From Rutgers University
Global sea level likely to rise as much as 70 feet for future generations
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations will have to deal with sea levels 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 feet) higher than at present, according to research published in the journal Geology.
The researchers, led by Kenneth G. Miller, professor of earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University, reached their conclusion by studying rock and soil cores in Virginia, Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific and New Zealand. They looked at the late Pliocene epoch, 2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago, the last time the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was at its current level, and atmospheric temperatures were 2 degrees C higher than they are now.
“The difference in water volume released is the equivalent of melting the entire Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, as well as some of the marine margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,” said H. Richard Lane, program director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the work. “Such a rise of the modern oceans would swamp the world’s coasts and affect as much as 70 percent of the world’s population.”
“You don’t need to sell your beach real estate yet, because melting of these large ice sheets will take from centuries to a few thousand years,” Miller said. “The current trajectory for the 21st century global rise of sea level is 2 to 3 feet (0.8 to1 meter) due to warming of the oceans, partial melting of mountain glaciers, and partial melting of Greenland and Antarctica.”
Miller said, however, that this research highlights the sensitivity of the earth’s great ice sheets to temperature change, suggesting that even a modest rise in temperature results in a large sea-level rise. “The natural state of the earth with present carbon dioxide levels is one with sea levels about 20 meters higher than at present,” he said.
Miller was joined in the research by Rutgers colleagues James G. Wright, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences; James V. Browning, assistant research professor of earth and planetary sciences; Yair Rosenthal, professor of marine science in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Sindia Sosdian, research scientist in marine science and a postdoctoral scholar at Cardiff University in Wales; and Andrew Kulpecz, a Rutgers doctoral student when the work was done, now with Chevron Corp. Other co-authors were Michelle Kominz, professor of geophysics and basin dynamics at Western Michigan University; Tim R. Naish, director of the Antarctic Research Center at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand; Benjamin S. Cramer of Theiss Research in Eugene, Ore.; and W. Richard Peltier, professor of physics and director of the Center for Global Change Science at the University of Toronto.
###
So the natural sea level height is 20 meters higher with today’s CO2 levels.
What is the natural sea level height with the CO2 level of 1700 or 1800AD ?
So do we now have to look at what might possibly happen a few thousand years out? Do we assume that homosapiens will still be around?
Surely more immediate threats such as polution, famine, disease, nuclear terrorism shoudl figure far more.
““The difference in water volume released is the equivalent of melting the entire Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, as well as some of the marine margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,” said H. Richard Lane, program director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences”
“You don’t need to sell your beach real estate yet, because melting of these large ice sheets will take from centuries to a few thousand years,” Miller said.
Really? A 2c increase for a duration of centuries to a few thousand years can produce the required amount of energy to melt all the ice in Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets?
“9.506×10^20 kg kJ to melt all the ice in Greenland. For those challenged by scientific notion, that is 950,600,000,000,000,000,000 kJ to melt the 2,580,000 cubic kilograms of ice.
Wolfram Alpha reports that that amount of energy, wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%282.85×10%5E18%29+*+%28333.55+kJ%29, is:
3) ~1.9 x estimated energy released by the Chicxulub meteor impact;
4) ~24 x 2003 estimated energy in world’s total fossil fuel reserves;
5) ~37 x 2003 estimated energy in world’s coal reserves.
Ok, that is a huge amount of energy.”
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2012/03/12/how-much-energy-is-required-to-melt-all-the-ice-in-greenland/
And that is just Greenland.
So I wonder (1) where is that energy coming from and (2) how will that energy reach the areas where there is ice? It has to warm the equivalent of 80c above 0c (the latent heat of ice) before the ice will melt. That means that significantly more heat must be available than the amount calculated for Greenland since the heat energy won’t all be concentrated in Greenland.
How much energy is a 2c increase to the entire planet’s atmosphere?
The big Pliocene Lie is that the high CO2 caused the high temps,
when it was the reverse that actually happened.
The hi Pliocene temps were caused by the Panama Seaway being still open,
and the Drake Passage still closed. Warm oceans = high CO2.
Warmistas confuse the effect with the cause.
Me thinks the Rio+20 push is in full press.
But we know how well temp and CO2 correlate:
http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image277-1.gif
Where has all the sanity gone? …….. Long time passing …….
“The current trajectory for the 21st century global rise of sea level is 2 to 3 feet (0.8 to1 meter) due to warming of the oceans, partial melting of mountain glaciers, and partial melting of Greenland and Antarctica.”
No it isn’t. The current trajectory is about 300mm. To multiply that 2-3 times requires unproven assumptions.
I am so glad I am 470′ above sea level. I can watch the rise from here and not be too worried.
Scientific value : V
Number of authors : N
V = N^-2
Thanks Willis!! 😀
I just hope the stupid scaremongering of all those even remotely involved in climate sciences does not discredit science to such a degree that all the other branches are tainted with the discredit when nature proves their forecasts to be utter trash. I suppose they may well be defended from their crass incompetence by the protection of the media which appears to be burying predictions like the hundred months to doomsday runaway temperature prediction surprisingly successfully.
Facile, blinkered, ill conceived and inept are the obvious adjectives that spring to mind if this is even remotely their scope of research into the problem. The balance of temperature involves at least a hundred variables that even as an amateur I can think of so to focus on just one as say it decides everything is utterly daft.
The work reminds me of the early days of chip modelling when we took a simple lumped capacitive load and ignored track resistance, distributed capacitance, track to track capacitance and a whole lot more but al least we knew they were simplifications that made the results questionable in smaller geometries.
I hate reading this type of grant inspired crap. Another instance of comparing apples with pears.
The Pliocene era is not comparable with the Pleistocene (2.65MY ago to 10,000MY ago). Although we call the present the Holocene, it really is no more than another inter-glacial period within the Pleistocene.
Around the end of the Pliocene, something significant happened to restrict the flow of warm water currents and reduce temperatures in the polar regions.
