Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A man who has a daughter is a pretty pathetic specimen, ruled by the vicissitudes of hormones and hairspray. So when my daughter told me this morning “Hey, Dad, I put the newspaper on your desk, you’re gonna like it a lot!”, I knew my blood pressure was in deep trouble.
When I finished my shower and got to my desk I saw that the very first story, above the fold, had the headline:
In 20 years, sea level off state to rise up to 1 foot
I figured that it was some rogue alarmist making the usual warnings of impending doom … but no, it was a report from the National Academy of Sciences.
Now, I’ve spent a good chunk of my life at sea, and living in California the sea level rise is of great interest to me, so I knew immediately that the report was unmitigated nonsense. To see why, first let me show you the actual sea level record from San Francisco:
Figure 1. 160 years of sea level observations in San Francisco, California. Source: PSMSL
San Francisco has one of the longest continuous sea level records in the US. As you can see, there’s nothing too remarkable about the record. It is worth noting, however, that over the last 160 years the sea level in San Francisco has gone up by about 8 inches (20 cm) … and there are 12 inches in a foot (30 cm). It is also worth noting that during the last couple of decades it has hardly risen at all.
So what does the National Academy of Sciences projection of a one foot rise by 2030 look like?
Well … it looks like this:
Figure 2. High end projection of the National Academy of Sciences for the 2030 sea level in San Francisco.
Now, people are always saying to me things like “Willis, why don’t you believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? After all, the National Academy of Sciences says it is real and about to happen.”
And indeed, there is a whole cottage industry these days dedicated to figuring out why the American public doesn’t believe what the climate scientists and people like the NAS folks are saying. Some people studying the question say it’s because the scientists aren’t getting the message across. Others say it’s because the public doesn’t understand science. Another group ascribes it to political affiliation. And there’s even a group that says it is a psychological pathology.
I hold a different view. I say that both I and a large sample of the American public doesn’t believe what the folks in the white lab coats at the National Academy of Science are saying because far too often it is a joke. Not only is it a joke, it’s a joke that doesn’t pass the laugh test. It is risible, unbelievable, way outside the boundaries of the historical record, beyond anything that common sense would say is possible, ludicrous, out of this world. I mean seriously, folks … is there anyone out there who actually believes that the sea level rise shown in Figure 2 will actually happen by 2030? Well, they believe it over at the National Academy of Sciences.
So the next time someone trots out the pathetic claim that catastrophic AGW must be real because the most prestigious and highly respected National Academy of Sciences says so … point them to this post.
The NAS press release, with a link to the actual paper, is here.
w.
PS—While this is a comedy, it is also a tragedy. It is a measure of how blinded and blinkered the climate science establishment has become. It is a tragedy because in an uncertain time, science should be our pole star, the one fixed thing in a spinning sky … but instead, it has become a joke, and that is a tragedy indeed.
Well, they believe it over at the National Academy of Sciences.
What isn’t so clear is how is it possible they have got to this, Willis?
Splendid again, Willis. Your restraint thunders to greater effect than the shrill shouts of the alarmists.
It actually says “that global sea level will rise 8 to 23 centimeters by 2030”
How does the full range look on your graph?
How on earth is the sea level supposed to rise off the California coast exclusively? Has water decided to congregate there to the exclusion of the rest of the planet? the only way this makes any sense at all is if California is going to sink a foot in the next twenty years, and that doesn’t make much sense either. Is there any such thing as localized permanent sea level rises?
Opps thats global.
California’s range is 4 to 30 centimeters, How does that look?
Willis, You could easily get a graph like the NAS projection. Think what the sea level graphs for Sumatra or NE Japan look like….
I was only 19 years old when I challenged a nutrition professor over the amount of protein needed for athletes back in 1995. Eventually, I was right. The nutrition science is a complete mess, even to this day, they still got it wrong over cholesterol and saturated fat consumption causing heart disease. There’s a lot more I can come up with.
Good luck. It’s a long rough road to get things straightened out no matter what. As long as Liberal/Democrats-complex academia are in control, we just have to keep on fighting. Believe me, there are A LOT of people out there not believing anything they teach in colleges. They mostly stay quiet unfortunately.
There is a host of self-centred and greedy ulterior motives different people have for supporting the AGW paradigm.
1- For researchers, once a paradigm becomes popular and dominant, it is career limiting to oppose it.
2- If the climate is presented as something about which governments can make policies, then government money will flow for research. If climate is something that we cannot affect, funding is not going to be as forthcoming.
3- Plus of course it gives researchers a good feeling to imagine that they’re working to save the world instead of, say, developing a new scent for feminine hygiene products.
4- Environmentalists see carbon emission control as a means to reduce real pollutants like NOx, SO2, Hg, etc. as a side effect.
5- Luddites see carbon strangulation as a way of dismantling the industrial economies to force everyone to a much reduced subsistence.
6- ‘Personal isolationists’ try to use AGW as a way to eliminate big utility companies, with power generated at home from wind, solar, or even car batteries, and even sold to the local grid at retail (or higher) rates.
7- EU trade isolationists see carbon regulation as a way of increasing the energy cost, and thus decreasing the competitiveness, of North American economies _vis a vis_ EU ones.
8- Opportunities to use carbon emissions as pretexts to block or heavily tariff imports abound, thus degrading international trade even further.
9- Local trade isolationists like the idea of overseas products becoming more expensive, and if they can’t do that by punitive tariffs and quotas, they hope to do so by artificially driving up shipping costs.
10- Various people see Kyoto-type agreements as a way of transferring wealth from developed economies to lesser ones, as our one-time Liberal cabinet minister Stewart once claimed.
11- Some also envision carbon strangulation as a pretext for involving governments deeply into the economy, via direct and indirect subsidies for energy alternatives that can claim to be ‘green’. Naturally, those who are involved and invested in such industries have their own greed factor.
12- Believers in Big Government also love the idea of sending governments even more of our money under any pretext, and use carbon taxes as a way to transfer even more money to people in lower income levels.
13- Some politicians see taking ‘the west’ off oil as a means of removing the dependence the US in particular has on politically uncertain sources.
14- Other politicans see ‘cap & trade’ or other quota management as a way to direct corruption to their buddies and relatives.
15- Nuclear energy proponents see carbon strangulation as a way to promote nuclear power.
16- Some people imagine that energy cost reductions will magically pay for, and even squeeze profit from, expensive carbon control technologies whose payback times are actually measured (when they aren’t just dead costs) in decades.
17- Opportunistic “businessmen” see the panic of the masses as an opportunity to solicit donations to so-called “non-profit” organizations or to operate carbon credit companies in order to enrich themselves financially.
18- Financial trading corporations like Goldman Sachs see carbon trading as an opportunity to generate a new financial bubble out of an inexistant commodity (carbon credits) with which to justify huge profits and staggering executive bonuses.
19- In politics it is generally held far more important to be consistent than it is to be right. Lies and errors about warming are thus propagated further, instead of being squelched, in order to bolster the political optics.
20- Some people propose deliberately crushing economic growth to be an improvement over what they think will happen if we let growth proceed naturally.
21- And there are some who are actually sincere, who desperately want to believe that they can by sacrificing (or by forcing the rest of us to sacrifice) contribute to saving the world. But just because you make a sacrifice to superstition doesn’t mean that your AGW deity is going to come through for you.
Nationally, A Comedy of Sciences
Every voodoo scientist hopes that his (her) paper will get forgotten in 20 years.
pe murph
you know, some years ago i briefed nas on a methodology, and felt real puffed up at the time. Now i get sick and want to throw-up whenever i see this kind of blindness, and so i remain silent and embarrassed about my past experience.
At first I thought the projection was ridiculous, but then I noticed some of the peak years. It looks like around 1915 there was a peak, another around 1943, and another around 1984. Their high end projection looks right in line with those three peaks, and thus seems plausible for at least a temporary sea level rise. If global warming accelerates, it could be even higher.
Willis agree with you. By the way did you ever look at my reply to your comment about methane and the article (Kasting et al -Photochemistry of methane in earth’s early atmosphere) for which you appear not to have your BS meter switch on. Click my name and go to replies.
Willis
You show very clearly the claimed consequences of “acceleration” in global warming.
As a reality check on the NRC, I see Roy Spencer finds:
Lucia Lilijgren shows similar results of 0.138 C/decade with a +2 sigma/ – 2 sigma range of [0.082, 0.193]:
Eyeballing Roy Spencer’s 4th order polynomial fit to ALL the satellite data since 1979, I would estimate that we are about to head down into a cooling period rather than accelerated warming. Other natural cycle dominated models with similar reduced warming or cooling trends are given by: Don Easterbrook, Nicola Scafetta, ; and Syun-Ichi Akasofu e.g. DOI: 10.4236/ns.2010.211149
From such evidence and pragmatic understanding of natural cycles, I’ll say the NRC’s “acceleration” is “Not Proven”, nor validated.
The right way to deal with this is to demonstrate there is a one-sided “catastrophic” projection, that isn’t occurring. It would be interesting to obtain all the projections from the IPCC, compare them to the actuality (which too is a problem), and then “adjust” the anomalies of the models. The cool thing is one can use the published works no matter what year the current year is. Provided, of course, there is a good thermometer recording today’s temps.
HR says:
June 23, 2012 at 5:53 pm
“Opps thats global.
California’s range is 4 to 30 centimeters, How does that look?”
Like a fifty percent chance of rain.
Once again though, now that it has been published, it will become another “fact” used by the warmistas.
HR, from looking at the graph, a 4 cm rise would fit in just fine. But to include a 30 cm rise in an estimation is ridiculous — as Willis’s graph so nicely shows. Well done Willis!
I wonder if anyone has any sound theories on why there seemed to be a steep rise in the 1870s and 1930s, why there was an actual significant drop from 1885 to 1905 and why the rise from 1995ish to 2012 has been almost nonexistent. It could be “natural random variation” but the general uniformity between 1940 and 2000 argues against such variations.
– MJM
Pathetic. A veritable trenbersty.
Willis, thanks for those pertinent comments.
From your side of the NE Pacific to my side of the SW Pacific, I, too have kicked around the water front since messing about in boats as a kid during WW2 and still a water front resident today.
During the war I had to stay with a relative who lived on Moreton Bay at Cleveland Point and in those days the king tides used to completely cover their land and their well needed a levy to keep out the salt water. That relative’s brother who was at the war then, is still alive and told me the other day that the current king tides are not as high nowadays and do not completely cover that land.
I have many benchmarks for king tides over long periods like this and I have yet to see evidence of visible sea level rise.
Another NAS epic fail. The devil is in the details. They have mistaken sea level rise for land subsidence. Were it me I’d quit my job in embarrassment, but it is San Francisco.
Are you sure that it isn’t 1.2 inches and the notoriously bad-at-numbers lamestream media didn’t just hose the reporting? HR (not me, H.R.) above found 4cm to 30cm posited, …hmmm.. which is very roughly 1.2 to 12 inches.
Looks like that gives the NAS plausible deniability and they can lay the alarmism on the reporters, knowing they will choose the sensational number over the boring, most likely number.
What is “remarkable” is the flattening during the recent global warming cycle. “THE HOTTEST DECADE ON THE RECORD” blah, blah. Thermal expansion, blah, blah.
Jokes aside, is there thermal expansion in the works? Pipeline?
[Formatting fixed. -w]
Occasionally some credulous fool will post a comment here claiming that ‘all of our professional societies [like the NAS] can’t be wrong’ about “carbon”, or climate change, or sea level rise.
They can and they are. The NAS and other professional organizations have been co-opted by dishonest activists. They have ulterior, self-serving motives for making these outrageous, anti-science statements.
The NAS knows damn well sea levels will not rise like they predicted here. They know it, and yet they lie through their teeth to the public. Apparently lying is now acceptable as long as it puts unearned money in their pockets, or advances their narrative, or sends them on all expense paid jaunts to conferences around the world.
The NAS made this bogus prediction with a straight face in order to get their fingers into our wallets. Remember this article the next time some fool says that all these professional organizations can’t be wrong. They are lying to the public to advance their agenda. It may not be an organized conspiracy, but it is a conspiracy with a wink and a nod, and an elbow to the ribs. They are lying to fleece the taxpaying public.
They can make the one-foot rise “happen”, Willis. All they have to do is:
1) do several “adjustments” to the 160 years of data, revising upward for the post-2000 data and, if they feel like it, downward for the pre-1980 data (just for good measure).
2) After producing a good “adjusted” data set, throw away the old data set and manufacture a big brouhaha so they can make it look like they lost it by accident. Put on a public display of crocodile tears to show how “devastated” they are that the old, raw data were lost. Simultaneously, dispatch a small army of commentators to repeatedly tell skeptical members of the public that there was no substantial difference between the two, so there’s “nothing to see here”.
3) as 2030 approaches, say: “Look at this chart! Our prediction came true. Our critics are saying we missed it, but they are only counting from 2012, when it is quite clear that our prediction applied retroactively to the period 2000-2030. That our critics cannot see this is further evidence of their unfitness to participate in a discussion about AGW.”
What do you think of the feasibility of this idea?
