Global Warming: Are Sea Levels Rising?

"Global Warming: Are Sea Levels Rising?"

Yes and it has nothing to do with CO2.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/03/the-2013-ipcc-ar5-report-facts-vs-fictions/


Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology, Western Washington University
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Sea level rise over the past century has varied from 1-3mm/yr, averaging 1.7mm/yr (7 inches/yr)from 1900-2000 (Fig.8.) Sea level rose at a fairly constant rate from 1993 to about 2005 but the rate of rise has flattened out since then (Fig. 9). What is obvious from these curves is that sea level is continuing to rise at a rate of about 7 inches per century, and there is no evidence of accelerating sea level rise. Nor is there any basis for blaming it on CO2 because sea level has been rising on for 150 years, long before CO2 levels began to rise after 1945.

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As MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen stated, “The latest IPCC report has truly sunk to the level of hilarious incoherence—it is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.”


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So Jim, where does some of the heat energy go. Let me tell you. Some is radiated back into space. What is not radiated away makes its way into the oceans. As most of us know heating materials makes them expand including water. Ocean levels are also rising because of glacial melting, Greenland's ice melt which comes back rising air temperatures. By the way that graph stops at the year 2000; it is missing 17 years of record keeping.
 
Steve the issue isn't whether humans can change it. It's how much humans are actually impacting it and how (not) catastrophic it is. The planet overall averaging warmer temps over a three year period is not remotely indicative of man made global warming. It could be, but it also very much could not be. And someone who says that it is isn't possible for Earth to be in the midst of an ordinary warming period are not willing to think about the issue from a realistic perspective. Your confidence in this is alarming.
First things first. There are folks that refuse to acknowledge humans can change the environment. That's one side of the argument. The other argument you present is is: How much do humans contribute? That is equivalent to asking a women how much or how little a woman is pregnant. A women is pregnant or not there's no such thing as a little pregnant. So too climate change, it either is or is not. Do you know the pre- Industrial Revolution co2 atmospheric content was in two 200 ppm range, but since then it has risen today to above 400 ppm? https://www.scientificamerican.com/...sses-the-400-ppm-threshold-maybe-permanently/
I'm alarmed at the confidence folks place in all the ideas presented on this forum with the evidence being what it is. So your point is to not place trust in anything?

P.S. "Current [atmospheric] CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than any time in the last 25 million years)."
http://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/
 
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First things first. There are folks that refuse to acknowledge humans can change the environment. That's one side of the argument. The other argument you present is is: How much do humans contribute? That is equivalent to asking a women how much or how little a woman is pregnant. A women is pregnant or not there's no such thing as a little pregnant. So too climate change, it either is or is not. Do you know the pre- Industrial Revolution co2 atmospheric content was in two 200 ppm range, but since then it has risen today to above 400 ppm? https://www.scientificamerican.com/...sses-the-400-ppm-threshold-maybe-permanently/
I'm alarmed at the confidence folks place in all the ideas presented on this forum with the evidence being what it is. So your point is to not place trust in anything?

P.S. "Current [atmospheric] CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than any time in the last 25 million years)."
http://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/
This is completely and utterly false. How much humans are contributing to that climate change directly impacts how much we can change the direction of said climate change. It is absolutely a matter of importance the degree to which humans contribute, and in spite of your best attempts to hand wave that away by comparing it to something like pregnancy, which is not an analogy that is reasonable at all. You are correct in stating: either we do impact it, or we do not. I believe that we do. But to act as if the amount we impact it isn't a legitimate discussion to have, well, frankly almost doesn't make sense to me. So no, Steve, it is nothing like asking how much a woman is pregnant. If we are the sole contributors to this change in the climate, then we should be able to drastically change it and thus policies and regulations are more important. If we contribute to it, but to a lesser degree, and part of the change is just natural warming of the Earth, then certainly it's still important for us to be efficient with our use of resources, but it isn't as significant as it would be if we are the major contributors/sole contributors.

With regards to your second statement, what confidence are you speaking of? The confidence that our subjective experiences and consciousness are not purely resultant from the physical brain? I think there is both legitimate and robust enough evidence to inspire that confidence. A large portion of the people here have been moved by the evidence to their current positions. I haven't seen quite nearly as much confidence in people's replacement theories for materialism. Many recognize those theories can be, at times, speculative and impossible to prove or reliably support with current evidence. There is a huge difference between confidence, based on the evidence we have, that consciousness doesn't reduce entirely to the brain, and confidence that someone's replacement theory is correct. I was saying that you have an alarming amount of confidence in your own positive argument here, that climate change is demonstrably man made and an enormous issue. That is, in my eyes, akin to someone having an enormous amount of confidence in their own theory of consciousness on this forum. It isn't nearly the same thing as the confidence people have here that mind, subjectivity, thought, etc don't reduce to the physical or the brain, for which there is actually pretty good evidence (and arguments in general). But I digress.
 
Rick, I'd like to echo Alex's admiration for your podcasts. The fact that we differ about "climate change" (for which I prefer to use the term CAGW, short for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) is an issue upon which I think well-meaning people on both sides can differ.