The culprit looks to be the emergence of the Panama Isthmus, which closed the free circulation of waters between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
For those interested in the subject of the difference between the Pliocene and the Pleistocene, this is a halfway decent article.
“Posted by News Staff”
WUWT has acquired some News Staff! Good stuff.
Oops, here is the article:
http://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=pliocene%20carbon%20dioxide%20levels&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aos.princeton.edu%2FWWWPUBLIC%2Fgphlder%2Fpliopar.pdf&ei=OTVoT5CdE8O80QW00tmUCQ&usg=AFQjCNHqZO5nFVRtGy5F9LscmYF-SGuCRA&cad=rja
Given that the sea level has already risen about 80 meters in the last 12,000 or so years, I can’t say I’m particularly concerned by this.
Oh, right … I get it …
We need to blow a bazillion gigabucks NOW in order to prevent the ocean from rising 70 feet a thousand years from now. Let me put this into a different context:
If you don’t give me $100,000 right now, your city will be under 70 feet of water in 1000 years. Yes, I know that sea levels are currently not rising, that is one of the primary indications that what I am saying is true.
Rutgers, please try not to be such morons. Please?
Can’t more productive work be found for these people to do?
Now that is plausible, those are the areas currently losing mass. The question becomes do we have enough fossil fuels to get temperatures that high and to keep CO2 at those levels for that long. Considering that we don’t yet have model independent evidence of net positive feedback to CO2 in this climate regime, something else was probably different in the Pliocene. To even get to these temperatures and this level of melting required significant contribution from black carbon, which much more easily and affordably reduced than CO2.
When will they ever learn?
Ah, right, this’ll be why they were jacking up the Envisat sea level readings the other day, to invent an ‘increase’ which will ‘swallow us anyway’. You can smell the next IPCC report before it’s written.
I’m not bothered. I live about 80m above current sea level, so I think I’ll have plenty of warning if anything happens.
I’d like to know something. Do the observations about sea level by these guys at Rutgers take into account the shifting of the surface over the many eons? Continental drift? Would that have anything to do with how sea levels may be measured or regarded?
Just a simple question from a geological ignoramus. Otherwise, this study sounds a lot like the “if present trends continue” argument. I’m not going to be around to worry about it when it ultimately happens, if it happens at all.
Hm, how about the recent findings of another study claiming that Earth has lost a quarter of its water:
http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
that might have to be taken into consideration when making claims of sea-level rise based on historical levels of CO2 and temperature
I can find no reference to any prominent, unambiguous unconformity in the 700,000 year Vostok ice core record so I infer that there has been no local melting interval in this time caused by an extraordinary event. If the Vostok observations are correct, what is the cause for concern?
It is easy to conclude that young eyes blinkered by dogma see extrordinary climate events quite often, causing them to rush to print.
Christopher Hanley says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:03 am
Can’t more productive work be found for these people to do?
There’ll probably be a market for journeyman pontoon fabricators in 12,000 years or so…
Reminds me of a car registration plate which I saw on a Rolls Royce many years ago in Birmingham UK.
Itread OBO 110X
When checking out the presumed historical sequence of eras and the artist rendered drawings of the continents there were huge inland seas.
So if I understand the threat, mankind will relearn terraced farming, will live on mountains or floating cities (hey if the Incas could do it) and we will fish for bonefish and other finny delights in the warm inland seas.
Sign me up!
I am struck by what these folks can do with 2C of temperature rise. What amazing models they must have.
I wonder how the models manage it?
Perhaps Greenland and Antartica are tectonically shifted to warmer latitudes by the 2C temperature rise?
Why do I have this nagging feeling that almost any temperature changes put into their model will melt Greenland and Antartica.
If indeed the Earth’s climate is 2C warmer in a couple of thousand years, I think our descendants will be extra-ordinarily glad, because it means we saved them from the next glacial phase of the current ice age.
Oh yeah, if temperatures raise and hold there for several thousands of years, some ice will melt and sea levels will raise, that’s what happens at the end of each ice age. That ‘thousands’ is the important part of it, so it’s not like it’ll be here until 2100 or 2500 or such.
Unless we slip to another ice age in the meantime, that is. That could give us a whole different set of problems to solve.
Now if the continents rise by only a millimeter a year because of plate techtonics for a million years that is a ship load of millimeters. The reverse may also be true, these idiots are judging sea level on an unchanging land mass.
It is probably more appropriate to judge the movements of the land masses rather than the ocean, I think they have it bassakwards.
The positive news is that we will be able to move to Antarctica and Greenland, and enjoy the balmy new weather there. I am buying my plot ASAP. I wondered why The Gore and The Hansen/Branson were scoping it out… now I know. They are trying to buy in there first.
AndiC says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:15 am
“You don’t need to sell your beach real estate yet, because melting of these large ice sheets will take from centuries to a few thousand years,” Miller said.
So do we now have to look at what might possibly happen a few thousand years out? Do we assume that homosapiens will still be around?
Surely more immediate threats such as polution, famine, disease, nuclear terrorism shoudl figure far more.
No, because they are dull, boaring. mundane, real threats that don’t affect the whole planet at the same time. The powers that be be can fly off to safe lands.
What’s a cubic kilogram?
But the fact that current sea levels are 20 meters lower than what their opinion of what current CO2 levels show it should be shows that they are wrong. Or are they claiming that the oceans are wrong?
Or are they claiming that the oceans are definitely going to rise for a thousand years, regardless of what we do? In which case I may as well buy a V12 4×4 and enjoy driving it, until such time as I need to convert it into a boat.
In predicting sea level rise of 12-22 meters, I do hope they remembered to factor in the predicted (?) effects of plate tectonics and isostatic rebound over the period of “centuries to a few thousand years.”
What a load of balderdash.
So CO2 is the only driver not a significant one. They are taking IPCC to where no man has gone before.