I’m sorry to say, with the current state of human incompetence, I think it stands a good chance of working.
RTF
The University Colorado at Boulder satellite derived global sea level data shows that since measurements began in 1993 there has been no acceleration in the rate of global sea level increase, that since 2002 the of rate of sea level increase has declined and that the total sea level increase to the year 2100 lies in the range of 7 to 16 inches. This empirical data is what should be relied upon by society not the pure conjecture provided by climate alarmists models.
The Netherlands has a long history of concern about the sea level. One of the things I noticed while visiting there several years ago were markers on canals and walls and such things showing high-water marks at various times stretching back hundreds of years. Some of those marks were a fair number of feet above where the waters ranged in recent decades.
– MJM
Hockey Stick on viagra!
No Willis it is not a joke. The authors of this alarmist pseudoscience garbage should be held to account. They must be outed as the ‘camera grabbers’ that they are and shunned by all academic organisations that claim to be scientific.
General public who falsely claim they have committed a serious crime are punished and often go to prison for wasting law inforcement time…. these pseudoscience criminals should also be punished.
The San Francisco tide gauge is probably reflecting, in part, subsidence or other factors, not climatic sea level changes. Nearby:
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/437.php
Alameda doesn’t show nearly as much change over their common period, as far as I can tell.
I can tell you right now that in 2030 the sea rise will be about 4 cm. However, CO2 levels will increase faster than expected. The warmists will take the rising CO2 as evidence of climate change and ignore that the ocean rise is smaller than what they predicted such a “devastating” rise in CO2 would do.
Hey, the same thing happened with Hansen and his paper.
algore better sell his $4M waterfront condo in San Francisco.
Reply: I wish this false factoid would die. Gore’s condo is not on the waterfront. It’s in SOMA, (South of Market), near The Financial District in a high rise building, the base of which is about 75 feet above sea level. ~ctm
Willis: To further confuse the issue, relative sea level is falling at Crescent City, CA:
http://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9419750
Minus 0.65 +/- 0.36 mm/year (minus 0.03 inch/year).
On the other hand, the California Ocean Protection Council at http://www.opc.ca.gov/
adopted by resolution on March 11, 2011
http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/OPC_SeaLevelRise_Resolution_Adopted031111.pdf
a table of future sea levels based on Vermeer & Rahmstorf*:
Year Average of models
2030 18 cm 7 inch
2050 36 cm 14 inch
2070 Low 59 cm 23 inch
2070 Medium 62 cm 24 inch
2070 High 69 cm 27 inch
2100 Low 101 cm 40 inch
2100 Medium 121 cm 47 inch
2100 High 140 cm 55 inch
If you dig deeper, you will find even more “projections” and inconsistencies. The ensemble of projections added to your figure would look like a bicycle handlebar tassel.
(*) Martin Vermeer and Stefan Rahmstorf, “Global sea level linked to global temperature”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print December 7, 2009; doi: 10.1073/pnas.0907765106.
michaeljmcfadden says:
June 23, 2012 at 6:45 pm Re: The Netherlands”
And your point was what?
John, the point about the Netherlands was that there didn’t seem to be any truly significant rise in sea level over the last several hundred years or there wouldn’t have been a long history of higher “high water marks.” HOWEVER… after making the comment I realized I was falling into the trap of confusing trends with aberrations. The high water marks probably involved flooding due to local weather conditions and could easily have been orders of magnitude above any gradual rise of a hundred or two centimeters. My fault!
– MJM
Sea level graph from 19th to 21st century:
http://www.climatedata.info/Impacts/Impacts/sealevels.html
Can see recent rise is little different from 1930 to 1960 during previous heating phase of the 60 year period PDO cycle. Sea rise unsurprisingly appears to be about 15 years (90° phase) lagged to PDO driven heating cycle. I’m actually surprised recent rises weren’t greater given massive rate of agricultural ground water abstraction since 1950′s, that apparently added about 0.8mm sea level rise per year, abstract:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL044571.shtml
If that 0.8mm/year groundwater contribution is correct then it suggests satellite era underlying glacial melt + thermosteric sea level rise might actually be lower than 1930-1960 which would be a bit inconvenient for the CO2 driven AGW story.
Time out — 4 to 30 centimeters? That’s not much more useful than “predicting” that the rise will be between 0 and 100 centimeters. How is that even a prediction? It’s like “predicting” that Obama will get between 20% and 80% of the popular vote in November. Gee, thanks for filling that in for us.
Does anyone want to bet that the rise WON’T be between 4 and 30 centimeters over the next 18 years? That’s a rate of rise ranging from a low of 2.22 millimeters per year to a high of 16.67 millimeters per year. That pretty much covers it, eh?
After having been wrong on so many “predictions,” maybe they want to just be sure to get one right.
“But Major Earthquake Could Cause Sudden Rise”
*************************************************************
As in a very minor tsunami. Big deal.
Willis,
Are you sure that NAS didn’t just mix up their allotted column space with their review of the adjusted positive feedback pointers in the regular consumption of Government subsidised Viagra ?/sarc
Thus they would be proud of the accuracy of your chart./sarc
The NAS was paid $500,000 by the state of California for that study, so of course they will report whatever the customer wants to hear.
The San Francisco Chronicle has published an incorrect graph on http://www.sfgate.com about the projected rises – see http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Global-sea-level-rise-could-hit-California-hard-3657131.php
Their top graph misrepresents the report’s high end global sea level rise as only 10cm by 2030, not 23 cm. A correct graph would look more like Willis’s graph above, and the ridiculousness of the top end projections that are grabbing headlines would be clear.
The NRC place a significant reliance on Climate Model projections for their estimates, see details in the report at http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13389&page=107
Willis,
I’m surprised that they claim an entire foot. Sure, after the flood subsides, there will be measurable rise- on the new coastline formerly known as the east bank of the San Andreas.
/s
If you take the the high value for the global rate of sea level rise (3mm/yr), in 18 yrs you get 54 mm or a little more than 2 inches. I’m scared.
@Robert Boyd How on earth is the sea level supposed to rise off the California coast exclusively? Has water decided to congregate there to the exclusion of the rest of the planet?
It’s all plate tectonics. You know it, I with a high school education know it, and even the NAS knows it. Might as well abandon the coast now rather than later.
It’s really “National Academy of Social Politics”?
Maybee someone wants to destroy the value of property along the coast and buy or confescate it up dirt cheap and later sell it with max profit?
Willis:
“It is also worth nothing that during the last couple of decades it has hardly risen at all.”
—–
Should be noting?
[Thanks, fixed. w.]
To translate the NAS release.: “The crisis must be studied, send grant money NOW!”
Seems everybody, even the water, wants to hang out on the California coast.
OMG! Look right now, the sea level is rising!
No, wait. It’s dropping.
There it goes again, it rising even higher than before… RUN!
Oh, that was close, it’s going back down now.
There! It’s rising again!
Whew, back down.
…
Last time I was in San Francisco was in early 1990. They had just managed to get the city functioning after large parts of it moved, and moved more than a foot, and in more than one direction. The Oakland side of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge shifted half a foot.
I was a little worried about another earthquake, but now I find that I should have been more worried about a sudden surge in the sea level, silly me.
Well the australian GOV’T believes the sea level will rise but they believe in anything they can put a tax on it
Another group ascribes it to political affiliation.
That’s OK, even good to make that point, as the left – right divide on AGW signifies something very significant, and it’s not that conservatives are idiots. En masse we have rejected the baloney. Only 19% of Repubs in a recent Pew poll believe in man-made gwarming, and now a poll finds that only 17% of conservative Canadians (voted for the Tories) “are concerned” about global warming. Why do conservatives reject it, while most liberals go along with it? From my previous comment:
It’s OK, and in fact desirable to trumpet the ideological divide, because it shows that this isn’t about science, and when we explain the basis of the divide as I just did, it makes the warmists look horrible. Further, the conservative bloc now is not going to fold, ever; it will only go stronger, especially as we work to point out the existence of this left – right divide. Nevertheless…we can expect those in the center and center left to start to move our way, soon.
MindBuilder says:
June 23, 2012 at 6:12 pm
I hardly think that NAS was talking about a temporary spike in sea level. After all, daily tides well exceed the scarey one foot rise.
You say:
“If global warming accelerates, it could be even higher.”
And where is the evidence of even the possibility of global warming accelerating considering the flat-lining global temperatures in this century? Is the possibility of a linear increase in global temperatures not evocative enough. Sorry to doubt, though. Now I recall Romm’s hypothesis of supercalifragilisticexponentialalidocious warming. I understand that it is really quite atrocious.
“I knew my blood pressure was in deep trouble.
When I finished my shower and got to my desk I saw that the very first story, above the fold, had the headline:
In 20 years, sea level off state to rise up to 1 foot
I figured that it was some rogue alarmist making the usual warnings of impending doom … but no, it was a report from the National Academy of Sciences.”
Actually nearly my first thought was excellent. For false doomsaying on anything, the cardinal rule is to set predictions far enough out that the inevitable mismatch with reality won’t be widely noticed until too late to matter. Of course, there is a balance between that and keeping timeframes soon enough to scare people, but usually the sweet spot is 2050 – 2100 A.D. (Thus, for example, most claims of activists for major CAGW effects are similar to the timeframes for most for their claims on topics as unrelated as imaginarily running out of soil or uranium, despite being totally different matters, in what is far from just coincidence; notice how we never suffer doom or run out of anything 190 years from now or 850 years from now, also never 4 or 9 years from now but rather more in the sweet spot of a few decades from now).
2032 A.D. is a sloppy choice here, too soon. Over time, guys like these can get increasingly isolated, self-reinforcing in groupthink, and, drunk on past success, be overconfident in their ability to get away with anything, leading to more sloppiness. (In a separate but related topic from current news, the IPCC’s switch towards grey literature of random claims made up by activist groups without even the pretense of peer review — which was a mediocre but partial moderator —, so they can make more extreme predictions, is going to backfire on them in the end).
Bookmark this claim, so to speak. Even before the full 20 years, like even a dozen years from now, it will be increasingly blatantly ludicrous, so it will be usable as a great illustration to attempt to break worship of the supposed trustworthy authority of groups with leadership corrupted by activists rising to the top and by the vested interests of the political class.
Unfortunately, they partially covered their rear ends by the range of scenarios, but still this is a good illustration. As both they and we know, it leads in practice to media reports like the “in 20 years, sea level off state to rise up to 1 foot” headline which can be used as examples in turn.
While they will try data “adjustments” as always, 1 foot is starting to get into the range where one can do photographic illustrations, such as of beaches before and after the time period, like this:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/lajolla18712b.gif?w=510&h=262
Moreover, at some point, people start to realize what they see with their own eyes, such as if they live by the shore for decades, does not match up.
The story is getting fairly little play and little discussion on the website. The Marin IJ had the story featured on its front page in bold headlines.
Here is a part of the article as published in today’s SF Chronicle. While it is unfortunate that the NAS put the story out the way it did, it seems the media did its usual hatchet job to make matters worse. But does anyone believe this stuff anymore?
“The report estimates that California’s sea-level rise south of Cape Mendocino could range between a mere 1.5 inches to a full foot by 2030; the rise could range between 4.5 inches and 2 feet by 2050 and between 16 inches and 4.5 feet by the start of the next century.
“However,” the report’s scientists warned, “an earthquake of magnitude 8 or larger in this region could cause sea level to rise suddenly by an additional meter (3 feet) or more” beyond those estimates.
The estimates of future sea-level rise are so broad, the scientists said, because of all the uncertainties and knowledge gaps involved in this kind of forecasting.
The sea-level forecast for California below Cape Mendocino is substantially higher than projections for Mendocino north along the coasts of Oregon and Washington because of the great differences in the nature of the Earth’s crust between the two regions, the scientists noted.”
That is the SF Chron website as mentioned above…
The list of professors at the end reminds of Rahmstorf’s sea level paper, perhaps one of the worst papers ever in climate since, but coauthored by who-is-who in climate science. It remains completely obscure what any of the coauthors contributed except their names.
It also reminds me of other “critiques” well covered in the climategate emails.
Those critiques were incredibly bad in content but impressive in underwriters and climategate exposes nicely how they had been organized and produced.
In one instance Rahmstorf formed a group to trash Shaviv’s cosmic ray paper. How do you find such prominent coauthors in climate science ? Well, you start with politics, of course.
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/1981.txt
Geologists guesstimate this stuff all the time usually while arm waving over a coffee or beer, perhaps more then a few, most of us are careful not to publish those guesstimates. They are surely wrong and likely to bite you.
HR: How does the full range look on your graph?
It looks like this.
H.R. wrote, “Looks like that gives the NAS plausible deniability and they can lay the alarmism on the reporters, knowing they will choose the sensational number over the boring, most likely number.”
Yep. Same game I’ve seen played for years by the Antismokers… ALL the time. “Smoke levels in an automobile can be 72x those measured in a bar.” Of course they don’t mention that it’s four experimental chain smokers in the car with the windows rolled up versus a tavern with no one in it. The propaganda tools are always the same it seems: until visiting WUWT I hadn’t realized just how true that is. ::sigh:: Remember the commercials with the little girl standing on the train tracks and the big evil Global Warming Train rushing to hit her? “Save The Children” — always effective as a propaganda tool.
