James Hansen at #AGU15 Why Are Scientists Holding Back on Sea Level Projections?

Session today:

James-Hansen-250

James Hansen, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions

Hansen coauthored a widely discussed paper this year that projects sea levels could surge up to 10 feet this century. He will discuss what he sees as the dangers of scientists’ reluctance to seriously consider such bold assertions. (He has based his estimates in part on accumulating evidence that the great ice sheets are undergoing the start of an accelerating collapse—the elephant in the room left out of many other projections.)

Monday, Dec. 14, 1:40-2:00pm, 102 Moscone South.   U13A-01


Maybe it is simply because there has been no acceleration in sea level rise despite model predictions that say there will be?

The graph below from Willis Eschenbach suggests there is no cause for alarm.lack of acceleration sea level

 

 

 

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Editor
December 14, 2015 11:26 am

As near as anyone can determine, there has been no recent increase in the rates of sea level rise due to “global warming” or any other cause. So any predictions which differ from the simple “business as usual” model need to have driving mechanisms that will cause change in the future, but have not caused change in the past.
I know of no such mechanisms …
w.

Duster
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 11:51 am

Willis, I would be very interested regarding whether you think there is any general (global) sea level rise over the last 60 years or so. I know Kwajalein atoll for instance is often employed as a talking point. It has however undergone massive construction during that period. Neighboring atolls do not apparently show the same pattern of “sea level” change. I believe you pointed out that freshwater extraction and construction could be seriously damaging to atolls, and I suspect that even gardening and plant mulching may also destroy coral and limestone over time simply through the generation of humic acids.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Duster
December 14, 2015 12:12 pm

Atolls “grow” with sea level rise because coral is alive and keeps pace with rising seas. Indeed, the coral islands were down 130 metres or so below their present level during the glacial maximum and as the ice caps melted, these islands grew vertically 130m!!. When sea level drops, wave action breaks up the exposed coral and the live part grows anew in an annular ring around the island at the appropriate depth.
Same thing with deltas we have been alarmed about. The Ganges and the Mississippi were 130 metres lower during the glacial max and stream flow was not large. As the sea rose, it went up stream and the sediment burdened river water dropped its sediment when it hit the still water of the sea. With the melting land based ice, the volume of both waters and glacial morrainal sediments increased markedly and piled its sediments further out into the gulf, ultimately building the deltas that we see today. Should the sea level drop, wave action will erode down the newly eposed deltaic material. Yes the earth is a constantly changing dynamic system being reacted to continuously. You island and delta folk will be fine.

AnonyMoose
Reply to  Duster
December 14, 2015 12:21 pm

Gary Pearse, did the atolls get eroded down 130 meters during the glacial maximum, or did they have 130 m hills on them?

tty
Reply to  Duster
December 15, 2015 6:36 am

They (mostly) had 130 meter high hills on them. Even with the current high sea-level there are still a few “raised” atolls with limestone plateaus that were once lagoons. Lifu,Niue and Henderson Island for example.
Incidentally the fact that there are so few of them is very strong evidence that sea-level wasn’t much higher during earlier interglacials.

Global cooling
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 12:30 pm

Melting ice is such a driving mechanism. We have to calculate the impact of glaciers before we are out the woods.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 12:31 pm

“He has based his estimates in part on accumulating evidence that the great ice sheets are undergoing the start of an accelerating collapse—the elephant in the room left out of many other projections”
“So any predictions which differ from the simple “business as usual” model need to have driving mechanisms that will cause change in the future, but have not caused change in the past.”
1. the driving mechanism Hansen is concerned about is the collapse of great ice sheets.
2. A :business as usual” model or prediction does not include this possibility.
3. Collapse is possible. even with no data from the past, we know its logically possible.
4. The question is— if it continues to warm will it be probable.
Predictions that differ from business as usual only need to contain driving mechanisms that MAY
cause change in the future ( may implies probablity) and those mechanisms may or may not have caused changes in the past.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
December 14, 2015 1:26 pm

SM, assertions that this actually happened during the Eemian amount to academic misconduct. A actual SLR change (up and down as there were two peaks) is equivalentmto what we see now. Essay By Land or by Sea. Assertions that it could or is starting to happen now are serious distortions of the actual ice evidence even before considering the previous erroneously high GIA estimates used to correct GRACE for Antarctic. Essay Tipping Points. My book did all the research for you, and has all the supporting references. For the GIA ‘goof’ ( good faith but grossly high model estimates compared to more recent (2013) differential GPS measurements) that has gone uncorrected in some of your circles, see Steve McIntyres recent ‘audit’ of Antarctic ice mass claims.
Hansen’s stuff is somewhere between junk science and pseudoscience.

Chip Javert
Reply to  Steven Mosher
December 14, 2015 1:30 pm

Steven
And you forgot – any one of us may get hit by a meteorite tomorrow as we drive to Starbucks. Geeze.
Wooly mammoths may come back to Florida tomorrow (THEY WERE HERE ONCE BEFORE!). Just saying.

Jimbo
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 1:47 pm

Hansen coauthored a widely discussed paper this year that projects sea levels could surge up to 10 feet this century. He will discuss what he sees as the dangers of scientists’ reluctance to seriously consider such bold assertions.

