posted on Jul, 3 2017 @ 10:50 AM
there is another part that gets completely ignored with the rise in ocean levels. namely all the fresh water that flows into the oceans. fresh water
levels in North America have been dwindling at least since the Europeans settled the land. all that water is flowing into the oceans through the river
and lake systems. there are lakes in Northern Canada that are visibly drying up. and there are all sorts of indicators left from old logging
operations that easily show how far those levels have dropped in fairly recent times. equipment and things like flumes that are well away and end far
above currant water levels. and you can see old water marks and erosion that are sometimes meters higher than currant levels of the water. look at old
pictures from the 1800's at some landmarks. they show wildly rushing water when now there is only a small stream in comparison.
i did a canoe trip as a teen on a route that had not been done in about 40 years. we had copies of old maps and trip journals from that trip. as well
as hearing personal observations from an old man who had been a young man on that last trip. in fact the reason the route had been abandoned was due
to the heavy logging that made the waterway hazardous due to the amount of logs being floated down, as well as a log jam that was blown up as that
trip came around a bend. the difference in water levels in that 40 year time was phenomenal. in one case, what had been a rushing, low class of rapids
had become a small waterfall due to the drop in water level. in a lot of areas what had been a deep and wide rushing river that they would float rafts
of logs on, became so narrow and shallow you could barely get a canoe through it. in fact we had to quite often get out and drag the canoes through it
was so shallow. yet you could see where the banks and water levels had been, banks that were sometimes 20 feet or so on each side of the currant
waterway. log jams resting on well high and dry land several feet above the currant level (seriously the best trip ever for firewood, not so much for
canoeing).
or look even this year at the people going on about how high the great lakes are due to all the rain. my cousin posted pictures complaining about the
high level of water on a lake i have known all my life that is directly connected to lake Ontario. yet as i looked at their pictures which
included several landmarks on the banks i know well, i saw that the water level was actually right about where it had been all the time normally when
i was young. in fact the water level is not really high, but in fact (sadly only temporarily) at the levels i remember from childhood. yet everyone
like my cousin has been freaking out about the high water levels. or look at the past few years about the drying up of major rivers like the
Mississippi.
the fact is all that water had been slowly draining into the oceans. figure this is happening all over the world. as every river system drains into
the ocean. of course some of that water makes it back onto dry land in the form of rain. but it seems nowhere as much as drains out. this is made even
worse by all the water being sent prematurely into the river systems via storm drains. instead of being soaked up into the ground, and going into the
subterranean water system. in built up areas it goes directly into the river. which of course also means it is going into the ocean that much faster
as well.
yet we also know that this is also a natural cycle, even if we are contributing to it. as along with signs of higher water levels. there are signs of
much lower water levels as well in the past. one one canoe trip we saw ancient native pictographs on a cliff wall that formed the edge of a
lake. and while they might have painted these at the side of a lake, they would not have painted them several feet below the water level like they
were. also in the last few years they have worked to map the bottoms of the great lakes. where they found things like old stream beds, river beds,
small lakes and even old native hunting areas where rocks were set up to funnel herds to hunt them. now just think about that for a minute. streams
and hunting grounds found on the bottom of some of the biggest and deepest lakes in the world. which of course means all that water (5,472
cubic miles of it) was not there. well it had to be somewhere. the ocean seems a likely place for at least some of it. glaciers are another place some
of it was. in fact if you look at a lot of things we can see that inland and ocean levels have always greatly fluctuated. we have deserts that contain
fossils of sea life. we have ancient settlements that are now under water. geology even shows us that the great lakes were even far larger and deeper
than they are now with what they call lake Iroquois covering not only lake Ontario, but north of the city of Toronto as well. thought to have
been formed by glacial melt. well all that water drained, and has been draining into the ocean ever since. and if the great lakes contain over 5,000
cubic MILES of water currently, how much did that lake, and others like it hold in the far past? seems that would account for some rise in ocean
levels. over the last several thousand years, and still going.
and while ships in the water do seem insignificant, in comparison to all the water flowing into the ocean. just think of all the ones that have sunk
(many on purpose to form things like reefs), especially shipping sunk in ww1 and ww2. all displacing water equal to their size. every bit adds up,
each bit adding to the ocean level. and the funny thing is that i currently reside on a Pacific island. and with all the harping on and on about the
rise in ocean levels and how island nations are going to be mostly under water due to human caused climate change fear porn, and how even now
ocean levels are rising at an alarming rate. that a historic fort built way back in the late 1500's is not in any danger of being under water. that in
fact while it does appear that the ocean levels have risen since it was built over 400 years ago since in ww2 prisoners kept in some of the old
underground storage areas had some issues with water invading their cells, it has not gotten all that much worse since ww2. it seems that the oceans
have been rising for hundreds of years, a little bit at a time naturally. which makes a lot of sense when you think about all the water leaving the
continents into the ocean. as well as all the shipping and sunken ships. even from polar melting. and yet the level change in the ocean is in all
reality insignificant.