Guest post by Thomas Fuller and Tony Brown
When we separate what scientists have actually said from what messages are carefully prepared and communicated to us through the media, one thing jumps out to the most casual of readers.
Some marketing strategists reduced the information content of the messages given to the public and introduced popular symbols to indicate what they wanted us to believe was threatened by climate change.
For over 5 years we have been bombarded with images of polar bears, hurricanes, flooded cities, icebergs calving, drought-stricken deserts, and the like. Perhaps the most symbolic representation wasn’t even a picture, but a PowerPoint slide of paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions now famous as the Hockey Stick Chart.
Those symbols all have one thing in common. They were mistakenly used. As has been cataloged here and elsewhere, these ‘signature’ issues were either blown out of proportion or presented falsely.
Polar bears, like all large mammals that haven’t had the good fortune to be domesticated, have a shaky status on this planet–but that status does not appear to have very much at all to do with climbing temperatures. They survived higher temperatures in the past, and their population is rising–and would be rising even more quickly if we quit shooting them, that being the major cause of polar bear deaths.
There is no historical trend in either the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, as Roger Pielke Jr. has pointed out in academic publications. And yet global warming has been blamed for specific storms, such as Hurricane Katrina, in a manner that is frankly antithetical to the principles of science.
And so it is with icebergs calving (a completely normal and mechanical reaction to ice accumulation that happens whether temperatures are rising or falling), droughts (which were worse in the past) and all the other symbolic climate porn photography inflicted upon us.
Yesterday I wrote about sea level rise, and attempts to measure ice loss in Antarctica via satellite. And again, it is very clear that the results of scientific work are being hijacked in an attempt to push a scary message at us. The analysis of gravimeter measurements start with guesses and inferences, and the result is presented with a huge margin of error, and amounts to less than 1% of the annual ice loss Antarctica experiences every year.
Commenter TonyB went to the trouble of cataloging the difficulties inherent in sea level measurements. By rights it should be posted here as an article. I’ll paste it in at the bottom of this piece–and I will wager most readers will think it is more informative than my words above it.
But before I turn the stage over to TonyB, I want to make a couple of points:
First, it should be obvious that the manipulation of the messages isn’t coming from scientists. It is too professional, too slick and ultimately too wrong. This is a professional, coordinated media strategy using calendars with press schedules and release dates, a well-stocked photo library and a rapid response team that shoves new releases out the door in response to news events or skeptical messages that seem to be gaining traction.
Second, and really most important, all of the messages have very serious flaws in the narratives that accompany the pictures they ship out. And it is the exposure of these flaws that has crippled the climate change political movement, far more than criticism or political opposition.
If climate change or global warming is now a declining motivation for political and economic action, and it may well be, the reason is not Monckton or Morano. It is not even more measured criticism coming from McIntyre and Watts. Nor is it corrective science administered by both Pielkes.
It is their own butchery of the facts behind the images they decided we needed to see that hamstrung their movement. If they have been defeated in the first series of battles (in what I predict will be a 30-year war), they done it to themselves.
Here’s Tony–read on!
No problem. I was going to work this up into an article on sea levels one of these days although someone must have already posted an article here on this fragile part of a fragile science.
“We are being bamboozled by science which likes to have a nice graph to explain everything, unfortunately the real world is more complicated than that. Global sea levels are -like global temperatures-a nonsensical artifact dreamt up in a computer laboratory where satellite records are tacked on to manufactured and highly incomplete historic records from selected tide gauges.. Modern Sea level rises- where happening- are not being seen in context as another of those regular cycles that stretch back much further than the satellite records or tide gauges into the depths of recorded time.
This is the latest IPCC assessment which confirms sea level calculations from 1993 are by satellite.(page 5 onwards)
Link1
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
The sea level calculations rely on an enormous number of variable factors including pressure, location, tides, warmth of oceans, structures, storms, wave heights, surges, stasis, location of the gauge/sensor, slope of the underlying strata etc. The accuracy of measurements is said to be 3cm (10 times the level of the alleged annual rise) but in reality is often vaguer than that because of the inherent difficulties of measuring. Observed real world sea levels generally simply do not show the rate of increase suggested by the IPCC (although this varies enormously from place to place for reasons cited above)
Link 2 The document below was written by many of our old friends including Phil Jones and Mike Hulme-page 19 gives the sea level data
http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/images/stories/trends_pdfs/Trends_section1&2.pdf
The information for historic sea levels was ‘extended’ from a paper by one of the scientists at Proudman
Link3
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/products.php
Link 4 This is reconstruction of sea level data from 1700 of three extremely incomplete Northern Hemisphere records from which IPCC extrapolate their figures, take them to be a global figure and splice them on to the satellite records
Link 5 .
