WUWT readers may recall yesterday where Dr. Mann was so eager to list this paper on his resume/CV, he broke the embargo set for 15:00 EST June 20th, today, at which time this blog post appears.
As much as this is an editorial target rich environment, I’m going to publish this press release and paper sans any editorial comment. There’s plenty of time for that later. Let’s all just take it in first. Below, figure 2 from the Kemp et al 2011 paper. It should look familiar. Note the reference in Figure 2 to GIA (Glacial Isostatic Adjustment) adjusted sea level data, which has recently been the subject of controversy, it was first noted here on WUWT.
First the press release:
Contact: Evan Lerner
215-573-6604
Penn researchers link fastest sea-level rise in 2 millennia to increasing temperatures
PHILADELPHIA — An international research team including University of Pennsylvania scientists has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
The research was conducted by members of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in Penn’s School of Arts and Science: Benjamin Horton, associate professor and director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory, and postdoctoral fellow Andrew Kemp, now at Yale University’s Climate and Energy Institute.
Their work will be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 20.
“Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change, as rising temperatures melt land-based ice and warm ocean waters,” Horton said.
“Scenarios of future rise are dependent upon understanding the response of sea level to climate changes. Accurate estimates of past sea-level variability provide a context for such projections,” Kemp said.
In the new study, researchers provided the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years and compared variations in global temperature to changes in sea level during this time period.
The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 B.C. to 1,000 A.D. During a warm climate period beginning in the 11th century known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, sea level rose by about half a millimeter per year for 400 years. There was then a second period of stable sea level associated with a cooler period, known as the Little Ice Age, which persisted until the late 19th century. Since the late 19th century, however, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, which is the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.
To reconstruct sea level, the research team used microfossils called foraminifera preserved in sediment cores from coastal salt marshes in North Carolina. The age of these cores was estimated using radiocarbon dating and several complementary techniques.
To ensure the validity of their approach, the team members confirmed their reconstructions against tide-gauge measurements from North Carolina for the past 80 years and global tide-gauge records for the past 300 years. A second reconstruction from Massachusetts confirmed their findings. The records were also corrected for contributions to sea-level rise made by vertical land movements.
The team’s research shows that the reconstructed changes in sea level during the past millennium are consistent with past global temperatures and can be described using a model relating the rate of sea-level rise to global temperature.
“The data from the past help to calibrate our model and will improve sea-level rise projections under scenarios of future temperature rise,” research team member Stefan Rahmstorf said.
In addition to Horton and Kemp, the research was conducted by Jeffrey Donnelly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, Martin Vermeer of Finland’s Aalto University School of Engineering in Finland and Rahmstorf of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Geological Survey, the Academy of Finland, the European Science Foundation through European Cooperation in Science and Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.
===================================================================
Here’s the abstract:
Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia
Andrew C. Kempa,b, Benjamin P. Hortona,1, Jeffrey P. Donnellyc, Michael E. Mannd,
Martin Vermeere, and Stefan Rahmstorff
We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment.
Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global
temperature for at least the past millennium.
======================================================================
Figure 1: Two points in salt Marshes in North Carolina are used as the basis for the study:
Materials and Methods
Sea level in North Carolina was reconstructed using transfer functions relating the distribution of salt-marsh foraminifera to tidal elevation (7, 12). Application of transfer functions to samples from two cores (at sites 120 km apart) of salt-marsh sediment provided estimates of PME with uncertainties of <0.1 m. For each core a probabilistic age-depth model (10) was developed from composite chronological results and allowed the age of any sample to be estimated with 95% confidence. In Massachusetts, plant macrofossils preserved in salt-marsh sediment overlying a glacial erratic, were dated using AMS 14C and pollen and pollution chronohorizons (Fig. S1). The modern distribution of common salt-marsh plants was used to estimate PME. Sea level was reconstructed by subtracting estimated PME from measured sample altitude. Corrections for GIA were estimated from local (13) and US Atlantic coast (15) databases of late Holocene sea-level index points. Detailed methods are presented in SI Text.
