Latest data on Auckland sea level rise

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Hauraki Gulf islands. Looking much the same after more than a hundred years.

UPDATED 11:30 am 26 June 2021

Dramatic sea level rise is widely considered among the most evil effects of anthropogenic global warming, since warmsters claim that of all the posited effects, rising seas will cause the most widespread, disruptive and costly damage. We’ve seen that the recent alarming advice from the MfE to local bodies around New Zealand cites figures from RCP8.5, the most extreme of the scenarios the warmsters paint for our future, and although there are enormous differences in both the likelihood and levels of danger between RCP8.5 and observed reality, our news media never seem to hear that part and publish only the anxiety. Continue Reading →

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Auckland “disaster recovery expert” clueless on climate

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Professor Andreas Neef, a disaster recovery expert at the University of Auckland, very handsome and seemingly a qualified authority on climate science, said extraordinary things in the Herald on Friday. All of it was aimed at raising alarm among New Zealanders for the climate calamities soon to strike us. But nothing he says is supported by real-world data.  Continue Reading →

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Reality quells fears of catastrophic ice shelf melt

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Beneath the Ross Ice Shelf – click to enlarge

I’ve been informed of significant new research that discovered Antarctic ice shelf melting—constantly referred to as “catastrophic” in warmster commentaries—is considerably less dramatic than we were led to expect—quelle surprise. It even involved a New Zealand scientist but so far this is the only media coverage. Continue Reading →

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Christchurch property values lost in climate fear

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Christchurch, mountains and sea. Earthquakes have caused great loss in reality. But stupendous imaginary sea level rise is causing great loss through insanity.

• Guest post •

— by Andy Scrase, member, Christchurch Coastal Residents United (CCRU)

Coastal residents’ nightmare drags on

We’ve written before about the serious climate problem destroying the property values of tens of thousands of Christchurch home owners. It’s an escalating tragedy. Continue Reading →

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Fiji’s ‘sinking’ Vunidogoloa Village – victim of AGW or Paris climate handout?

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h/t WUWT

• Guest post •

— by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

The popular press has dubbed this remote Fijian settlement the world’s first community to be forced to migrate by climate-caused rising seas. But is it true? Continue Reading →

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TVNZ, you are telling porkies

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• Guest post •

— by John McLean

Beyond a joke — this must stop!

It’s Tuesday evening and TV One isn’t improving. This time it claims that climate refugees will be leaving Kiribati due to rising seas, caused by man-made climate change, and heading to New Zealand where, surprisingly, the new government is preparing to issue ‘climate refugee’ visas. Continue Reading →

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TV One says climate change, facts say otherwise

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• Guest post •

— by John McLean

Vunidogoloa, Fiji

TV One is emphasising climate change this week and demonstrating just how bad the media can be.  It’s not clear if it’s incompetent journalists or incompetent climate advisors but it makes a mockery of the idea that TV One tells the whole story accurately and honestly. Continue Reading →

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Kiwis threaten climate consensus with judicial review

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Citizen group unafraid of so-called consensus

A group of pragmatic kiwis have threatened to test the Christchurch City Council’s belief in the IPCC dogma in court. In effect, they are daring the council to let a judge examine the consensus position that the sea level is about to soar dramatically higher and faster than it has for thousands of years. Continue Reading →

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Sea level study distorted by journalists

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Official complaint regarding inaccuracy

(Sent to the Herald today)

The Herald yesterday carried an article on sea level rise in the Solomon Islands. Villages have been abandoned and whole islands lost beneath the waves. Climate change is forcing people from their homes. Catastrophic sea level rise is already on us and we’re causing it. Continue Reading →

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Sea rising dangerously — yeah, nah*

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Rising but not dangerously

Some say our arrogant, relentless use of coal, oil and gas dangerously heats the atmosphere, which in turn heats the ocean and raises sea levels.

The worry-warts were whinging about it in the New Zealand Parliament the other day, demanding we outlaw building near the beach because coastal houses will fall into the sea in 2050. Continue Reading →

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Sea level lunacy slammed by Sir Tipene

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Sir Tipene O'Regan

Sir Tipene O’Regan.

from a National Business Review article of 1 September posted on Facebook:
“Sir Tipene rails against madness of Christchurch sea rise plan” by Chris Hutching

Resentment is growing among property owners in Christchurch and residents are organising themselves since the council announced it would tag 18,000 coastal properties with warnings of inundation from rising sea levels, severely depressing land values without good cause. Continue Reading →

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Expert opinion against exponential sea level rise

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UPDATE below

Letter to Chch Press 4 Aug 2015

Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.

Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.

David Beach sent a letter to the Christchurch Press published 4 August, 2015, which contains grievous errors. Whatever he intends by the use of the term ‘exponential’, we can only take it in its usual sense of increasing at a more and more rapid rate, or a rate expressed by a mathematical exponent. His salient point is this:

First, the 1m figure is absolutely the best case for sea level rise. The worst case (expressed by an expert team led by Dr Hansen) is 5m. Second, it does not stop at whatever figure turns out to be true, as it increases exponentially.

Continue Reading →

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Global warming the Wicked Witch of the West

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Wave takes dog, owner yells global warming

The beach at St Clair, Dunedin, in a bit of breeze. Photo ODT

On Monday came a story of blatant disregard of nature’s power. A woman walks a small dog on a beach pounded by violent waves. A large wave swamps them and the dog is swept away.

Source: ‘Rogue wave’ sweeps dog from owner – Otago Daily Times

Passers-by watched in horror as a “rogue wave” surged up to engulf a woman and her dog walking on a Dunedin beach yesterday.

Continue Reading →

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Commissioner Wright’s wrong – Part 2

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Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science

We take a further look at Dr Jan Wright’s report on climate change. Notwithstanding the power, privilege and wealth attached to her position as Commissioner, these descriptions of past and present climate and warnings of spectacular jeopardy do not shrink from deception.

UPDATE No.1 12 FEB 2015 9:50PM

Go to UPDATE 1.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, published a report last November, Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science (CCRS) (pdf, 2MB). While reading it I marked more than a hundred places where her evidence or reasoning is questionable. Part 1 discussed a first batch of questions; this post discusses another.

Power and privilege

The Commissioner for the Environment enjoys a privileged position: the Environment Act 1986 grants the Commissioner wide powers to investigate and engage staff and consultants, along with millions of dollars. The Parliamentary Vote for this financial year permits a departmental expenditure of $3,258,000, including a personal salary of $296,000. The Commissioner enjoys the same powers as a commission of inquiry, and the same immunities and privileges as a District Court Judge. For investigations the Commissioner initiates, she has “such powers as may be necessary” to see them through—extensive powers, for whatever she wants to do, she has the power to do. Continue Reading →

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Commissioner Wright’s wrong – Part 1

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Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science

Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science, our Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s misleading, alarmist and, at several critical points, evidence-free report on the danger to the nation of rising sea levels caused (if you can believe it) by carbon dioxide emissions from our vehicles and machines.

Private prejudice

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, published a report last month, Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science (pdf, 2MB). While reading it I marked more than a hundred places where her evidence or reasoning is questionable. This post discusses some of those.

The commissioner’s errors cause concern—just as errors from any prominent public servant[1. Dr Wright is highly paid. The Vote for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2014/15 provides for an annual remuneration of $296,000 in a total departmental budget of $3,258,000.] cause concern—and her agitation for policy change means she sides with environmental activists against at least half our population, and possibly even three-quarters of our population—those who are not persuaded that global warming is a problem. You can see that this arises directly from her personal views, Continue Reading →

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The dark art of falling albedo

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Ruapehu eruption 2007

The Mt Ruapehu eruption in 2007. This is the original image used to mislead readers of Mother Jones that it depicted “dark snow” in the Himalayas covered by industrial dust and soil blown from thousands of miles away. But the ash had come just a few hundred metres from the crater. I can scarcely imagine the gargantuan storm of dust that might retain this density after flying through the air for thousands of kilometres. Talk about a nuclear winter.

A story on Mother Jones last July by John Vidal described the world’s highest glacier, Khumbu, turning visibly darker as particles of fine dust, blown by fierce winds, settled on the bright, fresh snow. “One-week-old snow was turning black and brown before my eyes,” said American geologist Ulyana Horodyskyj. Unfortunately she lacked the presence of mind to make a photographic record of this startling event. Continue Reading →

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The ocean according to Renwick

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Prof James Renwick

Prof James Renwick appeared on 3 News sporting a classy waistcoat with an earnest expression.

One of our favourite Kiwi climate scientists has again made alarmist climate predictions.

