Climate Change VI - Warmists and their Demise

[fred smith]

Fred, as I mentioned in the previous discussion, if you're going to argue this, at least do some research as to the basics of science, the purpose of IPCC, scientific method. I'll add to that that you should also take the time to learn what weather is and what climate is.

It is now 2012. Sea level predictions are mostly for 2100, some for 2050. Why do you keep harping on about sea level rises now? And keep talking about people who seem to think we need to be seeing massive rises today to prove something? You say "you can live with it" but you don't know what a 0.5m rise will actually mean for the world, do you? You say action is not urgent, completely overlooking the fact that it's action now that will mitigate future consequences.

so, your final word is that there are no sealevel increases NOW and therefore rather than refute Morner/Gray, you now agree with their assessments?

And in the likely scenario the rises are 0.3 to 0.5 are they not? so why focus on the 0.5? more alarmism even at the low end of the alarmism? and have we not faced similar increases and adapted?

Finally, what action do you propose taking to solve this possible problem? how much will it cost and please cite studies to show us where past similar efforts have led to any appreciable benefit. Thanks.

[cfimages]

how much will it cost and please cite studies to show us where past similar efforts have led to any appreciable benefit. Thanks.

This is funny.

Something happening for the first time in history and you want studies with examples from past similar efforts. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[fred smith]

So you have nothing from the past 35 years of global warming alarmism to show us as HERE is what we need to do to stop X and it will cost Y? Funny, after you started agreeing with Morner/Gray, I would not have imagined this. OR refute Gray and Morner and show us something anything from the past 35 years... and are you agreeing with me that the low end of likely is 0.3 NOT 0.5 meters? and on your IPCC graph, the first lowest most likely temperature increase has no corresponding sealevel increases at all or the information is not available. It could very LIKELY be lower than 0.3 couldn't it?

and with all the STUDIES showing there is a problem in the IPCC, your rebuttal is that this is new and there are NO studies? is that what you are suggesting? If so, why then should we believe THESE studies if they are not sufficiently robust to prove the need to do anything at all?

and excuse me but is global warming and are sealevel rises occurring for the FIRST time in history? really?

[Jack Burton]

just rebuttals of Morner:

I wouldn't accept Morners' criticisms without checking them out first. He has made claims against the IPCC in the past that were easily verified as being baseless.

I have commented on his claims made to the Telegraph (apparently clarified in the interview)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu ... -told.html

Morner says:

"One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend"."

This isn't actually true, Morner's paper on the satelite evidence makes no mention of the specific claim regarding the single tide gauge; however he does demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the processing of satelite altimetry data (and a fair bit of Dunning-Kruger effect). For instance he doesn't reference the papers that quite clearly explain how the adjustments have been made to the raw data from the instrument. It appears that he is basing his claims on a figure without a verifiable source that is likely to be some sort of calibration plot (and not what he thinks it is). His paper is here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8181(03)00097-3

and is debunked here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2006.08.002

his response is here

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008.03.002

note Morner STILL doesn't explain the origin of his "raw data" or explain his methodology in a way that would allow his results to be reproduced (I did try and track down his references, but they no longer exist and the closest I could find were not what he claimed them to be).

Morner also claims:

"When asked to act as an "expert reviewer" on the IPCC's last two reports, he was "astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one"."

However one of those 22 is Any Cazenave, who is a sea level specialist (there may well be others), however Booker obviously could be bothered to verify Morner's claims before publishing them.

Morner elsewhere claims:

"I am a sea-level specialist. There are many good sea-level people in the world, but let's put it this way: There's no one who's beaten me. I took my thesis in 1969, devoted to a large extent to the sea-level problem. From then on, I have launched most of the new theories, in the '70s, '80s, and '90s."

http://www.iceagenow.com/Claim_that_sea ... _fraud.htm

However his work has received very little attention, his publications give him a Hirsch index of 9 (meaning he has nine publications with more than 9 citations), which is hardly consistent with his claim to be a top sea level specialist. My Hirsch index appears to be about 12 (according to Google Scholar), and I wouldn't claim to be a leading scientist in my own field.

