UPDATE: The feckless gold digger weighs in here with a chorus of usual suspects. It is quite humorous to watch.
Guest post by Thomas Fuller
At the conclusion of the last ice age, there was a surplus of ice on many parts of the planet. Nature took care of most of that over the next few thousand years, melting most of it, and sometimes it got pretty dramatic. The resulting legends have become part of the mythology of many cultures, from Gilgamesh to Noah, as dramatic release of pent up ice and/or water flooded lands and drove people before it relentlessly.
Sea level rose 110 meters in 8,000 years. It’s risen a couple of meters in the 6,000 years since then. It is now rising at somewhere between 2 and 3 millimeters a year. (We think. It’s very tough to measure, because the earth is changing its levels and the sea gets pushed around by the wind, getting quite a bit higher in some places than others. And when the change is that small, it’s tough to be sure.)
It is the most effective way to get people’s attention about global warming, and it has been used, overused and abused since 1988. It’s one thing to worry about the cuddly cubs of polar bears, and we can watch with (very) detached sympathy as farmers struggle under drought, but show us a picture of a modern city with water above the window line and we will pay attention.
Wikipedia, which doesn’t always play fair when climate issues are discussed, has the chart everyone needs to see to provide perspective on sea level rise. Titled ‘Post Glacial Sea Level Rise, it shows a dramatic rise in sea levels that stopped dead 6,000 years ago and a very flat line since. You could balance a glass of water on the last 6,000 years of that graph.
This hasn’t stopped the marketing gurus from trying to play to our ancestral horror stories and modern fears of flooding. Because there’s still enough ice left in Antarctica and Greenland to cause dramatic sea level rises, all they have to do is say that global warming will melt that ice and we’re in trouble. And so they do.
Again, we are forced to separate the hype from the science. Remember that the IPCC projects sea level rise this century of 18-59 cm, unless dramatic loss of Greenland and/or Antarctic ice occurs. That’s from their AR4 report. They thus wash their hands and ask what is truth? From the minute that AR4 was published, a string of papers, conferences, publicity events (such as parliamentary cabinet meetings held underwater) have been screaming from the headlines and news reports, drumming into us the message that dramatic loss of Greenland and/or Antarctic ice will in fact occur.
But just as with other aspects of their publicity push, they have to contradict their own scientific findings and theories to make this case.
As the climate has warmed over the past 130 years or so, the margins at the ends of both Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice caps have melted a bit. Climate theory predicts that increased precipitation in the much larger middle of these ice caps will be in the form of snow, which will turn into ice and counterbalance some, most or all of the melt around the edges. It would take millenia to melt it all, and the IPCC thinks that even with the world continuing business as usual, that our emissions will peak around the end of this century, shortly after the population peaks. Emissions will then decline.
But, in a scenario that many will find sadly familiar, those with a political agenda have grabbed on to some straws, such as the GRACE studies we looked at yesterday, and are busy hyping possible mechanical changes to the ice sheets (which do happen) and are simultaneously trying to blame those mechanical changes on global warming. They hijacked the science and spun it. (It’s not the scientists–not in this case.)
The upshot is that spear carriers for the activist side of climate politics are still going on about dramatic sea level rise. They’ve responded grudgingly to criticism and are not as quick to say it will happen soon, but they’re afraid to acknowledge that what they fear would actually take millenia and would need continuous warming for the entire period for it to come to pass.
They can’t give up on the images that have the most visceral impact. They will dance around the details for days, using rhetorical tactics and resorting to whatever level of insults are necessary to change the subject–as I know from personal experience on dismal wailing sites such as Deltoid and Only In It For The Gold, which could make a fortune selling sackloth and ashes online.
The bulk of Greenland’s ice cap sits in a basin that the ice itself helped to create. It isn’t going anywhere. Nor is the vast majority of ice in Antarctica, although the thin peninsula that points to South America has been judged to be at grave risk in studies that date back to the 1930s–long before global warming was of much concern.
