The sea levels of the Solomon Islands are rising of 7-10 mm yr-1 only by cherry picking
Guest essay by Albert Parker
Albert, Leon, Grinham, Church, Gibbes & Woodroffe recently published in Environmental Research Letters [1] a paper claiming the “rates of sea-level rise in the Solomon Islands over the past two decades are amongst the highest globally, averaging 3 mm yr−1 since 1950 and 7–10 mm yr−1 since 1994” echoing wrong claims by others. This “evidence” of 7-10 mm yr-1 sea level rise due to man-made global warming is what is then trumpeted in catastrophic press releases such as [2, 3]. Titles obviously catastrophic “rising sea levels blamed for wiping out five islands”. The leading author declares “the Solomons was considered a sea-level hotspot because rises there are almost three times higher than the global average”. However, as always with the claims of “Intergovernmental experts”, the right numbers are at the most one fourth of the claim
The alarmistic claim originates from riding the positive phase of the inter-annual, decadal and multi-decadal oscillations typical of the sea levels over a cherry picked short time window of 10-15 years, neglecting what was measured before 1994 by another tide gauge in pretty much same location, and also neglecting what has been measured in the same tide gauge since 2009.
Short records do not permit to clear the trend of the inter-annual, decadal and multi-decadal oscillations [4-8]. In the Solomon Islands there is no tide gauge long enough to infer a proper trend. However, the information available permits to dismiss the alarmist claim of 7-10 mm yr-1 rate of rise.
The high quality Revised Local Reference (RLR) data set of the PSMSL [9, 10] includes the two tide gauges of Honiara II and Honiara B.
Both tide gauge records are short, about 20 years long.
Honiara B is part of the “substitutional evidence” of the Pacific Sea Level Monitoring (PSLM) project [11].
Honiara II ceased operation 5 months after Honiara B started operation, and it is forgotten since then.
The data of Honiara B are updated every year in PSMSL [10], and every month in PSLM [12] where in addition to the monthly average mean sea level (MSL), also the monthly minimum and maximum are provided.
No leveling has been performed for Honiara B vs. Honiara II to permit the construction of a composite record that could have lowered and made more reliable the sea level rise estimation. However, both tide gauges were recording during the year 1994 for 5 months, August to December. The differences in between the RLR data for Honiara B and Honiara II are 355, 357, 355, 356 and 359 mm. Therefore, we may shift one time series vs. the other of 356 mm to obtain the composite record of Fig 1.
After April 2009, the rate of rise since July 1994 started to decrease and it is now +5.50 mm yr-1. The time window of 21 years is still insufficient. Only focusing on Honiara B the only possible statement is the apparent rate of rise is +5.50 mm yr-1 (and not 7-10 mm yr-1) but this number is not significant.
Also including Honiara II, starting from December 1974 the rate of rise is +2.81 mm yr-1. The time window is now 42 years long, still insufficient, but certainly more reasonable. Considering 60-70 years of data are needed to start understanding a trend in sea levels, very likely these +2.81 mm yr-1 are still an overestimation of the relative rate of rise.
The editorial board and the reviewers should certainly pay more attention to extravagant claims of sea level rises of 10 mm yr-1 that are based on short cherry-picked periods.
References
1. S. Albert, J. X. Leon, A. R. Grinham, J. A. Church, B. R. Gibbes and C. D. Woodroffe (2016), Interactions between sea-level rise and wave exposure on reef island dynamics in the Solomon Islands, Environmental Research Letters 11:054011.
2. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-07/rising-sea-levels-blamed-for-wiping-out-five-islands/7392986
3. http://phys.org/news/2016-05-sea-level-islands-solomons.html
4. A. Parker (2013), Oscillations of sea-level rise along the Atlantic coast of North America north of Cape Hatteras, Natural Hazards 65(1):991-997.
5. A. Parker (2013), SEA-LEVEL TRENDS AT LOCATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES WITH MORE THAN 100 YEARS OF RECORDING, Natural Hazards 65(1):1011-1021.
6. A. Parker, M. Saad Saleem & M. Lawson (2013), Sea-Level Trend Analysis for Coastal Management, Ocean & Coastal Management 73: 63–81.