“Kenneth G. Miller, professor of earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University”
Methinks the professors chair resides within the School of Arts.
Sea level was up to 400 metres higher than it is today during the Ordovician – and 200 to 300 metres higher at the end of the Cretaceous. There is a decent Wikipedia page on this at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level
Have a look before the revisionists get their hands on it…
Looks like somebody had a nightmare after watching that utterly appalling “Waterworld” movie.
Assuming that the quotation “The current trajectory for the 21st century global rise of sea level is 2 to 3 feet (0.8 to1 meter)” is correct then I feel that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, irrespective of the time frame. Any competent scientist should be able to do simple Imperial to metric conversions correctly. 2 to 3 feet is really 0.61 to 0.915 metres.
I’m not sure why this is viewed as publishable research or why it generates any excitement. “Research” restates the known that sea levels have been higher in the past and could, in some unspecified millennial time period be that high again. Yep, and the inter-glacial could end and the sea level could drop because water is trapped in the newly formed glaciers. If I knew anyone who could be relied on to hold the bets, I’d bet on ice.
Apparently doesn’t take much to get a pub credit these days.
the study actually means “up to 70 feet further inland” but you know its much more scary when they say “seventy feet higher”
If Atlantis was half the size of Australia and rose in the middle of the deeps in the Pacific the sea level wouldn’t rise 70 feet…
Sandy says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:31 am
Scientific value : V
Number of authors : N
V = N^-2
Thanks Willis!! 😀
Actually the correct equation is: V = 1/’N^2
Just thought I’d clear that up.
Not peer reviewed by Zager & Evans, thus invalid.
India and China are obviously not buying it. They have told the EU what they can do with their emissions trading scheme.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/uk-india-eu-emission-idUKLNE82I02Y20120319
Only 22 meters? Take a look at geologic history, where you will see that the long-term stable air temperature for the Earth was in the order of 25 C, about 10 C warmer than it is now, and that sea level was about 100 meters above its present level. I commend to your attention the history of the Florida Platform, and the pattern of shoreline change on that Platform.
Hard data show us that at the depth of the Pleistocene sea level was more than 100 meters below present, and in the Eocene it was some 100 meters above present. But in the Eocene the Earth began to cool, and ice appeared at the poles and in mountain glaciers for the first time in 200 million years.
All shorelines change with time, some faster than others due to the effects of orogeny. Shorelines, like ice caps and glaciers, are temporary. What is hard to understand is the time involved in these changes, because we human beings are terrifically anthropocentric, and judge rates of change in terms of our own brief lives. Anthropocentricism is a real curse, as evidenced by the current confusion about climate change.
George, CPG
So from this, I assume that the sea level will rise faster than humans can migrate. Or am I missing something?
In a few thousand years, I hope that humans have colonized the moon, Mars and are well on their way to other stars. Otherwise, all that science fiction I read was simply a waste of time… 🙂
Oh wouldn’t it be wonderful.
I could more the yacht at the foot of my bottom padock. All I have to do is live that long.
prjindigo, thanks for that I was wondering how it could possibly rise 70 feet vertically all over the globe. One, there isn’t enough ice to do that and two just a small rise means the oceans would spread out and become larger on a horizontal plane thus halting/limiting the vertical rise. Yes up to 70 feet further inland makes a lot more sense. How do they get away with this sensationalist propaganda?
Did Co2 rise follow temperature rise? Is this not what the Vostok ice cores tell us? The people who lived through the Holocene Climate Optimum must have been drenched. Anyway, after the ‘hottest decade’ on the record the rate of sea level rise seems to be flattening. What is up? Or down. 😉
@NotTheAussiePhil
Of course if you transform the field into a three dimensional mass space it is a measure of volume of an item transformed to that space. 🙂
They do realize that naturally at some point in future geologic time, the Earth WILL emerge from the current ice age of which we are only in a brief pause and the sea levels will indeed rise phenomenally. If man is still here when it happens, we will have had NOTHING to do with it.
I forgot to add “Don’t they?” to my previous at the end. I should really read my posts before posting them.
This is wonderful news. I was so deperately worried when we learned that the Ice caps would be gone by 2013. and that winter snow would be gone for ever by now. How marvelous that these knowledgable and committed warmists have now told us not to worry for the next 10 thousand or so years and that our grand children are going to be safe after all. I was also impressed by the finding in their research when Professor Miller said “this research highlights the sensitivity of the earth’s great ice sheets to temperature change” I presume he means if it warms above freezing. But who ever would have thought that ice would melt if it got warmer. The sponors of their research must be staggered by their findings and be really pleased that their money has been well spent. I presume the research group will be going on to grammar school in the next year or so.
And now we read that Britain’s green taxes have caused its carbon footprint to increase by 20%. Who would have thunk it?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117428/Britains-carbon-footprint-increased-20-cent-despite-green-taxes.html
David Cage says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
I just hope the stupid scaremongering of all those even remotely involved in climate sciences does not discredit science to such a degree that all the other branches are tainted with the discredit when nature proves their forecasts to be utter trash. I suppose they may well be defended from their crass incompetence by the protection of the media which appears to be burying predictions like the hundred months to doomsday runaway temperature prediction surprisingly successfully.
Sorry its already too late. Looking at responses to research stories now all researchers are being tarred with the same ‘research results for rent money’ responses. If it becomes apparent that things are not going to forecast the media will volte-face overnight and pick up a new meme any criticism will be placed at the doors of science getting it wrong again.
The real damage to science though is the universities churning out graduates that have been brainwashed to believe and not been educated enough to realize that they have been brainwashed. What chance any new good engineers or scientists from that group?
Research that’s short on real data but long on extrapolation is indistinguishable from day dreaming by a 3-year old.
@pwl, you seem to have a couple of typos in your post (March 20, 2012 at 12:19 am):
2,580,000 vs 2,850,000 and cubic kilograms vs cubic kilometers.
