From the reason #75 why we don’t subscribe to “Scientific American” anymore department. Back in May of 2016, there was the usual brainless caterwauling over Sea Level Rise caused by climate change, SciAm picked it up:
Sea-level rise has claimed five whole islands in the Pacific: first scientific evidence
Even The Guardian said the headline was hype.
Report’s author says many media outlets have misinterpreted the science by conflating sea-level rise with climate change
Well, that “scientific evidence” seems to be little more than vacuous opinion from “The Conversation” in Australia. We covered the topic last year, but here is another look.
Warren Blair writes:
Almost 25-years of meticulous data gathered by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology displays no discernible sea-level rise for Solomon Islands and Nauru. See the two graphs below.
But both want your money for catastrophic climate-change mitigation:
Solomon Islands gets access to fund to combat climate change
There are numerous stories in mainstream media going back 15-years regarding the urgent plight and impending doom of these islands in particular.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is well known for adjusting data to suit their AGW agenda; however, sea-level data is difficult to adjust and is primarily adjusted for Barometric
Pressure (very little wriggle room).
How much money would you give the Solomon Islands and Nauru for climate-change mitigation?
The Australian Government, despite its own data, already spends tens of millions through the ‘Pacific Adaptation Strategy Assistance Program’ and the ‘Green Climate Fund’.
Taxpayers should be up in arms and increasingly they are as new political voices emerge and take votes from the major parties.
If the sea level around the Solomon’s is steady, and the sea level in the Mediterranean appears steady, how do they generate a world rise in sea levels? Seems to me that this sea level rise business is getting more and more suspect.
R
Australia tends to be zealously politically correct. Zeal doesn’t permit much self examination. The important thing is to wear the right label. Mythology, be it of the national story or of the Aborigines or AGW has always been encouraged to resist factual analysis. In truth, it usually is a better story, despite all those TV programs about fact being stranger than fiction. Themes of victimhood and bleeding hearts pervades Australian TV entertainment and documentaries. Just listen to the background music. Talk about maudlin! The tough manliness of the ANZACs has all but disappeared – not that they were particularly nice!. Even so, very happy to live here. We all have rights.
The very idea that the Solomons would be threatened by a few inches of sea-level rise is laughable. We aren’t exactly talking atolls here. 75 years ago Americans and Japanese fought each other on Guadalcanal for six months. Thirty thousand died, and Savo Sound was renamed Ironbottom Sound because of all the wrecks on the bottom. The whole battle was about a few square miles of floodplain along the lower Lunga River because this was the only spot in the whole eastern Solomons that was large enough and flat enough to build an airfield.
There is at least one Pacific Island near where I live on the coast of Southern California that was believed to be a substantial island just 20k years ago and is now the Cortez Bank whose highest point is about 9 feet below sea level. It is a well known surfing spot and is claimed as US territory even though it is underwater. It could become an island again during the next ice age.
Interesting, there is a little deeper and much younger former island off a little east of the central Louisiana coast called Ship Shoal. A remnant of a barrier island from an old degraded delta, it shows as an island on a map about 1830. Island (Isle Dernier, on its way to a shoal) settlement just inland wiped out by hurricane a few decades later. Some skepticism about its old status, shallow shoals are islands at low tide, but other evidence suggests it might have been the last offshore of several to sink on a subsiding coast. It is still a concern to larger vessels and had a marker for some time after the Civil War, not sure about dates.
Surfing there probably continues to be involuntary. Check it out for real (relative) sea level rise.
Over on Bishop Hill Phil Clarke has been active -here he is gloating over the demise of the Maldives
I live on a South Pacific island (the big one pointy one down the bottom of the map) and would welcome a bit of sea-level rise. Dragging a fishing kayak across fifty metres of deep, soft, white sand is no picnic for a 71-year-old and the return journey after three hours of paddling, complete with an uphill start, is murder. Give me 500mm of rise and at high tide I could launch or land straight from or onto a grassy bank.
