When somebody mentions “Maldives”, the image above of a tropical paradise often springs to mind. Andy Revkin wrote a story recently about the Maldives on his NYT Dot Earth blog that provoked quite an email exchange that I was privy to today. Here are some highlights. First the article:
Maldives Seeks Carbon Neutrality by 2020
By Andrew C. Revkin March 16, 2009, 8:39 am
No spot in the Maldives is more than six feet above sea level. (Click here for a narrated slide show describing this reporter’s first visit to the Maldives, in 1980.)
The Maldives, a strand of coral atolls south of India, is just about the most tenuous country on Earth. No patch of land in the island chain, where the population has risen from 200,000 to 400,000 in the last 25 years, is more than six feet or so above sea level. Even modest projections for a rise in sea level from global warming would increase flooding from storm surges. A higher rise could render hundreds of islands uninhabitable.
That’s why the country has paid particularly close attention, since the early days of discussion of the issue, to scientists who warn of a growing human influence on climate and sea levels. On Sunday, the new president of the island nation, Mohamed Nasheed, prodded the world to get serious about cutting emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by pledging, in a short piece in England’s Observer newspaper, to make the Maldives the first carbon-neutral country within a decade:
Many politicians’ response to the looming catastrophe, however, beggars belief. Playing a reckless game of chicken with Mother Nature, they prefer to deny, squabble and procrastinate rather than heed the words of those who know best…. Spearheaded by a switch from oil to 100% renewable energy production within a decade, the Maldives will no longer be a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement was made in the Maldives, but synchronized with the London premiere of ” The Age of Stupid,” a new film on global warming and oil that is a mix of documentary, dramatization and animation. (I haven’t seen it yet, but the description reminds me of the work of Randy Olson, particularly his mock documentary ” Sizzle.”) Officials in the Maldives made the decision after soliciting a report on how to cut fossil fuel use and otherwise trim the country’s climate footprint from Chris Goodall and Mark Lynas, British environmentalists and authors of books on energy and climate.
The proposal recommended a mix of wind turbines, rooftop photovoltaic panels and a backup power plant that burns coconut husks (coconut is a substantial export), among other steps. The estimated cost: about $1.1 billion over 10 years. But the new energy options could pay off in the long run by greatly reducing the country’s reliance on imported oil, the report concluded.
The early concern about global warming by officials in the Maldives was visible as far back as 1988, as shown in this vignette from my first (and long out of print) book on climate, “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast”:
Perhaps the most straightforward projections of what a greenhouse future will bring in coming decades are those related to rising seas. A foot-and-a-half rise doesn’t sound like much – unless you live in a place that just barely pokes above the ocean. I learned this when I went to Toronto in 1988 to report on the First International Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. Most of the discussions centered on devising strategies to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from automobiles, power plants, and the burning of tropical forests. Among those in attendance was Hussein Manikfan, who holds the title Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the United Nations from the republic of Maldives.
At first it seemed odd to find a representative from the Maldives at the meeting. The country, a sprinkling of 1,190 coral islets in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka, has no tropical forests, hardly any automobiles, and little industry beyond the canning of bonito. I spoke for a while with Manikfan. Why was he in Toronto? “To find out how much longer my country will exist,” was his simple reply.
Manikfan is worried because few of the islands have any point that is more than six feet above sea level. Even now, many of the atolls are awash during strong storms. The fear is that Manikfan’s nation – with a tradition of independence dating back thousands of years and its own language and alphabet – might have to be abandoned altogether, as if it were a slowly sinking ship.
Now for the geographically challenged, the map:
Dr. Don Easterbrook responded today to Andy Revkin with this email, cc:d to me
Andy,
I just read your article on sea level alarm in the Maldives. You may not be aware of a study there by Nils-Axel Morner, a Swedish sea level expert (former president of the INQUA Commission of Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution). Attached is photographic evidence by Morner that sea level in the Maldives is not rising relative to the coasts but has indeed fallen! Global sea level has been rising at a rate of about a foot per century but the Maldives are either rising or subject to a local sea level anomaly related to ocean currents and evaporation rates. Thus, the ‘poster child’ of Gore’s sea level alarm is invalid.