I wonder why? “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” [Dr. Viner 2000]

Salon – 23 Oct , 2001
Stormy weather
….. While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” …….
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/23/weather/

I don’t have the time but what happened to New York violent crime rates since 2001? I can only find this, which shows Hansen is right yet again!!!! WUWT?
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/factchecker/nycrime1_20071129.gif

brians356
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 2:52 pm

From cnn.com today:

Countries around the world pledged to do the near-impossible — limit warming “well below” 2 degrees, and below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if feasible. That basically requires the world to move rapidly toward 100% clean energy, producing zero net greenhouse gas emissions between about 2050 and 2080

What’s encouraging is to read the comment to this article. I never knew CNN had so many astute followers.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/12/opinions/sutter-cop21-climate-reaction/index.html

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  brians356
December 14, 2015 6:35 pm

The problem is, environMENTALists don’t want clean energy. They want no humans (except, presumably, themselves) on the planet. It’s really too bad they’re not willing to lead by example.

brians356
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
December 14, 2015 7:28 pm

See my earlier comment. “I got mine.”

Reply to  brians356
December 14, 2015 9:17 pm

Brians356-
Anyone notice what the price of crude was today, or the price of natural gas? Anyone notice what the amount of oil being pumped by OPEC is? And how much more will come on stream when the embargo is removed from Iran and the US starts shipping overseas again? How much oil has ISIS been shipping to Turkey? How much oil and gas is Russia producing and where is it going? Looks like a race to the bottom.
I sort of think that CNN has it wrong if price, supply and demand are an indicator. The world seems rather awash in fossil fuels and most of the world is going to use more of it regardless of what suicidal policies North America and Europe adopt.
There is an fossil fuel energy war going on that could make COP21 and CO2 control in the west almost trivial and meaningless.
I think this old fossil will just put another log on the fire and hunker down.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/never-mind-35-the-world-s-cheapest-oil-is-already-close-to-20
http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/natural-gas.aspx
http://time.com/4132346/turkey-isis-oil/
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Did-The-Saudis-And-The-US-Collude-In-Dropping-Oil-Prices.html

Don G
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 14, 2015 3:15 pm

“business as usual” is a tainted phrase often associated with the worst-case IPCC scenario. It should be avoided. (see http://achemistinlangley.blogspot.com/2015/06/on-rcp85-and-business-as-usual-scenario.html)

December 14, 2015 11:28 am

Why have you not included the last 5 years of data in this curve fit?

Bill 2
Reply to  wallensworth
December 14, 2015 12:03 pm

Because it’s risen faster than the trendline since then.

Aran
Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 12:23 pm

This is true. The most recent data from colorado:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2015_rel4/sl_ns_global.png
At this stage I see no reason at all why one would want to fit a quadratic function, or anything non-linear for that matter. It will not differ significantly from the simple linear case. You can find deceleration (when Willis did it) or acceleration (if one were to do it today) just from whether or not the most recent years have been below or above average.

Chris Hanley
Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 12:41 pm

@Aran “This is true. The most recent data from colorado …”.
=====================
Goodness, the up-to-date data does show hopeful signs of impending disaster.

Aran
Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 12:47 pm

Hanley: I don’t think it does

Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 1:04 pm

Cum grano salis. The tech spec for Jason 2 is available. Locational pass repeatability to better than 3mm, instrument drift not more than 1mm/year. Some of what Jason 2 is ‘seeing’, both the 2010-11 dip and the 2015 rise, are attributed to in spec instrument drift. UC data corrects this IIRC using land stationary (differential GPS proven) tide gauges. Satellite radar altimetry is not so easy given ocean wave surface and variable atmospheric water vapor (which retards the signal). Jason 2 has better overall accuracy than Jason 1, but it came at the expense of less annual precision.
Before having an argument about SLR acceleration or not, everyone should understand the data sources. Essay PseudoPrecision in ebook Blowing Smoke explains both the land stationarity problem of tide gauges (which makes a simple average of a lot of them deceptive), and shreds two ludicrous warmunist attempts to explain the supposed ‘dip’ (since a fundamental article of warmunist faith is accelerating sea level rise).

Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 1:44 pm

Bill 2 said “Because it’s risen faster than the trendline since then.”
Risen “faster than the trendline since then” or “higher than the trendline since then” Bill 2? In order to accurately say that the data has risen “faster” than the trendline on Willis’s chart, you have to have another decade’s worth of data-to 2021. We only have 4 more years worth of data available. And since the levels since 2011 have dropped below the trend line AND risen above it, I’d love to know how you accurately determined that “it’s risen faster than the trendline since then”.

Latitude
Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 4:31 pm

ristvan said
“the land stationarity problem of tide gauges (which makes a simple average of a lot of them deceptive)..”
===
then if it were truly an unbiased average…..they would show sea levels steady..or not rising at all
only 35% of tide gauges show sea levels rising…
….65% show sea levels static or falling
There is no way you could “average” that and not come out falling…….
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdfels/wpapers/Tide%20gauge%20location.pdf

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Bill 2
December 14, 2015 6:37 pm

There is no “it”. Like the fallacy of global temperature, mean sea level is meaningless (no pun intended. ok, maybe a little)

Data Soong
Reply to  wallensworth
December 14, 2015 12:29 pm

I plotted the data up to the present in Excel, and the linear trend line is now nearly indistinguishable from the polynomial fit line. (The polynomial fit line still shows an ever-so-slight deceleration, but it’s statistically insignificant.) The raw data used in Willis’ plot, and indicated in the sub-caption, can be found at: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/current/sl_global.txt

Reply to  Data Soong
December 14, 2015 1:46 pm

In other words Bill 2, no, sea levels have not risen faster than the trend since 2011.

Robert B
Reply to  Data Soong
December 14, 2015 2:29 pm

If you plot the moving linear regression over 5 years for that data, large changes occur at 2002 and 2008 (middle of the 5 year period) where the data is spliced together.
Anyone who uses this data to show acceleration is being dishonest.

