It is repeated, non-stop: glaciers and ice sheets are melting, and so the sea levels are rising. We are all doomed. We will all be drowned, said Hanrahan.
So, each year on the highest tide I go see how much the ocean has risen.
Each year I go to that rock platform with the wave cut notch expecting to be drowned.
Alas, at the moment of the highest astronomical tide for 2023 – officially 8.32 am on Sunday 22nd January – the waves didn’t reach to the wave cut notch; not anywhere near it.
That notch, it must be a relic from a time of higher sea levels.
It was so much fun! This morning. Being out on the rock platform under Boiling Pot Lookout in Noosa National Park.
Fun, because I was with some friends, the sun was shining, and my drone took off. And, of course because it was the morning of the highest astronomical tide. And we didn’t get washed away.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Keep up the good work, Jennifer and best of luck with the Ideologues at the Bureau of Meteorology who as a bunch of so-called scientists are so ideologically grounded that they do not understand what facts are. Why they would want to hide information from the Australian public who fund them, is totally beyond my understanding.
Great post and it was heaps of fun.
Re: ” Why they would want to hide information from the Australian public who fund them…”
These last few weeks I have been comparing forcasted (subscription) ACCESS meteorological level data for the drizzle/showers here in Brisbane to the (free) public maps and written descriptions. All 3 are different. ACCESS turns out to be the most accurate when the rain actually arrives. So BOM staff have the accurate information well in advance (for subscribers) yet publicly hide this for days until the rain is actually falling… and only then… do they choose to share this with the public. Promoting 3 different forecasts covers every possible option of unpredictability of forecasting. One might end up being so. But the taxpayers will be fed the erroneous information in the interim. I therefore sense BOM decision makers have ‘contempt’ for ordinary taxpaying citizens.
I was thinking of you as I started my working week on Saturday and started deliveries on Sunday, wishing you all lotsa fun in my abscence. Thank you to the group for daring to wander alongside the highest tide with Jennifer. And thank you Jennifer for sharing all. Omitting nothing. A joy to embrace it all!
Hmm, yes… as for the claimed imminent GW catastrophe it’s been cold with coral spawn floating in sheets above John Brewer reef over the last months. Turtles hatched two days ago on Nelly Bay beach.
Keep going Jennifer, but alas most of the faith congregation do not want to recognise the evidence.
My local newspaper recently had a full page featuring the scam of sea level rise where the actual figures from Fort Denison were exaggerated by a factor of 10. I wrote a letter to the editor in protest but it was not published!
The third photo says “Sunday, 22nd February, 2023.” Time-travelling?
**** Reply from Jen: Thanks Michael, My mistake now fixed. It had been a long day.
I know that it’s easy to fool people but much harder to convince them that they have been fooled! So I hope the answer is to keep doing what you are doing Jennifer and hope again that common sense prevails
Thanks Jennifer, a pity Noosa is so far away but many of us on the east coast could see the same thing. Perhaps without the such charismatic wave cut notches
Thanks Jen. Good stuff!
The highest astronomical tide in the Moreton Bay-Gold Coast area was not until this morning [23rd Jan] but I can report that, from a lifetime of observations, after corrections for barometric pressure and sea surge [normal this morning but not always in previous years] it was no higher this morning than average and lower than many previous HATs.
My earliest observation goes back to 1946 so no SLR in the world’s biggest ocean since then.
And if there is no net SLR for that time then there is no net global warming.
Can you supply the records from Australia’s official tide gauges? I understand they, as the point of truth, show very little rise in seal levels.
It seems like a very stable geological datum that you have chosen. Much more reliable than the shore line of many of the Pacific Islands that are going under, probably due to movement of tectonic plates.
David Tanner, I think you will find that the bulk of Pacific Islands are increasing in size.
The only ones reducing are those with too many people, which are suffering erosion.
Satellite data confirms that most of these islands are increasing in size which is normal for coral atolls and if you watch the issue closely it is all about getting money out of Australia nothing to do with Global Warming.
“All about getting money out of Australia”
And you will notice that when the government of China cozies up to the governments of these Pacific Island states the Pacific Islanders are very responsive.
The islanders, if given sufficient inducement, forget that the Chinese are not only the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide at the moment but that they are in the process of bringing online dozens of new coal burning power plants.
There comes a time to stop believing in fairy tales and Santa Claus. Santa, like childhood fables such as the Lamb and the Wolf, Emperor’s new clothes, the Pied Piper, Chicken Little and the boy who cried wolf is a lesson in life. These lessons do not appear to have sunk in to the nappy-soiling classes. They continue to swallow with gratitude every scrap of bovine excrement served up. You would think they were dung beetles.
History has repeatedly shown that those that obey authority without question shall become their victims.
For any of the nappy-soilers (blind believers of the hypothesis that the 3% of atmospheric CO2 increase that is of human origin is the dominant factor of catastrophic global warming that will see us all burn in flames, with sea levels rising in front of our eyes) out there- Santa is a lesson that even those nearest and dearest (our parents) are capable of lying and lying to us until we grow up and start asking questions and seeking answers for ourselves.
Once again the BOM’s fantasy predictions failed miserably. Perhaps they should use facts and not computer models based on a theory that has no scientific validity in terms of its effects.
Seems to fit with Fitzgerald Bay in South Australia-
https://data.environment.sa.gov.au/Content/Publications/26443_Summary.pdf
Not to mention the geology of Hallett Cove Conservation Park when Spencer Gulf actually filled with seawater and the coastline moved from the Continental Shelf well south of Kangaroo Island. I have serious doubts that was caused by aboriginal cooking fires and traditional burnoffs to flush out game but it seems many could find it an alluring theory nowadays.
Excellent post Jennifer, our media feeds us a constant rhetoric of climate change, and it is all exgerated hyp. It is brainwashing people who havent a clue about the truth such as the sea levels around our coasts. I come from Wales and whenever I go back to visit I go down to my local beaches and I find that even after 40 years there is little or no sign of sea level rise. The high tides are completely predicatable . . .
It’s interesting to look at the actual effect on the ground. Like others, I am familiar with some parts of the Queensland coastline over 60 years and nothing really has changed. But then, if SLR averages 2mm/yr or thereabouts, the change in average sea level for that time is just 12cm. I think I’d rather see the change in highest high water over that time, somewhere there is a site that shows that but I don’t remember where. I am not inclined to disbelieve that the sea level is rising, the question is whether it is accelerating. Either way, no matter where one is eventually it must make some difference, though my guess is that at Hervey Bay where I come from it might need another 250-500 years.
I recall a PhD study at U Tasmania that concluded that these supratidal platforms were largely formed by the effect of storm surges over long times (the accepted theory for a long time). The alternative that they were formed by daily wave motion during a period of higher sea level was seen as a less enticing hypothesis because the heights of these platforms varies and cliff erosion and subsequent retreat of the higher ground was observed in very recent times. Indeed laboratory simulations have reproduced such formations. The effect of corrasion is less clear, but continual recession of cliff tops is a key feature. Perhaps you should publish your argument in a geological journal as there is always room for more evidence.