
Five Pacific islands disappear as sea levels rise - abhi3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36255749
======
elgabogringo
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/headlines...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/headlines-
exaggerated-climate-link-to-sinking-of-pacific-islands)

"Report’s author says many media outlets have misinterpreted the science by
conflating sea-level rise with climate change"

~~~
jessriedel
Not to mention buried in the OP article:

> However, the report stresses that the inundation does not result from rising
> sea levels alone.

> It found that shoreline recession was substantially worse in areas exposed
> to high wave energy, and that extreme events and inappropriate development
> were also factors contributing to the erosion.

~~~
cryptoz
The local sea level rise due to changing trade winds and higher than normal
trade winds, is also likely a result of global climate change, as noted in the
linked article. This is a nuanced change in local sea levels, that is not due
to global sea level rise as a result of climate change; however, it does sound
like the study concludes that it is likely that other consequences of global
climate change are in fact responsible for the local sea level rise and much
of the other erosion.

------
jb613
Interesting counter-argument[1] suggests 1) data was cherry picked:

"The alarmistic claim originates from riding the positive phase of the inter-
annual, decadal and multi-decadal oscillations typical of the sea levels over
a cherry picked short time window of 10-15 years, neglecting what was measured
before 1994 by another tide gauge in pretty much same location, and also
neglecting what has been measured in the same tide gauge since 2009.

Short records do not permit to clear the trend of the inter-annual, decadal
and multi-decadal oscillations [4-8]. In the Solomon Islands there is no tide
gauge long enough to infer a proper trend. However, the information available
permits to dismiss the alarmist claim of 7-10 mm yr-1 rate of rise."

2) statistically not enough data for trends in sea levels:

"Also including Honiara II, starting from December 1974 the rate of rise is
+2.81 mm yr-1. The time window is now 42 years long, still insufficient, but
certainly more reasonable. Considering 60-70 years of data are needed to start
understanding a trend in sea levels, very likely these +2.81 mm yr-1 are still
an overestimation of the relative rate of rise."

[1] [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/10/busted-claim-data-
sho...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/10/busted-claim-data-shows-that-
climate-induced-sea-level-rise-didnt-wipe-out-five-solomon-islands/)

~~~
throwaway5752
Are you really comfortable citing them?

Here's a discussion of the author of that post's prior work:
[https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/making-up-
stuff/](https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/making-up-stuff/)

edit: fascinating how easy it is to be downvoted simply by pointing out the
lack of credibility of AGW skeptics. On one hand, you have the overwhelming
majority (97-74%) of professional scientist saying (respectively) that global
warming is occuring or that it's man-made and provable with existing science.
On the other hand, you have people with dubious credentials, poor ethics,
and/or extraordinary conflicts of interest as paid fellow at Cato, Heartland,
AEI, et al.

All of this is easily verified by simple use of a search engine. Since... just
about nobody here is a professional climate researcher, I think all we can go
on is the credibility of sources of information. It is not ad hominem to bring
someone's motivation and prior record into consideration.

~~~
hueving
>overwhelming majority (97-74%) of professional scientist saying

I've never understood this argument. What does agreement of other scientists
from unrelated fields have to do with the soundness of a scientific theory?
It's a thinly-veiled appeal to authority that I think really weakens non-
scientific peoples' perceptions about how science works.

>Since... just about nobody here is a professional climate researcher

And neither are the majority of professional scientists that agree. Every
scientist I've worked with (computational physics) doesn't know anything about
climate science and (probably rightly) assumes that the people in the field
know what they are doing so they agree because they trust the process.
However, the approval of scientists in unrelated fields is about a relevant as
the approval of a politician. So just stick with facts about the research
itself.

Additionally, there have been many times where "the overwhelming majority of
scientists" have believed something that is incorrect. The thing that makes
science special is that it is not a democracy. Theories are validated on their
logic and evidence, not on whether or not they please a particular community
of people.

tl;dr. Stop bringing up how many people agree with something. It's not
scientifically relevant.

~~~
throwaway5752
If most experts in a field believe X, you should believe X unless you have
good reason otherwise.

Anyway, if that was the argument in isolation, you'd have a better point.
There's also the matter of the rapid measured temperature increase in 20th
century, glacial retreat, mass coral die-offs, historical records of Arctic
sea ice, the body of published peer-reviewed work on it, among many other
things.

And... I take particular offense to "it's not scientifically relevant." There
is a big difference between interpreting information and practicing science.
The author of the link previously published an article with basic errors in
its science and his two coauthors partially disavowed the work. He is
publishing on a non-peer reviewed site with a known bias.

And if you want get specific, read the provided "rebuttal" link. It basically
amounts to "The 7-10 mm/yr claim is alarmist! If you look at this other tidal
gauge, it's almost 10 mm/yr from 1995 onward, but it looks like it may have
slowed to 5 mm/yr since then. Also, if you go back to 1974 - 20 before the
uptrend starts - it's ony 3mm/yr!"

