Reposted from Jennifer Marohasy’s Blog
December 28, 2019 By jennifer 3
Many Australians are fearful of catastrophic human-caused climate change because this is what the state-sponsored propaganda on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) tells us.
In Australia, we mostly live near the sea. All along our coastline there is evidence of sea level fall, yes fall.*
Where is the evidence for rising sea levels?
Will you see how much sea levels have risen when you watch the fireworks over the Opera House in Sydney Harbour this New Year’s Eve — or will you see evidence of sea level fall?
It is that time of year when family and friends visit me at the beach. My niece told me just before Christmas that she had read so many of the comments at the YouTube thread following my first short film ‘Beige Reef’. She was surprised at how many comments there were — an awful lot she commented.
When I asked her what she thought of the film, she told me that she had not actually watched the film.
At that morning tea, under a shelter at Coolum Beach, none of my nieces or nephews or older brother could admit to having watched the film.
It is all of 12 minutes long.
This first film involved me wading into, and diving below, waters that my sister-in-law some weeks earlier had indicated put me at risk of a shark attack. But still she has not actually watched the film.
I know that there is fear within the varies communities within which I exist, of at least three things: sharks, catastrophic human-caused global warming — and that I could lead some of them down the path of global warming scepticism and from this they could end-up pariahs.
I diverge.
The best evidence is that global sea level has fallen by at least 2 metres since the the Holocene high stand about 4,000 BC; that is about 6,0000 years ago, a time known as the Minoan warm period.
The evidence in rocks and cliff faces all along the Australian east coast is that sea level was about 1m higher in the Roman warm period (year 0), and about 0.5m higher in the Medieval warm period (1,000 AD).
Conversely, it is believed the sea level was lower in the cold periods of 500 AD (Dark Ages) and the Little Ice Age (1,650 AD), maybe both 0.2 — 0.5 metres below today’s level. This last low sea level is particularly important, because it from this base sea levels are perhaps still rising back to average Holocene levels. But are they really?
When I go kayaking, and walk along the sea shore, and send my drone Skido up into the sky and look down and take pictures of things like marine potholes that feature at the top of this blog post: I see evidence for a sea shore that is receding.
The sea begins at the land’s edge. Where the sea begins is the ‘sea level’.
When I stand beside the circular pothole that you can see in the centre of the picture accompanying this blog post (… scroll to the very top).
I’m standing on a wave-cut platform of sandstone bedrock with rectangular fractures, and red iron oxide colouring.
Potholes are formed by the relentless grinding of harder rocks — perhaps granite— caught in a depression in this softer sandstone. Pounding surf causes the harder rocks to swirl — round and round — grinding down.
The grinding that created these potholes could only have happened when sea levels were higher, when this platform was between the high and low tide marks.
I took the picture on a highest tide this last year, in 2019. A year that is nearly over.
Sea levels must have been higher in the past. Because even on the highest tides this last year, the waves never reached this far?
The ABC may be concerned about rising sea levels, but where is your evidence for it? Are you brave enough, do you care enough, can you find the time enough, to think through some of these issues this next year: in 2020?
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts.
I photographed this cliff face just to the north-west of the pot holes, which is just to the north-west of my favourite beach in Noosa National Park, so near where I live. What can you see in this landscape? Is there a wave cut platform, and what might have created it? Have you seen similar along other sections of sea shore?
______________________
* This is intended as the first of a series of blog posts on sea level change.
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All over SE Asia, from the Philippines to Vietnam to Thailand, is evidence everywhere that sea levels were about 1-2 meters higher than present not that long ago, i.e. the Holocene High Stand. It is literally cut into the rock face abutting the ocean mostly everywhere there isn’t a beach. Just sail around southern Thailand and see the higher wave cut rock everywhere.
There would be some adjustment to the global sea surface from changing oceanic basins with massive isostatic rebound happening in the far northern continents the last ten thousand years after the North American and European ice sheets melted, displacing southern ocean waters with a bias upwards. Maybe some from Antarctica as well that partially counter balanced that. But that wouldn’t account for all of the recent increase the last 6000 years. Clearly, it was much warmer in the Holocene Optimum than had melted much more of the northern and souther ice caps, as well as the global mountainous glaciers. There was more water volume in the global ocean, but that is not the whole picture either.
The changing planetary Geoid from the change in the mass balance of the contentientcl ice sheets and underlying crust would also affect sea levels on a global level, but that would have localized sea levels very differently at different stages of the last de-glaciation. How long does it take for these things to settle out and appear as local sea level, from things that are not even related to water volumes but things like the gravitational geoid that can change the local sea level a half a world away? Everything changes everything.
