Friday, November 1, 2013

Either Glenn Dickey or me is confused about hydrology

"Me is confused"? What am I doing? Anyway.

Examiner scribe Glenn Dickey does not like the idea of the new waterfront Warriors arena planned for Piers 30-32.  And he has some reasons why.  He hates progress, basketball, and fun!  No, not really.  Oddly, he's concerned the new arena will FLOOD THE CITY, literally:

I believe this is a bad idea for several reasons. One is that a huge amount of concrete will have to be poured into San Francisco Bay to provide support, raising the water level for a city that is already threatened by the potential of rising water with climate change. 

Wait a minute. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but is he saying that pouring a lot of concrete into the bay will make the water level around San Francisco go up?  I THINK THAT'S WHAT HE'S SAYING.  Based on my very limited knowledge of hydrology, I don't think that's how it works.  Let's look at a diagram.


OK, so as I understand it, even if you pour a shitload of concrete in at Piers 30-32, I'm almost 100% sure that's not going to flood the Financial District, because all the water that the concrete displaces is just going to flow out underneath the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific Ocean, right?  I mean, every time one of those huge container ships sails by, do you notice water sloshing up over the Embarcadero?  What am I missing here?

That's all I've got.  Have a great weekend.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry TK, Glenn Dickey is right -- I forgot to tell you that I implemented the Reber Plan last week.

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  2. Fantastic! I better put a down payment on one of those houses in the bay behind AT&T Park.

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  3. I've got a 50-vara water lot with your name on it! PayPal me...

    You better put a watermark on your diagram or else it's surely going to end up in a hydrology textbook with no credit or royalty.

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  4. Uh, what happened to the north arm of the bay in your map where stuff also pours in and out? You've got me thoroughly confused about hydrology.

    Glenn Dickey was the cranky old fart sportswriter for the SF Chronicle when I moved here in the 1970s and I can't believe the old fuck is still alive, let alone still spewing his Armchair Quarterback bullshit in print. But you could have knocked me over with a feather when I read that column this morning, because it was like Bill O'Reilly had embraced Global Warming as his new cause. We really are in a Moment of Serious Change.

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