Act now to stop environmental destruction, while it's too soon

Here's another post on an alarmist claim about sea-level rise. I know, I know, but it's my bag an' you just gotta put up with it. Look at it from my point of view and sympathise. Now where was I? Oh yes - Mike Heral of the Daily Aztec (I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, all that tearing out beating hearts and such) bemoans that America's seeming indifference to sea-level change is "pretending the monster isn't there". He obviously hasn't been reading what I see daily, reporters, bloggers, greenies and "sea-level coordinators" verbally spreading their arms like anglers "It'll be that high or maybe three times as much". Reporters need to get out more, or rather stay in and read more. Enough beating about the heart bush, read what he has to say in Act now to stop environmntal [sic] destruction.

America’s reaction to the rising sea level is even more disappointing than the San Diego State’s men’s basketball season. Or I should say, our non-reaction to rising sea levels. When we were young and scared of monsters under our beds, we’d close our eyes and pretend the monster wasn’t there. Our wishing made the monster go away. Pretending climate change and a rising sea level isn’t happening will not make it go away. Irrational denials have lasted too long. The time to prepare for rising sea levels is now. Too bad San Diego isn’t listening.

San Diego, in particular the ordinary citizens and those who actually know what's happening down on the beaches, isn't listening because there's currently nothing to listen to. There's no "rising sea level" on those sun-kissed beaches (I can wax quite lyrical at times), and there hasn't been for three decades. The long-term rate of rise has been dropping, and is now less than it was in 1983. Below I provide a couple of "irrational denials" to illustrate what I mean. They should make Mike's monsters go away, but Mike wouldn't listen anyway. he's quite at home with his monsters, but wouldn't admit it. Alarmists often (not to say usually) project their faults onto sceptics. One such projection is to claim that sceptics are "hiding their heads in the sand". Mike could have been hiding his head in the sand at San Diego since the early '80s, and wouldn't have got his hair wet, with the exception if the upward spikes caused by the '83/84 and '97/'98 El Niños.

San Diego, California - annual averages 1906-2011                 Data source: PSMSL

This is what Mike could see if he took his head outa the sand.

San Diego, California - 1980-2011                                  Data source: PSMSL

The trend evolution plots the trend from 1906 to the year on the bottom axis.

San Diego, California - trend evolution 1970-2011             Data source: PSMSL

There's your "monster", Mike - because the sea-level isn't rising, the long-term trend is still dropping, and there's no sign of it stopping (yet). There's no sign of ostrich-like alarmism stopping yet either. Mike finishes by saying

Protection costs. Imagine how much less the cost would’ve been if San Diego began preparing for sea level rise in the ‘90s. Imagine how much more it will cost if the city waits another decade to begin. The more cities wait to fortify threatened communities the more the taxpayer will pay.

Imagine how the taxpayers might have complained about having forked out for something unnecessary back then. There'll be plenty of time to act if and when the situation changes. Mike, you need a simple lesson in economics. Building back then wasn't cheaper, it just cost fewer dollars. It's called inflation, and building now or in the near future will be cheaper because of more efficient techniques and better materials and design.

UPDATE 1st March 2013

I left a comment on the Daily Aztec page, not using my blog handle, nor linking to this blog, politely pointing out a few facts about sea-level at San Diego, and linking to NOAA & PSMSL pages showing no net change in three decades. My comment remained "awaiting moderation" for 3 days. It has now disappeared. Inconvenient facts simply don't make a good story.

“Recycle everything you can" and save the planet - WUFT?

No, the WUFT in the title isn't due to my distorting the well-known mnemonic WTF, though it might as well be WTF. It refers an article on the the WUFT-FM, "News and Public Media for North Central Florida From the University of Florida" website - Whitney Gray discusses how endangered species may adapt to the climate change at the Public Interest Environmental Conference. Who she? She's

Sea level rise coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Florida Sea Grant, spoke in a Friday morning session of an environmental conference on the University of Florida campus.

What does a "Sea level rise coordinator" actually do? Just how do you coordinate sea level rise? Coordinate it with what or whom? Does she coordinate rows of citizens on the beach commanding the sea to retreat, like latter-day Canutes? Never mind, I'm done wonderin', just as I've ceased wonderin' what a "Climate Change Officer" does for a local authority - anti-rain dances?

When asked about how species in Florida are affected, Gray said she believes they are at a uniquely high risk, due to the state’s sloping land and problems with rising sea levels.