Some of the up and down is also undoubtably rapid change with vertical earthquake activity. I have seen 9-10 km of beach raised up out of the ocean 1.5 meters high in 2-3 minutes in the 2013 earthquake in Bohol, Philippines. Little kids remember that one, once swimming in the ocean where now it is dry land but now an obvious sea floor and we all have pictures of the beach that is now a km away from the sea from just less than 7 years ago. Things can change in minutes locally in some places. That water was displaced elsewhere making it look like it was additive to SLR.
Sea level isn’t static is the one lesson we should all understand regarding any semblance of permanence in sea levels staying constant for long. There are a lot more factors going on rather than just water volume going into and out of the global ocean that affect local sea level. We are probably seeing the most stable sea levels of the last 115,000 years, this last 2000 years, but this will be temporary too.
Good article, consistent with others I have read. Two errors: the author uses “varies” [a verb] where she means “various” [an adjective]; and there is not, and never was, a year 0. The beginning of whatever year that was was January 1, the year 1, ending December 31; the next January 1 began year 2. Centuries are also reckoned in that way: in spite of living in the year 2019, we are in the 21st century. The first century A.D. began with the year 1 and ended with the year 100; the second century began with the year 101 and ended with the year 200. In our current century, the 21st, it began on Jan 1 2001 and will end on Dec 31 2100. Thus, 2000 was the final year of the 20th century.
Where are all the articles of people bemoaning the loss of their ocean-front properties to the rising waters? Have the prices of such properties collapsed? Anywhere in the world? Malibu? The Florida Keys? Surely there must be documentation of seaside cities where acres upon acres of property have been abandoned? No? Huh. Wonder why not?
Didn’t you see them? They are right next to the articles bemoaning the ocean submerging the Maldives in their entirety … last year … as predicted.
The articles showing the new ocean side resort and airport in the Maldives are ‘fake news’ developed by the Koch Brother.
“The best evidence is that global sea level has fallen by at least 2 metres since the the Holocene high stand about 4,000 BC; that is about 6,0000 years ago, a time known as the Minoan warm period.”
Well the geology of Hallett Cove in SA shows a SLR of 130M between 15000 and 6-7000 years ago and I have the Govt pamphlet to verify that although it was taught to generations of geology students on excursions there. Basically Spenser and St Vincent Gulf didn’t exist and the coast was south of Kangaroo Island on the edge of the Continental shelf at the start of that ice melting. But after that 130M rise presumably there was a 3M drop some time to produce the Stranded Shingle Dunes at the head of Spenser Gulf above Whyalla-
“The Stranded Shingle Beach Ridges north along the western coastline of Upper Spencer Gulf have been provisionally entered for inclusion as a State Heritage Place in the South Australian Heritage Register. There are only 2 other places in the world registered with similar Shingle Ridges being in Egypt and Scotland.
A geological phenomenon, these stranded shingle beach deposits have been traced over a distance of some 50kms from near the head of Spencer Gulf southwards along its western shore to Stony Point, and provide a distinctive geological feature which is believed to date back to the Pleistocene period.
Consisting of moderately sorted, rounded to sub-angular pebbles and cobbles, the deposits form sinuous, flat topped and well preserved ridges 3-5 metres above present mean sea level.
Most are usually narrow – no more than 10-15 metres wide. In some areas the deposits form cliffs behind the modern beach.
The movement of gravel by present day waves in the northern part of Spencer Gulf is restricted compared with that indicated by the ridges. It appears that the combination of a high sea level (3 metres higher than today), strong easterly winds, and high wave energy dissipation along the shore line, were responsible for the deposits”
https://www.whyalla.com/coast-and-beaches
They’re fairly impressive and you know damn well looking at them the current sea level or aboriginals didn’t put them there-
&exph=677&expw=1145&q=stranded+shingle+dunes+fitzgerald+bay&selectedindex=0&qpvt=stranded+shingle+dunes+fitzgerald+bay&ajaxhist=0&vt=0&eim=1,6
Then you look at the tide gauges at Fort Denison and Port Arthur and you know the doomsters aren’t talking science with their tree ring circus and GIGO computer models as SLR is the one true temperature proxy to rule them all down the ages. So much for their bogeyman and moving right along as they don’t mention that much anymore.
I’m Septuagenarian with +4 s.d. IQ and a life time of observation – trying to see what no one else does – tells me that most people are quite blind except to their preconceptions and appetites.
