Peter Gleick speaks with forked tongue

Peter Gleick (who he?) has a piece on Science Blogs (h/t Tom Nelson) - (Mis)Understanding Sea-Level Rise (SLR) and Climate Impacts which is a neat summary of what follows that title. I won't use his first name again - it implies some degree of respect on my part, and I have no respect for this excuse for a scientist. He starts

One of the most important and threatening risks of climate change is sea-level rise (SLR). The mechanisms are well understood, and the direction of changes in sea-level is highly certain – it is rising and the rate of rise will accelerate. There remain plenty of uncertainties (i.e., a range of possible outcomes) about the timing and rate of rise that have to do with how fast we continue to put greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the responses of (especially) ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and the sensitivity of the climate.

Gleick is a self-confessed liar and thief, and here he's lying while stealing the truth. If it's certain that the direction (he feels he has to explain to his dummy readers that sea-level rise means that the level's going up - doh!) and rate of rise will accelerate. then how is it that there are simultaneous uncertainties about the timing and scale of that rise? He's saying here that the rate of rise depends on all the big climate uncertainties. He's right of course, but they're the big climate uncertainties, which means no-one actually knows what will happen, and over what precise timescale, least of all Gleick.

How soon before he mentions "superstorm Sandy"? All bets are off - straight away. The only thing that's predictable in this world today is the storyline of so-called climate "experts".

Even little changes can have big consequences. As we saw with Superstorm Sandy, where extremely severe weather was combined with a very high tide, on top of sea levels that have risen six to nine inches over the past century, even a little bit of sea-level rise around the world has the potential to cause hundreds of billions of dollars of damages and the displacement of millions of people.

The "little bit of sea-level rise" didn't cause "hundreds of billions of dollars of damages and the displacement of millions of people" - the storm surge did. Does anyone (including Gleick) really think that it was the "six to nine inches" that caused all the damage? There are a few things that he needs to get his head around, and it's a big head, so in theory he should have no difficulty. Sandy hit the shore at the time of a spring tide. These higher-than-normal tides occur twice a month, when the Earth, Sun and Moon are aligned, with the higher tide when there's a new Moon - the Sun and Moon are close together in the sky, and their combined pull on the oceans is maximised. luckily Sandy didn't strike at high tide, so the coast was spared the worst. When the surge and the tidal factors are taken into account, the "six to nine inches" matters hardly at all. He knows that, and if he doesn't know it, he's as confused mentally as when he created his fake email accounts. He drones on

The Pacific Institute, among many other organizations, has been working to understand and evaluate the nature of the threat of sea-level rise and the risks posed to coastal populations, property, and ecosystems. In 1990, a colleague and I published the first detailed mapping and economic assessment of the risks of sea-level rise to the San Francisco Bay Area, looking at populations at risk, the value of property in new flood zones, and the costs of building some kinds of coastal protection (“adaptation”) to protect higher valued assets. That early report can be found here.

Sea-level along the Pacific coast isn't rising, it hasn't risen appreciably anywhere in the last thirty years, and it's generally falling at the moment. See my posts here, here, here, here, and more recently (2 days ago)  here. Gleick isn't a sea-level expert, he's a hydrologist, and neither was or is his colleague and co-author Edwin P. Maurer, who's an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, and who says of his work

My research is directed at a variety of topics, related to large scale modeling of land surface processes. This includes investigations into forecasting and predictability, and effects of changes in land use and climate on the hydrologic response of regions.

Land surface processes - nuff said? Then follows a lot of waffle about misunderstanding simple terms and trends and risks. I like the first one however, which shows that sometimes there's a disconnect between his brain and his fingers (or vice-versa)

Misunderstanding #1: Predication versus Scenario. There is a big difference between a prediction and a scenario. Scenarios are tools for examining how changes in some kind of conditions (such as greenhouse gas concentrations) might affect something else (such as climatic conditions or sea-level). They are stories of possible futures based on a range of assumptions. Almost all studies of climate impacts evaluate scenarios to examine possible future conditions, risks, and threats.