A problem the Warmers have though is that they lack a truly unified bad guy. If it was ONLY “Big Coal” or “Big Oil” or “Big Auto” they’d have a better shot at slamming down the skeptics as simply being the “front groups, friends and allies” of The Single Great Evil. As it is, they can’t dismiss you that easily, though they DO try to play the “corporate funding blame game” when a group when groups like Heartland speak up.
The basic propaganda tools for manipulation of public opinion work all the time.
– MJM
Tragedy indeed! The more one delves into climate history, the more apparent it becomes that it is incredibly important to learn what really happened in the YD, what really happened in the ridiculous isotopic excursions, what really caused the extinctions…
These ideologues are wasting bandwidth and resources.
Whatever, historically real science has not been conducted by government employees. We will just have to figure it out ourselves.
David Pridgen says:
June 23, 2012 at 7:41 pm
The NAS was paid $500,000 by the state of California for that study, so of course they will report whatever the customer wants to hear.
————-
Where did the California get a half-a-million dollars?
What dummy would loan them money?
Oh yeah, me the taxpayer.
If any one is interested you can download the report at the link. In the report, first 10 pages you can see who was on the committee and that Peter Gleick was one of the reviewers. Other fervent AGW promoters litter the list of panel members and reviewers. Link: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13389
One can register as a guest and give any email address to allow for the download. The data and the stats and the equations are supposedly available for outside checking.
I mean seriously, folks … is there anyone out there who actually believes that the sea level rise shown in Figure 2 will actually happen by 2030? Well, they believe it over at the National Academy of Sciences.
Do they actually believe it, or are they parrotting the party line to keep their jobs? Given the present political climate in the government sector, speaking out is hazardous to your continued employability.
Chao, Yu, and Li published a global sea level curve (Science, April 11th, 2008) corrected for water held in storage by all dams built since the year 1900. They found that this correction made the curve linear for more than 80 years, with a slope of 2.46 mm/year. That is 24.6 cm/century, or a little under ten inches. In my opinion something that has been linear this long is not about to change anytime soon, hence that is the most likely sea level rise to expect. It is safe to say that the NAS projection of five feet per century is just as unreal as Al Gore’s twenty feet per century, and both are nothing more than products of the pseudoscience that goes by the name of climate science today.
Bill Tuttle says:
“Do they actually believe it, or are they parrotting the party line to keep their jobs?”
They are parroting the Party line to keep their jobs. Simple as that. They are not fools. We would probably do the same, because we have the same priorities: our families come before government propaganda. Thus, the government’s Elmer Gantrys have learned how to game the system.
We get the straight skinny from retired scientists, who can speak out without fear of retribution. And the retired scientists overwhelmingly disagree with this NAS crapola. Just ask them.
http://www.thedailybell.com/4014/Leading-Global-Warming-Advocate-Recants-Models-Fail-Dramatically-
The ‘plot’ is not the only thing they are losing. Another one has jumped ship. Apologies if noted before.
regards from steamy, wet Zhuhai.
Willis,
Around 1988, the spike appears to be about 7 inches of sea level rise – that itself seems quite amazing. What might have caused such an aberration, some local phenomenon – or maybe a screwed up gauge . . .? I don’t see any ‘jump’ like that on other sea level charts . . ? Any info you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks
Curiousgeorge says:
June 23, 2012 at 7:31 pm
As in a very minor tsunami. Big deal.
True, but remember that some of those crust blocks also rotate as they slide past each other. The right quake can cause a permanent rise or fall. Tsunami… the potential is not quite as phenomenal as TLC/DSC programs make them out to be. Up on the Cascadia, yeah, but not down in SoCal.
Well, they believe it over at the National Academy of Sciences.
The cottage industry should be in investigating why and how groups respond to challenges to their core beliefs, assumptions and conclusions. With climate science as the chosen field of study.
Having been an iconoclast in the past, I can tell you the pattern is, emotional (and intellectually flawed) attacks on the dissenter, circling of the wagons, making sure all the group participate in the defence, and ostracism of the dissenter. This can and does extend to getting the dissenter dismissed from their position if the group has the power.
The original point of academic tenure was to protect the individual from this and allow them to be an iconoclast.
Here is a graph of the average of the 10 tide gauges on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada with near continuous monthly data from 1973 through 2011.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Sea_Level_Canada_West.jpg
from
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Sea_Level
The black line is the linear best fit to the data. Over the period 1973 to 2011 the average sea level has declined at 0.5 mm/year.
British Columbia consumers are subject to a carbon tax that increases every year. Any warming would be of great benefit to Canadians, but the carbon tax is in place because of fear over sea level rise, which is actually falling. Almost no one knows that the tide gauges show falling sea levels. Most of the coast has steep slopes, so a sea level rise would have no consequence. The land area of river deltas are growing due to sediments being deposited.
Well … it looks like this: A most excellent graphic display, Willis! That is what I think of every time we have these predictions that keep getting delayed, implying the slope to get to the peak of catastrophe within the specified time frame, is ever steeper and ever the more unlikely.
“I mean seriously, folks … is there anyone out there who actually believes that the sea level rise shown in Figure 2 will actually happen by 2030? Well, they believe it over at the National Academy of Sciences.”
Chemistry and physics are still intact, as is mathematics. No, they didn’t speak out against AGW. They were busy. That’s my read on it. New kids on the block are figuring out graphene and crazy cool stem cell culture media (shout out to biology too). They weren’t pacifists. Just dorks.
time to wage a bet? why don’t we do it collectively, pool a considerable amount and see if any among the Learned is willing to stick to their claims?
a bet like “$1M sea level in SF won’t rise by more than 10cm by 2030”.
We all know that models can NEVER be wrong.
That’s why the problems with the San Onofre reactor heat exchangers can not be real.
The models said they would be fine.
And models are never wrong.
…well, the Los Angeles Kings DID win Lord Stanley’s Cup this year, so now they have an official hockey stick to go with it!
@WIllis:
Like the graph, nicely done…
BTW, over on the v1 vs v3 thread somone left a comment aimed at you.
Does anyone have a record of the LAND rise / fall at San Francisco? We can have feet of uplift of subsidence in any one earthquake.
Then there is that small issue that 30 years ago, everyone was all upset because the bay was going away… Honest! (I’ll bet you remember….) Large chunks of the present bay coastline used to be dozens of yards out “to sea”… Heck, go down to th “Port Of Alviso” that is now a large reed bed / marsh on the way to becoming a meadow…
How quickly folks forget… It was just a couple of decades back that Government Money was spent putting in nice new docks and facilities. Now basically landlocked. You’d think with all the “sea level rise” it would be getting wetter, not dryer…
IIRC, the quake that caused the Tsunami in Indonesia moved the sea bed by about 9 FEET or 3 METERS. Similar subduction bending / release happens all around the Pacific. It is the notion that the land is constant elevation or that the sea bottom volume is a constant that is broken. It’s all dynamic.
Oh Well…
I have this pet muse, that in the ancient times you got power and money by being a cleric of rank in a strong religion, then time passed and you got money and power in modern times by having a college degree (while religion fell out of favor) so a whole lot of folks with the right attitudes to be Priests or Bishops or Cardinals instead went into science majors… but didn’t have the non-advocate mindset that it takes…. Time passes and we’ve now got a flood of the Post Normal folks with a need to “make a difference” and not a lot of real interest in the drudge work of analysis So we get that kind of “Advocacy Press Release” that passes for science, but is more like a religion…
Amazing, satellite gps has been taking sea level measurements since 1992, and on the graph is when the rise flatlined then dropped. SF tide gauge is on a wooden pier in shallow water near a sandbar just east of the Golden Gate bridge in the Presidio.
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/sea_level.html
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&gs_mss=presidio+fil&pq=presidio+land+fill&cp=13&gs_id=118&xhr=t&q=presidio+fill&aq=f&aqi=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1280&bih=879&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
Some report that sea level along the bay have dropped since 1980.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/us/06bcshort.html?_r=1
Before 1980 gps was not available to determine if sea level rise or fall was a result of land deformation. SF is known for sinking in places at certain times for various reasons.
This all leaves me to wonder just how much actual sea level rise since 1850 really has taken place, if any, and whether there has been some adjusting going on in later years to create the appearance of a rise.
Citation:
” For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projected that sea level will rise 4 to 30 centimeters by 2030, 12 to 61 centimeters by 2050, and 42 to 167 centimeters by 2100. For the Washington, Oregon, and California coast north of Cape Mendocino, sea level is projected to change between FALLING 4 centimeters to rising 23 centimeters by 2030, FALLING 3 centimeters to rising 48 centimeters by 2050, and rising between 10 to 143 centimeters by 2100. The committee noted that as the projection period lengthens, uncertainties, and thus ranges, increase. ”
What is your problem with that? NAS predicts FALLING sea-levels in CA.
NAS calls EARTHQUAKES – not AGW! – the main cause for the possible sea level change in CA.
May be read the press release before criticizing it?
@Chuck Nolan. Where did the California get a half-a-million dollars?
CA says: when in doubt, spend, and spend some more. There’s no end to CA lunacy, as sales taxes are already through the roof, and now they’re asking to raise it higher still, and, just to reinforce their reputation as the most anti-business / anti-success state, slap the “rich” job-creators with additional punitive taxes. Probably 75% of CA’s spending could be just slashed right off the barrel, as the public unions are taking dollars by the truckload, and the mess of inane govt agencies just spends $ like it’s water. Here’s a list of CA agencies, it’s insane (remember, we also have federal agencies, and local govt, this is just CA state): http://www.centerforsmallgovernment.com/small-government-news/california-state-government-agencies/
There’s an initiative to raise taxes further that is being put to a public vote. It’s time the public stands up and says “enough is enough,” they can’t threaten funding for public schools if they don’t get more taxes; instead, just go to the link that I provided, and cut out half those agencies, or the bloated unaccountable funding for them, and cut the public unions.
Surely they are educated enough to see that San Francisco is no use anyway as a global indicator. It sits in a narrow strait hence the bridge even us Brits have heard of, so the sea level will rise and fall considerably more than the natural amount based on long term current shifts and wind patterns. This is made worse by the fact it sits in a very broad bay that will also funnel sea levels to exaggerate them.
This effect can be seen in the UK quite spectacularly in the river Severn for tidal changes but happens just the same in its quiet way wherever there is that format of shoreline. It was just this sort of effect of wind patterns through the narrowing of the English channel on top of the tidal range that caused the 1953 floods in East Anglia to be abnormally severe.
there are A LOT of people out there not believing anything they teach in colleges. They mostly stay quiet unfortunately.
This is hardly surprising given one of our customer’s engineering computer modelling groups was staffed almost entirely with a group of ex climate scientists who could not get funding because they did not toe the AGW line. They dared to point out that the error was twice the so called warming figure and that the sea anomaly plots showed clearly that hot spots popped up and dissipated in a way totally inconsistent with AGW theories. Seeing the NASA quicktime movies since 2002 when they first put froward the idea makes their earlier work seem so obviously worth serious study one wonders about the integrity of those that persist in pushing AGW now.
Omno, good idea on the bet, but I can tell you from long experience you’ll get no takers. I’ve got at least 20 public challenges out on the web and in newspapers letters columns to various officials, legislators, and antismoking groups to legally put their pocketbooks where their mouths are when they get bans passed with promises of “no economic harms.”
The main activists and researchers in both areas who believe that they are working “for the greater good” know they’re lying and don’t feel a single twinge of conscience about it because they believe the end justifies the means. That’s why it’s never worth wasting energy trying to change their minds: your main appeal always has to be to the mass of “passersby” — those who have simply taken their opinions from the “facts” presented by the media on the issue without having examined the question of the motivation behind or the solidity of the underpinnings of those “facts.”
The key is in finding the simplest and most blatant of their lies and concentrating on exposing just those weak spots: things like Willis did above in his graph of the Hockey Stick On Steroids: an uneducated “passerby” may not know much about math, stats, or climate science, but he or she can see there’s obviously something wrong with that prediction when it produces a curve like that.
That’s also what Crichton did in “State of Fear” and what I’ve done in some of my simpler writings. People always tend to be highly impressed by “the established authorities” and in awe of their “science.” They’re also aware that they themselves don’t really know enough to challenge the established science. Sooo… they generally go with “the authorities” because it’s a safer bet than going with the skeptics. The only way to knock them out of that birdhouse is to throw such rock-solid rocks at them that they can’t deny their reality.
As soon as you make arguments that go much above high school level you’ll lose most people simply because they’ll feel they’re not competent to make a judgment on such information. And, knowing that they lack that competence, they just stick with what’s safe.
– MJM
Who, particularly, is responsible for NAS losing the plot?
Matt says:
June 23, 2012 at 6:54 pm
You are right. The Old Media just reported that “Climate Change is progressing even faster than we thought” because of higher CO2 emissions from China, which doesn’t make sense, because the right conclusion would obviously have been that climate sensitivity is even lower than anybody estimated.