The need for exaggerated images such as those of flooded American cities has caused as much anti-scientific double talk as the Hockey Stick chart, which is really saying a lot. And with more of their symbols getting picked off one by one, thanks to the work of people like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, they are holding on to this one for dear life.
When journals like Nature ponder what they call an anti-scientific backlash and aim it at the conservatives in the United States, they really should preface their remarks with a frank examination of how science has been abused in both practice and communication, and analyse how those trumpeting the modern call of Doom have started this reaction.
As a liberal Democrat who believes in moderate global warming, I feel a bit left out. But I think Nature is just looking for an easy target and throwing mud at it, hoping some of it will stick. I will be on the other side of the fence come election time, but not because of that.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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steven says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:20 am
“Tom appears to be quite reasonable to me. Are there really individuals who believe there is no contribution from man to co2 or that co2 is not a green house gas? I’m afraid if there are then you are out there all on your own because I can’t think of a single scientist that agrees with you. Why jump on him for stating the obvious?”
I don’t think anybody suggested anything of the sort. This is a straight forward straw man argument being used to support a moderate AGW stance. In the last few days I think we have been targetted by an advocacy campaign. Can we all be vigilant?
Tom Carter said:
>>Wonder how the “Post-Glacial Sea Level Rise” graph would look after being processsed by Hansen and Mann through their computers at GISS and the University of Pennsylvania?<<
Mann is not at Penn, but at Penn State. The University of Pennsylvania is an Ivy-League school in Philadelphia, and Penn State is a state school in Center County, PA.
Lee Kington says:
September 10, 2010 at 6:28 am
I have graphed the Milankovitch cycles if you ever need a visual of where earth is in relation to each (both historic and future). That said, caution should be used in referring to them…
________________________________________________
Milankovitch cycles are the stage setting you need the actors; sun, ocean, volcanoes and what have you act as the trigger.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in an article titled:Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried? says: “Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth vs climate can shift gears within a decade….” This indicates that there is a trigger when everything else is set right.
The Graph of changes in summer insolation over four interglacials (yellow) shows we are on the down hill slope for insolation. This despite a recent paper Solar activity reaches new high – Dec 2, 2003 that says: “The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.” However that just changed thanks to solar cycle 24.
If you zoom in and look very closely at the tail end of the summer insolation graph you can see a plateau. Whether this means we have managed to miss an ice age or not is a guess based on what the other players on the stage may do.
This paper agrees the potential, thanks to the present point in the Milankovitch cycle, is there. Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)
“Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial.”
To completely ignore that potential and tell people to prepare for “global warming” verges on the criminal in my opinion. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution article states.
“Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario…..
But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur…“
Robuk says:
September 10, 2010 at 6:29 am
“Prince Charles, a poster child for the negative aspects of inbreeding, baffled by ‘extraordinary’ climate change scepticism.”
Fixed that for ya!
cagw_skeptic99 says: “Dr. Michael Mann worked first at UVa, and now at Penn State, and has never worked at the University of Pennsylvania. These two universities are sometimes mixed up…”
Not to mention that third institution, the state pen. Hmm.
I don’t see how anyone can pretend to know one way or the other that the planet has warmed owing to the pathetic state of the equipment that’s supposed to accurately measure ground temps. Get that fixed to a point where readings don’t need to be adjusted (tortured?) and wait 50 years for some history to develop and then I’ll be able to actually have an informed opinion. Until then it’s all conjecture.
steven says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:20 am
Are there really individuals who believe there is no contribution from man to co2 or that co2 is not a green house gas?
================================================
Well thanks Steven, pick the most far out there example you can think of, and then make them out to be stupid.
How about a middle of the road?
The whole thing is so over blown and hyped up, that there’s some people that just don’t think it’s all that dangerous and not that big of a deal. They don’t think man’s actual contribution to the total CO2 levels makes that big of a difference. Have yet to be shown anything more than a theory based on our ignorance of other things that can also be in play. Have yet to be shown where the climate of this planet is “average” or “static” and given a choice, warmer is a whole lot better.