7. A. Parker (2013), MINIMUM 60 YEARS OF RECORDING ARE NEEDED TO COMPUTE THE SEA LEVEL RATE OF RISE IN THE WESTERN SOUTH PACIFIC, Nonlinear Engineering. 3(1):1-10.
8. A. Parker & C.D. Ollier (2016), COASTAL PLANNING SHOULD BE BASED ON PROVEN SEA-LEVEL DATA, Ocean and Coastal Management. Doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2016.02.005.
9. http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1373.php
10. http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1861.php
11. http://www.bom.gov.au/pacific/projects/pslm/
12. http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70061/IDO70061SLD.shtml
Added by Anthony:
This graph from the 2007 IPCC AR4 report is quite interesting, it shows that in the Solomon Islands region, in blue on the map, sea level was declining and was clearly linked to the Southern Oscillation Index.
They write:
An EOF analysis of gridded thermosteric sea level time series since 1955 (updated from Lombard et al., 2005) displays a spatial pattern that is similar to the spatial distribution of thermosteric sea level trends over the same time span (compare Figure 5.20 withFigure 5.16b). In addition, the first principal component is negatively correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index. Thus, it appears that ENSO-related ocean variability accounts for the largest fraction of variance in spatial patterns of thermosteric sea level. Similarly, decadal thermosteric sea level in the North Pacific and North Atlantic appears strongly influenced by the PDO and NAO respectively.
Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-5-4-1.html
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A more plausible explanation for land loss is the slow degradation of coral reefs by human intervention.
• Coral-destructive extraction of goods (coral for aquarium, lime, curio and collection of sand, stone
and rubble) contributed 8 – 22% of the TEV at the coral trade communities and less that 5% of the
TEV at the non-coral trade communities.
Yes, Clive, I think you’re absolutely spot on.
A more plausible explanation for land loss is the slow degradation
Or the chosen islands are sinking. Islands sink and rise all the time in the Ring of Fire. It’s geology.
no, it can’t be geology, it must be meteorology, er… climate… or whatever… Bush’s fault…
“Islands sink and rise all the time in the Ring of Fire”
Yes, but hardly the explanation in this case. The interesting thing is that the southern group of islands they studied near Rendova, where no islands have “sunk” actually did sink quite a bit in the 2007 and 2010 earthquakes:
http://geophysics.eas.gatech.edu/people/anewman/research/papers/Newman_etal_GJI_2011.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232783950_Rupture_across_arc_segment_and_plate_boundaries_in_the_1_April_2007_Solomons_earthquake
It all points to sea-level being unimportant in the process. Remember that these are all sandy barrier islands which are always changing in size and shape and moving in response to wind and weather. You will always be able to find some that are disappearing, and some that are new. Since the study are baselined on old aerial photographs any new islands in the area are automatically eliminated. Neat.
My biggest fear is an Island tipping over into the sea especially if you have to many people standing on one side of the Island – Oh the horror!
Hank Johnson (Congress D-GA Dimwit ) – Warns Guam May Capsize – YouTube
Video for Will Guam tip over with too many people?
▶ 2:49
The whole island will become so overly populated …
Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson (Democrat) said during an Armed Services Committee hearing last week that Guam is in danger. My fear that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize, he said in all seriousness.
The most likely cause is a major earthquake (8.1 Richter) in the Solomon Islands which occurred in 2007. There are earthquakes all of the time in this region (in fact, you can find a daily update of earthquake activity in the Solomon Islands. There have been 270 earthquakes in the past year (Between Richter 1.5-7.0).
Of the 33 islands analyzed in this report, Twenty are barrier islands on the eastern side of Santa Isabel Island and twelve are on the fault ridge line, near Roviana Island (between New Georgia Island and Rendova Island.)
All eleven of the islands which are showing reduction in size are among the barrier islands on the eastern side of Santa Isabel. Plus, of the time periods studied, the only one that shows any significant change in those islands is the 2002 – 2014 time period. The other time periods show very little change:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/11/5/054011/downloadFigure/figure/erlaa21eff3
In 2007, Ranongga rose by 10 feet in the massive earthquake. (Ranongga is ~ 30 miles up the ridge line from Rendova.) In 2011, Rendova was also hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Here is a sketch of the 2007 Earthquake.