So, the journalists of the Old Media do not understant causality; which way it goes; how it relates to correlation or to probability or to error bars and the scientists in the institutions know this and exploit it, seeding the predictable alarmist headlines by including some unlikely number.
Willis, I am going to plagiarise this line: “It is a tragedy because in an uncertain time, science should be our pole star, the one fixed thing in a spinning sky … but instead, it has become a joke, and that is a tragedy indeed.”
It is a beauty.
alex says:
June 23, 2012 at 11:58 pm
What is your problem with that? NAS predicts FALLING sea-levels in CA.
Sorry, your emphasis was on the wrong part of each phrase. Corrected for emphasis:
“For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projected that sea level will rise 4 to 30 centimeters by 2030, 12 to 61 centimeters by 2050, and 42 to 167 centimeters by 2100. For the Washington, Oregon, and California coast north of Cape Mendocino, sea level is projected to change [from] falling 4 centimeters to rising 23 centimeters by 2030, [change from] falling 3 centimeters to rising 48 centimeters by 2050, and rising between 10 to 143 centimeters by 2100. The committee noted that as the projection period lengthens, uncertainties, and thus ranges, increase.”
%$#@! Used “you’re” for “your” in the final edit.
That’s what I get for commenting before I’ve finished my third pot of coffee…
[Fixed. -w.]
It is important to read claims carefully, especially in newspapers. What is being claimed here?
“In 20 years, sea level off state to rise up to 1 foot”
The key words here, cleverly hidden in this headline, are ‘up to’.
And so, omnologos, if you choose to wager a bet, you are going to lose. Unless of course, by some miracle, the sea level rise actually exceeds 1 foot. When looking at predictions of climate catastrophe always look out for ‘could be’, ‘might be’, ‘may be’ and in this case ‘up to’. Often what is claimed is simply not testable and therefore worthless.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 23, 2012 at 11:26 pm
…well, the Los Angeles Kings DID win Lord Stanley’s Cup this year, so now they have an official hockey stick to go with it!
…and by checking the rings on the Tartarean treemometers, we can confirm that hell has indeed frozen over…
OH ffs. It says 4cm to 30cm. I’m betting that they will be right, it will rise between 4 & 30cm.
It turns out that Florida is utterly doomed.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/22/2864586/rising-seas-mean-shrinking-south.html#morer
I read a manuscript recently in which the author claims tautologically that their ‘approach was consistent with “evidence-based science.” Is the NAS projection of sea level rise based on ‘political science’?
Assume a spherical cow……well, assume the globe is warming. Some of the extra moisture in the air will find its way to Antarctica where irregardless of how much the globe warms, the place is still well below freezing. That moisture will get trapped there as ice, literally forever removed from the equation.
Global sea level fall.
OH ffs. It says 4cm to 30cm. I’m betting that they will be right, it will rise between 4 & 30cm.
If a politician comes out and says a war might result in “up to” a million deaths and the actual death toll is 2, do you give them a free pass too? Of course not.
The 30 cm part is bogus, and they know it. It’s there because it allows a calculated escalation:
1. Predict a range with ridiculously extreme high end,
2. Apply the “Precautionary Principle”, which says we must take the extreme value seriously,
3. Protest and otherwise apply moral force to a, supposedly scientific, argument
4. Enact legislation to do whatever you wanted to do in the first place, but couldn’t justify otherwise.
Incidentally, they may be wrong about the 4 cm. Odds are it won’t even make that.
There was an article here a week or two ago about the gradual loss of atmosheric pressure by the earth. Could the gradual rise of sea level be connected with this loss of pressure?
Water is essentially incompressible and so no. The variations in atmospheric pressure push the water around but overall don’t cause change in global sea level.
If subsidence is at work, and it is leveling off, I wonder if that was the shape of the graph leading into 1906? Willis’ graph might be right, but too smooth?
For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projected that sea level will rise 4 to 30 centimeters by 2030.”.
And that’s relative to 2000 levels. The committee spawned by California Executive Order S-13-08 is playing entirely on the safe side. In other words they say sea level rise there can be as small as 40 mm there in 30 years. That’s 1.3 mm/year, a reasonable estimate. Their upper bound (10 mm/year) is of course ridiculous, especially because there is only 18 years left until 2030 and sea level has not risen there in the last 12 years. So for the rest of the period it would mean some 17 mm/year, which is a preposterous exaggeration at best. It is clearly meant for the press release only.
But their error bounds are so large they can’t possibly be wrong, can they? Probably some younger members of that committee do not expect to finish their career and retire by 2030, so they had to come to a compromise.
30 centimeters is 12 inches which is also a foot.
Good thinking Willis. – How these people can blame “Sea level behaviour” on human behaviour is far beyond my comprehension. But then again it is obvious to me that those who are always obsessed by averages are necessarily always ignoring whatever lies above and below what I call, “The Zero Line” (TZL). –
There are places in the world which as a result of recovering from the last “Ice Age”, are to this day still rising up further out of the sea, i.e. the heavy blanket of ice that once weighted them down has vanished. A certain island on the Baltic coast of Sweden has a coastline that is some 300 meters below where it was some 9600 years ago.
Well, that may be just one extreme, but sea levels around the Scandinavian coasts are not shown to be rising.
However, one may say the displacement of water which must take place as the land rises may be miniscule in the grand scheme of things or in most scientists’ minds – but no land can rise out of the sea without taking the bottom of the ocean in which it is located with it.
So, – where are all the sea-level gauges traditionally placed? – Close to the coast I should imagine, as they must be connected to the sea floor as well as the sea surface to be of any use at all, but whether the sea surface is rising or the ocean floor is sinking is probably a bit “tricky” to establish. – And I must admit I do not know how they do it – and keep track over many (100 or more?) years.
Some years ago we all knew that the Maldives and other islands in that particular volcanic Pacific Island group were sinking. They even had worked out the “Life-span” of those islands from their formation to their demise – and re-formation.
“Not only is it a joke, it’s a joke that doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
NIce piece, but it would be more effective if it were better written. You could use an editor,
What the hell has happened to the NAS?
[Lunatic ravings should be posted at RealClimate or at Tamina’s blog, not here. Thanx, ~dbs, mod.]
The temperature in London tomorrow will be between 4 and 30c. Remember to wrap up warm and only wear a T-shirt. Worthless gripe.
Pacific and Water! Has PG gone and put his foot in it again?
Re my previous posting on June 24, 2012 at 5:40 am: – I was not trying to place the Maldives in the Pacific Ocean. I was merely trying to liken their situation in the Indian Ocean to other volcanic islands in the Pacific. – Clumsily done, I must admit. – Should have “Proof-read” more slowly before posting.
To my chagrin, I must have lost my sense of humor. I find nothing funny or amusing about deliberate manipulation, propaganda and disinformation. Who does the National Academy of Sciences really think they are serving? Perhaps if they would just change their name to the National Academy of Social Engineering and Agendas… I would be amused. GK
Uh oh. A Mann and his hockey stick.
Hah! But they have their hockey stick. Box 2.1 on page 26 unprecedented sea-evel rise.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13389&page=26
Well, the closest PSMSL tide gauge along The California coast line south of Cape Mendocino is Arena Cove.
Station ID: 2125
Latitude: 38.913333
Longitude: -123.706667
Coastline code: 823
Station code: 26
Country: UNITED STATES
Time span of data: 1978 – 2011
Completeness (%): 76
Frequency Code: Not Specified
Date of last update: 07 Mar 2012
The dataset for this station is complete between November 1990 and December 2011 (that’s 21 years and 2 months).
In the last 21 full years (between January 1991 and December 2011) average rate of sea level change is -1.56 mm/year there, that is, sea level is dropping (by 32.8 mm in 21 years).
Since January 2000 it is rising indeed, at an astounding rate of 0.82 mm/year (which is 9.83 mm in 12 years).
So. Even for their lower bound (40 mm rise from 2000 to 2030) to come true, in the next 18 years it should rise by 30 mm there, and that’s double the current rate.
Willis – I just took another look at your sea level curve in San Francisco and realized that it shows a distinct trace of the ENSO oscillation. Those zigzags are spaced about five years apart and correspond to El Nino peaks. They are not totally regularly spaced but the approximately five year spacing recurs after irregularities. The amplitude is mostly two to three inches except for the 1983 El Nino that goes to six inches. That one was unusual in other ways too because it slammed into South America with enough momentum to change the LOD.
Thanks: interesting article. Just to confirm: which way did NAS deal with GIA adjustment in their alarmist projection – is it actually worse than we thought… 🙂
You know, I really believe Dwight Eisenhower was ahead of his time. A few of his quotes:
“public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite”;
“whatever America hopes to bring to pass in this world must first come to pass in the heart of America”;
but thankfully (as concerns the UN eyeing up world government and agenda 21)
“No treaty or international agreement can contravene the Constitution”.
Lanks anger is rising too says:
June 23, 2012 at 6:51 pm
No Willis it is not a joke. The authors of this alarmist pseudoscience garbage should be held to account.
Absolutely. We need folks with PhDs to start writing letters to the Universities where this garbage is created. Name the individuals which in this case appear to be:
Robert Dalrymple, committee chair and Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University
We need to make them feel ridiculous. We need them to look like idiots. Only then will this nonsense stop. We need something like the surface station project where these kind of activities can be reported and a team of skeptical scientists can demonstrate to the Dean’s of the various schools just how silly their department looks.
Willis: probably a stupid question, allow me to ask it anyway: does the recorded rise in sea level at San Francisco since 1850 have anything to do with the enormous amount of infilling of the Bay over that period of time?
“For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projected that sea level will rise 4 to 30 centimeters by 2030, 12 to 61 centimeters by 2050, and 42 to 167 centimeters by 2100.”
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=13389
It looks like Mr. Eschenbach only reads titles of newspapers and draws conclusions from that. Has he actually read the full report?
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13389&page=1
“It is also worth noting that during the last couple of decades it has hardly risen at all.”
Are you serious!
Have you also noticed that between 1960 and 1980 sea level has hardly risen at all or between 1910 and 1930? While the 1930s were also very warm in the US. Record warm even.
Your remark about the last decades mean nothing.
Do you see any trend at Huntinton Beach for example? http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.monthly.plots/766_high.png
nevket240 says:
June 23, 2012 at 10:01 pm
http://www.thedailybell.com/4014/Leading-Global-Warming-Advocate-Recants-Models-Fail-Dramatically-
The ‘plot’ is not the only thing they are losing. Another one has jumped ship.
==============
It appears that Gavin has also jumped ship and now has apparently announced on RC that regional climate is “strongly stochastic” (random) on time scales of 21 years or less.
This all seems very confusing to me. If regional climate is a coin toss (random) then why spend billions in taxpayer money on regional climate models? A simple coin will do just as well, for a whole lot less money. I’ll happily donate the coin for 1/2 the savings to the taxpayer.
Also, if regional climate is a coin toss (random) then why use gridding to fill in missing temperatures in regions like the Arctic? A random value cannot be predicted by surrounding values, so it follows that regional temperatures cannot be predicted by surrounding temperatures.
It all seems very strange to me. If regional climate is random, then why are we spending so much money trying to predict it? If regional climate is random, why are we pretending that we can predict missing values from known values?
Gavin writes
“The basic issue is that for short time scales (in this case 1979-2000), grid point temperature trends are not a strong function of the forcings – rather they are a function of the (unique realisation of) internal variability and are thus strongly stochastic”
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
NAS ‘climate scientist’ 1:
“Golly! Look at this graph I’ve just made, the projected sea level rise is going to be taller than the Golden Gate bridge towers!”
NAS ‘climate scientist’ 2:
“Wow! You’re right! We’d better get the word out to the general public. I’ll speak to our media/alarm/hype department…”
NAS ‘climate scientist’ 1:
“Good idea. Wait, its worth than we thought! Following my greater in-depth investigation of this graph, including a quick model I’ve just vaguely programmed, and given my far greater knowledge than the average ‘oik’ in the street, I conclude that the bridge tower at the far end is smaller than the tower at the near end. Which means it is sinking, which means the sea level rise is going to get much worse much sooner!”
NAS ‘climate scientist’ 2:
“OMG! You is well clever innit. I’ll make sure the media/alarm/hype department make due emphasis according to our scientific authority!”
Willis, having spent a good part of my life wearing a white coat, I am more than a little confident that these authors don’t use them.
It is probably more accurate to say they “should be wearing white coats”. The sort of white coats that have straps, not regular sleeves.
“We need folks with PhDs to start writing letters to the Universities where this garbage is created.”
That probably won’t happen. Few in the cradle of academia want to rock the boat. In the current environment in many disciplines the objective it to be published; the content is secondary. In my discipline, economics, the Council of Economic Advisors has consistently embarassed itself in the past three years or more, yet they still have their jobs in academia when their stint in the real world proves too difficult.
In another context, I can recall about twenty years ago when there was a call for the elimination of the Ed.D. degree on the grounds that there was little content in whatever research it produced. That didn’t happen either.
Willis,
What does your daughter think will happen to sea level rise? Does she believe in CAGW?