The predictions come from the IPCC, but I’m sure Professor James Renwick takes responsibility for repeating them (I mean, he must have satisfied himself over their accuracy). He frequently cites the IPCC’s predictions but keeps quiet when they’re wrong. For example, when they and their computer models forecast strong warming over the last 17 years instead of the lack of warming we observe. Continue Reading →

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Flooding island lies

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Anti-science, pro-cash

Once again a national leader makes the false claim that his low-lying island nation is about to be flooded because of “climate change”. It’s not hard to show that he’s telling great big porky pies.

An article was posted on the Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) web site recently (h/t – Richard Cumming). I found the Marshall Islands government press release it was based on and in which the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, Philip Muller, said the king tides were the latest in a series of increasingly serious and regular climate impacts. Continue Reading →

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Dreaver again battles the evil west

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Fact-free again, again she fails

I posted a letter to TVNZ today as follows.

Dear Sirs,

Formal complaint — TVNZ News 7 July

This confirms my formal complaint emailed to you yesterday.

Concerning your TV1 news item last evening and available at http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/low-lying-island-threatened-rising-sea-levels-video-5498764, I would have imagined that a careful, experienced reporter like Barbara Dreaver, in her research, might have noticed that an earthquake occurred on Lifuka in 2006, causing a subsidence of about 23 centimetres, causing a noticeable advance of sea level and causing a single householder to abandon his house. A documentary about the island was made by Tiy Chung and posted at http://vimeo.com/53200521 seven months ago.

Still, she evidently failed to check. Continue Reading →

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Give us the bodies

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— by Mike Jowsey, regular participant in the Climate Conversation Group

Habeas Corpus – late Middle English: Latin, literally ‘you shall have the body (in court)’ (oxforddictionaries.com)

Raveena Aulakh

Environment reporter Raveena Aulakh.

A heart-string-tugging humanitarian piece was published in the Toronto Star last weekend. It concerns the plight of some 250 million climate change refugees expected worldwide by 2050 and was entitled Climate change forcing thousands in Bangladesh into slums of Dhaka.

Rising sea levels could flood 17 per cent of Bangladesh and create between 20 million and 30 million refugees, experts say. The Star’s environment reporter Raveena Aulakh recently travelled to the country to look at how climate change is affecting one of the world’s most densely populated countries and its people. Continue Reading →

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Are 1800 Kapiti homes really threatened by sea level rise?

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Seemingly sloppy science seems to have sullied our coastal planning process. Dr de Lange describes, in the polite, scholarly way of his, a scientific blunder in a Kapiti Coast erosion report that anyone less courteous than him would call a dereliction or worse. Why? Because the wrong formula was used to calculate the amount of foreshore vulnerable to damage from sea level rise, and many hundreds of properties are now apparently at risk. The report explains correctly why a certain formula should not be used, but then, in a stupefying about-turn, goes ahead and uses it anyway. Prices for those properties will plunge, yet the new risks just aren’t justified.

The author (or principal author) of the Kapiti Coast Erosion Hazard Assessment 2012 update is Dr Roger Shand, of Coastal Systems Ltd. He said the report was peer-reviewed by “Coastal Scientist Dr Mike Shepherd” – who effectively works for Dr Shand. Why didn’t they admit that they’re colleagues? This isn’t a peer review, it’s a pal review, and if values plummet, land owners will descend on the High Court demanding compensation. Does the District Council realise its exposure?  – Richard Treadgold

— by Dr Willem de Lange, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Waikato

Recent news stories have highlighted the redefinition of coastal hazard zones along the Kapiti Coast. The populated region is concentrated on a coastal landform known as a cuspate foreland, which has formed due to enhanced accretion of sediment in the lee of Kapiti Island over the last 7500 years. Examination of the coastal landforms in this region indicates that there has been long-term accretion over the Holocene disrupted by storm-induced erosion associated with large waves from either the southwest or northwest.

Kapiti Island

Google Earth image of the Kapiti Coast showing the prominent cuspate foreland that has formed in the lee of Kapiti Island over the last 7500 years. (Click for larger version.)

So has that pattern changed recently? Continue Reading →

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Maldives drowning peril repudiated

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President Waheed of the Maldives

The Maldives’ new President Waheed. “It’s all right. No, relax. The Maldives are in no danger of sinking. Ha, ha. Carbon dioxide couldn’t do that. Ha, ha, ha. Please build more tourist resorts.”