“The average person can do so much,” she said. “Recycle everything you can; treat every bit of waste as if it was a resource to be used over again instead of creating new.”

Gray recommends restoring your yard with native species to help create a good environment for the species already there. She also said people who are more inclined toward activism can participate in different campaigns and donate money.

"Sloping land" creates a risk? It only creates a risk if you're on roller skates (no brakes). WRT sea-level, it only creates a risk if it's sloping downwards, away from the sea. Then you've got a real problem (unless you're Dutch of course). If it slopes upwards then you can watch the breakers in safety and comfort. “The average person can do so much,” she said - how many "average people" are there in Florida? Recycle that bag and save a frog - simple really. How does "restoring your yard with native species" help to "create a good environment for the species already there"? Extending the food chain maybe?

Gray said she feels it’s her mission to help people understand what rising sea levels could do to Florida.

“To me, it’s important that people understand that it’s not just going to effect their life, their little bubble that they live in, but it’s going to effect the lives of everything around them,” she said. “Our economy is intrinsically tied to our environment and our ecology, so we’re going to feel effects.”

That's the nub of the problem, then - "average people" living in "little bubbles". "Sea level rise coordinators" with empty minds and empty thoughts and a "mission". God help us all.

Is 'Time running out' for Kiribati as 'seas rise'?

I'm sure I've had this feeling of deja vu before.

The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is running out of time on climate change as seas rise, and is drafting plans including mass relocation of its people while the world procrastinates on the issue, the country's leader says.

President Anote Tong said areas of Kiribati -- consisting of more than 30 coral atolls, most only a few metres (feet) above sea level -- had already been swamped by the rising ocean.

I'll ignore the obvious howler about metres and feet and concentrate on the rest of this article on TerraDaily, particularly the "rising ocean". The South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project managed by Australia's BOM has been recording sea level and climate data in the central and south-west Pacific for almost two decades. Their data to end 2011 provides the content of my South Pacific Sea Level reference page. the latest updates to October 2012 were released just over a week ago. Here's the updated chart for Kiribati.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology

The red 3-year (37 month centred) average line shows that current levels have risen to what they were 10-11 years ago. I'm not saying that in general sea levels aren't rising worldwide - clearly they are. I'm not saying that in general sea levels in the pacific aren't rising - my reference page shows they are, but the data for Kiribati shows no increase over the last decade.

The threat to the atolls of Kiribati and other low-lying Pacific islands comes not from rising sea-levels, but from rapidly rising sea-levels. Coral atolls grow upwards as sea-level rises. The surface that islanders live and farm on wasn't there a few thousand years ago. There's a threat only if the corals can't migrate upwards at a sufficient rate, and if insufficient coral debris accumulates at the land surface to maintain the atoll area. A survey done a couple of years ago showed that most Pacific atolls were growing in area rather than shrinking. However the growth was net growth; some land was eroded away, and new land created as waves accumulated coral debris in other places. In the short term that doesn't help the islanders much. I've no doubt that on the main atoll Tarawa and others in the Kiribati group, some areas had "already been swamped by the rising ocean" as Mr. Tong is quoted as saying.

Mr. Tong seems to me to have moderated his language and curbed his use of hyperbole recently, indeed in an article of similar tone on NBC News "As sea levels rise, Kiribati eyes 6,000 acres in Fiji as new home for 103,000 islanders" he says "changing rainfall, tidal and storm patterns pose as least as much threat as ocean levels, which so far have risen only slightly". However, NBC News manages to get something wrong, as usual (yes, I'm a cynic). They show a picture of the largest atoll Tarawa captioned "Kiribati, seen here in an aerial photo taken in 2004". For Kiribati to be shown in a photograph would require it to be taken from a satellite. The TerraDaily writers point out that it consists of "more than 30 coral atolls and the NBC page itself has a map showing the group extends for something akin to the E-W width of Australia.

The NBC article ends with something interesting, and which i wasn't aware of:

Although like much of the Pacific, Kiribati is poor — its annual GDP per person is just $1,600 — Tong said the country has plenty of foreign reserves to draw from for the land purchase. The money, he said, comes from phosphate mining on the archipelago in the 1970s.

Now call me a cynic (darn - I've already admitted that), but doesn't allowing large chunks of your valuable real-estate which rises no more than a few metres above sea-level to be carted away by ship seem rather short-sighted to you?