In the UK, the Royal Society has become almost exclusively funded by the govt in recent years. At the same time senior management salaries have rocketed.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/royal-society-funding/
Is the NAS funded in the same way?
I feel very confident in the following forecast.
Recent research has revealed a much more accurate range to report the sea level change by year 2030. Converted to inches the range would be from minus 3 feet to a positive 9 feet. The probability of this forecast being correct is 95%.
Standard post modern scientific principles were followed. I used the shadow of cloth ribbon attached to a clothesline and marked end of shadow at random times while wind was blowing at various speeds from various directions at various times of the day. This spanned three solar cycles. It was peer reviewed by some of my neighbors who determined the method and results were as good as any others. They are members of a non-profit group and were unanimous in their decision. The results were presented at the meeting of BEER (Believing Every Environmental Report) at the Igloo where the ice was showing obvious signs of rapid melt. As the ice melted the water level rose to the extent that no more beer was placed in the Igloo cooler.
This rapid ice loss is also being observed in Rio at this very moment. It has influenced the decisions and views of the participants there and proves the theory of rapid ice loss and rising water levels.
Some skepics are saying that other factors may be involved and this is all a bunch of bullshit. More research is needed.
California is soooo special.
Actually, I don’t know whether anyone else has noticed, but there has been a similar propaganda attempt on all the States, individually. It is a change in tactics by the Warmists. They have lost the national battle so they are attempting to attempt to relate the same on a local basis, usually with ridiculous claims. This harkens back to the flooded Manhattan gambit, but now is localized. Here in Honolulu for example, up to a 6.2 foot rise is predicted by the end of the century. Yup. The Warmists can boundary the rise within 3″. In reality, Hawaii like California, is in a constant state of geologic flux, the influence of which is way more forceful than the current pitiful sea level variations. Over the last 10 thousand years the islands have been in a constant state of rising or falling, and that time period is just the observable and accurately measurable period.
These people are frauds.
The press release says that the report is from the National Research Council, which I hope is not the same thing. However, the organizations do have the same “media relations” organization, which is ominous.
It looks like Mr. Eschenbach only reads titles of newspapers and draws conclusions from that. Has he actually read the full report?
Good question. Another point apparently missed is that the predictions are relative to 2000 not today’s date. According to the PSML source Willis used for his graph, sea levels have risen by 3.6cm at San Francisco since 2000. So the NAS are actually projecting a further rise of between 1 and 26cm, some of which is due to the vertical movement of the land, rather than pure SLR.
The projections for California, Oregon, and Washington are illustrated in Figure S.1. The
steep change in projected sea-level rise at Cape Mendocino reflects the transition from land
subsidence in California, which effectively increases sea-level rise, to land uplift in Oregon and Washington, which effectively decreases sea-level rise. The slight slope in the projection curves from north to south reflects the sea-level fingerprints, which lower relative sea level, especially along the Washington coast. For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projects that sea level will rise 4–30 cm by 2030 relative to 2000
REPLY: Mr. Clarke, being his usual CAGW apologist self, totally misses the fact that the issue is ALL ABOUT the headline…which most people with a newspaper read, but don’t read the full article. Hence, his embodiment of concern is worthless in this case. This story is an AP story, carried by hundreds of newspapers, and the headline is the issue whether he likes it or not. As for the rest of his assertions, see Willis reply below.
I still think Mr. Clarke is in the employ on an NGO as a paid blog monitor – Anthony
Tad says:
June 24, 2012 at 9:09 am
Willis,
What does your daughter think will happen to sea level rise? Does she believe in CAGW?
—–
I suspect she’ll be spending many years enjoying the same beach her father has.
Science itself is indeed the chief casualty of the climate business. Few except the committed pay any attention to the Mandarins in the NAS and many societies who continue to beat the alarmist drum. They speak as ex cathedra as any Pope but lack either scientific or moral authority.
alex says:
June 23, 2012 at 11:58 pm
I not only read the press release, I read the relevant part of the paper. Let me point out the crucial line in your quotation above:
Since San Francisco, as well as nearly 90% of the California coast, is south of Cape Mendocino, for the overwhelming majority of the state the NAS is not predicting “FALLING sea-levels” as you claim. Why do you think my local newspaper had the headline it did? Maybe you should try reading what you are quoting before criticizing me …
w.
PS—No, the NAS doesn’t say that “EARTHQUAKES – not AGW! – the main cause for the possible sea level change in CA”. From the press release (emphasis mine):
and the paper itself says:
In other words they are saying that global warming will be the cause of their laughable prediction of 30 cm of rise by 2030 and 60 cm by 2050 south of Cape Mendocino, but that an earthquake could make it rise an additional meter or more.
To quote an acquaintance of mine … “May be read the press release” before making unsupportable claims …
David Cage says:
June 24, 2012 at 12:35 am
Folks, we have pretty good data out there in the world about the sea levels. To make it easy to find, I gave a link above to where it is located, at the Permanent Service for the Mean Sea Level.
So before uncapping your electronic pen and making yourself look foolish, RUN THE NUMBERS! The results from the San Francisco sea level measurements are in no way anomalous or significantly different from the other sea level measuring stations along the California coast. The long-term changes in sea level in the mouth of San Francisco bay doesn’t differ appreciably from other coastal stations. Here’s San Francisco compared to the two nearest open-ocean stations, for the period of overlap of the three records:
In other words, David, your claim is based solely on your imagination. Do your homework, folks, imagination is not a sufficient basis for scientific claims.
w.
PS—Plus, I’m a commercial fisherman and a sailor who has spent years at sea in these very waters … do you think I don’t know the tide, current, and sea level patterns here as well as you folks know the weather in your home towns?
David Archibald says:
June 24, 2012 at 1:48 am
Thanks, David. I love to see people take my words and run with them. I cast them on the electronic winds in the hope that people will plagiarize them.
w.
Mooloo says:
June 24, 2012 at 4:07 am
That one at least is feasible, the sea level has risen that fast or faster a number of times in the past.
w.
pokerguy says:
June 24, 2012 at 5:40 am
This from someone who ends a sentence with a comma??
Pokerguy, one thing I’ve learned in my years of writing for the web is that some folks will love my style and wordsmithing, and some folks will hate it. However, I get on the order of a million page views of my work per year, so I just ignore both ends of the spectrum.
w.
G. Karst says:
June 24, 2012 at 6:37 am
As I said, it’s a joke, and it is also a tragedy, so I can only agree with you.
w.
And it goes even further:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nclimate1584.pdf
“Limiting warming to these levels with a probability larger than 50% produces 75–80 cm SLR above the year 2000 by 2100. This is 25 cm below a scenario with unmitigated emissions, but 15 cm above a hypothetical scenario reducing global emissions to zero by 2016.”
And what about the really longterm impacts beyond 2100? Read what the paper has to say about it.
theduke says:
June 24, 2012 at 8:09 am
Duke, my theory is that the only stupid questions are the ones you don’t ask …
In this case, no, the infilling would not change the local sea level. The mouth of the Bay at the Golden Gate is both wide and deep, so it would make no difference, the connection to the open ocean is too great.
w.
Mr. Clarke, being his usual CAGW apologist self, totally misses the fact that the issue is ALL ABOUT the headline…
I see. Interesting then that this piece is headlined NAS loses the plot. NOT Local newspaper loses the plot. which it ought to be, by that logic.
The newspaper headline was indeed inaccurate – hardly an remarkable occurance – but Willis’s animadversions are pretty much all directed at the NAS.
Robbie says:
June 24, 2012 at 8:21 am
Robbie, perhaps if you left the vitriol out of your missives you might be calm enough to actually make your point. It is totally unclear what it is in my analysis that you are objecting to.
w.
PS—Yes, I’m serious. Thanks for asking …
michael hart says:
June 24, 2012 at 8:50 am
True on all counts, and well said besides.
w.
Sort of refreshing, actually. Eyeballing the graph it looks to me as though the National Academy of Sciences is predicting an extremely steep rise within the next fifteen years. I like it when people predict stuff; that’s what it’s all about, since the science is settled, right?
Lets see how that turns out.
Phil Clarke says:
June 24, 2012 at 10:50 am
Gosh, Phil, you are right. I did miss that detail. So here is the revised graph:
Feel better now? Does that rise suddenly look feasible to you?
Do your homework before declaring victory, Phil, you’ll get a whole lot more traction if you do.
w.
Robbie says:
June 24, 2012 at 12:08 pm
No thanks, when I want to read fiction I prefer a good roman policier … they tend to contain many more facts than do predictions for the year 2100.
w.
Willis,
Last week this was in the news here in Seattle.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2018512589_danny24.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018496037_oysters22m.html
Willapa Bay oysters are risk from – take a deep breath – “ocean acidification”. I forward the following three questions to the reporter of the second article listed above.
1) Can the researchers studying the “acidification” issue distinguish between CO2 from deep ocean upwellings and that from the atmosphere?
2) Since increasing atmospheric CO2 is a global phenomenon, why is the pH change from it occurring faster in Washington than in Hawaii?
3) Is anyone taking regular pH measurements for Willapa Bay and if so, with what periodicity?
Personally, I think this article is much more interesting:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2018462034_apasthailandtoplessart.html?syndication=rss&prmid=obinsite
The Slicker Stick has arrived.
On page 9 of the paper is a graphic of the SLR hockey stick. I am calling it the Slicker Stick. Sea level rise is plotted from 1800 to 2000 which looks pretty linear. Then, just before the year 2000, they begin their projections named Empirical Projections and Model Projections. The model projections are much more conservative. I wonder how that happened.
The projections are the blade of the stick.
I would post the graph as a jpeg, but I don’t know how to get graphics into the comments.
Source; LATimes, Feb 12, 1970: “Earth’s Resources Are Great–but There IS an End to Them”
Some [political] excerpts from ‘Resources and Man:’
It is essential, therefore, that we carefully assess and continually reassess these limits, and that we take steps to assure that future generations, as well as people now living, will have the resources necessary for a satisfying life. These resources, moreover, must be so distributed as to exclude catastrophe as a factor in limiting population density.
Page 2
What can we in North America do to aid our own underprivileged, to meet the population increases that will yet precede real population control, and to help the rest of the world?
Page 3
Man’s own best interests plead for a more generous attitude toward the rest of nature and for less materialistic measures of well-being and success–especially in the developed countries. Such changes in attitude would make it easier to bring about dynamically balanced relations between the need for materials and the quantity available on the one hand and the quality of life and quantity of consumers on the other.
Page 3
If present world food production could be evenly rationed, there would be enough to satisfy both energy (calories) and protein requirements for everyone–although with drastic reductions for the now affluent.
Page 4
To summarize this study, Chapters 1 and 2 of our book post the problem: since resources are finite, then as population increases, the ratio of resources to man must eventually fall to an unacceptable level. This is the crux of the Malthusian dilemma, often evaded but never invalidated. Chapter 3 considers the possibility of a final evasion of this dilemma by population control.
Page 8
The inescapable central conclusion is that both population control and better resource management are mandatory and should be effected with as little delay as possible.
Page 8
We recommend below, therefore, some of the steps that should be taken by the United States to enhance the prospects of an ample world for all.
Page 9
This is clearly a job for the Department of Agriculture with the collaboration of the State Department; but continuation of the good works of the Rockefeller Foundation should be encouraged.
Page 17
The Slicker Stick has arrived.
On page nine of the paper is a nice graphic plotting sea level rise from 1800 to 2000. Around 2000, the projections begin.Ttwo types of projections are shown, Empirical Projections and Model Projections. The model projections are much more conservative. How did that happen?
The projections form the blade of the hockey stick, and the data before 2000 forms the shaft. I am naming this SLR hockey stick the Slicker Stick.
I would post a jpeg of the graph, but don’t know how to get graphics into the comments.
Thanks for this post. I went over to the NAS website to read it there and saw the slants in the text and omitted period of flatness. That helps me a lot to see NAS as the NPR of science–always operating with a bias no matter what the facts are saying and posting opinions for the sake of community representation and expression of organizational bias. This post helps me with the context of NAS and another biased public orgs, always after more funding and without regard to the damage done to the truth in their wake. It is the golden age of group think and biased manipulation of public resources.
The report is a typical climate ‘hit piece” designed to give plenty of CYA when the low end comes out true, while generating fodder for frightening headlines with the crazy high end numbers. 4 cm to 20 cm by 2030? It is a bad joke, and pure idiocy. More to the point, the really frightening numbers (2050, and especially 2100) remain safely outside the time range where any of the authors will suffer consequences for their crazy ‘predictions’.
Since according to the NAS, 85% of their funding comes from Congress, this might be a good time to help (a tiny bit!) close the Federal budget deficit: stop funding all climate related work at NAS. Such a simple process (we just will not pay for climate related funding at NAS) that immediately solves the problem of having fools like Ralph Cicerone in control of NAS.
Gosh, Phil, you are right. I did miss that detail. So here is the revised graph:
Not really, the caption still refers to ‘one foot’. And the land around San Francisco is descending by about 1mm / year,or 3 cm over the time interval which should also surely be noted, and you’ve only plotted the high end of the 4-30cm range, not the range itself, hardly scientific. The maximum figure just means that they rule out a rise above that value, not that they predict that 30cm will definitely occur …..
