Study ‘projects’ a surge in US coastal flooding starting in 2030s

Credit: nationalreview.com

Anything supposedly ‘rapidly increasing’ or ‘extreme’ in Earth’s climate now or in the near future has to be treated with some suspicion, to say the least. Experience tells us alarmists armed with assumptions don’t need much excuse to go off the deep end to try and stir up the populace.
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In the mid-2030s, every U.S. coast will experience rapidly increasing high-tide floods, when a lunar cycle will amplify rising sea levels caused by climate change, predicts Phys.org.

High-tide floods—also called nuisance floods or sunny day floods—are already a familiar problem in many cities on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a total of more than 600 such floods in 2019.

Starting in the mid-2030s, however, the alignment of rising sea levels with a lunar cycle will cause coastal cities all around the U.S. to begin a decade of dramatic increases in flood numbers, according to the first study that takes into account all known oceanic and astronomical causes for floods.

Led by the members of the NASA Sea Level Change Science Team from the University of Hawaii, the new study shows that high tides will exceed known flooding thresholds around the country more often.

Current climate model simulations overestimate future sea-level rise

Emperor penguins, Antarctica [image credit: USAF / Wikipedia]

Too much alarm coming from climate models, again. This new research finds ‘some regions near Antarctica even cool under climate change’.
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The melting rate of the Antarctic ice sheet is mainly controlled by the increase of ocean temperatures surrounding Antarctica.

Using a new, higher-resolution climate model simulation, scientists from Utrecht University found a much slower ocean temperature increase compared to current simulations with a coarser resolution, reports Phys.org.

New data reveals British sea level records stretching back 200 years

Credit: University of Liverpool / National Oceanography Centre (Liverpool branch)

The graph looks consistent with mild warming following the Little Ice Age. About 30 cms. or 1 foot of sea level rise in 130 years since 1890 is nothing remarkable. The average duration of solar cycles was longer in the 19th century than in the 20th but that trend is reversing now, with a lot more sunspot-free days per cycle. Climatic effects may follow.
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A study published by University of Liverpool scientists, alongside colleagues from the Liverpool branch of the National Oceanography Centre, has uncovered and analyzed new sea level records from the nineteenth century which show that the increased rate of the rise of British sea level took place from 1890 onwards, says Phys.org.

Nowadays, sea level measurements around the British Isles are made by tide gauges which record digitally and transmit the data automatically.

Why are hundreds of Pacific Islands growing despite rising sea levels?

In the Maldives

Just as the late Nils-Axel Mörner, a lifelong sea levels researcher, explained in an interview about two years ago. Let’s hope the climate miserablists now give up on their ‘drowning islands’ nonsense.
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New research says hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size, even as climate change-related sea level rises threaten the region, says ABC News Australia.

Scientists at the University of Auckland found atolls in the Pacific nations of Marshall Islands and Kiribati, as well as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have grown up to 8 per cent in size over the past six decades despite sea level rise.

They say their research could help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to global warming in the future.

Doggerland: How did the Atlantis of the North Sea sink?

Hypothetical map of Doggerland [image credit: ancient-origins.net]

This seems semi-topical on the day Britain signs off on its new deal with the EU countries. Going back into history, but not all that far back, the river Thames flowed into the Rhine. North Sea trawlers still find bones of mammoths and other such fossils in their nets today.
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For a long time, scientists believed that a powerful tsunami destroyed Doggerland 8,200 years ago, says DW.com.

Sediment analysis now suggests that the land once connecting Great Britain with the rest of Europe had a later demise.

Around 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, the sea level in northern Europe was still about 60 meters (197 feet) below what it is today.

The British Isles and the European mainland formed a continuous landmass.

Relatively large rivers crossed this landmass, but in a different way than we know today.

Newly discovered Greenland hot rock mantle plume drives thermal activities in the Arctic

Topographic map of Greenland

We’re told ‘The North Atlantic region is awash with geothermal activity’. Any day now we should be hearing how a few extra molecules of (human-caused) CO2 make the Earth’s innards hotter than they used to be. Or maybe we won’t.
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A team of researchers understands more about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, says SciTech Daily.

They discovered a flow of hot rocks, known as a mantle plume, rising from the core-mantle boundary beneath central Greenland that melts the ice from below.

Gravity data reveal unexpected Antarctic ice variations

Antarctica

If they were hoping to see a steady rate of change that matched carbon dioxide emission levels, they were disappointed. Natural variations inconveniently got in the way, two in particular: ‘When two extreme snowfall events in 2009 and 2011 dropped around 600 gigatons of snow and ice, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet thickened so much that it temporarily halted the entire continent’s ice losses, said Wang—a pattern that had previously escaped notice.’
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A new analysis of long-term satellite records shows the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is unexpectedly dependent on fluctuations in weather.

