Sea Level Rise Touted In New UN IPCC Report Is Mega Scary!

And is totally contradicted by history

For the upcoming  Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) a rate of global mean sea level rise over 1980-2000 is touted faster than during any preceding 20-year period since at least 1000 BCE.

The IPCC witch-doctors are rewriting their sea level narrative, see below for their wording and our comments:

Sea level change over recent decades is unprecedented over the last several millennia (medium confidence) and the rate of global mean sea level rise has increased in recent decades (high confidence).

This is incorrect, as the now emerged lands are full of marine history, and many ancient ports are now several kilometers inland.

Ostia Antica was the harbor city of ancient Rome 2,000 years ago.  It now lies 3 kilometers from the sea.

8,000 years ago, when the sea levels were about 4.5 m above present levels, the shoreline of the South China Sea almost reached Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap Great Lake. They are now far from the sea.

Over the 20th century, tide gauge-based reconstructions show that global mean sea level has risen by 0.15-0.22 m between 1901 and 2015 (high confidence), and this increase was faster than that of any century since at least 1000 BCE (medium confidence).

This is also incorrect, as the tide gauges that have recorded since the start of the last century, show a completely different story from what is told in subjective reconstructions based on cherry picking.

If mathematics is not an opinion, a 0.15-0.22 m sea level rise 1901 to 2015 translates in a 1.32 to 1.93 mm/yr. of rate of sea level rise. Statistics of long-term-trend (LTT) tide gauges tell us that the naïve average relative rate of rising – a much better measure than a cherry picking also variable in time – is much less than that, at about 0.33 mm/yr.

Coupling the relative sea level rise information with GNSS monitoring of domes nearby the tide gauges, the so-called thermosteric component, or absolute rate of sea level rise, is also about 0.33 mm/yr. This is compatible with a gentle recovery of temperatures from the end of the last little ICE age.

The rate of global mean sea level rise over 1980-2000 was faster than during any preceding 20-year period since at least 1000 BCE (low confidence). Global mean sea level very likely rose on average by 1.2 [0.9-1.7] mm yr-1 over 1901-1990 and 1.7 [1.3-1.9] mm yr-1 over 1901-2015 and 3.1±0.3 mm yr-1 over 1993-2017 (high confidence).

This other wrong statement is an overselling of their alleged satellite global mean sea level (GMSL) measurement, and the mixing up of apples with cherries, comparing subjective interpretations of tide gauge results, with the engineered product GMSL created to show what is not.

No matter what the IPCC witch-doctors say, there is no such a thing like an instantaneous measure of the volume of the ocean waters with nanometric precision.

The truth is that a noisy, almost detrended, satellite altimeter signal has been manipulated in successive rounds of administrative corrections, to represent whatever was needed, with many pathetic excuses. This engineered product should not replace the good tide gauges observations. To be reliable, the GMSL product should match the reading of tide gauges corrected for land subsidence.

In the LTT tide gauges, Figure 1 and 2 two examples, the sea levels have oscillated about the same trend line before 1980, in between 1980 and 1990, or since 1990. No difference of behavior.

Sea level and energy budgets can be consistently closed within uncertainties for the period 1971-2018 (high confidence).

While there are no doubts that products engineered by same “pals”, for sea levels and energy budget, may fit the same narrative, the result at the long-term-trend tide gauge is confirmed by other experimental results. The direct observations of the mean sea levels at the LTT tide gauges, that are spanning more than 100 years in the different ocean basins and seas in the world, suggest negligible acceleration, and rising and falling seas for a much weaker average rate of rising.

While there are no reliable measurements of the mass of ice on land, the more direct measurements of lower troposphere temperatures and ocean temperatures 0-1900m suggest that the average rate of rising is much less  than what is claimed by the IPCC witch-doctors, only based on a circular logic of carefully engineered computational products supporting other carefully engineered computational products, never taking into account what is going on in the real world.

The lack of any significant sea level acceleration and the small average relative rate of rise have been evidenced in many works, such as Beenstock, Reingewertz and Paldor (2012); Beenstock, Felsenstein, Frank, and Reingewertz, (2015); Boretti, (2012a,b); Boretti and Watson (2012); Dean and Houston (2013); Douglas (1992); Douglas and Peltier (2002); Holgate (2007); Houston and Dean (2011); Japan Meteorological Agency (2018); Jevrejeva, Grinsted, Moore and Holgate (2006); Jevrejeva, Moore, Grinsted, and Woodworth (2008); Mörner, (2004); Mörner (2007); Mörner (2010a,b,c); Mörner, (2011a,b); Mörner (2013); Mörner (2016); Okunaka and Hirahara (2016); Parker (2013a,b,c,d,e); Parker, (2014a,b); Parker and Ollier (2015); Parker (2016a,b,c,d,e); Parker and Ollier (2017a,b); Parker (2018a,b,c); Parker and Ollier (2018); Parker, Mörner, and Matlack-Klein (2018); Parker (2019); Scafetta (2014); Schmith, Johansen, and Thejll (2012); Wenzel and Schröter (2010); and finally Wunsch, Ponte and Heimbach (2007), just to name a few. These works should not be ignored.

More HERE





How humans create as well as destroy species

The effect of human activity on the natural world is profound, and if we want to gain a complete understanding of how it is altering the biosphere, then examining speciation is important.

We know that speciation does exist, and so does human-induced speciation. If we want to use biodiversity as a measure of our impact on the biosphere, then surely speciation needs to be considered.

Speciation can occur rapidly, and is not necessarily slower than extinction, so it is certainly relevant.

It is often said that we are living through one of our planet’s great mass extinction events, and that the cause is humanity. This loss of biodiversity is tragic not only for how it can and will affect our physical well being, but also for how it seems to make the world a poorer place to live in aesthetically and emotionally.

But while human activity can lead to the decline and extinction of species, it can also lead to the emergence of new species. From domestication to the creation of new ecosystems, human activity has proven an effective driver of speciation. But there is little data to quantify this phenomenon, and it is largely overlooked when discussing humanity’s impact on the natural environment.

What separates similar populations into distinct species is, of course, not always clear, but the road to speciation can be understood well enough. When a species becomes divided into different populations that cannot interbreed, and when new selection pressures are apparent, separate populations can begin to develop new traits and make steps towards speciation. Human activity has done much to create barriers to breeding, and to create new selection pressures.

Creating new species

Many of the ways in which humans can drive speciation are the same ways that humans drive extinction. The introduction of species to new habitats is one example. Invasive species can out-compete natives and drive them to extinction. But the new environment in which animals and plants find themselves, and their isolation from other populations, can encourage morphological changes to develop, as well. Data from an Australian study found that 70 percent of introduced plants had developed a new morphological trait over 150 years. On top of that, invasive species introduce new pressures on native species, which can also encourage them to change.

Domestication is perhaps the most obvious way in which humans have promoted genetic diversity. Wolves have been bred into over 400 varieties of domestic dog, and the range of crops bred by humans includes many that can be regarded as totally separate species.

Anthropogenic climate change is altering environments across the globe and creating new selection pressures. There is even evidence to show it has increased biodiversity on mountaintops. Rates of genetic change in populations hunted by humans have been shown to be greater than for populations that are not hunted.

In the future, the possible recreation, or de-extinction, of animals such as the wooly mammoth, and even the movement of organisms to extra-terrestrial bodies such as Mars, could create further opportunities for speciation. There seems no end to humanity’s power as a force for evolution.

So what, if anything, does this mean for conservation?

The effect of human activity on the natural world is profound, and if we want to gain a complete understanding of how it is altering the biosphere, then examining speciation is important. We know that speciation does exist, and so does human-induced speciation. If we want to use biodiversity as a measure of our impact on the biosphere, then surely speciation needs to be considered. Speciation can occur rapidly, and is not necessarily slower than extinction, so it is certainly relevant.

Considering speciation leads us to a number of questions. Should we consider only species loss, or net species loss, when thinking about biodiversity? Can human-induced speciation compensate for human-induced extinctions? If we are creating as many new species as we are destroying, then should we be content? The answer most people would give to this last question is almost certainly ‘no.’

The one property of a species that is not quantifiable in a simple number is the meaning it has for people. When we look at an animal, it is not just its physical properties that are important, but the impression it makes upon us. The very idea of biodiversity has emotional meaning to people, such that any loss of species, even if countered by the introduction of new species, is usually seen as tragic.

What this says about the value we place on a species, and the reasons we value biodiversity, is perhaps something that ought to be discussed.

SOURCE





Climate And The Fate Of America’s Corn Belt

COLD is the most likely problem

It is a remarkable thing that the U.K. and Irish parliaments were able to hypnotize themselves and pass climate emergency legislation when the southern half of the planet has not warmed at all in 120 years.

For example, this record of Cape Leeuwin (courtesy of Erl Happ), on the southwest corner of the Australian landmass, shows recent January mean maximum temperature back below the 120-year average:


Figure 1: Cape Leeuwin January Mean Maximum Temperature 1897–2019.

The U.K. and Irish parliaments were able to work themselves up into a lather over climate even though parts of the northern hemisphere set new cold records this last winter.

A spike in food prices due to cold weather might get them to see the world as it really is. What is happening in the Corn Belt this season may be enough to burn through the global warming groupthink.

It has been a very wet and cold start to the 2019 growing season in the Corn Belt, with the consequence that a lot of farmers have not been able to get into their fields to plant.

In a normal year, most of the crop would be planted by now. It will now be delayed by a month if it does get planted.

Projections of likely corn production from here rely upon near perfect conditions for the rest of the season.

But as a return to 19th-century level solar activity will mean a return to 19th-century growing conditions, then the other end of the growing season will be shortened as well.

Seed-producers have tuned their product to the longer and warmer growing conditions of the second half of the 20th century, with corn that requires 2,500 growing degree days (GDD) to reach maturity.

If the season looks as if it is going to be short, then farmers might switch to early maturity corn. Another alternative is to switch to soybeans.

Growing conditions last decade were warmer, longer, and safer than a century before.

The chance of a crop being killed off by an early frost before maturity is not insignificant now.

Corn as a source of food for humans in the U.S. has a buffer in the 30% of the crop that goes to the ethanol mandate.

The focus on climate may also go from being a way to thrash the economy with carbon taxes to its impact on food prices. The biblical “years of lean” may be upon us.

More HERE  (See the original for links, graphics etc.)




New Paper: Arctic Sea ‘Ice-Free’ During Early Holocene

By historical standards the present climate is unusually COLD

Biomarker evidence for Arctic-region sea ice coverage in the northern Barents Sea indicates the most extensive sea ice conditions of the last 9,500 years occurred during the 20th century (0 cal yr BP).

In contrast, this region was ice-free with open water conditions during the Early Holocene (9,500-5,800 years ago).

The early Holocene (ca. 9500 – 5800 cal yr BP) … Relatively low IP25 concentrations [a proxy for sea ice presence] with increased brassicasterol abundances indicate reduced seasonal (spring) sea ice cover and longer (warmer) summers with open water conditions suitable for phytoplankton production.

The occurrence of reduced sea ice cover and longer summers is consistent with increased planktic foraminiferal concentrations (reported here and Carstens et al., 1997) and with longer ice-free seasons and a retreated ice margin in the northern Barents Sea (Duplessy et al., 2001) as well as increased phytoplankton production in the northern Fram Strait (Müller et al., 2009).

Reduced spring sea ice cover also indicates the HTM recorded at the sea surface between ca. 9300 and 6500 cal yr BP, which probably results from maximum summer insolation at 78° N.”

Our proposed sea ice scenario suggests that water masses south of the study area were ice free, which agrees with open water conditions observed in the western Barents Sea (Berben et al., 2014) and the West Svalbard margin (Müller et al., 2012) during the early Holocene.

For the West Svalbard margin, Werner et al. (2013) associated high planktic foraminiferal fluxes ca. 8000 cal yr BP to ice-free or seasonally fluctuating sea ice margin conditions.

The PBIP25 index shows the lowest values of the record (0.16 – 0.40) suggesting a period characterized by low or variable seasonal sea ice cover and influenced substantially by open water conditions (Müller et al., 2011).

The late Holocene (ca. 2200 – 0 cal yr BP) is characterized by the highest abundances of IP25 (0.35 µg/g OC)and relatively low (but stable) brassicasterol (12.5 µg/g OC) (Figure 7A-B).).

Consistent with the opposing trends in the IP25 and brassicasterol records, the PBIP25 values reach their highest value (0.87) of the record at ca. 0 cal yr BP. An increase in PBIP25 suggests a further extension in sea ice cover, reflecting Arctic Front conditions (Müller et al., 2011), most similar to modern conditions.

The Early Holocene was about 6-7°C warmer than today in this region (NW Barents Sea).

Another recent reconstruction for this region also indicated the Early Holocene was sea ice free and that modern sea ice conditions are among the most extensive of the last 9,500 years.

More HERE  (See the original for links, graphics etc.)





New Australian Leftist leader still evasive on planned coalmine

Says it is not for him to decide

Anthony Albanese has continued to question the economics around the Adani mine, but says a climate change convoy which enraged Queensland communities was “very unproductive.”

The incoming Opposition Leader today fielded multiple questions about his repeated refusal to back the Adani mine,, despite the issue costing Labor votes in north and central Queensland.

Mr Albanese, who is making his first trip to the Sunshine State today, said this morning the markets would ultimately decide the economic case for Adani and pointed to its history of missing deadlines.

“It’s not up to government to determine that, it’s up to markets themselves,” he told ABC radio.

