Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 17 January 2024 — 600 words/6 minutes
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., who writes at The Honest Broker on substack, gets a great big Hat Tip from me for bringing this NASA web page to my attention: Climate Kids: Planet Health Report: SEA LEVEL. [ see his post here – I am writing about the issue of Landification shortly ]
Climate Kids presents itself as an educational tool to teach children, at the grade school level, about Climate Change. It is produced by the Earth Science Communications Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology. The Program Manager is Heather Doyle, who can be contacted at climatekids@jpl.nasa.gov.
Here is their Sea Level page graphic:
Here’s the text, a little easier for you to read:
“SEA LEVEL:
What if it keeps rising this fast?
The global average sea level has risen over 7 inches in the past 100 years. A few inches may not seem like much, but every inch of sea level rise covers 50-100 inches of beach. If the ice keeps melting, global sea level could rise more than 20 feet. That would put a lot of coastlines under water. Whole islands could disappear!”
Now, please, imagine that you are a 4th grader – 9 or 10 years old — living in Miami. You are told explicitly that if things keep going as they have been going, you, you family, your friends, your school and your entire city are going to die by being submerged under 20 feet of water.
That, my dear friends, is blatant child abuse according to the definitions of child abuse of the U.S. CDC which says of child abuse and neglect:
“This issue includes all types of abuse and neglect of a child under the age of 18 by a parent, caregiver, or another person in a custodial role (such as a religious leader, a coach, a teacher) that results in harm, the potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.”
For a Miami Beach school district teacher in a 4th grade class to teach 9 and 10 year-olds that they are under a death sentence from climate change due to present rate of sea level rise:
1. Is a lie. The question is “What if it keeps rising this fast?” The true answer is “In 100 more years, the sea level will rise another 7 inches.” The more correct answer, according to our present understanding of global sea level rise, is about 8-12 inches in the next century.
2. It is also a lie to imply that the answer to the question is “the sea could rise more than 20 feet” and submerge Miami.
3. It is not just a lie – not just Climate Crisis propaganda – it is by definition child abuse.
I would correct this page as follows:
The corrected text reads:
“The global average sea level has risen over 7 inches in the past 100 years.
Depending on the slope of a beach, one inch of sea level rise can cover more
than an inch of beach. If sea level keeps rising this fast – 7 or 8 inches per century
then in another 100 years, sea level will rise another 7 or 8 inches. For low lying
areas, this can cause problems. To reach the level shown in red in the map
below, it would take 34 centuries or 3,400 years.”
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Author’s Comment:
Absolutely appalling. It is this type of thing, which has been ongoing for years, that leads to the emotionally anxious and dysfunctional children who have grown up and now attend universities around the world. Some of these dysfunctional children now teach in those universities and our public schools. This is the opposite of education, it is dumbification – making our children less educated and less well-informed.
If you are a reader of James Lee Burke’s novels, imagine him describing how I feel about people who would do such a thing as write and publish that sea level page for grade school kids. Now, I’m a peaceful man, but they really got to me with the above.
And yes, I have written to Heather Doyle, the Program Manager responsible, and expressed my displeasure. You can write to her too at climatekids@jpl.nasa.gov .
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
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I stopped reading at “could”.
Without proof: Years ago, I commented that “the easy ice has already melted.”
Ice at lower latitudes and lower elevations (see Tahoma Glacier or Athabasca for examples) have been melting for many years. Note this has been old glacial ice, not part of the seasonal snowfall (that melts also, but isn’t the issue).
With the “easy ice” having melted and contributed to sea level rise there is little justification for assuming a continuing rise of sea level at the rate recently measured (about 7″/100 years or 0.18 cm per year).
See Mt. Rainier’s glaciers on this page: Mount Rainier Glaciers – Mount Rainier National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
Interesting read, but when they say things like “the end of the little ice age 100 years ago” I have a problem.
It’s sad that children are brainwashed on many subjects. The goal of schools is to ondoctrinate and teach obedience to teachers and governments.
I skimmed the comments quickly and did not see this important point
The tide gauges show not much change in the sea level rise rate since the 1800s.
The rise rate was probably slightly slower from 1940 to 1980 with global cooling and slightly faster with post-1980 global warming. So what
What the children need to know is WHY sea level rise is not accelerating rapidly with the obvious global warming since 1980.
The answer is simple
Antarctic, with perhaps 90% of ice on land, is not melting
Authorities claim Antarctica is losing 150 gigatons of ice each year.
With a total ice mass of 24.4 MILLION gigatons, 150 gigatons is probably statistically insignificant.