Reply to  wallensworth
December 14, 2015 4:47 pm

wallensworth December 14, 2015 at 11:28 am

Why have you not included the last 5 years of data in this curve fit?
Reply

Because I did the curve fit about five years ago. Since then the slight drop in the data has been adjusted away by arbitrarily adding 0.3mm/year to the actual measured sea level. They say that they are doing this because the ocean basins are growing more voluminous over time … me, I doubt that is the real reason.
In any case, as Chris Hanley’s graph shows above … there is STILL no acceleration in sea level rise, despite it having been predicted for almost thirty years now.
w.

oppti
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
December 15, 2015 2:55 am

Why satellites?
Why not gauges?
If You accept 50 Year trends and look at The Pacific You can observe periodicity:
Ex Auckland NZ: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/global_50yr.htm?stnid=690-002
But Hansen would not like what this show!

brian
Reply to  wallensworth
December 14, 2015 9:30 pm

It appears to end in 2012-13 and since he used a 24 month filter, that might be the reason behind truncation.

FJ Shepherd
December 14, 2015 11:28 am

Poor Mr. Hansen. Once he had to give up his boiling oceans nonsense, he needed another bone to chew.

Reply to  FJ Shepherd
December 14, 2015 11:37 am

But does the bone always have to be stupid?

FJ Shepherd
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 12:12 pm

It’s James Hansen we are talking about, remember. Even a PhD can chew on stupidity disregarding actual data.

cassandra
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 12:29 pm

He’s got a PhD. That means the effects of 3 years or more within a Groupthink environment researching some narrow field special subject risks getting (P)ermanent (h)ead (D)amage!

Chip Javert
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 1:33 pm

Consider the audience Hansen is playing to…

cassandra
Reply to  FJ Shepherd
December 14, 2015 1:16 pm

What about Hansen’s recent Paper explaining the flattening out of recent average global temperature rises! He explains that this is due to what in earlier years had previously been called the “Solar Gloom” effect, of China and other Developing Countries’ recent programme of massive particulate carbon and sulphate emissions from fossil fuelled plants, particularly unscreened and uncontrolled emissions from their massive programmes of new coal fired power stations. These emissions reduce solar energy penetrations down to the Earth’s surface and impose a cooling effect.
If he is correct then he is admitting at least 2 points:
1. Regardless what many of his like-minded colleagues and supporters may say, he accepts that temperatures have flattened out over the last 15 years or so!
2. This same mechanism must have acted from the mid-50’s onwards in Developed Countries, but in reverse.
The Developed Countries introduced Clean Air Acts principally to reduce and avoid smogs and respiratory illnesses by removing particulate carbon – a real pollutant. They then introduced further Regulations to remove further emission pollutants, mainly sulphates which generated acid rain. The result was a reduction in global particulate carbon and sulphates from the 50’s onwards up to the period in the very late 20th Century when Developing Countries began their massive emission of such pollutants. The decline in such Developed Countries’ pollutant emissions was increased and extended by the shutdown of very many failed dirty industries in Russia and other Warsaw Pact countries following the 1989/90 failure of the Soviet Bloc.
The net result is that, from Hansen’s theory, recorded and warmists’ reported global temperature increases from the 1950’s onwards were as much to do with the Developing Countries’ reductions in particulate carbon and sulphates as the increase in atmospheric CO2. This means that, overall, stripping out all the effects of such later Developing Countries’ increasing emissions and such earlier Developed Countries’ decreasing emissions provides the actual base global temperature curve versus time which can then be overlain against the parallel recorded CO2 level curve. The result is a far shallower global temperature/CO2 curve or an AGW efeect and not the Catastrophic AGW condition that the warmists use for their theories. This AGW is agreed to by almost all Climate Scientists – a much smaller and slower phenomena and process than the preached CAGW and related Climate Change, and something many know is a much easier and simpler event whose consequences could be far more easily and far more cheaply managed at some time well into the future.
It seems to me that the more the Green Industry/Academia twist, turn and re-interpret in response to the on-going series of clear evidence contrary to their theories, the deeper the hole they are digging themselves into! Let then dig, the walls of their deepening and increasingly unsupported excavation will fall in and bury them – hopefully sooner, rather than later; the world can’t afford otherwise!

Don B
December 14, 2015 11:32 am

The tidal gauge at the tip of Manhattan, NY, know as The Battery, which has been in operation since the 1850’s (no typo – since before the Civil War), shows the same rate of sea level rise 160 years ago as it does now. There has been no acceleration of SLR with the acceleration of emissions. SLR must be mostly natural.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750

Rob Morrow
Reply to  Don B
December 14, 2015 11:39 am

Is Battery Park is located near the submerged Eastside Highway?
[Westside Highway? Or did that slowing down earth rotation move the highway that far as well? .mod]

Reply to  Don B
December 14, 2015 11:40 am

Obviously, the land is rising at an accelerating rate and masking the accelerating sea level rise.
You’re just not trying hard enough to think like an alarmist.

cassandra
Reply to  Don B
December 14, 2015 12:34 pm

What about ground settlement. In London even in the late 60’s there were areas where the ground settled due to past borehole water extraction and deep basement construction de-watering. That would mean any changing sea/river level measurement rise would actually be over-estimated!

benofhouston
Reply to  cassandra
December 14, 2015 12:47 pm

This is mostly accounted for in the various global areas, but it is definitely a factor in a number of individual tide-gauges.

Chip Javert
Reply to  Don B
December 14, 2015 1:35 pm

Don B
To a NASA scientist all this does is prove the gauges are wrong.

oppti
Reply to  Don B
December 15, 2015 3:02 am

There are 50 years trend on that gauge: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.htm?stnid=8518750
1925-1975 it shows: 3,86 mm/year
1965-2015 it shows 2,86 mm/year.
Periodical with 60 Years period.