Rising sea levels throughout metro Vancouver putting landmarks at risk - Vancouver Sun

"Rising sea levels throughout metro Vancouver putting landmarks at risk" says the Vancouver Sun (my bold).

VANCOUVER, B.C.: AUGUST 1, 2012 -- Andrew Yan (L) and Michael Heeney (R) at Vancouver’s Granville Island, August 1st, where they have done a study on the rising sea levels. Dikes and other infrastructures maybe needed to protect some of Vancouver’s landmarks

Vancouver is at risk of losing landmark communities like Granville Island and False Creek unless the city starts taking measures to defend its shoreline against rising sea levels, an urban planner warns.

Andrew Yan, a planner and researcher with Bing Thom Architects, estimates the city will have to spend upwards of $510 million to build and upgrade the dikes and seawalls — plus billions more to buy the land to put them on — over the next century.

“What’s under threat in Vancouver is a lot of our identity; our beaches, our seawall ... this is what makes Vancouver such a livable place,” Yan said. “We just need to look at Granville Island and its exposure to sea level rise and what may be required to defend it.”

"Rising sea levels" at Vancouver - really? "Rising" means now and in the recent past, right?

Source:PSMSL

Lower now than in the mid-1980s is rising?

"Entire nation of Kiribati to be relocated over rising sea level threat" - more nonsense

UPDATE 12/3/2012 - Media hype and something akin to senile dementia appear to have blown this out of all proportion - details at the the end of this post. Message ends.

Here we go again, if it's not birds/pika/trees/polar bears/ice-hockey at risk from global warming or climate change, or both, it's Pacific islands slipping quietly beneath rising waves. The Daily Telegraph - where circulation wins over facts, cannot recognise a naked ploy to attract foreign aid and sympathy when it sees one:

Entire nation of Kiribati to be relocated over rising sea level threat 

The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is negotiating to buy land in Fiji so it can relocate islanders under threat from rising sea levels.

In what could be the world's first climate-induced migration of modern times, Anote Tong, the Kiribati president, said he was in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be housed. 

Some of Kiribati's 32 pancake-flat coral atolls, which straddle the equator over 1,350,000 square miles of ocean, are already disappearing beneath the waves.

Most of its 113,000 people are crammed on to Tarawa, the administrative centre, a chain of islets which curve in a horseshoe shape around a lagoon.

"This is the last resort, there's no way out of this one," Mr Tong said.

 "which straddle the equator" - at least that bit's right. "Most of its 113,000 people are crammed on to Tarawa" - if rather less than half is "most" then that's true also. Why am I cynical about this "cry for help"? Mr Tong tells us

"What we need is the international community to come up with an urgent funding package to deal with that ambition, and the needs of countries like Kiribati."

From the horse's mouth, the reason for my cynicism. There's plenty more material to scan with a fact-meter in this relatively short piece, but suffice to cut to Mr. Tong's "last resort"

Kiribati, Island: Tarawa. Location: Betio    Source Data: NTC 2012

Short-term rate since 2002 is -4.7 mm/year. He was right - "there's no way out of this one".

But wait, Mr. Tong wants to lead the entire population to refuge on Fiji, like Moses parting the waves (it's a long paddle though). Shouldn't a prudent president check where he's going to tread before taking an irreversible step which might, just might, be in the wrong direction?

The land Kiribati wants to buy is understood to be on Vanua Levu, Fiji's second largest island.

The "promised land" of Vanua Levu doesn't have a tide gauge, but the larger Viti Levu, 64 km to the south has not one but two tide gauges, so Mr. Tong, who's so well acquainted with current sea level change around Tarawa, must have checked, surely? I'm not one to kick a man when he's down (Lies, all lies - Ed.), so I've checked for him, using two more charts I just happen to have lying around, as you do.

I just hope that the situation in the "promised land" is different - remember the rates shown are monthly, so multiply by 12 for annual. CGPS monitoring shows Lautoka on Viti Levu to be sinking at around 3 mm/year

Source: SONEL   

... while current homeland Tarawa is rising at a slightly higher rate. Oops.

Source: SONEL   

At least Vanua Levu is quite hilly, so all won't be lost if the situation there deteriorates. Looks like a terrible place to me (/sarc).

Vanua Levu, Fiji, the "promised land"

I'm sure they have frying pans and fires on Tarawa, so perhaps the metaphor won't be lost on Mr. "Moses" Tong.

