The Bali climate conference has inevitably put Indonesia under the media spotlight. The conference itself is not the only story deemed to be newsworthy:
Indonesian scientists say many of Indonesia’s islands may be swallowed up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea levels.
Doomsayers take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital’s airport will be flooded by sea water and rendered useless. (That might put an end to Indonesia as a climate conference venue).
Read the rest of the Yahoo news article ‘Global warming may threaten Indonesia’
The following story made the ITN News in the UK and ABC News online in Australia (Thanks Luke):
Because of illegal logging, the climate conference host, Indonesia, is losing an area of forest the size of a soccer field every 10 seconds. Most threatened are the peatlands of Kalimantan and the orangutans which call them home.
This is what they’re making way for – palm oil plantations. Chasing a boom in demand for biofuels and along the way, killing up to 50 orangutans a week.
The unintended consequences of CO2 hysteria.
Watch the video report here or read the transcript here, from ABC’s usual perspective.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So. These dumb turds think Indonesian engineers are too thick to put in place a 50cm bund around the airport, or just lay another layer of cement over the top of the existing one?
The current sea level rise estimates are bull$hit. They are derived from 12 pacific islands, that may or may not be sinking or rising, while ignoring all the continental records from all around the Pacific Rim (like the tide mark from Port Arthur from 1842).
And as we have had no warming for at least 10 to 15 years, how can we have had any sea level rise at all during that period?
But even if we use the gonzo trend rate of 1.8mm rise per year, 2035 is only 28 years away, during which time the sea level will only rise by 3.6cm.
And it is incumbent on these turkeys making these claims to identify which Indonesian islands are only 3.6cm above high tide mark.
And lets make that a 3.6cm “bund” around the airport that is supposedly beyond the wit of the Indonesian engineering fraternity. Give us a break.
Tsunamis would be of much more immediate concern to low-lying islands and coastal areas in Indonesia.
Excellent post Paul. A good example of how humankind is destroying the natural habitats and how some scientists are trying to find excuses for the act.It should be clear that at an average population density of more than 160 people per square km (Australia less than 3 people per square km) and an expanding population there will always be need for more land and more energy both of which are limited.
Ian seems to have missed the ABC news video report.
“Mean sea level variations in the eastern Asia region during 1950 to 1991 are investigated with the use of observed sea level data at 16 stations. It is suggested from the data analysis, that the main cause of long-term sea level variation in this region may be the plate tectonic processes. The mean sea levels along the eastern coasts of Japan and the Philippines, and that along the southern coast of Indonesia have risen due to the subsidence of Pacific, Philippine and Australian plates under the Eurasian plate, respectively. On the other hand, the mean sea levels along the
western coasts of Japan and the Philippines, and that along the northern coast of Indonesia have fallen. The distribution map of mean sea level rise at the year 2030 from 1985 in this region is presented on the basis of the results of this work and IPCC (1990)”
http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/pdf/5006/50060643.pdf
Apart from all the carbon released by delegates flying in to Bali, we Deep Greens are greatly concerned about the looming Bali Poo Catastrophe. Imagine 10,000 foreign arseholes pouting and straining each morning in Bali. Where will it all go? What about the turtles, the coral, and the surface sea temperature?
We believe each delegate should have a supply of plastic bags (like those for dogs) and should carry out all poo when they leave the island. Perhaps it could be deposited as a gift to some infertile Middle Eastern country on the way home.
I hope Luke will carry this message to Bali. I assume he will be there at Kevin Rudd’s elbow, as Chief Climate Adviser and Muddle-er-Model Maker.
You shit me Davey 🙂
Is that 10,000 literal arseholes or figurative ones? All in one place too. Where’s Osama when he is really needed? We could call it the “Bali Buming”, or just “a good start”. Better round up some virgins.
Curious how no one seems to have explained or refuted John Daly’s observation that the 85 year record from Fort Denison (Sydney) contradicts the claimed 1.8mm/year average rise over the past century.
At time of writing, the 82 year record only showed an average rise of 0.86mm/year (half the 1.8mm claim) or a total of 70.5mm. But this included a single 60mm jump in the late 1940s that was not recorded at any other sites and therefore must be due to a technical glitch. So deduct the 60.0mm from the 70.5mm and Sydney records an even more modest 10.5mm rise over 82 years or 0.128mm/year.
http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm#appendix
Its not hard to see why they would pass it over in favour of some obscure, recent data from isolated pacific atolls that no-one can easily check, eh?
As usual the dumb turd gets it totally wrong and misses the main implications about return frequency.
Daly indeed – ROTFL. It shows what a gullible bean-brain you are if you’re betting on Daly as source. What a chump.
Aust. Met. Mag. 55 (2006) 253-260
http://www.bom.gov.au/amm/200604/church.pdf
Sea-level rise around the Australian
coastline and the changing frequency of
extreme sea-level events
John A. Church
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Tasmania, and Antarctic Climate and
Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Tasmania
John R. Hunter
Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Tasmania
Kathleen L. McInnes
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Victoria and Antarctic Climate and
Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Tasmania
and
Neil J. White
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Tasmania and Antarctic Climate and
Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Tasmania
Sea-level rise is one of the well-known impacts of climate change. A recently com-
pleted analysis of available tide-gauge data for the period 1950 to 2000 indicates
a global average rate of sea-level rise of 1.8 ± 0.3 mm per year. For this period,
the analysis indicates a minimum sea-level rise to the northwest of Australia.