There's a big difference between predication and prediction too. He's right about one thing - scenarios are stories in that they're science fiction. To frame a scenario, reasonably likely outcomes are needed, but he said himself, that
"There remain plenty of uncertainties (i.e., a range of possible outcomes)" and that scenarios are based on not just a set, but a range of assumptions. Some climate models predict project a cooling future. All models produce different results on each run, and so the individual runs have to be averaged for each. The various models also vary widely in those averaged results.

The final depiction of the results is a chart which looks like a spreading bunch of twigs. Then assumptions have to be made about the results, and a range of further assumptions made to produce a whole range of scenarios. Which of those scenarios are then chosen? You already knew the answer, as I do. It's a classic example of confirmation bias, choosing the results wanted while ignoring everything else.

There's only one valid prediction, and that's whatever happens won't have been predicted by models. Some runs by a few models may get close, but those runs will be lost in the averaging process, and the resulting averages rejected if they don't match the confirmation bias. Then, some time in the future, when the models are seen to have been wildly wrong, the Gleicks and the Manns and the Trenberths and the Schmidts will pop out of the woodwork, and assure us that we misunderstood what they'd been saying, that the models really got it right all along, and produce some smoothed-out piece of discarded printout from their waste-baskets to prove it. Wait a minute - they've been busy doing that to explain why the "warmer winters" turned into colder winters, and exactly why there's been a stasis in global temperature while they were busy telling us "warming is accelerating". They knew it might happen all along, but just didn't mention it.

"Bio-engineering" scientist hasn't a clue what he's talking about.

On the Green blog on the NY Times website , if you're interested, I just read Nature, Re-engineered to Meet Energy Needs.

Thousands of inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs gathered in a suburban Washington convention center on Monday for the annual three-day meeting of ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy. It wasn’t quite the Oscars. At the registration desk, attendees received a goody bag that included a report on clean energy from the Pew Charitable Trusts and a refrigerator magnet that showed the periodic table of the elements.

Judging by what follows in the article, the goody bags should have included copies of "Metal Refining for Dummies", "Photosynthesis for Dummies" and "Greenhouse Gas Absorption for Dummies", and you'll soon learn why.

But the breakout sessions held true to ARPA-E’s tradition: there were lots of swing-for-the-fence ideas. These included finding a high-efficiency, low-cost way to turn surplus natural gas into liquid fuel for cars and trucks, and identifying something to burn other than hydrocarbons so that carbon dioxide is not one of the byproducts.

One researcher proposed burning aluminum instead. One challenge is that the “ashes,” or oxidized metal, would be hard to recycle back into aluminum without big releases of carbon dioxide.

That's a great combo - use natural gas, a hydrocarbon, as fuel for vehicles (it's already being done and is being refined), while at the same time "identifying something to burn other than hydrocarbons". That's just priceless. Even more priceless is the idea of burning aluminium, which uses (in comparison with other metals) a vast amount of electricity in the refining process. Turning the oxide back into aluminium would likely use even more. All this to achieve what? Getting a bit of heat out of it, at a vastly lower efficiency than in the refining process. It'd be much cheaper (and easier) to burn the dollar bills and sequester the CO2, but I've just had a brilliant idea - use just a little of the electricity instead of burning the aluminium. I'm not just a pretty face, you know,

Talking of CO2, there's a scientist who doesn't appear to know much about its effects on plants. In fact he doesn't appear to know much at all.

One particularly ambitious idea presented on Monday was to re-engineer plants so that their leaves reflect rather than absorb more light. In an age of global climate change, with shifting rainfall patterns, changing reflectivity holds appeal. The technology would save water, which means saving energy because the water that the plants need often must be pumped. It could prove a way to help crops grow with less rainfall. 

Some of those crops can be used to produce energy as well. And increasing the amount of light that bounces back into space would help to limit global warming.

