Feb 02 2007
More Global Warming Fear Mongering
Yes, the earth’s temperature is warming. I has been for 100’s of years. It is NOT hotter than ever seen in recent geological time. It is going to cause problems. Darwin was right (if you understand what he was getting at): those who can adapt will survive easier. But shrill, unfounded, flailing panic is not a survival skill. For example, check out this report which runs from the benign to the horrific in a leap of what can only be called propoganda panic:
Sea levels are rising even faster than scientists predicted, according to a global analysis of data from tide gauges and satellites.
…
The research shows that between 1993 and 2006, sea levels rose by 3.3mm a year on average, while the 2001 IPCC report had predicted an annual rise of less than 2mm.
This is right at the upper limit of the uncertainty in the IPCC’s predictions due to very little data on how ice on land will respond to warming and how fast it will melt. If the climate follows this upper sea level prediction we will experience an 88cm rise in sea levels by the end of the century – much higher than the 14 – 43cm rise predicted under the IPCC’s most likely climate scenario.
A rise of close to 1m would threaten huge areas of low lying coastal land, as well as major cities such as London, New York and Tokyo.
Some things a scientist would note. First is the 3.3mm vs 2mm. Note that the period in question is from 1993 to 2006, 13 years. But the 2mm prediction was made in 2001 – five years ago. Now I would need to look at the data from the 2001 report, but what is should say (if the reporters are being accurate) is this. Over the 13 year period the the levels rose 42.9mm (let’s just call it 43mm). The earlier prediction was for it to rise 26mm over those 13 years. That earlier prediction was made in 2001 and supposedly would include the previous 8 years at 2mm/year. So one would assume the 2001 level had risen 16mm already (I don’t think it did, BTW).
So what does this mean? Well, for this story to be accurate the sea level would have had to make up some serious ground in the last 5 years and rise 27mm! That would be a rate of 5.4mm a year. Now this sounds absolutely astounding, until you realize we cannot measure sea levels globally to the millimeter level. And even if we did, the amounts we are talking about are inside the error bars. For example, the sea height ‘appears’ to be rising around New Orleans, but the truth is the land and sea bed are sinking. Is this an increase in sea hieght? Yes. Is it due to more water and less ice? No.
. Not surprisingly it operated from 1992-2006. For the propeller heads here is a report on its instrument performance over that time. It was nowhere near the mm level in measuring sea surface height (ssh). I don’t have time to go through the 13 years of reports, but my recollection has been is has not seen a significant change. The fidelity of this mission was in the centimeter range for on measurement. But the overall summary across the globe would be more on the fractions of a meter. So the 2-3.3mm range is a bit of a stretch. No one reports numbers like this without the error bars. Just like with polls, this is a statistically derived number and my guess is the error bars are larger then the number (e.g., +/- 5mm or more).
But let’s look at the last part of the screed to see how we jump from 2-3.3mm (fractions of an inch) to 3 feet, 3 inches in one kick dash.
This is right at the upper limit of the uncertainty in the IPCC’s predictions due to very little data on how ice on land will respond to warming and how fast it will melt. If the climate follows this upper sea level prediction we will experience an 88cm rise in sea levels by the end of the century – much higher than the 14 – 43cm rise predicted under the IPCC’s most likely climate scenario.
A rise of close to 1m would threaten huge areas of low lying coastal land, as well as major cities such as London, New York and Tokyo.
See how they go from mm/year to centimeters per century? And one has to wonder about their math. If I multioly 3.3mm/yr times 84 years (end of the century) I get 27 cm – not 88cm. So their models assume a continuous acceleration, which has not been seen ever. But more to the point is the clear propoganda BS at the end. 88cm is not just under 1 meter. They missed their decimeters (a measurement few use today). 88cm is 88/100th’s of a meter. [fixed the math – never do this is tandem with something else with constant interruptions!] In other words, at 88cm/century it would take 100 years to get to 1 meter in sea surface height.
So in the space of a few paragraphs we go from millimeters to meters, yet that time frame is possibly 100 years, or (given the range od 1-4 times the low end) maybe 400 years. And not a word in the article about these time frames. This is the art of propoganda – and it doesn’t belong in science, or articles on scientific speculation (which is what man-made global warming is). The day the Global Warming crowd can DEFINITIVELY measure how much of the warming is directly attributal to man then we can have a serious discussion.
And btw soothsayer, you seem to assume that if we had not gone into Iraq now that we would not have been forced to deal with Saddam or a failed regime there in the future. I disagree. Saddam was going to cost us and the world one way or another. That is why Clinton bombed the Iraqi regime in the late 90’s and made regime change our national policy..because it was felt that confrontation with Saddam was inevitable and it was felt that either a collapse of his regime or aggression on the part of the regime or both was inevitable.
The effort to create a stable government in the region would pay off in the long term. Even Clinton felt that way. And what is more this thread is about global warming. The need of the left to mourn the end of Saddam’s sadistic regime in any and all contexts is really tiresome.
Kyoto, global warming, etc are all code words for destroying capitalism as a means of destroying America’ s success.
Just heard this quote from Chirac (paraphrasing)
Kyoto is the first step toward truly global governance.
Ya got that? GLOBAL GOVERNANCE.
Wake up and smell the America Haters.
And btw, capitalism is the best system on the face of the earth for citizens having the opportunity to reach their highest potential and/or dreams.
I despise global socialists, for misery loves miserable company.
Snark on/
Lets just require every city on the oceans edge to install desalinization plants to dispose of the ocean rise with all the water from the ocean intake.
Don’t raise the bridge lower the river.
Snark off/
Soothsayer
Just a a point to ponder, we have had for many years now mobile nuclear power plants, it is known as the US Navy.