OK, I admit it. I’m a extreme prescriptivist (grammar Nazi), but your sentence, “I say that both I and a large sample of the American public doesn’t believe what the folks in the white lab coats at the National Academy of Science are saying because far too often it is a joke,” is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. It should read, ” I say that both I and a large sample of the American public do not (or don’t) believe….” A pleural subject cries for a pleural verb.
Other than that, an excellent post.
Cordially,
Michael Daly
If the sea level rose by, oh, say, 50 feet, flooding Seattle, SF, LA, SD, Miyami, DC, and NY, maybe Portland… i.e. wiping out the USA’s cultural waste-lands, what’s the down-side?
They say trouble comes in threes. Well, here is number two (literally and figuratively).
See AP article by Seth Boringstein.
http://news.yahoo.com/sea-rise-faster-east-coast-rest-globe-172002416.html
People – the original article has nothing to do with changing sea level as measured by satellites and everything to do with vertically shifting land masses. It is a scam, and a very transparent one. Sea level is not so variable by region as this article suggests. Parts of the Golden state are sinking, others are rising, and yet others are doing nothing. I’m reminded of the “Palmdale Bulge” and the Mammoth Mountain caldera pumping up many years ago. When this happens at the beach things get dried out that haven’t been dry in centuries. But it ain’t the sea level that is changing. Shorelines are fickle, sea level is not.
There is an alternative significance of this nonsense. Anyone who can observe the mainstream plot of sea levels can observe that sea levels are rising a foot (30cm) a century, with no sign of acceleration.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
The alternative is that the scientists – or anyone who can read a graph – has been beaten into submission by those who believe science is but a weapon of political argument. They have control of the research money, and are quite capable of destroying the careers of any dissenters. One is the “denier” label. A sure sign in the past where unquestioned dogma has gained the upper hand is that silly statements in support gain a hearing. Another is that the barriers to agreement are much lower than the barriers to disagreement. Hence the “97% of climate scientists agree” survey is really “97% of climate scientists claim they are not deniers” .
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/06/18/97-of-climate-scientists-claim-they-are-not-climate-deniers-survey/
A sea rise range of 4 cm to 30 cm by 2030 doesn’t seem that unreasonable all things considered, although it will likely be down at the lower end. I find it difficult to believe that a committee of 13 different professionals from 13 different universities, i.e. University of California (Los Angeles), University of California (Santa Cruz), University of California (San Diego), University of Hawaii, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Ohio State University, University of New Orleans, University of Colorado, Oregon State University, Portland State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Colorado and Johns Hopkins University, can be as either corrupt or as stupid as many of the posts suggest and that they basically made this stuff up. At least this is one prediction with a time span that I should still be around to actually witness as to who has been naughty or nice.
Phil Clarke says:
June 24, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Gosh, Phil, you are right. I did miss that detail. So here is the revised graph:
Not really, the caption still refers to ‘one foot’. And the land around San Francisco is descending by about 1mm / year,or 3 cm over the time interval which should also surely be noted, and you’ve only plotted the high end of the 4-30cm range, not the range itself, hardly scientific. The maximum figure just means that they rule out a rise above that value, not that they predict that 30cm will definitely occur …..
======================
Phil Clarke, thank you for responding. I’m sure your comments are always noted. It reveals the great wisdom of those like you. Did you take note that my research as noted in an earlier post gave an upper limit of only a nine foot rise in sea level by 2030. This was no guarantee, just an upper limit. Confidence level of the research was 95%. Would you please cite my earlier post eyesonu says: June 24, 2012 at 9:50 am in all your future comments as I am promoting my research and will need funding. A possible nine foot water level rise is nothing to shrug off as bullshit. Think of the children for God’s sake.
Forget about California. It’s the east coast that’s in trouble.
http://news.yahoo.com/sea-rise-faster-east-coast-rest-globe-172002416.html
Seth Borenstein wrote this Isigh).
When I read stories like this I am always reminded of Harlan Ellison’s review of an A.E. van Vogt book [World of Null-A] saying ‘He is a pygmy writing with a giant typewriter’. The tidal wave of free money for CAGW has meant that many intellectual pygmies have gained prominence. In their heads they must think of themselves as Einstein reincarnated spouting Great Truths. It is sad that it is only a few sceptics in their spare time who show that these Great Truths are garbage.
Unfortunately these people have influence with politicians. Here in Europe the response of the EU to CAGW is a large part of why we are on the brink of economic and social collapse, which will most likely take the rest of the world with it.
I suppose this is what believers of CAGW want, so game to them. However I suspect the 50,000 people in Rio are prepared to accept that other people must suffer to save the world, but mentally exclude themselves. In the world they are creating this is really not guaranteed and planting a few trees won’t save them.
Mick says: “I find it difficult to believe that a committee of 13 different professionals from 13 different universities…can be as either corrupt or as stupid as many of the posts suggest….”
You’re arguing from incredulity, Mick, a logical fallacy. Having not just fallen off the turnip truck in the area of AGW, I have no impediment to such a belief. Your assumption that corruption and stupidity are the only alternatives to explain the behaviour of these academics is also false. Other explanations include insanity, hubris, tribalism, political motivation, and grant-seeking.
timg56 says:
June 24, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Thanks, timg56. For those interested in ocean neutralization, I’ve written about it here and here.
w.
steve fitzpatrick says:
June 24, 2012 at 1:23 pm
The report is a typical climate ‘hit piece” designed to give plenty of CYA when the low end comes out true, while generating fodder for frightening headlines with the crazy high end numbers. 4 cm to 20 cm by 2030?
Not that I disagree, but what if the sea level falls rather than rises? Where is the CYA then? The committee are apparently confident that that won’t happen. I see no basis for their confidence.
Phil Clarke says:
June 24, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Indeed it does, because a) the predicted rise is 30 cm and b) it is a quote from the newspaper. The report says the sea level around San Franciso will rise up to 30 cm. What do you call “up to 30 cm” if not “up to one foot”? Should I have said “up to 0.984251969 feet”?
And why should that “surely be noted”? It is ALREADY INCLUDED in the San Francisco observational data, and it is ALREADY INCLUDED in their prediction. So it makes no difference at all.
What do you think “up to 1 foot” means if not the high end? Yes, Phil, I did only plot the high end, because I wanted to show that the high end was ludicrous. I didn’t think the low end was ludicrous so I didn’t show it. I’m crushed that you disapprove.
This is supposed to be news? You sure you know what “up to a foot” means?
Dang, but you are a sore loser, aren’t you?
w.
Michael Daly says:
June 24, 2012 at 2:07 pm
(emphasis mine)
There’s something so endearing, and at the same time so quintessentially human, about a grammar Nazi who can’t spell …
w.
… are “lungs” a pleural subject? …
The report indicates (Table 5.3, page 117) that for San Fancisco, the expected sea level rise in 2030 is 14.4 +/-5 cm, with the error range being the 1 sigma confidence interval. That means, according to this report, there is a better than 68% chance of a 9.4-19.4 cm (3.7-7.6 inch) rise in sea level at San Francisco. How then does Willis report a prediction of 30 cm (12 inch) sea level rise? Well, the 2 sigma confidence interval for the Californian coast is 4-30 cm (1.6-11.8 inch). Another way of expressing that is that the report claims that there is a less than 1/40 chance that sea level will rise by less than 1.6 inches, and a less than 1 in 40 chance that it will rise by more than 11.8 inches. Quite frankly, reporting the upper 2 sigma confidence bound of the report as being the reports prediction represents propaganda, not analysis. This is compounded by graphing the upper confidence bound as being the actual prediction, with neither mean nor lower confidence bound being shown.
Willis (let’s be generous) error is the sort of “error” that should be immediately picked up by any cursory fact check on his article, and should be grounds to immediately reject the article for publication. There is not a single person reading this site (“warmists” included) who would not consider reporting solely the upper confidence bound of observations as being the observations themselves as scientific fraud. That being the case, when you do that for predictions, you have left behind the area of scientific analysis. Truth has ceased to matter as a guide to your writing or in your choice of article to publish. You show beyond any shadow of doubt that your purpose in writing and publishing is to convince people of opinions held in disregard of the truth.
Of course, Willis, and Watts, may also consider predictions of 14.4 cm sea level rise absurd. But clearly they did not find the absurdity of the actual predictions from the report clear enough, for if they had, they would have felt no need to exaggerate them.
“For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projects that sea level will rise 4–30 cm by 2030 relative to 2000”
Seems to me you ought to show both extreme. the 4cm from 2000 and the 30cm.
Its a pity that when scientists take the time to include the uncertainty ( its quite large )
that people try to bash them by only plotting the extremes.
That chart, a chart that showed the entire envelope, rather than showing how bad the science is, actually would show the truth: how little we know. Why bash a team of scientists who do exactly what we have been ask. Show us the uncertainty!
Mick says:
June 24, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Mick, it’s like saying that I estimate your height is between four inches and ten feet (10 cm and 3 m). It’s correct, to be sure, but it’s also useless for the purpose of planning say door heights …
While the NAS sea level rise estimate is likely to be right since it goes floor to ceiling, the problem is that coastal communities need to plan, not for the average case, but for the worst case. So the top end of the estimate is very, very important. When it is ludicrously exaggerated, as in this case, it will lead to unnecessary fear, exaggerated responses, and needless costs. For that reason, it is entirely unreasonable.
All that shows is that you are new to climate science. But it’s neither corruption nor stupidity. These folks have drunk the koolaid of climate models. They mistake the models for representations of reality, when in reality they represent nothing but the prejudices and misunderstandings of the programmers.
This problem is aggravated greatly by what is called “noble cause corruption”, where you believe that your cause is so noble that you are willing to overlook any contrary evidence, neglect to look at the historical record, and ignore your responsibility to do due diligence.
Finally, if you believe that someone should be trusted because they come from a university, I fear you are facing a lifetime of disillusionment. Nor is it important that they come from different universities. It’s not a conspiracy of any kind. Folks find like-minded folks, and folks that have put their trust in Tinkertoy™ models will find each other, that’s what the internet is for …
w.
steven mosher says:
June 24, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Steven, first let me say that in general your point is 100% correct.
But in this particular kind of case, the problem is that there is only one number that is of interest to coastal planners and folks in coastal communities—the maximum predicted rise. Nobody plans for the minimum predicted rise, nobody cares about the minimum predicted rise. They are planning, as they should be, for the worst-case scenario, not some rosy future. That one number, the 30 cm or whatever the maximum predicted rise might be, is what you have to plan for. That maximum predicted rise is what you need to be concerned about, everything else is meaningless for planning purposes.
So if you want to concentrate on some other number, say the minimum predicted rise, that’s fine, you can throw up a post on your blog extolling the accuracy of the NAS low estimate.
But nobody cares in the slightest how low a flood might be … what is of interest is one thing and one thing only—how high a flood might be.
And that is why it is totally irresponsible for the NAS to be promoting this kind of alarmist dreck, and why I’m not paying any attention to their low-ball estimate … it’s meaningless for planning purposes, and their results are provided for no other reason than for planning purposes.
w.
Nice bit of irony here. The words “hoist” and “petard” come to mind.
Willis Eschenbach says:
“But in this particular kind of case, the problem is that there is only one number that is of interest to coastal planners and folks in coastal communities—the maximum predicted rise.”
There is indeed a particular number of interest to developers, but it is not upper confidence bound of predicted sea level rise. Sea levels vary substantially in the short term due to tide and winds. As a result coastal buildings and infrastructure are not built just one foot above sea level, and just one foot of sea level rise would be almost irrelevant if it where not for storm surges and high tides that raise the sea far above mean sea level. Consequently, if you are going to reduce a report to just one number, the number of interest is the projected number of hours of extremely high sea, in this case defined as sea level exceeding the 99.99 th percentage of historical sea level records. For San Francisco that is 1.4 meters, and the relevant information is found in figure 5.13 (page 128). As the report says:
“According to the model, the incidence of extreme water heights that exceed the 99.99th percentile level (1.41 m above historical mean sea level) increases from the historical rate of approximately 9 hours per decade to more than 250 hours per decade by mid-century, and to more than 12,000 hours per decade by the end of the century. The model also shows that the duration of these extremes would lengthen from a maximum of 1 or 2 hours for the recent historical period to 6 or more hours by 2100, increasing the exposure of the coast to waves.”
Again, Eschenbach is quite welcome to discuss and dispute these figures. Hiding them behind the upper bound of the 2 sigma confidence level for mean sea level rise, however, does not represent an analysis of the relevant facts. On the contrary, it is a deceptive avoidance of that discussion.
I also note that Eschenbach has not discuss preparedness of coastal communities for future sea level rise. His attack was on the credibility of NAS scientists, and for that there can be no excuse for focusing solely on the upper 2 sigma confidence bound and calling it the NAS reports “projection”.
Tom Curtis says:
June 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Tom, clearly you have never done any risk analysis. In risk analysis, neither the minimum nor the mean predictions are important. What counts is how bad things might get, not how wonderful they might be.