Don
The photographs he attached are interesting to say the least, click for larger images:
And soon others were jumping in. Tom Harris quoted a study from Nils-Axel Mörner and provided a plot from Nils-Axel Mörner’s study of sea level using C14 isotope dating.
Harris wrote:
While Andrew does not personally say that sea level rise will swamp the Maldives soon, he implies he agrees with the scenario by including nothing at all to counter the validity of the Maldivian announcement. I suggest Andrew read about Morner’s work and get an expansion of the below misleading piece published right away. You can download (for the next 7 days) one of Dr. Morner’s most recent papers on the topic at http://tinyurl.com/dhz6gk . Note the below graph from that report, especially.
Note also the Feb 2009 report of the SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK at Lund U (a large, respected and very old school in Sweden) at http://www.sasnet.lu.se/maldives09.html, in which they conclude, “In June 2004, Prof. Mörner published his research results in an article titled ”The Maldives Project: a future free from sea-level flooding” in the Contemporary South Asia magazine. However, the Maldivian government did not react positively to these findings since they went against the official policy, even though the facts presented seem to be beyond dispute and are confirmed in private by individual Maldivian researchers.” I have submitted a letter to the editor to the NYT on this and I’ll let people know if it is published.
Andy Revkin responded with:
Has anyone on this list assessed this Indian Ocean / Pacific sea level study — http://bit.ly/IndianOceanSeaLevel — which seems to challenge Morner’s analysis?
To which Nils-Axel Mörner replied:
The paper by Church et al. represent desk-work at the computers. Tide gauges have to be treated with care. There are pitfalls both withrespect to stability (compaction, etc) and cyclic patterns (disqualifying regressionline approaches).Our Mildives story is based on multiple criteria: off-shore, on-shore, lagoonal, back-shore, swamp environment.Ditailed morphology (in different environmental settings) is combined with stratigraphy and biological index + numerous C14-dates.Also, our team of researchers is very strong.
Have you heard of the Australian study on 12 Pacific islands, some of them mentioned by Church? They used much more reliable equipment than the others. They claimed an upward trend but this was done by the dishonest use of a linear regression which made use of the temporary depression on all the records caused by the 1988 hurricane. If you look at the actual records in their report (attached) and ignore this temporary event you will find that there was no change for the last sixteen years. The website of the Australian Bureau of meteorology has individual and summarizing reports on this project at
The Geology speaks for itself!As Morner points out, Church,, White, and Hunter applied a number of regional ‘corrections’ to the basic tide gauge record and calculated averages of a large region to arrive at their conclusion that sea level was rising in the Maldives. This is akin to putting one foot in a bed of hot coals and the other in a bucket of ice, averaging the temperature, and concluding that you should be quite comfortable! Putting aside the arguments around tide gauge levels, the geologic evidence appears to be indisputable and indicates conclusively that the sea levels at the sites shown in Morners paper cannot be submerging. You’re a smart guy–look at the geologic evidence in the two attached photos and judge for yourself.Figure 1 shows a post-1970 wave-cut notch eroded into the pre-1970 shore platform. You cannot do that with a submerging coastline. (The platform should be under water if the island is submerging, not being eroded at a lower level). This is a classic example of an emergent shoreline, the kind you can see in any geologic textbook.Figure 2 shows the present high tide line, the 1970 shoreline, and a pre-1970 shoreline. If the island has been submerging since 1970, as contended by Church,, White, and Hunter, the present high tide line should be above the 1970 shoreline, not below it!Any regional analysis of average sea level changes cannot trump the geologic evidence at the two sites shown. The geologic evidence is site specific, just like each foot in the coals and ice bucket. The average is meaningless.
So it boils down to this: Who would you rather believe? People doing studies on-site and gathering photographic evidence that shows clear geologic actions of lowered sea levels on the islands, or somebody sitting in an office analyzing and doing regressions on tide gauge data when they’ve never even done and checking on the quality control of the gauges themselves? Here’s one from Tasmania from this CSIRO report:
I’m sure that old algae covered dock is stable enough to use for “calibration”. Surely no possibility of shifting, or sinking there.
Here’s a somewhat better tide gauge placement of a gauge in the Adriatic sea.
The description reads:
The tide gauge Luka Koper is located in northern part of Adriatic in Koper bay at the industrial pier grounded to the bottom with piles.
