Climate talks fail

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I'm not familiar with that area, but the sat photos show several jetties along that stretch of beach which would indicate a history of erosion issues.

Interesting. BOM data shows that mean sea level at Ft.Denison (Sydney harbor) is currently (Nov 2019) lower than when measurements first began in May 1914.

Monthly sea levels for Fort Denison (Sydney) - 1914 to 2019

There are many processes that cause sea level to rise at different rates over the globe. For Sydney, one of the processes that cause a below-average rate of sea level is Glacial Isostatic Adjustment. During the last glacial cycle, large parts of the Earth were covered by thick ice sheets, often more than a kilometer thick. The solid Earth below these ice sheets deformed under this load. Eventually, these ice sheets have melted, but the Earth is still recovering from these loads, which still causes the Earth’s shape to change. For Sydney, this means that the Earth is lifting up by about 0.3 mm/yr1, which could explain a part of the difference.

Long story short: from these pictures, one cannot conclude that sea level in Sydney has risen by 0.0 cm. In fact, two independent tide gauge records show that sea level in Sydney has risen by about 12 cm since the end of the 19th century.

That is an issue. In some areas is it a matter of sea levels rising or erosion? The Grand Canyon seems a pretty good example of what erosion can do.

That is an issue. In some areas is it a matter of sea levels rising or erosion? The Grand Canyon seems a pretty good example of what erosion can do.

Plate tectonics, volcanism and the resulting earthquakes can also alter the shoreline- sometimes quite suddenly.
IIRC, You're in NW Washington. Have you watched any of Nick Zentner's Downtown Geology lectures?

I think you have to consider more than just the charts or the graph, like what this source mentions:

..because like SoloSailor said they're all stupid!

It does happen.


So your position is:
*Everything/k* that comes out the mouths of babes, err, I mean scientists, brims with integrity and honesty?
And that there are never political or financial motives invested influencing the direction and outcome of research?
If so,
I find that position a "little" naive.



I though postgrad textbooks often become obsolete due to new information becoming available.
And I would hardly consider the "Peer review System" infallible.
Check this out:

And this:


Once again,
It pays to take things with a grain of salt.
Skepticism rulz,
Yeah, babey.

What I'm saying is that when you have such high level of consensus, you should take it very seriously.

And I bet you are the very first person among the billions and billions who have ever lived to ask that question! I'm willing to bet that there is not a single scientist in the field who can answer that question, because like SoloSailor said they're all stupid! You're just like, this total Einstein!

And if you're wondering, yes, I'm being sarcastic.

Every now and again, the myth that “we shouldn’t believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970’s they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling” surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say “in the 1970’s all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming” (see Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion ). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn’t stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.


I should clarify that I’m talking about predictions in the scientific press. There were some regrettable things published in the popular press (e.g. Newsweek; though National Geographic did better). But we’re only responsible for the scientific press. If you want to look at an analysis of various papers that mention the subject, then try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/.

Where does the myth come from? Naturally enough, there is a kernel of truth behind it all. Firstly, there was a trend of cooling from the 40’s to the 70’s (although that needs to be qualified, as hemispheric or global temperature datasets were only just beginning to be assembled then). But people were well aware that extrapolating such a short trend was a mistake (Mason, 1976) . Secondly, it was becoming clear that ice ages followed a regular pattern and that interglacials (such as we are now in) were much shorter that the full glacial periods in between. Somehow this seems to have morphed (perhaps more in the popular mind than elsewhere) into the idea that the next ice age was predicatable and imminent. Thirdly, there were concerns about the relative magnitudes of aerosol forcing (cooling) and CO2 forcing (warming), although this latter strand seems to have been short lived.

The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970’s), based on reading the papers is, in summary: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms – the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling – but didn’t know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970’s, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.

Unprovoked outright bullying from someone I have not spoken to in days.