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/author_archive/jevrejeva_etal_1700/
These three are taken to represent global figures since 1700-much data missing and subsequently interpolated.
Amsterdam from 1700 (Van Veen 1945)
Liverpool since 1768 (Woodworth 1999)
Stockholm since 1774 (Ekman 1988)
It says there are differences even in the same ocean basin between tide gauges of up to plus or minus 6cm rendering their use for a global record to be irrelevant
Link 6
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/author_archive/jevrejeva_etal_1700/2008GL033611.pdf
pdf from 1700 link
6cm margin of error from tide gauges in same ocean basin
Both the following sites give a good description of the satellite process-which is being constantly refined but doesn’t get more extremely accurate as the inherent flaws in measuring capabilities can’t be fully resolved no matter how many satellite passes are made.
Link 7
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/15_1/15_1_jacobs_et_al.pdf
Link 8
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/Issues/1999/dec/abs1635.html
The following sites deals with problems of satellite accuracy and data;
Link 9
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/193/2009/os-5-193-2009.html
Link 10
This with reliability
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=859
Link 11
http://lightblueline.org/satellite-tracking-sea-levels-set-launch
The UK Environment Agency -where possible like to use physical tide gauges as well when developing flood defence schemes, which are both visually observed or can send data electronically. Best of all is gathering information from local people such as the Harbour master or those who work the fishing boats and who know what is really happening.
The following link leads to a graph produced by the Dutch Govt sea level organisation- and confirm sea levels are stable and are somewhat lower than during the MWP. (This won’t stop them reacting to the IPCC by raising sea defences)
Link 12
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=61
Link 13
We have much observational evidence of historic sea levels (p162 on-including a map in the following link)
Ancient Greek explorer Pytheas traveled to Iceland and not only discovered the frozen seas lying one days journey beyond, but was the first to quantify the moons action as being responsible for tides, and took physical measurements of heights. Sea level heights are generally said to be lower today than back in the Roman warm period and Mwp.
Sea castles in the UK built in the 11th century are now above the sea level entrances which ships used to re-supply them.
This links leads to a 1913 book on Harlech castle-one such building which is now high and dry-nothing to do with stasis or deposition, but that sea levels are lower now than when it was built 1000 years ago. Suggest readers select the b/w pdf
Link 14
http://www.archive.org/details/merionethshire00morr
Extract
“In 1409 an attack was made upon Harlech, led by Gilbert and John Talbot for
the King; the besiegers comprised one thousand well armed soldiers and a big siege train. The besieged were in the advantageous situation of being able to receive their necessary supplies from the sea, for the waves of
Cardigan Bay at that time washed the base of the rock upon which the castle stands. Greater vigilance on the part of the attacking force stopped this and the castle was surrendered in the spring of the year.
A remarkable feature of the castle is a covered staircase cut out of the rock, defended on the seaward side by a looped parapet, and closed above and below by small gatehouses. This was the water-gate of the fortress,
and opened upon a small quay below.”
Link 15 The following pictures show the current location of the sea.
http://westwales.co.uk/graphics/morfaharlech.jpg
Link 16
Sea in far distance from Harlech castle
http://westwales.co.uk/graphics/harlech.jpg
and this
Link 17
http://www.buildmodelcastles.com/html/castle_history.html
very good item about Harlech
Link 18
http://www.walesdirectory.co.uk/Castles/Harlech_Castle.htm
Sea levels AND temperatures were higher in the MWP and the Roman warm periods and presumably other extended warm periods (the period 1700 to 1740 is looking increasingly comparable to today).
