German “intellectual” online daily Die Zeit here interviews four (state-funded) alarmists (some more, some less) just to reassure its readers that the world is indeed coming to a catastrophic end.
Here it’s interesting to compare the remarks of Hans von Storch and Stefan Rahmstorf on the subject of sea level rise of the North Sea, as measured by tide gauges.
Rahmstorf:
Especially important for us here in Germany was a study on North Sea sea level. Scientists at the University of Siegen showed what consequences climate change is already having on our own coastlines. The evaluation of the data from 13 gauge stations over the last one and a half centuries confirm a sea level rise – and an acceleration over the last few decades.”
Hans von Storch:
Through an anylsis of synchronous fluctuations at many gauges, a rise in sea level of about 20 cm per century could be now be estimated.”
That’s a whole 2 mm per year, which is one seventh the rate of what Ramstorf envisions in his tamer wet dreams. Moreover, the link that Rahmstorf provides has a chart which clearly shows the rate of rise during the end of the 19th century was greater than what has occurred over the last few decades. He forgot to mention that.
One thing is clear: sea level measurement is fraught with complexity, and thus it would be easy for any shifty scientist to get the results he wants. But not to worry, we all know that they are, to quote Mark Antony, “ambitious and honorable men”.
As far as the other content in the DIE ZEIT piece, it’s just the usual, alarmist pre-Durban crap. (Don’t waste your time)
20 cm/YEAR ? How about century?
Oops. Sorry about that. Rahmstorf will certainly be disappointed by that correction. 🙂
Sorry to spoil the fun, but sea levels are falling:
http://www.real-science.com/northern-hemisphere-sea-level-falling-decade
Or is this a case of “more warmth means lower temperatures / more storms means no hurricanes / African drought means greening the Sahara”? If the AGW show is retired, they can always hope to get work as economists: “More taxes means you will have MUCH more to spend”.
Damn, the news just keeps getting worse for Rahmstorf.
We should be careful -especially when referencing a specific location- to use the term relative sea level rise. The amount of land subsidence or rise should also be given.
But …
According to DMI i cant see much sea level rise in the north sea at all since 1991:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/vedhaeftninger/sealevelnorthsea1.jpg
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/vedhaeftninger/sealevelnorthsea2.jpg
From DMI article http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/sr01-08-del1.pdf from 2001
K.R. Frank
Interesting in the article is also Jochem Marotzke who postulates that during decades in which the surface temperature doesn’t rise, the ocean sucks up the heat. He doesn’t mention that ARGO shows a constant OHC; he doesn’t mention Trenberth’s “missing heat”, and the journalist is too uninformed to ask.
It is easy for a mediocre lying scientist like Marotzke to deceive uninformed media people like that.
For now, the EU’s eco thugs behave…
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/COP-17-first-day-crime-free-20111128
Here in the Netherlands water is our arch-enemy. It’s almost in our genes to be concerned about the issue of sea level rise and land subsidence. In this example some scientists are talking to journalists but what if they advise our governements? False information may have enormous financial consequences. If it can be proven that the information is false, it is possible that these advisers can face criminal charges for cheating. Hopefully, our water institutions still contain enough wise men and women.
In fact, clean, pure drinking water in the Netherlands is practically a pollutant. Some years ago, I made a note of some joker’s “recreational ideology”. He was advocating that the Dutch try to save water for what I suppose are reasons of programming and operaant conditioning of the Dutch more than anything else.
http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2006/05/wheres-pipe-to-africa-minher.html
As far as I know, you can’t drink empathy.
Water is a bit our obsession. I forgot to say that we had recently a scientific fraud case in the Netherlands. A social psychology professor at the University of Tilburg admitted that he committed fraud for which he was fired. But he also was criminally charged. The damage he has done, concerns the reputation of social psychology, some of his students, and research grants. That’s nothing compared with the billions we may invest in useless dike works. If it becomes a trial, this may be interesting for future cases.
O/T Röttgen, German Enviro minister, admits he doesn’t give a rat’s ass for climate change – in a lengthy interview in Der Spiegel, the end is (after the usual bows to the climate gods):
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,800364-2,00.html
SPIEGEL: “Do you sometimes have nightmares that you burdened the economy and the population with billions of costs and it then turns out that climate science was wrong with its catastrophic scenarios?”
Röttgen:”Conversations with Chinese partners prevent me from being fearful of being wrong. They told me that they would invest in renewables, efficiency and electric cars even if there were no climate change. For them it makes economic sense to invest in a future that doesn’t need the burning of fossil fuels – also, to stay competitive with countries like Germany.”
I would SOOO love to put the CDU out of business… unfortunately they’re the only big party that is not bent on socialism…
Statkraft, Norwegian owner of two old gas power plants in Germany, in Emden and Landesbergen, is about to close the plants down. Reason: Most of the time, wind energy is flooding the grids there, so these old gas plants are only in use a few hundred hours in a year (under German law, renewable energy has priority, and other plants must reduce production). This renders them ineconomic.
The irony is of course that we need more reserve plants than ever. Municipal power plant operators already beg for subsidies for their conventional power plants for the same reason.
http://www.ftd.de/unternehmen/industrie/:energiewende-gegenwind-fuer-gaskraftwerke/60135869.html
What can we learn out of this; or, what can other countries learn from Germany? Simple really: As soon as politicians start meddling with the market, EVERYTHING STARTS FALLING APART.
Prepare for rolling blackouts!
Got two power plants in my proximity (Braunschweig and Salzgitter); knock on wood!
Knock on wood; indeed.
The inter-connection of the grid means that the whole system can experience outages when trying to respond to rogue generators of significant magnitude varying their supply to the grid.
e.g. If there are gusty days or a strong weather system moves through an “intensely” wind-farmed area, then that can de-stabilise the whole Western European grid unless somebody shuts off the wind turbines prophylactically.
The terrible laws that exist work against prudence. The turbine operators will seek compensation for the missed opportunity to generate; but never have to pay for the consequences of providing an unstable supply or for provoking grid instability.
Interesting reading:
Missing link http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/the-myth-of-renewable-energy