Shifting the truth southward

The Sydney Morning Herald featured an article a few days ago titled Marine life on the move.

The first global snapshot of marine life shifting under climate change has found it is on the move towards the poles at a rate of about seven kilometres a year. Fish and other marine creatures are seeking cooler habitat much faster than terrestrial life, according to an international study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Can't stand the heat, huh? Not exactly - not at all exactly in fact, as the article actually informs us, but right at the end of course, well to the south, where the truth has shifted to, well after the preceding and misleading statements have sunk in.

"The leading edge or 'front line' of a marine species distribution is moving towards the poles at the average rate of 72 kilometres per decade," Dr Poloczanska said. "This is considerably faster than terrestrial species moving poleward at an average of six kilometres per decade . . . despite sea-surface temperatures warming three times slower than land temperatures."

So it's the "leading edge" of species distribution moving poleward, not the entire distribution. In other words, the "trailing edge" is staying where it was, and the species are extending their range. They're not moving away from warmer water "seeking cooler habitat", but extending into previously cooler waters.

Dr Poloczanska, of the University of Queensland, and 18 international colleagues found no doubt about who was responsible for the greenhouse gas-related warming of the ocean's upper layers. "Global responses of marine species revealed here demonstrate a strong fingerprint of this anthropogenic [caused by humans] climate change on marine life," the paper said.

Dr Poloczanska said in Australia's south-east, tropical and subtropical species of fish, molluscs and plankton were shifting much further south through the Tasman Sea.

But they're not "shifting much further south through the Tasman Sea", they're being found further south, as your study actually found, Dr Poloczanska.

A 2010 CSIRO study found that warm surf-zone species such as silver drummer were more abundant, while the range of others such as snapper and rock flathead has increased.

In the Indian Ocean, a southward distribution of seabirds has been detected, as well as a loss of cool-water seaweeds north of Perth.

Several studies in recent years were reported as indicating a "poleward shift" of species, whereas in every case, a closer examination reveals not a shift, but an extension of range. Shifting the truth, to fit an agenda. Good science distorted by a totally misleading summary, and by one of the authors too.

Orrin H. Pilkey - is he for real?

Who he? He's a (retired) geologist and "shoreline expert" (veteran beachcomber perhaps?) but he has pronounced, and is still pronouncing on sea-levels worldwide, global warming and climate change. Perhaps studying geology somehow qualifies someone to comment on everything climatological, like one Nils-Axel Mörner, with whom you may be familiar. Wikipedia says

Pilkey began his career with the study of abyssal plains on the deep sea floor. As a result of the destruction of his parents' house in Waveland, Mississippi in Hurricane Camille (1969), he switched to the study of coasts.

Better late than never, I suppose, and I'd suggest the name "Waveland" might have hinted at something earlier. Perhaps I'm being unkind, but I'm in one of those moods where my wit has a pH of 2.0 and the sarcasm fairly flies from my fingertips. I know that sarcasm's considered as the lowest form of wit, but it's fun.

Anyway, I came upon "Sea Level Rise And The World’s Beaches" on Coastal Care, penned by said (retired) Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School of the Environment, at Duke University, Orrin H. Pilkey himself. I thought "coastal care" involved not dropping litter and following the country code "take only photographs, leave only footprints", and resisting the temptation to vandalise wind turbines, you know, that sort of stuff. You might deduce that I came upon this gem of science and logic purely by chance, and you'd be right. He begins

Of all the various anticipated impacts of global climate change, sea level rise will likely be the first to produce a human catastrophe on a global scale. Heavily populated low-lying lands on deltas (e.g., The Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta) will be abandoned, displacing millions of people. Atoll nations in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (The Maldives) will disappear; major cities (Miami, Rotterdam, New York/Newark) will be building storm gates and abandoning the low-lying city fringes. Barrier islands lined with tourist facilities and high-rise buildings along the world’s coastal plains will either be abandoned or will be completely surrounded by massive sea walls. Development-lined beaches everywhere will be degraded and more than likely will be destroyed.

Rotterdam already has a "storm gate" known as the Maeslantkering, completed in 1997. It works automatically, with warnings to shipping issued a coupla hours in advance. It's worth a look - when it comes to protection from the sea, the Dutch don't piss about - they build big and to last. This gate is just the northern half of the barrier, the two gates pivot out to meet in the middle of the waterway, when water is admitted to the curved caissons so they sink to the bottom. To allow this movement, the gates are supported on huge ball-joints (nearest the camera); they're 10 metres in diameter and weigh 680 tons each.

Northern half of the Maeslantkering                                                             Source: Geolocation

... those little dots on the right of the grey control building in the centre are cars in the car park. The Big Apple should have had more than one decades ago. In Miami they're relying on the pirate ship at Disney World. A queue might develop.

