Fear of flooding? Don't panic!
Thursday, November 19, 2009 Last month, speaking to representatives of 17 countries at the Major Economies Forum in London, Gordon Brown spoke of a "catastrophe" if action to tackle climate change was not agreed at the UN talks on global warming. He talked about the effects of drought, floods, loss of farming and fishing yields and the spread of disease.
According to the PM, the costs of failing to address global warming would be greater than the impact of the first and second world wars and the Great Depression.
Around the same time the Press Association reported that:
Global warming will threaten London's wildlife habitats by increasing the risk of flooding in the winter and drought in the summer, according to a new report ... by the London Climate Change Partnership.
This week the Met Office published a new report which led the Daily Telegraph to report that:
Heatwaves that kill thousands, tropical-style storms and widespread flooding could be regular features of Britain's climate within a generation if global warming is not checked.
Now, I'm no expert, but 50 years on this planet has made me a bit of a cynic and I simply don't accept this apocalyptic vision of the future.
Let's take flooding. How often are we told that global warming will cause sea levels to rise dramatically? According to Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona in Tucson"
"The consequences would be catastrophic. Even with a small sea level rise, we're going to destroy whole nations and their cultures that have existed for thousands of years."
That was in 2004 (see HERE), the same year that the Guardian reported that:
Risks of flooding are growing to "unacceptable levels" because of climate change with up to four million Britons facing the prospect of their homes being inundated, according to a report to be published today by the government. The report by the Office of Science and Technology gives the most chilling picture yet of how global warming will affect the lives of millions of Britons over the next half century.
The reason I have a small interest in the threat of flooding is this. First, I live in a small village in Cambridgeshire. A river runs through the village and occasionally - following prolonged rain - the water level rises and the surrounding roads are flooded.
We have lived there for ten years and only once has the water got into people's homes. (Fortunately our house is a few hundred yards from the river so we escaped any damage.) As far as I am aware, there is nothing to suggest that the threat is greater now than it was a decade ago.
Second, and more important, an old friend recently tracked down someone we both knew at school. (They were in the year below me.)
It turned out that Chad Dick (for that is his name) had been working for the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso and on 9 March 2005 the Scotsman reported his work as follows:
The melting of sea ice at the North Pole may be the result of a centuries-old natural cycle and not an indicator of man-made global warming, Scottish scientists have found.
After researching the log-books of Arctic explorers spanning the past 300 years, scientists believe that the outer edge of sea ice may expand and contract over regular periods of 60 to 80 years. This change corresponds roughly with known cyclical changes in atmospheric temperature.
The finding opens the possibility that the recent worrying changes in Arctic sea ice are simply the result of standard cyclical movements, and not a harbinger of major climate change.
The amount of sea ice is currently near its lowest point in the cycle and should begin to increase within about five years.
As a result, Dr Chad Dick, a Scottish scientist working at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso, believes the next five to ten years will be a critical period in our understanding of sea ice and the impact, if any, of long-term global warming.
Concern has been expressed recently that animals such as polar bears could become extinct because sea ice is disappearing. The new research by Dr Dick and a colleague, Dr Dimitry Divine, gives rise to hopes the melting will stop soon.
However, Dr Dick warned that if the ice carried on melting, it would mean that man-made global warming had disrupted the natural process - with potentially disastrous results.
He said: "Cycles of 60 to 80 years have been identified before in atmospheric temperature records in the Arctic. The old records that we recovered from ships’ logs and other sources may show that similar cycles are present in sea ice.
"I’ve this gut feeling that within ten years from now we’ll know for certain whether we’re losing sea ice long term or whether it’s coming back.
"If it doesn’t come back it shows we are in serious trouble. Sea ice has a whole lot of effects on climate and it is pretty important."
Sea ice protects the northern coastlines of Canada, Russia and the United States from erosion caused by storms. If it melted, waves crashing on to the shoreline could release vast stores of carbon dioxide stored in permafrost, which would increase global warming still further.
Dr Dick said the research did not suggest that global warming was not a reality.
"You couldn’t say, ‘The sea ice is coming back so therefore there’s no global warming’. It’s never going to be that simple," he said. "But the question now is the extent of global warming, how fast it will happen and whether there are any surprises on the way.
"We know there is warming and that it’s caused by humans, but it will be a great relief to many people if the ice comes back as opposed to going away."