Reply to  Don B
December 15, 2015 12:23 pm

Isn’t North America subsiding in this region? That was my understanding and if true, would account for some of this measured “rise”.

December 14, 2015 11:36 am

How can the sea level rise much as long as the total ice at the poles is increasing? (or at least not decreasing)
Would we not have to see some substantial decline in ice at the south pole to get any real sea level rise?

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 12:04 pm

markstoval
all of the missing water is going to Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya’s lake.
(see “Suing Climate Appeasers”)
michael

Reply to  Mike the Morlock
December 14, 2015 12:38 pm

Ha – I was waiting for someone to mention that Peruvian Farmer – nice one!

Robert B
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 12:36 pm

When we get back that heat lost in the deep oceans, the oceans will expand. The thermal expansion of liquids has been well established since the work of Fahrenheit in the early 18th C.

Ray Boorman
Reply to  markstoval
December 14, 2015 11:16 pm

Silly Mark. SLR is increasing because AGW causes more rain. 😉

December 14, 2015 11:39 am

Perhaps because Antarctica is gaining land ice:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses/
Or because additional CO2 cannot warm Antarctica anyway:
http://elib.suub.uni-bremen.de/edocs/00104190-1.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066749/abstract
Or because a lot of current sea level rise (and perhaps all of the ‘acceleration’ seen since the 1950s) is coming from groundwater, and it’s hard to see how that could be affected by a CO2 tax:
http://www.nature.com/news/source-found-for-missing-water-in-sea-level-rise-1.10676
Or because current rates of sea level rise are probably the same as seen in the first half of the XX century:
Or because Greenland is contributing less than 0.3mm/year to SLR, and even this is probably exaggerated due to exaggerated glacial isostatic adjustments:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/current-wisdom-throwing-science-overboard-get-sealevel-disaster
Or because there is evidence that the IPCC totally blew this topic in 2013, leaving the chapter to an alarmist author who underestimated groundwater and used obsolete numbers for Antarctica. That’s settled science for you.
http://climateaudit.org/2015/12/02/antarctic-ice-mass-controversies/
The ice sheets aren’t collapsing, but melt scares are.

KaiserDerden
December 14, 2015 11:40 am

Its like a perpetual game of poker where the warmists keep getting to go all in with their predictions but never, ever have to show their cards even when called …

Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 11:54 am

Malting? Molting? This was news 27 years ago Russell. And they had to tunnel through 260 feet of ice to reach those planes. Greenland is not malting or melting.

BruceC
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 12:09 pm

The plane recovered is now airborne again, P-38 Lightning. ‘Glacier Girl’.

BruceC
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 12:20 pm

Yes Russell, Greenland is ‘malting’. In 1942, six P-38’s and 2 B-17’s had to ditch onto the ice (surface) in Greenland. In 1992, ‘Glacier Girl’ was 268ft BELOW the surface.

Russell
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 12:43 pm

Thanks for the reply cannot find the article to post; but when the Hudson Bay co., in the 1800,s at Churchill docked their ships to load their furs, is now above sea level even at high tide.

Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 1:13 pm

Russell, that is a nice example of what is called glacial isostatic rebound. Roughly, the entire US/Canada east coast north of NYC is rebounding, at increasing rates as you go further north. Rock [responds] to removal of ice cap weight. Everything south of New York until you get to about the South Carolina/Florida line is subsiding as part of the same response. That is why one has to be very careful about tide gauges, and why New York is a decent one for SLR purposes. The land there is relatively stationary.There are places in Europe where the coast is also relatively stationary. There are none on the North American west coast. If you believed the raw tide gauge at Juneau, Alaska, you would conclude sea level is not rising, but rather declining at the alarming rate of 10mm/yr!

Tippy Hedron
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 2:09 pm

Malting? Then beer can’t be far off!

ferd berple
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 2:26 pm

sea level is not rising, but rather declining at the alarming rate of 10mm/yr!
============================
someone pulled the plug and the water is draining out of the oceans. the process is accelerating, such that it is worse than we thought. no matter what, it is certain death for all of us unless we send billions of dollars to Al Gore. Only Gore can save us.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Russell
December 14, 2015 6:46 pm

Re: someone pulled the plug
Kinda like this:
https://youtu.be/TdrMKt55VBQ?t=113

Reply to  KaiserDerden
December 14, 2015 11:45 am

Actually, when the predictions don’t quite happen they take refuge in grotesque error bars. Like, warming rates varying by a factor of 8 would fit inside.

Trebla
December 14, 2015 11:41 am

Well, using the “it will create jobs” logic employed by the warmists in justifying the move to green energy, as the sea level rises, people will move away from the seashore (I assume) and will require housing and other infrastructure further inland. Voilà! Jobs created, problem solved.

Reply to  Trebla
December 14, 2015 11:51 am

Trebla,
Yes, that’s the current narrative. I hear horseface Kerry’s sound bites all day long saying ‘green energy’ will create jobs.
Obviously Kerry has never heard of Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy. Any jobs created by ‘green energy’ will be at the expense of jobs lost in less expensive energy production.
For those who haven’t read Bastiat, he gave the example of a juvenile delinquent breaking a store window. People told the store owner it would enrich the town because the glazier would be able to buy a new pair of shoes, then the shoemaker would be able to buy… &etc.
Bastiat showed “things unseen”: rather, the store owner would not be able to buy a new pair of shoes, then the shoemaker would not be able to buy something, etc. The town would actually be worse off.
The net result of wasting money on ‘green energy’ will be even more expensive energy for everyone. That will translate into more expensive goods and services across the board. Everyone will be poorer… except government bureaucrats, and the 1% who will never be hurt by petty things like rising electricity bills. But the rest of us will be whacked, and for no good reason.

skeohane
Reply to  dbstealey
December 15, 2015 2:13 am

db, Your last paragraph is just what the Prez’ promised his plans would do.

knr
December 14, 2015 11:43 am

Hansen , like Mann and Lew paper , do much good work for the very people they hate .
Sceptics can indeed profit from keeping these people in the spot light and under pressure , for they massively overate their own abilities,as a galaxy side ego, with no need to back it up, is a requirement of the leaders of climate ‘science ‘, and massively underrate the public’s abilities.