======================================================================
They compare data at points around the world to the new SL hockey stick (in pink in the background):
======================================================================
Conclusions
We have presented a unique, high-resolution sea-level reconstruction developed using salt-marsh sediments for the last 2100 y from the US Atlantic coast. Post-AD 1000, these sea-level reconstructions are compatible with reconstructions of global temperature, assuming a linear relation between temperature and the rate of sea-level rise. This consistency mutually reinforces the credibility of the temperature and sea-level reconstructions. According to our analysis, North Carolina sea level was stable
from BC 100 to AD 950. Sea level rose at a rate of 0.6 mm/y from about AD 950 to 1400 as a consequence of Medieval warmth, although there is a difference in timing when compared to other proxy sea-level records. North Carolina and other records show
sea level was stable from AD 1400 until the end of the 19th century due to cooler temperatures associated with the Little Ice Age. A second increase in the rate of sea-level rise occurred around AD 1880–1920; in North Carolina the mean rate of rise was 2.1 mm/y in response to 20th century warming. This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2100 y.
========================================================================
The full paper is available here: PNAS_Kemp-etal_2011_Sea_level_rise
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This guy opened his mouth again and proved he is a data manipulator working backwards from his bosses suggested answer. His income is derived from his scientific credentials that have been shattered by his own petty ego driven hacked emails. This is so laughable it’s silly. It’s clear this work is based on cherry picked data smoothed and adjusted to support the answer already disproved. Sad.
Oops, should have written “4 inches of sea level rise”, not warming (plus other typos). Some sites allow you to edit comments within a few minutes of posting. Can’t do that here, can you?
[Nope. ~dbs, mod.]
Ryan : The situation on which you comment : “It doesn’t surprise me that Penn State is involved in this fiasco again, but what does surprise me that other reputable scientists are so willing to sit back and watch this kind of dreadful hysterical tripe be publised without so much as raising their eyebrows.” is explained in your next sentence : “Meanwhile those that do stand up to attack this kind of bullshit are branded as “dangerous deniers” that put the lives of millions at risk and have their reputations trashed in the mass media.“.
Retired scientists have been easier to find in the ranks of the sceptics than scientists who still have to earn a living. The tipping-point we all desperately need is the latter gaining critical mass. Until then, I suspect the IPCC and their fellow travellers can continue to promote their fraud, flout conflict-of-interest concerns, etc, with impunity.
Graeme M says:
June 20, 2011 at 2:11 pm
“If anything, the sea level seems to be less now as king tides in the 70s often caused water to flood onto the esplanade which I don’t think it does now. Now I could be wrong, but anecdotally at least I see no difference at all.”
———————————————————————————————————————————————-
Graeme, the king tides in January / February, still flood over onto the esplanade at Urangan, especially if the North easterly breeze gets behind the tide. Over the last 7 or so years, much work has been done to protect the new resorts that have been built along the foreshore. The sand flats have been graded back to the frontal dunes and made them higher, and a new rock and concrete wall was built at Urangan.
Still the board walks at the Great Sandy Straits marina go under at the high tides in Jan. / Feb. Like I said above, I haven’t seen any change in 67 years, and I had been away for 50 of those years.
The eastern seaboard is a passive continental margin that is subsiding at variable rates locally.
LongTerm SeaLevel and Dynamic Topography of the Eastern United States
David Rowley argued that the results obtained from mantle flow simulations show that eustatic sea-level cannot be derived from continental margins because of the influence of dynamic topography. For the Eastern coast of the United States, variations of the sea-level only represent local variations. Other authors (e.g. Müller et al, 2008;
Spasojevic et al., 2008) came to the same conclusion as Rowley while using Miller et al. (2005) data taken from an assumed passive margin in New Jersey thought to represent eustatic sea-level. They both used a mantle convection model and came to the conclusion that the discrepancies between their results and those of Miller et al. (2005) could be explained by dynamic topography.
http://eps.mcgill.ca/~courses/c666/Rowley_Report_Final.pdf
David Rowley has been a professor and faculty member at the University of Chicago since 1993, his current research deals with mantle dynamics related to dynamic topography, modelling of global plate kinematics with links to geodynamics, long-term sea level variation, and reconstructing global paleogeographic evolution.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is well known down under for his coral bleaching alarmism over the Great Barrier Reef and you’ll get the flavour here-
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/radio/ove-hoegh-guldberg-discusses-coral-reefs-global-warming-jobs-and-phasing-out-coal-091127
Naturally the world has to keep acid making CO2 down around 325 ppm (funny about that) because at 450ppm all the coral thingys start falling apart completely and poof!-no more coral.
