Der Spiegel: Projecting Sea Levels Has Become “A Bazaar – Who Can Bid The Most?”

 Just call it bazaar science.

The projection of sea levels has become quite the political football. So much hinges on the projections. Der Spiegel in an article titled IPCC haggles over data for sea level rise writes that 146 million people live in areas 1 meter or less above sea level. Tens of billions of dollars would be needed to expand dikes to keep the waters back, or to relocate citizens should seas rise too much. So the numbers are hotly contested.

To make things complex, there are hundreds of studies that offer a huge range of projections, up to 5 meters sea level rise by 2100. The job of deciding which sea level rise the IPCC should bank on in its next IPCC report rests on 18 scientists from 10 countries.

In the past each successive IPCC report lowered the sea level rise that is expected to occur by 2100. Critics pounced on the IPCC’s downward corrections, and so fears of rising seas diminished along with the IPCC’s credibility. Now the IPCC faces a dilemma (and irrelevance): Will it go back to alarmism? That may be real tough to do. Der Spiegel writes (emphasis added):

Now for the next IPCC report [due in 2013] the UN experts have to examine hundreds of reports – but indeed the selection is tougher than ever. The haggling over the results is like dealing at a bazaar: On one hand scientists have published alarming sea level prognoses, which surpass those given by the last IPCC Report. And on the other hand the actual sea level measurements indicate no detectable extreme increase.

4000 experts recently met at the IUGG Conference recently in Melbourne and Der Spiegel writes that the motto was: “Who bids the most!” NASA alarmist junkie James Hansen appears to have been the highest bidder at 5 meters. Currently sea levels are rising about 3 mm per year, which is just 1/17 of what Hansen projects.

Jim Houston and Bob Dean have a recent paper saying  there has been no detectable acceleration, while Stefan Rahmstorf says there is (though measurements don’t show it). Der Spiegel then cites other experts:

Simon Holgate, sea level researcher at the National Oceanogrphy Centre in Liverpool: Likely the irregularities in data arising from the changeover in measurement instruments are responsible for the differences [in the recent results].

 I believe that it is improbable that the sea level increase accelerated in the same year that satellites were put into service.”

Guy Wöppelmann of La Rochelle in France, Der Spiegel writes:

The increase sea level rise since 1993 is nothing unusual, as the sea level during the 20th century accelerated before, only then to decelerate.”

Eduardo Zorita:

The sea level rise rate has slowed down during the last 8 years. What happens in the future is unknown.”

Of course there are also a number of alarmist scientists who insist that sea level is accelerating and that Greenland and Antarctica pose a serious risk. But so far data measurements don’t show it.

Obviously the risk is all in the modeling (and not the actual measurements).

===================================
UPDATE 1: Schellnhuber now offering 70 m! Does anyone offer 80m? http://stevengoddard

h/t: DirkH

13 responses to “Der Spiegel: Projecting Sea Levels Has Become “A Bazaar – Who Can Bid The Most?””

  1. Ed Caryl

    In the last 2000 years, sea level has risen and fallen with a cycle time of about 600 years. We are half way through the current cycle, from low to high. It is possible that the answer is “none of the above.” with the current state of the sun, by 2030, sea level could be falling. If the sun is entering a Maunder Minimum state (not out of the question), sea level could be 30 cm below current levels by 2100.

    Let the objections begin!

  2. Adela

    Man made global warming is a fraud perpetrated by pseudo scientists seeking government grants.
    In April 1975 Time magazine had on its cover the title “The big freeze”.
    The “scientists” were saying that the planet`s temperatures will drop to a point where all forms of life will be destroyed.
    The “scientists ” even came up with a solution : collect all the ashes residue from coal burning power plants and spread it over the North Pole, in order to capture the heat from the sun and prevent the earth from freezing…..only sick perverted minds could have come up with such jineptitudes, but the media and the politicians at the time loved it.
    Same thing is happening now, but the scare is not freezing but warming.
    These are mentally sick individuals that belong in mental institutions.
    Instead they are coming up with laws , rules and regulations and destroying everything around them.

  3. Edmond de Rothschild

    What about 500 Meters?

    Could be realistic in let me see, in ähm, well, 4.21 million years

    Anyone offering more? I would then like to correct my first offer…

  4. Jerry from Boston

    Steve Goddard,

    Captain Schellnhuber was talking about sea level of 180-240 feet in the year 2300, not 2100, if there’s an increase in temperature of 4-6 Deg. C. by then (his business-as-usual scenario). That’s not physically impossible if you consider if all the remaining ice on the planet melted, contributing about 160 feet, plus massive ocean warming of what, 80 feet, could get into that range.

    Of course, by then, the human population, following current demographic trends, will be about 1/10-1/2 what it is today. And wealth-wise, each person in 2300 will be, approximately, 2,000-8,000 times wealthier than they are today. Gee, yuh think they wouldn’t have found some way to adapt by then? Assuming adaptation was even necessary.

    Colonel Schellnhuber probably gets toasted at collegial parties for his perspiKacity.

    1. DirkH

      “And wealth-wise, each person in 2300 will be, approximately, 2,000-8,000 times wealthier than they are today.”

      Not if the UN can help it.

    2. John Marshall

      This Klink guestimate of a temperature rise of 4-6C is model based. The models all believe in the theory of GHG’s. Since the models are wrong their answer is wrong. CO2 does not drive global temperatures the sun does. Ergo Klink is very wrong and probably after the next tranch of his government grant.