UPDATE

Looks like Mr.Tong has been forced to take a reality pill. Now he says "... the land will be used to help prepare younger generations for a future working in Australia or New Zealand". He previously said, as reported above, that he was "in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be housed". One small problem for him - he has neither the authority nor the hard cash to do any such thing. A former President, Teburoro Tito has now said that "reports that the Cabinet has endorsed a plan to buy nearly 3,000 hectares on Fiji’s main island are ridiculous", and that "nothing of the sort has been discussed in parliament".

“People here are laughing about that, they think it’s a joke. That’s the initial reaction. And as I said earlier where did the President get the idea from? Which people - his own island, the island I’m representing or some other people in Kiribati.”

It's good to see that Kiribati, like the US, has a president who's in touch with reality and has his people and government behind him.

Vancouver, Canada - are "planners" trying to frighten residents?

The decidedly warmist  Vancouver Sun has the story "South Delta faces rising threat from floods":

South Delta will be vulnerable to disastrous flooding in the coming decades without wholesale adaptation to rising sea levels.

Speakers at a science symposium in Vancouver on Sunday said projections of a one-metre rise in sea level are too conservative – and that continuing international failure to deal with global warming likely means a “multi-metre” rise in ocean height by the end of this century.

For 21,000 residents of Ladner, a low-lying suburban community that fronts onto the south arm of the Fraser River near its confluence with the Strait of Georgia, that means an urgent need to protect the community from flooding.

Waterfront homes, inland suburban developments, roads and farmland are all vulnerable to a sea level rise of 1.2 metres, according to research presented by David Flanders of the University of B.C.

Flanders, along with Simon Fraser University professor of geology John Clague, were featured local speakers at a symposium for the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which continues through today at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

So a "projected" rise, to be expected decades into the future means there's "an urgent need to protect the community from flooding"? Which disaster blockbusters have these "scientists" been watching? And there it is again, a global estimate for sea level rise is applied directly to a single location in Canada. As with "projected" future temperature, no allowance or adjustment is made for local conditions. Just what are the "local conditions" near Vancouver? I know that seal level rise along the Pacific coast of North America decreases with increasing latitude: the further north, the lower the rate of rise. It's due to "isostatic rebound" - land covered by ice sheets during the last ice age is slowly rising, and has been since the ice started to melt and generate much of the sea level rise since then.

What I found surprised even me; as far as I know it's almost unique.

Sea Level at Vancouver, BC 1910-2010   data source: PMSL

The trend over 100 years is just 0.31 mm year. We're repeatedly told that the global rate of rise has accelerated over the later decades of the 20th century; no sign of that here. The last three decades encompasses the "satellite era" towards the end of which satellites have been monitoring an apparently accelerating rise in sea level:

Sea Level at Vancouver, BC 1980-2010   data source: PMSL

That looks pretty flat to me - if I were Peter Gleick I might say that it was a downward trend, but then I doubt he would ever present and discuss a downward trend in anything other than rainfall. Statistically it's a slight fall, but too tiny to draw any conclusions. The 1982/3, 1997/8 and 2010 El Niños are clear on the first chart, less so on this one, but still distinguishable in the broad, tall upward spikes.

It seems that the worthy citizens of South Delta (a southern coastal suburb of Vancouver) are safe in their beds for a while yet. Did David Flanders and John Clague present this information at the AAAS symposium? I can find no record of them having done so, but then this was an American Association for the Advancement of Science event, not the American Association for the Advancement of Truth.

San Diego - time to get worried?

The powers-that-be in San Diego, California are getting worried about sea-level rise.

Buildings, shoreline parks and recreational facilities, transportation systems, and energy and water facilities are at risk, regional groups said Thursday.

So says U-T San Diego "Plan for sea-level rise in San Diego Bay". The article begins

A coalition of local agencies on Thursday announced one of the nation’s first regional plans to prepare for sea-level rise. Focused on San Diego Bay, it’s designed to help the region adapt to one of the more visible aspects of climate change.
Sea level could rise by as much as 17 inches by 2050 and five feet by 2100, when many areas around the bay could be permanently inundated, according to a recent assessment. The greatest cause for concern is the likelihood of increased frequency and severity of flooding during storms or very high tides.