Back in the late nineties when he first freaked out over bleached coral, the GBR was all doomed to rapid bleaching which you guessed it hasn’t happened. We got the same alarmist story with the Crown of Thorns Starfish ‘plague’ (which if you’re a starfish thrills you no end that your stars are on the rise) which was all mankind’s fault naturally enough (phosphate fertiliser runoff as I recall). They ate a lot of coral for a while (they leave it ‘bleached’ too) and then their numbers dropped off through too much cholestorol in their diet or something. Ove continues to get an allergic reaction to colourless, odourless gases as well as humans who are impervious to such mild reagents.
GEOLOGY
High eustatic sea level during the middle Pliocene:Evidence from the southeastern U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain
Harry J. Dowsett1 and Thomas M. Cronin
Worth reading in this regards
John B says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:25 am
“I took issue with the accusations of cherry picking and particularly wirth the guy who seemed to think that two photographs somehow prove that the 4 inches or so of warming claimed for the last 50 yesars an’t possibly have happened.”
I don’t think the photos were offered as proof. Rather, they were offered as testimony from someone who knows the beach well and who sees them as consistent with his experience of the beach. I can offer photos of Daytona Beach from 1957 that show the high and low water marks in exactly the same places as now, but the actual evidence is my experience of the beach.
Independent of my belief that tying the North Carolina coastline (a barrier island, salt marsh ecosystem) SLR directly to Global Warming without considering other causes such as land use, dredging, sea grass mortality, fresh water erosion, hurricanes, etc. is naive, the NC Sea-Level Assessment Report of 2010 (not the study headlining this post) clearly states that predictions of future SLR are based on the ASSUMPTION that the rate of Global Warming over the next 90-years will “accelerate”, and therefore so will the “consequent” SLR in NC. They provide a range of SLR based on three “acceleration” scenarios. If acceleration of global warming , as the sole causal factor, does not occur then all bets are off. Moreover, I have not verified this but if no global warming has occurred in the last decade, and Sea Level in NC is still rising, then the stated causal relationship link is broken.
The Report states:
“It is important to understand that the curves were generated using a constant acceleration rate to reach the selected endpoints derived from the literature, and are not projections of actual sea level at specific future dates.”
http://dcm2.enr.state.nc.us/slr/NC%20Sea-Level%20Rise%20Assessment%20Report%202010%20-%20CRC%20Science%20Panel.pdf
Best,
J.
Graeme M,
There was a WUWT comment thread a while back that did something like what you suggest. There were a number of detailed personal accounts spanning 50 years or so (e.g. a stairway built down to the sea, I think near Sydney, whose relation to the water level hadn’t changed in 50 years or so). Like some of the observations made on this thread, it was quite impressive. Steven Goddard has also fished up some photos of low-lying Pacific islands that have much the same appearance since WWII, I think.
Anyway, by now the real question may be, What are these guys actually up to? Do they really believe what they are saying? Are they in some sort of race against time? Are they hoping that if they keep talking/publishing people won’t notice how cool it is outside these days? (It is where I am.)
I have never been to a political rally in my life, but if someone can organise it I’LL BE THERE just let me know where and when.
Graeme M says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:27 am
“On many beaches as has been pointed out, a 6 inch rise will represent feet of difference in terms of high water marks, so it must show up. Mustn’t it?”
In addition to high water marks, on popular public beaches, such as Daytona Beach, there are structures built in the surf that have been in place for all or most of the 20th century. There are lots of people who adore those beaches and who would be aware of changes in sea level.
I do not mean to oppose science with anecdote. However, it is the responsibility of the scientist to explain discrepancies between his claims about sea level rise and what everyone else observes on the beach. Magnitudes are important. If you are claiming a sea level rise of one-fifth of a meter per century (2 mm per year for a 100 years), you have to explain why people who lived through most of that century and continue to visit the beach cannot detect any rise at all.
In the matter of ordinary people’s observations of sea level rise, there is a serious conceptual problem that the Warmista must address. If a rise of six inches over a century is undetectable by a person who was at the site for 95 of those years, then why should we expect a rise of two feet to be detectable? If a rise of two feet is not detectable, then why should we care about it? At some point, the scientist who wants to be believed must address the experience of the ordinary citizen.
John B:
At June 21, 2011 at 4:25 am you ask;
“I took issue with the accusations of cherry picking and particularly wirth the guy who seemed to think that two photographs somehow prove that the 4 inches or so of warming claimed for the last 50 yesars an’t possibly have happened.
I have a serious question for you all: Irrespective of what you think of Mann et al, why do “regular commentators” here not call each other on obvious nonsense like that? It would strengthen your case if you did.”
OK. Since you ask, I will answer. But I only answer your question to avoid the possibility that infrequent visitors to this site may be misled by an apparent inability to answer your pioints.
Firstly, as you admit (in the same post) you are considered as being a resident troll by people who often debate in threads of WUWT. Hence, you are ignored (indeed, your post that I am answering says Bob Tisdale did not count your posts as troll ‘invasion’).
Secondly, your posts are usually – and in this case, certainly – so blatantly mistaken that there is no point in answering them: all readers of normal inteligence can see the errors for themselves.
Thirdly, in this case you conflate a reported personal experience (i.e. “the guy” who reported “two photographs”) with serious consideration of Mann’s ‘cherry picking’. And you use that ridiculous conflation as part of your attempt to assert that the paper (i.e. the subject of this thread) did not ‘cherry pick’ the data it analysed.
Fourthly, your claim that the paper does not ‘cherry pick’ is ridiculous. It does, and it does it flagrantly. Ryan gave an exposition of this as part of his post at June 21, 2011 at 3:07 am (i.e. before your post which posed the question I am answering): His excellent post says the following (among other good points):
“The proxies they use do not corroborate with each other but nevertheless they have somehow managed to come up with a linear trend. The two sites they have chosen do not corroborate each other but somehow they have concluded they are a model for the rest of the globe. To achieve this astounding result they had to give all the data to a person who is known not for his ability as a statistician but because of his involvement in highly contraversial analysis techniques, despite recent advice that this kind of data should in fact be analysed by proper statistiticians.”
In other words, they chose data sets that approximated their assertion then adjusted the data they chose in a manner that enhanced the assertion. And he could have added that they did not use the most recent data from the data sets they chose and that (n.b not used) most recent data does not fit their aseertion.
So, I offer you some friendly advice: be a good little resident troll and stop asking questions which draw attention to your posts because such attention does not enhance your credibility.
Richard
Assuming a linear trend?
I assume a linear trend between their funding and the hockey schtick temperature curve. And I think my assumption has the higher probability of being correct. Somehow I fail to assume anything else.
“On my living room wall hangs, framed, two 19th century maps of Hervey Bay used by my Great Grandfather. The serveys were done by Captain Owen Stanley, and Matthew Flinders, and these 2 maps show the smaller islands in Hervey Bay as well.”
Those charts would likely have been done either in 1838-43 or 1847-50 and will show drying rocks marked with crosses and dots. Very likely these same rocks will still be drying rocks at low low water, more than 150 years after they were charted. According to the alarmist theories of AGW, these rocks should all be underwater.
No one makes wholesale adjustments to navigation charts for for “sea level rise”. It would be the equivalent of murder. Only after an area is resurveyed are new soundings recorded. The area be clearly marked as resurveyed along with the year. Given the scale of the undertaking, relatively few areas on earth have been resurveyed since the British Admiralty charts were drawn. The cost is prohibitive.
Charts are marked with datum corrections, such as WGS84. This gives you and adjustment for GPS lat long, as almost always a chart has some lat long correction as they were made before the days of GPS. They don’t redraw the chart. They note the correction factor in the legend. I have never seen a chart marked with a correction for sea level rise. If it was happening it would be marked on the charts.
What is most surprising is how small the datum corrections for GPS lat long are on these old charts. They were drawn using sextant and primitive clocks, having sailed halfway around the earth in voyages that took typically 3 years, and have typical clock errors of less than 4 seconds.
Without GPS most modern mariners would be hard pressed to achieve this today, even with radio corrected clocks. The UK and US governments still broadcast a world-wide time signal on 5,10,15 Mhz which is intended primarily for mariners to adjust their clocks for navigation. What was achieved at the time is almost unbelievable, except the charts bear evidence to the quality of their work. We are unlikely to see the same again. Iron men in wooden ships indeed. It is a sad statement on modern science the shoddy results being put forward today.
We spent 20 years sailing the Pacific and Indian Oceans using British Admiralty charts. We visited some of the most remote locations on earth using charts drawn more than 200 years ago. What we found is no noticeable sea level change since the BA charts were drawn 2 centuries ago. If a drying rock is marked on the charts, it is still a drying rock today. If a rock is marked awash at low low water, it is still awash at low low water today. If there is sea level rise, it is too small to notice over a span of 200 years, or the rocks are growing at the same rate as the oceans are rising.
@John B:
“I took issue with the accusations of cherry picking and particularly wirth the guy who seemed to think that two photographs somehow prove that the 4 inches or so of warming claimed for the last 50 yesars an’t possibly have happened.
I have a serious question for you all: Irrespective of what you think of Mann et al, why do “regular commentators” here not call each other on obvious nonsense like that? It would strengthen your case if you did.”
Hmmm, “obvious nonsense”? Not sure I would agree there. Actually, you are both making valid points – the fact is that the models, such as they are, suggest 4inches of sea level rise in 50 years, and on this blog it is pointed out that even if there is 4inches of sea level rise it has made not one jot of difference, not even on the gently shelving beach of the pictures. So we can’t really call out what is said here as “nonsense” – it is actually rather more to the point than the sea level rise figures, which are not related in any direct way to the impact on humanity. The pictures clearly show that there has been no appreciable difference to this beach caused by any sea level rise – whether there has been any sea level rise or not is kind of irrelevant, since the real question is whether we have net loss of land to the sea, and in this case the answer is “no”. In fact, any time anybody has tried to detect this the answer has been “no” – there is actually more land than there was 50 years ago. Now you could claim that this is because the amount of material deposited by great rivers like the Ganges is enough to compensate the sea level rise caused by AGW, but then you would still need to justify the great panic related to AGW related sea level rise.
The easiest way of determining whether sea level rise is likely to be a problem would be to go down to the British Museum and fish out the Admiralty charts to compare the worlds coasts today compared to where they were 50 years ago and 100years ago. But I can tell you that this would only show that the land area has got bigger over the last 50 years and not smaller. Low lying countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives have actually grown significantly. I guess this is why the heavily financed university departments charged with investigating climate change have not undertaken this simple task – they already know it won’t give them the answer they are looking for, so they have stopped looking. When they have had the brass neck to suggest that the Maldives are disappearing under the waves some layman with a few photos has demonstrated that they have got bigger. They just don’t want to go there.
Theo Goodwin says: June 21, 2011 at 6:18 am
In the matter of ordinary people’s observations of sea level rise, there is a serious conceptual problem that the Warmista must address. If a rise of six inches over a century is undetectable by a person who was at the site for 95 of those years, then why should we expect a rise of two feet to be detectable? If a rise of two feet is not detectable, then why should we care about it? At some point, the scientist who wants to be believed must address the experience of the ordinary citizen.
Exactly! Conjecture that does not integrate with the reality of experience is discarded as irrelevant.
Richard S Courtney says: June 21, 2011 at 6:45 am
John B: Thank you, much better than I could have done.
We got the same alarmist story with the Crown of Thorns Starfish ‘plague’ (which if you’re a starfish thrills you no end that your stars are on the rise) which was all mankind’s fault naturally enough (phosphate fertiliser runoff as I recall)
Probably from people collecting the Triton. The Triton has a large, magnificent looking shell which is most often found over peoples mantlepiece. The Triton feeds on the Crown of Thorns and is one its few natural enemies. So, when you see a reef infested with Crown of Thorns, the cause is likely humans collecting the Triton shells.
Similar to the problems with frogs, yes they are caused by humans, but the are wrongly attributed to CO2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_%28gastropod%29
Isn’t it rather amazing that while Mann, politicians, the media, etc, weep & gnash teeth about inches of sea-level rise, while other countries, not handcuffed by idealism, continue to build new land into the ocean to increase living/airport/city space (like Hong Kong, Dubai, etc)? They do this w/confidence that they can overcome or rebuild against any slight sea level rise.
Fear-mongering is designed to be a straight-jacket against modern & proven engineering & construction solutions.
Well, I read it. I’ll have to read it a few more times over the next month or so. Maybe it will grow on me. My initial reactions.
1. They apparently are using Mann, et al’s goofy hockey stick for their temperature data. Even though the paper seems to accept the existence of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, Mann’s reconstruction would seem to be not what you want to use as it seriously lowballs the magnitude of those events.
2. They use some vaguely defined “transfer function” to compute sea level from the information in bottom sediments. I’d like to know how that works, as my gut feeling is that there probably isn’t much water depth data in those sediments.
3. Unconsolidated sediments are notoriously bad news when measuring sea level. My understanding is that when a tidal gauge has to be placed on dirt rather than bedrock, a lot of geodesy is required to keep track of how high the gauge is relative to things that aren’t sinking like a … ahem … rock.
4. They claim their approach is “validated”, but their explanation of how seems to me to resemble the work of a guy with a table, three walnut shells and a pea. Maybe I’m just too dumb to understand. Or maybe …
5. Other than their dating of the core samples, which may well be perfectly OK, there’s nothing here that I find to be overwhelmingly credible. But maybe my understanding will improve with rereading.
John B says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:25 am
“I took issue with the accusations of cherry picking”
====================================================================
John, they did cherry pick.
They picked two North Carolina locations, Sand Point and Tump Point that showed what they wanted.
The most obvious one to use would have been Wilmington, North Carolina.
But Wilmington shows no sea level rise at all since the 70’s.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/scientific-bullshite-deepest-in-at-least-2100-years/#more-32885
“Back in the late nineties when he first freaked out over bleached coral, the GBR was all doomed to rapid bleaching which you guessed it hasn’t happened.”
Coral bleaching is a natural process due to changes in water temperature. Corals are sensitive to cold water and as a result grow mostly in the tropics. If warming is a threat to coral, explain why the GBR is most extensive in that part of Australia that is closest to the equator, and ends around Brisbane, as you move away from the equator. You would think that if warming was a threat to coral, that it would be rare on the equator and more numerous in cold water, but just the opposite is true.
Some species of polyps do better in cold water and some do better in hot. As the water heats up the colder adapted species die off and are replaced by warmer adapted species. While this process is underway we see “coral bleaching” as it is the polyps that give the coral its color. The process also occurs in reverse, when temperatures drop.
By far the biggest threat to coral is sedimentation from land clearing. As land is cleared in tropical areas the seasonal rainfall carries large volumes of silt into the oceans which smothers the coral and kills it. Large areas of the tropics that were once white beaches of coral sand are now muddy brown shorelines. Again human caused coral bleaching, but it has nothing to do with CO2.
This is the main problem with AGW and CO2. There are a great many areas in which human activities are causing serious problems and need to be corrected. However, these problems are being wrongly attributed to CO2 and a “one cure fixes all” solution proposed.
Similar to “blood letting” in the past, reducing CO2 will not stop other forms of pollution. Exporting CO2 from developed countries like Australia, USA and the UK to countries like India and China will have no effect whatsoever. If anything it will simply make the problem worse as efficient power plants are replaced with less efficient plants.
The only reason it makes sense is because India and China have low cost labor and industries would rather be subsidized to relocate under the guise of CO2 trading than have to pay the costs themselves. Much better if the taxpayers of Australia, USA and the UK pay to ship their jobs to India and China. In return the politicians can expect a large contribution to their reelection funds. All the while the taxpayers fund the shoddy science to provide the evidence of what a great idea it all is.
I was just thinking of what could be way to test this theory, postcards and photos.
Lots of people since the Victorian times have spent holidays by the sea and as a result we have lots of first hand evidence of where sea level was and now is and many background structures to assist in measurements.