If our current global warming and interglacial never ended, which is impossible, the loss of 150 gigatons of ice each year would take 1.6 million years to melt all th Antarctica ice.
That’s a long time
I’m building am ark here in Michigan anyway.
The ice on most of Antarctica does not melt from greenhouse gases because of a permanent temperature inversion (are in link on the chart below)
The ice on Antarctic doesn’t melt because it is ****ing cold down there.. always.!!
Any inversion is because it is ****ing cold.
Seems basic physics and any comprehension of temperature and the atmosphere is also beyond your capability..
Richard ==> On building an ark:
https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/another-perspective-on-regulation
“the obvious global warming since 1980.”
You mean the tiny change from ocean releases to the atmosphere at El Ninos events… right ?
You at least admitted that the late 1970 was the coldest period since the 1940’s.. so obviously a great place to start if you are a lukewarmer like you are.
And no, sea level rate hasn’t changed much at all.
There does seem to be a slight oscillation overlying a general small sea level increase of around 2mm/year, but pretty much constant for over a century at stable tide sites.
That makes things VERY SCARY to some people.
“You mean the tiny change from ocean releases to the atmosphere at El Ninos events… right ?”
So you are an El Nino Nutter
i SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SINCE YOU ARE A NITWIT ON EVERY CLIMATE SUBJECT
Please explain Mr. El Nino Nutter why you ignore the cooling effects of La Ninas?
And why is it that El Ninos allegedly caused global warming after 1975, but somehow caused global cooling from 1940 to 1975?
Come on El Nino Nutter, don’t ignore these questions. I know you will
CALLING ME A LUKEWARMER IS A LIE
You are confused as usual
Or deliberately lying
Probably confused AND lying.
A lukewarmer such as Judith Curry believes there is a climate / CO2 problem that must be solved, but there is no rush to solve the problem
I believe there is no climate problem that needs to be solved and hope for more warming and more CO2 in the future because both are beneficial for our planet
I also believe you need to be sedated, followed by a lobotomy.
DENAIL of El Nino warming despite the evidence in front of your eyes..
Still so scientifically ignorant that you think all El Ninos are the same.. WOW !!
DENIAL of science, DENIAL of DATA
A rabid lukewarmer supporting all the basic fakery and lies of the AGW agenda.
Behind your little facade… that really is all you have, and all you are, isn’t it dickie-boy
It is obvious that you were sedated through any small amount of education you might have had..
.. and that you have lobotomised yourself with too many substances, that stopped you growing a functional brain…
… so you just “believe” the anti-science of CO2 warming, because it has been brain-washed into your tiny mind.
Produce scientific evidence. (not related to glass jars in a laboratory or spurious short-term coincidence)
You are a JACKASS with NOTHING.
“why you ignore the cooling effects of La Ninas?”
Oh dearie me…. yet again proving you have ZERO UNDERSTANDING of El Nino events
A lot of learning to do, still, you have. !
Your occasional toddler step are great,..
… except you keep falling back and “splatting” your nappy !
“I’m building am ark here in Michigan anyway.”
Sort of idiotic thing I’d expect from a gormless lukewarmer like you. !!
You go for it, dickie-boy…. but you can bet it will leak like a sieve.
melting sea ice (i.e. the Arctic) does not raise the sea level …
Kip,
you appear to have a very low opinion of the intelligence of 4th graders along with a surprising ability to misconstrue simple sentence. You say that
“Now, please, imagine that you are a 4th grader – 9 or 10 years old — living in Miami. You are told explicitly that if things keep going as they have been going, you, you family, your friends, your school and your entire city are going to die by being submerged under 20 feet of water.”
Now where on the webpage does it “explicitly” say that “you, you family … are going to die”? Every
9 year I know would be smart enough to realise that even if their city was to be submerged in the future they could move else where and not drown. And I doubt that you could find even one 4th grader who would think that they or anyone were going to drown due to sea level rise in the future.
Izaak ==> Thank you for your opinion. Mine is above.
Then why do so many people, like you Izaak, think it is necessary to stop Carbon from entering the atmosphere to “save the planet” when a 4th grader knows his family would only need to move??
i.e. adapt instead of provide trillions to crony capitalists.
“a very low opinion of the intelligence of 4th graders”
So why do you keep posting ??
“by being submerged under 20 feet of water.””
I assume even an intelligent 5-year-old would laugh the idea out of existence as a complete joke.. !!
But not izzy !!
“A few inches may not seem like much…”
It isn’t.
What’s more scary, sea level rise (Miami +2.38 mm/year), eaten by an Alligator or falling in a sinkhole?