I notice the neither the current nor past rates of sea-level rise at San Diego are mentioned. The  "coalition of local agencies"  doesn't seem to think it matters,  in common with most such organisations worldwide. It's not clear where the "17 inches to 5 feet" comes from, it's not mentioned in any of the sources I've read. However, Google gives a source for that phrase on Wired, and that article links to Think Progress - where else? Our Joe says 
 Arctic Assessment bombshell: “Global sea level is projected to rise by 0.9“1.6 meter by 2100″. I don't know why there's a strange character (in the title, not our Joe) between the 9 and 1, should be a dash I assume. Anyway, the 5 feet would seem to be a global estimate, so here as elsewhere, planners assume a global prediction rather than get a local estimate.

The analysis was supported by Port of San Diego, San Diego County Airport Authority, The San Diego Foundation and ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability USA. Chula Vista, Coronado, Imperial Beach, National City and San Diego also helped develop the strategy.

So that's alright then - these august bodies can surely be trusted to use taxpayers' money in a timely and efficient manner to protect beaches and seafront dwellings, businesses and roads. Romm cites the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme's "Snow, Water, Ice and Permaforst in the Arctic" report. That's not my typo - it's copied from their website. Anyways, it's a global figure, as I said, and quite likely may over- or understate the situation for San Diego. So what is the situation for San Diego? The local tide gauge tells all, from 1906 too.

San Diego Sea-level from 1906-2010  Data Source: PMSL

 No spectacular acceleration evident there, in fact it looks like it's levelling off:

San Diego Sea-level from 1990-2010  Data Source: PMSL

 That seems pretty level to me, but of course I'm not Peter Gleick. He can see the horizon sloping upward from left to right. Those spiky graphs are hard to digest, so let's see if the annual average removes the noise.

San Diego Sea-level - annual average 1906-2010

 That's interesting, if my Mark One Eyeball doesn't deceive me, the 11-year moving average has levelled off after about 1987. One sure way of finding out is to plot the calculated trend over a period of years, for example from 1906-1970, then 1906-1971 and so on.. It's called asymptotic analysis, where the plot might move up and down, but settles at near the true rate as the finish year approaches the end year (here, 2010).

San Diego - evolution annual sea-level trends

 Now that's interesting too -the sharp rise from 1982 is a result of the sharp upward El Niño spike seen in the first chart. There were two large spikes in the El Niño years of 1992-3 and 1997, and these show in the rate change above. However, the rate declined after 1998, and still seems to be dropping. It's lower than it has been since 1983, the second year of the largest spike in the first chart. Bear in mind that a decreasing rate doesn't necessarily indicate declining sea-level, the overall rate is still positive to the end of the trend chart. But the rate is still decreasing, and we've seen that there's been no net rise since 1990.


Gazing into the future is pointless unless your feet are firmly anchored in the present. No bank would advance money solely on the basis of future projections of income. They want to see your current financial situation, and past figures too, in order to assess the validity of those projections and therefore the risk. Is the "coalition of local agencies" listed above even aware of the current "plateau" at San Diego? If not, why not?

The Guardian shows its naked bias

The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows

"Meltwater from Asia's peaks is much less then previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern"

The Grauniad (an affectionate, or otherwise, nickname for the Guardian, which in the days of movable type was prone to side-splitting typos) may sometimes display an apparent lack of bias in its reporting of environmental and climate science, but a sceptical eye can often spot the face behind the mask. It's so with the above article. Those worried or even alarmed about apparent (I choose the word with care) ice-loss worldwide should rejoice in the news about Himalayan ice. I see no rejoicing here; indeed there's a whiff of disappointment throughout.

There's an obligatory picture of a an (apparently) melting glacier with this caption:

Hopar glacier in Pakistan. Melting ice outside the two largest caps - Greenland and Antarctica - is much less then previously estimated, the study has found.

That only interpretation I can put on that is that ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica is not "much less then previously estimated", but must be the same or more than previously estimated. However, the article, by omission, implies that the study didn't cover Greenland and Antarctica. The Grauniad agonises over melting icecaps, so why didn't they mention that the study was global? Perhaps it's that the study also revised estimates for Greenland and Antarctica - downwards from IPCC estimates, but similar to more recent estimates. Was the Grauniad disappointed?

Here's where their bias is revealed. We have what is being widely acknowledged as the most reliable estimates to date for the Himalayas

However, the scientist who led the new work is clear that while greater uncertainty has been discovered in Asia's highest mountains, the melting of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern.