I made this handy smart diagram. If it was a dumb video it would actually be shown, but here it is anyway
On a vacation to “sinking” or “inundated” Miami Beach we saw construction taking place every where. Property is ultra expensive. Are banks making loans on properties they believe will soon be submerged? No they are not. Does an artificially inhabitable barrier island want national taxpayers to pay for lnfrastructure projects to improve it’s stability. Yes they certainly do. Climate Change. The gift that keeps on giving.
Key Largo neighborhoods were flooded for over 80 days this fall, the streets have ‘No wake’ signs.
Because there is no sea level rise. Sea level is at stillstand. Stillstand is a term from stratigraphy, which is the most appropriate science for studying sea level, in which globally there is no uniformity of transgression or regression. Coastlines around the world are showing a mix of sea level fall, rise, and no change – this means that regional and local factors are dominating over global factors – stillstand.
Jennifer Marohasy’
“I know that there is fear within the
variesvarious ? communities within which I exist…..”Roman ports all across the Mediterranean are above the current (tideless) sea level.
R
Also consider:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17753292
No other than Leonard diCaprio delivers the ultimate evidence.
Look here
https://twitter.com/Tony__Heller/status/1210835541425414145
Potholes in the hard bedrock of montane rivers and streams are reasonably well understood. They are usually correlated with high water velocities, such as were often obtained at the end of the last continental glaciation. One sometimes even observes them in the walls of a canyon carved by glaciers. ‘Potholes’ along ocean shorelines are more problematic. Personally, I’d be reluctant to form an overarching hypothesis based on a single shoreline feature.
What I see in the photograph is a pile of rubble from a cliff that is being undercut, which is common with transgressing seas in geologic history. The supposed wave-cut terrace is present on the left and right, but seems to actually be missing in the center. Alternative hypotheses are that there is both vertical and lateral differences in the degree of induration or cementation of the sandstones, leading to resistant layers sticking out from the rest. It would be more convincing if there were a flat topographic feature developed on vertical dipping beds. Indeed, the origin of the ‘potholes’ may well be from lateral differences in resistance to wave erosion. That is, horizontal variations make certain areas of the coastline more susceptible to wave attack and one ends up with small embayments being called a “pothole.” But, the bottom line is that the collapsing cliff face argues more strongly that there is at least intermittent erosion eating away at the shoreline.
It is an interesting hypothesis, but, I’d like to see more examples, and examples that are less ambiguous.
Hi Clyde. Go to the picture at the top of the original blog post at my website to see the pot holes. Cheers,
Hi Jennifer
Thank you for drawing my attention to the photograph at the top of your original article. Clearly, there are classic potholes showing in the photograph. However, it is difficult to tell just what the relief is for what you are referring to as the wave-cut terrace. The absence of vegetation on the shoreline indicates that either tides and/or storm waves frequently impinge on the bare rock. And, both salinity and the mechanical abrasion inhibit vegetation. However, I have observed vegetation regrowing on what is essentially bare rock in glaciated terrains in one or two decades. So, I don’t think that what we are looking at in your picture is anything but recent.
I still would not rule out lateral variations in the coherence of the sandstones as contributing to the potholes. It would sort of be the inverse of organic material ‘seeding’ the local calcification of the sandstone.
It is an interesting situation, but I think that it needs a geologist or geomorphologist looking at it up close to be more certain of just what is going on.
Very impressive—of course, I didn’t understand one damn word of it, but…that’s beside the point…
IMO much of the clinging to the sham is an effort to avoid personal and institutional consequences by shoving the day of reckoning into the future to some point just beyond their demise
It’s hard to be held accountable once you’re in the grave.
Duly noted, observa , December 28, 2019 at 4:44 am
And in Australia’s premier location, for the dissemination of miss-reporting, Cairns, highly trained university graduates, are vying for funds, to save their patch of coral.
While back inland, at a distance of 215km, old reef.
(SIC) Map: Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park map (PDF, 127K) (https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/chillagoe-caves/pdf/chillagoe-map.pdf)Chillagoe is 215km west of Cairns, around 3hrs drive. It can be accessed from the northern end of the Atherton Tableland via Mareeba and Dimbulah. The road is sealed to Almaden. Over the final 32km of road there are both sealed and unsealed sections. Chillagoe can also be …
See more on parks.des.qld.gov.au (EQ)
Charles Rotter for Jennifer Marohasy
“This is intended as the first of a series of blog posts on sea level change.”