  5. DirkH

    The bigotry of the German Left: Der Spiegel and a multiplicity of German Leftist outlets report about a guy who edited the wikipedia to make products by a pharma concern appear in a better light.

    http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,774539,00.html

    Can’t remember them reporting about the disappearance of the MWP in the wikipedia at the hands of Connolley’s gang, though. (It has re-appeared when Connolley got banned, and exists, for the time being. Warmists, you know what to do.) Double standards as usual.

  6. John F. Hultquist

    I’ve written this before (and the last time was totally misunderstood*), so here it is again.

    The “easy ice” has already melted. By that I mean ice in the polar areas, ice and snow at high elevations, and glacier ice from 20,000 +/- years ago has been melting. Low latitude and low elevation ice – such as the Puget Lobe of the Frasier Glaciation went quickly – it was “easy ice.” There is still ice high on mountains – Mt. Rainier, for example. Many of the low-elevation parts of these valley glaciers have melted. It hasn’t melted so easily, and, in fact, there have been advances during the period since 20,000 ybp. At higher latitudes and higher elevations – Greenland and Antarctica – melting does not occur so easily. Expecting it to melt rapidly is an expression of hope against physics.

    The drawing at the top of this post looks just as it should. It seems extremely difficult to attribute the small changes to any single driver and such things as temperature, sedimentation, plate movements, impoundments, and so on, have been implicated.
    _____
    *Arctic Ocean ice isn’t part of this concept.

  7. ThomasJ

    Gosh how sad it is, to learn (again) that this S-huber still is allowed on the scene! It’s not that very far off from what happened in/around/ Germany ~ 60-70 years ago… brrrrrr.
    Anyone on Lysenkoism?
    Mein (ex-)Vaterland tut mir sehr, sehr weh!

    Brgds from Sweden
    //ThomasJ

  8. Eric Anderson

    “146 million people live in areas 1 meter or less above sea level”

    I’d like to know how this data is calculated. I live relatively close to the coast and have seen dozens of beach communities and thousands of structures built on the coast, and offhand I can’t think of a single occupied structure I’ve seen that was only one meter or less above sea level. 10 meters? Sure. 4-5 meters, perhaps. But one meter or less?

    I’m sure this number must include areas of The Netherlands, as well as places like New Orleans, which are partly below sea level and use levees. It would be interesting to know where the 146 million number comes from and how many of those people are in fact at risk of rising seas. Certainly some, but I’m guessing the number would be somewhat less than advertised.

  9. Casper

    “Now for the next IPCC report [due in 2013] the UN experts have to examine hundreds of reports – but indeed the selection is tougher than ever. The haggling over the results is like dealing at a bazaar: On one hand scientists have published alarming sea level prognoses, which surpass those given by the last IPCC Report. And on the other hand the actual sea level measurements indicate no detectable extreme increase.”

    I think this is a good sign. They really don’t know how to deal with it;)

  10. DirkH

    If Schellnhuber and his sidekick Rahmstorff were scientists, they would say that climate modelling is a new science still in its infancy because that’s what it is. But they want global societal transformation NOW. They are quite openly NOT interested in science but in world domination.

    To me it seems that Berlin is a city of malevolent spirits; it seems that everybody who goes to that city becomes posessed with an evil imperialistic spirit of the past. Maybe Berlin and Brussels should be razed to the ground. Nothing good comes from these places.

  11. Willie McDonald

    Global Orbit Decay (Updated Version)
    By: Willie McDonald
    cdnld30@gmail.com

    The events below were discovered by scientific organizations such as NASA, not by me! These events were discovered in 20th century, and are occurring simultaneously, and is slowly worsening. Many of of these events have been occurring for less, than a millennium (LTM). I believe they are now beginning to affect the earth’s climate. I’m a climate change expert with 28 years of experience. Green house gases has nothing to do with global warming. Many scientists believe the sun plays a larger role in climate change, than first thought. Global warming can be reversed go to http://www.orbital-decay1.blogspot.com, but if its not reversed in time all life on this planet will perish. Below are the reasons I believe the earth’s orbit around the sun is destabilizing, and is responsible for global warming.

    1. The earth is moving away from the moon.
    A. http://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/Notes/section4/new17.html

    2. The earth’s rotation is slowing down. (LTM)
    A. http://bowie.gsfc.nasa.gov/ggfc/tides/intro.html.

    3. The earth is shifting on its axis. (LTM)
    A. http://divulgence.net/axis%20shift%202.html.

    4. The earth is wobbling on its axis
    A. http://www.world-weather.com/world-weather/our-wobbling-earth-wobbled-by-the-worlds-weather/

    5. The earth is developing a breach in its magnetic field. (LTM)
    A. http://www.science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/16dec_giantbreach

    6. Both polar ice caps are beginning to be melted by the sun, during each ice caps summer season, and the oceans are rising. (LTM)

    7. The sun is getting hotter, and brighter. It’s possible earth is moving closer to the sun. (LTM)
    A. http://www.rs2theory.org/node/106
    B. http://telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3325679/the-truth-about-global-warming-its-the-sun-thats-to-blame.html
    C. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/sun-brightness.html
    D. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0313irradiance.html

    8. Many scientists are how saying that the IPCC report, and the green house gas theory is false.
    A. http://www.jimball.com.au/features/IPCC-False_evidence.htm
    B. http://www.mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
    C. http://www.petitionproject.org

    References: NASA, NOAA, USGS, The American Astronomical Society, etc.
    If the links don’t open when you click on them, please enter them by hand.

    People shade themselves from the sun, not from the greenhouse effect. You will never get sun burn, sun stroke, or skin cancer from the green house gas effect, beware of the sun.

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