Here’s one in Alaska:
Here’s another, at Cape Ferguson in Australia, from BOM:
IMHO The idea that a dock (or piling) is a long term stable measurement platform is simply ludicrous. Piles sink, structures decay, boats whack them, pounding wave action loosens their grip. One feature missing from all these old style tide gauges is any way to reference the long term level of the gauge itself. In the era of GPS we can start doing this, but in the years past, how much is from simple sinking of the pilings over time? When you are looking for millimeters per year, such things become significant.
Gee, and I thought weather station measurement issues were bad. Scientists really do need to get out more. Perhaps the next IPCC conference can be in the Maldives instead of Bali. I volunteer to run beach tours to show water level notches. – Anthony
Retired BChE:
Re inundated coastlines: we had a bit of that in Long Beach, California. Not due to ocean rising, though. Was due to subsidence from oil production.
http://www.uwsp.edu/gEo/faculty/ozsvath/images/long_beach_subsidence.htm
@ur momisugly Henry Phipps
Re shutting down coal-fired power plants.
California is currently moving away from coal-based power, which is imported from Utah. But even this green-nuts place has a lick of sense over this one. The switch from coal will not happen until the existing contracts expire, one in 2019 and another one much later. This allows the utilities time to build something else, which in our case will likely be geothermal in the Salton Sea area. It counts as renewable, and is fairly reliable, but very costly.
I would guess that if California can wait a decade or two, with promises only, then Missouri can take as long as they like. Maybe until the glaciers are back on the doorstep!
Should not the fact that the population has increased from 200,000 to 400,000 in 25 years make somebody ask the question whether the main problem for Maldives may be overpopulation, not sea level rise? Just as in the case of Tuvalu, where I have looked at both population data and sea level data, and found that if the islands are sinking into the sea, it must rather be because of the total weight of all the people than rapidly rising sea levels.
Moreover, people just do not seem to realize how coral islands work. They have survived rising sea levels for thousands of years, because they grow in height. It was Charles Darwin who first understood and described this process.
Roger Sowell (14:11:39) :
Retired BChE:
Re inundated coastlines: we had a bit of that in Long Beach, California. Not due to ocean rising, though. Was due to subsidence from oil production.
http://www.uwsp.edu/gEo/faculty/ozsvath/images/long_beach_subsidence.htm
@ur momisugly Henry Phipps
Re shutting down coal-fired power plants.
California is currently moving away from coal-based power, which is imported from Utah. But even this green-nuts place has a lick of sense over this one. The switch from coal will not happen until the existing contracts expire, one in 2019 and another one much later. This allows the utilities time to build something else, which in our case will likely be geothermal in the Salton Sea area. It counts as renewable, and is fairly reliable, but very costly”.
I would guess that if California can wait a decade or two, with promises only, then Missouri can take as long as they like. Maybe until the glaciers are back on the doorstep!”
Roger Sowell (14:11:39) :
Retired BChE:
Visiting Iceland where thermal energy is used everywhere I have noticed a very negative aspect of this “clean” energy”.
It’s noise, incredible noise of howling turbines and loud hissing pressure valves regulating steam pressure of the piping system.
Maybe it’s because I did not expect this effect but since this experience thermal energy has become a kind of rudimentary type of energy source.
I guess it’s expensive to take noise reduction measures, otherwise they would have made the effort.
It’s somewhat surprising that anyone takes the water-witching ad hommies against Mörner seriously. I’ve never tried dowsing, but I did have one paranormal ability: dematerialization. I used to be able to make chocolate chip cookies disappear! Will the Anthropogenic Global Warming Disasterists use this special gift to cast aspersions on my Blueberry Pancake Theory of Climate Change?
Update: I’ve developed a wheat allergy. I’m very curious to see if the old mojo would work with wheat-free CC cookies made from rice flour. If someone on this board sends me some, I’ll report the results. And I’ll let James Randi keep his hard-earned money.
Tim McHenry (12:53:01) :
OT but I am responding because, just as Al Gore lumped AGW skeptics in with flat-earthers, so I am afraid of AGW skeptics being associated with dowsing and other “whoo-whoo-ism”. While I am not accusing you of being a troll, there are people that come here for the express purpose of posting nonsense, sowing dissension and trying to elicit responses that they can take back to the “warmer” blogs as evidence that skeptics are nothing but cretins.
