Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
You’ve heard of “Post Normal Science”? I investigate “Para Normal Science”. That’s the kind of science that is based on the willing suspension of belief in the physical laws of nature. Continuing my investigation of para normal science, I find a group that takes the long view of sea level rise. They don’t mess about with decadal scenarios. They disdain looking a mere century into the future. The press release is here, the paper’s paywalled, abstract here. The press release is titled:
Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Figure from the press release issued by the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen. Estimates prepared for the purposes of alarmism only, not warranteed for any other application. © 2011 by BeVeRyScArEd Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Neal’s Boring Institute.
My favorite part of the press release about the paywalled paper was this:
Actual measurements. Not fake, counterfeit, false, ersatz, phony, bogus, pseudo, or imitation measurements. Actual measurements.
Whenever they say something like “based on actual measurements”, I can’t help but be reminded of Hollywood’s “Based on a true story”, and how far the Hollywood version always is from the actual story warts and all …
In any case, no matter how they designed their climate supermodel, scenarios five centuries long? I’m sorry, but that’s a complete wank. No one will be alive to see even the 200 year mark. It will make no difference to our current choices. Indeed, it will likely be forgotten before the year is out. It is probably produced specifically with the aspiration of receiving the honor of being entombed in the fifth IPCC assessment report, a fitting burial place for such work. It may be based on a true story, but the facts have been changed to protect the innocent, so much so that any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.
But most of all, it is an exercise in projecting a simple curve into the future, which is a newbie error I was warned against in high school. You can’t just extend a curve out for 500 years, that’s a pathetic joke even if you do call it a “IPCC scenario”. Oh, wait, that terminology is so yesterday. The new IPCC bureaucratic scientese term is “Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenarios” … I kid you not.
But even if you call it a Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenario, still, five hundred years? Five centuries? Get real!
Para Normal Science at its finest.
w.
Jim Turner says:
October 20, 2011 at 1:30 am
“…the facts have been changed to protect the innocent,”
Surely you meant “the facts have been changed to protect the guilty”
Nope! This, I suspect, is a neat double-entendre….., the innocent being you and me, those who they are trying to save. Like we need it.
richardjamestelford says:
October 20, 2011 at 2:22 am
Unable to accept the inevitable long-term consequences of global warming, and ill-equipped to critique the science, Eschenbach resorts to mockery.
I see you’re mightily seasoned at the self same skill, except that it is hollow, and habitual. I don’t need to race in in Willis’ defense, he already has. The things I’d like to say to you, Mr. Telford, will get snipped, and for good reason. Too bad you haven’t figured out what those reasons are.
Dear Willis
I am a coauthor on the study. I take no offense at your mockery, because that is pretty much the level of debate that I expect from WUWT (sorry, if that offends you).
Lets try to find some common ground for discussion. I assume you agree about the following observations (concerning on average over the 20th century):
* Sea level has been rising
* Earth has warmed (Global Mean SATs)
* Ocean heat content is increasing (since observations has been available= 1955)
* CO2 is increasing.
Here is a causal chain of events as i see them, and I would appreciate if you man up, and acknowledge exactly what it is you dispute:
1) Increased CO2 -> Increased radiative forcing
2) stronger radiative forcing -> increased heat / warming
3) Heat/warming -> shrinks land-based ice, and expands the world oceans.
Perhaps you do not dispute any of these points and agree with our projections. From your mockery it sounds as if your only question the value of multi century projections in general. Please clarify.
“Lukewarmers” usually agree with all of the points above but only question whether the “climate sensitivity” in step 2 of the chain is really as large as climate models imply. In our study we avoid any uncertainty in climate sensitivity, by simply looking at the relationship between radiative forcing and sea level rise directly.
Models without validation. I prefer fiction, of course.
But most of all, it is an exercise in projecting a simple curve into the future, which is a newbie error I was warned against in high school.
I’m a high school teacher. Believe me, we still warn against it. Beyond ridiculous.
I love it!
Are those big bars on the right the error margins? I’m sure I was taught something once about what it means when your error bars are larger than your results. Now if only I could remember what it was…
As I step away from my computer I accelerate to 3 m/h in 1 second. Extrapolating from these “actual measurements” I will break the sound barrier in a little over 4 minutes.
I better button my pajamas.
There once were “intelligent” beings concerned with pin dancers too.
handjive says:
October 20, 2011 at 1:28 am
Actually he lives by the beautiful Hawkesbury River.
I’ve read reports that Tim also purchased his neighbours property next door. In keeping with the entertaining tone of Willis’ article, I’ve checked my crystal ball, (which also doubles as a way back machine, up to 500 days) and witnessed an ‘over the backyard fence conversation’ between Timmeee (they’ve killed Timmeee, you basturds) and his neighbour (lets call him Bob).
BOB: Are the waters really going to rise halfway up to our bedroom windows Timmeee?
TIMMEEE: Yes Bob, unfortunately we keep pumping this durdy pallushun into the air. It’s inevitable I’m afraid even if we stop polluding now.
BOB: What are you going to do?
TIMMEEE: Reckon I’ll sell as soon as possible, while there is still some chance of getting a few dollars for the property.
BOB: But the waters won’t rise for a few decades yet will they Timmeee?
TIMMEEE: No they won’t Bob, but I recently finished a report the council commissioned me to do. They’ll be introducing by-laws within 3 months to halt all developments. That’s going to cut the value of our properties by at least half.
BOB: They’ve killed our property values, you basturds. Mate, why didn’t you tell me sooner? you know I still owe the bank heaps for my mortgage.
TIMMEEE: Yeah sorry mate, been busy travelling with the climate commission. Tell ya what though, I know this agent who has contacts in a greenies group who are buying up river side properties to turn them into wildernesses. The greenies have a rich old lady benefactor, heaps of money. I reckon we can still get maybe 75% of the value if we sell quickly.
BOB: Really? would you do that for me Timmee? Can I get out of this without owing the bank heaps? I’ll get out tomorrow if you can get me 75%.
TIMMEEE: Sure Bob, of course I will, what are neighbours for. Leave it all to me, I’ll fix it. (cough)
BOB: Oh thanx Timmee, you’re such a good mate and neighbour. I dunno how I’ll ever repay ya.
Timmeee: No worries Bob, I’ll look after ya.
Seen on a jar in a grocery store: “Contains real ingredients.” Ya think?
The loudest ‘business’ and ‘Dragon’s Den” regular on CBC TV was talking derisively about a stagnant stock a couple of weeks ago and exclaimed, “That’s where money goes to die!” It is very hard to resist thinking of the IPCC as, “the place where science goes to die.”
When anyone asks what “Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenario” means the correct reply is, “It means anything we want it to mean” and not, “a guess.”
I have an acquaintance who is in the business of being a Serious Leftie and he pointed out the ‘virtue’ of taking this approach which is: post facto reinterpretation of events to leave him in charge. Covers all possibilties, if you get my drift.
To me it means, “an approximation of modelling forecasts of rising CO2 concentrations made while fantasizing that we could find and burn enough carbon-based fuel somewhere on the planet to raise it above 550 ppm and [wait for it] the consequent calculated global temperature increase based on an inadequate understanding of a partially completed mathematical model of the heat engine that is our real atmosphere linked to the real ocean, deduced while simultaneously ignoring significant contributors to the root causes of climate changes such as clouds, variation across the spectrum of Total Solar Insolation and Galactic Cosmic Rays.” Much too verbose. So, put your tongue in your cheek, call it RPC and follow it with a large number.
Perhaps we need another competition. Predict some of the content of the next IPCC Report. Submit a sentence of not less than 10 and not more than 15 words in which 8 words are identical to any actual 10-word string published therein. I am choosing 8 words to eliminate no-brainers like, “It is worse than we thought” and “Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenario.”
A real problem is that sea level rise over the satellite record hasn’t accelerated despite rapidly rising CO2 and supposed hysterical melting of Greenland and Antarctica. Indeed sea level rise has de-accelerated. In Atlantic Canada the `acceleration’ occurred 1920ish and has been remarkably constant since then and the timing and consistency doesn’t jive with CO2 forcing.
But the water has been locked on the continents due to all the flooding. Fine, but scientists who throw this out to explain recent sea-level fall must go back over the last 100 to 150 years and demonstrate that in years when there were floods in India, Pakistan, China, Australia, etc that there was a corresponding drop in sea-level. Unless this can be done then this `throw out’ excuse (explanation) is not valid. Any explanation will fit a `one off’ event.
The point is that the paper, if it models the ACTUAL SATELLITE DATA sea-level rise, that shows no acceleration vs rising CO2, would show just what we have been seeing … a monotonous long term sea-level rise.
Looking at the flooding vs sea-level would be interesting for someone with the data and skill …. Willis?
as you may have guessed, in quasi-bankrupt Greece, it was reported as news: “The sea will rise by the year 2500”. Many attempts to buy waterfront properties form threatened owners were rejected. Thet did not believe the news.
Usually, papers and sites publishing such science fiction get ads and banners for Siemens wind generators on green meadows with blue skies
BAM! Eschenbach hit ya back Richard
Willis, good article and smart counter of “richardjamestelford” who acts on the side of big money (solar, wind and governmental grants).
Quite funny indeed to find someone who defends people who are “cooking” data to produce convenient results, identify trends out of these wrong results that have failed to come true short term – and now return with a 500 yr outlook. This is true belief, not science.
Always a nice read, Willis!
Rgds from Chile, Matt
Before the economic bust we could simply have extended the industrial growth curve 500 years into the future and stated confidently that whatever the effects of rising sea levels we’d easily be rich enough to overcome the problems.
I think you will find that ‘Busted’ make this prediction long before this group
Busted – Year 3000 lyrics
One day
when I came home
at lunchtime
I heard a funny noise
went out
to the back yard
to find out
if it was one of those rough boys
stood there
was my neighbour
called peter
and a *?*
he told me he built a time-machine
like one in a film I’ve seen(yeah)
he said I’ve been to the year 3000
not much has changed but they live underwater
and your great-great-great-granddaughter
is pretty fine, is pretty fine
he took me
to the future
in a *?*
and I saw everything
boy bands
and another one
and another one
and another one
triple
pretty women
swimmin round town
totally naked
“How can a learned person expect that man can use fossile fuels at the present pace till 2100, let alone till 2500???”
The UK aparently has something like 30,000 years worth of coal under ground.
Which we should be burning of course.
Meh… we’ll be living on Mars by then.
“but the facts have been changed to protect the innocent” sorry Willis but I think this should actually be the names have been changed to protect the flow of government grant money. great response to a foolish attempt at fear-mongering.
How dare you scoff at this paragon of modern science, Willis. After all, “Their model has been adjusted back to the actual measurements and then used to predict the outlook for rising sea levels.”.
Oops, left out the /sarc tag on my previous post…hopefully, ’twas self-evident.
Aslak Grinstead, if you are still viewing the discussion, I have two questions:
I welcome your graph because it provides an element of falsifiability as to the contribution of CO2 to the understanding of current warming (a warming which I will accept if we do not talk about absolute values or spatially averaged data). Would YOU agree that it’s a shame the graph does not show in detail the period 2000 to 2100?
To me (and apparently many others) it seems patently obvious that significant reduction of human emissions of CO2 is going to be impossible unless there is a very high degree of certainty that the consequences of continuing to emit CO2 are much worse than the consequences of business as usual (BTW that puts the onus of that proof on those advocating a change). If we continue on your green curve into the future but sea-level persits rising at 3mm per year – at what date will you consider your hypothesis incorrect?
Massive sea-level rise is the biggest billed consequence of human emitted CO2, but the data on global sea-level rise over the last few decades shows NO evidence for such massive sea-level rise. In fact, if anything, in spite of a near-exponential increase in human emissions of atmospheric CO2 the rate of sea-level rise appears near linear or maybe even close to peaking. That does not negate the possibility of a future massive sea level rise, but it does require a very dramatic pick up in the rate of sea-level rise to fulfill the dire predictions for 2100 and we have monitoring programs to detect that rise should it eventuate. I know several engineering professionals who openly anticipate about 2m of sea-level rise before the end of this century, but there is scant SCIENTIFIC evidence for that view. The’catastrophist’ view is even more prevalent in the wider community and the media (though clearly those with beachfront properties aren’t buying in just yet!). Why is the scientific community not tempering these views? It seems to me that it is inconvenient for funding and careers that real observations do not support a catastrophic view that was tenable (maybe) around the late 90’s, but not now, 10 years later, with no appearance of the doomsday scenario, nor any signs of it. Surely Haiti, the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, New Zealand and Japanese earthquakes show that the world faces catastrophes enough without inventing new false ones to frighten the gullible.