The worlds leading sea level expert Professor Morner has called the IPCC figures ‘a lie.’ Google ‘The greatest lie ever told’
Morner says: “The mean eustatic rise in sea level for the period 1850-1930 was in the order of 1.0-1.1 mm/year,” but that “after 1930-40, this rise seems to have stopped (Pirazzoli et al., 1989; Morner, 1973,2000).” This stasis, in his words, “lasted, at least, up to the mid-60s.” Thereafter, “the record can be divided into three parts: (1) 1993-1996 with a clear trend of stability, (2) 1997-1998 with a high-amplitude rise and fall recording the ENSO event of these years and (3) 1998-2000 with an irregular record of no clear tendency.” Most important of all, in his words, “There is a total absence of any recent ‘acceleration in sea level rise’ as often claimed by IPCC and related groups.”
He concludes: “When we consider past records, recorded variability, causational processes involved and the last century’s data, our best estimate of possible future sea-level changes is +10 +/- 10cm in a century, or, maybe, even +5 +/- 15cm.” See also Morner (1995); INQUA (2000).”
I am inclined to agree with Professor Morner that sea level is not really doing very much generally (with exceptions either way in some places)
Link 19
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we18.htm
The above link dissects the data and states that a rise by 2100 of 5cm is possible…. plus or minus 15cm!
Morner stresses (as I do) that observational data contradicts the theoretical interpolated and massaged data that is used by the IPCC.
John Daly also had a good handle on all this.
Link 20
http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm
The sea level is not rising at the rate suggested-it has stumbled in recent years according to many local gauges (what is global sea level supposed to mean with a million kilometres of coastline?)
To reach a 1 metre increase by 2100 means an average of nearly 11mm a year (only 90 years remaining). There is simply no evidence to show this is happening.
We must stop looking at just a few years of data as ‘proof’ of rising levels , and instead view things in a historic context, whilst retaining a great deal of scepticism at the notion you can create a highly accurate global figure in the first place, or that tacking dubious satellite data on to even more dubious tide gauge data is any way to create a worthwhile measurement .
I had intended to cover historic sea levels as a companion to my ‘arctic ice variation through the ages’ series.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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I am sorry but this article seems to me to be an attempt to throw the media “under the bus” to get the spotlight of scientist who abandoned any notion of objectivity to become advocates of a political policy.
Yes, the media deserves credit for creating the glossy presentation layer; however the meat of the presentation is served up by complicit scientist who long ago abandoned any sense of objectivity to push a political agenda.
At minimum these scientist were complicit when they failed to speak up and denounce the misrepresentation of their work. More likely the work was created with the specific intent of enabling the creation of these glossy, scare mongering, presentations. The dedicated work of Watts, McEntire and Pelke has shown a spotlight on these “scientist” enablers and forced them to be held accountable.
I suspect that there is a journolist of collaborating environmental and science journalists somewhere. The trick is to discover it or find a participant or insider with a conscience to become a whistleblower. Direct or indirect links via Soros funding is an excellent indicator. Fenton Communications, Joe Romm and Real Climate come to mind. It is time for all of us to become spies.
Geoflynx — like it or not, the past changes are indicative of “orthogonality” of AGG to climate, sea level, sea ice, et. al. If a system exhibits the same behavior to wildly differing values of a given input, it is likely independent of that input (i.e. the inner product of the input vector to the response matrix is a null vector, it is thus orthogonal).
Now it is possible that a series of confounding variables are involved and have varied in such a way as to make the system *seem* orthgonal w.r.t. AGG, or that the response matrix has changed significantly between the to state vector samples. However, that seems to be Occam-baiting unless these elements can be identified as specific physical processes, and their presence and influence (or reasonable proxies thereof) measured.
Hand waving that “this time it’s different because of the AGG” is just that, handwaving.
Re: Scooper says:
September 7, 2010 at 9:51 am
There is no doubt however that significant sized ships could navigate to the castle when it was built and the sea is now some distance away, but some more accurate photographs should have been used and would still have made the point.
I agree. Maybe these photos will do.
http://www.photogallery-uk.co.uk/resources/Castell-Harlech$2CGwynedd-cop.jpg
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bowen/images/harlech1.jpg
http://ims1.ballofdirt.com/view/264fece8eca7172e99c716168acd1d61d9a717cacb40e9d6e7db0ea94104409a8844bd78c52e2ce2dee8011b131981e5dbbe0ff1219acd66
As the Warmist lobby has no empirical evidence whatsoever to state their claims, the propagandistic scare stories is all that’s left to further their agenda.