Here is news that should please everyone – no exceptions: the Maldives are not in peril of drowning in rising seas.

The Indian Ocean coral islands are famous icons for the predicted catastrophe from rising seas caused by our CO2 emissions, but their new president now assures us they’re in no danger of sinking beneath the waves.

This is exactly what sceptical commentators have been saying about the Maldives’ scare tactics for years and years: that they were aimed more at extracting funds from gullible western nations than at providing courses in climatology. Continue Reading →

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NZ tells Tokelau to burn their food

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At WUWT the ever-practical Willis Eschenbach refuses to bet on the long-term success of a New Zealand-funded development project to entirely convert the power supply in Tokelau to solar panels and coconut oil and explains exactly why he won’t.

I mention this story for the benefit of the many people in New Zealand and overseas who continue to consider coral islands at risk from DAGW*-driven sea level rise.

But at the same time Willis has pertinent lessons for Kiwi policy wonks who love renewable energy to bits and are working steadily to destroy our ability to do without the other reliable kind Continue Reading →

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Accelerated SLR given the kibosh

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A German survey has gone carefully through the literature on sea level and finds no evidence of acceleration over the last 30 years.

There’s a handy article in English at NoTricksZone with a link to the original in German.

They include a reference to New Zealand research, citing Hannah and Bell (2012), who show NZ SLR steady at 1.7 mm per year since 1940.

Perhaps now the zealots and alarmists will stop crying wolf on sea level. Which leaves just ocean acidification, ice cap and glacial melt, increased tornado frequency…

— h/t reader Marian, and Climate Depot for the links.

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North Carolina fights rising tide of dogma

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The Economist carried an online article on 29 June ridiculing the North Carolina legislature for wanting to ban climate-change projections in coastal planning and allow only historical data. (h/t Barry Brill)

It is odd that the always-conservative Economist seems to distrust the temperate, time-tested use of observations to predict likely bounds of future tides. Never mind the success enjoyed by generations of engineers in building our coastal and riverine assets, the Economist now prefers unproven computer models deliberately distorted by the theory that we’re controlling the climate with tiny quantities of an inoffensive gas.

Computers can’t do more than about a fortnight of the weather before accuracy turns to chaos, but the Economist apparently trusts an impressive 90 years of forecast climate.

Am I the lone dullard who doesn’t believe them? Continue Reading →

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Fierce fighting on SLR in North Carolina

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Nature Climate Change just published a paper called “Hotspot of accelerated sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of North America” written by Asbury H. Sallenger Jr, Kara S. Doran & Peter A. Howd, of the USGS. Hey, another climate scientist named Sallenger but not called Jim!

Is this paper a credible source? John Droz, jr, is spearheading support for proposed, unprecedented, “anti-green” legislation in North Carolina that would make it illegal for state agencies to use accelerated SLR projections as a basis for state rules and regulations. The bill is called HB-819. Continue Reading →

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Our water use raises sea levels

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A new article in Nature Geoscience attributes 42% of recent sea level rise to discharge of groundwater to the oceans by human activities.

Pokhrel, Y.N. et al., 2012. Model estimates of sea-level change due to anthropogenic impacts on terrestrial water storage. Nature Geoscience, advance online publication.

Abstract

Global sea level has been rising over the past half century, according to tide-gauge data. Thermal expansion of oceans, melting of glaciers and loss of the ice masses in Greenland and Antarctica are commonly considered as the largest contributors, but these contributions do not entirely explain the observed sea-level rise. Continue Reading →

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Deadly effective manipulation

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This excellent post is from our friend Rupert Postlethwaite, a real scientist who is so good at putting two and two together he often has trouble getting them apart. However, he pretends to be so many people he can also, like any properly absent-minded professor, quite forget who he is. Rupert says a glance at this conference programme will reveal how professionally clever the climate alarmists are and I agree. But, given global temperatures have not risen significantly since about 1995, while at the same time the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere went up by about 9%, it is obvious that FACTORS OTHER THAN CO2 have a controlling influence on temperature. To douse this oh-so-serious sea level conference with copious quantities of cold sea water, you can easily find objective data on sea level rise in our part of the world. Visit the Australian South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project and check out the February 2012 report (pdf). From the Executive Summary on page 3: “Monthly sea levels during February 2012 were around 5cm higher than normal at Marshall Islands, PNG, Samoa and Cook Islands and as much as 12cm higher than normal at Solomon Islands. Sea levels were around 7cm lower than normal at Vanuatu. Sea levels at Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu, Fiji and Tonga were all near normal for this time of the year.” What was that about global sea levels rising with global temperature and always going up, never going down? Explain this, NIWA! – Richard Treadgold

the ocean

Gazing at the sea level; just like a navel gaze.