I don’t get it. We have decades of science and more data than can be rehashed in a lifetime, yet these CO2 alarmists continue on. In the stated “centuries to a few thousand years,” sea level will fall by meters as the ice sheets readvance and wipe out much of civilization in the northern hemisphere. As Harold Ambler says, “Don’t Sell Your Coat.”
Cold kills. Warmer is better.
Christie wants to merge Rutgers with Rowan due to $ levels dropping. The fast money has been on the warm burner for several decades now. Makes you wonder if this is a “follow the money” thing.
the only variable in the level of glaciation and sea level is c02. The one and only variable. I was sure this level of understanding has been surpassed by now, even by the mainstream media.
Christopher Hanley says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:03 am
Can’t more productive work be found for these people to do?
=========================================================================
I doubt it. This is their very best work. So, not for these guys. And preferably not anything important or involving sharp instruments or heavy equipment.
Christopher Hanley says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:03 am
“Can’t more productive work be found for these people to do?
There’ll probably be a market for journeyman pontoon fabricators in 12,000 years or so …”
Probably not enough time to retrain them!
It has already degraded science. I used to love all things scientific and believed in peer review. Now I take science discoveries with a grain of salt. I also bemoan the explosion of modelling in science, and other fields – just waiting to form the next insanity.
Take the standard model of the universe which works a treat only if it’s filled mostly with dark matter and dark energy, neither of which exists to the best of our knowledge. I am glad for them, but only while they don’t try to tax me for it.
The Rutgers guy has the cart before the horse. The CO2 concentration was high 2-3 million years ago because the oceans were warmer. Glassman has a theory that fits the facts:
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
When are we going see degree programs in sensational, agitprop writing? Why bother making these guys take the hard maths?
@higley7
I prefer the 3 year old day dreams…they don’t destroy the economies of the world!
So, 3.2 million years ago we know what the Global temperature was down to a couple of degree’s Centigrade, really?
This reflects favorably on the brilliant foresight of Senator Byrd (D-WV) in his efforts to neutralize this immediate threat by moving the Federal government to West Virginia. Compare this with the shortsightedness of Senator Gore the Lesser (D-TN) buying beachfront property in California.
What was at one time a real education has been replaced by village idiots playing caps and gowns. So here is an idea whose time has come. Kick every 18 year old out of your house and let them sink or swim on their own. Do it now. Don’t fund their schooling. Don’t pay their rent. And for heaven’s sake, don’t feed them. Thus grounded in reality, we have a more reasonable chance of a future lived in freedom.
Freedom isn’t free, but if we send people to universities on someone else’s dime, they learn something we never intended them to learn. It is time for us to own up to the fact that we more than likely sent our village idiots to university. And now our collective stupidity has come home to roost.
“higley7 says:
March 20, 2012 at 5:15 am
Research that’s short on real data but long on extrapolation is indistinguishable from day dreaming by a 3-year old.”
Please… do not insult 3-year olds.
People being happy about this nice winter weather is analogous to a death row inmate being excited that the food just got a lot better. You guys in this Right Wing echo chamber want any cherry pie?
Whence will it come all that water?, it´s real water !
Agree – too late for the reputation of “Science” to be saved. “Science” as it is practiced by Rutgers et al has a very simple formula:
1) define the conclusions you want to reach
2) design a computer program with enough variables and assumptions to allow you to reach those conclusions, regardless of the underlying data.
3) Plug in some random data and run the program.
3a) if the results are not what you expect, dump the program and start over.
3b) if the program brings forth the desired conclusion, rejoice! The work is done
4) Once the “proper” conclusion has been reached, announce the results to the public with great fanfare and declare “The Science is Settled!!!”
5) Bask in the warm glow of all the money that will flow in from government and all other vested interests who have a strong financial stake in seeing you reach the “right” conclusions; ie, the conclusions which will allow them to separate the most people from the most money.
5) Wash, rinse, repeat.
All you need to know about this is that one researcher is “now with Chevron Corp”. That means that he is funded by big oil, which means that nothing he says can be believed.
David Cage says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
“I just hope the stupid scaremongering of all those even remotely involved in climate sciences does not discredit science to such a degree that all the other branches are tainted with the discredit when nature proves their forecasts to be utter trash.”
Too late.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/talking-risk-and-benefits-eu-s-first-lady-science
Science is a branch of politics.
Progressive institutions of higher learning…oy. Academics are incredibly spoiled.
The correct conclusion is that CO2 HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GLOBAL TEMP, not that the global temp has to rise and melt the ice sheets. Typical drivel
Gilbert K. Arnold says:
March 20, 2012 at 3:56 am
Sandy says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:31 am
Scientific value : V
Number of authors : N
V = N^-2
Thanks Willis!! 😀
Actually the correct equation is: V = 1/’N^2
Just thought I’d clear that up.
You’re obviously unaware that V = N^-2 ≡ V = 1/N^2 ( ≡ = is the same as)
We will probably have a Carrington-like event before then, so it shouldn’t be difficult for the remaining human population ( or the ruling apes, lol ) to move their huts further up the beach, …
Reports like this will continue as long as government gives support for reports like this.
thanes, climaet scientists have been making dire predictions for decades and so far none of these catastrophic results have even come close to reality. You are the sucker.
Has anyone tracked down the real paper? Is it paywalled? The press release looks to me like classic climate crap — poorly written speculative fiction disguised as science. And I’m a bit hazy on how data from New Zealand (not remotely tectonically stable) and Eniwetok ( low coral islands with a maximum elevation of about 2 meters above current sea level) can tell us much about sea levels 2-3 million years ago.
That said, there is a structure in Virginia and the Carolinas called the Suffolk Scarp that does seem to indicate that sea levels might have been 3-8 meters higher a few hundred thousand years ago. Given mankind’s proclivity for building expensive and essential infrastructure just above mean higher high water, 3-8 meters of sea level rise would likely be a very real problem.