Alpha ==> I know people who have had their pets eaten by alligators, and one friends house is cracking to pieces as it is built on a sinkhole. Of course, the contractor that built the houses knew about the unstable soil.
As for Miami, much of that 2.38 mm is subsidence of the site where the ONLY Tide Gauge is located on Virginia Key.
Lying is not okay and scaring the crap out of children is worse. Fire everyone involved with this project and ban them from ever working for the government in any capacity.
Bob ==> We might get somewhere with that if the Supreme Court shoots down ‘Chevron deference’
Calm down the kids by serving beer and wine in school
Then tell them to stop worrying about climate change because aliens from the planet Uranus are going to invade Earth and eat them as snacks.
When school programs of studies are written by leftists and when too many teachers’ main knowledge of climate change extends no further than what the curriculum tells them, it’s no wonder that the kids get a one-sided view of the whole issue. Fortunately, like their parents, they don’t intend to sacrifice their current and future lifestyles to supposedly save mankind. They’ll take their chances, like the rest of us.
Years ago my (at the time) teenage son got me, as a joke, a coffee mug that change color.
When it got hot, as when coffee was pouring into it, the map of the globe on the outside would show the effects of sea level rise. (Bye-Bye Florida!)
However, it didn’t stand the test of time.
Even the little band of GHGs circling the Globe wore thin.
(There was a warning not to but it into a dishwasher. The claim wouldn’t stand to a good cleaning.)
Sea levels at Fort Dennison have not risen in 100 years…..
Fort Denison data ‘more accurate than satellite’ on sea levels | Sky News Australia
Taking averages at 10 year intervals does seem to indicate that.
but looking at the full data shows a very slight trend of 1mm/year on the average…
with low tide levels rising slightly faster than high tide levels,
ps.. single “n” in middle of “Denison”
ps.. been there several times when younger.
Kids ==> SLR at Ft Dennison, as measured by uncorrected Tide Gauge (no CGPS @ur momisugly TG) shows a rise of less than 1 mm/yr, nearly perfectly linear over the entire length of the record — 1866 thru 2023. 157 years.
That adds up to 125mm or just under 5 inches.
Tidal range in Sydney is about 1.4 meters — about 5.5 feet. 5 inches over 157 years is unnoticeable in photos, compared against the range of tide that would show as algae on the side of the fort’s supporting island.
5 inches in 157 years may just be the subsidence of the tide gauge.
Most of the U.S. doesn’t even prosecute physical abuse that destroys fertility and chops off healthy body parts, as long as it’s in line with the favored agenda. No way they’ll acknowledge emotional trauma.
Kip, as a geoligist, I take particular issue with a graphic showing similar submersion of the Mississippi delta. It is child abuse to teach something that is patently untrue, even if it is out if ignorance of the subject. A delta is fed and created by the transport of river sediments in faster flowing water upstream and it is deposited when the water is slowed when it reaches the Gulf water level.
Imagine sealevel rising seven inches, even if it were to be quicker than a century. The water of the Gulf would move upstream slightly, causing the river water to slow earlier than before and it would drop its sediment burden earlier, building the delta level back up and into the Gulf. By this action, the delta is overall higher that it was by about 7inches and covering a greater area! A delta rises with sealevel rise. If you drill down through the delta upstream where the pre-delta stream entered the Gulf, at a depth of ~120m, the muds first turn to sand and finally even boulders and gravel of a much more rapidly flowing river
When sealevel drops.The reverse happens. Wave action in the Gulf cuts delta down and erodes it back upstream to where it was 12,000 years ago. Coral islands, which are living things, too keep pace with rising and falling sealevel. The rocket folk should have the USGS edit there unscientific nonsense out.
Well put Gary.
Yes… deltas grow to match sea level rise.
Also a very silly place to put a big stick in the ground to measure sea levels, seeing as they are basically silt of undetermined depth !
Gary ==> Thanks for the geologists view point. The Mississippi Delta is complicated by the fact that the US Army Corp of engineers has severely altered the natural flow of the river — channelization, re-routing.
I am a reader of J L Burkes and enjoyed them BUT even he is talking climate change affecting the bayou/swamps, it might be saltier? but Id also bet theres more human cause than nature, ie opening mouths of rivers/marinas/dredging whatever.
an aside but just as ditzy
abc radio are now claiming Aus climates more Tropical..CC of course
well its the wet season/monssons and cyclones up nth and of course the immense water deposit by hunga pappa is ignored.
and this claims made on the basis of a few months of wet n humid weather
ozspeaksup ==> Burke has a very rich imagination of the things people can do to harm one another. But — I am far more peaceful