Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The United Nations trotted out phony claims of sinking pacific islands after the COP24 climate conference failed to adopt the IPCC grossly exaggerated October climate report alleging global impacts from a 1.5 degree C temperature rise.
The L. A. Times published a story presenting scientifically disproved claims of sinking island assertions which were supposed to show the terrible consequence of rejecting the exaggerated IPCC climate report which was based on flawed and failed climate models.
The Times story noted that:
“Smaller nations, some already losing land to the sea, insisted on the stronger language endorsing the IPCC report, which said that if greenhouse gas emissions continued unabated, the atmosphere would warm as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial averages by 2040, worsening droughts, wildfires, sea level rise and poverty. Global temperatures have already risen an average of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels.
But the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked endorsing the report. They only wanted the conference document to “note” the October study.
The negotiations, normally bureaucratic affairs, turned contentious. One by one, representatives of a dozen countries spoke out against the larger nations’ refusal to accept the report from the panel considered to be the world’s most definitive body on climate change.
The small island nations’ voices emerged with impassioned speeches filling a void.”
“Small island states and poor nations already suffering from sea level rise and other global warming effects took a stand at the U.N. climate change conference over wealthier nations’ relative lack of urgency.”
“Ian Fry, the delegate from Tuvalu, said his low-lying island group between Hawaii and Australia was “deeply disappointed that one group of parties could not accept the consensus in the room.” Tuvalu is already shrinking, with many residents moving to New Zealand.”
The Times ignored the results of scientific studies which clearly showed that Pacific island groups are not sinking and in fact are growing in stark contrast to the phony alarmist claims of sinking islands.
Specifically the studies of the Tuvalu island groups showed that:
“Here we present the first comprehensive national-scale analysis of the transformation in physical land resources of the Pacific atoll nation Tuvalu, situated in the central western Pacific (Supplementary Note 1). Comprising 9 atolls and 101 individual reef islands, the nation is home to 10,600 people, 50% of whom are located on the urban island of Fogafale, in Funafuti atoll28. We specifically examine spatial differences in island behaviour, of all 101 islands in Tuvalu, over the past four decades (1971–2014), a period in which local sea level has risen at twice the global average (Supplementary Note 2).Surprisingly, we show that all islands have changed and that the dominant mode of change has been island expansion, which has increased the land area of the nation. Results are used to project future landform availability and consider opportunities for a vastly more nuanced and creative set of adaptation pathways for atoll nations.”
Other additional scientific studies have also shown that Pacific islands groups are not sinking but climate alarmist continue to misrepresent and conceal the fact that such claims are unsupported by scientific data.
This latest article from the L. A. Times is just another example demonstrating that the papers is conducting a scientifically unsupported politically contrived climate alarmist propaganda campaign devoid of any connection to scientific reality.
“… already losing… ”
“… already risen…”
“… already suffering…”
“… already shrinking…”
ALREADY?
Except they aren’t! The global warming apocalypse is running way behind schedule and the canaries are still merrily chirping down in the coal mines. When one of the happy birds dies of old age, the doomsayers desperately shout: “Look! It is ALREADY happening” But nothing is happening, and you can feel their manic desperation for something horrible.
When Sarah Connors spoke this way, they locked her up! They didn’t give her a country to run or op-eds in the New York Times!
But… Sarah Connor was right.
Hate to break it to you, Jeff, but the Terminator movies are fiction…just like the man-made climate change crisis. The most realistic thing about Terminator 2 is that Sarah was locked up for being a dangerous looney. Without evidence, Sarah was a nutcase in her fictional world. In this world, talking like Sarah Connor without evidence gets you a high paying job at the UN!
It makes you wonder who the crazy ones are!
Well no sh*t Sherlock. You brought up a fictional character in a fictional world. But in that fictional world she was right.
In our world she SHOULD be locked up, along with climate change nutbags.
In other words, bad example.
The quotation marks in this post are messed up. It’s hard to tell what’s part of the LAT story.
As far as I can tell, there’s one factual error – Tuvalu is losing area. Does that make that whole article is about “phony sinking island claims”? No. An island can gain area, yet lose height above sea level.
The DoD funded research looking into the matter of low-lying islands in order to assess risk to military installations. The problem isn’t with loss of area, it’s with a greater frequency of flooding. In addition to infrastructure damage, this poses a risk to freshwater aquifers becoming saline and unusable.
https://www.serdp-estcp.org/Program-Areas/Resource-Conservation-and-Resiliency/Infrastructure-Resiliency/Vulnerability-and-Impact-Assessment/RC-2334/
Some islands (and coastal areas) are already experiencing more frequent flooding, but so far it’s mainly a nuisance. How long it takes before whole island populations have to move or make costly adaptations depends on the rate of sea level change.
Slowing the change gives people more time to adapt.
Ignoring the evidence and the problems increases risk of negative consequences, both through more rapid climate change and lack of preparation for its results.
“The problem isn’t with loss of area, it’s with a greater frequency of flooding. In addition to infrastructure damage, this poses a risk to freshwater aquifers becoming saline and unusable.”
Are you saying this never happened before, until Humans started driving SUVs?
“Slowing the change gives people more time to adapt.”
If a couple millimeters a year is too fast for some people to adapt, then they probably shouldn’t exist.
You mean to tell us the US military would fund research that results in the “independent” conclusion that the military needs more money to reduce potential risk to military installations?
Shocked, I am . . . really shocked to find such activity is going on (with apologies to Captain Louis Renault of Casablanca fame).
One need only read this statement, taken verbatim from the article at the link you provided, to see what credibility should be assigned to the DoD funded “research” that you referenced:
“Physics-based numerical oceanographic and hydrogeologic models were used to forecast how future sea-level rise and climate change will affect wave-driven flooding of the island and evaluate its resulting impacts to infrastructure and freshwater resources.”
“Some islands (and coastal areas) are already experiencing more frequent flooding, but so far it’s mainly a nuisance.
How long it takes before whole island populations have to move or make costly adaptations depends on the rate of sea level change. Slowing the change gives people more time to adapt.
Ignoring the evidence and the problems increases risk of negative consequences, both through more rapid climate change and lack of preparation for its results.”
Another one talking utter bollox.
1/ sea level is NOT accelerating, it’s a steady very slow change…plenty of time to adapt over centuries.
Check the well known and well placed tidal records for the last 100 years.
2/ In places like Bangladesh which you might of course cite as an example, it’s well known the reason for the more frequent flooding is man’s inept interventions which cause tidal depositions to change and erode rather than to deposit as per usual.
3/ you might of course cite the example of Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans or the Seine in Paris or the somerset levels.
It would be very wonderful and humerous if you did, because they are the very perfection of examples of negligent water management PLUS the consequences of ignoring repeated warnings of impending disaster in case of bad weather.
In the somerset levels they actually SOLD all the dredging equipment cos they had been told there was no chance of flooding EVAH, cos the climate was going to be drier and hotter for ever…
I fear you as usual are on hide to nowhere.
Apart from those obvious examples above, and of course the good old thing about allowing people to have caravan sites or houses in well known flood plains (anyone for the Thames valley folks??!), you have no basis whatsoever for those remarks, cleverly couched in smarmy pseudo scientific language or not as the case may be!
You need a crisis to control the people.
I think I read here at WUWT a decade ago that the Sinking Tuvalu meme had been debunked?
“I think I read here at WUWT a decade ago that the Sinking Tuvalu meme had been debunked?”
A lot of things have been debunked over the millennia, like Astrology. Doesn’t mean people stop trying to use it to bilk people out of money.