CO2 imagined to raise the oceans

Assisted by some mainly taxpayer or citizen-funded organisations, including the Royal Society of New Zealand, GNS Science, Victoria University and the Wellington City Council, the New Zealand Climate Change Centre is hosting yet another expensive climate jamboree in Wellington on May 10-11.

Sea-level Rise, Meeting the Challenge is nominally concerned with discussions of sea-level rise that is imagined as being caused by human carbon dioxide emissions.

Many Kiwis are concerned that New Zealand already has an expensive and ineffectual emissions trading scheme to help “stop climate change” (a banal and utterly impractical notion, if ever there were), and which the government shows no sign of repealing despite almost complete recalcitrance by other countries to mimic its crazy brave venture. Continue Reading →

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More mindless moping on the Maldives

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Maldives

Luxury accommodation in the Maldives near the sea. Expensive to stay in and to construct. In the opinion of their President, soon to be destroyed by rising seas. But is he to be believed?

Hot Air carries good comment on the Maldives’ latest efforts to extort money from wealthy westerners, prompted by President Mohammed Nasheed’s urging of Australia to get ready to receive them. Fat chance.

Straight after he made his appeal, Nasheed went to a ceremony to mark the building of a new airport. Which was strange if he believes it will soon be drowned under flooding seas. Continue Reading →

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Only threat to Christchurch is Salinger’s alarmism

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the beginning of the Christchurch earthquakes

The moment of the sudden earthquake where none had been known before. Click for larger version.

From the Christchurch Press today comes alarming news:

Rising sea levels are a greater threat to Christchurch’s seaside suburbs than previously realised, a climate scientist is warning.

Speaking at Canterbury University this afternoon, Jim Salinger said latest estimates could have major implications for Christchurch’s earthquake rebuild.

Christchurch City Council should be working to a one-metre estimate for sea level rise, he said.

“It’s the opportunity for Christchurch in its rebuild, it should be looking at at least a metre. Some local bodies in Australia are using one metre.”

Salinger plucks the same alarmist harp strings he’s been picking for decades. He specifies one metre: does he include those places which are 500mm higher after the earthquake? They should get a discount.

But the Coalition chairman Barry Brill decisively puts this loose cannon of a climate scientist down, demanding evidence: Continue Reading →

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Moon on Kiribati

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Ban-Ki Moon

Ban Ki-moon. Nice man, a careful diplomat (flatters New Zealand), but obviously no scientist. Head of the UN, outranks the famous panel on climate change (IPCC) but never consults them. Because he still hasn’t found out that sea levels aren’t threatening the coral islands. He’s even been to Kiribati, but he still didn’t find out.

Hear the lies? Anyone?

We’ve covered the coral-islands-in-great-danger-from-rising-seas theme many times. But something isn’t working — could it be the brains of certain people, like most of our reporters, the head of our nascent world government and the official NZ climate scientists at NIWA, who let everyone tell the most outrageous fibs in public without correcting them?

Coral islands began forming at least 250 million years ago and some of them are a million years old, although many are from 5000 to 10,000 years old. In the 20,000 years since the last Ice Age, sea level has gone up about 130 metres (426 ft).

That’s a long way to fall. Yet, amazingly, coral islands are still on the surface. They kept up with the rising water. Well, some drowned, but not (of course) the ones that are left. Continue Reading →

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Now sea levels are rising fast

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Rash of news alerts

From News.Scotsman.com comes worrying information of rapid sea level rise.

Global warming is causing sea levels to rise at a faster rate today than at any time in the past 2,100 years, according to new research.

Scientists used the fossils left by tiny marine animals to record two millennia of sea levels along the US Atlantic coast.

Some inspired comments

In the most detailed look yet at sea level change, scientists on Monday reported that waters along the East Coast have risen far faster over the past century than at any time in the previous 2000 years. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

20th-Century sea-level rise on the U.S. Atlantic coast is faster than at any time in the past two millennia. [Real Climate]

The research confirms what has often been assumed, that there’s a very strong link between sea levels and temperatures. More worryingly, it also seems to confirm just how uniquely pronounced the current climate change really is. [io9]

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Wool gets in the eyes

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wool over eyes

Woolly thinking?