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/solomon07/images/tectonic_small.gif (The small island southeast of the epicenter is Rendova; the word “epicenter” is over New Georgia, and Ranongga is the small island northwest of the epicenter. Santa Isabel Island is the larger island due east of New Georgia.)
The key is that the major cause of island erosion in this region is shifting ocean currents. These shifts usually occur as the ocean shifts from La Niña to El Niño. The major change between 2002-2014 suggests that the ocean current changes as a result of the 2007 Earthquake played a significant role in these ocean current shifts.
Well the important word in Sea Level Rise, is ….. level …..
As in water seeks its own level.
Ergo, the sea level (change) cannot be different from place to place.
G
“Ergo, the sea level (change) cannot be different from place to place.”
Of course it can. If you look at backwater curves of a reservoir, you will see how much water level can vary over a few miles. With the vastness of the oceans, the rotation of the earth, wind and the gravitational pull of the moon, water can stack up in certain places for years. Throw in subsidence and upthrust of continental plates and the picture gets really murky. Global sea level is kind of like imaginary numbers… I’m sure they have their uses, but I’ve forgotten what they are.
Yes but that is generally fixed, as water is gravitational flat, one inch here is also one inch at a wind blown high spot.
Gravity is not perfectly flat. Continents tend to pull waters towards them. Also gravity changes as the magma beneath the crust shifts around.
GS, it can be, but not by this much and probably not for this long.
its the time base issue. Other than that we are left with saline levels which impact heavily in regions such as the Med but temperature, wind and barometric impact are rinsed out with time.
I’ve watched the coffee in my coffee mug get cold over a matter of hours. (first sip tasted yucky).
And so far, I have never observed it to rise in one part of the mug more than another.
The bigger the area of water I watch the more it sloshes around for one reason or another, but it never seems to build up anywhere to the point where it starts running out from someplace. It always seems to go back down flat again in due course.
G
Consider the circumference of the earth is 21,600 nautical miles (one per minute of longitude.)
A nautical mile is 1852 meters, so that makes the diameter : 21600 x 1852 / pi = 12733414 meters.
Now imagine a one inch diameter ball bearing ball, that is spherically smooth to 10 micro inches roughness, which is one part in 100,000.
So on the surface of the earth that roughness is 127 .33 meters which is almost 418 feet.
So yes, I believe earth’s “sea level”, is a damn side smoother than the best ball bearing ball ever made.
G
Sea level is quite level.
Ristvan and others,
You might find this link to be of interest: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36255957
Like a yoyo you mean?
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-earth-mantle-surface-yo-yo.html
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/05/09/15/33FC0EAD00000578-0-After_analysing_2_120_spot_measurements_of_variations_in_the_dep-a-80_1462805935726.jpg
Sea level is nowhere the same. From memory only, sea level on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal is a couple of meters higher than the Atlantic side.
I once saw a radar map of the Pacific taken by satellite that showed the ocean bottom contours in reverse on the surface due to gravitational changes. The greater the depth, the higher the water humped above it.
would that be variation in Earth gravity ?
expat – you state that “sealevels are nowhere the same”. You are right but that is exactly why we have the word “eustatic” i.e. to indicate all the relative sea level differences which go up and down in tandem. In the case of coral islands, each island is a living process all taking place to keep the corals alive. You will find that after each storm surge happening during the cyclones the height of sands will be shifting all over the island – some going up – some going down. Not a place for sensible human beings to build a house. The islanders of old were sensible : they did not build with permanent materials. They just built another grass hut at a higher location. But these days clever outsiders have persuaded them to use “proper” materials, such as wood, concrete or steel. And build tarsealed roads and big hotels on those shifting sands. And now those same clever, scientifically educated outsiders are convincing them that sea level rises are dangerous. They have forgotten that sea levels have risen over 100 meters in only 14,000 years – raising their islands up at the same time. If you can put up with the inconvenience coral islands are the safest places to be when sea levels go up.
yes but gravity still distributes evenly, one inch added at a low spot also gets added at a high spot. Think!!!!!!!!!