This study may improve models of how much sea levels will rise, says Eos News.

As more coastal communities face the looming threat [Talkshop note: unsupported assertion] of rising sea levels, it’s more important than ever to accurately predict changes in one of the greatest potential sources of sea level rise—the melting of Antarctica’s massive ice sheet.

Recently, scientists analyzed nearly 2 decades’ worth of data from sensitive NASA satellites documenting mass changes in the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

They found the ice inventory ebbed and flowed across the continent in unexpectedly variable patterns.

Traditionally, some groups of Antarctic researchers have assumed the rate of change across the ice sheet is constant, but they drew their conclusions from data sets that spanned only a few years, said Lei Wang, a geodesist at The Ohio State University who will present this research at AGU’s virtual Fall Meeting 2020.

“These long data records give us the capability to characterize the ice sheet’s variation over a range of timescales,” rather than just modeling seasonal variations and short-term trends, Wang said.

Understanding Long-Term Trends

The Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest mass of ice on Earth, is divided into two unequal portions, with the East Antarctic Ice Sheet covering about two thirds of the continent. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, although smaller, has historically been more closely studied because it’s melting faster. (The East Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on bedrock above sea level, said Wang, so it is less susceptible to the effects of the warming ocean.) NASA estimates Antarctica has lost 149 billion metric tons of ice per year since 2002.

When so much ice is involved, projections of how sea levels will respond are uncertain—especially when trends already are so difficult to gauge.

Indeed, the field still argues about sea level changes in the past century, said Jim Davis, the study coauthor and a geodesist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “We’ve got to get to the point where we can talk about what’s happening this year in sea level change,” he said.

To do that, researchers need a more sophisticated model of how Antarctica’s shield of ice is evolving.

Full article here.

‘Unstoppable’ global warming claim withdrawn by Scientific Reports journal

Overblown warming claims, arising from climate modellers obsessing over trace gases, may be unstoppable but some measure of reality surfaces briefly here.
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A top scientific journal which claimed that global warming may already be unstoppable has been forced to issue a clarification after being accused of potentially causing “unnecessary despair”, says The GWPF.

Scientific Reports sought to publicise a study by Norwegian scientists with a doom-laden press release headlined: “Ending greenhouse gas emissions may not stop global warming.”

After being strongly criticised by leading British scientists, the journal issued a revised press release which admitted that the prediction was based on a particular computer model and said the results should be tested by “alternative models”.

EU report about vanishing beaches was alarmist and wrong, scientists say

Tropical beach

Another day, another false climate alarm bites the dust – or sand. It’s ‘flawed computer models’ time, again.
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Sandy beaches are much less vulnerable to rising seas than was claimed in a recent European Commission study which caused “unnecessary alarm”, research has found.

Beaches will survive by migrating landwards as the sea level rises as long as they are given space to move and not impeded by sea walls and other structures on the coast, the research shows.

The new findings contradict claims made in March in a study by the commission’s joint research centre, which supplies scientific evidence to guide EU policy, reports The Times (via The GWPF).

The study was publicised with a press release headlined “Climate Change: Life’s a (disappearing) beach”.

Florida current is weaker now than at any point in the past century

Image credit: NASA

And by coincidence (?) so is the sun.
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A key component of the Gulf Stream has markedly slowed over the past century—that’s the conclusion of a new research paper in Nature Communications published on August 7, says Phys.org.

The study develops a method of tracking the strength of near-shore ocean currents using measurements made at the coast, offering the potential to reduce one of the biggest uncertainties related to observations of climate change over the past century.

“In the ocean, almost everything is connected,” said Christopher Piecuch, an assistant scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and author of the study. “We can use those connections to look at things in the past or far from shore, giving us a more complete view of the ocean and how it changes across space and time.”

Piecuch, who specializes in coastal and regional sea level change, used a connection between coastal sea level and the strength of near-shore currents to trace the evolution of the Florida Current, which forms the beginning of the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream flows north along the Southeast Atlantic Coast of the United States and eventually east into the North Atlantic Ocean, carrying heat, salt, momentum, and other properties that influence Earth’s climate.

Because nearly continuous records of sea level stretch back more than a century along Florida’s Atlantic Coast and in some parts of the Caribbean, he was able to use mathematical models and simple physics to extend the reach of direct measurements of the Gulf Stream to conclude that it has weakened steadily and is weaker now than at any other point in the past 110 years.