Schrodinger's Cat
December 14, 2015 11:43 am

i seem to remember that Hanson has a track record when it comes to warnings of catastrophic sea level rises.

MikeW
December 14, 2015 11:46 am

Hanson’s silly projection would mean about one foot sea level rise per decade. If someone were foolish enough to offer a wager of at least one foot rise by 2025, I would certainly accept that bet.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  MikeW
December 14, 2015 6:50 pm

You guys could at least spell his name right. Someone named “Hanson” is getting kicked in the cojones for no reason.

December 14, 2015 11:50 am

Hansen asserts in Hansen et al 2013-Assessing ‘‘Dangerous Climate Change’’: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature:
“Arctic sea ice end-of-summer minimum area, although variable from year to year, has plummeted by more than a third in the past few decades, at a faster rate than in most models [21], with the sea ice thickness
declining a factor of four faster than simulated in IPCC climate models [22]. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets began to shed ice at a rate, now several hundred cubic kilometers per year,
which is continuing to accelerate [23–25]. Mountain glaciers are receding rapidly all around the world [26–29] ” (see link for References indicated in brackets)
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648&representation=PDF
I highly doubt that he will present RECENT papers and measurements that say the opposite of his above claims. Maybe Anthony can bring him up to speed :).

December 14, 2015 12:02 pm

According to the recent Guardian article, that was discussed here at WUWT talking about Hansen being grumpy about COP21, his latest paper hasn’t been peer reviewed yet and hasn’t convinced everyone, even people on his “side” of the issue-
“The paper has yet to be fully peer reviewed and some of Hansen’s colleagues, including his protege at Nasa, Gavin Schmidt, have voiced their doubts whether sea level rise will be quite this bad, with the IPCC projecting up to a meter by 2100.”

December 14, 2015 12:23 pm

Only 10 feet? Back in 2007 he published 5 meters–15 feet. Hansen, Scientific Reticence and sea level rise, Envir. res. Lett. 2:024002. Replaying a broken record he is.
The reason no scientist, even warmunists like Rignot, takes his concern/projections seriously is that they are a joke. Essays By Land or by Sea and Tipping Points reveal respectively academic misconduct and deceiving hyperbole furth distorted by MSM PR about abrupt SLR.

Gary Pearse
December 14, 2015 12:29 pm

These alarm clanger guys are all one trick ponies. Hansen is clinging and clanging to his ridiculous sea level gaff of 35yrs ago when the Westside Highway was supposed to be engulfed by SL rise of 10 feet by 2000. Here it is today.

I guess he doesn’t care about his legacy as a fool projecting the same stuff beyond the end of his lifetime.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  Gary Pearse
December 14, 2015 12:44 pm

Gary Pearse
I’m think’n our New York friends should change the name of their Westside Highway, to the “James Hansen Climate Change Highway” . I mean he was a bigwig at NASA so he should be “Honored”in some way.
do I need a tag?
michael

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Mike the Morlock
December 14, 2015 12:52 pm

Mike, I’d be for it. Hansen wouldn’t know whether to thank them or tell em where to go. He had some hippy charisma being arrested for his disobedience activities but he’s pretty been passed over with the new fresh-faced bunch.

Chip Javert
Reply to  Gary Pearse
December 14, 2015 1:42 pm

Obviously the Westside highway is made of floating concrete (cement; whatever).

JustSteve
Reply to  Chip Javert
December 14, 2015 2:47 pm

Cement is mixed with sand and water to produce concrete.
One of my best friends worked for 30 years at a mixer plant. He was always willing to correct anyone mixing up which is which. I got a fair share of correction.

Reply to  Chip Javert
December 15, 2015 12:24 pm

JustSteve – Cement mixed with sand and water is mortar. Cement mixed with sand and stone or gravel is concrete. The stone/gravel give concrete much more strength that mortar. The uses for each are very different. Mortar is used for holding things together, like bricks. Concrete is used for weight bearing such as foundations, and structural strength, particularly reinforced (with steel) concrete.

JohnTyler
Reply to  Gary Pearse
December 14, 2015 2:20 pm

Gary;
Clearly the photo you show has been photo-shopped; the 10 feet of water above the road surface have been digitally removed and all the boats that are really there have been replaced by cars .
Really now; did you think you would get away with this?

Jeff (FL)
Reply to  JohnTyler
December 15, 2015 3:04 am

Those photo shopped cars don’t look like PEV cars which are, of course, the reality.

Gary Pearse
December 14, 2015 12:34 pm

I forgot to add M. Mann trotting out his 10yr old slide show at all the meetings, Trenberth, who is doing pennance for the rest of his career sleuthing out the missing heat after the climategate email remark that it is a travesty they couldn’t explain the pause. One trick ponies, all. There are no Keyneses or Hoyles nowadays who admitted they were wrong. When Keynes was asked how come he’s changed his turne, he remarked when the information changed, he changed his mind and “what do you do, sir?.