He added that some people might be pleased to see less ice in the Arctic as it would finally open up the North-west Passage trade route - sought by many of the explorers whose log-books were used in the study - between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
"If the sea ice continues to disappear it could cut something like 5,000km off the sea route from Europe to Japan and China. There are people who think that’s a good thing," Dr Dick said.
"Humans are great at adapting to change. We might lose polar bears and some species of seal, but most people don’t worry about that, it doesn’t affect them. And if it means their stereo can be shipped from China more quickly, they are happy with that."
This all sounds very plausible. The threat of rising sea levels caused by melting sea ice may be real but there's no need to panic just yet because there is every chance that what is happening is part of the normal cycle whereby the amount of sea ice expands and contracts.
If cities are in serious danger of flooding, we ought to have a better idea in ten or so years.
No room for complacency, then, but no need for all those apocalyptic warnings either.
Reader Comments (30)
The Ozone hole closed up by itself if we all recall ?
That was the last two decade's scare story.
More Quangos spouting stuff to justify their very existence. Get rid of the lot of them and let us get on with our lifes.
I live in Tromso. We don't have any sign of a long-term warming trend here. I will be interested to see if the polar institute is any better at predicting the future than many others have been with regard to the extent of sea ice around the North pole. Just one thing, melting of sea ice in the North will not contribute to sea level change. The North pole has no landmass under it and hence the ice already displaces it's own volume of water. Melting of land based glaciers or the Antarctic continent could change sea levels, but the average temperatures found on the Antarctic continent are so low, below -40 centigrade, that the degree of warming would have to be pretty incredible. Even the most alarmist of the climate pontificators is not predicting upswings in excess of 44 degrees centigrade (you need +4 before serious melting starts, take it from someone who routinely experiences arctic winters, just plus won't do it).
Ah, Simon - the Big One !
I'd better not get started - or I'll be typing until Midnight.
However, on the question of rising sea-levels, I wonder why it is (actually I DO know the answer - but let's just pretend for a minute) that NONE of the Warmists EVER seems to refer to the work of Nils-Axel Morner.
Who he ?
Only THE leading world expert on the subject, and someone who has been studying this Daddy of Non-Problems for over 35 years, with hundreds of scientific papers to his name.
Yes - he's even MORE knowledgeable than Al Gore, the IPCC staff (inc the cleaners), the Other Miliband, and Barbra Streisand - COMBINED.
Hell, you can chuck in Little Zac Goldsmith, too, and all the presenters on 'Farming Today' (I have to get up early).
And what do HIS researches indicate ?
Why, that the sea is NOT rising, and hasn't done so for half a century, and that even if it DOES, it'll be no more than 4 inches this century - give or take, er, 4 inches.
In his very own words, the whole thing is a 'colossal scare story.'
In a nutshell - and to borrow an idea from Roy Spencer (another of THE World's leading climate scientists,UNFUNDED by the Taxpayer) - it DOES seem strange, with current Carbon Dioxide levels around the 382 ppm mark, that OUR pathetic 'contribution' should make ANY difference at all.
Except on COMPUTERS, of course ( WHEN appropriately programmed).
And in the saliva ducts of George Monbiot and his drooling acolytes.
So, what IS that 'contribution' (appropriate image of Big Bad Smoking Chimneys coming up - NOW) ?
Why (wait for it): ONE molecule of Carbon Dioxide for every HUNDRED THOUSAND molecules of Air ONCE every FIVE YEARS.
Bearing in mind that paleoclimatological research indicates previous levels as high as 7000 ppm (with no apparent ill effects), it's hard to see why ANYBODY should be worried at all.
Admittedly, that WAS in the Pre-Guardian Era, when the Climate was less 'progressive' than today.
But I keep forgetting:
Panic is Big Business.
And still The Dummies don't see it.............?
Apparently not.......................
And while we're at it:
"He who sacrifices FREEDOM for SECURITY deserves NEITHER."
(Benjamin Franklin)
Was ever a quote more apposite ?
How appropriate this subject is for me,just now! Last week, in our local free paper there was a letter from a Dr. Dr of what, I don't know, but the content and the way it was put across certainly made a lot of sense to me. I will apologise now Simon for exceeding your word limit and hope that you will accept this post.
Are we getting warmer?