How did these guys ever become Professors of Anything?
Steve Goddard has revealed an interesting trajectory line too…
http://www.Real-Science.com/the-linear-trend
reminds me of those real estate prices a few years back…..
First, let’s clear the CO2 level out of the way. Ferenc Miskolczi has shown, using NOAA database of weather balloon observations, that the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared where carbon dioxide absorbs has been constant for 61 years. Carbon dioxide increased by 21.6 percent during this time. This means that addition of this carbon dioxide to atmosphere had no effect on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. This is today but one would think someone would have deduced it sooner from the wide discrepancy between CO2 and temperature in geologic time, not to mention the reverse order of temperature and CO2 in ice cores. Now the sea level. Chao, Yu, and Li (Science 320:212-214 April 11th 2008) found that the sea level rise has been linear for at last eighty years. The slope of the sea level rise curve was 2.46 millimeters per year which works out to a little under ten inches per century. Anything that has been linear that long is not about to change anytime soon. So what is it now? Satellites report 3 millimeters per year, within the statistical error of sea level projection from Chao, Yu, and Li. Now that you know what sea level to expect you can throw out all the fantasies from Miller to Gore that depend on a non-existent greenhouse effect.
Charlie A says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:15 am
So the natural sea level height is 20 meters higher with today’s CO2 levels.
What is the natural sea level height with the CO2 level of 1700 or 1800AD ?
Charlie A gets it. But his point will be lost on the warmists: if today’s CO2 and 2C (above 1850?, as that is the reference, 1.3C more to go) “naturally” result in a melting of ice and a rise of 70′, what would a lower CO2 level and DROP of 2C do to sea level?
Notice that the physics works only one way? That back during the LIA the sea level didn’t drop by 70′ – or even 10′?
I’m still getting a grip on the particulars of “post-normal science”. This must be another of those features. Warming melts, cooling doesn’t do anything. But, apparently, only Gore-times warming, as the Minoan, Roman and MWP did nothing to sea levels.
CO2 doesn’t cause sea-level changes. Temperature changes enough to cause melting OR freezing causes sea-level changes.
What is wrong with these people?
thanes says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:23 am
People being happy about this nice winter weather is analogous to a death row inmate being excited that the food just got a lot better. You guys in this Right Wing echo chamber want any cherry pie?
**********************************
If ‘right wing echo chamber’ means capable of laughing at the patently absurd, I thank you.
Pathetic paper and that Peltier would co sign this kind of garbage is really sad.
Why don’t they just come out and speak the truth? This “research” was done to see if we can scam some more money from brain dead sheeples and their gubermints(for us),while at the same time adhereing to the Useless Nation’s treay #21 to help reduce world population by diverting much needed monies and energies to us.
Marx,lenin,etal must be kicking their butts they didn’t come up with such as simple scheme.
Oh well.At least they spouted something about a few thousand years from now.Wish I could play the markets for just a few DAYS from now!
As I learned from Anthony’s posts, sea rise in the XX century was about 30 cm, and the rate of the sea rise has not accelerated. We are in the second decade of the XXI century, and so far had no warming, and I remember reading that the rates of the rise are dithering.
To speed the sea rise trend to 90 cm by the end of the century we indeed need to have some kind of catastrophic global warming, or something…
Also, what CO2 has got to do with global temperature (if there is such a thing)? A couple of million years ago sea levels may have been 70m higher, and so was CO2. But it does not follow that the CO2 caused the higher sea levels…
Looks like the Arctic Sea Ice Area has expanded enough to have intersect the 1979-2006 monthly average on the Norsex SSM/I chart…
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
I’ve been holding my breath, so that proves it works. :-]
So we are right back where we started. Geologists point out that past interglacial had much higher sea level peaks than our current level, so we can expect sea level to rise alot yet. Our cities are not “sustainable” in their current locations (something we already knew looking at past sea levels). But it will take centuries or millenia to happen.
So……..no problem then. The age expectancy of our cities and their infrastructure is only about 100-200 years, tops. So we move our cities slowly as sea level creeps up, and since we need to rebuild the infrastructure anyway, there is zero lost wealth. Failing to see the emergency here.
I love the assumption that current conditions are permanent.
Rob Crawford says:
March 20, 2012 at 8:42 am
I love the assumption that current conditions are permanent.
…..
I love the assumption that despite 121+ years of environmental doomsaying, The world has seen no man-made environmental cataclysms.
http://www.lowerwolfjaw.com/agw/quotes.htm
Ho-Hum.
Is there any way we can speed up this sea level rise? All that coastal development would make fantastic fishing structure when it gets flooded!
Jay Davis
@Joseph Bastardi: Putting it in electromagnetic terms : you cannot tune a FM radio station with a AM only receiver. As simple as that.
More interesting is that this law applies to EVERYTHING, thus information, “knowledge”, being as material as everything else in the universe, cannot be “seen”, “tuned” by a gross mind having a primitive circuitry. LOL!. Through this generalization you can explain the crying of some people, when rejecting or angrily responding deniers!
The one world government will stem this sea level rise. Don’t worry. Human gene engineering can give us gills in any case.
I’ve been trying to locate their budget and money sources. I’d like to take soil and rock samples in London, Paris, Rio and Singapore next year, accompanied by a few carefully selected colleagues. If needs must, we will also produce a paper. Any idea where to look?
David Cage says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
I just hope the stupid scaremongering of all those even remotely involved in climate sciences does not discredit science to such a degree that all the other branches are tainted with the discredit when nature proves their forecasts to be utter trash…..
________________________
Considering most (All?) of the learned societies of science have also jumped of the bandwagon to support CAGW I would not bet the farm on it. Several of the scientists here at WUWT have given up membership in those learned societies because of their blind support.
Science is going to get the black eye it richly deserves in my opinion. The high and mighty ivory tower types need to be knocked off their pedestals.