~~~
hueving
>If most experts in a field believe X, you should believe X unless you have
good reason otherwise.

True, unless a person believes the whole field is bunk. e.g. numerology,
technical analysis (looking for shapes in stock charts), faith healing, etc.
Many smarter people I talk to (not typical hurr-durr Al Gore sucks types) that
don't buy into the global warming story think that the climate is too complex
for the current modeling to mean anything.

>Anyway, if that was the argument in isolation, you'd have a better point.
There's also the matter of the rapid measured temperature increase in 20th
century, glacial retreat, mass coral die-offs, historical records of Arctic
sea ice, the body of published peer-reviewed work on it, among many other
things.

I'm not disputing global warming. I was merely critiquing using popularity as
a support for your argument. The real data is so much more powerful that
adding that actually detracts from the evidence.

>And... I take particular offense to "it's not scientifically relevant." There
is a big difference between interpreting information and practicing science.

A major theory has never won over critical-thinking people with the argument
"it must be right because X group says so". It always comes down to actual
proofs, experiments, and analysis that bring it into general acceptance. e.g.
it's not scientifically relevant who believed in "spooky action at a distance"
from quantum mechanics, it's only relevant that it was
mathematically/physically sound and eventually shown in experiments.

>And if you want get specific, read the provided "rebuttal" link.

My comment is purely focused on using popularity amongst scientists as a tool
for arguments. I am fine with showing that he/she is full of shit via
logical/evidence-based rebuttals.

~~~
unprepare
>think that the climate is too complex for the current modeling to mean
anything.

"We dont know enough, so we're sure we are correct and they are wrong" is
about the dumbest reasoning I can think of, I'm sure those are really smart
people you're talking to...

~~~
hueving
That's a bit of a strawman of their thinking. It's closer to, "we don't know
enough, so we need to be very careful about creating policies that are
economically destructive to entire industries (and subsequently industries
that depend on those) that depend on cheap energy. It's not common for me to
hear people claim that they are certain that the climate research is
completely wrong, it's usually that the feel the evidence isn't strong enough
to make such broad changes to how the world's economy functions.

It's a much easier perspective to understand when you realize how many of
these peoples' lives are directly tied to oil/gas/aviation/etc. Assuming
complete stupidity or malice on their part does very little to advance the
argument or accomplish anything in general other than feeling good about
yourself.

------
jdavis703
You know what's sad? I remember my right-wing geography teacher telling us
students that this would happen way back in the 90s. It's sad that one of the
main parties in U.S. politics doesn't think this could, would or is happening.

~~~
yarou
I think it's obvious that politicians who deny anthropogenic climate change
are on the payroll of oil producing megacorps like Exxon-Mobil.

How ironic that we let these politicians commit treason (undermining American
energy security is unquestionably treason), yet go after imaginary threats,
justifying pervasive surveillance on innocent American citizens.

It just goes to show how rotten to the core our system has become.

~~~
jcranmer
How is undermining American energy security "levying War against [the United
States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid Aid and Comfort"?

------
douche
How many new Pacific islands were created by volcanic or other processes this
year?

~~~
throwaway5752
None.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_islands)

~~~
Hondor
Some were recently created in the South China sea though

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/wha...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-
china-has-been-building-in-the-south-china-sea.html)

------
0xsnowcrash
It's a problem that's been recognised for some time. In fact the United
Nations had the third conference on this back in 2014.
[http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/sustainable/focus...](http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/sustainable/focus-
on-sustainable-islands.html)

------
danieltillett
Out of curiosity for those that don't believe global warming is human caused,
what evidence would convince you to change your mind?

~~~
graycat
(1) It would help to have solid evidence that temperature was stable before
the start of the industrial revolution and the resulting CO2 from human
activity. So, we'd have to get rid of the Little Ice Age and the Medieval
Warming Period.

(2) We would have to get rid of the big temperature changes going back
500,000+ years from the Vostok ice core data that Al Gore plotted and where
the CO2 concentrations went up about 800 years after the temperatures went up.

(3) It would also help to cancel the global cooling from about 1940 to 1970
while CO2 concentrations were going up.

E.g., from these examples, IMHO, the temperature record and the record of CO2
concentrations don't support that CO2 concentration changes caused the
temperature changes.

~~~
btilly
(1) You ask for us to lie? Climate is not stable, and any model that says it
is is clearly broken. Instead you have to produce the best models you can that
can explain both the past and project the future. Then test those models.
Those models uniformly project human-caused global warming, and are passing
various kinds of sanity checks.

(2) You want us to oversimplify? Climate is still not stable, and CO2 isn't
the only thing that is involved. The main cause for the start/end of ice ages
are orbital shifts. CO2 rise was a lagging result, that then amplified the
warming.