“yes but gravity still distributes evenly, one inch added at a low spot also gets added at a high spot. Think!!!!!!!!!”
Actually NO, not at all. Because the Earths gravitational field is NOT a neat spheroid. Water released from melting glaciers for example is very unevenly distributed because of self-gravity effect of icecaps see maps here:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2025/20130336
The same applies to thermosteric sea-rise. The ocean does not heat by exactly the same amount everywhere and at all depths.
And then there are long-term changes in ocean currents, winds, average barometric pressure, tides (yes they change over time) and ground water-level on continents (which affects sea-level directly and by self-gravity effects). And so on.
“Sea level rise” is very variable, even without factoring in that land is almost always rising or sinking as well.
Cheers Andy E, the only part of what you have said that I found odd was that “In the case of coral islands, each island is a living process all taking place to keep the corals alive.” I would have thought Corals managed an existence within these processes as opposed to the processes being motivated by the continued existence of Coral.
The sea level on planet earth is more level than the surface of the finest ball bearing ball that was ever made.
G
George,
I have posted this link on here a few times just to show that measuring ‘Sea Level’
to the Millimetre is pure ‘Fantasy’.
What a great overview! Thanks.
I’m a metrics guy myself and I’m always amused by absurd claims of accuracy in the “paleo record” of temperature and carbon dioxide. Now I have another arrow in the quiver so to speak 🙂
Can’t remember if I heard the joke on here…man starts work at the Natural history Museum on Monday, showing children round the exhibits. On Tuesday, his boss hers him saying, “…and this dinosaur skeleton is 65 million years and one day old.”
His boss takes him aside and says “Why are you saying that?”
The new guy looks perplexed. “Well, on Monday you told me it was 65 million years old, so on Tuesday it must be 65 million years and one day old?”
Der Spiegel has an article on this, http://bit.ly/1O9H60d. Basically a geodesist, Valerie Ballu, from Paris, measured the rise and or fall in the Solomons. Her measurements indicate that the fall was mainly from shifting tectonic plates. Also, earthquakes and tsunamis are fairly common in the area because the Australia plate is moving under the other plate.
This is part of the Ring of Fire, which includes New Zealand, California, Japan and Papua New Guinea as a rough outline. Islands rise and fall over time in this area all the time.
Correct for nearly every atoll-infested archipelago in the Pacific. Atolls ARE A PRODUCT OF RELATIVE SEA LEVEL CHANGE. And anything on the overthrust slab of a subduction zone is going to bounce around uncontrollably. But the “Scientists who say” seem to conveniently ignore plate tectonics.
@ur momisugly Jack, 1:02 pm. Don’t forget the coast of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and all of Alaska and Kamchatka!! ( Those included would make a “ring”.)
Indeed, the Solomons are volcanic and probably are on the upper plate above a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the Australian Plate. Such areas are notorious for rising slowly as stresses build and adjusting downwards potentially several meters in a few tens of seconds when the stresses are released in a massive earthquake. In April 2007, there was a magnitude 8 earthquake centered about 350km NW of Honiara where the tidal gauges are located. The earthquake epicenter was apparently near the area where the missing islands were located.
OTOH, the description of the shoreline recession, etc seems somewhat inconsistent with the affect of a single tectonic event. And I’m not convinced, as I often am, that the authors of the paper are complete fools. They might be reporting accurately. I would add however, that trying to interpret sea level rise in a tectonically active area seems to me to be unlikely to yield useful results.
“The editorial board and the reviewers should certainly pay more attention to extravagant claims of sea level rises of 10 mm yr-1 that are based on short cherry-picked periods.”
They should. But they won’t.
Solomons was considered a sea-level hotspot because rises there are almost three times higher than the global average”.
http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00KeNTPWQnZhku/Water-Slide-Hill-Side-WS-038-.jpg
Well, sine they are going to disappear in the next year or whenever, I will gladly purchase all of them for a small purchase price.