I think the Prof might have just the teeniest chip on his shoulder about storm surge. He continues, after discussing the last ice age and the result of its termination on sea-levels

Sea level change is actually a combination of the change in the volume of the sea (eustatic change) and the local up and down movement of the land (tectonic change). The rise is primarily occurring because the ocean water is expanding (thermal expansion). As the warming atmosphere transfers heat to the surface waters of the oceans, the waters gradually expand. The upper 2000 feet of the oceans are involved in this process and even though the amount of expansion per unit volume of sea water is slight, the huge quantity of water expanding in the oceans leads to a significant increase in the volume of the sea and hence to a rise in the level of the sea.

Even if we reversed global warming today, thermal expansion of the oceans would continue for centuries and probably millennia to come. This is because the downward motion of water warmed by contact with the warming atmosphere into deeper waters provides momentum like the momentum furnished to an engine by a flywheel. As the cold deep water is thus warmed it expands. At the same time, the loss of the warm water at shallower depths causes the water column there to shrink. The expansion at depth is greater than the contraction in shallow water so overall the ocean expands and the sea level continues to rise and will do so for a long time.

Wait a mo' - let me run over that again - "the downward motion of water warmed by contact with the warming atmosphere into deeper waters provides momentum like the momentum furnished to an engine by a flywheel". Silly me thought that warmed surface water expanded upwards taking it's centre of gravity with it - very slow upward motion and therefore momentum. The next sentence is convolutingly fascinating - "the loss of the warm water at shallower depths causes the water column there to shrink". The warmed water's not lost, it's still there, above the as-yet un-warmed depths. The un-warmed deeper water is unaffected - no temperature change, no volume change. The depth of the colder layer is reduced, the water there doesn't shrink. Water column 1000 metres, top 100 metres expands to 100.1 metres, bottom 900 metres is unaffected, result 1000.1-metre depth. Call for a shrink.

After some discussion of melting glaciers and icecaps - in the Prof's icy mind, all are shrinking, none growing, he says

Sea level is dropping in Juneau, Alaska, because the Mendenhall Glacier has retreated away from the coast and the land is rebounding, having been released from the glacier’s weight. This is a widespread phenomenon in high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere (e.g., Scandinavia) where the ice sheets of the last ice age have recently (in a geologic time sense) melted away. It is also happening in Greenland and the Antarctic where the land beneath the ice rebounds upward as the weight of the thinning glaciers decreases.

Ummm no. The Mendenhall Glacier has certainly retreated in the last half-century or thereabouts, but it's just 12 miles (19 km) long, and its weight isn't that great compared with the mountains it slides down, a mere pimple compared with the depth of the crust. In any case, glacial rebound is delayed by centuries after top weight is reduced, so the land rebounds centuries after "the weight of the thinning glaciers decreases". I though geologists had a good sense of the timing and delayed action of crustal processes, and of scale. The Prof obviously has some difficulty conceptualising both, not a good trait in a geologist.

After some discussion of how rapidly (who said?) rising sea levels are and will increasingly affect coastal areas, he says

The point is that a very small sea level rise will cause a large shoreline retreat. Sea level rise is not to be easily dismissed.

Yet in the December 27, 2010, issue of Forbes magazine is an article that argues sea level is not rising. Swedish geologist, Nils Axel Mörner has written a pamphlet entitled Sea Level Rise is the Greatest Lie Ever Told. These and many other expressions of skepticism about sea level rise are part of a larger deniers movement largely funded by energy companies and libertarian organizations. It’s hard to fathom how a 150-year record of tide gauges and 19 years of satellite measurements of sea level change can reasonably be refuted.

The amount of shoreline retreat rather depends on the profile of that coastline surely. I certainly agree with him on that last point, though - it's certainly difficult to fathom how such records can be refuted - scope for a few future posts there perhaps.

Newton is claimed to have said or written

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

IMHO the "great ocean of truth" is still eluding Orrin H. Pilkey (and many others, sceptics included), and he should continue his beachcombing in the hope of acquiring a little of Newton's insight, and a firmer grasp of what's beyond his experience and limited knowledge of the world and how it works. A little humility turneth away wrath perhaps, to mangle several epithets in one go. Over and out.

Rising Seas, Vanishing Coastlines? Extreme metaphors from someone who calls himself a scientist

Benjamin Strauss and Robert Kopp write in an op-ed in the NY Times:

Rising Seas, Vanishing Coastlines 

The oceans have risen and fallen throughout Earth’s history, following the planet’s natural temperature cycles. Twenty thousand years ago, what is now New York City was at the edge of a giant ice sheet, and the sea was roughly 400 feet lower. But as the last ice age thawed, the sea rose to where it is today.