(3) You still want us to oversimplify? Aerosols are known to cause cooling,
and in that period rapidly expanding aerosol use caused a significant amount
of cooling. Various countries then passed clean air acts which reduced the
levels of aerosols in the air. (They also fixed a pretty major acid rain
problem.) In fact one of the proposed solutions for global warming is to
deliberately inject aerosols in the stratosphere.

From these examples, it looks like your mind is made up. You don't even want
to _find out_ what the science says. Instead you engage in a game of
oversimplification and gotcha to convince yourself that what they are saying
doesn't make sense.

~~~
graycat
> You ask for us to lie?

No. I was just responding literally to the question. Or, for a more socially
acceptable response, the Vostok data has me have trouble with the idea that
humans are causing climate change.

> Those models uniformly project human-caused global warming, and are passing
> various kinds of sanity checks.

The data I have on that indicates that essentially all the models
("uniformly") are wildly wrong. They predicted that by now the temperature
would be much higher.

Some of that data is reviewed in

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020430140457717...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#)

The way too high predictions are plotted in

[http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-
fail-73-clima...](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-
fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/)

> Those models uniformly project human-caused global warming

Not all the models. There is a model that fits the data much better -- at
least since the last ice age: The model claims that the variation in rates of
sun spots causes the temperature changes and that CO2 has essentially nothing
to do with climate.

Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas -- it absorbs in three narrow bands out in the
infrared and, thus, absorbs some of the infrared radiation from the Planck
black body radiation of the surface of the earth warmed by the sun. But
according to the model I am mentioning, this effect from CO2 is tiny. Instead,
again from the model I am mentioning, overwhelmingly, the main driver of
global temperature since the last ice age has been just clouds, and they have
varied with the sun spots. Just why is a longer argument made clear, e.g., in

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg)

So, that is another model that needs to be tested. For now, that model seems
to fit the temperature data much better than the CO2, greenhouse gas, Navier-
Stokes, atmospheric diffusion, etc. models.

To me, the CO2 models fit the data so poorly we have to reject CO2 as relevant
to climate change and look elsewhere for the significant cause(s) of climate
change. For now, to me, the best model is the one I mentioned here based on
sun spots -- you didn't mention sun spots.

~~~
throwaway5752
Doesn't it worry you _at all_ that you have cited no academic literature in
journals? You have an OpEd piece, a youtube video (the producer of which is
known for replying to an email critiquing his use of data with "You’re a big
daft c*ck"... people can google Martin Durkin and make their own conclusions
about him), and the blog of a creationist who refers to those he disagrees
with as "global warming Nazis"?

~~~
graycat
Not really.

I have other things to do.

The Al Gore, IPCC arguments look bad to me, just from what I wrote, that the
temperature record and the CO2 record convince me that CO2 has little or
nothing to do with temperature.

There is a biggie point: The Al Gore crowd has a claim about CO2 that would
have us shoot in the gut much of current civilization. There are at least two
ways to respond:

(1) From a lot of really good science, find a better answer.

(2) F'get about finding a better answer or even any answer but just debunk the
Al Gore answer by finding holes in its argument.

Then for (2), one way is really simple, just look at the temperature and CO2
record back through the Vostok data 500,000+ years ago. I've basically done
that and concluded that from the records we can reject the Gore claims about
the effects of CO2 on climate. That Vostok data is what Gore gave as his main
evidence that the higher temperatures were from higher concentrations of CO2.
Alas, the CO2 concentrations rose about 800 years after the temperatures rose.

Another way to do (2) is just to use one of the main criteria of science: Can
it make accurate predictions? Well, from some of the references I gave,
apparently not. That is, by the CO2, Planck black body radiation, Navier-
Stokes, etc. models, the temperature should be very significantly higher now.
Well, it's not. So, in science, we reject the prediction and the modelling
that made it.

So, as in (2), we don't find a good answer but just debunk and reject the Gore
CO2 approach. Finding a good answer might be really difficult science, but
debunking a proposed answer need not involve much science at all. That
rejection is likely just what we are all supposed to do and maybe not
publishable. So, we don't look for an academic record of it.

For the references I gave, right, they are not primary, but they do give some
pointers to primary references. E.g., one of the graphs does name all the
models. If that graph is all hogwash, I'd be among the first to want to have
good information on that.

For that graph with results of the 70 or so models, I just found a link to the
graph. I have the graph on my computer from years ago, but I didn't have a
link to it on the Internet (I confess -- sloppy record keeping). So, I just
took a long gibberish string left over from when I downloaded the graph,
pasted it into Google, and let Google give me a link to the graph. I don't
know where the graph came from originally (it may say but I haven't looked at
that graph in detail for years) but likely not the Web page of the URL I gave.
Sorry 'bout that, but I just found a way for you to see the famous graph.

~~~
throwaway5752
Who the shit cares about Al Gore? When did he become a climatologist?

~~~
graycat
Good point.