And their common sense tells them that our ‘science’ has not progressed to the point that we know enough about “climate” to have any idea what any of this means or what causes it….
Tom Carter says:
September 10, 2010 at 5:34 am
Wonder how the “Post-Glacial Sea Level Rise” graph would look after being processsed by Hansen and Mann through their computers at GISS and the University of Pennsylvania?
As a U of P graduate, I am very sensitive to the University of Pennsylvania being confused with Penn State. Mann works for Penn State, not the University of Pennsylvania. Actually, I am proud of my alma mater’s contributions to the global warming debate see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/30/breaking-new-paper-makes-a-hockey-sticky-wicket-of-mann-et-al-99/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/08/legal-beagle-says-manmade-global-warming-science-doesn%e2%80%99t-withstand-scrutiny/
Tom: luke-warmism is currently a tenable position, in my opinion, given that theoretical physics supports some possible increased “greenhouse” effect in a very narrow band of the spectrum. The error bands are wide in climatology (and are often hidden to support CAGW.) Still, AGW and CAGW remain hypothetical, regardless of the studies and the theory. Plain old, garden variety GW seems certain, based solely on recovery from the last ice age. But people have become so disgusted by the antics of Michael Mann, James Hansen, Al Gore, and various spittle-spewing freaks, that they now lump GW, AGW, and CAGW together as a pathological quasi-religious political movement, rather than as scientific tenets: “A pox on all their houses, climate change, and the horse they came in on.”
Bart Verheggen at 5.26
I am surprised to see you referencing the wiki graph as if it has some credibility. Go one step in and look at the history;
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Current_sea_level_rise&action=history
Yes, our old friend William Connelly was busy on it as late as yesterday- we had naively thought he had been banned.
No matter. It must be true of course as it emanates from the IPCC. Before deconstructing their graph can I ask you to read my 20 link post here about sea levels.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/07/the-unbroken-record-of-broken-icons/
Plus the addendum at 4.08 on 7th September
Now please go and look at AR4 chapter 5 which is the one referenced by wiki. Their graph showing historic sea level rise (page 3) is highly misleading as it does not provide any context. Chapter five of the IPCC 4 assessment is the relevant document (link given below)
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter5.pdf
This is the entire 800 page IPCC Assessment 4 from which it is taken. This is substantially different in tone and content to the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) used by politicians.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg1_report_the_physical_science_basis.htm
Figure 5.13 on page 410 is the basis of many graphs used by Government and their agencies to promote scary sea level rises which are then eagerly picked up by the more sensationalist media and Al Gore.
This paper provides context as it expresses the IPCC’s own caveats (which can be read in Chapter 5 of the link above) It can be seen that much of the historic sea level record is a computer generated model as the actual historic global tidal gauge measurements either simply do not exist, or are based on data gathered from three highly fractured historic tide gauges in Liverpool, Amsterdam and Stockholm. (Referenced in my links)
In this respect it is useful to look at figure 5A2 (above) which shows tide gauge numbers used. These slowly grew from 3 in the 1700’s until in 1900 they stood at 20 in the Northern Hemisphere and 2 in the Southern Hemisphere.
There are only 7 gauges that have not moved that are at least 100 years old.
Here they are under slide 27 of this presentation by The US National Academy of Sciences
http://www.nasonline.org/site/DocServer/Yokoyama_Yusuke.pdf?docID=53500
That’s it. A global sea level has been manufactured based on a tiny number of northern hemisphere tide gauges in which much of the information has been made up.
FAQ5.1 on page 409 ‘global mean sea level deviation’ lies at the heart of much of the sea level rise debate, giving a worrying future prediction through the selection of a particularly pessimistic IPCC ‘scenario.’ In reality the historic global tide gauge data is a totally inadequate representation of the 70% of the globe that is water, and becomes more theoretical the further back in time one goes as has been shown.
Figure 5.19 in the IPCC TAR Chapter 5 of working Group 1 (Levitus Et al, page 415) shows a graph of sea level change due to thermal expansion.
The sharp drop (in the rate of increase) shown since 2003 is evident due to cooling oceans and the consequent lack of thermal expansion. Figure 5.1 page 389 in Chapter 5 (to 2005) shows heat content change for the 0 to 700m ocean layer (this to 2005) The drop in temperature can again be seen and has continued ever since, as measured by the Argo project of 3000 sinking buoys.(which of course then needed to be ‘adjusted’)
If we look at information contained in Chapter five of AR4 the key IPCC error here (in AR4) is its switch from one
• method of measurement (tide gauges) covering one
• scope of measurement (several coastal points, where sea level has a significance for us land dwellers) over one
• time period (prior to 1993)
to a totally different;
• method (satellite altimetry),
• scope (the entire ocean except coastal and polar regions, which cannot be captured by satellite), and
• time period (1993-2003),
•and then comparing the two to claim an acceleration between the two time periods.
They only call attention to this change in a small footnote (Table SPM.1, p.7 of the SPM report):
“Data prior to 1993 are from tide gauges and after 1993 are from satellite altimetry.”
Although the graph boldly shows figures back to 1850 it is misleading as they are not comparing like for like in the methodology used, using enough gauges to create a genuinely global picture, nor have enough solid information to be able to claim the high level of accuracy for a global figure..
Although we have to take into account land height changes etc we know that sea levels were generally higher in Roman times and the MWP- caused by thermal expansion and glacier melt during times warmer than today. This rise reached a peak around 1300 or so before dropping during the LIA. It started rising again at a modest rate from around 1880 or so as the climate warmed again in one of its regular natural variations.
As noted elsewhere;
“According to S. J. Holgate, a recognised world authority in geophysical research at the UK-based Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, in his paper published in 2007, the following results represent the most comprehensive measurements of decadal sea-level change rates during the 20th century.
Between 1904 and 1953 global sea levels rose by 2.03 mm per year, whereas from 1954 to 2003 they rose by only 1.45 mm per year, giving an annual mean rate of 1.74 mm per year over the 100 years to 2003, or seven inches per century. Importantly, there was no increase in the rate of change over the whole century.
So, based on these peer reviewed and generally accepted numbers, 20th century sea levels rose at a 25% slower rate in the second half of the century than the first which, on any reasonable interpretation, contradicts the notion that global temperature increases during the last 50 years contributed to any sea level rise!”
This is graphically illustrated here.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
Average rate of rise:
1904-1953: 2.03 ± 0.35 mm/year 1954-2003: 1.45 ± 0.34 mm/year
Those proclaiming their vast knowledge of sea level rises and the dramatic effect that glacier melt will have on it, have their claims falsified by the advert carried by the Met office this time last year. Admitting they had no idea of the effects of glacier melt on sea levels the Met office were seeking a glacier modeller. I posted the advert here last year.
So, water levels higher in the past, the misuse by the IPCC of a tiny number of tidal gauges to create a meaningless and misleading global average. Sticking a highly inaccurate satellite record on top of it. No knowledge of the current effects of glacier melt. You might call this climate science Bart, but I can think of another much less flattering word for it.
Tonyb
Tom Fuller
I greatly enjoyed your article although I don’t know how you can remain a warmist in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.
tonyb.
Bert: “Perhaps also good to mention the wiki graph current sea level rise”
You mean the one that shows the same rise from 1910 on? Do you mean the 1910 that was the coldest period in the 20th century?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
Do you mean the natural pre-CO2 warming from 1910 on?
Tom, I’ve enjoyed your posts, though I disagree strongly with you (as many do here) on the influence of C02 on climate. As you now know, this is not a Liberal vs Conservative, or Democrat vs Republican issue, though the Alarmists love to portray it as such. The proof is as simple as the fact that many long-time Democrats/Liberals (I am one), once we began investigating the issue could soon see that, with regard to manmade warming aka “climate change”, there was very little evidence, a great deal of cherry-picking, and hanky-panky with the facts, along with bluster and intimidation of those who dared believe otherwise. We saw that the emperor indeed was bereft of clothing.
You need to realize that climate science has been corrupted, and Climategate is but the tip of the iceberg. You really should try to delve more deeply into the science. It doesn’t take a scientist to do this, just some persistence, perspiration, and a bit of perspicacity. You seem intelligent, and I know you could if you really wanted to.
As another liberal Democrat who finds himself somewhat isolated in being a strong climate skeptic, I’m glad you’re posting here, and hope you continue. I don’t quite understand those here who are aghast that you defend the notion of “moderate AGW”, in that even most skeptical scientists acknowledge some greenhouse warming due to increased man-made CO2. The idea that such ideas must be purged for ideological reasons of purity is absurd to me. I’m with Richard Lindzen that CO2 climate sensitivity is probably somewhere on the order of 0.5-1.0C per doubling, which is what I would consider “moderate AGW”. That figure may be wrong, and feedbacks may actually be negative as Spencer and others suggest, but it’s at least a reasonable estimate based on the actual data, rather than on illiberal modeling suppositions. My impression is that most of the skeptic community thinks along these lines as well, so I find it odd that you would be attacked for accepting these views. Does Lindzen get attacked as someone trying to infilitrate warmist ideas into the skeptic community? Hardly. Nor should you be for adopting a similar position to his.
Tom Fuller says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:37 am
=============================
Tom, no one really cares if you are a liberal, conservative, or even a black liberation theologist, whatever. (ok ixnay on that last one, as long as you don’t believe the white man is the devil)
We all do appreciate you taking the time to write out what you are thinking, really.
Just please don’t try to justify the science of climate by trying to morph it into something more palatable because all the hype is losing ground.
steven says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:20 am
“Tom appears to be quite reasonable to me. Are there really individuals who believe there is no contribution from man to co2 or that co2 is not a green house gas? I’m afraid if there are then you are out there all on your own because I can’t think of a single scientist that agrees with you. Why jump on him for stating the obvious? Man is in fact changing the environment. CO2 does cause warming. The argument is over how much. I personally believe it to be very little since the empirical evidence indicates a climate sensitivity of 1C.
Their are at least two serous problems with the conjecture that the tiny extra amount of man made CO2 when added to what is already only a trace gas can lead to catastrophic global warming, via the mechanism of strong positive feedback.
The first issue is that the conjecture doesn’t have the required tests built in to allow the theory to be falsifiable. This means believers have to accept it as an act of faith – it becomes cargo cult ‘science’.
The second issue is that our climate is driven by deterministic chaos. This means that all climate metrics oscillate in a series of quasi-cycles of differing period. This makes trying to use linear trends for an individual metric e.g. Global Mean Temperature meaningless. It also negates the value of the various climate models, which purport to indicate what will happen in the future, as we do not know the initial conditions accurately enough and many assumptions, like the role of CO2, are assumed.
There was a paper that I read awhile ago that I can’t seem to locate right now. Basically, the author argued that over time, cultural mythology biologically imprints certain primal fears onto the human mind. Its apparently a physical mechanism that the primitive part of human brain uses to pass knowledge of past catastrophes onto future generations at a core biological level. But because these fears reside in the primitive part of our brains, we’re not always consciously aware of their effects on our behavior. The flood myth was used as exhibit one in the authors argument.
Skillful politicians can tap into these biologically imprinted fears to promote a particular agenda.
I would simply like to see more factual information in Thomas Fuller’s writings here. There is a lot of words but too few facts in form of graphs, statistics and other references.
I also want to add that I am making every effort to write in plain English and avoid using ‘sciency’ jargon in these posts.
I am not a scientist. I am trying to write in plain language my best understanding of the hundreds of academic papers I have read, the thousands of blog posts and comments I have read, the videos and debates I have watched, etc.
The point of this series of posts is to highlight how symbols are being misused. I am not trying to prove or disprove global warming. I’m certainly not capable of doing so, and I don’t believe the ‘state of the science’ has done so in any event.
What I am doing here is media criticism, not scientific debate. I just refuse to couch it in any other terms.
“Evoking belief systems is what got us to the CAGW scenario. To invoke, as Tom Fuller does, the same belief systems for an ~AGW middle-of-the-road position is just more of the same erroneous tactics.”
It causes none, some or a lot of warming. Everyone here has an opinion but not absolute knowledge. That is a belief regardless of if you object to the terminology or not.
“Well thanks Steven, pick the most far out there example you can think of, and then make them out to be stupid.
How about a middle of the road?”
I haven’t seen anything thus far to lead me to believe Tom has been in support of CAGW. Isn’t that middle of the road?
“I don’t think anybody suggested anything of the sort. This is a straight forward straw man argument being used to support a moderate AGW stance.”
I guess I am bewildered as to what is wrong with a moderate AGW stance. That’s where I am and I thought I was pretty much on the same side of the argument as the majority of posters here. It sounds to me like that’s where Tom is also. If you believe co2 to be a GHG but not leading to catastrophic warming isn’t that what you have? A moderate AGW stance?
Any other responders please just pick out the part that pertains to you. It is silly to attack people on your side of the argument just for saying AGW. That’s my opinion.
Thomas, in your text there’s a good guy, Climate Theory, and a bad guy, called Hype. What some of us have tried to get across to you is: the good guy has often been the bad guy. He just wears a white hat like a good guy.
What the bad guy wants is the crippling of western industrial society with taxes, carbon trading and inefficient energy generation.
Plain enough?
Tom Fuller
Bruce Cobb said this a littly way upstream;
“You need to realize that climate science has been corrupted, and Climategate is but the tip of the iceberg. You really should try to delve more deeply into the science. It doesn’t take a scientist to do this, just some persistence, perspiration, and a bit of perspicacity. You seem intelligent, and I know you could if you really wanted to.”
Bruce is right. Sea levels are a real can of worms. Global temperatures are a flaky concept that become flakier the further back in time you go as stations move position, become affected by UHI or the record simply becomes unreliable due to the hugely fluctuating numbers in any one decade. The hockey stick relied on a distortion of climatic history in order to gain credence. Arctic sea ice melts and reforms with astonishing regularity.
The media have certainly been guilty in promoting all these aspects and more as part of an ‘inconvenient truth.’ As for it being orchestrated by the media rather than the scientists? Well that is something you are attempting to show. Scientists are on the whole pretty poor at marketing themselves so I’m inclined to agree that someone else has a purpose in pushing the often flaky science.
Who that ‘someone’ is and what their ‘purpose’ might be will be up to people like you to unravel. But heres a start for you, where I look at the politics of climate change when the British Govt – long time leaders in funding research into the subject – were very heavily implicated in making it a political issue in order to promote their own agenda. It is very well referenced with numerous links and quotes from such bodies as the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/crossing-the-rubicon-an-advert-to-change-hearts-and-minds/#comments
I don’t think you need to look much further than the UK govt and a PR outfit called Futerra, enthusiastically cheered on by lots of green minded NGO’s in order to see the genesis of the current level of global scaremongering.
Hope you will be writing here again soon-it’s good to have a range of views and articles.
Tonyb
—————-
Tom Fuller,
I admire you for doing these posts. Sincerely. I haven’t been brave enough yet to do what you do. My compliments to you.
I do not agree with what you write. I meant no personal dislike and hope that I did not come across like that to you.
My compliments to you. You appear to be a gentleman and you handle the criticism quite well. I could learn more about handling criticism as well as you do.
Please deep posting. You do bring out the fundamental issues.
John
About a year ago, Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University and Department Head at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research made quite a splash at Oxford by proclaiming that a two-meter sea-level rise had now become practically ‘unstoppable.’ It looks like he may be a German equivalent of Dr. Phil Jones.
The coral that’s above-water came from coral sand and rubble that was pushed onto the island by storm surges. The sand came from parrot fish nibbling down the coral.