First off, I don't think there's any point our arguing on the basis of the science. You think one way, and I think another, and so far there's probably nothing that will change either of our views. But just for the record, here's a twelve-minute video I've posted elsewhere on Skeptiko that summarises my current viewpoint:


I'll leave the science of CAGW at that and concentrate more on the sociology of the issue. In many ways, you are someone who thinks in ways that are at odds with what Western society as a whole thinks. You are free to do that and so far as I know, don't suffer any organised censure for your podcasts. Not censure, at any rate, that could threaten your reputation or livelihood.

CAGW isn't the only issue that can threaten people's reputation or livelihood. There are others, for instance Intelligent Design. I myself can't say for sure that life is consciously designed, but I do know that the arguments against Neo-Darwinism made by ID proponents (many of whom, like me, agree that evolution occurs) such as Stephen Meyer, Doug Axe and Michael Behe are scientifically convincing. Also, as I have a degree and some research experience in zoology, I can actually understand the subject more than I can climate science -- where I have to accept some things on the word of people I respect: such as Judith Curry, John Christy and Richard Lindzen. I daresay you're in the same position in that you accept the word of scientists who are CAGW proponents.

As Jim Smith points out above, there is currently much cause for concern in the way that science is conducted in a number of areas such as Cosmology and Medicine. There are quite a number of specific topics where if one wants to get on in one's chosen field, one has to tow the line or risk ostracism -- or, in extremis, loss of one's job. Orthodox scientific views say:

HIV causes AIDS
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) probably don't exist
Neo-Darwinism explains evolution
Statins lower cholesterol, hence are useful in treating heart attacks and strokes
Homeopathy is ridiculous
NDEs and psychic phenomena in general are all either misinterpretations or fraud
Gravity (and not, e.g. electromagnetism) is the most important factor in cosmology
Mind is a product of brain

I could list more, but amongst those, hopefully there'll be one or more things that you take an unorthodox stance on. The question I would start out by asking you is, how do you justify your unorthodox stance in such areas despite (claimed) scientific consensuses against them? Does your taking such a stance mean that you are anti-science and a denier of reality? Or does it rather mean that as an intelligent person, you have weighed the evidence and personally found it wanting?
 
Malf thoughtfully provided a link showing global average temperatures. You'll obviously notice the greatest temperature changes have occurred where there are no urban heat islands. Such places a the territories of Canada, the Artic, Russia for example.
That isn't really the point - which is that the data is totally compromised. Corrections are being made that are of the same order of magnitude as the effect being sought, and they are corrections that simply cannot be made with precision. For example, one weather station ended up located on an airfield, not too far from one of the runways! Another 'correction' is applied when the computer estimates the value of a reading from a weather station that has been discontinued! It was also discovered that the paint of some weather stations would age with time, and become roughened, so that it absorbed a significant amount of extra heat from the sun - I don't know if the computer corrects for this effect or not!

While on the subject of those weather stations - they were put there to collect data for..... weather - so the thermometers are graduated in 1 C intervals (or thereabouts). Very few thermometers measure to 0.01 C accuracy, and to use such a thermometer you would need a much more carefully designed enclosure to justify the extra precision.

Remember also that these guys are looking for global temperature changes - not regional variations.

Satellite measurements can obtain a true average because they don't rely on dodgy weather stations, and sample the surface uniformly. These report a much smaller level of warming - but of course, the 'climate scientists' seem to prefer the dodgy kind of measurements!

Steve, I am fairly green by nature, and I used to assume the evidence for CC was substantial - but it isn't. This is what one physicist thinks of the subject:

http://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel...ver-global-warming-revisited/laureate-giaever

David
 
Without context the graph has no meaning. Here's some context.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/

I was actually pointing out that the Vostok ice core has a good correlation with atmospheric temperatures, and shows a clear pattern of temperature anomalies for the past 400 odd thousand years... those warming spikes are called interglacials...

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We can see from the chart (extreme left zero year) that we appear to be in one of these warming interglacials at present.

We can also see that the present warming interglacial period that we are in, is not yet as warm as some of the previous interglacial warming periods. For instance, the last interglacial (120 odd thousand years ago), shows a positive temperature variation of approximately 3 deg C, which is much more than the temperature variation we are experiencing today in the current interglacial period.
 
Just out of interest, what do scientists from Russia and China think?

I'm wondering. Are they allowed to express their opinions freely or do their respective governments have a big interest?
 
The island of Majorca is covered with snow, for the first time in recorded history, as is almost all of Spain. The cold is horrible. And yesterday, the price of electricity was raised 33%. I'm not kidding. Today, it's supposed to go up even more. 62% of it is taxas: green tax, carbon tax, this tax and that tax. And the old folks, with their 300 a month pension, can't afford heating and are freezing to death. I know I wrote about this before, but it's getting unbearable.
 
Russian scientists have been warning of the coming ice age for years. They express their opinions freely. Much more freely that Western climate scientists.

The problem is that even though they might be telling the truth about many things, 'Russia' has been so rubbished in many people's minds that they will be ignored even if they are telling important truths. :(
 
Just out of interest, what do scientists from Russia and China think?