CheshireRed
December 14, 2015 12:35 pm

10′ sea rise by 2100? He should be dismissed out of hand after that idiocy.

Phillip Bratby
December 14, 2015 12:43 pm

Tidal gauges are the true measures of sea level changes at any location (including the effect of land movement). “Global sea level” is not a physical concept that has any meaning.

Reply to  Phillip Bratby
December 14, 2015 1:35 pm

That is a very good observation for local adaptation. But not for global warming induced SLR. See my comments upthread.

December 14, 2015 12:58 pm

Poor old James Hansen, without some new alarm, he is totally irrelevant and people are able to ignore him once again. Perhaps he will be able to resurrect his famous ‘boiling oceans’ nonsense, to keep his circus still rolling on the road.

willhaas
December 14, 2015 1:09 pm

With the concluding of the Paris climate agreement this is not a concern any more. All climate change has ended. No more global warming, extreme weather events, or rising sea levels. They are gone for ever.

John Whitman
December 14, 2015 1:17 pm

{ emphasis mine – John Whitman}
[AGU] Session today:
James Hansen, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions
Hansen coauthored a widely discussed paper this year that projects sea levels could surge up to 10 feet this century. He will discuss what he sees as the dangers of scientists’ reluctance to seriously consider such bold assertions. (He has based his estimates in part on accumulating evidence that the great ice sheets are undergoing the start of an accelerating collapse—the elephant in the room left out of many other projections.)
Monday, Dec. 14, 1:40-2:00pm, 102 Moscone South. U13A-01

This is classic verbiage from what Naomi Oreskes has been saying at AGU sessions in previous years. Namely, she has put forth the strategy that scientists focused on the CAGW hypotheses need to stop being so cautious and circumspect in claims about their study results; she urged radical claims. Hansen appears to be just following her strategy.
As to his “bold assertion” that “great ice sheets are undergoing the start of an accelerating collapse”, well, does it seem they haven’t started? It looks like what is being said is the great ice sheets haven’t actually started accelerating collapse but are sort of preparing themselves and have started anticipating to get ready to start accelerating collapse. In other words, watch the pea; watch it tensing up and flexing before getting reading to jump with great acceleration from one shell in the shell game to another shell.
Oreskes’ and Hansen’s perennial premise is there must be acceleration of the number of ‘getting worse than we thought thoughts’ that are attended with much shouting and fretting.
John

J Fant
Reply to  John Whitman
December 14, 2015 2:18 pm

“Classic verbiage” reminded me of – CAGW is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

JustSteve
Reply to  John Whitman
December 14, 2015 2:51 pm

A combination of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease (or in this instance graft)” and “a lie told long enough and loud enough eventually becomes truth”.
The more things change……

Walt D.
December 14, 2015 1:37 pm

Do we want to place all of our eggs in the “Broken Climate Model” basket?
Global Warming is supposed to cause all sorts of ridiculous things.
Should we start retrofitting Air Traffic Control systems so that they are ready in case pigs start to fly? Should we invest in equipment to clean the pig manure off the runways.?
Bjorn Lomberg solution of spending the money to address the adverse affects as they occur seems a much better course of action.

The Original Mike M
December 14, 2015 1:57 pm

This fraud is a elitist/commie/anarchist/terrorist who will stop at nothing to destroy our free society the only way he knows how – use absurd climate projections that never come true to derail cheap energy which is the primary reason slavery was able to be abolished from civilization and the life blood of capitalism which brings the greatest increase of standard of living to the most people – at the lowest price.

December 14, 2015 2:09 pm

Hansen the Hack. I looked deeply into his GHCN “global temperature” study and found a lot of imaginary numbers made up for weather stations that stopped operating in the 1920’s. To think that his incredibly shoddy work has been the foundation for almost all models, new government studies and the Alarmist (Science Denier) propaganda…..people are just plain stupid.
NOAA is still only showing an average 0-3mm rise a year. 3mm is about an 1/8th of an inch. For the seas to rise just a foot will take 96 years. Hansen the Hack claiming 10 feet this century? He’s completely and utterly full of shite.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html

bw
Reply to  servingfreya
December 14, 2015 4:07 pm

There is 2012 paper by NOAA that summarizes sea level data from all available sources, from old to current satellite data. You don’t see much interest in the paper because it shows the trend at 1mm per year from 2004 to 2011.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/12/noaa-2012-report-finds-sea-levels.html
I’ve been reading his papers since 1988. He often uses references to his own earlier work for key “facts”
Then when you go back to that reference you see that the “fact” was really some assumption regarding a model or is completely lacking. He often states facts that are “unpublished” or “in press”. The level of writing is unusually bad compared to most main-stream peer reviewed papers. I double you will get any of his peers to admit what they really think of his work.

mikewaite
December 14, 2015 2:36 pm

There is clearly one part of the world where Hansen’s predictions are treated with something less than respect – China. A few minutes ago the BBC was showing a somewhat disturbing video of a flight made close to those islands being created off the Philippines from sunken atolls and the threats of unspecified military action from the Chinese navy .
It appears that China does not believe that its hard work will be submerged again at any time in the near future , 3 airstrips having already been built according to the BBC.
It seems they are looking for domination of a trade route that carries , at present , 40% of the world’s seaborne trade , but incidentally it also demonstrates that they have techniques that would rescue Kiribati, Tuvalu, etc , should that become necessary , and of course using US and UK money to finance the Chinese engineers as required by the Paris Treaty/Agreement . .

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  mikewaite
December 14, 2015 4:38 pm

mikewaite
And they even have the nerve to start construction on a new ice breaker.
Didn’t they get the memo??
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/06/content_17216579.htm
michael

Don K
Reply to  mikewaite
December 14, 2015 6:03 pm

Mike. I’m sure that the Chinese think they can dredge additional fill if they have to. They are almost certainly correct.

The Original Mike M
Reply to  mikewaite
December 14, 2015 6:56 pm

“they have techniques that would rescue Kiribati, Tuvalu, etc , should that become necessary”
I won’t be holding my breath –
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70056/IDO70056SLI.pdf
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70060/IDO70060SLI.pdf

bh2
December 14, 2015 3:33 pm

The more “forecasts” Hansen promotes to the world which will inevitably fail to materialize, the more is the entire alarmist agenda undermined by its very own poster boy. Eventually he’ll become an acute embarrassment to “the cause”. But in the meantime, …
By all means let Doctor Hansen, PhD and renowned “Climate Scientist”, speak out. The more and louder the better. Encourage him. Lend him a bullhorn. Laud him as an authentic and authoritative voice of alarmism (just as he surely is). The wilder are his “scientific” claims, the sooner will they be (once again) revealed as utter tosh. He is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Sun Tzu wisely advised to interfere in no way with operations by an opposing general while he is making a serious mistake.

bw
December 14, 2015 3:40 pm

Plenty of old tide gages around the world. Most common value for those located in geologically stable areas show 2mm per year trend. That is about 8 inches in 100 years.
Plenty of photos of seaside landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty or Brooklyn Bridge towers being constructed in the 1880s. Compare those photos showing sea level to to 2015 and there is no visible change in sea level for 130 years in New York harbor. The daily tide there has a range of 5 feet. Most sea level infrastructure is already designed to tolerate a flood stage of around 10 feet above MSL.
Most any geologist will tell you that MSL for the current interglacial was about 1 meter higher 7000 years ago. Roman era docks are mostly silted in, with sea coast receded from 2000 years ago, but those areas are in a tectonically active area. Some harbors have lifted, some have subsided by various amounts.
See also the Tasmanian tide gage that has been analyzed to death. http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/
Nothing alarming.

DMA
December 14, 2015 3:58 pm

I am nearly certain that Nils-Axel Mörner said that the maximum rate of sea level rise at the end of the last ice age when the massive continental ice sheets were disappearing was less than 1 meter per century. That sheet was 2 miles thick here in Montana. What possible mechanism is available to reduce the Antarctic ice twice as fast as that.

Reply to  DMA
December 14, 2015 4:44 pm

Human CO2 silly. Duh! (sarc)

Marcus
December 14, 2015 4:14 pm

Dear Anthony,
When you get back you need to start a new section for your WUWT page.. Let’s call it ” The Wall of Shame ” !! It should consist of a list of all these wacky predictions from so called scientists, with all relevant info about said wacky scientist’s predictions, including Email address, workplace and full frontal picture ( to be used later when the lynching starts) !!
Thank you for your time
Marcus
P.S. Try not to have too much fun down there !! LOL

sunsettommy
December 14, 2015 4:27 pm

“James Hansen at #AGU15 Why Are Scientists Holding Back on Sea Level Projections?”
Maybe because he is delusional?
Here is a link to a chart about projected Sea Level changes,he is a the very top:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c015432695991970c-pi
From CH3
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/05/memo-to-republicans-sea-levels.html

Latitude
December 14, 2015 4:38 pm

sea levels could surge up to 10 feet this century.
==
yep and no one in Miami cares what Hansen thinks
http://www.planetware.com/photos-large/USFL/florida-miami-south-beach.jpg

Reply to  Latitude
December 14, 2015 5:02 pm

“sea levels could surge up to 10 feet this century”
Good! Just puts me that much closer to the beach that is currently being hogged by elites like Al Gore. A little equal opportunity would be nice. 🙂

Jeff (FL)
Reply to  Latitude
December 15, 2015 3:12 am

You appreciate3 those are all Canadians fleeing Trudeau the Younger and/or the Canadian Winter? 🙂
The big question this season is ‘Will they go back?’.

Reply to  Jeff (FL)
December 15, 2015 12:35 pm

Any day now, the shores of Hudson Bay will look like that in January and with all the polar bears dead and gone, Spring break will be off the hook, man. I can set you up with a nice piece of beachfront ( a couple miles back for now) where you can build your tiki bar or resort hotel. Quick though! Phones ringing like crazy from all those Paris delegates who realize their agreement isn’t going to do anything meaningful except create some more poverty.

David L. Hagen
December 14, 2015 4:40 pm

Danger: Comet coming
The greatest danger of a “10 ft surge” is not over a century of warming, but from a millisecond “splash” of a comet/asteroid. See Revelation 8:8-9

The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Crater Location Diameter km
Vredefort Free State South Africa 300 km
Sudbury Ontario Canada 250 km
Chicxulub Yucatán Mexico 180 km diameter

Reply to  David L. Hagen
December 15, 2015 12:44 pm

Check out Shiva. Appears to be a crater off the West coast of India dated approx. 65 m yrs. 600kms X 400kms. I suggest it is the cause of the Deccan traps eruptions. Similarly, Siberian Traps were likely caused by a massive impact. I don’t understand why Shiva doesn’t get more attention. West coastal area of India apparently shows evidence of massive uplift characteristic of a crater edge. Chicxulub impactor may have broken up before hitting in two different locations, even possibly a few years apart. Might have affected some small islands in the vicinity! Ha!

