Below is a screencap of the “walkback” story headline in the LATimes posted late today.
This morning, about 5:30AM, I sent a short but succinct letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times (reproduced below) regarding the statements made yesterday by California Governor Jerry Brown saying that the LAX and SFO airports would “have to be moved” due to effects from posited sea level rise caused by melting of portions of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, some 200-800 years in the future. The claim by Governor Brown, was patently ridiculous and I wrote about it here: Governor ‘Moonbeam’ beclowns himself over sea level rise at LAX airport.
Brown’s statement on LAX and SFO airports really didn’t surprise me though, because at AGU 2013, I sat just a few feet away from him during a presentation by Dr. Richard Alley, who made some of the wildest claims on sea level rise I’ve ever seen. I took a photo then and wrote about the experience:
I wrote then:
I saw Penn State’s Richard Alley speak, and let me tell you, if you think Michael Mann is annoying, Alley’s certainly a close second. His presentation was simultaneously grating (he shouted a lot) and ridiculous, using bizarre metaphors like this one:
Worse, California governor Jerry Brown was in the audience and seemed to be quite taken with Alley’s brand of science and alarmism, particularly Alley’s depictions of San Francisco under water.
I shudder to think what sort of influence Alley’s rantings might have on the people of California via Brown.
Well, we found out yesterday.
Today, we get the walkback to sanity. The LATimes now says:
An aide to Jerry Brown confirmed Wednesday that the governor was wrong when he said global warming would eventually cause rising seawater to inundate Los Angeles International Airport.
…
But various sources say that the nation’s third-busiest airport — bordered by the Pacific Ocean — has elevations ranging from 108 feet to 126 feet and is protected by higher coastal bluffs on the west side.
“The governor misspoke about LAX,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the Brown administration.
Environmental officials for Los Angeles World Airports, the operator of LAX, said the airport has an elevation of more than 120 feet. “A 4-foot rise in sea level,” they said, “should have minimal impact on airport operations.”
One of those “various sources” was me, not only from my blog post yesterday, but also from this letter I sent early this morning:
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Dear Editor,
A Times story on Governor Brown’s new budget had this title “Brown says rising sea levels could force costly move of LAX” with Brown citing two recent science papers on Antarctic melt saying “If that happens, the Los Angeles airport’s going to be underwater,”.
The science says otherwise. LAX airport elevation is 125 feet, the NOAA Los Angeles tide gauge rate of sea level rise 0.83 millimeter/year suggests that it will take over 40,000 years to reach the runways.
On the Amundsen Sea ice sheets in Antarctica melting, NASA in their press release on the paper said: “The region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet (1.2 meters).” They offer a worst case scenario of the entire West Antarctic sheet melting, stating 16 feet (5 meters). Neither scenario affects LAX.
Governor Brown would better serve the public by checking facts before offering baseless alarm.
Anthony Watts
Chico, CA
NOT PART OF THE ARTICLE – REFERENCES FOR THE EDITOR:
NOAA Tide gauge: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9410660
Elevation of LAX runways: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAX
NASA Press release on Antarctic Ice shelf melt http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/
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I didn’t get an acknowledgement from the editor, and given their “no denier” publication policy, I doubt my letter will run, even though it was entirely factual, because it made both the Governor and the LATimes look bad for not doing basic fact checking.
However, mid-day I did get a nice email from somebody on the other side of the climate debate, editor Douglas Fischer of the Daily Climate, thanking me for the “good catch” and telling me that I had the LA Times newsroom “scrambling…trying to explain how they let this slip through unchallenged”. He said they were going to put my story on the Daily Climate right next to the LATimes story, and they did (thanks Doug):
So, at least I have that satisfaction. I urge others to follow my lead: when ridiculous claims are made in the media, challenge them with supportable facts. You may not get an acknowledgment, but the desire to not look stupid is pretty strong, and will have an effect.
There should be a Pulitzer category for News that Doesn’t Pass the Sniff Test. But the LA Times would have stiff competition. Just in, from the Los Angeles News Group Editorial Board:
California uses about 14 billion single-use plastic bags each year, of which less than 5 percent are recycled. The state spends $25 billion to collect and bury the waste, but a lot ends up in the ocean, accounting for most marine debris.
Think about it–that’s $1.79 per bag Read it for yourself:
http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinion/20140514/plastic-bag-ban-faces-an-even-bigger-fight-breaking-view
Anthony,
Consider the scientific argument regarding the West Antarctic ice pack.