Here, we find that the change of relative mean sea level around the Australian
coastline for the period 1920 to 2000 is about 1.2 mm per year. There are only
two records sufficiently long to examine changes in the frequency of extreme
events, Fremantle and Fort Denison, Sydney. For both locations, there is a
decrease in the average recurrence interval (ARI) by factors of about three for
extreme sea levels from the pre-1950 period to the post-1950 period. We also
demonstrate a method for estimating the frequency of extreme events from a
combination of tides and storm surges for locations with little or no data. For
Cairns, we find that the 1-in-100 year sea-level event increases in height from
about 2.5 m to 2.9 m by 2050 as a result of a modest future sea-level rise and pos-
sible future changes in cyclone intensity. Equivalently, the ARI period of a 2.5 m
event would decrease from 100 years to about 40 years.
Conclusion says:
Australian sea-level records for the period 1920 to2000 clearly indicate a rise in relative mean sea level. Averaged around Australia, the rate of increase is about 1.2 mm per year. This value is less than the global increase in eustatic sea level for two reasons. First, the sea-level rises presented here are relative sea level and do not include any correction for ongoing crustal motion. To estimate eustatic sea-level change from the data from the Australian sites, the rates of sea-level rise would typically need to be increased by about 0.3 mm per year. Second, at least for the period 1950 to 2000, sea-level rise off western Australia isles than the global average (Church et al. 2004), possibly as a result of the trend to more frequent, persistent and intense ENSO events since the mid-1970s.
The longer records(Fremantle and Fort Denison) and the sea-level recon-struction and also recent analyses by the National Tidal Centre (see, for instance, Table 1 of Mitchell 2006) suggest that this period of low rate of rise has now passed and since the early 1990s Australian sea levels have risen at a substantially higher rate than the long-term average of about 1.2 mm per year.
What’s that – an increase in the rate of sea level rise !
No Luke, its a pile of obfuscatory bumph to mask the fact that most of the actual tide records show minimal increase. Most of the so-called trend is produced by the reconstructions.
Church and Hunter (he of the Isle of Dead stunts) have spent most of their time bullshitting about the frequency of extreme tide surges and none on the actual records. Note, in the Church paper, that there is a sudden jump in the pre and post 1950 data which does not occur in reality. But they crap on about it as if it were part of the trend.
In any event, the data for Sydney shows an average, including this jump, of only 0.86mm/year which is substantially less than the claimed 1.2mm. And the results for the past 60 years show next to zero increase.
That is, there is no correlation between the highly suspect but IPCC accepted temperature data and the measured change in sea level in our largest city, (nor in Brisbane) at the centre of half our population.
I repeat, all of the so-called trend is sourced from the reconstruction, not the hard data.
Note also, the amplitude of the tide variations within periods of 3 years or less. This variation for Sydney is known to be slightly greater than that for Hobart but the extent of this amplitude is all that is needed to condemn Hunter for his decision to ignore the 1837 to 1841 tide data that was used to define the tide mark on the Isle of the Dead and rely completely on only two years records.
Any reasonable reader could see the folly of cherry picking two years when an overlapping five year period could be reconstructed. All they need to do is look at the Sydney data and try and pick out a single two year interval that they would rely on as a proxy for a longer record.
Hunter and Church obviously think that would be reasonable and prudent but those with an unencumbered mind certainly would not.
Furthermore, Church has said, “The longer records(Fremantle and Fort Denison) and the sea-level reconstruction and also recent analyses by the National Tidal Centre (see, for instance, Table 1 of Mitchell 2006) suggest that this period of low rate of rise has now passed and since the early 1990s Australian sea levels have risen at a substantially higher rate than the long-term average of about 1.2 mm per year”.
This is a classic example of using wording that conveys a particular impression while not actually saying anything that they could be criticised for. Lets just look at this closely;
“since the early 1990s Australian sea levels have risen at a substantially higher rate than the long-term average of about 1.2 mm per year”.
In fact, when we look at the past records from Sydney at http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm#appendix (or the Church link if you must) it can be seen that there are no less than eight periods similar to that from 1993 to 2000 when the rate of increase has been significantly greater than the long term average. There has also been eight periods of similar duration when the RATE OF DECLINE IN SEA LEVEL was just as significant.
That is what happens in a range of variation, levels go up and levels go down. Get used used to it you bombed out plodder.
Nope – you got it TOTALLY wrong – stop obfuscating.
Is that all you can come up with, Boy Blunder? Not a word of substance. But thanks for the link to Church, I knew this stuff was covered in slime but didn’t have the evidence.
Sixty years of exagerated temperature increase and old “pinch gut” didn’t record a scrap of increased sea level.
“rises (natural amplitude) substantially higher than the long term trend”, I love it. Any more Church and Hunter baaarf, Flukey old boy?
Nope no arguing the point – readers can judge for themselves – it’s pretty self-evident that you’re a rank fuckwit with a pea sized brain. Your whingey whiney drivelly little explanation is simply hand waving nonsense. New Years resolution is no more helping you out. You either get it once or you don’t so you can expect far less assistance with your education in the future. What’s the difference between Grott and a computer – you only have to punch the data into a computer once.
60 years and not the slightest evidence of sea level rise in Sydney. Thats nada, nothing, ini tipota, mo2 yeh5, or the big zippo, Luke. No wonder they felt the urge to check out Tuvalu and Kiribati (too far away to check what they are up to and a local population that will believe anything).
So how, exactly, DID Church and his mates explain that one, Luke? Well, er er ah, they didn’t did they. What they did do was weave in numerous references to the long duration of the Sydney and Fremantle tide data (to suck every last drop of credibility out of them) but then bury it under a large, fetid load of “reconstruction” that showed a trend that he plucked out of his backside.
No wonder you’re grumpy, the “Dark Side” caught out again.
la la lah lah lah – not listening now. You got it wrong.
Thats right, Luke, all you need to do is pretend the truth is not there, and it will go away. Works for Al Gore, works for the IPCC.
la la lah lah lah – not listening now. You got it wrong.