The notion is that crops will absorb light in the visible spectrum yet reflect some of the infrared and ultraviolet light, which heats the leaves. “Plants have a maximum efficiency of about 6 percent,’’ said Robert Conrado, an agency scientist. And plants regulate their temperature much the way people do, by giving off water, which cools as it evaporates. “All energy that is not able to be captured is dissipated as heat,’’ he said. “And that’s a lot of water.’’

In a hot climate, a cornfield can give off the equivalent of eight inches of rainfall in a month, he said, and agricultural irrigation accounts for 81 percent of water use in this country. The proportion is even higher in poorer places, which have fewer dishwashers and washing machines.

And some of that energy would radiate back into space, reducing global warming, Dr. Conrado said.Whether butterfly wings or fruits, he said, “nature has already evolved mechanisms for tailored light reflection.”

Re-engineer plants so that the leaves reflect some of the infrared and ultraviolet? Pull out the copy of "Photosynthesis for Dummies" and turn to the page which explains that plant leaves absorb UV in photosynthesis. As far as plants and UV are concerned, more UV is better. Remind yourself that a number of studies have shown conclusively that higher levels of CO2 reduce the time that plant stomata (pores) are open, thus reducing evapotranspiration, which means that plants loose less water to the atmosphere.

Pull out the copy of "Greenhouse Gas Absorption for Dummies" which explains that most of the shortwave infrared from the Sun is absorbed by water vapour in the atmosphere, and not much reaches the surface, so re-engineering plants to reflect some of that "not much" will have little effect. Remind yourself that most, if not all of that reflected infrared will be also absorbed by water vapour, and not that far above the surface either. Remind yourself that a short while ago, other scientists were pointing out that infrared absorbed by off-the-ground vegetation (trees to you and me) absorbed infrared and kept the ground below cool whereas grassland tended to reflect it and warm the atmosphere immediately above when it was absorbed by water vapour. Not a good thing as they saw it, just an interesting fact as I saw it.

Dr. Conrado should peruse both volumes and read a few more published  abstracts on topics he ought to know more about. For the final words, back to the article

So far the agency has invested $770 million in 285 projects, “and we’re proud of every single one of them,’’ said Cheryl Martin, the agency’s deputy director, in opening remarks to several thousand attendees. Although most will never be commercialized, the strikeouts are not as important as the home runs.

Most will never be commercialized because, judging on present evidence, most don't work, can't work, or if they do work, have negative cost benefits (if they actually have any benefits at all). Perhaps the "home runs" will also turn out to be "own goals". Crazy people with crazy ideas who can't see beyond the top row of their keyboards. Even idiots have the right ideas some of the time.

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.

Climate Central scores grade F in geography

There's a lot of it about - sea I mean. There's also a lot of reports around just now in which alarmists appear almost to be gloating over a paper in Geophysical Research Letters titled The gravitationally consistent sea-level fingerprint of future terrestrial ice loss (Spada et al . 2013), [h/t Spiel Climate.] That bastion of truth and objectivity might not be said to be gloating, but there's an element of "See - told you so!" in their article Ice Melt Means Uneven Sea Level Rise Around the World. More of that and their "grade F" later.

What that paper says (in essence) comes as no surprise to me. Sea level rise around the globe is far from even. There are many reasons for that "lumpiness", two of them being thermal expansion and gravitational effects.

We solve the sea-level equation to investigate the pattern of the gravitationally self-consistent sea-level variations (fingerprints) corresponding to modeled scenarios of future terrestrial ice melt. These were obtained from separate ice dynamics and surface mass balance models for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and by a regionalized mass balance model for glaciers and ice caps. For our mid-range scenario, the ice melt component of total sea-level change attains its largest amplitude in the equatorial oceans, where we predict a cumulative sea-level rise of ~25 cm and rates of change close to 3 mm/yr from ice melt alone by 2100. According to our modeling, in low-elevation densely populated coastal zones, the gravitationally consistent sea-level variations due to continental ice loss will range between 50 and 150% of the global mean. This includes the effects of glacial-isostatic adjustment, which mostly contributes across the lateral forebulge regions in North America. While the mid range ocean-averaged elastic-gravitational sea-level variations compare with those associated with thermal expansion and ocean circulation, their combination shows a complex regional pattern, where the former component dominates in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean and the latter in the Arctic Ocean.

