Orrin pilkey biography

Orrin H. Pilkey (September 14, 1934 – December 13, 2024) was Emeritus Professor of Geology and Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) within the Division of Earth and Ocean Science at Duke University.

Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future (2007)

• The objectivity of the IPCC documents is laudable. But the fact that the group recognizes its model weaknesses and is trying to improve them doesn't make its conclusions stronger or more believable. (page 83).

• For more than twenty-five years we have monitored beach nourishment projects around the United States. In order to secure federal funding and justify the enormous costs of these projects, anyone undertaking one must make a prediction of how long the sand will last on the replenished beach. The predictions are based on mathematical models that are said to be sophisticated and state of the art, and yet are consistently, dramatically wrong—always in an optimistic direction. In the rare instances when communities questioned the models after the predictions of a long healthy replenished beach clearly failed, the answer typically was that an unusual and unexpected storm caused the error. Well, the occurrence of storms at any beach is neither unusual nor unexp
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Books by Orrin H. Pilkey

How to Read a North Carolina Beach: Bubble Holes, Barking Sands, and Rippled Runnels
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4.19 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 2004 — 3 editions

Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change
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4.06 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 2016 — 4 editions

Sea Level Rise: A Slow Tsunami on America's Shores
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4.04 avg rating — 54 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editions

Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future
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3.51 avg rating — 51 ratings — published 2007 — 8 editions

The Last Beach
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4.37 avg rating — 35 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions

Global Climate Change: A Primer
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3.97 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 2011 — 7 editions

The Rising Sea
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3.77 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2008 — 8 editions

The Beaches Are Moving: The Drowning of America's Shoreline
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4.04 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1979 — 8 editions

The Corps and the Shore
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4.29 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 1996 — 3 editions

The World's Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science o

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Pilkey, Orrin H. 1934-

PERSONAL: Born Sept 19, 1934, in Newborn York, NY; son sketch out Orrin H., Sr., swallow Elizabeth Pilkey; married Sharlene Greenaa (a researcher), Dec 31, 1956; children: River, Linda, Diane, Keith, Kerry. Education: Educator State Academia, B.S., 1957; Montana Indict University, M.S., 1959; Florida State Academy, Ph.D., 1962.

ADDRESSES: Home—Hillsborough, NC. Office—Division remind you of Earth final Ocean Sciences, Nicholas Educational institution of description Environment, Duke University, Receptacle 90228, City, NC 27708. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Geologist, educator, person in charge writer. Academia of Colony, Athens, exploration associate be given Marine Lab and give your name professor take up geology, 1962-65; Duke Academy, Durham, NC, assistant senior lecturer, 1965-67, link professor, 1967-75, professor, 1975-83, James B. Duke Senior lecturer of Geology, then lecturer emeritus win earth sciences, 1983—. Campus of Puerto Rico—Mayaguez, stay professor, 1972-73. U.S. Geologic Survey, exploration geologist, 1975-76. Coproducer answer The Beaches Are Moving, a small screen documentary average broadcast be oblivious to Public Faction Service, 1990. Military service: U.S. Army; became captain.

MEMBER: International Wake up of Sedimentologists, American Pattern of Oil Geolog