I thought the pacific Islands were doomed-
“Tourism
www2.fiu.edu/~harveyb/tourism1.html
Most of the Pacific Island countries are making efforts to increase tourism”
The authors have accomplished their goal. They have published and pushed an agenda on national news. Your reply, while cogent and accurate, will never make the news. Until we figure out how to overcome that barrier the truth about sea level, temperatures, etc. is irrelevant. I despair.
+1
+1 Wash, rinse, repeat.
How about a market based approach? These unfortunate islanders must be desperate to escape their fate. I would be prepared to make a reasonable offer for beach front property.
John Harmsworth commented: “. .I would be prepared to make a reasonable offer for beach front property …”
I understand there’s an outfit in China that can make them more permanent and habitable.
Whilst the article examines data to show whether sea level data is accurate is there before and after satellite photos which shows that five islands have disappeared. If they have in fact disappeared what is the reason that they have disappeared and others haven’t . Isn’t the discussion about global warming not Solomon Islands warming which must surely be a hot spot for CO2 emissions?
True.
Even if you use the exaggerated number of 10mm/y, the study period was only 69 years. That is 0.69m. Any island that will be inundated by 0.69m of sea level rise was already toast. King tides and storms would have already been washing over the island on a regular basis.
Someone else suggested that this area is in a tectonic subduction zone. If that is the case, that could explain part of the reason this area seems to have more sea level rise. Of course, “rise” is not the correct term when some of the change is the land is dropping.
“Whilst the article examines data to show whether sea level data is accurate is there before and after satellite photos which shows that five islands have disappeared. If they have in fact disappeared what is the reason that they have disappeared and others haven’t?”
Here ya go. It’s about erosion from waves. From the Scientific American article about the five islands:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sea-level-rise-swallows-5-whole-pacific-islands/
“Twelve islands we studied in a low wave energy area of Solomon Islands experienced little noticeable change in shorelines despite being exposed to similar sea-level rise. However, of the 21 islands exposed to higher wave energy, five completely disappeared and a further six islands eroded substantially.”
The reason why those islands have “disappeared” is that they are not real islands – and that they have not disappeared. They are shifting piles of coral sands which come and go with the various storm surges happening during cyclones. Each island is a living process which helps coral species to survive. The islands aren’t meant for human habitation – I certainly wouldn’t choose to build my home on such shifting sands – however, every man for himself.
Not exactly that. But they do show a satellite photo of one island with several past shorelines suprimposed. My take. The Guardian article is (no surprise) crap. But the paper itself isn’t obvious garbage
The assertion that sea level rise is overstated (leaving aside the 10mm exaggeration) is flawed (I think). By definition if there is insufficient data to establish what the trend is, the reality may be either higher or lower than the initial estimate.
What I see in figure 1 is no increase from 1974 to 2016 the duration of the chart.
In fact, it is lower now (2016) than the first few years of data from the 1970s !
Like the Maldives…no problem in reality.
Big problems in the IPCC fantasy world.
Solomon Islands is a very complicated place. Lots of tectonic microplates. Earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis. The 2007 tsunami was notable for the shoreline damage it did. Stuck in the middle of the west Pacific Warm Pool, where variation in thermosteric rise affects sea level change at ENSO and PDO time scales.
Was researching SLR today relative to a different discussion. The literature says 50-60 years is the minimum to know a reliable SLR trend. Based on differential GPS, there are only about 25 truely geostationary long record (>50 years) tide gauges. Found a 2009 masters thesis from USF about using diff GPS tide gauges to correct for orbital and instrument drift uncertainty in satellite altimetry measurements of SLR. There are only about 70 long record tide gauges world wide with a diff GPS land motion measurement within 100 km, let alone at the tide gauge itself. GPS allows subtraction of land motion to get SLR only even if land is not geostationary. None are in the Solomon Islands. Closest are in Australia.
Interestingly, even the lead author of this sketchy SLR paper has complained publically how MSM has amped it to climate change. Specifically complained about Guardian and WaPo reporting. Was reported earlier today on Google News.