Are they really saying that the study reveals "greater uncertainty"? Check it out -

Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise
Thomas Jacob John Wahr W. Tad Pfeffer Sean Swenson
Nature (2012)

Here's the abstract:

Glaciers and ice caps (GICs) are important contributors to present-day global mean sea level rise. Most previous global mass balance estimates for GICs rely on extrapolation of sparse mass balance measurements representing only a small fraction of the GIC area, leaving their overall contribution to sea level rise unclear. Here we show that GICs, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic peripheral GICs, lost mass at a rate of 148±30 Gt/yr from January 2003 to December 2010, contributing 0.41±0.08 mm/yr to sea level rise. Our results are based on a global, simultaneous inversion of monthly GRACE-derived satellite gravity fields, from which we calculate the mass change over all ice-covered regions greater in area than 100 km2. The GIC rate for 2003–2010 is about 30 per cent smaller than the previous mass balance estimate that most closely matches our study period. The high mountains of Asia, in particular, show a mass loss of only 4±20 Gt/yr for 2003–2010, compared with 47–55 Gt/yr in previously published estimates. For completeness, we also estimate that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, including their peripheral GICs, contributed 1.06±0.19 mm/yr to sea level rise over the same time period. The total contribution to sea level rise from all ice-covered regions is thus 1.48±0.26 mm/yr, which agrees well with independent estimates of sea level rise originating from land ice loss and other terrestrial sources.

"Most previous global mass balance estimates for GICs rely on extrapolation of sparse mass balance measurements representing only a small fraction of the GIC area, leaving their overall contribution to sea level rise unclear" - that's where the uncertainty was. I hope the Guardian writers' disappointment doesn't last - there's bound to be some natural disaster or extreme weather event soon soon to give an opportunity to wheel out and polish their now time-worn and expected phrase "while it's not possible to ascribe any particular event to [global warming|climate change|rising sea levels] (choose one)" ..... and go on to effectively do just that. Good old Grauniad - at least they're predictable, unlike climate or weather.

So predictable, in fact, that they have to wheel out a Bristol University glaciologist, Prof Jonathan Bamber:

"I believe this data is the most reliable estimate of global glacier mass balance that has been produced to date," said Bamber. He noted that 1.4 billion people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau: "That is a compelling reason to try to understand what is happening there better."

He added: "The new data does not mean that concerns about climate change are overblown in any way. It means there is a much larger uncertainty in high mountain Asia than we thought. Taken globally all the observations of the Earth's ice – permafrost, Arctic sea ice, snow cover and glaciers – are going in the same direction."

Notice that? He says that "the most reliable estimate of global glacier mass balance that has been produced to date" means that "there is a much larger uncertainty in high mountain Asia than we thought". Silly me thought that reliable estimates reduced uncertainty. It just proves that I'm not cut out to be a glaciologist, especially one who clearly thinks that the "rivers that flow from the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau" rely almost exclusively on glacier melt. See the end of my post A Cool Look at Glaciers for a published refutation of that myth.

The study clearly supports what many have been saying for years - that studies of (at most) a few hundred of the estimated 150,000 glaciers worldwide are almost worthless, like attempting to assess population health by visiting hospitals. Few glaciologists (at least the vocal kind) seem to be interested in other than "sick" glaciers. That's what's wrong with so-called "mainstream" environmental and climate science (and reporting) - accentuate the unusual and ignore the normal.

Bill McKibben - 100% wetter than he was forty years ago

I generally pay little attention to Bill McKibben's seemingly daily rants; however, he seems to have excelled himself in pseudo-facts and self-contradictory logic in the last couple of days. Mckibben was invited to testify before the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee in Vermont on Tuesday (7th. Feb. 2012). Among his many exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims outlined here was this gem:

From the beginning to the end of his testimony, McKibben voiced his frustration with the lack of action out of Washington DC, capital of the country that historically has contributed one third of the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere.

Really? Silly me thought it was around one third of what was emitted into the atmosphere. Bill seems to have difficulty getting his (huge) head around even the basics. After his usual stuff about "climate deterioration"  and the wonderful "Everything frozen on earth is melting" (did you shut the freezer door dear?) comes this:

“Most remarkable, and certainly for Vermont most dangerous, are changes in hydrology. Warm air holds more water vapor than cold. What that means is that with this one-degree increase in temperature [that has occurred so far], the atmosphere is about 4% wetter than it was forty years ago. That is a staggeringly large change in a basic physical parameter, one that we assume has held basically steady for ten thousand years. What it does is load the dice for two things: drought and flood. We get more evaporation in arid areas. The flip side of this is that once that water vapor has evaporated into the atmosphere, it’s going to come down. This means that we load the dice again for deluge and downpour and flood, and we have seen it all over the world.”

