On 09/02/2014 23:13, jbm wrote:
It has been widely publicised that England is sinking whilst Scotland is
rising. Has anyone done a recent study to ensure that this effect hasn't
accelerated, adding to the problems being experienced in Somerset and
the rest of the south of England? I can't find anything official on this
later than 2009.

jim

I've come across the same problem in the last couple of months.
The research I've done that is on the www so far is unfortunately on my
local trivia file
http://www.divdev.fsnet.co.uk/graff.htm
relating to the vectis Tavern , Cowes, IoW and the wrong official
information , so far available, relating to local flooding of 1924.
see about 2/3 down this .gov file , referring to 1924
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environm...tish-ports.pdf

(no wonder the AGW brigade get so hot under the collar when there is
such errors [ deliberate? ] stated as fact in the official literature )
Officially is was the same degree of inundation as 1999 but from
archived 1924 newspaper reports for the Solent area it was obviously at
least 0.4m higher.
The official "record" has converted feet and inches and the change of
datum , all quite correctly but have ignored the probable error the
datum in play in 1924 was still from the First Geodetic Levelling of the
mid Victorian era . Other research terms are
1936 OSGB 36 system and the previous Airy 1830 survey system

It looks as though the error got in because the First Geodetic Levelling
was based on Liverpool and the Second and later on Newlyn and surveying
errors or something
I've not read all this , but page 16
http://www.cage.curtin.edu.au/~will/GJI_ODN_slope.pdf
at most Liverpool higher than Newlyn by an "error" of 0.15m. Could the
error/uplift have been factored in twice, once by the sea Liverpool to
Newlyn error and once by the L to N land error?
The OS went to the trouble of removing the original height references on
all their FBM including number 7435, outside what was the London Rd OS
HQ, now Southampton County Courts.
Hopefully the Soton archives would have maps with the FBM decimal feet
heights on the earliest OS maps and so the FGL and SGL heights.

www I can only find one , unofficial, such FBM height references for
those times, for one FBM in N Ireland, and local datum based on Belfast
( Donaghadee Lighthouse J5980 )
and a height difference for the 2 levellings of -2.71m converted from
feet , earlier height higher.

The 1924 Southampton 5.6m (6.0m) flood anamoly requires the 1924
reference to be based on a datum that was higher than post 1930 datum.
But, so far, in the range -0.15m to -2.71m is a very large ballpark .
I also find it suspicious that all www references, that I've seen, to
trigpoints show the second and third levelling heights results in the
1900s to be all the same value to the third decimal place, as a
scientist I just cannot believe that is possible. Even with GPS and all
the behind the scenes Einstein relativistic corrections, g-variation etc
cannot get that close over decades.

***************
If it was possible for you (jbm) to do the same where ever you are, not
necessarily near the sea) I would be very interested in hearing what you
find as I am in contact with 3 academics who have come at this historic
mis-perception, about the severity of storms historically being worse
now than earlier (making allowance for the great English Channel storm
and the Bristol Channel tsunami/great flood event), they have come at it
from a different direction, but same conclusion.
Go to a local archive where they have series 1 , c186O OS 25 inch scale
maps or pre- 1900 maps with a fundamental benchmark and decimal feet
height and compare it with a later high resolution c1930s map with the
same benchmark.