I'm wondering. Are they allowed to express their opinions freely or do their respective governments have a big interest?
Russia officially denies. Much of the citizenry does too. http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/russia-and-climate-change-a-looming-threat/

China recognizes climate change now. In the past they they thought it was a western conspiracy. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...ity-to-take-ownership-of-climate-change-fight
 
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That isn't really the point - which is that the data is totally compromised. Corrections are being made that are of the same order of magnitude as the effect being sought, and they are corrections that simply cannot be made with precision. For example, one weather station ended up located on an airfield, not too far from one of the runways! Another 'correction' is applied when the computer estimates the value of a reading from a weather station that has been discontinued! It was also discovered that the paint of some weather stations would age with time, and become roughened, so that it absorbed a significant amount of extra heat from the sun - I don't know if the computer corrects for this effect or not!

While on the subject of those weather stations - they were put there to collect data for..... weather - so the thermometers are graduated in 1 C intervals (or thereabouts). Very few thermometers measure to 0.01 C accuracy, and to use such a thermometer you would need a much more carefully designed enclosure to justify the extra precision.

Remember also that these guys are looking for global temperature changes - not regional variations.

Satellite measurements can obtain a true average because they don't rely on dodgy weather stations, and sample the surface uniformly. These report a much smaller level of warming - but of course, the 'climate scientists' seem to prefer the dodgy kind of measurements!

Steve, I am fairly green by nature, and I used to assume the evidence for CC was substantial - but it isn't. This is what one physicist thinks of the subject:

http://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel...ver-global-warming-revisited/laureate-giaever

David
You replied with a post stating there are no climatologists a while back. He certainly isn't. You certainly can't be a climatologist, I doubt you're even a weather forecaster. Why should I be persuaded by his analysis or yours? That's the point.
 
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You replied with a post stating there are no climatologists a while back. He certainly isn't. You certainly can't be a climatologist, I doubt you're even a weather forecaster. Why should I be persuaded by his analysis or yours? That's the point.

Could you be persuaded by someone who wasn't a climatologist?
 
You replied with a post stating there are no climatologists a while back. He certainly isn't. You certainly can't be a climatologist, I doubt you're even a weather forcaster.Why should I be persuaded by his analysis or yours.
This is completely and utterly false. How much humans are contributing to that climate change directly impacts how much we can change the direction of said climate change. It is absolutely a matter of importance the degree to which humans contribute, and in spite of your best attempts to hand wave that away by comparing it to something like pregnancy, which is not an analogy that is reasonable at all. You are correct in stating: either we do impact it, or we do not. I believe that we do. But to act as if the amount we impact it isn't a legitimate discussion to have, well, frankly almost doesn't make sense to me. So no, Steve, it is nothing like asking how much a woman is pregnant. If we are the sole contributors to this change in the climate, then we should be able to drastically change it and thus policies and regulations are more important. If we contribute to it, but to a lesser degree, and part of the change is just natural warming of the Earth, then certainly it's still important for us to be efficient with our use of resources, but it isn't as significant as it would be if we are the major contributors/sole contributors.
I think we are in more agreement than not, But the argument as seen by politicians would be if it's just a little change we can kick the can down the road. Societies have in the past experienced regional climate change. Such societies are to name two the Akkadian society, Tiwanaku society. Both of those cultures collapsed. Here's a question we should be asking of ourselves: What is the tipping point? We don't have any experience with what worldwide climate change will do. Should we wait and see how things go then if we see a real problem scramble to fix it? Is that the wise point of view? Do you know that the rise of humanity to it's present state began about 10 thousand years ago with agriculture spreading worldwide? Do you also know that during that whole time climate has been overall relatively benign?

With regards to your second statement, what confidence are you speaking of? The confidence that our subjective experiences and consciousness are not purely resultant from the physical brain? I think there is both legitimate and robust enough evidence to inspire that confidence. A large portion of the people here have been moved by the evidence to their current positions. I haven't seen quite nearly as much confidence in people's replacement theories for materialism. Many recognize those theories can be, at times, speculative and impossible to prove or reliably support with current evidence. There is a huge difference between confidence, based on the evidence we have, that consciousness doesn't reduce entirely to the brain, and confidence that someone's replacement theory is correct. I was saying that you have an alarming amount of confidence in your own positive argument here, that climate change is demonstrably man made and an enormous issue. That is, in my eyes, akin to someone having an enormous amount of confidence in their own theory of consciousness on this forum. It isn't nearly the same thing as the confidence people have here that mind, subjectivity, thought, etc don't reduce to the physical or the brain, for which there is actually pretty good evidence (and arguments in general). But I digress.[/QUOTE]
Let us both not digress more.
 
Please understand climate science is a very complex subject and the singular non specialist person wouldn't present a compelling analysis.

But you, as a 'singular non specialist person' could presumably be persuaded one way or another by a bunch of specialists. It's interesting that you, or me, or anyone could be persuaded without knowing very much about a very complex subject. Not having a go at you, just making an observation.
 
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