History Falsifies Climate Alarmist Sea Level Claims

Posted: December 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Alarmism Debunked, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Alarmism, Climate Changes, Climate History, Empirical Evidence, Fact Check, Medieval Warm Period, Sea Level Rise | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

“Climate Change will result in a catastrophic global sea level
rise of seven meters. That’s bye-bye most of Bangladesh,
Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis.”
– Greenpeace International

“This planet is on course for a catastrophe.
The existence of Life itself is at stake.”
– Dr Tim Flannery,
Principal Research Scientist

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.“
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation

•••

Re-pressed via WattsUpWithThat :

Seas have been rising and falling for thousands of years – without help from the EPA or IPCC

Guest essay by Robert W. Endlich

Sea levels are rising rapidly! Coastal communities are becoming more vulnerable to storms and storm surges! Small island nations are going to disappear beneath the waves!

Climate alarmists have been making these claims for years, trying to tie them to events like “Superstorm” Sandy, which was below Category 1 hurricane strength when it struck New York City in October 2012, and Typhoon Haiyan, which plowed into the low-lying central Philippines in November 2013.

For alarmists, it does not seem to matter that the strength and frequency of tropical storms have been decreasing in recent years, while the rate of sea level rise has fallen to about seven inches per century. Nor does it seem to matter that the lost lives and property have little to do with the storms’ sheer power. Their destructive impact was caused by their hitting heavily populated areas, where governments had not adequately informed citizens of the size and ferocity of imminent storm surges, too few people had evacuated – and people, buildings and emergency equipment were insufficiently prepared to withstand the furious storm onslaughts.

The alarmist cries are not meant to be honest or factual. They are intended to generate hysterical headlines, public anxiety about climate change, and demands for changes in energy policies and use. 

China is rapidly becoming one of the richest nations on Earth. It is by far the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, which alarmists claim is causing “unprecedented” storms and sea level rise. And yet at the recent UN-sponsored climate talks in Warsaw, China led a walkout of 132 Third World countries that claim First World nations owe them hundreds of billions of dollars in “reparations” for “losses and damages” allegedly resulting from CO2 emissions.

The Obama Administration brought (perhaps “bought” is more apt) them back to the negotiating table, by promising as-yet-unspecified US taxpayer money for those supposed losses. Details for this unprecedented giveaway will be hammered out at the 2015 UN-sponsored climate confab in Paris, safely after the 2014 US mid-term elections. Meanwhile, a little history will be instructive.

In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama proclaimed, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow.” He was actually right. Sea level rise has slowed, but not because of CO2 emissions, which are still increasing. Mother Nature cannot be bought.

Sea level changes over relatively recent geologic and human history demonstrate that alarmist claims do not withstand scrutiny. Sea levels rose significantly after the last ice age, fell during the Little Ice Age, and have been rising again since the LIA ended around 1850. In fact, Roman Empire and Medieval port cities are now miles from the Mediterranean, because sea levels actually fell during the Little Ice Age.

During the deepest part of the last ice age, known as the Wisconsin, sea levels were about 400 feet lower than at present. As Earth emerged from the Wisconsin some 18,000 years ago and the massive ice sheets started to melt, sea levels began rising. Rapid sea level rise during the “meltwater pulse phase,” about 15,000 years ago, was roughly five meters (16 feet) per century – but then slowed significantly since the Holocene Climate Optimum, about 8,000 years ago.

File:Post-Glacial Sea Level.png

Those rising oceans created new ports for Greek and Roman naval and trade vessels. But today many of those structures and ruins are inland, out in the open, making them popular tourist destinations. How did that happen? The Little Ice Age once again turned substantial ocean water into ice, lowering sea levels, and leaving former ports stranded. Not enough ice has melted since 1850 to make them harbors again. Continue Reading »

 

____________

Robert W. Endlich served as a weather officer in the US Air Force for 21 years and a US Army meteorologist for 17 years. He was elected to Chi Epsilon Pi, the national Meteorology Honor Society, while a basic meteorology student at Texas A&M University. He has degrees in geology and meteorology from Rutgers University and the Pennsylvania State University, respectively, and has studied and visited the ancient sites of Rome, Ostia Antica and Pisa.

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Sea Level Rise Related :

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Claim : Climate Change Is Destroying Cancun And Beaches Worldwide

Posted: December 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Alarmism Debunked, Alarmist media, Climate, Climate Alarmism, Climatism, Empirical Evidence, Extreme Weather, Fact Check, Hurricanes, Propaganda, Sea Level Rise, Weather | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

“The only way to get our society to truly change is to
frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

“We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts…
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest.“
– Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of many IPCC reports

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.“
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation

•••

Screen Shot 2013-12-03 at , December 3, 4.57.18 PM

A fortune made of sand: How climate change is destroying Cancun… | GlobalPost

Cancun’s perfect tropical beach is its principal selling point. Made from the remains of long-dead corals, it famously stays cool even on the most scorching days.

Yet the only reason the resort still has a beach is thanks to a $70 million project in 2010 to replenish it by dredging up more than 1 billion gallons of sand from the seabed.

That was a response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, which overnight swept away eight miles of Cancun’s prime beach.

Although scientists are wary of attributing specific weather events to climate change, most agree that warming seas in the Caribbean have already made devastating hurricanes like Wilma — not to mention Katrina and Sandy which respectively ravaged New Orleans and New York — increasingly frequent.

•••

SOME BASIC FACT CHECKING

CANCUN was conceptualised in the late 1960s by a government-backed consortium of Mexican bankers who were looking for a big tourism investment.

Cancun-history-4-400x600

There were barely any human settlements, just marshes, mangroves and, the incredible dune-backed beaches, separated from the mainland by two narrow canals that opened on to a huge emerald lagoon system.

Cancun-history-5

The first hotels opened in 1974 and the international airport was inaugurated with 2,600m of runway and capacity for wide-body jets. And in they came.

Cancun-history-1

Cancun, a young resort, lost its beachy charms early in life thanks to the removal of its dunes and grasses, which play an integral role in keeping the sand from drifting into the ocean. Add to this the weight of hotel buildings on what is a very narrow sand bar, structures that additionally compound the problem by blocking natural wind flow from sea to lagoon, and you have a complex recipe for beaches that leave with the tide – especially during hurricane season.

All the beaches in Cancun are “man made”. Many millions of dollars have been and are being spent pouring sand from somewhere else on the beaches in front of most of the hotels from Cancun to Playa Del Carmen.

Claims that “Climate Change” is causing Cancun’s “man made” beaches to disappear are alarmist and opportunistic.

•••

HURRICANES AND EXTREME WEATHER

Claim :

“Most agree that warming seas in the Caribbean have already made devastating hurricanes like Wilma — not to mention Katrina and Sandy which respectively ravaged New Orleans and New York — increasingly frequent.”

“Mexico cannot afford to lose Cancun. Yet that may be exactly what will happen as more, stronger hurricanes, generated by warming seas, batter the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Reality :

No Major Atlantic Hurricane Strike For A Record 8 Years (category 3-5)  

Dr Roger Pielke Jr has updated his famous hurricane drought to the start of the 2014 season. Concluding that by June 2014 it would have been a record 3,142 days or 8.6 years since the US has been hit by a Cat 3 or greater hurricane.

The last such hurricane was Wilma on October 24th, 2005.

Hurricanes are actually getting not worse, but fewer.

229a8-daysbtcat3plus2014
Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog: Graphs of the Day: Major US Hurricane Drought Continues

Data here.

The US good luck with respect to hurricane landfalls — yes, good luck — continues. The graph below shows total US hurricane landfalls 1900 through 2013.

uslandfalls1900to2013

The five-year period ending 2013 has seen 2 hurricane landfalls. That is a record low since 1900. Two other five-year periods have seen 3 landfalls (years ending in 1984 and 1994). Prior to 1970 the fewest landfalls over a five-year period was 6. From 1940 to 1957, every 5-year period had more than 10 hurricane landfalls (1904-1920 was almost as active).

The red line in the graph above shows a decrease in the number of US landfalls of more than 25% since (which given variability, may just be an artifact and not reflecting a secular change). There is no evidence to support more or more intense US hurricanes. The data actually suggests much the opposite.

If you are interested in a global perspective, Ryan Maue keeps excellent data. Here is his latest graph on global ACE (accumulated cyclone energy, an overall measure of storm intensity).

global_running_ace

To date 2013 is at 73% of the global average and the North Atlantic is at 30%. We’ll post up our updated data for global landfalls through 2013 before the end of the calendar year.

•••

On Extreme Weather Events – Roger Pielke Jr, December 10, 2012 :

…After adjusting for patterns of development, over the long term there is no climate change signal … of increasing damage from extreme events either globally or in particular regions.

worddisgdp

Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog: Graph of the Day: Global Weather Disasters and GDP

 •••

ATLANTIC hurricanes are actually getting not worse, but fewer. Grover Cleveland, who was president between 1885 and 1889, had 27 major hurricanes during his presidency. Only three major hurricanes have made landfall during Obama’s tenure thus far.

Obama HURRICANES

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html

•••

SEA LEVEL RISE

Claim :

“Meanwhile, the Caribbean itself is slowly rising, around 3 millimeters a year, thanks to ice melting at the poles and in mountain ranges from the Andes to the Himalayas.”

Reality :

New Study shows, since 2004, global mean sea level rise has in fact ‘decelerated’ and not ‘accelerated’ despite rising CO2

The total amount of Sea Level Rise attributed to Cancun, under a global mean rate of 3.2mm/yr, from 1974 to present, would have been around 124mm or 12cm. Perhaps not enough to add to Cancun’s overnight ‘catastrophic climate change’ erosion claims.

It would appear, past and future hurricanes would claim majority responsibility for any erosion taking place on the artificial beaches of Cancun.

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