The 2007 tsunami is an interesting point. The study simply did a comparison of islands bearing vegetation from 1947 and again now. These tiny islands that have disappeared could be completely explained by that single tsunami.
The thought had occurred…but I cannot be sure cause could not quickly locate detailed pre/post maps. They must exist somewhere. Only found a longish USGS discussion on what and why.
JC, did some more research looking for maps. Nope.
But did find more on the 2007 tsunami. Now, Solomons tsunamiwave height depended on distance from epicenter, shoaling angle to shore, and shore angle to wave. So, dunno generally. But the max Solomon impact per USGS was 12 meters! Bigger than what killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia? Only killed hundreds due to diverse nature of Solomon Islands. Wipe out a few low lying vegitated islands? Easy.
There are two main groups of islands in the study — one set of twelve between Rendova and New Georgia and another set of twenty small barrier islands. on the east coast of Santa Isabel. All of the islands reported losing land (or disappearing) were among those barrier islands, not those near Rendova.
Unless I’m mistaken, the tectonic ridge (on which Rendova is located) rose during the 2007 8.1 earth quake. The press reported that Rainongga rose by 10 feet — Rainongga is on the same ridge as Rendova. Fifty people on Rendova were killed in the tsunami triggered by the 2007 quake. (Tsunamis also occurred in 2010 & 2011)
The islands the Santa Isabel barrier islands were not struck by the Tsunami. They were protected by Santa Isabel. But they were almost certainly affected by changing ocean currents following these major earthquakes.
Thank you Ristvan, earthquakes are a common event in the Solomons, 276 in the last year alone.
Link to http://earthquaketrack.com/p/solomon-islands/biggest
Whether or not this accounts for the smaller island sinking, due to subduction, larger ones rising to to overiding is not described in the article.
The land around Honiara has several terraces of coral, 100 metres or more high rising to the west of the city.
But, but, but….an island in Cape Cod sank and produced Man-mad Climate Change refugees! The entire island was evacuated. People floated their houses across the bay. The island DISSAPPEARED! It only appears now at low, low tides. The horror…your SUV…and your voracious appetite for coal…you haters!
Oh, wait….that happened beginning in 1878, and the last resident left in 1912….
Never mind. It must have been the horse manure and methane…..?
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/billingsgate-island
The SEAFRAME installations in the Pacific include Solomon Islands, and it is clearly not sea level rise.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/cutting-edge-sea-level-data/
Ron, terrific post and update. Another peer reviewed study misinterpreted by MSM down in flames in just a few days.
Ron Clutz May 10, 2016 at 2:00 pm
Thank you for the link.
michael
+ lots!
Auto
BTW, best estimate using those ~25 or ~ 70 is not less than 2mm/year, not more that 2.2mm / yr (lower with longer records). Those values come close to erasing the Closure Problem: sat altimetry SLR is greater by about 1/3 than the sum of estimated ice sheet loss (ICESat plus GRACE) and thermosteric rise (ARGO). Closure at ~2.4mm/year with the old GRACE Antarctic ice loss estimates, closure at ~2.2mm/yr with the new observational rather than modeled GIA input Grace estimates require, with the corrected GRACE now much closer to Zwally’s 2015 analysis of IceSat. Climate Audit posted on this not too long ago, but did not connect to the SLR closure problem discussed at length in essay PseudoPrecision.
Wrong threaded. Belongs above. You all can figure the data refrences out, then go check.
Woohoo !! Another loss for EPA !! The Greenies are having a bad year …
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/10/wyoming-welder-facing-16m-in-fines-beats-epa-in-battle-over-stock-pond.html?intcmp=hpbt1
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) does great work. I send them money every year at least. It’s the only outfit I know that consistently wins cases like these.
7–10 mm yr−1
What does this notation mean? I could expect 7 to 10 millimeters per year, but what is the -1 hanging on the end?
The minus one exponent means the year is in the denominator. So it is 7-10mm/year, or mm PER year.
The problem being, of course, that wordpress mangles html and won’t let you do superscripts using: yr<-1>
In any event, people who wish to be understood should write in a manner that most of their intended audience can understand.
It’s clearly past my bedtime. That should have been: yr<sup>-1</sup>
Fine work, Albert Parker.