Sea level will rise if temperatures rise enough to melt enough glacial ice and if ocean temperatures rise enough to induce continued thermal expansion.
Antarctic ice melt is estimated to be adding 0.21 mm/yr and Greenland another 0.21 mms/yr. Maybe 0.3 mms/yr for other continental glaciers.
Thermal expansion is estimated to be 1.6 mms/yr but has almost certainly fallen to Zero in the last 8 years since the oceans have not warmed at all. Recent papers have said that the thermal expansion formulae were over-estimated and should be reduced to 0.5 mms/yr or so.
And in the last two years, sea level has fallen by 10 mms.
So what we have is GHGs increasing, sea level falling, thermal expansion Zero. Its hard to square the numbers produced by any climate model related to sea level rise. Extra rain must have fallen and been stored on the land amounting to 6 mms/yr.
So, what is the prediction for sea level rise given what has actually happened in the last 2 and 8 years. Tying previous sea level rise to GHG radiative forcing is mugs game because Aerosols offset all of the GHG forcing before 1970. It didn’t rise because of GHG forcing.
Aslak Grinsted says:
October 20, 2011 at 3:21 am
Dear Willis
I am a coauthor on the study. I take no offense at your mockery, because that is pretty much the level of debate that I expect from WUWT (sorry, if that offends you).
=====
You folks issued a press release with no substance and hid your calculations (if any) behind paywalls. I’m curious what sort of reception you expected.
If you want an intelligent discussion, try providing some meaningful input.
Willis,
This press release is even “worse than we thought” :^) Here are the highlights..
We first start with this…
“Rising sea levels in the coming centuries is perhaps one of the most catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures. Massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations could result from global warming. But how frightening of times are we facing? Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute are part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere using climate models.”
With this introduction, they immediately establish their manic CAGW credentials (i.e. scary disaster scenarios and use of models).
Then we see this:
“Based on the current situation we have projected changes in sea level 500 years into the future. We are not looking at what is happening with the climate, but are focusing exclusively on sea levels, explains Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Centre for Ice and Climate, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.”
OK. So their using climate models, but NOT LOOKING AT WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CLIMATE. Sounds perfectly reasonable [heh]…
Then we have the hallmark of all climate modeling – tuning and hindcasting!
“Their model has been adjusted backwards to the actual measurements and was then used to predict the outlook for rising sea levels.”
Adjusted backwards? What the *(&$@ur momisugly does that mean? Does this mean they ran the model for 500 years of simulated time, got present day sea levels that were absurdly high, then adjusted them down? Based on what? [sigh]
The press release then continues with:
“Even in the most optimistic scenario, which requires extremely dramatic climate change goals, major technological advances and strong international cooperation to stop emitting greenhouse gases and polluting the atmosphere, the sea would continue to rise. By the year 2100 it will have risen by 60 cm and by the year 2500 the rise in sea level will be 1.8 meters.”
So it is clear these researchers have NO interest in the politics of global warming and the green movement in general. NOPE. NONE. Of course, it’s clear they believe that governments will alter the world economy based on their pathetic modeling attempts [LOL]…
When then have:
“In the 20th century sea has risen by an average of 2mm per year, but it is accelerating and over the last decades the rise in sea level has gone approximately 70% faster.
Really? I believe the data show global sea level rise is DECELERATING. But alas…
And finally…
He points out that even though long-term calculations are subject to uncertainties, the sea will continue to rise in the coming centuries and it will most likely rise by 75 cm by the year 2100 and by the year 2500 the sea will have risen by 2 meters.
Well, at least they got one thing right…
—
To all serious climate scientists out there. If you are wonder why the public is so skeptical of climate science as a whole, you can look no further than your own over-the-top press releases like this one. Until you all decide to reign in your loose cannons, you will not regain any credibility…