One of the biggest uncertainties in climate models is the behavior of ocean currents either leading to or responding to changes in Earth’s climate. Of these, one of the most important is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, which is a large system or “conveyor belt” of ocean currents in the Atlantic that includes the Gulf Stream and that helps regulate global climate.

Piecuch’s analysis agrees with relationships seen in models between the deeper branches of the AMOC and the Gulf Stream, and it corroborates studies suggesting that the deeper branches of AMOC have slowed in recent years.

Full article here.

Solar cycle 14 – was the fourteenth solar cycle since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. The solar cycle lasted 11.5 years, beginning in January 1902 and ending in July 1913. The maximum smoothed sunspot number (SIDC formula) observed during the solar cycle was 107.1, in February 1906 (the lowest since the Dalton Minimum) – Wikipedia

Island ‘drowning’ is not inevitable as sea levels rise

Another bunch of climate alarmist predictions get exposed as over-the-top doom-mongering — literally, in this case.

Coral reef islands across the world could naturally adapt to survive the impact of rising sea levels, according to new research reported at Phys.org.

Coral reef islands across the world could naturally adapt to survive the impact of rising sea levels, according to new research.

The increased flooding caused by the changing global climate has been predicted to render such communities—where sandy or gravel islands sit on top of coral reef platforms—uninhabitable within decades.

However, an international study led by the University of Plymouth (UK) suggests that perceived fate is far from a foregone conclusion.

Is There A Relationship Between Global Temperature And Ocean Levels? Sure, But…

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Better to follow the actual observations than the Hollywood-style scenarios of headline-chasing climate alarmists.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr~

Alarms over rising oceans continue to sound. Politicians, actors, authors, and “climate activists” warn us regularly that the massive ice sheets in the Antarctic, and the Arctic, are melting. They remind us that in a matter of decades, oceans will rise to the point where they will destroy many coastal cities, and the process would become “irreversible.” The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the media have speculated and prophesied that by 2100, we would have ocean levels between five to ten feet higher.

Graphic photoshopped pictures of New York skyscrapers show buildings flooded several floors high. Miami is shown vanishing under the sea. All said to be a result of increasing CO2 followed by melting ice resulting in a rise in our ocean levels.Most of our readers suspect great exaggeration but do not understand…

View original post 1,162 more words

NASA space lasers show sea levels have risen by 14mm in 17 years – but what’s the latest trend?

Kangerlussuaq Fjord, Greenland [image credit: notsogreen.com]

Less than a year ago NASA was reporting from Greenland: Jakobshavn Glacier Grows for Third Straight Year, and ‘The glacier grew 22 to 33 yards (20 to 30 meters) each year between 2016 and 2019.’ So this new report may be, to some degree at least, already obsolete since it says: ‘The largest thinning rates were between 4 and 6 m a−1 in Jakobshavn and Kangerlugssuaq glaciers’.
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Sea levels have risen by 14mm since 2003 due to ice melting in Antarctica and Greenland, scientists have said.

Nasa launched a satellite to measure global heights in 2018 and spotted the rise after bouncing laser pulses against sheets of ice, says the London Evening Standard.

The study found that Greenland lost an average of 200 billion tonnes of ice per year, and Antarctica lost an average of 118 billion tonnes.

One billion tonnes of ice is enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A team led by researchers at the University of Washington compared the data with measurements taken by the satellite between 2003 and 2009.

The findings, published in the journal Science, found the loss of ice from Antarctica and Greenland outweighs any gains from accumulated snow.

Antarctica’s biggest glacier is thinning in patterns opposite to previously observed

Significant changes since 2007 or so are observed but not explained, which seems to leave them open to interpretation. To get that ball rolling the recent solar slowdown could be mentioned.
A 2015 NASA study said that ‘an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.’

Using the latest satellite technology from the European Space Agency (ESA), scientists from the University of Bristol have been tracking patterns of mass loss from Pine Island — Antarctica’s largest glacier, reports SciTechDaily.

They found that the pattern of thinning is evolving in complex ways both in space and time with thinning rates now highest along the slow-flow margins of the glacier, while rates in the fast-flowing central trunk have decreased by about a factor of five since 2007.

Ice sheet melting: estimates still uncertain, experts warn

Rinks Glacier, West Greenland
[image credit: NSIDC]

Estimates are always uncertain to some degree – that’s why they’re called estimates. So an uncertain estimate can’t be all that useful. They admit ‘there are still key deficiencies in the models’ — but these are usually ignored when alarmist climate predictions are headlined. As ever, ice-related sea level claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Estimates used by climate scientists to predict the rate at which the world’s ice sheets will melt are still uncertain despite advancements in technology, new research shows.

These ice sheet estimates feed directly into projections of sea-level rise resulting from climate change, says Phys.org.

They are made by measuring how much material ice sheets are gaining or losing over time, known as mass balance, to assess their long-term health.

Snowfall increases the mass of an ice sheet, while ice melting or breaking off causes it to lose mass, and the overall balance between these is crucial.

Although scientists now have a much better understanding of the melting behaviour of ice sheets than they did in previous decades, there are still significant uncertainties about their future melt rates, researchers found.

Climate: Uncertainty in scientific predictions can help and harm credibility

What if anything can ‘uncertain predictions’ about the climate tell us that might be worth taking seriously? Excitable headline-chasing fearmongers do nothing to help, especially when proved wrong.

The ways climate scientists explain their predictions about the impact of global warming can either promote or limit their persuasiveness, reports ScienceDaily.
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The more specific climate scientists are about the uncertainties of global warming, the more the American public trusts their predictions, according to new research by Stanford scholars.

But scientists may want to tread carefully when talking about their predictions, the researchers say, because that trust falters when scientists acknowledge that other unknown factors could come into play.

In a new study published in Nature Climate Change, researchers examined how Americans respond to climate scientists’ predictions about sea level rise.

With Sea-Level Rise, Climate Science Meets Reality

H/T Climate Change Dispatch

In which a scientific project gets dropped, or ignored, when it fails to produce the expected or hoped-for incriminating ‘climate change’ related data.

There is a striking disparity between sea-level datasets favored by climate catastrophists and actual observations, which mostly exists in their imaginations, writes Jack Weatherall for Quadrant Online.

The splendiferous east coast of Tasmania never ceases to please with all its myriad landscapes.

So it was a little discombobulating to recently pass a sign planted hard against the flow of traffic following the serpentine track that threads the coastal communities, proclaiming ‘Climate Change Is Killing the Planet’.

As it was only about eight degrees at the time, I was reasonably confident I would make my destination before something akin to the fate of the death star transpired and, thankfully, I was right.

It did, however, get me to thinking of how corrupt the science of the carbon cycle has truly become in the hyperbolic atmosphere of climate politics.

Ecological land grab: food vs fuel vs forests

This is a prelude to a new IPCC report. It’s an exercise in mixing problems that do exist, like biofuels using too much land, with ones that don’t, like excess trace gases in the atmosphere. The end product is the usual alarm-and-confusion brand of propaganda for man-made warming believers, with wild talk of meltdowns, deadly extremes and so forth. More like a Hollywood script than anything resembling reality – but over-the-top stuff like this seems to be standard fare in much of the media nowadays.

The overlapping crises of climate change, mass species extinction, and an unsustainable global food system are on a collision course towards what might best be called an ecological land grab, says Phys.org.

Coping with each of these problems will require a different way of using of Earth’s lands, and as experts crunch the numbers it is becoming unnervingly clear that there may not be enough terra firma to go around.

A world of narrowing options threatens to pit biofuels, forests and food production against each other.

Climate Swindle: Meet the new scare, same as the old scare

The climate apocalypse bandwagon first got going nearly as long ago as the first moon landing, but shows no signs of falling apart despite a dismal record of no-show of its forecasts, as Climate Change Dispatch explains. The urge to blame humans for any and all vagaries, real or imagined, of the climate seems deep-rooted despite this ongoing lack of predictive success.

This month, The Wall Street Journal celebrated its 130th anniversary by republishing salient articles spanning that period, including this retrospectively illuminating report from February 2, 1978:

A climatic disaster, triggered by the continued burning of oil and coal, could result in the submergence of much of Florida, Holland and other low-lying areas in the next 50 years, an Ohio State University scientist predicted… “I contend that a major disaster – a rapid five-meter rise in sea level caused by deglaciation of West Antarctica – may be imminent or in progress, after atmospheric carbon dioxide has only doubled,” John H. Mercer, a glacier geologist, asserted.

By some miracle, fortunately, Florida and Holland were still with us over a decade later.

Some reef islands resilient to climate change: study

Atafu atoll in the Pacific [image credit: NASA Johnson Space Center]

Good news for the rest of humanity may be bad news for climate miserablists, but hey-ho. Another global warming canard takes a knock.

The Pacific’s low-lying reef islands are likely to change shape in response to climate change, rather than simply sinking beneath rising seas and becoming uninhabitable as previously assumed, new research has found.

Atoll nations such as Tuvalu, Tokelau and Kiribati lie only a few metres above sea level and are considered the world’s most vulnerable to global warming, with fears their populations will become climate refugees as waters rise, says Phys.org.

But a study published this week found that such islands “morphodynamically respond” to the environment because they are composed of the skeletal remains of tiny reef-dwelling organisms, rather than solid rock.