I can't argue with that statement, but I can argue about "Vanishing Coastlines" - they don't vanish, they move (doh!) and also with this

Now we are in a new warming phase, and the oceans are rising again after thousands of years of stability. As scientists who study sea level change and storm surge, we fear that Hurricane Sandy gave only a modest preview of the dangers to come, as we continue to power our global economy by burning fuels that pollute the air with heat-trapping gases.

"Thousands of years of stability"? Where did they get that from? I thought they were "scientists who study sea level change". Global sea level has been rising at a relatively low rate over the last few centuries, but rising it has been, rising currently at about the same rate as between the 1930s and the 1960s - the last short-term "warming phase" which many, including "scientists who study sea level change" conveniently forget. "pollute the air with heat-trapping gases" - now that's really an extreme metaphor, and unbecoming a scientist, even those who only "study sea level change".

More than six million Americans live on land less than five feet above the local high tide. (Searchable maps and analyses are available at SurgingSeas.org for every low-lying coastal community in the contiguous United States.) Worse, rising seas raise the launching pad for storm surge, the thick wall of water that the wind can drive ahead of a storm. In a world with oceans that are five feet higher, our calculations show that New York City would average one flood as high as Hurricane Sandy’s about every 15 years, even without accounting for the stronger storms and bigger surges that are likely to result from warming.

A storm surge is a "thick wall of water"? Have you ever seen a picture of one? Extreme metaphors don't help sell your case in the long run, and where's the scientific evidence for "the stronger storms and bigger surges that are likely to result from warming"? No-one knows what the climate will do next year, let alone decades from now. No-one knows what changes in sea-level will occur over the decades and centuries to come. Models provide "best guesses" only. and are continually being revised and "tuned" to improve their hind-casting of reality, let alone improve their "projections" of the future.

The paper (pdf) the op-ed refers to is "Long-term sea-level rise implied by 1.5°C and 2°C warming levels" by Michiel Schaeffer, William Hare, Stefan Rahmstorf (yes, that one) and Martin Vermeer, 2012. It states in it's conclusions "Projecting sea level into the future is still associated with large uncertainties", but of course still predicts armageddon.

Making it up (2) - "Sea level 'rising fastest in SW Pacific"

Here we go again! A tranch of syndicated articles, or variation on same, which take a straightforward analysis of proxy data (which is from the past, by definition), and transpose its findings to the present or even the future. The cited paper is "Nineteenth and twentieth century sea-level changes in Tasmania and New Zealand", Gehrels et. al., though of course it takes either a site search, or a Google search to actually find an abstract, as it's just vaguely referenced, or the journal main page is given. As I've said before, this gives the distinct impression that the article authors would prefer we accept their take on it, without the benefit of reading the paper and making up our own minds. In this case, that would instantly debunk their alarmist conclusions, and in several cases, reveal that the authors either can't read and comprehend, or can but distort or even make up conclusions, effectively putting words into the mouths of the paper's authors. The abstract says

Positive deviations from linear sea-level trends represent important climate signals if they are persistent and geographically widespread. This paper documents rapid sea-level rise reconstructed from sedimentary records obtained from salt marshes in the Southwest Pacific region (Tasmania and New Zealand). A new late Holocene relative sea-level record from eastern Tasmania was dated by AMS¹⁴C (conventional, high precision and bomb-spike), ¹³⁷Cs, ²¹⁰Pb, stable Pb isotopic ratios, trace metals, pollen and charcoal analyses. Palaeosea-level positions were determined by foraminiferal analyses. Relative sea level in Tasmania was within half a metre of present sea level for much of the last 6000 yr. Between 1900 and 1950 relative sea level rose at an average rate of 4.2 ± 0.1 mm/yr. During the latter half of the 20th century the reconstructed rate of relative sea-level rise was 0.7 ± 0.6 mm/yr. Our study is consistent with a similar pattern of relative sea-level change recently reconstructed for southern New Zealand. The change in the rate of sea-level rise in the SW Pacific during the early 20th century was larger than in the North Atlantic and could suggest that northern hemisphere land-based ice was the most significant melt source for global sea-level rise.

That seems straightforward - sea level at the sample site rose at a relatively high rate (compared with the global rate) between 1900 and 1950, and a relatively low rate for the rest of the 20th century. Nothing to worry about then? Not according to several reports from "down under", whose almost identical articles, begin News.com.au (Australia):

SOUTHERN Australia and nearby Pacific nations are likely to be the most seriously affected in the world by the continuing rise in sea levels, according to new research.

... and 3 news (new Zealand

The seas around New Zealand and Australia are likely to be the most seriously affected in the world by the continuing rise in sea levels, according to research on Tasmanian swamps.

"According to research"? Apparently not, the paper abstract doesn't mention the future - remember that the paper's titled "Nineteenth and twentieth century sea-level changes in Tasmania and New Zealand". However, all the articles I've seen quote one of the authors, Patrick Moss:

"Sea levels in Tasmania remained relatively stable for much of the past 6000 years, but around 1880 they started rising drastically," said Dr Moss, who co-wrote the study in conjunction with scientists from the UK, New Zealand and Australia. 