“One of the things that has occurred over a period of time is that the company has not met a range of timelines that they’ve put forward.

“But we will see what decisions the company make once the approvals are made or not made.”

Climate change and the Adani mine has been labelled key reasons behind Bill Shorten’s disastrous performance in Queensland at the federal election, where Labor only managed a primary vote of over 27 per cent.

One of the key issues was a “climate change convoy” of activists led by former Greens leader Bob Brown which travelled through north and central Queensland protesting Adani.

Several Labor MPs have pointed to the convoy as a factor working against them in the campaign and Mr Albanese poured scorn on the activists this morning. “The truth is that was incredibly provocative and did nothing to advance, in my view, a genuine debate about climate change,” he said. “To reduce it to a debate about a single mine is very unproductive, it does nothing to advance the debate.

“Good policy is about jobs as well as clean energy, as well as making sure we take the community with us … people could do with less yelling and more genuine debate.”

Mr Albanese will be confirmed as Labor leader by his parliamentary colleagues on Thursday, as he will his presumptive deputy Richard Marles.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said this morning that Mr Albanese had to be clearer if he supported the coal export industry. “Is he going to support them? He seems to be pretty unclear on that,” Mr Taylor told Sky News.

“I’m pleased that he is not saying he’s going to get in the way (of Adani) ... we want to see these industries succeed.”

Mine craft doesn’t add up

Yesterday Mr Albanese has questioned the “economics” of opening up the Galilee Basin to coalmining and refused to publicly support Adani’s $2 billion Carmichael mine, ahead of his visit to Queensland today to win back blue-collar workers.

The inner-Sydney left-wing powerbroker, who previously called into question the future of thermal coal and the feasibility of the Adani project, is facing internal pressure to further distance Labor from the coal industry.

Asked yesterday whether he supported the Adani coalmine, Mr Albanese, who will today visit the northern Brisbane electorate of Longman which Labor lost to the Coalition, said he would “respect the process” but did not endorse jobs for central Queensland.

“There is the other issue with regard to Adani, and indeed to the whole issue of the Galilee coal basin, the issue of the economics of it, the basic cost-benefit ratios,” Mr Albanese said, after being confirmed as the ALP’s 21st leader.

“One of the things, for example, that was put forward, was that it should receive a subsidised railway line. No, I didn’t support subsidisin­g a railway line for a private­-sector operation.”

Labor MPs and candidates in the central and north Queensland seats of Flynn, Capricornia, Dawson­ and Herbert signed petitions before the election calling for the development of the Galilee, a 247,000sq m thermal coal basin in central Queensland with an estimated 27 billion ­tonnes of untapped coal.

Six coalmines in the Galilee Basin have been approved by the state government, which could generate 16,000 jobs and nearly double Australia’s thermal coal production. Mr Albanese faces the task of reversing massive swings in Queensland against Labor at the May 18 election and the loss of two seats, including the Townsville seat of Herbert, which relies on mining to generate jobs and business.

The party’s election failure prompted Queensland’s Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to immediately intervene to end the delays to the approval process of the Adani mine project.

Mr Marles also refused yesterday to throw his support behind the Adani mine but backtracked on comments he made before the election suggesting it would be a “good thing” if global demand for Australian coal collapsed.

“The comments I made earlier this year were tone-deaf and I regret­ them and I was apologising for them within a couple of days of making them,” Mr Marles said. “It failed to acknowledge the significance of every person’s job.”

Resources Minister Matt Canavan lashed Mr Albanese and Mr Marles for refusing to say they supported the Adani coalmine.

“The Labor Party have heard nothing and learned nothing from the election result,” Senator Canavan said. “People voted last week to protect their jobs, protect their futures, but the Labor Party are showing again that they are no longer the party of workers.”

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane, a former Coalition resources ministe­r, said Mr Albanese should throw his support behind jobs in central Queensland.

“It doesn’t really matter what Anthony Albanese thinks about viability — that is a decision for the company and its sharehold­ers,” Mr Macfarlane said. “The project will proceed or not on the basis of its commercial viabili­ty and that will be assessed by the company and its shareholders.”

Senator Canavan said he used Mr Marles’s comments — when he said the collapse of coal exports would be a “good thing” — against Labor during the campaign.

The coal and Adani issues helped the Liberal National Party win Herbert and retain Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn, with swings to the government.

The result, which included a statewide primary vote of just 27 per cent, stunned senior Labor figures and prompted the Palasz­czuk state government to demand a fast-tracking of its Adani approvals process, with a decision on the future of the mine to be made within weeks.

SOURCE 

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************