Judy Finds Willis XIV

As has been remarked upon wandering into climate science provides a healthy dose of catnip to the self satisfied.  Judy Curry, of course, is happy, sometimes at her cost, to provide a forum for the Sky Dragons and whomever else wanders into her Email box, and, of course, Roy is having great fun with Willis.  Willis is not so happy about this. 

Eli, Eli was enjoying life, when he happened to wander into Judith Curry's house of mirrors to find another digression by one of her pet polymorphs (she really should collect lagomorphs, a much better and nicer bunch), Rud Istvan.  Rud is pushing new carbon based materials for energy storage capacitors in real life.  At least Russell blows microbubbles.   But as a hobby, Istvan has been here and there in comments and the occasional guest post in the usual places.  He really values his opinion.

Few others do.  In this case he goes after people who know something about the fresh water supply in the Caribbean, perhaps because he is so much smarter than them, than all of us.  He tries ridicule

Experts like Avril Alexander, Caribbean coordinator of Global Water Partnership:

“When you look at the projected impact of climate change, a lot of the impact is going to be felt through water.”

Experts like Lystra Fletcher-Paul, Caribbean land/water officer for the UN FAO:                    
 “ Inaction is not an option. The water resources will not be available.”

Istvan is not impressed

Yet another anthropogenic global warming alarm, and just in time for IPCC AR5, whose newly released WG1 chapters 7 and 11 say there is high confidence that dry regions will get drier, wet regions will get wetter, and storms will get stormier. “But there is only low confidence in the magnitude.” These Caribbean experts are much more certain—Caribbean water resources will not be available.

And then he tosses himself in at the deep end

Saltwater intrusion doesn’t apply much to Caribbean island groundwater. The islands are mountainous. Pico Duarte in the DR is 3098m. Pic la Selle in Haiti is 2680m. Jamaica’s Blue Mountain is 2256m. Cuba’s Pico Turquina is 1974m. Antigua’s ‘Boggy Peak’ is 402m. St. Croix’ ‘Mount Eagle’ is 355m.  Barbados is only hilly, with a maximum elevation of ‘just’ 343m.

Rising sea levels will not contaminate Caribbean fresh water supplies.

Rud has maybe never visited the Caribbean.  While mountains on many Caribbean islands rise up from the sea, most of the population and infrastructure lives on the coast. That is especially true of the tourist infrastructure.  Runoff, especially on the volcanic islands can be really fast.  Aquifers and water supplies are often (when they exist, in Bermuda for example many collect rainwater run off) local to the coastal cities and settlements, and thus vulnerable to sea water intrusion. The nature of the climate with wet and dry seasons exacerbates the situation.  Oh yeah, storm surge pushing sea water inland is not wonderful for agricultural lands and water supplies.

 

This was made clear in the article that Istvan linked to.  The reporter talked to Cedric Van Meerbeeck, a climatologist with the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology & Hydrology.

Van Meerbeeck said water supplies will continue to decrease if individuals as well as agriculture and tourism, the region's key industries, do not monitor use.

"Climate is maybe not the biggest factor, but it's a drop in an already full bucket of water," he said. "It will have quite dramatic consequences if we keep using water the way we do right now."

Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados have ordered rationing this year, with Barbados reducing pressure and occasionally cutting off supply to some areas. The island also began to recycle water, with officials collecting treated wastewater to operate airport toilets.
Overuse of wells elsewhere has caused saltwater seepage and a deterioration of potable water underground, leading to the construction of hundreds of desalination plants in the Caribbean.

There is a bunch of other childish misdirection in Istvan’s writing, for example, Jamaica and Cuba may have mountains, but the highest point in Bermuda is 76 m, and in the Bahamas 63 m. As Van Meerbeeck said the issue is not sea water intrusion due to sea level rise or subsidence due to depletion but sea water intrusion due to sea level rise and subsidence due to depletion. For a summary of the issues, the AR4 WGII Chapter 16 is a useful place to start

Or wait a couple of months for the AR5 WGII.  Or not.