Sea level rise, it’s all our fault, again. Except, in the real world.
Guilt trip after guilt trip.
Sometimes, the guilt, it’s just so, so… never enough to make me want to acquiesce to fools.
10 mm/yr! That’s like 40 inches / century.
The Guardian interviewed a Solomon Islander. The Guardian is a highly accurate, not-Marxist, not propaganda rag.
“Sirilo Sutaroti, 94, is among those who had to relocate from Nararo. He told researchers: “The sea has started to come inland, it forced us to move up to the hilltop and rebuild our village there away from the sea.”
Sirlo’s old village was waterfront. His village’s fishermen decided to move to the “hilltop” located a mile inland, 40 inches elevation above the old village, because they watched American TV PX90 infomercials and decided they needed 2 miles extra exercise, walking, because fishing didn’t provide enough exercise.
Sirlo convinced his tribe that even though the waterfront would not reach the hilltop for 80 years, it was smart to plan ahead, for the great-grandchildren’s sake.
I’m no expert, but It seems to me that Corals, by their nature only grow to just below the waterline. The islands are the product of wind, waves and ocean silt. Why is anyone surprised that the windward side of the islands are eroding while the leeward side are not. I was reading the actual article in ERL and was non-plussed to read, “Change in the twelve islands in Roviana was mixed with six islands growing slightly (<20%) …"
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054011
Tuvalu islands a few miles to the east are constantly moving
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/02/13/tuvalu/Map-Atolls-2.adapt.352.1.jpg
Guardian backtracks. Others remain unashamed.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/headlines-exaggerated-climate-link-to-sinking-of-pacific-islands
The alarmist claims around this story are turning into quite a car crash. One Guardian journalist seems to have a conscience and is admitting that the story was over-hyped. See
http://cliscep.com/2016/05/10/new-paper-on-disappearing-solomon-islands-spawns-alarmist-media-hype/
this write-up by Jaime Jessop.
Thanks for your analysis, Albert. Actually, regarding their claims, it’s Worse Than We Thought™.
First, they are not talking islands as we understand islands. They are talking low-lying transient sandbars on a coral substrate. These appear and disappear, and like all sand bars and coral atolls, they are constantly changing their shape. As they point out, the centroid of a number of the islands are moving …
Next, I dispute the claim that all of them have lost area. I say that they have picked the ones that have lost area and are ignoring the others. They say that “the majority” are losing area … but they don’t discuss the others, and they don’t say how large the “majority” is.
Next, there is this uncited claim:
This is absolute hogwash. As you point out, they are splicing datasets to get these numbers. You show the PSMSL data for the capital, Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal. There are two stations, one with data up to 1994, and the other with data since then. Coincidence? I doubt it … actually, looking further at the study, I see that they have also included the bogus satellite sea level data, which starts in 1992 and includes the specious addition of 0.3 mm per year due to claimed ocean bottom sinking. Gosh … would that look like acceleration? Sure ‘nuf … statistical sleight of hand.
It’s even more pathetic because the currently active tidal station is one of the Aussie “SEAFRAME” gauges. Unlike the earlier sea level record, the SEAFRAME installations contain colocated GPS data, so it simply cannot be compared to the earlier data without such an adjustment.
Finally, the entire area is tectonically active. It sits right smack on top of the Pacific “ring of fire”, and there was an 8.1 !!! magnitude quake in 2007 within a few miles of about three-quarters of the islands studied. During the quake, some reef areas fell as much as 60 cm (two feet!!). D’ya think that might have changed the currents around any sandy islets? Because I sure do … and in addition there was a huge tsunami following the quake. This put 2-3 metres of water onto the land in many areas, and these tiny coral islands are not over a meter in height …
Overall? It’s the usual alarmist claptrap. They are shocked, shocked I tell you, to make the startling discovery that islands and coastal shores erode, and that tsunamis can wash away small piles of coral sand …
w.
I posted this elsewhere yasterday
‘Using time series aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014 of 33 islands, along with historical insight from local knowledge, we have identified five vegetated reef islands that have vanished over this time period and a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. ‘
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054011
1947? – Way before AGW/ CC.