Ain’t gonna happen, of course. The sea hasn’t risen a millimetre since I first walked on the local beaches sixty years ago and it’s not about to start anytime soon, despite the doomsayers.
But why is every piece of climate change or geological news reported as a disaster? The English Channel replacing the land bridge linking Britain to Europe has to be one of the most propitious occurrences in Earth’s history. More please.
We are Australia, we don’t do “up in arms and defiant”. We do “very upset but what can you do?”
One of the most compliant to authority nations in the western world.
Chuck another shrimp on the barbie?
Just responding to the question about changing sea levels during ENSO events.
I would imagine this is a result of the changing trade winds that can generate sea level changes of up to a meter during strong events. During an El Nino event sea levels rise in the East and start to fall in the west. Later when the trades re-establish the reverse occurs.
I also recall that during the 2010/11 La Nina event it was estimated that the massive amounts of rainfall over Australia actually contributed to a drop in global sea levels.
David W…..Many thanks for responding to the question I raised earlier. I wondered if the prevailing winds might be involved but didn’t know if they could produce such a persistent effect over the time intervals involved. Thanks again for your suggestions.
I’m new to this site (although I have visited it many times over the past 10 years or so) and really like the content & articles. However, I’m quite amazed at how much time on these threads is wasted responding to obvious trolls and expounding political viewpoints. I realise that politics & money drive this whole “AGW/climate change” fiasco and exposing the deception & lies is undeniably important but IMHO science speaks best for itself and doesn’t need to be coloured by personal political opinions. These undermine the integrity of the process and give the “other side” more ammunition. I’d prefer to stick to the science without the (personal) political comment or religion thrown in. Neither of these serves to advance the case against this dangerous & expensive hoax that we are all trying to fight.
Sorry if I speak out of turn here but just trying to be objective as a new contributor. Thanks!
Phil @ur momisugly 7:45
Yes, Phil I agree completely with you. This is a great site but it’s often hard to find the scientific nuggets amongst all the politics, name calling and wast of time on troll-replies.
It’s an American site so I guess that’s why they get so involved in their politics but I’d just prefer the science.
However, nothing is perfect in this life and Anthony and his moderating team do us all a great service…I can’t thank them enough for all the useful insights and ammunition they have given me over the years/decades.
Alastair @ur momisugly 2:09
Thanks, Alastair, and fully understood on that. However, I’m sure not everybody who visits WUWT reads Breitbart and some of the comments are probably offensive to them. We need supporters from across the political spectrum to help win this fight and alienating (some) potential allies doesn’t serve much purpose. Trolls should be ignored or sent to the corner with a single put down and then ignored. Starving them of oxygen will reduce their CO2 output! : ]
Because we are in the South Pacific and on the ring of fire, NZ has a fine scientific tradition of relevant research. Paul Kench; Willem de Lange (Oceanographer); and David Kear (Geologist, rtd), have done vast amounts of good honest work which cover the whole subject. Put simply, Parrotfish, surface coral growth, tectonics, Enso/winds/sun/currents control things, People and even less CO2, have little or no effect. Anyone who peruses the works of the three above, will have the hard-won facts.
Even here, we have now got a scum-layer of activists, often from geography. Their time is up, and the desperation is palpable…..
I think the greenies themselves are largely responsible for destroying many of these islands … with their MONEY! The more money they send to “save” these islands – the more people come to them for employment to get that money. The higher the population gets – the more pollution and overfishing there is to destroy the coral ecosystem that supports the island itself and the more fresh water depletion going on to sucks in ocean water to destroy those natural fresh water sources.
Is it possible that the best way to help them is not to?
Also in New Zealand on the ring of fire, the tide gauges tell us that not much has changed since the first tide guages were installed well over a century and a half ago. Things tend to jiggle around somewhat when the faults go active, but land going up or down in relation to sea level does not seem to be a factor.
And no, one NEVER gets personally accustomed to earthquakes, ever!