If it wasn’t for the skeptic blog sphere and some tireless and courageous people determined to get the science “right”, who knows what killer legislation would have taken control over our societies.
Slowly but surely the “Merchants of Doubt” are pushed into retreat.
Mother Nature will take care of the rest.
By 2012 AGW/Climate Change will be a thing of the past.
A danger in offering distance to a seashore from where it once was is that it cannot explain why that movement came to be. My point is, using Google maps to explore the area around Harlech Castle suggests the sea moved on because of deposition, not necessarily because the sea level changed. Or perhaps both are involved, but to what degree remains unknown.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=harlech+castlehnear=Harlech+Castle,+Harlech,+Gwynedd,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.869959,-4.083824&spn=0.115639,0.260582&t=h&z=12
“Bamboozled”, hogwash. No disinterested, sentient lay observer has ever granted the Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. (never mind Railroad Bill Pachauri and his merry band of coprophagic proctocranials) the slightest credibility. Gobblerones from Monbiot to Romm and Schmidt ascend to new Munchausen heights with every passing season… if it weren’t for a few tens of trillion dollars, no-one in their right mind would give a cuckoo’s call.
______________________________
I happen to quite like it. It means I’ll not have to travel so far to get to my boat.
Well here’s the thing. Sea levels are not rising. Not if you look at the last 80 years they are not. The last, heavy industrial, CO2 producing years do not show a net change either way. Not by the best data we have.
What’s your reasoning for your conclusion?
Sea levels have risen, on record, just the same as temperatures have risen, on record. It just depends upon where you start your record and if you explain it as alarming doom or simply recovery from a low point.
Does it? I’d have thought that championing such measures ( if of course someone is, you don’t make that clear ) requires nothing more than a champion.
Are you suggesting that in order for A to be allowed then B,C,D,E, etc have to be true?
Again, I’ll look forward to the data you have that give you cause for such reasoning.
Do you know that in order for the CO2 levels to become dangerous to human it would have to be (forgive me, I’m going off the top of my head here) in the order of 780 times what it is in ppm today?
CO2 is a trace gas; it has been 18 times current levels during times of life’s greatest species diversity growth. CO2 is only 0.038% of the atmosphere and CO2 is only 3.6% of all the greenhouse gasses. Of that 3.6% man only contributes ( it’s debatable but let’s go with the average accepted figure) 3.4% in all his activities.
Let’s face it only an arrogant man believes that humans are capable of affecting the levels of atmospheric CO2 in any meaningful and measurable way.
I’m not sure who is championing CO2 increases but I do know this: When we have already shown that absorption by CO2 is already at it’s peak and commentators are saying that a doubling of CO2 will have a negligible affect on temperature yet could improve global crop yields by 35% then I know which world I want my kids to live in.
GeoFlynx, Nobody is claiming that sea-levels generally are not rising, just that in some localised areas that sea gauges have not recorded a rise, whilst others have and that there is no evidence whatsoever that sea-levels are going to rise in the next century by the extreme of 20 feet that alarmists have predicted, let alone the extremely extreme 20 meters Al gore gave as his worst case.
All the evidence suggests that IF warming continues that the rise will be between 1 foot and 1 yard over the next 90 years.
Hardly disastrous.
Tom, your integrity and clear thinking show very clearly.
Cool. Amazon once home of vast civilization, numbering millions. Forest that appears pristine is in fact remnants of agricultural practices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302302_pf.html
This reminds me very much of the early anthropological beliefs concerning California Indians when first come upon by Europeans. Easily among the most primitive in all of North and central America, Southern California was thought to be an archeological dead end. Until years later it was determined all of those oak trees were planted and were remnants of vast orchards. They were come upon during a very bad phase, likely a combination of epidemics, drought, and war.
There are more and more candidates for political office, like myself, who recognize the Global Warming movement as a gigantic political hoax. As the AGW camp’s moves toward nonsense such as Cap & Trade falter, those of us who make it into office will help to reverse the trend in Washington. (The MA Primary is next Tuesday, Sept 14th.)
The many wonderful articles on sites like WUWT provide much material that’s quite effective in debates. (Please see: http://www.Shapiro4Congress.org.) Wish me luck.