Observations:
1. The glacier is flowing by its own weight down slope and when it meets the seashore the ice pack is depressed below sea level by its own weight. The ice is assumed to have once been grounded as far as a submerged rock bar normal to the direction of motion (sill). The grounded ice pack was locked to the bedrock and moved by shear within the ice.
(I believe that this is common with fjords both during deglaciation and neo-glaciation.)
2. Now climate change has cause westerly winds to strengthen so that seawater is being pushed towards the shore over the sill and under the ice pack, thus lubricating the base of the ice. The ice at the sill can slide up and over and then float away because grounded ice moves more rapidly if lubricated at the base, whereas formerly it moved only by shear within the ice.
3. The novel aspect of the process is the strengthening of the westerlies, which in turn is caused by global climate change or at least by southern hemisphere warming.
I have some questions that maybe somebody can answer.
Assumptions:
a. The grounded ice has volume X and if this ice were to melt, the volume of seawater would then be about 90% of X. Melting of ice that is grounded below sea level will tend to lower sea level, not raise it.
b. If the floating ice melts, then there would be no change in sea level (Archimedes Principle)
c. Gravity causes the ice to flow down slope and seawards.
I conclude:
I. Any problem would have to be with volume of ice that moves down slope and continues to be pushed offshore.
Can the ice at the mouth of a glacier accelerate the movement of the entire glacier? The longitudinal profile of the top of the ice landward from the sill should indicate whether or not the entire glacier moves in response to acceleration over the sill..
Reference: Changes in the longitudinal profiles of glaciers during advance and retreat. http://www.igsoc.org/journal.old/39/133/igs_journal_vol39_issue133_pg582-590.pdf.
Further assumptions:
d. The rate of glacier movement is regulated by three main factors: friction at the base of the ice, shear within the ice pack, and the net rate of accumulation of ice at the top of the ice pack.
I conclude:
II. That if ice pack is increasing and the additional weight is forcing the ice to accelerate down slope and offshore, then this cannot raise sea level. This is because the same amount of water is being extracted from the oceans to form ice at the top as is being added to the oceans by melt water at sea level. This is the normal operation of the hydrological cycle.
III. If the ice pack is not increasing, then the weight at the top is decreasing and the rate of flow into the sea is decreasing. The problem will resolve itself by partial or completer melting of the grounded ice with a fall in sea level.
The Sill
I ignore the effect of the sill in supporting the ice pack. The way to check would be to derive top-of-ice profiles normal to the sill using Digital Elevation Maps (DEMs)
Hypothesis:
What happens at the mouth of a glacier cannot affect long-term sea level. This is very simple physics. Accelerating the speed over the sill will change the longitudinal profile of the glacier but will not change the volume of ice moving down slope..
Glacier ice is under a lot of compression but has low tensile strength. You cannot pull a glacier downhill. The profile will thin between the sill and the main ice pack if the front of the ice accelerates. But this will have no effect on the mass balance of the glacier as a whole.
Have I got this right? Or am I missing something?
If I have got it right, then this paper should be retracted.
More looming problems for California reported yesterday.
when ridiculous claims are made in the media, challenge them with supportable facts
Absolutely. Same thing applies to ridiculous claims made in blogs.
John: I suspect a “lot” or “most” of the $25 billion cost comes from recycling the 5%!!
“…that I had the LA Times newsroom “scrambling…trying to explain how they let this slip through unchallenged”.
Based on my experience, journalists are a little mathematically challenged. I talk numbers, their eyes glaze over. If they were to raise questions about Gov. Brown’s claim then they would have had to do the math. There is that division thingy. And then that multiplication thingy. Of course if they looked at the NOAA chart there is that conversion thingy from mm to feet. At that point their head would have started to hurt. Better to just believe, for sure, the end of the world is near and Global Warming is causing it.
The bigger takeaway is that due to bias toward the global warming narrative, they were all too willing to accept the assertion carte blanche without any questions. Their journalistic training took a paid leave of absence.
“An aide to Jerry Brown confirmed Wednesday that the governor was wrong ”
When I saw the title, I was about to appaud Sen. for fessing up and admitting he got it wrong.
But no, he does not have the guts to admit he goofed big time, he gets some “aide” to admit he “misspoke”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Does anybody know how to gauge the impact upon the public of the original scare story, compared to the subsequent walkback retraction?