For example, if you were tasked with preparing a coastal community for possible sea level rise, it is only and solely the “upper 2 sigma confidence bound of the report” that you would be looking at. And their report was commissioned specifically for risk analysis.
As a result, the upper bound of the risk is what the newspaper rightly focused on, it is what the coastal communities will pay attention to, it is what the engineers are required to consider, and it is also what I am concerned with.
So if you want to write a long blog post about how reasonable the NAS lower confidence bound is, go right ahead. Me, I tend to focus on what is important, but you are welcome to discuss and dissect trivialities if you wish.
w.
PS— Contrary to your claim, I didn’t “report the upper 2 sigma confidence bound of the report as being the reports prediction” … what do you think “up to 1 foot” means?
“Up to 167 cm. by 2100” – 5½ ft.! Since the rates are different up and down the coast, and across the region, etc., they are talking mainly about plate subsidence. An honest headline might have said “the land will subside by up to a foot by 2030”. With some explanation of why it might so suddenly accelerate. Sounds like a Big One, to me.
Tom Curtis says:
June 24, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Oh, please. Before, you wanted to bust me for not considering the minimum predicted rise, claiming that that number was somehow critically important.
Now you’ve abandoned that foolish line of reasoning, but without admitting you were wrong about it, and you want to bust me by saying the important number is not the maximum predicted rise but the 99.99% exceedance rate … as though that exceedance number were not just a mathematical variant of the maximum predicted rise.
Please make up your mind and think your claims all the way through before you look even more foolish. Here’s a clue. If your 95% upper confidence interval is a joke, as is the case here, then so is your 99.99% exceedance rate.
w.
The beat goes on . . .
Rising sea level a threat in East, study says
“Boston could feel especially strong impact”
“By David Abe | Globe Staff June 25, 2012”
“As temperatures are projected to climb, polar ice to melt, and oceans to swell over the coming decades, Boston is likely to bear a disproportionate impact of rising sea levels, government scientists report in a new study.”
http://bostonglobe.com/2012/06/24/searise/0uZldJdVL9BxKrwI1wN7FJ/story.html
Of course, the film industry knows that horror sells.
Sarc on:
The Governor of California is jogging along a nature trail with his dog when a coyote jumps out and attacks the dog. The Governor starts to intervene, but stops when he realizes the coyote is only doing what’s natural. However, after killing the dog, the coyote attacks and bites the Governor before running off. The Governor calls Animal Control to capture the coyote, test it for diseases ($200), and relocate it ($500). He then calls a veterinarian who collects the dead dog and tests it for diseases ($200). The Governor then goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting his bite wound bandaged and getting checked for rabies and other coyote borne diseases. The Fish & Game service shuts down the running trail 6 months to conduct a $100,000 survey to ensure the area is free of dangerous animals. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a “coyote awareness program” for local residents, and the State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to permanently eradicate rabies and other coyote borne disease throughout the world. After the Governor’s security agent is blamed for failing to stop the attack (and subsequently fired), the State spends another $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional specialty training on the personality and behavior of coyotes. And of course, PETA files a $5 million suit against the State protesting the cruel and inhumane capture and relocation of the coyote.
Meanwhile in Texas, the Governor is jogging along a nature trail with his dog one day, when a coyote jumps out and attacks. The Governor shoots the coyote with his State-issued pistol and keeps on jogging. The cost to the state is $0.50 (for a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge), and the buzzards clean up the dead coyote for free.
Sarc off:
This illustrates why California is broke (and Texas is not), and why N.C. legislators were wise to pass a law requiring planners to use empirical data, and not climate model projections.
I’m sorry, all I got is “NAS is wrong. Why? Because PFFFFFFT stupid NAS.” Is that really what you’ve got? That’s your actual evidence?
Willis Eschenbach writes:
“PS— Contrary to your claim, I didn’t “report the upper 2 sigma confidence bound of the report as being the reports prediction” … what do you think “up to 1 foot” means?”
To keep Willis honest, he did not write anything about ” up to one foot”. Rather he quoted a headline saying “up to one foot”. What Willis wrote was, “… the National Academy of Sciences projection of a one foot rise by 2030 …”, and the “Alarmist Projection” so there is no question that he is portraying the upper bound as being the (singular) projection from the report. His only concession to accuracy is in the caption of fig 2, which lists the “High end projection”, but does not provide any context by showing the low end projection or the median projection, minimum requirements for honest reporting.
Embarrassingly for Eschenbach and Watts, Anthony Watts intervened in this debate earlier indicating that in Eschenbach’s post the ” issue is ALL ABOUT the headline” which was apparently too alarmist. This is embarrassing for Watts who shows he has not understood the post, but doubly so for Eschenbach who is defending his claim to have not misrepresented on the basis that he quoted a headline that Watts (quite sensibly) thinks is a clear misrepresentation.
Eschenbach also adroitly misrepresents my argument by saying:
“Oh, please. Before, you wanted to bust me for not considering the minimum predicted rise, claiming that that number was somehow critically important.”
For the hard at understanding, my argument is very simple. If you cite “the projection” of a study, the only honest thing to do is to cite the best estimate; or if their are multiple projections, to cite the multiple projections while giving a clear indication of the relative probability assigned to each. That is not hard to understand. It is not that Eschenbach did not cite the lower bound, it is that he exclusively cited the upper bound with no mention of the central estimate that makes his treatment of the subject dishonest.
As a follow up point, and in no way abandoning that central point, I also established that the upper confidence bound is not the important number for “coastal planners and folks in coastal communities”. What is important for them is how frequently their lives and property will be threatened by high sea levels, statistics for which are given by the report, AND IGNORED BY ESCHENBACH. That shows his belated excuse for his dishonest treatment does not hold up to scrutiny. It does not hold up, in any event, because this apparently crucial issue receives no mention in his post. It is an ad hoc, after the event justification for plainly dishonest misrepresentation of the study.
Naturally Eschenbach misrepresents the follow up discussion as a tacit concession by me of the first point I raised. It was no such thing, and he only so misrepresents it because his treatment of the subject is simply unjustifiable.
themcnamarareport says:
June 24, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Hey, if you can look at Figure 2 and believe that it is possible, or if you think a complicated analysis is required to establish that there is no way that their claimed sea level rise will be reached, you need more help than I could possibly give you.
w.
Tom Curtis says:
June 24, 2012 at 11:05 pm
To keep you honest, he did report “up to a foot”, as you say he quoted a headline. I had no problem understanding that and what he meant by what “a” one foot projection would look like.
Your interpretation of “the (singular)” projection is an incorrect paraphrasing of what Willis did write. A correct paraphrase is that he portrayed *a* projection of the NAS. “Singular” is correct though, in that any value between and including the lower and upper bound are projections. If SL rises a foot the NAS would indeed take credit for a correct prediction. No one could place blame on the NAS if a one foot rise occured within the time limits.
Looks like you dislike only the upper bound being shown, and are picking nits to discredit Willis for that. Had Willis said “What does the NAS upper bound projection of a one foot rise…”, you would still have complained, though it would not have changed the argument.
As to your “follow up point”, sea level rise is most definitely is a very important element in coastal planning, since it has a direct relationship to “how frequently their lives and property will be threatened by high sea levels”. That Willis did not include every detail of the report does not mean he dishonestly ignored it. You’ve gone over the top on this one. I’d expect that if you talked very long and were under no restraint, you’d actually start frothing at the mouth and spitting four letter words.
Tom Curtis says:
June 24, 2012 at 11:05 pm
As I said above, for most kinds of studies your claim would be true. However, for a risk analysis it is not true in the slightest. Nobody cares how low a flood might be, only how high a flood might be. As you say, “that is not hard to understand”.
More to the point, Tom, you have provided nothing to suggest that their upper bound is reasonable, rational, or stands even the slightest chance of occurring.
Instead, you want to distract people’s attention from the ridiculous nature of the high estimate by busting me for not pointing out that the lower bound is reasonable and could certainly occur … which is true, but so what? So what if the lower bound of their risk estimate is reasonable? I never said it wasn’t, I just ignored it because it makes no difference at all.
Here’s an example. If you go to get an estimate for fixing your car and the mechanic says “it will cost you between ten dollars and ten thousand dollars to fix your gearshift lever”, are you going to congratulate him on the reasonable size of his low estimate, or are you going to be aghast and concerned about and focus on the size of the high estimate and ignore the low end estimate entirely?
Yeah, that’s what I thought …
As the newspaper story shows, what is important to people in a risk analysis is the high estimate, and reasonably so .. so that is what I discussed. I’m sorry you don’t like that, Tom, but what you like makes little difference in the real world. In the real world, the high estimate in some form (exceedance rates, 95% CI, or whatever you might choose) is what people need to use and must use for planning purposes, which is why the newspapers, the coastal communities, and I all focus on that. The low estimate is useless for planning purposes.
If you want to spend your time trying to convince folks that the low estimate is crucial and vital for planning purposes and simply must be discussed, go write a blog post about it and see how it flies. You don’t seem to be getting any traction here, so I’d suggest you try someplace else where the people are used to believing improbable things, maybe RealClimate or some place like that.
w.
PS-As a side note, the term would be “hard of understanding”, a parallel to “hard of hearing”, and not “hard at understanding” or “hard at hearing”. For example, by and large the readership here are not hard of understanding, because in general they work hard at understanding.
I just read an article at The Register:
Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/antarctic_ice_not_melting/
“This is good news indeed, as some had thought that huge amounts of ice were melting from the region, which might mean accelerated rates of sea level rise in future. ”
Did this NAS report take this information into consideration? /rhetorical question
As if San Francisco hasn’t enough to worry about with erosion, silting up of the shipping route through the Golden Gate and earthquakes.
This NAS paper is what they’ve been waiting for:
“Governor’s Executive Order S-13-08, which was issued on November 14, 2008, included the following: I direct that, prior to release of the final Sea Level Rise Assessment Report from the NAS [National Academy of Sciences], all state agencies within my administration that are planning construction projects in areas vulnerable to future sea level rise shall, for the purposes of planning, consider a range of sea level rise scenarios for the years 2050 and 2100 in order to assess project vulnerability and, to the extent feasible, reduce expected risks and increase resiliency to sea level rise.”
http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/agenda_items/20100911/14.%20SLR/1011_COPC_SLR_Interim_Guidance.pdf
I wonder who is set to benefit from the many millions to be spent on defence against the sea level bogeyman.
Richard Feynman wasn’t too impressed with the NAS and other elitist groups:
“I had trouble when I became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and I had ultimately to resign because here was another organisation most of whose time was spent in choosing who would be illustrious enough to join……. Including such questions as we physicists have to stick together because there’s a very good chemist trying to get in and we haven’t got enough room for so and so. What’s the matter? The whole thing was rotten.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j9TmDi0vNY&feature=related
Willis Eschenbach says: June 24, 2012 at 12:56 pm
“No thanks, when I want to read fiction I prefer a good roman policier … they tend to contain many more facts than do predictions for the year 2100.”
You already did read fiction in the form of a headline in a newspaper that says : “In 20 years, sea level off state to rise up to 1 foot”.
Mr. Eschenbach thinks it’s fiction that continued increase in CO2 will cause the planet to warm and therefore the sea levels to rise. It’s all fiction, isn’t it?
Robbie says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:59 am
Please follow the story, Robbie. This article is not about CO2, increasing or otherwise. It’s not about the planet warming.
It’s about sea level. I think it is a huge fiction that the sea level will rise as is claimed by the NAS. If you restrict yourself to what we’re actually talking about, you can be part of the conversation rather than being just some random anonymous internet popup spouting off-the-wall ideas that have nothing to do with the topic of the post.
w.
A rise like that would be a real boon to navigation, if only it were true. But in reality, and as depicted by the Ft. Point gauge, the level is either not changing or even slightly lowering. I spent some time at some locations I’ve know since child hood (40+ years) and would have to say I think sea level is lowering, based on some subtle items like algae lines and beach profiles. People I know involved in dredging also agree with this assessment. That’s sort of sad since it means we will lose some ports due to the cost of dredging.
Willis,
The quality of the trolls on this thread seems much lower than usual. I hope that is no reflection of the trolling networks’ view of the impact of the article. I personally liked it.
Is there currently a shortage of quality trolls? At least they are worth feeding when available.
Garymount, the article in the Telegraph is a misrepresentation of the Journal article, in that it claims there where no prior empirical studies in the area (which is false), and that the article shows no ice melt in the Antarctic whereas it explicitly deals with just one ice shelf in the East Antarctic. The journal paper explicitly states that:
“Melt rates below the FIS may thus be consistent with steady state-mass balance estimates based on remote sensing [Rignot et al., 2008], indicating that the ice shelves along the coast of Dronning Maud Land are currently not subject to rapid mass loss.”
And yes, Rignot et al 2008 show minimal mass loss in that area, just as if found by Hatterman et al, 2012; and Rignot et al 2008 was used by the committee, and indeed Rignot consulted as well.
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1212/2012GL051012/2012GL051012.pdf
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/abs/ngeo102.html
Wouldn’t landfill tend to settle?
