or to alleviate flooding much further upstream
Has the wetland been altered – exactly like The Fen has all around me right now
(In am literally in the town of ‘March’ – Read = marsh)
Have drains ditches and dykes been dug, have trees been chopped and has ground been cleared for agriculture
C’mon people, grow a pair and admit it, how can any those things NOT have happened
Somebody, some HUMAN body, upstream on that river and in the wetland itself started growing (probably) corn and or sugar cane = annual crops that require ploughs and dry soil/land in order to operat the tillage and harvesting machines
Result: Not only has the flow of the river been changed but also its sediment load and THAT is what has wasted this village.
End. Of. Story.
Peta, a better analagy would be Spurn Point.
The land around El Bosque is flat as a pancake and there are no rivers anywhere near enough to influence the shape of the sandy point. The only influence is wave action.
Look at it on Bing Maps. (Not Google Earth.)
Another even more blatant example of a lack of basic research for this article is that since 2020 at least the majority of those crossing into the US illegally are not Mexicans and most months significant numbers are not even from the American continents!
Migration, country by country, at the U.S.-Mexico border – WOLA
Migrants from all over world cross southern border in record numbers (washingtonexaminer.com)
I live about 35 miles NNE of Indianapolis. As I write this at 06:00 local on the last day of October it is 23.7 deg. F according to my personal weather station where the sensing unit is located 8′ above ground level. There is a hard freeze warning. One forecast I saw for this morning declared there was a chance of light snow!
Light snow, oh dear. Better get ready for more than that going by the climate change that has hit us where MB, MN, and ND meet at 49N. On Oct. 20 it hit 23C then it cooled and we were hit with snow starting last Monday. Again yesterday more snow and the major highway to the US border was closed for the second time in three days. For the first time ever in October I took the dog for a walk on snowshoes. We have reluctantly decided not to go south this winter, it’s going to be along one! I feel for the poor kids going door to door tonight, hope they’re wearing their woolies and boots.
“The incompetance of the media …….. is disturbing and misleading.”
So no change there, then.
The same wave scouring action exists in the Netherlands.
About 200 years ago, the Netherlands started building stone piers, about 300 meters long, about 0.5 mile apart. The stones were imported from Belgium.
Sand built up in between the piers, the piers were made longer, and now the beach is about 0.5 mile wide.
Near Hoek of Holland, the piers, on each side of the waterway to Rotterdam, are a mile long. You can walk and bicycle on them, and the sandy beaches outside the piers are a mile wide
No-one ever worries about erosion. It has been dealt with for more than 200 years
I cannot get through to Climate Realism website for some unknown reason.
If memory serves me right I was able to get to their website some time back.
I was disgusted to read a headline in the Irish Independent this morning:
Thousands of homeowners could be forced to abandon coastal properties
under new national policies
Thousands of homeowners and businesses could have to abandon their properties in coming decades under national policies to deal with rising sea level and major coastal change.
The Government says policies around ‘managed retreat’ – a coordinated move away from the coast – must be developed now instead of waiting for an emergency situation to arise.
My prediction is that if this climate alarmism is not soon nipped in the bud, the Irish government will force people to move from certain coastal areas. Some bright people will buy up their properties for a song and then when it is clear there is no catastrophic sea level rise they will make a financial killing selling the properties at much higher prices. Knowing how governments work they will not discern between properties where permission to build should never have be given and those coastal houses where people have lived for well over a century.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/thousands-of-homeowners-could-be-forced-to-abandon-coastal-properties-under-new-national-policies/a1699941090.html
I clicked on the link to Climate Realim at the top of the page and was told that Firefox would not connect me because the web site was infected and on a “Black List”.
Of course an Irish medical doctor turned radio presenter has to add her voice of alarmism:
“How are we going to do this?” Ciara Kelly on plan to “retreat” from coastal erosion.
https://www.newstalk.com/news/how-are-we-going-to-do-this-ciara-kelly-on-plan-to-retreat-from-coastal-erosion-1519626
It will come as no surprise that she was also one of the covid alarmists when the virus arrived here.
Birds of a feather.
The key statement in Guadalupe Cobo Pacheco’s story (If he or she actually exists) is this: We heard about climate change on television,
Climate Change: the Ultimate Absolution. No matter what you do (individuals, organizations, or governments), if there are negative consequences, blame it on climate change and you don’t have to take responsibility.
I want to know why Amnesty International are reporting this? That is some enormous mission creep there, going from political prisoners rights to supposed climate change – that would be like Greenpeace making videos on cake decoration.
The foolish man builds his house upon the sand. All these people who built on beaches and islands and sandbars that are deposited and removed repeatedly by wind and wave are fools who are going to at some point see their homes fall into the ocean.
A long in-progress similar story is at North Cove, WA State. The area is called
Washaway Beach.
Thanks, Anthony.
One of my obsessions is history especially maritime history coastal commerce. I love old charts and maps. Where I live along the Chesapeake bay the shore lines have slowly been eroding away , for like, well for like for ever!. It is obvious when you look at old maps and charts and read logs of exploration up the bay and tributaries. And there is subsidence an inundation on the lower eastern shore that has been taking place for thousands of years.
Propaganda for useful idiots. One of the oldest games there is for evil manipulators. Emphasis on evil.
The mass migration since January 20, 2021 is less due to climate change than the change in the White House, from a president who built walls to a president who opened the gates and gave the migrants free bus or plane tickets and hotel rooms.
For those worried about losing their sandbar, about 2,000 years ago, long before anybody worried about global warming a Jewish prophet warned people about building their houses on the sand, saying they would be swept away by storms.
No mention of who Guadalupe Cobos Pacheco is. I have a feeling that Amnesty International is more responsible for what Guadalupe said than Guadalupe. Either way I have no respect for Amnesty International.