I read with interest the letter by Liz Tucker in the Journal of November 5 but would question the scientific basis that she is using to make the suggestion that 'carbon omissions' (by which I believe she means Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions) need to be controlled in any way let alone reduced.
1. Surface temperature records show that global temperature fell from 1875 to 1910. Temperature then rose from 1911 to 1943. Temperature fell again from 1944 to 1976. Temperature rose from 1977 to 1998. There has been no warming since 1998. We are now in the 8th year of cooling. While all these change were happening carbon dioxide levels did nothing but go up.
2. Their five major centres that collect global temperature data, Remote sensing systems, The University of Alabama Huntsville, The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, The Hadley Centre and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. All of these centres show no warming since 1998 and all show cooling to various degrees for the last eight years.
3. The 3307 ARGO buoys deployed in the world oceans show ocean heat content has been falling since the buoys were deployed in 2003.
4. There is no statistical relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and temperature during the last 150 years. There is a strong statistical relationship between the cyclic Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global temperature. In every instance over the last 150 years when the PDO was in the cool phase the global temperature went down. When the PDO was in the warm phase the temperature went up. The PDO has shifted back to cool and the temperature is falling again.
5. The total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 3.8 one hundredth of percent. The total increase by volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the last 150 years is one hundredth of a percent.
6. Carbon dioxide is not pollution. Everything that grows on Earth needs it. The source is irrelevant. Remove all the carbon dioxide from the air and the Earth dies.
7. Ice cores show that increases in carbon dioxide in the past were the result of warmer temperature, not the cause of it. Most of the increases in carbon dioxide in the air is the result of nature. The human component is very small, on the order of 3 percent of the greenhouse effect. Water vapour is 95 percent.
8. There is a strong relationship between the strength of the solar wind and global temperature. Strong solar wind equals a warmer Earth, weak solar wind equals a cooler Earth. Variations in cosmogenic isotopes of carbon 14 and beryllium 10 in ice cores prove this. Right now the solar wind is weaker than anytime NASA has been able to measure it, nearly 50 years, and the Earth is cooling. The Pacific Ocean is in its cool phase and will be for another 25 years. The Atlantic is showing signs of cooling. The sun is weak and will likely be so for the next two solar cycles. We are heading for colder temperatures not warmer.
9. The cyclic downward trend in the amount of ice left in the Arctic at the end of summer has ended. There is today 25 percent more ice than 2 years ago.
10. Satellite measurements show there is more ice in the Antarctic than 30 years ago.
11. On the 1960s there were an estimated 5,000 polar bears, today there are 25,000.
12. The melting of glaciers is not new. The "Little Ice Age" was from 1400 to 1850. The coldest temperatures were in the 1600s. Global temperature has been rising unevenly for 300 years. Glaciers have been retreating unevenly for at least 250 years/
13. Computer models say that there should be a rapid warming of the upper troposphere between 30 degrees north and south of the equator if global warming is proceeding as they predict. Measurements with weather balloons over the last 50 years show no such warming at all. This proves the computer models do not understand how the climate system works and are not evidence of climate change.
14. Data from the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite show outgoing long wave radiation (heat) increased by 4 watts per square metre in the 1980s and 1990s while the oceans were undergoing a cyclic warming. Computer models predicted outgoing long wave radiation would decrease as oceans warmed. All the models used by the IPCC are wrong.
Lyn -
Excellent stuff !
If they taught THAT sort of thing (ie Proper Science) to our schoolchildren, just think how much happier they (and we) would ALL be.
Not part of the Big Agenda, though.
Mind you, I AM seriously concerned about the Vanishing Species Tragedy. This concerns us all.
I have this ghastly nightmare, in which our grandchildren will NEVER AGAIN be able to see the flight of the Horn-Billed Pterodactyl over our Kent cornfields, or hear the curious croak of Triceratops Major as he rampages through the villages of the Cotswolds.
Something MUST be done about it................or David Attenborough will be out of a job.
(Hope you're listening, Gordon)
Martin says "Ah, Simon - the Big One"
Indeed it is Martin, 362 words big, to be exact.
Do you realise that if you were pulled up by the Word-Taliban, whist in charge of your computer, you would be 12 words over the legal limit, and you could be fined up to 12,000 Word Units?
Please be careful from now on Martin, you wouldn't want to lose your licence to rant would you?
But, to get back to your excellent post, Panic is indeed Big Business, which is why we must all be made to see exactly what is in store for us in the future unless we all start paying higher taxes now. Gordon Brown hit the nail on the head a few weeks ago, when he said we had just 50 days left to save the planet, but that was before the proposed tax rises announced yesterday wasn't it?
So I assume that now these tax rises are on the cards, Gordon's super plan to save the world (yet again) will fall into place, and we will all live happily ever after, well almost to ever-after, because when the Conservatives get in, I am sure they will be to blame for both sea level and taxes, rising at the same time.
You end up by saying, Martin, "And still The Dummies don't see it"
Oh I think they do Martin, in fact it is only the Dummies, that do see it!
808 words. That is 458 over the legal limit Lyn, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Sorry about that Peter, but I just did't feel that I could shorten the excellent letter, as it appeared, in our local paper, so it was a case of hope it would pass in it's entirety, or try and break it down into 'bite size' pieces, but being at work and on here 'illegally'I preferred to take my chances!
Perhaps you should try your luck again?
It's true that the Pacific ocean is cooling as far as independent scientific information is concerned, and the Antarctic is expanding. Not the kind of facts that you'll hear on the BBC.How long can they keep this lie going.
Van Rompuy, the possible future EU President, has said he wants 'green taxes ' to help fund the EU. So it's all for a good cause then.
Peter -
Re:
"when the Conservatives get in, I am sure they will be to blame for both sea level and taxes, rising at the same time."
Well, they CAN save themselves HALF the pain, at least:
By repealing the idiotic and financially suicidal Climate Change Act (which they cravenly supported), call for the abolition of the IPCC (which they helped to create), and resile from all and any additional 'climate change' commitments under EU legislation (no comment).
Wouldn't it be marvellous if WE were the first country to re-embrace Reality (the place where MOST of the Planet's population lives - most of the time) ?
And you can bet we wouldn't be the last.
In fact, as the sea levels FAIL to rise, the Tories can then present themselves as The Sensible Party.
But there's a danger that this may NOT happen:
A party whose members can bring themselves - with Mr Cameron's encouragement - to APPLAUD Tony Blair is clearly impervious to Reality, anyway.
Safer, perhaps, to remain The 'Me, Too' Party.
And leave our Country, our Freedoms, and our Planet in the dependable hands of the Archons of the NWO.................
PS:
I wasn't just referring to the Political Dummies (something of a pleonasm, these days) - but to ALL Dummies.
I'd hate to be accused of Discrimination............
I've heard on the news that over a cosy EU dinner, THEY've now decided on Van Rompuy as President.
Martin - have you ever read Somerset Maugham's short story, "Jane" (a take on 'The Emperor's New Clothes')? It tells of a 'country mouse' (Jane) who visits her sophisticated relatives and becomes feted by Society whose members are so divorced from integrity that they don't recognise truth and mistake it for Wit. I see a parallel with the Leader (if there is one) who has the courage to laugh the Greenies out of court!
Martin V, I take your point about the vanishing species, but isn't that what has been happening during the whole existence of the Earth? Is it not was is known as Evolution?
I am not much of a scientist, nor am I a politician, I can't seem to retain all the nitty gritty bits, but I do believe I have a fairly logical and straightforward mind, so to my humble way of thinking, as the Earth has undergone ice ages and warmer periods (can't remember if they have a name or not), over the millions of years it has been in existence, then it is a naturally occurring phenomenon that us mere humans have not chance of stopping, the same as we are so insignificant in the whole scheme of things, we cannot possibly be responsible for any major climate changes.
What has happened to historians and those who study dinosaurs? Why aren't they reminding everyone of the very normal and natural cyclical climatic changes the Earth has always experienced?
Now my logical and straightforward mind starts to stumble, so I will stop now!
Lyn - Quite! (Apart from anything else how is my using an energy efficient light bulb going to offset what the Chinese are doing?!)
Only 18 months ago I'd have thought I was paranoid but so much s**t is now happening so fast that I'm concluding that everything is about control. It's as if there's been a long term strategy and the tipping point has now been reached whereby the clunking fist of totalitarianism can confidently come smashing down.
(It's being so cheerful keeps me going (sigh))
Joyce -
You ask:
"have you ever read Somerset Maugham's short story, "Jane" ?"
This IS spooky. Very.
Only in the past week, I was wondering what the name of that story was: I remember hearing a Radio 4 adaptation of it over twenty years ago (I have THAT kind of trivial memory).
And there was even a time when the Beeb adapted many of Maugham's stories for the telly.
(WHAT 'commissioning editor' would do that now ?)
At last, you have 'answered' my request (is telepathy a family trait ?)
Many thanks..................
Re:
"Van Rompuy as President."
Just another Useful Puppet, of course...........
And no, you're not 'paranoid': paranoia, after all, is an IRRATIONAL fear.
I think MANY of us have been on a Steep Learning Curve (what an ugly expression) these past few years.
Not a pleasant experience, perhaps - but a VITAL one (and not just for us).
Plato's cave, and all that......now fitted with a 36" LCD screen.
Lyn -
I fear that my rather over-developed Sense of Irony is the ONLY Coping Mechanism I have right now to accommodate all this Lunacy.
Anyway:
You MUST stop talking so much Common Sense: you'll end up in the Gulag with the rest of us !
But at least you'll be among friends..........
Cheers Martin V, and there was I thinking that I was going mad, after all, I am the one seeing the psychiatrist and the psychologist! Yet further proof perhaps that the inmates are running the asylum?
Believe me, if I am in any way insane, I sure prefer to be that way than like any of these burbling politicians and their bands of quangos! If what they portray is sanity, give me INsanity any day.
I think we should all join the Green Party to help us save ourselves.
Gulag ? Yes at least we'll be with sane people.
Lyn, Joyce, Peter -
I've long held the view that being Slightly Mad is the ONLY way to stop going Totally Insane.
I may even write a paper on it.
After I've found a cure for Politicians........
In today's society Martin,insanity is the new sanity as per our leaders examples
Crikey, Peter -
We're DOOMED !
Incidentally -
Have just received an interesting link from Steve Milloy's excellent Green Hell Blog here:
http://greenhellblog.com/2009/11/19/must-see-video-coal-ceo-routs-green-reporter/
And the keen-eyed will also notice a (rather surprising) 'Skeptics Winning In UK' link at the top of the page.
Please...........let it be so !
And further:
"Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said that growing awareness (?????) of the scale of the problem appeared to be resulting in people TAKING REFUGE IN DENIAL."
You got it, Vicki: some of us 'deny' you the right to carry on feeding us palpable UNTRUTHS.
Sorry to be SO unsporting.................
(and that you can't find a PROPER job).
Old Holborn's carrying a story that someone's hacked into the CRU at the University of East Anglia and released emails that appear to show that the research data is being rigged...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
Note: I have just removed a comment that was not only wildly excessive in length but had nothing to do with this thread. There are lots of blogs and forums where you can discuss issues of specific interest that may not be raised here. I would be grateful if readers did not use this blog - and kill threads in the process - to promote their own agenda. If anyone doesn't like my editorial policy I suggest they go elsewhere.
Lynn wrote: There has been no warming since 1998. We are now in the 8th year of cooling. While all these change were happening carbon dioxide levels did nothing but go up.
It sees there are people inside the Hadley climate research centre who are getting rather bothered by this, judging by some of the thousands of emails and documents from it which were dumped by a hacker in a 160 MB file on a Russian website a few days ago. One researcher was complaining:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Indeed it is.
Idlex -
The problem, I fear, is that the Planetary Climate isn't very good at programming.
And insists on doing things ITS way.
It should be reported to The Authorities.
Incidentally, I recently lent a copy of Christopher Monckton's brilliant 'Apocalypse, No !' DVD to a young lady attending the local Sixth Form College - that had, of course, already been exposed to Al Gore's load of Old Tripe.
Her Geography Teacher (credit to her) decided to show it to the whole class, and even SHE was surprised at the extent of the mis-information being fed to us all.
Teachers ARE human, after all.
But even so :
She MUST have been aware of a Credible Alernative Viewpoint.
Why has it taken her SO long to examine it ?
I find this intellectual laziness worrying.
Especially in the Age of Broadband...........
There was a response in our local paper to the letter I transcribed here last week. It was signed by several people, at least one of whom is in local government. As the paper did not arrive until the weekend, I have not yet had the chance to transcribe the letter here, but will endeavour to do so, with my response which I intend to offer to the paper this week.
There was also a letter supporting the claims of the initial letter and if it is permitted, I will try and post that here too!
From the response letter it looks as though someone is worried!