Magic stuff, water - it can be in two places at once, both in the atmosphere as increased water vapour, and falling as rain. I really like that "one that we assume has held basically steady for ten thousand years" bit - who is "we", and how would "we" know that? "We get more evaporation in arid areas" - let's see, water vapour content in the air rises, which means that more evaporates from the ground in "arid" areas? I think he must mean less - it's "settled science", Bill.

"The flip side of this is that once that water vapor has evaporated into the atmosphere, it’s going to come down" - see? Two places at once - told you so. "This means that we load the dice again for deluge and downpour and flood, and we have seen it all over the world" - does that include your "arid areas" Bill? Of course that extra water vapour has to form clouds (which are water droplets, not vapour) before it becomes "deluge and downpour and flood", so it must be in three places at once. There must have been a significant corresponding increase in cloud, then, eh Bill? Even Wikipedia reckons that's where rain comes from. The only increase in cloudiness is in Bill's brain.

Just a mo - Bill also witters on elsewhere about feet or yards or metres (or was it tens of those units? I forget- I need to forget) of sea level rise "in the pipeline". The XL pipeline, is it Bill? (Sorry -couldn't resist that little dig. Bill is resisting the big dig). Where does that "4% wetter" come from - someone leave the tap on? (Note my kitchen theme today - I'm warming to it) I read somewhere once, could have been the back of a cereal packet (he won't leave the kitchen out of it - Ed.) that the oceans covered a bit more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface, and were the source of most of the water in the atmosphere. Oh - I forgot Bill's "arid areas". Must be a lot of water in them "arid areas" to affect rainfall in the "non-arid areas".

Sorry - I've lost the thread - I found myself thinking of a foaming pint in a cosy hostelry with a real "killer-coal" fire not ten minutes walk away. That barmaid, the one with the tight black skirt... I  never get a cloudy pint from her. Ahem! Back to the kitchen once more. Where was I - oh yes - the source of all that "extra" water must be the oceans (don't forget the "arid areas" - Ed.). So there must be less water in the oceans, right? No - on 350,org Bill says that "Sea levels have begun to rise, and scientists warn that they could go up as much as several meters this century". "Begun to rise" - I should do some research, and find out when that "begun" began. I could even make it my special subject - who knows - even start a blog with graphs and stuff!

UPDATE 8th Feb 2012 2310

Just in from the scientific literture, and not from the "Gospel according to Bill McKibben":

Surface Water Vapor Pressure and Temperature Trends in North America during 1948-2010
V. Isaac and W. A. van Wijngaarden
Journal of Climate 2012

Abstract:

Over 1/4 billion hourly values of temperature and relative humidity observed at 309 stations located across North America during 1948-2010 were studied. The water vapor pressure was determined and seasonal averages were computed. Data were first examined for inhomogeneities using a statistical test to determine whether the data was fit better to a straight line or a straight line plus an abrupt step which may arise from changes in instruments and/or procedure. Trends were then found for data not having discontinuities. Statistically significant warming trends affecting the Midwestern U.S., Canadian prairies and the western Arctic are evident in winter and to a lesser extent in spring while statistically significant increases in water vapor pressure occur primarily in summer for some stations in the eastern half of the U.S. The temperature (water vapor pressure) trends averaged over all stations were 0.30 (0.07), 0.24 (0.06), 0.13 (0.11), 0.11 (0.07) C/decade (hPa/decade) in the winter, spring, summer and autumn seasons, respectively. The averages of these seasonal trends are 0.20 C/decade and 0.07 hPa/decade which correspond to a specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade and a relative humidity reduction of 0.5%/decade.

A "specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade" - that's 40 milligrams per kilogram or 0.004% per decade. Those "arid areas" are sure giving up their water fast.

South Pacific Sea Level to September 2011

Note: A permanent and (to be) regularly updated page has been created (see top of sidebar) located here. I've updated this page with data to December 2011.

The island sea level charts are drawn from monthly data from the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project. I've included a chart for a second Fiji station, and also one at the end for a New Zealand station, Jackson Bay (South Island). Neither is part of the project, but data is provided on the website.

