Monday’s tidal event was an excellent example of the shortcomings of the mainstream media and how it can irresponsibly spread misinformation. Most east coast media outlets picked up on the “king tide” story and, without any scientific verification, attributed the high water to a crazy array of unrelated misfortune.
King tides happen every year. They are nothing new. They are not brought on by climate change and nor are they tsunami. King tides are, like all tides, caused by a confluence of the sun and the moon’s gravity pulling on the ocean surface. Admittedly, Monday’s was a particularly large tide (for some areas), yet it was simply one phase of the ocean’s tide. Nothing more.
In fact, the National Tidal Centre, a department of the Bureau of Meteorology, predicted that the high tide for Sunday 19 December 2008 would be exactly the same height as Monday’s king tide. The predicted water levels were identical, but the media hype levels couldn’t have been more different.
Further, Monday’s tide came in below the predicted height and has been exceeded many times over the past year. It will also be exceeeded in the coming year, so it will be interesting to see the media response then. I predict we’ll hear nothing.
Perhaps it was because the Department of Environment and Climate Change used Monday’s high tide as a model for a possible climate change scenario that got everyone in a tizz? News reporters caught wind of the “climate change” story and sent cameramen and journos down to the seashore to document the event.
What did they get? A few waves lapping at the shore a wee bit above the normal tide line. Hardly good television. Never mind, the “king tides” were then attributed to a swathe of other accidents that happened on Monday:
- The Herald Sun reported a fellow who was riding his motorbike at high speed along a beach in northern NSW as “swept out to sea by a king tide”.
- Sky News reported that the king tide caused a dinghy to overturn and throw three men into the sea at Merimbula southern NSW.
- The Tweed Daily News said the “king tides at Snapper Rocks were not the best for surfing” and, in an enormous leap of scientific knowledge, “the extremely high tides also brought extreme lows to the coast.”
- But The Courier Mail in Brisbane took the fearmongering to radical new heights when it warned holidaymakers of the king tides and ran a shot of Cow Bombie in Western Australia breaking at 25 feet
And to top off this 24 hours of media lunacy, a colleague of mine was even asked by someone — from a scientific department, no less — if the current spate of shark attacks were due to the king tide!
Perhaps it’s the over-arching fear of climate change that drove this bandwagon. If so, then it may be a bit easier to understand. Because if the climate change scenarios do occur, then the outcome for humans is pretty damn bleak. But misinformation and blatant fearmongering do nothing to help the cause.
I would’ve thought that anyone with even a cursory understanding of ocean dynamics would know that the events attributed to the king tides were bollocks. And I would’ve expected someone in the respective media outlets might either know that, or at least seek verification from someone who did.
I guess it shows how little the mainstream world understands these issues, but how well they understand the value of a dramatic story. And that bodes very badly for news we receive on climate change.
Taking mainstream news with a grain of salt may sound like common sense, but common sense seems to be something that’s in short supply when talk of climate change rolls around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a climate sceptic — just the opposite in fact. But what I can’t stand is issues being pushed because they fit pre-determined infotainment agendas.
The mainstream media has just shown us how much mileage they’ll get from a lapping high tide with a tenuous link to climate change. How credible will they be when the issue gets critical? What will climate change be accused of? And how will the real issue get represented in the media quagmire?
… which sort of reminds me of my evolutionary ecology degree. OK so I’m being a smart arse now but sharks have been around for millions of years. They’r likely have to have adapted to king tides in their behaviour while we Australians have been around a millisecond over 200 or so years and think individual lifespans. Before even the Aborigines the land was crawling with vertebrate terrestrial critters. Plenty of them would have been dumb enough to get stranded on mud flats. I myself have seen a dog rescued from a sand mine slurry pit stuck fast in the clayey mud.
Sharks would have plenty of genetic advantage cruising the record high/low tides getting into new territory to sniff out over sand bars, sniffing out critters stuck on the mud flats, themselves lured out to browse say exposed weed and crustaceans and salt, or even marine critters stranded and partially suffocated in shallow ponds over the 12 hour cycle.
You’re problem is you just don’t think like a shark!
You had half a point about it not being such a dramatic event until you stuffed up with this:
“And to top off this 24 hours of media lunacy, a colleague of mine was even asked by someone — from a scientific department, no less — if the current spate of shark attacks were due to the king tide!”
There must be any number of unusual or serindipidous causes and effects in ecology, geography, medicine and physics. But there you go blundering where you accuse those dumb arse journalists. Like everyone was sure the cause of ulcers until it turned out to be a bacteria. Like everyone was sure a tournique was the right thing for snake bite, turns out a pressure bandage is better. Like everyone was sure killing the last cat on Macquarie Island was a good idea because maybe it kills native birds but let the small number of rabbits multiply by 10.
Anyone can conceive why a series of king tides each day around a maximum over say a fortnight might influence shark behaviour. The estuaries are expanded at this time, as well as muddy zone also exposed in the record alternating low. This pumping could free up more land based nutrients after a dry spell, stirs up more of the food chain, more snack fish in the littoral zone, handy in a shark breeding season and …. more sharks inshore, just as the holidays kick in.
But you are so superior until you fell over your own clown feet there champ. Hang five.
And it was a good measure of increased water levels along the Cooks River at Marrickville/Tempe regarding exponential melting rates off a very low base, where the sea wall was overtopped in unusual location, as well as Tempe cycle path 2 feet under, which is not so rare (as per pic in the SMH, I took roughly the same photo same location).
Today I rescued a perfectly good soccer ball on the mud flat at the record low. First time ever that’s happened. Also the mud flat is dangerous and could strand critters …. for sharks later?
Not the only thing exceeeeeeeded in this article.
I thought I was missing something. Thanks Stuart. The full moon tides in December were a lot higher here in Oyster Bay (Georges River, Sydney) than the much vaunted king tides of earlier in the week. The December tides over-topped the bay’s banks and got to within a foot of my back fence, killed a lot of buffalo grass and freaked out a lot of ants. Those of Jan 10 and 11 went nowhere close to those levels.