One problem with this analysis, a 2C warmer planet might not accumulate ice at the poles when there is no ice, but it might accumulate ice when there is already an ice pack. Climate is not necessarily as simple as that. It’s not an amount of ice for a certain temperature. It’s a rate of ice increase that depends on the temperature and the amount of ice already present.
David Cage says:
March 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
I just hope the stupid scaremongering of all those even remotely involved in climate sciences does not discredit science to such a degree that all the other branches are tainted
Ian W says:
March 20, 2012 at 4:57 am
Sorry its already too late. Looking at responses to research stories now all researchers are being tarred with the same ‘research results for rent money’ responses…..
The real damage to science though is the universities churning out graduates that have been brainwashed to believe and not been educated enough to realize that they have been brainwashed. What chance any new good engineers or scientists from that group?
___________________________
All I can tell you is that I was a Lab Manager for years and I gave up on the younger crowd. I would not look at anyone under 35. This was because of poor manners, a worse work ethic and a Know -it -All attitude that dynamite would not penetrate.
Hmmm ….. CO2 was @ the same levels but temps were 2 deg C warmer ….. Sounds like there are other forcing mechanisms besides CO2 @ work. Oh yeah, that’s what skeptics have been saying all along. Life for the alarmists is not easy – the data just won’t cooperate
There’s something I’ve wondered about for some time.
Antarctica is said to be the driest continent on Earth. It’s so cold that all the moisture freezes out of the air.
Wouldn’t we therefore expect a warming world to permit water to travel much further inland, and to accumulate as much more snow and ice than currently exists there?
Has anybody calculated the effect this would have?
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1052257
Award Abstract #1052257
“Pliocene peak sea level and warmth: Integration of a Virginia corehole array and deep-sea isotope and trace metal records.
“Investigator(s): Kenneth Miller kgm@rci.rutgers.edu (Principal Investigator) …
“PIs promise to establish the sea level rise associated with warm Pliocene high stands. This is critical to our understanding of the cryosphere during a time that has been suggested by many to be similar in some respects to conditions expected by the end of this century.
Awarded Amount to Date: $75488”
The conclusions are absurd.
“They looked at the late Pliocene epoch, 2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago, the last time the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was at its current level, and atmospheric temperatures were 2 degrees C higher than they are now.”
Did anyone explain to Miller that the Earth was spinning faster than it is now (the day was much shorter in length and the earth’s shape was different).
Comparing the present to the late Pliocene epoch is ridiculous.
Leo Morgan says:
March 20, 2012 at 11:04 am
There’s something I’ve wondered about for some time.
Antarctica is said to be the driest continent on Earth. It’s so cold that all the moisture freezes out of the air. Wouldn’t we therefore expect a warming world to permit water to travel much further inland, and to accumulate as much more snow and ice than currently exists there?
Has anybody calculated the effect this would have?
In the international standard atmosphere, the 0°C isotherm is at 7,500 ft. Let’s say that a 2°C increase in surface temperature has a linear effect; that would put the 0°C isotherm at 8,500 ft. This is not going to stop glaciers forming on plenty of the world’s mountains. Any increase in humidity would cause more precipitation to fall and the glaciers, although they would start higher up, would probably extend to lower altitudes because of the increase in the flow of ice.
Interesting hypothesis.
Title of the paper please. Is that so hard to do in the text?
I would like to read the actual source. Not some media mumbo jumbo.
We have just been informed that researchers, led by Kenneth G. Miller, professor of earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University did come to some wrong conclusions.
STOP PRESS – STOP PRESS!!
We can now reveal that although their study results are mainly correct, “the time-span of thousands of years conclusion”, cannot be substantiated as new and later research by a former bicycle repairman and tractor-mechanic – turned professor of EIFW and Planetary Assumptions Owen R Darhipsy – shows that it is happening much faster than the good Miller and his team first anticipated. – That the year 2100 sticks in our minds, he says, is no coincidence. –It is because unconsciously – we know that – for life as we know it – that is the end year.
Sorry, Dr Owen R Darhipsy says, but all you fossil- guzzlers are still a boil festering in your grandchildren’s minds.
– But there is a solution he says – and he urges humans to build more and bigger boats. – And – don’t forget the rafts, he adds.
If you think this is all BS, then all I can say is that I was not the one who started it!
A few million years ago, Antarctica was not as centered on the South Pole
as it is now. There was a cooling trend over the past several million years,
especially from 3 to 1.1 million years ago. The cooling trend was in large
part from Antarctica drifting to a location favoring year-round ice over
nearly all of the continent.
Also, I have seen that the 2 degree C rise to avoid is 2 degrees C above
pre-industrial temperature levels, when HadCRUT3 averaged around .25
degree C below its baseline. In recent years, HadCRUT3 has been around
.4 degree C above its baseline. So, maybe as little as 1.35 degrees C of
warming from where we have been in recent years is the maximum that is
“safe”. 2 degrees of warming on top of .4 degree above “HadCRUT3
baseline” may be unsafe.
There is also the matter of global climate sensitivity to change of CO2.
In recent years, I have mostly come up with .67 to 1.48 degree C per 2x
change of CO2 (on log scale). For example, I use the woodfortrees.org
tool, using it on a recent 13 year period that I selected for appearing to
have little linear trend in ENSO or AMO. (Beginning of 1999 to beginning
of 2012.) That says warming rate of .044 degree/decade, which I think
*may be* the result of CO2 increasing at rate of .199 log scale doubling
from 1980 to 2010. This *may indicate* climate sensitivity to CO2 being
.67 degree C per 2x change of CO2.
I have done other efforts, such as a recent one on considering 2001
version of HadCRUT (before it had significant downward adjustment of past
times), from its 1944 spike to its 2005 hump. That is close to 1 cycle of the
~64 year period that is easily visible in HadCRUT. As a result, I come up
with climate sensitivity to CO2 change around .7-.9 degree per 2x change
in CO2.