Royal Society banner

No, this is the Royal Society of NZ.
Listen carefully as they try to pull the wool over your eyes.

With the Royal Society smoke ‘n’ sea level rise

Last September, the Royal Society published a report entitled “SEA LEVEL RISE Emerging Issues”, available as a pdf (645 KB). In the accompanying press release they had this to say:

Professor Keith Hunter, the Society’s Vice President of Physical Sciences, who contributed to the paper, says researchers are starting to be able to estimate the amount of rise that we should expect to see over this century and beyond. But he says these projections of future sea level rise depend upon the future melting of ice sheets, which is poorly known.

“The uncertain knowledge about ice sheet behaviour is the key reason why IPCC projections in 2007 did not state upper bounds for sea level rise. Similarly, Ministry for the Environment guidance in 2008 wisely left open the question of any upper limit on sea level rise.”

The paper states that some early scientific work into the effect of a warming climate on ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica suggested that many metres of sea level rise could occur within a century. However, it says few scientists now consider that such rates are possible.

What do we learn from this?

We learn that we can’t guess future sea level rise, since we can’t guess future ice sheet melting; our mates at the UN and the MfE won’t touch it, and our first guess was several metres but now only the cranks go that far.

The press release expresses complete ignorance on future sea level rise. Great. So we also learn that scientists can make complete ignorance appear very interesting. Continue Reading →

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Why is Greenland losing ice?

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New report seems to assume it’s melting, but is it?

Greenland is the world’s largest island, about 2600 km long and 1100 km wide at its widest point. Most of the interior is covered by the world’s second-largest permanent ice sheet. Average temperatures rise above freezing only briefly, during the summer. Here’s a simplified graph of monthly temperatures taken from a tourism site.

Greenland temperatures

Average monthly temperatures in Greenland. Everything below 32° is frozen —
that’s right, most of the year!

Yesterday the NZ Herald reported a study finding faster melting of Arctic and Greenland ice. The scientific team thinks global sea levels could rise by as much as five feet (1.5 metres) this century. Continue Reading →

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UNEP prediction fails

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Tuvalu

Tuvalu. Still there. Defying predictions of evacuation! Defying predictions of inundation!
Defying shonky science!

Bad luck, Helen

In 2005, the UNEP (now headed by ex-NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark) predicted at
least 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

A map setting out the areas predicted to be at risk in several ways from global warming was available at the UNEP/GRID-Arendal web site.

A well-researched story by Gavin Atkins of Asian Correspondent posted at Watts Up With That yesterday explains how that map was taken down in a fumbled attempt to cover up the existence of the UNEP prediction.

Silly people. Everything has been resurrected at WUWT through the magic of the Internet and sits there now, quietly mocking both the original prediction and the inept cover-up attempt by our premier international agency — you know, the one with ambitions to rule the world.

The latest update to the story says a UCLA professor has just repeated the prediction, but for 2020, not 2010, and presents no evidence for it. Nuts.

Tuvalu survives

The 11,600 inhabitants of the low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu were several years ago offered a home in New Zealand.

How many have taken up this offer? Have their islands disappeared? None. No.

Any members of the MSM reading this? Bear in mind that this failed prediction is what we call a fact so it is held to be true regardless of what we might want to believe.

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Sea level rise is normal, my friends

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countries in sea level monitoring project

The South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project (SPSLCMP) hasn’t been running for long and didn’t contribute to the new paper mentioned below, but we ought to remember that this Australian project exists. It constantly monitors sea level and other metrics in the countries named above and issues monthly reports. The warnings we hear from various island communities and environmental groups about rising sea level driving people from their homes — potentially very alarming — turn out, in the light of these scientific observations, to be alarming only for their despicable lack of disclosure of the truth. Yet their alarming statements are never questioned by the mainstream media. TV1’s Pacific reporter, Barbara Dreaver, is surely the leading wide-eyed journalist to misreport sea levels and subsequent social suffering, though she’s not the only one.

Accelerated sea level rise debunked

A new analysis finds evidence of a weak deceleration in mean sea level rise in the Australasian region from 1940 to 2000 in four very long-term tide gauge records.

It brings long-term confirmation to what the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project (SPSLCMP) has been reporting for about 10 to 15 years — slow, non-alarming sea level rise. Continue Reading →

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On Kiribati sinking

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Island of Tabiteuea, Kiribati.

Island of Tabiteuea, Kiribati. Heaven on earth.

We didn’t mention straws, only facts

CORRECTION: 18 NOVEMBER

Bryan Walker, of Hot Topic, insists on the fact of the sinking of Kiribati along with a human cause of the sinking. Under the heading “Clutching at straws” he says:

The vigour of denial is as evident as always.

I remain unconcerned about criticism he got from the pugnacious Ian Wishart at The Briefing Room, along with “others” on the Herald web site. I believe that Ian correctly quotes from Kiribati’s marketing material, but now I comment on what Walker says about our post here at the Climate Conversation, Kiribati sinking beneath waves again.

Because his criticism of me is frail, since he ignores what I say. The best that can be said about his summary of our post is that he slides past its substantive arguments, replacing them with “straw man” arguments easily dealt with.

But first, I must express annoyance at his use of “denial”. He says it just once, but securely tars his opponents with it, yet it must be the last resort of the desperate, for where is his argument that the denial has no substance? Absent — he leaves it hanging.

Certainly, when one argues with anything, one denies something. On that definition, Walker himself is a “denier”, for he denies what I said. A denier label cannot be the end of rational thought nor award an uncontested victory, for it applies to both parties to an argument. Continue Reading →

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Kiribati sinking beneath waves again

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Tarawa atoll, Kiribati.

Oh! Kiribati, Kiribati! Lovely, lovely Kiribati. NOTE: Kiribati is the local attempt to pronounce “Gilbert Islands”, the original European name for the place. It’s pronounced “Kiribas”. Does anyone know what possessed the missionaries to write “bas” as “bati”? And is there an appeal process?

Oh, again?

Climate change sinking Kiribati – so says a Herald headline of Friday, November 12. Here we go again! More nonsense about sea levels in the Pacific rising, driven by the exhaust from our internal combustion engines and thermal power stations.

Nearly a year ago the Herald carried a similar story headed Tiny Tuvalu outgunned by oil giant which I quickly debunked. Seems they didn’t learn much that time around.

But the author this time is Bryan Walker, regular contributor to alarmist articles at Hot Topic. Continue Reading →

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Royal Society gives us nightmare without the terror

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UPDATED 30 Sep 2010, 16:00

a nightmare vision

This is the stuff of nightmares; the Royal Society paper is the stuff of drowsy afternoon picnics.

New graph comparing predictions from RSNZ and IPCC. Eye-opening!

The Royal Society of New Zealand just published a paper, Sea Level Rise – Emerging Issues. It reports new, more alarming predictions of sea level rise around New Zealand during the rest of the century. Or does it?

The paper warns us to expect the sea to rise several metres by 2100. Or does it?

Actually, it doesn’t and it doesn’t. We can all go home.

On a careful, sensible reading, the paper says very little but, by employing phrases such as “increasingly rapid melting”, “recent estimates of future rise are greater” and “global sea levels rose by around 120 metres”, among others, the casual reader gains the impression of dangerous rises to come. The story imparts grave concern.

But it’s all air kissing, candy floss and nonsense. They say nothing that would scare a butterfly. Continue Reading →

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Tuvalu’s problems not caused by CO2

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It’s been a busy day and it’s close to its end. I check out the NZ Herald for the first time and see a headline: “Tiny Tuvalu outgunned by oil giant”. Curious, I click on it. Now I’m furious. That was yesterday, it’s taken until now to finish researching and writing this damned rebuttal and adjust the images and I’m still furious.

There is no justification for a high level of alarm over future sea level rise and no reason to blame human emissions of carbon dioxide.

The “oil giant” is Saudi Arabia, apparently anxious not to have its oil exports reduced too much. “Outgunned” means opposing votes squash Tuvalu’s motion for developed nations to more aggressively curb their emissions. So Tuvalu’s leaders are distressed, thinking their island nation will soon disappear beneath the waves.

Tuvalu

Activists claim that sea level rise is already making life difficult for islanders on Tuvalu and on Kiribati, another set of low-lying Pacific islands to the north-east of Australia.

They quote damaging effects such as fortnightly “king tides” attacking the coastline, wells contaminated with sea water—even one village in Kiribati abandoned to “waist-high water”. It is very distressing. Continue Reading →

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