Dowsers do not have to claim or even think that dowsing is paranormal, they just have to be able to show dowsing works. The following is ab excerpt from Randi’s FAQ on the challenge:
2.2 What is the definition of “paranormal” in regards to the Challenge?
Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal.
2.3 Does my claim count as paranormal?
Possibly. Read through the JREF forum for a list of previous applicants if you’d like to see whether or not your claim has been tested before. The list can be found at: http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=43
Past claims have included: psychic or mediumistic powers, ESP, dowsing, magnetic humans, astrology, faith healing, etc.
So lets bury the subject of dowsing and gey back to climate.
LarryF (17:34:08) :
Rice flour chocolate chip cookies? To think that I lived so long that I had to hear this. First it was “flaky pie crusts” could be made without lard, then it was some kinda beans in chili. I tell you, children, the world’s goin’ to heck in a handbasket. Hoping for the best for you, Larry, but shakin’ my head sadly.
Henry 🙂
Robert Austin (18:00:47) :
I don’t mean to take over the thread, but it is starting to get old what with all the new posts in front of it, so I don’t think anyone will mind. I just wanted to say that there is 0% chance that JREF is going to count the utility man walking over the water and having those copper wires do their thing as a paranormal event (or they might claim “dowsing” is something else). I can ask those fellas at Tri-County Electric, but I’m pretty sure that the wires will do what I saw at that site every time, no matter who is holding them, and there’s just no way they’re going to get a dime for it. I appreciate you sticking with the subject, but I do take exception with your description of those who use the wires or sticks at work as purveyors of “whoo-whoo-ism.”
Finally, I once again point out that JREF is NOT going to give $1mil to someone who can show them just any ole’ thing that’s “not scientifically explainable” at the present time.
Ron de Haan:
(I am not sure if this was directed to me, or Retired BChE)
“Visiting Iceland where thermal energy is used everywhere I have noticed a very negative aspect of this “clean” energy”.
It’s noise, incredible noise of howling turbines and loud hissing pressure valves regulating steam pressure of the piping system.
Maybe it’s because I did not expect this effect but since this experience thermal energy has become a kind of rudimentary type of energy source.
I guess it’s expensive to take noise reduction measures, otherwise they would have made the effort.”
Thermal power plants have the noise problem, but it can be abated with proper design and material selection. The noise arises when high-velocity steam whizzes through small openings. Control valves that are sized wrong also can make tremendous noise. Sometimes the noise increases when the entire plant is operated below capacity, because the control valves close a bit and the internal opening is smaller. Sound absorbing walls can be installed to abate noise down to low levels. Also, thermal insulation not only reduces heat losses, but absorbs and reduces noise.
ITS GOOD TO SEE POPLE LIKE YOU TELLING THE TRUTH AND EXPOSING THESE FRAUDULANT CLAIMS ,ITS A SHAME WE CANT GET IT OUT IN THE MEDIA A LOT MORE TO EXPOSE THE COVERUPS ,KNOCKING THAT TREE DOWN IS A DISCRACE AND SHOULD BE HEADLINES ,MEDIA WATCH IN AUSTRALIA MIGHT DO A PROGAME ON THISIF YOU APPROACHED THEM .THANKS FOR THE HONESTY .
Tim McHenry (18:51:27) :
What I hear is cognitive dissonance.
You appear to be rationalizing in your own mind that the JREF is somehow going to weasel out of accepting a challenge test of dowsing or weasel out of paying the prize. It is a common response when the JREF challenges the more high profile paranormal proponent to subject their “abilities” to scientific testing. If you delve more deeply into the JREF site, you will be shown just how easily the human mind can be self-deluded and deluded by others.
The major reason for replying to your last post is that I think James Randi is a great human being, much more worthy of a Nobel Prize than you know who, and it irks me to read aspersions cast upon him by people doubting his commitment to a fair and scientific testing of paranormal claims.
I suggest you take your concerns to the JREF website blog.
Agreed, if I have time and interest, I will take it up on the other blog. I had never looked up the subject before, but when I looked back at my first post I think that’s where the problem is. What I called “dowsing” in that post (and what P. Hilderbrant was talking about), seem to be much different than what you read about on most web pages or on Wiki.