In short, one needs to be very skeptical when reading claims of fraud ("perversion"), they are easily made, and sometimes quite easily refuted.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Visual- ... -Rise.html

[Jack Burton]

and are you agreeing with me that the low end of likely is 0.3 NOT 0.5 meters?

rebuttal:

A rise of 30 cm by 2100 is not what the peer-reviewed science is telling us. Sea levels will not continue to rise at a linear 3.2 mm per year but are accelerating, primarily due to accelerating ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Satellite gravity measurements are already observing accelerating ice loss from both ice sheets (Velicogna 2009).

Once the contribution from ice sheets are taken into account, two entirely independent analyses (one using past sea level behaviour, the other using ice sheet dynamics) find the expected sea level rise by 2100 to be between 80 cm to 2 metres (Vermeer 2009, Pfeffer 2008). . This sea level rise will be more than inconvenient to many millions of people.

You make a good point that sea level rise has changed dramatically in the past. In fact, the past tells us volumes about how sea level responds to temperature. What it tells us is that ice sheets are very sensitive to changes in temperature. Consider that our lower emission scenarios predict a warming of around 1 to 2°C. This is approximately the same as the temperatures during the last interglacial, around 125,000 years ago. At this same time, sea levels were at least 6 metres higher than current levels.

In other words, while we expect sea levels to rise 80cm to 2 metres by 2100, sea level rise won't stop there. They will continue to rise and at our current emission trajectory, we expect sea level rise of at least 6 metres. There is uncertainty over how long this will take - likely centuries. I imagine future generations will not look kindly at the late 20th Century/early 21st Century generations who ignored these multiple lines of peer-reviewed evidence for dramatic sea level rise.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Visual- ... -Rise.html

[fred smith]

So, Brooker can find one other out of 22 but did not bother to look for others because he proved his point? So what are the person's sealevel qualifications? and finding one perhaps with broad definitions does not in my view destroy Morner's argument that the IPCC should have 22 out of 22 not possibly one with the defender not able to bother to look for more.

AND it is the IPCC which is CF Images be all and end all of experts which states the 0.3. Are you now going outside the IPCC for your expertise and projections? Let me know if this is now acceptable to the global warming alarmists and I will continue to post my non-IPCC assessments and projections.

Strange that we cannot access any of the evidence that mr jack has presented. All require $39.95 to access. Got anything handy that the links will provide free of charge? to prove your point?

[cfimages]

So you have nothing from the past 35 years of global warming alarmism to show us as HERE is what we need to do to stop X and it will cost Y? Funny, after you started agreeing with Morner/Gray, I would not have imagined this. OR refute Gray and Morner and show us something anything from the past 35 years... and are you agreeing with me that the low end of likely is 0.3 NOT 0.5 meters? and on your IPCC graph, the first lowest most likely temperature increase has no corresponding sealevel increases at all or the information is not available. It could very LIKELY be lower than 0.3 couldn't it?

and with all the STUDIES showing there is a problem in the IPCC, your rebuttal is that this is new and there are NO studies? is that what you are suggesting? If so, why then should we believe THESE studies if they are not sufficiently robust to prove the need to do anything at all?

and excuse me but is global warming and are sealevel rises occurring for the FIRST time in history? really?

Are you now suggesting that human-induced global warming as occurred in the past? Care to back that one up?

The first two paragraphs are simply you projecting what you want to believe / think despite the fact that it has no correlation to anything I've written. But if that makes you feel good, then who am I to stop you.

[cfimages]

AND it is the IPCC which is CF Images be all and end all of experts which states the 0.3. Are you now going outside the IPCC for your expertise and projections? Let me know if this is now acceptable to the global warming alarmists and I will continue to post my non-IPCC assessments and projections.

Here's the IPCC table once again. You'll clearly see that no where does it state a definite sea level rise of 0.3.

[cfimages]

It'd be easier to explain cricket to Americans than science to Mr Smith.

[fred smith]

So where are the sealevel increases next to the likely temperature increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius? and looking at the next set of figures, that is even lower so 0.18 meters is an unparalleled experience? Based on YOUR much vaunted IPCC assessment, I am merely looking at the most likely scenarios that YOU have posted. I even went higher to 0.3 meters... never happened before? catastrophic in your view? over the next 100 years?