Another effort I have done is identifying and removing the ~64 year periodic
component in HadCRUT3, to isolate temperature increase due to increase
of greenhouse gases. Further, I figure how much of the remaining warming in
1973-2005 was from anthropogenic increase of greenhouse gases other than
CO2, which was largely stalled in the mid 1990’s. At that rate, I came up with
climate sensitivity around 1.25-1.48 degree C per 2x change of CO2.
However, the 2001 version of HADCRUT shows less warming from 1973 to
1978, and even greater ~64 year periodic component, than 2008 version and
more recent versions. So, if I redo that work using HADCRUT having less of
adjustments, I would probably come up with climate sensitivity a little less than
1.3 degree C per 2x change of CO2 – possibly close to the “zero feedback
figure” of 1.12 degree C per 2x change of CO2.
“Posted by News Staff”
WUWT has acquired some News Staff! Good stuff.
———–
Paid for by big oil via Heartland no doubt. Nefarious Contrarians!! 😉
Gail Combs says on March 20, 2012 at 10:37 am:
“All I can tell you is that I was a Lab Manager for years and I gave up on the younger crowd. I would not look at anyone under 35. This was because of poor manners, a worse work ethic and a Know -it -All attitude that dynamite would not penetrate.”
========
I’ve got the “T shirt” Gail, but as far as I can see, it looks like we (us humans) spawn a generation – or two, or three – of caring, diligent people and then —Pwfifft – for a generation or two pure nonsense people emerge.
Maybe the answer is that sense and nonsense is very equally distributed amongst us and that “the tipping point” is really a “Seesaw”
In the case of “Climate research” let’s hope I am wrong, as ever since Euclid, some 2300 years ago (to my knowledge), first instated the basic “Thermodynamic Law”- (now named “The Zeroth Law”) and up until the late 19th Century when Maxwell proposed and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857 –1894) clarified and expanded on the electromagnetic theory of light, the research done was a “research” of the Earth System, i.e. the Atmosphere, The Land surfaces and the Oceans, rivers and lakes.
Ever since “electromagnetism” (EM) was discovered, climate-science has gone to pot.
If you wish to study what EM is you will be as baffled – as you already are – if you now study what “energy” really is. – Nowadays, you study models.
Don’t get used to it!
There is another matter: We are likely approaching the end of an interglacial
period of the roughly 100,000 year cycle that has been prominent for about
11 cycles.
Something else: Climate sensitivity to change of CO2 may vary inversely with
global temperature when global temperature change correlates with a change
of amount of greenhouse gases. In fact, I think it probably does. Why: The
lapse rate feedback (a negative one) probably increases as increase of
greenhouse gases increases the lapse rate, and vice versa.
Robbie says on March 20, 2012 at 2:12 pm:
“Title of the paper please. Is that so hard to do in the text?
I would like to read the actual source. Not some media mumbo jumbo.”
=========
If you are the handsome little Robbie my wife gave birth to some 54 years ago, I’ll gladly strangle you right now, you little so and so.
You must learn that in a written letter you begin either with Dear Sir or Dear Madam (o k maybe madman)
But here on WUWT please tell us, somehow, who you are addressing. – It should be easy enough even for imbeciles
We’ve emitted the same amount of CO2 over 150 years that it took natural processes to outgas over 5 milennia in the last 3 glacial terminations. The same amount of CO2 that accompanied global warming of 6C in a thirtieth of the time. And we’re currently still emitting at an even faster rate. We’re conducting a large-scale, uncontrolled experiment with the atmosphere and we have a poor idea of what the outcomes will be. We are inside the test-tube – we can’t escape the experiment.
I don’t know what will happen or how fast. Optimism about low impacts jar with emphasis on the uncertainty of knowledge. Either the IPCC range of projections is a fair indicator of potentials, or their upper values are too unlikely, in which case one is arguing for greater certainty than the IPCC gives out.
For those who stress unertainty and don’t make the mistake of equating this with more likelihood for lower impacts in the future, I do not know how it is possible to shrug the shoulders considering the scenario in my first para.
For those who are more certain of (low impact) outcomes than the IPCC, I hope you are right.
Darn it, anyhow. I was going to break ground and begin construction of my pleasure boat pier to celebrate the coming of Spring this weekend. But, only 70 feet of rise ? I need an additional 33 feet to be able to dock my boat. And, by constructing now, I can build my pier without swimming or rowing a boat.
I have Miller’s previously published data on Sea level and what he is now saying about late Pliocene sea levels, 2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago, is completely different.
The average over this whole period according to Miller 2005 was -16 metres below today. The variance is from -55 metres to +20 metres. So another bandwagon jumper and I hope he reads that..
All paleo sea level estimates starting 580 million years ago (going in the opposite direction most people are used to but I am too lazy to update it).
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/328/paleosealevelcurves.png
Paleo sea levels are very unusual in that not only are ice levels involved, but also the age of ocean basins, the relative conglomeration of continents etc.
100 million years ago, sea level was 250 metres higher and the continents were 25% flooded by the ocean. Most of our oil comes from this period as a result ….
Sea level is headed down now…
Oh, and in about 1500 years we are headed into the next Ice Age Glacial, so any projections beyond that are meaningless. It’s baked into the cake in our orbital mechanics.
And Antarctic Ice is already growing… that ice comes from water that comes from the ocean…
And…
Oh, nevermind. This is just so brain dead. Folks need to go to dinner at the nearest warf and notice that the water is NOT higher. There are “ports” in Italy, Greece, Turkey and all over the place that are now inland, as water levels have dropped since the days of the Roman Empire.
Interstellar Bill says
Warm oceans = high CO2.ectrob
Warmistas confuse the effect with the cause.
—————
They don’t get confused at all. But when you have feedback effects, cause and effect become kinda meaningless or at least not useful.
Anyone who has a decent understanding of electronics will tell you that if feedback is present in a circuit, perturbing the input will change the output and perturbing the output will change the input.
In the case of CO2 an initial warming produces more CO2, which in turn causes more warming, which produces more CO2 and so on……… It’s this cycle of multiplication that allows tiny solar isolation changes to move the earth out of an ice age.
BUT
The process does not have to start with warming. The initial change can be a change in CO2.
At least they had the decency to say the ice caps would melt over time, not instantly. And 70 feet? Last I checked, it was just a few inches!
Excuse me for butting in LazyTeenager but you say on March 21, 2012 at 5:47 am:
“They don’t get confused at all. But when you have feedback effects, ———.
————-. In the case of CO2 an initial warming produces more CO2, which in turn causes more warming, which produces more CO2 and so on……… It’s this cycle of multiplication that allows tiny solar isolation changes to move the earth out of an ice age.
BUT
The process does not have to start with warming. The initial change can be a change in CO2.”
========
All the evidence from Ice Core graphs show that warming (T) came first, and then the atmospheric CO2 level started rising. – At no point during that rise do the two graph lines (CO2 and T) cross over.
BUT
Once they (CO2 and T) are at the top and have stayed for a while, T starts falling back while CO2 stays for a while longer. (Just as the situation is at the moment – and has been for the past 8 or 9 thousand years) –
Why should that be happening if CO2 is the driving force behind warming?
When I first started looking in the matter of global warming about six years ago I ran across a pdf by a geologist out in California. IIRC he was at one time the state geologist. In that paper he said the high stands that represented sea level height before the last age are still visible in certain parts of California. He said we have a good 40 meters yet to go before the next glaciation kicks in.
This kind of makes coming sea level rise a natural occurrence with or without CO2.
Unfortunately I don’t remember his name and the pdf I saved was on a pc that died of heat death and took all the insides with it.
The authors have clearly constructed their model to showing rising grant income for themselves.
Looks like a good paper. But the residents here dislike any actual research into climate, preferring planetary influences, oceanic cycles and tarot readings.
The level of misunderstanding above is enormous. Surely the best is thinking that N^(-2) is different to 1/(N^2). Oh well.
mfo says:
March 20, 2012 at 11:57 am
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1052257
Award Abstract #1052257
“Pliocene peak sea level and warmth: Integration of a Virginia corehole array and deep-sea isotope and trace metal records.
“Investigator(s): Kenneth Miller kgm@rci.rutgers.edu (Principal Investigator) …
“PIs promise to establish the sea level rise associated with warm Pliocene high stands. This is critical to our understanding of the cryosphere during a time that has been suggested by many to be similar in some respects to conditions expected by the end of this century…..
____________________________________
Oh Great.
You can see that much of South Carolina, North Carolina (and I would expect it is true of Virgina) is old sand dunes. That is why part of NC is called “The Sand Hills” “The Sand Hills are hilly, unconnected bands of sand left from the ocean dunes during the Miocene Epoch.” http://sciway2.net/2001/sc-geology/sandhills.htm
I am sure this area of “Research” is rich grounds for some real scare stories to stampede the naive in the USA into accepting Cap and Trade.
The fact the earth was very different then and that whole tectonic plates have shifted will be left out of the narrative.
John Brookes says:
March 22, 2012 at 4:35 am
—————–
The mathematical error you reference was done by one individual, and it was quickly corrected by another commenter. NASA’s rocket scientists have made mistakes that so far have killed off 17 highly trained astronauts. And you only seem to add snark in comments whenever I come across your “contributions” on science blogs.
John Brookes says:
March 22, 2012 at 4:35 am
Looks like a good paper. But the residents here dislike any actual research into climate, preferring planetary influences, oceanic cycles and tarot readings….
_____________________________
Yes you are correct! Except it is changes in the sun’s insolation not tarot readings. If there is one variable that explains glacial/interglacial it is the Planetary Influences aka Milankovitch cycles.
Milankovitch cycles have been known to all scientists for decades even the warmists.
barry says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:03 pm
We’ve emitted the same amount of CO2 over 150 years that it took natural processes to outgas over 5 milennia in the last 3 glacial terminations. The same amount of CO2 that accompanied global warming of 6C in a thirtieth of the time. And we’re currently still emitting at an even faster rate. We’re conducting a large-scale, uncontrolled experiment with the atmosphere…
_____________________________________
And the plants thank us for it because they were close to starving. CO2 levels were much higher in the past and those are the levels the plants are adapted to. Returning CO2 levels to past levels (1,000 ppm) is not “a large-scale, uncontrolled experiment” It is RESTORING the environment. See: http://i32.tinypic.com/nwix4x.png
Plants are so close to starving, that more “CO2 efficient” types are evolving (C4 and CAM). C3 plants include more than 95 percent of the plant species on earth and include varieties such as trees. C4 plants include summer annuals and grasses. The C4 plants photosynthesis is 6 times faster than C3 plants. There is a third kind, the CAM plants.
examples:
C3—–>wheat, barley, potatoes and sugar beet. (most of the plants are C3)
C4—–>fourwing saltbush, corn ,many of summer annual plants.
CAM—> cactuses,some orchids and bromeliads
I did find in my notes “200 pm CO2 trees starve” SOURCE= http://biblioteca.universia.net/ficha.do?id=912067 but the link no longer works… Now all the searches turn up papers showing 180 ppm or lower…. I just check a couple of studies the 180 -200 ppm CO2 for trees is now based on “models” derived from the ice cores. Talk about circular reasoning! The death of trees below 200 ppm was one of the arguments against the validity of the CO2 measurements Ice Cores. (There are several others)
The minimum level CO2 needed by plants (200 to 300 ppm) can also be inferred from these experiments.
In open air ~ WHEAT:
CO2 depletion in a greenhouses ~ From the people who know and depend on the truth, FARMERS
Hydroponic Shop