We have lost two nuclear submarines in deep water and the ocean didn’t dry up all fish still live there.
The russians have had more.
Also a little know fact is that we are each year obtaining from Russia under the Salt Treaties and other agreements weapons grade material for disposal, actually reprocessing down to fuel civilian reactors, the material from all the weapons being placed out of service due to weapons reduction agreements.
I would suggest that we would be better served to have that material reprocessed down less and civilian reactors use higher enrichment material since it would expand drastically the amount of time between refuelings of of civilian plants.
Currently the amount of material being kept in very poor quality sites in the Russian country is enough to supply our country with all the uranium we need for the next 30 years without anyone needing to mine a single pound of uranium on the entire planet even if we up our number of nuclear plants by a factor of five.
It is also true to me the treaty requirements, the amount of material to be recycled is growing much faster than the reuse concept.
We are obligated by the treaties to provide hundreds of millions of dollars per year to support this effort.
Why not use it to increase our use of nuclear power generation to offset other technologies.
It is available, it doesn’t have to be considered wishful thinking pie in the sky and we have many trained personnel to work with the technology.
Most people in this country have no clue that the “nuclear waste” generated from plants is not fuel remnants. It is such mundane stuff as tools that were contaminated above the limits imposed and used protective clothing and other materials used to maintain the plants.
The actual fuel is reprocessed to create new fuel.
It is like suggesting eliminate cars, since your mechanic gets a dirty hand rag changing the oil on your car.
There are major misconceptions that exist in this world which are exploited to the max.
It helps to persuade the sheep.
I second Archtop’s reco to visit Roger Pielke’s site, and read the Hendrik Tenekes article – excellent synopsis. Drives home point that we know much less than we think — or, in case of IPCC and the Algore types, much less than we admit. As James Williams said above, everything is based on the models. But the models have too many assumptions and fudge factors to provide any credence to these long range soothsay, ‘er, doomsayers predictions.
I completely agree with IVEHADIT — it’s the creeping trans-nationalism or globalism that’s behind much of this, and of course money. The euros are morphing into the EU, but are still mostly secondary players in world affairs. But thru the UN and other faceless, trans-national organizations, these smug, elitist, and often corrupt bureaucrats get to influence the use of US assets and more power than they deserve. Of course, liberals and elitist lefties in our country are joined at the hip with these euros and socialist, enviro whackos. And you can’t forget about the $. These “scientists” and assorted organizations hype the threat because they are the experts and they/we need more studies and tests and regulations, and taxes and … on and on so they get the govt grants and subsidies, and it cycles on. You’ve heard the NASA employee (scientist?) say that he was pressured or harassed by Bush admin to not speak about global warming, … well, he actually spoke quite freely all he wanted. The reality is the exact opposite — scientists and others looking at GW realistically and in a factual, logical sense are ridiculed, smeared and misquoted.
Looking at Pielke’s site, I also noted one Jim Hansen referenced there. No surpirse — he’s on the green brigade.
Ken you are sorry ass. You don’t have the cojones ( good spanish for you) to even keep your identitiy.
Good Doc, who is Ken, “Soothsayer?”
Real Reason Behind Global Warming Report…
It’s about wealth transfer. Incomplete science, which is no better than junk science, is being used to support wealth transfer. The media doesn’t bother to point out the obvious – that the climate is constantly changing and that the scientists themse…
Doc:
I stopped paying attention to whining maricons (there’s some good Spanish for YOU) a long time ago.
I don’t know who the f*** “Ken” is – but it isn’t me.
Before everyone worries himself to death about all this hoked up hysteria I offer this bit of info acquired at a siminar sponsored by the University of ‘South Carolina in the early 1980’s when the SC state legislature passed a “Beachfront Management Law” which prohibited building, repairing or rebuilding more than 50% damaged structures located in what was designated as the “dead zone.” , the area projected to be under water when the present meltdown reached it’s end and the next Ice age set in.
Background. To save taxpayer’s money used to subsidize insurance on property located in areas prone to natural disasters, the state legislature passed the Beach Front Management law. In an attempt to explain the need for the law after a loud public outcry from the rich folks who owned beachfront property, USC held several siminars around the state to explain the purpose of the law. Experts from government, environmental agencies ,educational instutions, NASA, and private industry were brought in to answer questions.
NASA acientists showed satellite photos which showed that the earth had gone through several melt downs and ice ages. These pictures showed that at one time the Atlantic Ocean came all the way in to the Appalachian Mts. After an ice age of unknown duration, another meltdown brought the Atlantic Ocean in about half way between the Appalachian Mts. and the present coast line. This area is delineated in the photos by the massive swamps that run thru the Carolinas, GA and FLA. Based on these ancient shore lines it was projected that during the present meltdown the ocean would rise another 14 feet before the next ice age began. Therefore, to prevent public money from being wasted on insuring houses which would be under water within 50 to 100 years, a “dead zone” was established where construction and rebuilding was prohibited.
Needless to say, this law was overturned by a judge after a Mt. Pleasant, (Charleston) SC property owner sued when his million dollar beachfront lot was included in the ‘Dead Zone.”
All this was before the global warming scare. And all these experts agreed that the ancient shorelines in the NASA photos were actual shorelines. So freeze ups and meltdowns are natural phenomina and there ain’t nothing that man can do about it. I find it amusing that man, in his egotistical, self centered, “I am equal to God” world, thinks he can alter the forces of nature. The God that made it will see to it that man doesn’t destroy it unless he wants it destroyed.
Ken get a spanish -english dictionary. It is maricon or maricones . It’s funny you quack like Ken so I guess a maricon.
Yes Gotaknow is him.