David L. Hagen
Reply to  john harmsworth
December 15, 2015 1:22 pm

Thanks John
vis India Asteroid Killed Dinosaurs, Made Largest Crater?.
I recommend finding quantitative detailed support of the impact, then add it to the Wikipedia list. e.g., see: The Chicxulub-Shiva extraterrestrial one-two killer punches to Earth 65 million years ago Marine and Petroleum Geology Vol. 49, January 2014, Pages 203–207

Two large asteroids struck Earth at almost the same time, 65 million years ago, causing the major extinctions recognized as ending the Mesozoic Era. Although occurring close together in time, the Earth’s magnetic pole had moved from the South Pole to the North Pole in between, allowing a time difference between the impacts to be calculated. The first strike produced a ∼180 km diameter crater named Chicxulub on the Yucatan shelf of southern Mexico. The second hit the shelf of the northward drifting Indian continent in the southern Indian Ocean, producing a crater ∼450 × 600 km named Shiva. Hitherto, the main obstacle to verifying this scenario has been the paucity of geological sections containing evidence of both impacts. Here, we present such evidence, and conclude that the two impacts were separated by about 40,000 years.

David L. Hagen
Reply to  john harmsworth
December 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Deccan volcanism, the Chicxulub impact, and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction: Coincidence? Cause and effect?

A review of Deccan volcanism and the best age estimate for the Chicxulub impact provides a new perspective on the causes for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and supports an integrated Deccan-Chicxulub scenario. This scenario takes into consideration climate warming and cooling, sea-level changes, erosion, weathering, ocean acidification, high-stress environments with opportunistic species blooms, the mass extinction, and delayed postextinction recovery.
The crisis began in C29r (upper CF2 to lower CF1) with rapid global warming of 4 °C in the oceans and 8 °C on land, commonly attributed to Deccan phase 2 eruptions.

With such rapid 8 °C natural warming, what is the concern the present minor anthropogenic warming?

December 14, 2015 4:43 pm

Gary Pearse wrote:
“There are no Keyneses or Hoyles nowadays who admitted they were wrong. When Keynes was asked how come he’s changed his turne, he remarked when the information changed, he changed his mind and “what do you do, sir?”
Nothing wrong with being wrong of course. If you don’t retract when you’re demonstrably wrong then you’re just a dick. If you tamper with data to avoid being shown to be wrong then you’re a charlatan and a fraud. If you do that and cause untold misery and death then you are a mass murderer. The only question then is can you claim insanity and diminished responsibility. The stakes are high now. It’s a fight to the death and I’m not at all surprised they’re going for the RICO angle on skeptics before the wheels of justice turn ponderously and grind inexorably in their direction.
When you play the game of climates you win or you die. Winter is coming …

James Strom
December 14, 2015 5:16 pm

Coincidentally, Drudge links to an account flooding in the Florida Keys today:
http://news.yahoo.com/florida-keys-flood-property-worries-seep-041916596.html;_ylt=AwrXnCa0xG5WwU0AQpbQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjR0MTVzBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwM3BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–
They’ve had a lengthy immersion, and some commenters are naturally blaming warming.

Don K
December 14, 2015 5:56 pm

If one checks the revealed scripture — IPCC AR5 Chapter 13 — I think one would find that the most pessimistic number they can conjure up for 21st century sea level rise based on known components of sea level change and extreme scenarios is a smidge under 1 meter. They expect substantially less. Perhaps Hansen hasn’t read it. Perhaps he has and disagrees. Seems Hansen is an apostate who denies the holy word and must be driven forth from the realm. … perhaps a RICO indictment …
BTW, the divine word handed down to man by the holy SCIENTISTS does indicate that based on the previous interglacial sea level rise many centuries from now when all the ice that is going to melt has melted and and the seas have warmed as much as they are going to warm will likely be over 5 but less than 10 meters above present. That’s WITHOUT manmade CO2.

Jeff (FL)
Reply to  Don K
December 15, 2015 3:15 am

{Shrug} It’s a schism in the Church. Always happens … part of God’s plan to limit the damage of organized religion. 🙂

Joey
December 14, 2015 9:37 pm

I have often wondered why, if the UN really believes their alarmism regarding sea level rise, they are spending billions of dollars renovating their headquarters in New York. You think they’d move to higher ground!

Eugene WR Gallun
December 14, 2015 11:43 pm

CO2 melts the earth!
Eugene WR Gallun

oppti
December 15, 2015 3:07 am

Lets bee serious-Gauges have long records.
Show me one that has no periodical movements.
Most I have seen indicates higher rise during the warm period. Or the period that used to be warm.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.htm?stnid=8518750

emsnews
December 15, 2015 4:46 am

We should give Hansen the King Canute Award for failed sea rise predictions.

indefatigablefrog
December 15, 2015 5:22 am

I notice that these days if you mistakenly comment on a thread inhabited by warmists and point out that a “prediction” has failed to correspond to the subsequent event – then it is common to to be tiresomely informed that the prediction was in fact a “projection”.
Usually this takes the form of the accusation that “then, you don’t understand the difference between a prediction and a projection”.
The leagues of warmists are apparently happy to allow themselves to be baffled with word-trickery.
The minions on internet threads appear to be quite eager to pull their own wool over their own eyes.

oppti
Reply to  indefatigablefrog
December 15, 2015 8:25 am

Prediction is the opposite of an educated guess?

thingadonta
December 15, 2015 5:49 pm

Official Sydney tide data shows barely any rise at all, so many agencies don’t publish it.
I grew up on the Sydney waterfront and we put a measuring stick in the 1970s at the point of the highest tide of the year, on the front lawn. The highest tide leaves a mark on the grass each year, which then dies and grows back over the next year. Most recent check in 2012 showed the highest tide level of the year hasn’t changed.
Cost of research: stick: free. Petrol to/from site: about $0.25.