Well, I sincerely hope that Dr Marohasy will manage to present us, in her next blog posts:
– less subjective thoughts, less nice coastal landscape pictures, and thus
– more real numbers, more graphs;
– a more global evaluation, i.e. not restricted to (tiny portions of) Australia.
How is it possible to solely speak about some isolated pieces of Australia’s coasts like in the guest post above? After all, Australia’s entire coastal line is over 25,000 km.
But, on the other hand… it is less than 5 (yes: five) % of the worldwide sum of all coasts!
Japan’s and the Philippines’ coastal lines are even bigger.
The greatest tide gauge directory, PMSL, contains over 1500 entries; 92 of them are located in Australia.
Thus, speaking solely about Australia wrt sea levels makes here few sense.
*
I made an own PMSL evaluation, with slightly lower trends and acceleration factor than shown by e.g. Dangendorf & al.:
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41558-019-0531-8/MediaObjects/41558_2019_531_MOESM2_ESM.txt
or by Grant Foster:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UaePmF9fkKWK6pUxPWgZhuhTP-EvMud6/view
Only those PMSL stations were considered which have at least 30 years activity, and for which vertical land movement correction data was available from valuable sources like:
https://www.sonel.org/IMG/txt/vertical_velocities_table-4.txt
or
https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.889923
The following graph comparing Australia’s sea level behavior (blue) with that of the Globe (red) explains pretty good that even a big region like Australia is no ‘ersatz’ for the Globe (in black we additionally see satellite altimetry by NOAA):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zGITAnugUErqaXWmxnzMPkHku7biu_iU/view
The graph shows the evidence: from 1900 till 1990, there was in Australia no sea level rise at all! There was rather a negative trend. Rising began there after 1990.
But the rest of the Globe differs quite a lot from this DownUnder!
Trends for 1900-2018, in mm/year:
– Australia: -0.85 ± 0.05
– Globe: 1.32 ± 0.02
Trends for the satellite era, 1993-2018:
– Australia: 4.05 ± 0.34
– Globe: 2.81 ± 0.12 (satellite-based altimetry: 2.87)
It’s nice to tell all the time that x, y, or z thousands of years ago, sea levels were higher.
But this consideration is of no help when trying to reassure… (re)insurances.
Regards
J.-P. D.
Re : Historical photographs revisited: A case study for dating and characterizing recent loss of coral cover on the inshore Great Barrier Reef
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep19285
Which is the Nature Paper JM was questioning, if you overlay the photos from the Figure 4 “Historical and modern photographs of Stone Island.” then Figure 4.a and Figure 4.e show the 2012 photo was taken from North of the 1890 original. Its hard to say exactly but its at least hundreds of meters and could be a km or more I’d guess. Its really obvious. A rookie mistake.
They say “Geological features in the background of the images used to identify the location of the historical photographs include Gloucester Island (GI) and Cape Gloucester (CG).”
Getting the same location is vital if they’re making direct comparisons.
Tim, given that the original photos were taken 1890, there so many unknown factors that could not have been taken into consideration. Storms are mentioned as a potential for damage, but how many were there and how severe? The storms they do mention seem to be more in regards to runoff from flooding, no mention of large surf. Cyclones cause massive damage to corals!
The Crown of Thorn starfish are another major contributor to the state of the reef. There are more control methods now than there has ever been, we have gone from one boat to seven in recent years to monitor and to cull these creatures. Each COT consume centimeters of coral every day. Given that there is a population explosion of them every 15 to 17 years it’s easy to work out the photo op times that suit the ‘coral bleaching’ lies. Hundreds of thousands of them have been culled in recent years. At their peak you can’t see the coral for the starfish. Of course this fortunately, doesn’t happen accross the entire reef at the same time.
Jennifer has proven through her video ‘Beige Reef’ that whatever damage may have occurred in this area the past, there is little evidence of it today. This proves just how resilient the coral reefs are, and the extent that ‘global warmists’ will go to promote their agenda.
I don’t know why they chose this area to conduct their studies. The Great Barrier Reef is the size of the UK! And unless you are on one of the small islands within the reef, almost all of the reef is 15 to 150 kilometers from the coastline. And it’s more than 2000 kilometers long! Given that that chose a site just off the mainland then many of the studies would be irrelevant. It would be easy to cherry pick a reef to suit their purpose, at more than 345,000
square kilometres of coral reefs there’s going to be some damage somewhere. They just happened to pick a beige one close to shore and portrayed it as dead.
I guess they picked it because of the photos, they had a reference point to make up lies about.
Megs writes
But if you overlay the landscape in the far background you can see the discrepancy easily. If they’ve found the right spot and it didn’t look at all like it did in 1890 then that would have blown their entire work apart. 130 years of erosion might have done that.
Its also not part of the “Great barrier Reef” in the sense that the GBR is way off shore. These are just a couple of coral reefs very close to a town of 10k people. I dont doubt thousands of people over the years have trampled the above the waterline parts of these reefs and that cant be good for them compared to 1890 either.
I really liked the short film “Beige Reef”. It was informative and well done. If someone does not have enough attention span to watch that then that person is beyond help. (sans medication?)
7,000 years of sea-level fall, as surveyed on the Rockingham-Becher Plain, south of Perth (modified with my red annotation of atmos CO2 in ppm below the original black annotation.
Black numbers at the black dot locations represent age dated (radio-carbon analysis) paleo shell deposits. Dashed black lines are schematic parallel strandlines interpreted from the age dated locations.
Original Source: Geology and Landforms of the Perth region / author, J.R. (Bob) Gozzard. Geological Survey of Western Australia, 2007.
As the super-sleuth scientist, Holmes once said, “You see, but you do not observe.” Although Holmes’s knowledge of geology was limited, he knew a good soil when he saw it (paraphrasing Dr Watson in “A Study in Scarlet”.
Holmes was also an excellent researcher, unlike our alarmist scientists today and their puppets, the environmental and science journalists of the Main-Stream-Media. The history of the Earth is in the rocks. Sedimentary, my dear Watson!
https://postimg.cc/XrSzPsp2
During each centennial solar minimum the AMO is in its warm phase, causing increased melt of the Greenland ice sheet and continental glaciers, which raises the sea level.
https://notrickszone.com/2019/12/05/cartology-affirms-relative-sea-levels-were-the-same-or-higher-than-now-during-the-little-ice-age/
The undercut limestone islands of tonga, pulau and Thailand are clear evidence of sea level fall.
Fort Pickens in Florida, famous for having Geronimo as a prisoner, was built at the waters edge. It is now high and dry.
Many long term tidal gauges show sea levels are falling.
Ferdberple
“Many long term tidal gauges show sea levels are falling.”
This is absolutely correct.
But… why don’t you speak about those gauges which show sea levels don’t?
You don’t need to believe me (very few people do on this blog anyway).
To my own surprise, here is a chart showing you, using the P(S)MSL tide gauge directory, the difference between the wolrdwide averaging
– of gauges with at least 30 years of activity (red)
with that
– of gauges with at least 100 years of activity (green).
This is layman’s work, based on raw PMSL data, and with, in addition, a raw evaluation of that data (nonetheless including corrections accounting for vertical land movement around the gauges.
In comparison you see Grant Foster’s professional evaluation (in grey/black).
Trend comparisons, in mm/year
– 1900-2018
— 30y+ : 1.32 ± 0.02
— 100y+ : 1.99 ± 0.03
– Foster : 1.48 ± 0.01
1993-2018 (satellite altimetry era)
— 30y+ : 2.81 ± 0.12
— 100y+ : 2.68 ± 0.34
– Foster : 3.19 ± 0.07
The great peaks and drops in the green plot’s recent period tell you that there were few 100y+ active stations. The excessive trend for the 100+y entire period shows you the inverse.
90 stations worldwide! That is definitely not enough:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_XDvRE3E5qzy0vAgv2fli36wGYktiV1F/view
Grant Foster’s higher trends, quite similar to those obtained by other professional evaluations, is very probably due to the use of ordinary least square techniques for anomaly computation. I use a far more primitive technique.
Draw your own conclusions!
Regards
J.-P. D.
Source pf PMSL data:
https://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.monthly.data/rlr_monthly.zip
Ooops?!
I managed to forget the link to the sea level comparison chart:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mxdTAhBXZiwfbMOaUKpxCdPdx0A6-_n/view
Good grief.
This last low sea level is particularly important, because it from this base sea levels are perhaps still rising back to average Holocene levels. But are they really? –> This last low sea level is particularly important, because [ ] from this base, sea levels are perhaps still rising back to average Holocene levels. But are they really?
“When I stand beside the circular pothole that you can see in the centre of the picture accompanying this blog post (… scroll to the very top).”
____________________________________
You mean – that:
“Potholes are formed by the relentless grinding of harder rocks — perhaps granite— caught in a depression in this softer sandstone. Pounding surf causes the harder rocks to swirl — round and round — grinding down.”
Similar https://www.google.com/search?q=glacier+moulin&oq=glacier+moulan&aqs=chrome.