From several reports:

Sea levels in the southwest Pacific rose at four times the average 20th-century rate between 1900 and 1950, according to the study.That was followed by a period of “relative quiet” broken by a second spike in 1990 which saw sea levels rise at a rate that defied projections.”The natural climatic factors seem to be not as apparent and anthropogenic climate change seems to be the key possible culprit,” said Moss.

and

Dr Moss said a jump in sea levels occurred after 1990.

"The rise in 1910 probably reflects the end of the little ice age, when temperatures were about one to two degrees cooler in the northern hemisphere than today," he said.

"The 1990s peak is most likely indicative of human-induced climate change."

Sounds rather like someone with an agenda - that conclusion's not in the paper. Why does he call it a "peak"? Because that's what it is, and both his sediment proxies and tide gauges in the SW Pacific generally show a decline since. The diagrams in the paper clearly show that. You have to follow the pea as the cups are moved, and analyse every word, or you might, as these web authors clearly have, assume the "jump" is still in progress. Elsewhere he says "A large ice-melt is like a fingerprint". There's that word again - if there's been a decline since the 1990s, then the "fingerprint" is rather blurred, and the "points of identity" are insufficient to identify the culprit. More to the point, what exactly was the "fingerprint" of the early 20th century rise? Here's yet another researcher putting his mouth where his paper isn't, and confirming our suspicions of his prejudice and unjustified conclusions.

What about that "lack of comprehension" I mentioned at the beginning? here's a good example from "Adelaide Now" - first the bogus prediction based on no evidence from the paper, nor its self-appointed spokesman (not the lead author), Moss

SOUTHERN Australia and nearby Pacific nations are likely to be the most seriously affected in the world by the continuing rise in sea levels, according to new research.

Then the silly error, repeated in several reports, including Planetsave (save it for whom and from what?)

Sea levels have risen approximately 20 centimetres in the South West Pacific Ocean since the end of the 19th century, a dramatic increase according to a new study released this week.

Scientists found that sea levels in Tasmania remained relatively stable for most of the previous 6,000 years but that around 1880 they started to rise dramatically. Between 1900 and 1950 the sea level rose at an average rate of 4.2 millimetres per year. The highest rates of sea level rise occurred in the 1910s with an increase of .3 to .8 millimetres per year, followed by a second peak in the 1990s.

If sea level rose 20cm since the late 19th century, and if the rate of rise between 1900 and 1950 was 4.2mm a year, which amounts to 4.2 x 50 = 210mm or 21cm, can we deduce it's fallen by 1cm since 1950?

I might add that I can see nothing like a rise of 4.2mm since 1900 for tide-gauges in the southern part of Australia, nor any "spike" in the 1910s. Perhaps I'll update this post with a few charts to illustrate that.

"Mark One Eyeball" - an Effective Weapon Against AGW

About a year ago, I read with some amusement, a blog posting by someone who accused sceptics (of AGW) of "cherry picking" temperature data to prove their claims that climate warming had stopped in the current century. "They are looking at the wrong data" he opined "look at this". "This" was a temperature chart showing global temperature from 1900 to 2010. "It's the long-term trend that's important" he continued. I'll use his tip if my bank account goes into the red in the future. When I get the letter from the bank, I can tell them "You're cherry-picking data - It's the long-term trend that's important".

So what's the "Mark One Eyeball" I refer to in the title?

This term is actual British military slang for eyes or eye sight, derived from British Royal Navy nomenclature for distinguishing sequential variations of a piece of equipment (i.e., "Mark 13 Depth Charge"). Since the human eye has not changed, it is called the Mark I Eyeball. The term is typically used when someone relies too much on their equipment: "Use your Mark One Eyeball!". It is used likewise in the United States military and other predominantly English-speaking countries. 

The point I'm making is that the "Mark One Eyeball" used with our "Mark One Brains" (no better versions available currently) is a valuable tool for spotting trends in graphical data, and to a lesser extent in tabular data. The eye/brain combination seeks to identify shapes and lines in collections of dots, blobs or points on a graph. The MOE is also good at spotting conflicting scientific or statistical claims, sometimes made by the same person. In December 2009 Dr. Vicky Pope, who is head of the climate predictions programme at the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, was (apparently) quoted in a BBC report "figures indicate that the years since 2000 - the "noughties" - were on average about 0.18C (0.32F) warmer than years in the 1990s; and that since the 1970s, each decade has seen an increase of about the same scale". MOE was telling anyone who cared to look at ANY temperature dataset that this couldn't possibly be true. This is the Hadley Centre's own data for 1991-2009: