I will leave it to the "non-existent" climate scientists who are skeptical of the human role in any global warming to do a full critique of the latest bit of over-interpretation below (from The Times) -- but even as a humble social scientist I see some rather large flaws in the argument. They showed that sea-levels fluctuated wildly during the Cretaceous, long before any human influence, but then go on to conclude that recent sea level changes MUST have been due to human influence! Why? If natural influences can change sea levels in one era why cannot they do the same in another?
I think at that point further comment really becomes rather superfluous but even if we accept that the correlations indicate human influence, there is still the question of WHICH human influence was at work. They rightly point out that both methane and CO2 levels appear to have risen in the last 200 years or so but fail to point out that the big rise has been in methane rather than in CO2 -- and methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than is CO2. So any recent rise in sea levels is much more likely to be due to methane -- which is primarily a result of food production (including rice paddies) -- than to CO2. So cutting down on CO2 output from industry is ignoring the elephant in the bedroom. What we really need to do is to cut methane production -- which would mainly mean stopping all the vastly increased populations of Asia from growing all that rice that they use to feed themselves. I think you can see why they did not pursue the role of methane in global warming!
A third point: It is not at all evident that the slight recent rise in global temperatures that appears in most estimates should have caused sea-levels to rise. Warmer oceans should produce more precipitation (rain and snow) and increased precipitation in areas characterized by permanent sub-zero temperatures -- such as most of the Antarctic and parts of the Arctic -- should have the effect of locking up more water in land-based ice (glaciers, icecaps) -- and recent studies have in fact suggested increased ice depth in central Antarctica and Greenland
"Ocean levels are rising twice as fast as they were 150 years ago, providing further evidence of man-made global warming. A study has shown that world sea levels are rising at a rate of 2mm (0.08 inches) a year; double the speed at which levels rose for 5,000 years before the start of the industrial age. The switch occurred after the mid-19th century, when factories and increased use of coal and later oil started pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Kenneth Miller, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and colleagues produced a new sea level record spanning 100 million years. They took five 500m-deep (1,640ft) core samples from sediments along New Jersey's coastline. A study was then made of the sediment type, the fossils it contained and variations in the atomic forms, or isotopes, of elements. These measurements were correlated with others from around the world, enabling sea levels to be calculated.
Some of the findings, published in the journal Science, were surprising. They showed that during the Late Cretaceous period, at the end of the dinosaurs' reign, sea level frequently fluctuated by tens of metres. Only changes in the size of the ice caps could produce these fluctuations, showing that the Earth was not ice-free at this time in its history, as most experts had thought.
The team found that over the period, sea levels had been steadily rising at about 1mm a year until the Industrial Revolution. Since then, the rise had doubled. Professor Miller said: "The main thing that's changed since the 19th century and the beginning of modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gases. Our record therefore provides a new and reliable baseline to use in addressing global warming."
A second paper in Science states that the levels of global warming gases such as methane and carbon dioxide have steadily risen. Ed Brook, a professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis, and colleagues analysed ancient bubbles in Antarctic ice cores. The results add another 210,000 years to knowledge of the make-up of the atmosphere, and confirm that levels of greenhouse gases have risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. The results, he said, made it clear that the conditions of the past 150 years were unusual. "The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "There is now no question this is due to human influence.""
Source
A MORE FIRMLY-FOUNDED HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
"In the Mesozoic, and later in the Tertiary, the planet was a lot warmer than it is today, by 30 or 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a green and growing planet, with all kinds of new flora and fauna evolving happily. Then global temperatures crashed. We will be discussing this further in coming posts, but eventually it got so cold the planet nearly froze, or mostly froze, in the Ice Ages. In which we are still involved. We live in a short-timer interstice between 100,000 year episodes of Refrigerator Planet.
Put another way, in the 400 million years since the Lower Devonian, when seaweeds and fish first crawled onto terra firma, it has almost always been warmer than now. The Ice Ages began about 2 mya, so for 99.5 percent of the History of Life on Dry Land, Planet Earth has been warmer than now. It has always been rainier too, except for during the worst of the Ice Ages, again.
About 6,000 to 8,000 years ago our Interstice experienced something called the Climatic Optimum. It may have been 2 to 5 degrees F warmer than now. It was the Golden Age of Agriculture, when scads of plants and animals were domesticated and hybridized. We still eat plants and animals from the Golden Age. There was another mini-Optimum about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, when Civilization really took off. Those were good times, climatically speaking. Mesopotamia, the Levant, and North Africa were green and rich with fields, farms, and forests. The American Southwest had a farmer culture, as did most of the Western Hemisphere. Today, they are all big deserts. Warmer means more rain. Warmer makes deserts bloom. Warmer makes forests spread like wildfire.
If global warming happens, as predicted by so many "scientists", sea levels may rise. I do not know, but I doubt it. Apparently modern sea level is no different than it was 6,000 years ago, during the warmer Optimum. If all the sea ice on the planet melted, it wouldn't change the sea level. Try this experiment: put an ice cube in a glass of water. Mark the water level. Cover the glass to prevent evaporation. Wait for the ice to melt. Mark the water level again. There will be no change! It's simple physics, having to do with the relative densities of ice and water.
If all the glaciers on land melted, excluding Greenland and Antarctica, the sea level might go up a few centimeters. Polar landmasses are unlikely to melt, since throughout geologic history there have always been ice caps on polar landmasses. When part of Pangea was over the South Pole, there was an ice cap, even though the rest of the planet was much, much warmer on average than now. About 50 mya, when southern Pangea, Gondwana, broke up and the Antarctic Plate drifted back over the South Pole, the current ice cap formed there. It's not going to melt soon, trust me.
Sea levels have been falling since the Pangean breakup in the Cretaceous Period of the Upper Mesozoic Era, over 100 mya. Sea level relative to continental plates has less to do with land ice and more to do with subsidence of spreading sea floors and the deepening of the abyssal.
If, however, for some inexplicable reason the waters do rise, then some folks may have to move inland or uphill. But the interior will be so much nicer, what with more temperate and lush conditions, that moving a few yards or miles inland will be desirable. The coastal littoral is windy, foggy, salty, stinky, muggy, buggy, and miserable, anyway".
More here
BRITAIN: MORE PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING
"Heavy wintry showers are expected to arrive in the South East today with the Met Office giving warning that the country is facing the coldest winter in living memory. Blizzards were forecast to move southwards through the West of the country last night with snow expected in London and Manchester later today. The Met Office warned of the dangers of freezing and burst pipes overnight as it issued its second spate of severe weather warnings in as many days. The Highways Agency has had scores of gritting lorries on standby since last night.
The Met Office conducted an unprecedented emergency briefing to its industry clients yesterday on the prospects for this winter. Wayne Elliott, a Met Office forecaster and spokesman, said that the briefing to industry, which was closed to the press, was just a precaution. "In the first event of its kind, the Met Office today met leaders from business and central Government to brief them on the prospects for the coming winter," he said. "Society has changed since the last time we had a cold winter of any magnitude, so this is an effort to get the business energy customers and the Government prepared."
Western parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland were hit by the heavy snow and blizzards yesterday and forecasters confirmed their prediction that this winter is likely to be colder than average. The last time that happened was in the winter of 1995-96, but a spokesman said yesterday that this year could be even colder. The heavy wintry showers were then due to spread into West Wales and North and southwest England by this morning. The blizzards are then expected to move East during the day and into the weekend, according to the Met Office. Mr Elliot said southern parts would be most affected by the departure from normal temperatures, because they are not used to it.
Temperatures in Aberdeen and some of the worst-affected areas approached freezing with a -15C windchill factor yesterday and the average temperature in London dropped by 5C.Mr Elliott said: "This is the first time this year we have experienced weather like this. Very strong winds are coming in from the North and are set to drive down the country overnight. Temperatures are falling and there's the potential for freezing pipes in many areas. It will start to feel very raw as the winds pick up. Anywhere could see snow." The Highways Agency said that more than half a million tonnes of sand has been stockpiled to cope with freezing conditions on roads. Councils have also put their gritting teams on alert.
Four hillwalkers were rescued after they became stranded in blizzards on the plateau of Britain's second-highest mountain. An RAF helicopter and four rescue teams were involved in the operation on Ben Macdui in the Cairngorns. The hillwalkers were in their sleeping bags in a tent on top of the 4,300ft (1,310m) mountain when they raised the alarm"
Source
U.S. STATE-GOVERNMENT NUTTINESS
"The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is calling public attention to the impending Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a secret regulatory regime designed by nine northeastern governors that will significantly raise energy, goods and services prices for regional consumers.
"The RGGI is essentially another hidden [consumer] tax." It was conceived of by New York State Governor George Pataki during 2003, and has since been expanded behind 'closed doors' and without public debate to include eight other states, including New Jersey and Massachusetts. "The RGGI ... is a controversial interstate, and perhaps, international commerce agreement ... [that will] ... cap the ... carbon dioxide ... emitted regionally by businesses. Although it will first target electricity-producing power plants, the RGGI will later cover other industry sectors as well ... "
The ITSSD study finds that the energy efficiency, energy reliability and economic cost modeling assumptions underlying the RGGI are flawed. As a result, northeastern consumers will pay dearly without receiving much, if any, environmental benefit in return. According to co-author Slavi Pachovski, "The high costs of RGGI will be borne in vain by regional consumers and businesses because RGGI will be unable to deliver the environmental, energy reliability and energy security benefits promised."
Furthermore, the ITSSD study reveals that Europe is depending on the RGGI to inspire a state-level insurgency against U.S. federal climate change policy, to prompt Washington's return to the Kyoto Protocol negotiating table. "Hence, it is now apparent that, while Brussels officials and rotating EU Presidents had long occupied the attention of the Bush White House as their experts ruminated about how to collectively address the effects of global warming at an international level, EU member state governments, with the aid of Washington think-tanks, congressman, and northeastern governors, were busy sneaking RGGI in through the 'back door' of U.S. public policy-making."
The ITSSD study concludes that, "[i]f the RGGI is enacted in the near future without public debate", European industry will "benefit ... at the expense of American consumers, American industry, and the American economy." "Were this to occur", admonishes CEO Lawrence Kogan, "these governors, congressman and policy experts will have much to answer for ... "
Source
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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.
Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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