Comments on: Sea Level Acceleration

By: Climate Change Confusion Sea Level « My Traveling Family

Climate Change Confusion Sea Level « My Traveling Family — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:16:54 +0000

[...] Niche Modeling [...]

By: davids99us

davids99us — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:08:02 +0000

Yes, I think such people should not be employed as scientists. Go work forGreenpeace or something.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:40:06 +0000

“In our view, when presenting numbers to the public scientists need to be equally cautious about erring on the low as they are on the high side. For society, after all, under-estimating global warming is likely the greater danger.”This really grinds my gears. Experts are all like this. The Knowledge Problem has been known now for at least eighty years. Being an “expert” doesn't make one any better a planner than the market is, in fact, their limited knowledge makes them worse almost a priori. They don't even think they “know” that underestimating is more dangerous. It's blindness to their own ignorance, blindness to the possibility that overestimating warming is more dangerous than they can conceive…or, considering the political implications of their belief that the should decide which information is useful for planning, it's Far-Left politics.That quote is, to those of us “in the know” the most revealing look at RC's ideology one can get.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:32:51 +0000

I have got to remember to do my "How temperature changes are related to rates of CO2 increase" idea one of these days. I think it may help to demystify that issue.Fun fact about Greenland:At the current rate of ice loss (.4% per century) Greenland won't melt entirely for 25 thousand years!

By: cohenite

cohenite — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:45:52 +0000

That is true enough but the alarmists are saying that glacial melt especially fom the Pine Island Glacier and various Greenland and Alaskan glaciers will inundate us all. However, things are not going to AGW plan because OHC is actually declining and the rate of sea level increase is also declining; all at a time whem CO2 is still increasing, although Watts did recently notice something interesting about that;http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/21/recent-oc...

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:11:10 +0000

Glacial melt is mostly secondary for sea level. Thermal expansion is the big effect. So while this is a good point, it is trivial in comparison to the more serious issues with regard to temperature and sea level relationships.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:10:20 +0000

“Finally, I have grave uncertainty about the meaning and accuracy of SST. Is it merely a parameter that has no great significance but has a convenient shape with time as Andrew notes?”This concern is well placed. I won't get much into the data quality issues (Buckets and Inlets etc.) But the physical interpretation of a relationship between SST and sea level is pretty tricky. From the surface temperatures, one could not tell if the bulk of the ocean increased in heat content or just a shallow layer-the thermal expansion depends on the total heat content of the oceans, not the temperature at the surface. Over long time scales this may not be a big issue. But that begs the question of how quickly heat diffuses from the surface to lower layers, or vice versa. My understand is that this is tied into lots of other climate issues, including sensitivity.

By: davids99us

davids99us — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:41:32 +0000

It is what it is. SL is strongly linear with temperature, rate of SL rise is not correlated with temperature.

By: davids99us

davids99us — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:08:02 +0000

Yes, I think such people should not be employed as scientists. Go work forGreenpeace or something.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:08:00 +0000

Yes, I think such people should not be employed as scientists. Go work for
Greenpeace or something.