Love the quote from wik, especially about Treasure Island:
San Francisco’s shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.[60]
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
“Sea rise faster on East Coast than rest of globe”
http://news.yahoo.com/sea-rise-faster-east-coast-rest-globe-172002416.html
Tom Curtis says:
June 24, 2012 at 11:05 pm
—————————————————————
Tom, your entire complaint amounts to someone debunking a weathermean who says tomorrow the high will be from 20 F to 100 F. Any rational person would say the weatherman is a buffoon, who has no idea what tomorrow’s weather will be. Likewise, any rational person would say the NAS sea level rise projection is equivalant to saying, we do not know what the SL will do. Given the real observations of SL rise slowing, it is rational to discount their disater concerns, and only a fool would act on what aint happening.
How to make Money in Climate Science
1. find a major unanswered question.
3. question top scientists to see what they will accept as an answer
3. check pick data and methods to arrive at that answer
4. re-label this technique “training” – it makes it sound intelligent.
5. publish the result.
The results will seem correct to fellow scientists, especially those at the top, so they wont bother to check the math. Everyone will be impressed you have answered the hard question. More so because you will have proven their best guess correct. You will advance in your career in science. Fame and fortune will follow.
Willis Eschenbach says: June 25, 2012 at 10:22
“Please follow the story, Robbie. This article is not about CO2, increasing or otherwise. It’s not about the planet warming.
It’s about sea level. I think it is a huge fiction that the sea level will rise as is claimed by the NAS. If you restrict yourself to what we’re actually talking about, you can be part of the conversation rather than being just some random anonymous internet popup spouting off-the-wall ideas that have nothing to do with the topic of the post.”
It has everything to do with the topic of the post and no I am not doing these political wordgames with anybody here or anywhere.
What does it take for the sea level to rise? A cooling or a warming climate?
From the NAS site: “A warming climate causes sea level to rise primarily by warming the oceans — which causes the water to expand — and melting land ice, which transfers water to the ocean.”
You can also read it on page 1 and 2 in the report itself and on page 57 CO2 is even mentioned as a factor for the denudation of icesheets and thus contributing to sea level rise and a warming planet.
If you look at the actual sea level rise in 1980 for example it suddenly rose almost 15 cm above the 33 yr Gaussian av.
You project that 30 cm onto the 33 year Gaussian Average as an average value and that’s wrong and misleading. A warmer ocean will produce higher peaks in the future (just like in 1980) and in that case a 30 cm sudden rise for a year or two is not really that unrealistic.
Step away from the paper and nobody gets hurt Willis. As for your daughter, there is nothing that can be done. My wife and I childproofed our house but our daughters still get in.
Robbie says:
June 26, 2012 at 5:58 am
Thanks, Robbie. If that is the case, and we know that the CO2 has been rising rapidly since 1950 and the temperatures rising 1975-1998 … then where is your claimed corresponding increase in the rate of sea level rise? Surely, if it existed we would see it in the San Francisco record, but we don’t. In fact, we don’t see the long-predicted and greatly feared acceleration in the sea level rise in any tidal records.
Now, you are free to believe that the sea level will suddenly go vertical from CO2 or the dreaded Thermageddon … me, I take the historical record as my guide.
Here’s my challenge to you, Robbie. Temperatures rose rapidly from ~ 1910-1945, fell from 1945-1975 and rose again equally rapidly from 1975-1998 … perhaps you can point out to the assembled masses the corresponding rises and falls you claim we should find in the San Francisco sea level record? Because gosh, somehow it seems that despite your fervent belief, the sea level never got your memo about how it was supposed to go up and down with the changing air temperature …
w.
Here’s another risk assessment that might cost $200 million. Of course this will be wasted if the sea level goes up 5 metres.
http://www.richmondreview.com/news/140012603.html
Willis Eschenbach says: June 26, 2012 at 10:26 am
Sigh! And again Mr. Eschenbach makes a mistake.
You cannot compare global temperature trends with just one local sea level trend.
How about:
Temperatures rose rapidly from ~ 1910-1945, fell from 1945-1975 and rose again equally rapidly from 1975-1998 … perhaps you can point out to the assembled masses the corresponding rises and falls you claim we should find in the GLOBAL sea level record?
Apologies for an exact copy of your quotation with only one word changed (‘San Francisco’ becoming ‘GLOBAL’).
You won’t find it in the Global sea level record, because that record is not a global one, but a combined one of different geologically stable tide gauges with just one trend: Going up. There were no ARGO buoys or satellites in your mentioned time periods. Satellite altimetry, TOPEX/Poseidon, started in 1992.
If you would read my comments properly you would also notice that I gave you a link to Huntington Beach showing no real trend at all.
Read the report and you will find out that the rise will be between 4-30 cm for San Francisco and not just 30 cm, but it could peak at 30 cm. Just as it peaked almost 15 cm above average in 1980. Is it really that difficult for you to grasp?
Robbie says:
June 26, 2012 at 11:51 am
“geologically stable tide gauges”
Are fiction.
Robbie says:
June 26, 2012 at 11:51 am
Quoted from your last comment:
“Temperatures rose rapidly from ~ 1910-1945, fell from 1945-1975 and rose again equally rapidly from 1975-1998 … perhaps you can point out to the assembled masses the corresponding rises and falls you claim we should find in the GLOBAL sea level record?”
=================
Does this suggest that there is a natural 30 year (+-) oscillation in the temperature and it has no effect on rising sea levels? I would perhaps consider that there is a difference between one thing rising (sea level) and another thing lowering (land mass) unless of course the coin has two tales.
Great observation on the natural 30/60 (+-) year temp cycles and the fact that it has little to do with any perceived long term change in sea level. I’m glad I revisited this thread. Thank you.
Oh silly me, – I do now, at long last realize why sea levels are steadily rising. It has absolutely nothing to do with any assumed undulations in the sea-floor. – Nor has it got anything to do with
sediments building up down there on the bottom.
I can see it clearly now. It has got everything to do with us humans and the top of the waves. —-
Once upon a time before we had any sea-level data to speak of, there was only a few wooden ships crossing the “Seven Seas” – And look what has happened. – Trade has increased beyond anybody’s wildest imagination. Ships have got more plentiful and much bigger than they used to be. Iron and steel ships have replaced the old and much lighter Wooden” ones, and that’s the reason.
So there you have it! – More, bigger and heavier ships = larger displacement and higher sea-levels.
Well now that I have solved that one – I’ll have a cup of tea.
Glenn says: June 26, 2012 at 1:22 pm
““geologically stable tide gauges”
Are fiction.”
These words are not mine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
Read the summary.
Mr. Eschenbach:
You can also read on page 14 the following quotation: “Finally, future emissions of greenhouse
gasses and other factors that drive changes in the climate system depend on a collection of
human decisions at local, regional, national, and international levels, as well as potential but
unknown technological developments.”
Science grew out of religion, and every now and again it reverts back to its roots, usually when it doesn’t use the one thing that religion didn’t: the experimental method and empirical data.
Science arrived because it rejected the philosophy: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. If totally rejects the idea of faith without evidence. Religions of the old world prospered because they relied on faith and as such couldn’t be disproved, and so whatever those in power wanted to pass as true, remained true, without possibility of falsification.
In science if you want to believe something, you have to have observational evidence for it, and it must be reproducable. All else is noise. Projections into the future are not observational evidence, so such is liable to be captured by faith and political agendas, and we are back to square one-belief by faith, which erects around it a remarkable display of defences to keep the faith going, despite all other evidence.
Mr. Eschenbach:
The “assembled masses” are still waiting for your reply to my comments.
Page 16 of the report: “The low atmospheric pressures and west-southwest winds induced by an El Niño further elevate sea levels, which can reach 30 cm above normal levels for several months (Komar et al., 2011). Sea level is lower along the U.S. west coast during cooler La Niña conditions.”
And on page 17: “Large storms raise coastal sea level for the duration of the storm, usually several hours. The path and propagation speed of storms dictate wind direction and changes in barometric pressure,
which in turn influence wind waves and high water.”
And if you take a look at Table 5.3 (page 117) you can clearly see that they use a range and that all projections are made relative to the sea level in the year 2000. They do not project the rise on the average sea level rise like you did in your blog. That’s misleading.
The report is fairly solid in its arguments. Has a reference list of at least 30 pages. It is written by people who have an education in climate science, Earth Sciences or otherwise and know what they are talking about.
Now maybe you can point to me and the “assembled masses” why the report is false in its projections and maybe you can give us a reference list of at least four or five pages why they have it all wrong.
Robbie says:
June 29, 2012 at 5:35 am
Thanks, Robbie. I’ve replied to all of them that seem important, so you’ll have to be more specific.
Whoa, news flash, wind and barometric pressure affect the sea levels, stop the presses …
Yes, I know that, Robbie, that’s all very basic stuff, sea level 101. Or as I put it in my 2004 paper (PDF) about sea levels in Tuvalu that was published in Energy and Environment …
As evidenced by the fact that I wrote that nearly a decade ago, your trying to school me about it just shows you haven’t done your homework. Read the paper, you might find it interesting.
Pointed out above by Phil, and corrected above by me, with a new graph. You should follow the thread more carefully.
As Richard Feynmann once famously remarked, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”. Or you might prefer to take a look at the book “Wrong: Why experts* keep failing us–and how to know when not to trust them”. Robbie, I’ve been playing the climate science game long enough to know that six men who all have five PhDs after each name can be just as wrong as I can.
You ask if I can point to why the report is false. I can only do so inferentially. For people with common sense, to know the report’s forecast is false, all it takes is a look at the graph. If you can look at that graph and claim there is a chance in Hades of that rise happening, you need a common sense transplant.
As to why it is false, I infer that it is from their dependence on climate models. These are the same models that for decades have been forecasting an acceleration in the sea level rise … but guess what, Robbie, that acceleration hasn’t appeared either … and gosh, just look at the number of references in the studies predicting that mysterious elusive acceleration.
However, you think that the sea level will reach the height forecast by 2030, well, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and wager whether it will get that high? Because I’ll put money that it won’t. Are you as strong in your claims as I am? I have a hundred bucks says it won’t get that high …
Finally, when it comes to projections of the future, or to science of any kind, whether there are 30 pages of references or not is no guarantee of success. You can be right with no references, and you can also be wrong with all of the references in the encyclopedia. Look at all of the failed projections, with dozens and dozens of references propping up every pathetic one of them, from climate scientists and doomsayers like Paul Ehrlich. His book The Population Bomb, which famously predicted imminent food riots and global mass starvation, has pages and pages and pages of footnotes and references … and guess what, Robbie?
It was 100% wrong.
So I’d advise you to pay more attention to what your common sense tells you, and not be so impressed by stacks of references and guys with PhDs … they can be as wrong as anyone else, references or not. Read everything you can lay your hands on, all sides of the discussion, and then make up your own mind.
w.
Eschenbach says: June 29, 2012 at 10:32
“your trying to school me about it just shows you haven’t done your homework”
Your Tuvalu paper is rebutted with good and solid arguments in this paper: http://staff.acecrc.org.au/~johunter/p925.pdf
And here is another article written by you and rebutted by the original authors:
http://independent.academia.edu/WillisEschenbach/Papers/1153453/Ecology_Climate-change_effect_on_Lake_Tanganyika
I don’t need to school you. You are being schooled by the experts themselves everytime you try to write in the scientific literature. Maybe that’s the reason why you turned to blogging.
“Wrong: Why experts* keep failing us–and how to know when not to trust them”.
What about this one:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Being-Certain-Believing-Right/dp/0312359209/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
You see I can play that game too: For every book you try to come up with I can present a book to counter it.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”.
It’s funny why you picked an expert’s quote to try to say something that has nothing to do with the subject at all.
Paul Ehrlich – The Population Bomb:
What has this to do with the subject? And no I am not going to discuss population growth and its fatal consequences here.
I think it is only fair to give Mr. Ehrlich time to respond to your criticism about the book:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHc7-275h0Y ]
You speak of acceleration: Have you seen Figure 1.5 in the report (Page 15)? Does that look acceleration to you on a longer timescale then what you are talking about? You should stop thinking short-term. Climate Change is a long-term process. It needs centuries to really unfold and equilibrate.
I don’t know what your obsession is with that 30 cm figure. The report claims a rise between 4-30 cm and it never speaks of a rise of just 30 cm. I have written that several times now in this thread.
As you can see for yourself Mr. Eschenbach I do read a lot and yes let’s make that bet that sea level for San Francisco will rise between 4-30 cm by 2030.
Let’s bet 100 dollars as you say. If you lose the bet you will donate 100 dollars to http://www.villagetortues.com
And if I lose it you choose a non-profit organisation where I can donate my 100 dollars to. I won’t donate to Heartland.
Is that a deal?
Finally: “Robbie, I’ve been playing the climate science game long enough to know that six men who all have five PhDs after each name can be just as wrong as I can.”
Welll in the case of Tuvalu you got it all wrong: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818111001445
And in the case of Tanganyika you got it wrong again:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/abs/ngeo865.html
Tell me Mr. Eschenbach: Whom should I trust more: The scientists, who present facts and data, or someone who got it wrong again and again?