“Like it or not sea levels are rising. No amount of equivocation is likely to change that fact. Yes, sea levels have changed in the past and so has climate. These fluctuations only demonstrate how sensitive the climate system is and how easily it can be perturbed by either natural or artificial forcing. Championing the continued dumping of some 30 billion tons of fossil CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere will, of course, require that sea levels do not rise, ice does not melt, thermometers read high, oceans do not acidify etc. Hardly a tenable position!”
GeoFlynx, since the article clearly contradicted your hypothiesis that sea levels are indeed rising, I would say that your position is the untenable one. You just saw page after page of actual hard EVIDENCE that sea level rise has been statistically nil since 1900, and yet you persist in saying “sea level is indeed rising”. Raise your head out of the sand and look at the actual evidence!
Furthermore, I do not think you will find ANYONE here that is supportive of polluting the earth merely for the sake of polluting it. Anthony quite regularly posts articles on ways in which we can all save energy, take care of the environment more, and PROPERLY promote the development of “cleaner” forms of energy. If you think that this is some shill site for an oil company you are sadly mistaken.
This site promotes HARD science, backed up by HARD evidence. This site also works hard to discredit shoddy science based upon weak, or non-existent evidence. As such, I will take the hard evidence presented in this article over your completely un-backed assertion that “sea level is indeed rising” any day. If you would care to present actual evidence to support your assertion, feel free to do so.
rbateman, I will go one further and point out some of the “disappearing pacific Islands” who are spreading alarm and claiming hundreds of millions of dollars from the west in compensation. When you examine the coastline on some of these islands, there are several places where the current beach, is lower than an older beach further inland which shows that sea-levels have fallen over the last 80 years.
Watergate anyone?
I live in North Wales in the area of the great castles. I had often wondered why the entrance to the castle in my home town of Beaumaris was so far above sea level. Even at the highest spring tides a boat would not have been able to dock in area of the gate next the sea.Originally it would have enables hips of 40 tons to supply the garrison. I had assumed it was due to Glacial rebound, but most of the castles in this area show a similar issue, Harlech, Conwy, Caernarfon, LLieniog etc. Most of the area around Snowdon ( not Mount Snowdon please!) and Yr Wyddfa seems to have been rising for the last 800 years. By the way the photo of Harlech is not deceptive, I work there and it’s a pretty good indication. There is actually now a large housing complex where the sea bed used to be.
This link shows the Beaumaris castle dock in the 4th photo where ships would have supplied the castle in the 13th century. http://www.photographersresource.co.uk/a_heritage/Castles/LG/Wales/Beaumaris_Castle%20.htm
“This is a professional, coordinated media strategy using calendars with press schedules and release dates, a well-stocked photo library…”
So … there’s a conspiracy afoot?
Or is it that as it’s practiced, Journalism is just professional lying?
Philip at 10:15 a.m.
My money is on media strategists hired by large environmental organisations. The environmental lobby successfully used highly emotional photography in previous environmental campaigns, so it is logical to assume they would repeat what had worked in the past.
There may have been coordination between them, but it’s just as likely that there was a ‘bandwagon’ effect, where a series of print ads with polar bears on ice floes got a good and measurable response (clicks on websites, tracked donations) so others would give it a try.
And what I think got them in trouble is that Account Executives in these media strategy companies tried to cobble together the narratives under the pictures, cherry-picking quotes from papers and speeches, and didn’t take the time to vet them–or if they did, found the proper expressions of uncertainty either too cumbersome or mixing up the message.
So notice here–I don’t really think it was politicians (although many behaved poorly). I don’t think it was the scientists (although too many were happy to go along for the ride and became temporary C list celebrities). I don’t really even think it was the environmental organisations, who ceded power to the ad agencies and consultants they hired.
This many levels of moving away from the expertise ruined any chance for truth telling or effective communications.
That’s what it smells like to me…
______________________________
I happen to quite like it. It means I’ll not have to travel so far to get to my boat.
Well here’s the thing. Sea levels are not rising. Not if you look at the last 80 years they are not. The last, heavy industrial, CO2 producing years do not show a net change either way. Not by the best data we have.
What’s your reasoning for your conclusion?
Sea levels have risen, on record, just the same as temperatures have risen, on record. It just depends upon where you start your record and if you explain it as alarming doom or simply recovery from a low point.