The high resolution SEAFRAME (Sea Level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment) monitoring stations comprise modern integrated housings which measure and record sea level, barometric pressure, water temperature and air temperature. Most of the stations were installed in 1992 and 1993, though a few were later. It's important to note that the effect of local land movement is eliminated from sea level data:

The Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) network monitors vertical movement in the earth's crust, such as subsidence or tectonic shifts, at the SEAFRAME tide gauges and adjacent land. Sea level data can then be adjusted to compensate for the earth's movement to within a millimeter, enabling the absolute sea level to be determined. 

I have voiced criticism of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology on various topics in the past, but as far as the presentation of sea level data is concerned, I rate their National Tidal Centre as the best. The page I linked to above has a table of the 12 stations in the project (and the two others I mentioned) which links to PDF plots and data tables for sea level, barometric pressure, water temperature and air temperature. The data tables in turn link to online graphical plots and text files for easy import to spreadsheets. A map links directly to the data tables. I liked that Idea so much I've pinched it for use here.

What should be evident from the plots is that any generalisation of the situation over this wide area is invalid. Apart from an almost universal downward spike during the 1997/98 ENSO event, the history and trends differ widely. It should also be clear that claims of "25 mm/year" or "no rise" since the early 1990s are also invalid.

Most of the charts are dominated by a downward "spike" in 1997/98. The level drop was due to unusually high barometric pressure during the 1997/98 ENSO ("El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation") event. The correlation is well illustrated for the Marshall Islands (Majuro Atoll), so I've placed this first. Kiribati and Tuvalu have been given much attention in the news media and on the 'net recently, so they're listed next.

Readers are welcome to reproduce any of the plots - all I ask is that attribution be given, preferably with a link to this post. I haven't used thumbnails - right-click on the image and select "save image as" or whatever your browser prompts.

Level data has been converted from metres to millimetres to overcome loss of precision in Excel's trend data. Gaps in the plots indicate gaps in the original data. Note that the trend slope is monthly - multiply by 12 to get the annual value (e.g. y = 0.2269x gives 2.7228 mm/year).

Select a location from the map to view a graph of the monthly sea level statistics for that location. Click on the bottom of the blue area for the NZ station, Click on your browser's back button to return to the map.

Source: Bureau of Meteorology     

Marshall Islands

Island: Majura   Location: Uliga

Note the 1997/98 ENSO "spike" and the correspondence with the abnormally high atmospheric pressure from late 1997 to late 1998 shown in the barometric pressure plot below:

Kiribati

Island: Tarawa   Location: Betio

The trend line is pulled down by the ENSO dip from the end of 1997 to end 1998. To give an better view of the trend from 1992 to present, I replotted the chart with that data excluded:

The resulting trend is effectively zero.
A downward trend is evident from end 2001 to present:

Tuvalu

Atoll:Funafuti   Island: Fongafale

As with Kiribati, the deep ENSO dip in 1997/98 pulls the trend line down on the left; it's below the 1994/1997 average. A zero trend is evident from 1999 to present:

Papua New Guinea

Island: Manus   Location: Lombrum

Here's a clearer view of the 1999-2011 trend of 3.4 mm/year, slightly above the global average:

Solomon Islands

Island: Guadalcanal   Location: Honiara

Again the trend is pulled down on the left; the average level 1999 to present is around 750 mm, and the trend 2.1 mm/year.

Vanuatu

Island: Efate   Location: Port Vila

The big 1997/98 downward spike evident in most of the other plots is absent; instead there's a relatively steady upward trend.

Fiji

Island: Viti Levu   Location: Lautoka

Island: Viti Levu   Location: Suva

Tonga

Island: Tongatapu   Location: Nuku'alofa

Although there's a steep trend from 1993, current levels are not dissimilar to those between 2000 and 2003.

Cook Islands

Island: Rarotonga   Location: Avatiu

Levels seem to have stabilised from 2006.

Samoa

Island: Upolu   Location: Apia

The familiar ENSO dip pulls the trend down at the LHS, but there is a sharp upward "spike" from 2010.

Nauru

Island: Nauru   Location: Aiwo

Overall trend is effectively flat - levels at present similar to those in 1993. However, the trend from 2002 is downward.

Federated States of Micronesia

Island: Pohnpei   Location: Dekehtik

An overall upward trend, though little change from 2007 to present.

New Zealand

Island: South Island   Location: Jackson Bay

There seems to be little overall change from mid-1998 (after the ENSO dip) to present. A plot from 1999 confirms that: