The BBC has perfected the use of weasel words to create alarm. They have a lead story today :
The collapse of a major polar ice sheet will not raise global sea levels as much as previous projections suggest, a team of scientists has calculated.
Writing in Science, the researchers said that the demise of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would result in a sea level rise of 3.3m (10 ft).
“It has been hypothesised for more than 30 years now that the WAIS is inherently unstable,” he explained.
And how many other global catastrophes have been forecast over the last 30 years? Seems like a new one nearly every week. The article goes on –
“A sea level rise of just 1.5m would displace 17 million people in Bangladesh alone,”
But the author wants us to worry about 200 years from now.
In other words, if the global average was one metre, then places like New York could expect to see a rise of 1.25m. Responding to Professor Bamber’s paper in Science, British Antarctic Survey science leader Dr David Vaughan described the findings as “quite sound”. “But for me, the most crucial question is not solely about the total amount of ice in West Antarctica, because that might take several centuries to be lost to the ocean,” he told BBC News. “The crucial question is how much ice could be lost in 100-200 years; that’s the sea level rise we have to understand and plan for.”Even with this new assessment the loss of a fraction of WAIS over those timescales would have serious consequences and costs that we’ve only really just begun to understand.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/images/wilkins_avh_2007.jpg
Re: Climate “Science” and the Press.
I have concluded that these over-the-top, misleading, and in some cases factually false climate stories are all about *** FUNDING ***. To keep the research dollars flowing into these research groups, they deliberately seek out ways to push their stories into the public domain via the press, in some cases coinciding with the release of a paper or report. Of course the press laps these “stories” up and is free to contort the facts as they wish (or, more likely, leave out key facts that would change the story line), leaving the scientists later to say “Gee, I never said the ice caps were GOING TO BE ice free next year, I just said they MIGHT BE”. The press can issue a correction on page 27 of their paper, and that is that. Meanwhile, the public is left remembering the original story, in bold type on the front page, “ARCTIC ICE MELTING FASTER THAN THOUGHT, SAYS ARCTIC RESEARCHERS!!” And, before the truth is known, the news organization can take a poll of the people about the arctic; “67% OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC BELIEVE THE ARCTIC WILL BE GONE IN 2 YEARS!!” screams the headline. Meanwhile, another poll shows that only 10% of Americans can point out the Arctic ice cap on a map…
The process come full circle when, for the next fiscal year, the science group requests NSF funding increases to continue their study of ice melting because of its “extreme important of their to existence of mankind on this planet” (this, BTW, would be a typical quote contained in the funding proposal). Of course, the government says YES! because this IS an extreme problem – after all, they read about it in the NY Times!!
The cycle repeats itself the following year as more press releases from the scientific institutions find their way into the press…more funding proposals are written…and accepted…
For a typical example of the climate science press machine, have a look at NSIDC:
http://nsidc.org/news/index.html
Note the special contact info on the right exclusively for journalists.
NEWS FLASH – New Orleans SINKING 100 inches/century
New Orleans Sinking Faster Than Thought
By SETH BORENSTEIN, The Associated Press, Wednesday, May 31, 2006; 11:02 PM
Bangladesh GROWING by 1,000 square kilometres
Bangladesh landmass ‘is growing’, By Mark Dummett, BBC News, Dhaka
Wednesday, 30 July 2008 12:55 UK
Take away: The biggest issue on deltas rising/falling is the silt load that is increased/decreased by natural or human causes. Ice melting is negligible by comparison.
PSNews Flash: JUNEAU RISING 3,000 mm
Headlines are designed to sell newspapers!
Wowsers. The ocean I remember from 50 years ago has risen an astronomical depth of 4.68″. No wonder I can’t see any difference. Only Spock can see that precisely. Shift a little sandbar on the beach and your sand castle is thereby erased. Nobody knows your computer sandcastle model ever existed.
See, see, I told you so.
And that survey point you used to calculate the distance from the road to the mean ocean level has changed. The paving crew over the years has added 5″ to the blacktop. The supervisors, being a perfectionist, pulled it up, then replaced it neatly each time they repaved. Poof. There goes your reading.
Here is an example of how free people in capitalist society cope with sea level rise.
Tom
ClimateSanity
New today, with emphases added. Note how ‘could be’ becomes ‘is’ in the space of 3 paragraphs.
Climate change ‘could kill billions of people’ warn researchers
16 May, 2009 | By Richard Staines
Possible side effects of climate change, such as more heat waves and the increased incidence of tropical diseases like malaria, could result in the premature death of billions of people, researchers have warned.
According to the paper on climate change, published by The Lancet and University College London, worst affected would likely be developing countries such as Bangladesh because they lack sufficient financial resources to deal with events like flooding, crop failure and diseases including dengue fever and malaria.
‘Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century,’ authors said.
‘Effects of climate change will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives of and well-being of billions of people at increased risk,’ they added.
Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, said: ‘It is an urgent threat, it is a dangerous threat, it is immediate and requires an unprecedented response by government and international organisations.’
Interesting that it’s a ‘health threat’ now. With ‘increased risk’ of ‘premature death.’ I thought that tobacco, alcohol, and fast food were the biggest health threats. But, hey, what do I know?
If some expert scientist says somewhere that they now think something might happen differently to what they previously thought might happen, and the possiblity, if it eventuates, would affect a lot of people differently to how the prior possibility would affect them if it eventuated, does the bbc have the obligation to report this? If they do not, can they be attacked for reporting this? Probably no and no. Do they have the obligation, as journalists, to beat up every remotest possibility to an immanent threat? Definitely. All lower quality news organizations do this.
The ice cap will melt, one day, possibly a few thousand years, possibly a hundred thousand years, possibly tens of millions of years in the future, and this will affect sea-level somehow, so the article is accurate in that sense. Its most probable that London will be covered by a kilometer of ice before all this eventuates anyway, which is the funny bit.
Don’t forget how the media jumped all over the Duke lacrosse team rape accusations, wrote endless stories about the race/privilege aspect of the situation, etc. When it became clear the accusations were false, one national reporter said: “The narrative was correct, it was just that the facts were wrong”.
That’s the mentality we’re facing. It’s all about the narrative. Facts are secondary.
And when the Wilkins ice shelf rebuilds we should rename it Flanagan’s Folly.
Speculation is irresistible fun. But when people take it seriously, things get dangerous. Mass hysteria and disaster may follow. More speculation at eleven.
There must be a couple of reporters who are beginning to feel the prickly heat of real-world facts who might start challenging the AGW dogma
Shame the BBC (British Brainwashing Corporation – LOL!) no longer employ Dr David Whitehouse as their science correspondent, although you can see why they don’t here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/scitech/2007/12/global-warming-temperature
BBC again.
The world’s most important coral region is in danger of being wiped out by the end of this century unless fast action is taken, says a new report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8047138.stm
The reefs are actually being damaged by Indonesian fishermen who have found out that catching fish with arsenic and dynamite saves them the tiresome chore of spreading nets.
David L. Hagen (06:34:06)
Re Mississippi delta and Ganges delta. Here is a topic that I have raised on a few occasions in different threads which no one seems to take much interest in. The drowning of the Ganges delta is a major centrepiece of AGW hype and BBC reports on it with specials about every 6 months.
Perhaps everyone here is already aware that when the last ice age was in full bloom, the Mississippi and its delta at the G of Mexico (and the Ganges delta) was 150m lower than today (as was seal level). As the sealevel rose, the river flow at the mouth slowed and the river dropped its sediment and built up the delta and, because the silt load was sufficient to do so, it also built out southwards into the gulf as sealevel rise was slowing. As a result, you can drill down 150m through the deltaic sediments, say somewhere between N. Orleans and Baton Rouge, before you reach the gravel river bottom as it was during the ice age. This 150m therefore represents the river delta’s response to rising sealevel.
Anthony:
I love all the physicists here for providing such a wonderful education in areas largely new to me (sincerely). But I’m frustrated that there aren’t more geologists taking up this matter of Bangladeshi’s drowing as the sea rises. I’m a Precambrian geologist myself but I think it would be a terrific and long overdue post to have a sedimentologist from a university prepare a simple illustrated article on this subject. Know somebody who can do this?
Re the manufactured hype of the article. I think it would be a fruitful exercise to catalogue these hyperbolic hurried peer-reviewed papers by number and time going forward. I believe as glaciers begin to grow, temperatures drop and sea levels decline, that there will be a crescendo of these kinds of papers coming out, they will peak as world low temperature records increase and then decline as the last hangers-on dwindle – it would be good science to plot this bell curve, give it a name and trot it out in the future when the mad cycle returns (the next, as was the last, panic will be over global cooling). We have begun to see the first phase of this phenomenon in the bet hedging that is going on in present day papers – 30 year hiatus in warming likely, warming not so bad as originall thought, some glaciers are growing because… etc. There is definitely a softening of tone since the confident, strident excesses of ten years ago.