_________________________________
Does it? I’d have thought that championing such measures ( if of course someone is, you don’t make that clear ) requires nothing more than a champion.
Are you suggesting that in order for A to be allowed then B,C,D,E, etc have to be true?
Again, I’ll look forward to the data you have that give you cause for such reasoning.
Do you know that in order for the CO2 levels to become dangerous to human it would have to be (forgive me, I’m going off the top of my head here) in the order of 780 times what it is in ppm today?
CO2 is a trace gas; it has been 18 times current levels during times of life’s greatest species diversity growth. CO2 is only 0.038% of the atmosphere and CO2 is only 3.6% of all the greenhouse gasses. Of that 3.6% man only contributes ( it’s debatable but let’s go with the average accepted figure) 3.4% in all his activities.
Let’s face it only an arrogant man believes that humans are capable of affecting the levels of atmospheric CO2 in any meaningful and measurable way.
I’m not sure who is championing CO2 increases but I do know this: When we have already shown that absorption by CO2 is already at it’s peak and commentators are saying that a doubling of CO2 will have a negligible affect on temperature yet could improve global crop yields by 35% then I know which world I want my kids to live in.
That should have been “Ships of 40 tons”, not “Hips of 40 tons”. To be honest though, they were pretty well fed at the castle.
D Caldwell says:
September 7, 2010 at 10:40 am
GeoFlynx,
You obviously accept at face value the alarmist assertions that:
1. CO2 is the dominant driver in the warming observed in the last 150 years and will contine to be the dominant driver in future decades.
2. Earth’s long term climate is sensitive and a modest increase in global temperatures will initiate a cascade of positive feedbacks resulting in certain climate catastrophe.
Given that most visitors to WUWT are not quite ready to accept the above as “settled science”, your previous post is simply another tiresome restatement of the basis of the alarmist position with which we are only too familiar.
GeoFlynx – The ability to predict what will happen is based on the ability to perceive what is happening. Creation of an alternate reality, in which all inputs contrary to a preset belief are either false or the result of some world wide conspiracy, may be comforting but it is hardly revealing.
GeoFlynx says:
September 7, 2010 at 9:55 am
“Like it or not sea levels are rising.”
Good grief, man, are you totally impervious to contradictory evidence? It’s like what the man in the mediaeval torture chamber – who was having his toes cut off one at a time – said: “All my toes are still there, and I’m only imagining the pain.”
One day you might learn that mere assertion won’t cut it, and only serves to show others what an irrational bunch hard-core CAGWers are. As was rightly pointed out in the article, in the end, you are – ahem – shooting yourself and the movement in the foot. You have only yourselves to blame for the scepticism.
“Championing the continued dumping of some 30 billion tons of fossil CO2…” . Start studying percentages and comparative amounts in different sinks and sources. Start thinking in terms that don’t rely on scary-sounding numbers. You have no idea how naive and prejudiced this makes you sound. To all but other members of the choir, it invites people to wearily just ignore the same old battle hymn.
The record’s got stuck and the world is moving away from crackle-and-pop vinyl.
Re: dp says:
September 7, 2010 at 10:49 am
My point is, using Google maps to explore the area around Harlech Castle suggests the sea moved on because of deposition, not necessarily because the sea level changed.
It appears you are correct. Long shore drift is bringing in sand from further south and depositing it along Harlech beach, creating an actively growing dune system.
“In fairly recent times the sea lapped at the base of the cliff on which Harlech Castle stands, but the accumulation of sand and the development of the dunes gradually pushed the shoreline westward.”
http://www.ccw.gov.uk/landscape–wildlife/protecting-our-landscape/special-landscapes–sites/protected-landscapes/national-nature-reserves/morfa-harlech.aspx
Are you talking out of your derriere?
“First, it should be obvious that the manipulation of the messages isn’t coming from scientists. It is too professional, too slick and ultimately too wrong.”
Been to Real Climate at all, or don’t you consider Drs Scmidt et al to be scientists?
Scooper, I agree to to an extent about Harlech.
I’m guessing when the castle was built, the coast line followed roughly the route of the B4573. Partly due to the highest feature between Harlech and the river being a place called ‘Ynys’, which is Welsh for Island, and it currently isn’t. Challenge for this evening I guess is seeing if I can find out if it was when Harlech castle was built.