According to University of Colorado Sea level Wizard the sea level anomaly has gone from a low in 1993 -26.01cm to a high in 2008 +21.35cm and now 2016 -17.89cm. There was also a low in 1998 of -33.06cm.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/table.cgi?q=content%2Finteractive-sea-level…
Those years curiously correlate to El Nino and La Nina events.’
Just a few more observations.
1. The claim that sea level rise significantly or measurably increased erosion doesn’t appear in the paper. Or does it – where? The mandatory alarmist rhetoric is there of course, but I can’t find any strong or even weak claim about SLR’s importance relative to other factors.
The paper says that wave energy “can” interact with SLR to increase erosion, but nothing there seems to rule out the possibility that SLR’s role is insignificant or opposite.
The Conclusion section just says there’s a “critical need to understand the complex interplay” between various factors.
2. Figure 3 shows that areal changes only barely exceed the error margin, and only for the period 1962-2002 (not 1947-1962, not 2002-2014). During this period the Roviana group of islands increased, the Isabel group decreased in area.
3. If you compare two satellite photos from different decades, how do you know the minuscule changes aren’t just tidal, seasonal, or short-term wind effects?
4. The two sites which did have some human settlements were villages picked about 100 and 300 km away from those island groups, other side of Solomon Islands.
5. Nuatambu Island didn’t lose 51% of its area, but apparently less than 5% (Google maps approximation). To get the bigger number, the paper only looked at a small section of the island. What the section exactly is or why it was picked isn’t explained apart from the words “village area” (Table 1 footnote).
6. “Nuatambu Island is a small double islet made up of three basalt hills. Two are joined by a strip of sand that is under water during high tides.” (Sheppard 2006). The “houses” that got washed away were on this strip of sand. Seems unlikely that they’d even expect it to be a static enough formation to live on permanently. The “half of the village destroyed” was these, about ten huts or sheds. The 51% of habitable area seems to be pretty much that strip of sand.
7. For the second village Mararo it’s worse. Apparently there is no data whatsoever given about it. No area, no percentage. The only thing we know is basically this anecdote:
8. Other factors: widespread logging and dynamite fishing has been documented in nearby areas. They can have a detrimental effect on corals. Perhaps the most obvious drivers of erosion weren’t even mentioned in the paper.
9. The claim of Taro township relocating due to climate change seems dubious in light of some comments from the government representatives: “The relocation is inevitable to secure enough land space for expansion of the township, promotion of investment and boosting local business growth.” and “It’s considered to be so small that it’s run out of room for development, and this is the reason for the land negotiations.” (Google it)
10. There is growing evidence suggesting that Pacific coral islands have accreted in absence of direct human interference. Why would Solomon Islands be an exception?
“1. The claim that sea level rise significantly or measurably increased erosion doesn’t appear in the paper. Or does it – where?” — It’s in the title of the paper and the abstract,
“Low-lying reef islands in the Solomon Islands provide a valuable window into the future impacts of global sea-level rise. Sea-level rise has been predicted to cause widespread erosion and inundation of low-lying atolls in the central Pacific. … Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves.”
In the paper, this is basically a fallacy of false cause (“Sea level has risen and islands have disappeared. Coincidence? I think not.”) It’s like point out that we have all been aging while the earth is getting warmer and concluding that global warming causes aging.
The damage is already done. The sheeple will never see any news stories to counter today’s disinfo. The disinfo goes viral and that’s what sticks.
I post the debunking facts all over the place 😀 I feel the urge to get these rebuttals out there, cant help myself 😀
J48. Not completely. In the long run, this will be shown for the BS it is. Another object lesson.
And now we learn even the study authors are protesting the MSM reporting.
All those Hiroshima bombs exploding in the deep ocean are taking their atoll.
ENSO and plate tectonics. Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play (about global warming)?
One would assume that people understand that there is one Pacific Ocean, and that any rise would be, eventually, on average, the same everywhere.So any data showing one specific spot exhibiting higher than average ocean rise would be explained if one studied the locale , etc. But noooooo……!!!!