“Pamela Gray (07:46:24) : And when the Wilkins ice shelf rebuilds we should rename it Flanagan’s Folly.”
Funny. 😉
NASA doesn’t know what to think of Antarctica. But the ice there has apparently decided to be in a growing trend before NASA get’s it’s mind made up. Antarctic ice isn’t looking for any scientific consent before doing what nature will make it do.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Where is the NASA that put men on the moon?
Flanagan (05:27:24) :
You should add “former” in front of the Wilkins ice shelf.
Why would such a lie enhance the story?
Gary Pearse: Along the line of your 06:34:06 is the question I have been asking since the Global Warming hysteria first began to peak:
What was the sea level in the Bay of Bengal in AD1000? (Note: I would allow +/- 100 years or so).
If you go and look at the dates of “ancient civilizations” you will discover that most of them are roughly a thousand years old, i.e. they correspond with the European Climate Optimum. If the glaciers of Greenland had retreated sufficiently to allow farming there, what did that do to the proto-Bengladeshi?
Regards,
Ric
Aah the British Bias Corporation strikes again
After long pondering, and, as an engineer, I have come up with
a “workaround” to the problem of sea level rise.
http://media.uxcell.com/i/07d/ux_a07110800ux0028_ux_g.jpg
[snip – sorry, this is not the National Enquirer, I don’t allow that sort of stuff here – Anthony]
AKD (10:58:56)
Why would such a lie enhance the story?
It sells.
Ric Locke (11:01:25) :
What was the sea level in the Bay of Bengal in AD1000? (Note: I would allow +/- 100 years or so).
As I said, I am a Precambrian geologist and not an expert on this more detailed aspect of historic responses of the deltas to moderate sea level changes. However a general answer would be that deltas adjust to sea level changes relatively quickly. If sea level rise was gradual (in the order of the rate today that is causing all the alarm) the delta would build up more or less to keep pace. Now periodically, the sediment load on the delta slumps under its weight causing the subsurface part of the delta to spread forward into deeper water and this can cause flooding on the seaward fringe, however, the sediments unrelentingly repair this, build it up again and extend it farther seaward. In the case of a major sea level rise following the end of the pleistocene glaciation, this periodic slumping built a forward base on the sea floor, so that when sea level falls again (say in the cooler period prior to the “Optimum”), exposing soft sediments higher above sealevel, the elevated sediments are subject to erosion and generally are reduced to near sea level again. The subsequent sea level rise of the “Optimum” would result in building up of the delta again. Essentially, the dweller on the delta would not perceive any sustained change in sea level. Regarding the periodic slumping, this occurs over time eventually even if sea level doesn’t change at all.
Ric, I’m glad you raised the question. Maybe some expert will be attracted to do a post on this subject and possibly even correct a Precambrian mining exploration geologist’s simplified view of the process of delta evolution.
The dam of consensus has begun to crumble and the leaks are beginning to show…
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/magazines/fortune/globalwarming.fortune/?postversion=2009051412
Respect to Fortune and CNN for publishing this article, Jon Birger for writing it and John Christy for having the strength of mind and will to have withstood the consensus and now be dismantling it.
Determining global sea level rise
http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=question356.htm&url=http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/dougla01/dougla01.html
The most ubiquitous source of regional submergence/emergence at tide gauge sites is the Post Glacial Rebound (PGR) that continues from the last deglaciation. It is manifest over the entire planet, not just at locations ice-covered at the last glacial maximum. Vertical crustal movements due to PGR at most sites are of approximately the same magnitude as the global (eustatic) rise.
“the determination of a single sea-level curve of global applicability is an illusory task.”
In fact, short (a few decades) tide gauge records are of no use whatsoever for determining an underlying long-term global trend, because of low-frequency fluctuations of sea level.
Douglas [1992] carried out a systematic global analysis of sea level acceleration, and arrived at a similar result that no acceleration of global sea level has occurred over the last 150 years that is statistically significantly different from zero at the 95 authors have bounded any acceleration that might have occurred in the last 150 years at an order of magnitude or more less than that predicted to accompany global warming in the future [ Houghton et al., 1990].
Global sea level rise as an indicator of climate change
From these considerations it is clear that simply obtaining a value for global sea level rise in the past, or detecting an increase in the future, is not enough for sea level rise to serve as an unambiguous indicator of global climate change. Global sea level, whether observed to increase, stay the same, or decrease, must be analyzed and understood in terms of all of the factors that affect it for meaning to be attached to it.