One of their chief tactics is to maintain a ‘State of Fear’ as Michael Crichton so accurately identified in his best selling novel.
Nearly 10 years on, this is still by far the best introduction, I know of to the whole climate scare scam.
How they let it slip through is obvious. They are incompetent in their stated profession. But they are not unique in the media. Sadly, they are typical.
Environmental officials for Los Angeles World Airports, the operator of LAX, said the airport has an elevation of more than 120 feet. “A 4-foot rise in sea level,” they said, “should have minimal impact on airport operations.”
“minimal impact”?
How about either “no impact” or even “virtually no impact”?
I wonder if those “environmental officials” could explain what those “minimal impacts” would be?
Jimbo says:
May 15, 2014 at 1:01 am
I wouldn’t take that bet, but Governor Brown just might.
Unfortunately, as with all corrections, hardly anyone will see it, so the ‘damage’ is done and the ‘alarmist fellow travelers’ will quote this story for years to come (some of my ‘alarmist friends’ have already blared the news to me with comments like “How can you question the need to take action NOW, with all this new evidence that AGW is real.” It’s truly amazing to me how readily these folks accept pronouncements from political authority in this area, yet they fancy themselves to be ‘rebels’ against the ‘machine’.
Johnwho,
They just didn’t want to embarrass the Governor. Can you say retaliation via loss of funding if they did?
“But no, he does not have the guts to admit he goofed big time, he gets some “aide” to admit he “misspoke”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
At least he didn’t say he ‘misquoted himself’ as a famous NFL Wide Receiver once did.
“Hanimaadhoo in the north was upgraded in 2012 to handle international services.”
I think Hobart (Tasmania) may eventually get an upgrade to international standard too.
But I don’t think Tassie is under threat from sea level rise.
That’s the obvious difference.
This is how its “supposed” to work to maintain integrity in Journalism. News Reporters are not in the business of reporting Truth. They report facts relating to a given event or situation. When they get the facts wrong they have an obligation to correct the story. They don’t always do this or bury the corrections but in this case didn’t.
2 Thumbs Up to Anthony, the Governor (via his Aid), the LA Times, and the Daily Climate.
Did they respond to your blog post or your Letter to the Editor? It would be fantastic if they review your blog on a regular basis.
The comment related to their “no denier” publication policy should point out that they are narrowly defining denier as individuals who deny ANY human contribution to warming/climate change and or conspiracy theory nuts. It doesn’t imply that they censor skeptical reviews/opinions which are based on facts.
You ever notice that politicians fall over each other on the way to the podium to let their mouths literally drip and drool with spoken statements of impending doom but let their “people” do the talking to correct the statements that were wrong? It’s like politicians don’t come equipped with a reverse gear or brakes, they only have fast forward and turn with the tide signals.
You can’t blame the LA Times.
The reporter verified the Governor’s comment.
It’s for sure Moonbeam said it… it’s a fact he said it.
The LA Times didn’t lie.
cn
I believe the headline should read “Governor’s Office Corrects Governor’s Stupid Statement.”
cn
Well done Anthony. But climate scientists ought to be doing this themselves. Their failure to speak up over the hyped Antarctic story damages their credibility.
Chuck Nolan says:
May 15, 2014 at 5:58 am
I believe the headline should read “Governor’s Office Corrects Governor’s Stupid Statement.”
cn
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Chuck Nolan,
Governors do not have the time to fact check everything. They rely on staff and aids to do this. It’s possible Governor Brown was confusing SLR with Atmospheric Rivers which would have an impact on the Airports and transportation.
The true cause of this is a poorly crafted press release from NASA. NASA needs to dump their PR team in favor of technical communications professionals. NASA’s educational products and programs should also be Peer Reviewed before entering any classroom. The disinformation or poorly crafted information, which is likely the cause, has to stop!
“I urge others to follow my lead: when ridiculous claims are made in the media, challenge them with supportable facts. You may not get an acknowledgment, but the desire to not look stupid is pretty strong, and will have an effect.”
wise words for any situation. For any viewpoint.
Thank goodness that LAX will stay stay dry for the rest of Gov Brown’s term.
Putting floats on a big jet really trashes the fuel economy.
“they let this slip through unchallenged”
My heavens! How on earth did that happen??
/sarc
Andrew
He was advised that there was a risk it might relocate to Texas.