“”” Norm in the Hawkesbury (16:06:19) :
George E. Smith (09:52:25) :
Well my World Atlas places the Maldives to the South West of India; pretty much straight south from Bombay. Thjat is not what I would call south West of Sri Lanka or Ceylon if you will.
Wow!
I know we don’t cite wiki as reliable but ……
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives
The Maldives ( /ˈmɒldaɪvz/ (help·info) or /ˈmɒldiːvz/), (Dhivehi: ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ) or Maldive Islands, officially the Republic of Maldives, is an island nation consisting of a group of atolls stretching south of India’s Lakshadweep islands between Minicoy Island and the Chagos Archipelago, and about seven hundred kilometres (435 mi) south-west of Sri Lanka in the Laccadive Sea of Indian Ocean. The twenty-six atolls of Maldives encompass a territory featuring 1,192 islets, of which two hundred and fifty islands are inhabited.[3]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/LocationMaldives.png “””
Well I don’t just make stuff up; wikki sometimes does.
But on a Rand McNalley world map, the Maldives are shown directly south of Bombay which is on the WEST coast of India, and also directly south of the Lakshadweeo Islands which are also off the west coast of India, and they stretch both north and south of the latitude of the tip of India.
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) on the other hand is off the EAST coast of India; and directly south of Madras. The Maldies are twice as far from the WEST coast of India, as Sri Lanka is off the EAST coast of India.
Your map link clearly shows that.
So Cabo San Lucas in Baja Mexico is south west of the Florida Keys; Right ? Of course it is; there’s just that minor point of the United Sates, and Mexico being in between; like India is in between the Maldives, and Sri Lanka.
Yes, they killed the Freedom Tree. I remember that.
I have been waiting for a followup on this for years.
In a sense, the original article, NOT in a reputable journal, led me into a more intense examination of climate. That led me to stumble on this site back around June 2007 . . .
P.S., I couldn’t care less what arcane beliefs Moerner has or has not.
Newton was an alchemist and predicted the end of the world using Biblical references. He also regarded this as his most important life’s work. IIRC, he also dabbled in astrology.
(He was also a crank and a crackpot.)
So I guess, y’all will be rejecting that calculus garbage and that ridiculous physics claptrap which denies Aristotle and all contemporary consensus . . .
Morner says some vital things and they check out.
There is nothing wrong with attacking a person if that is the fault but if the data is the thing that is wrong attack that. In the Morner case the data is ignored and the person attacked.
Morner does not show modern processing results.
As a result of an item mentioned by Morner I cross checked. He is accurate.
LOD (length of earth day) data is freely available, if preprocessed. For example
http://www.iers.org/products/177/11221/output//30951/eopc04_IAU2000.62-now.txt
Looks like this
http://www.iers.org/plots/FinalsAllIAU2000A-LOD-BULA.png
Here is a plot where I have processed for good time localisation of this event, which tends to play down the magnitude of the event. (above plot shows this event once you know where to look)
The 1982/1983 El Nino shook the earth, has a very strong signal in the rate of spin of the Earth.
http://www.gpsl.net/climate/data/earth-lod-el-nino.png
The 1982/83 El Nino has been described as the largest of the century. If you search you should be able to find animations of the temperature anomaly and will find that as Morner says, including tide gauge data, as it interacts with the land mass of the America energy is transferred between the mass of the ocean and solid earth.
I note papers (post Morner) trying to explain this effect as a wind on the Andies or whatever. Sorry folks, air is low mass. These get accepted as peer reviewed when are in the face of earlier work?
That destroys peer review as a rational process. These people are in different fields of science, hence peer review fails.
Morner also says rather forcefully that change in sea level if it was true would have a very clear effect on LOD and is not there. If anyone wants to estimate this, the water mass has to come from the poles, mainly Antarctica and Greenland, therefore there is a mass transfer from the polar regions where mass has little effect to the middle of a sphere where it has most effect.
It should be possible to calulate a LOD signal based on supposed historic sea level change. That signal must then be present in the measured LOD, and if not it suggests falsification of the sea level record.
Take the claimed satellite sea level trend, if it does not match…
I guess this has long been done but there is silence.
Sea level rise or ground subsidence measurements are relative to the point of observation, which nowadays is a satellite, placed at a stationary (?) orbit point. Good luck on that one. A little orbital decay, instrument error, calibration error, space junk collisions, magnetic storms, measurements in metric that should have been English, and who the hell knows what’s rising and what’s sinking? I don’t have that much faith that NASA can do this stuff right on a tight budget that’s getting tighter by the minute.
Anthony
Do you know happen to know why the University of Colorado has not updated its site http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ in nearly three months now?
Since the data at the site now seems to suggest deceleration in sea level rise, my cynical streak is whispering “are they are withholding data that contradicts their politics?”
In the course of mousing around the internet on this issue, I visited the INQUA website at http://www.inqua.tcd.ie/about.html.
They have a prominent graph on that page titled “Average Northern Hemisphere temperature trend (- 20-year filter; — 100-year filter) during the past 350 years, showing a pronounced 20th-century warming.”
The change in temperature anomaly for the 20th century is purportedly about +2.7 degrees C. The graph is unattributed. Does anyone know the source of this graph?
The reason why satellite sea level measurements agree with tide gauges is that the satellite height is calibrated from the tide gauges (to correct for orbital decay etc.). So the satellite measurement of mean sea level rise should never be presented as independent evidence of mean sea level change -it’s just tide gauge data! Another little fact that they don’t want you to know.
Cheers
Mark,
As can be seen in the picture, the Maldives are essentially completely flat atolls. Therefore, even a couple of inches of sea level rise would flood half the islands’ surface.
That is visual proof that any increase in the sea level is extremely minimal. Any increase is also very slow; there is enough time for the coral to build up, keeping up with any small, slow increase in the sea level.
You don’t need a tide gauge to see that this is another nail in the coffin of the dead AGW/CO2
hypothesisconjecture.Cheers!
Tuvalu has been mentioned a few times. I have some info.
Tuvalu is a group of low-lying islands in the Pacific. The AGW crowd sometimes include Tuvalu in the list of islands threatened by sea level rise. Dr Morner mentions the fact that pineapple plantations on the main island sucked out ground-water, which was replaced by sea-water. But there’s more to it than that.
A few years ago an American TV company bought the right to use Tuvalu’s internet suffix (.tv). They paid $40 million for it. The islanders did what poor people often do when coming into a fortune – they spent it on things they had seen rich people using. Cars, trucks, domestic appliances…. and they built a road all round the main island. They built substantial two-storey houses.
Where did they get the sand for the cement for these houses? From the beaches. Where did they get the hardcore for the road? From the reefs. What would be the effect of cars and trucks thundering round a delicate coral island? You know the answer. A classic case of people unwittingly destroying their own habitat. As mentioned above, Tuvalu is desperately overcrowded (like the Maldives), and the Tuvalu govt thought of a plan: sue the US Government (as the world’s main polluters) for raising sea levels for huge sums of money, and ask countries like New Zealand and Papua New Guinea to take some of their people. The sea-level argument was laughed out of court – as any reader of the previous postings knows, there has been no appreciable sea-level rise in modern times.
There was a programme on BBC about Tuvalu a few years ago. The presenter tried repeatedly to persuade Yuvalu islanders to say they wanted to go away because of the sea level rise, and tried to persuade them to claim that they had seen sea levels rise. Eventually one old chap pointed to an uninhabited rock and said he thought it had been higher out of the water 30 years earlier. That was all the evidence put forward. The presenter showed us the roads, the new buildings, the cars and trucks, but not once did it occur to him to make a link between these things and the sea water problems Tuvalu was facing.
There are similar stories with all the so-called disappearing islands – the Fairfaxes, Carterets, Sunderbans etc. The AGW people are aching for some of these islands to disappear, ut they all remain stubbornly above water.
It’s probably worth noting that Nils-Axel Mörner was given the title “Misleader of the year 1995” by “The Swedish Sceptics (Vetenskap och Folkbildning, VoF)”
http://www.vof.se/visa-forvillare1995
The text is unfourtunatly in swedish.
That doesn’t mean that he can’t be right on this particular issue, but since he’s been known to ignore scientific methodology before, I wouldn’t count on it.