By Robert W. Endlich
Author’s Note: This is Part FOUR of a four part post topic. Figure numbers remain consecutive across the four parts of the post.
Part ONE is here
Part TWO is here
Part THREE is here
Presentation is here
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT “CLIMATE CHANGE MAKING DAYS LONGER” UP TO NOW
NPR claims that humans burning fossil fuels controls sea level and that CO2 is “climate pollution.”
Regarding the NPR claim, the data show that sea level is a dynamic property of earth (Fig 3) and was meters higher than today within the historic past. There are numerous examples of this from the NMSU-A WEEK SEVEN class graphics, slides 33-146.
One example, from 1066, is when William the Conqueror invaded what we now call England. He landed at Pevensey Castle, which is now a mile from the English Channel and 13 ft above present Sea Level, Presentation Graphics, Slide 145.
The only way to understand this is, that when William landed in England at Pevensey Castle, Pevensey was then at sea level, so that sea level was remarkably higher than today, back in 1066. This was well before humans were using fossil fuels for industrial processes.
Another example is the Battle of Thermopale in 480 BC, when the hoplite infantry of the Athenians was able to significantly slow the invading Persians, presentation Slide 142. At the site of the battle, there was a narrow pass between mountains and the Gulf of Malia on the Agean Sea. The Athenians used this narrow pass to significant military advantage at the onset of this battle, presentation Slide 143.
Today the level of the Agean is significantly lower and a highway and a broad plain exist between the mountains and the Gulf of Malia, Slide 144.
PNAS claims that modern climate change is “unprecedented” and is “leading to a rise in sea level.” But clearly, by many measures, the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the present as shown in this post’s Figure 1, and the preceding paragraphs show sea levels higher than today with a lot less CO2 in the air in historic times.
Our Friend from North Carolina, Dave Burton, has a wonderful web site, https://sealevel.info/, which is a marvelous source of information on sea level, and the demonstrably false accusation that our use of fossil fuels is causing acceleration of sea level rise.
Figure 14 below, borrowed from Dave Burton, shows explicitly that this notion is false. Dave shows the time series of sea level from the tide gage in Honolulu, Hawaii, for the 118 or so years starting in 1905. The plot also shows <CO2> over the same period, in green, at the bottom. The thin line is <CO2> from the ice cores, and the fatter line is the <CO2> from the UCSD site at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. Clearly there is no acceleration in the rate of sea level rise from the addition of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
All you need to do is look at the data!
This figure also shows two locations on the internet where sea level data from tide gages can be readily obtained. This one, from NOAA, has a map where the stations in the NOAA data base can be seen and selected with a mouse click. The other one, from PSMSL, the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level,a separate organization located in the UK. The PSMSL map where tide gage data can be accessed is here.
My last point, that despite rising <CO2> there is no acceleration in the rate of sea level rise, quotes from Dave Burton, and uses his comments made 16 Sep 2014 at 1006 PM, from this post.
“The talk about disappearing negative results reminds me of an example…
In 2006, Church and White published, ‘A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise.’ It got huge press, and to this day it is still frequently cited as proof that man-made global warming is causing accelerated sea-level rise.
However, their reported error bar for the amount of acceleration they found for the 20th century as a whole went all the way down to zero, and one detail that their paper didn’t mention was that all of the acceleration they found was prior to 1925 — which means it was almost certainly unconnected to anthropogenic GHG emissions.
In 2009, Church and White posted a new data set on their web site, but, mysteriously, published no paper about it. I wondered about that, so I reproduced their 2006 calculations using their 2009 data.
Guess what? All the 20th century acceleration was gone. I shared my results with Drs. Church & White, and on June 18, 2010, Dr. Church cordially replied, confirming my analysis: ‘For the 1901 to 2007 period, again we agree with your result and get a non-significant and small deceleration.’
You can see why they didn’t publish a paper about their 2009 results. If they would have published such a paper, the title would have had to have been something like, ‘Oops, never mind: No 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise after all.’
BTW, before someone asks, I did publish my results: doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0159-8”
CONCLUSIONS, EDITORIAL IN NATURE
What NPR really wanted to say was that Human-Caused, CO2-Fuelled Global Warming was causing another problem that could only be solved by Big Government.
As we learn more, climate change is the norm, and climate is not and was never in stasis.
The Climate Change Bandwagon is merely a pretext for the Big Government Elites to extract money from the middle and lower classes, many of whom are living in poverty. More importantly, this is a methodology to impose Big Government Power and restrictions on our freedoms.