That mouthful is down to modelling, of course, and if you accept their estimates of ice melt, I see little wrong with their results. What I do see that's wrong, is all the alarmist pundits jumping on the bandwagon and extrapolating what the paper says about their little corner of the globe, or the "poster-children" of predicted sea-level rise, like Bangladesh, Tuvalu, etc. As my pet subject is the study of sea-level and changes thereof, I find myself often peering at maps while I sip my gin-and-tonic. Authors of articles like the one at Climate Central might find it beneficial to do the same - peering, that is, though sipping G&T would do them no harm either. Alex Kirby, their geographer in chief, says

Improved projections of the contribution of ice to sea level rise produced by Ice2sea will feed into the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2007, the IPCC’s fourth report highlighted ice-sheets as the most significant remaining uncertainty in projections of sea-level rise.

The researchers found that ice melt from glaciers and from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is likely to be critically important to regional sea-level change in the equatorial Pacific ocean

There the rise will be greater than the global average increase, affecting in particular western Australia, Oceania and the small atolls and islands in the region, including Hawaii. Another area which should expect an above-average increase is the east coast of South Africa and Madagascar.

The first paragraph is interesting - "will feed into the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" given that it's just undergone the review stage. Late entries anyone? However, the next paragraph states exactly what's in the abstract above; "regional sea-level change in the equatorial Pacific ocean", yet what Alex considers to be in the equatorial Pacific ocean is interesting. He thinks western Australia and Hawaii are included, and he also appears to think that the Hawaiian islands are "small islands".

Given that Honolulu is only a couple of degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer, and that only half of the western Australian coast is north of the Tropic of Capricorn, I think he's stretching the definition of "equatorial" just the teeniest bit. The biggest of the Hawaiian islands is about 250km north-south.  Still, why let a few inconvenient geographical facts stand in the way of a good story?

Perhaps he, other alarmists, and IPCC authors, might like to peruse the abstract of A synthesis of the Antarctic surface mass balance during the last 800 yrs (Frezzotti et al 2013) [h/t Greenie Watch]

Global climate models suggest that Antarctic snowfall should increase in a warming climate and mitigate rises in the sea level. Several processes affect surface mass balance (SMB), introducing large uncertainties in past, present and future ice sheet mass balance. To provide an extended perspective on the past SMB of Antarctica, we used 67 firn/ice core records to reconstruct the temporal variability in the SMB over the past 800 yr and, in greater detail, over the last 200 yr.

Our SMB reconstructions indicate that the SMB changes over most of Antarctica are statistically negligible and that the current SMB is not exceptionally high compared to the last 800 yr. High-accumulation periods have occurred in the past, specifically during the 1370s and 1610s. However, a clear increase in accumulation of more than 10% has occurred in high SMB coastal regions and over the highest part of the East Antarctic ice divide since the 1960s. To explain the differences in behaviour between the coastal/ice divide sites and the rest of Antarctica, we suggest that a higher frequency of blocking anticyclones increases the precipitation at coastal sites, leading to the advection of moist air in the highest areas, whereas blowing snow and/or erosion have significant negative impacts on the SMB at windy sites. Eight hundred years of stacked records of the SMB mimic the total solar irradiance during the 13th and 18th centuries. The link between those two variables is probably indirect and linked to a teleconnection in atmospheric circulation that forces complex feedback between the tropical Pacific and Antarctica via the generation and propagation of a large-scale atmospheric wave train.

Perhaps Spada et al should have waited a bit before publishing. Perhaps Alex should read more - an atlas maybe? Perhaps I'll have another G&T.