by frog
Next year forty 40 families from Carteret Island, dubbed the ‘world’s first climate change refugees’ by the United Nations, will relocate to the nearby Papau New Guinean island Bougainville. Their current island home is expected to be submerged by 2015. This strikes me as the some of the most shaming and important news of the year.
And, in the Maldives, the newly elected government, emerging from the country’s recent transition to democracy, is setting as one of its first tasks to start saving to buy somewhere else to live. 380,000 people live on the Maldives and the highest land point is less than 3 metres above sea level.
“We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome. After all, the Israelis [began by buying] land in Palestine,” said [newly elected President] Nasheed, also known as Anni…
He said Sri Lanka and India were targets because they had similar cultures, cuisines and climates. Australia was also being considered because of the amount of unoccupied land available.
“We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades,” he said.
Environmentalists say the issue raises the question of what rights citizens have if their homeland no longer exists. “It’s an unprecedented wake-up call,” said Tom Picken, head of international climate change at Friends of the Earth. “The Maldives is left to fend for itself. It is a victim of climate change caused by rich countries.”
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, November 11th, 2008
Tags: Bougainville, Carteret Island, climate change, frogblog, global warming, green party, Maldives, new zealand
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
isn’t this already happening ?
your high priest Al Gore said in his new gospel ( ‘An Inconvenient Truth’)
that this was already happening
Are you telling me Frog that ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is wrong ?
“The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. ”
if he is wrong on this point what else is he wrong about(hockey stick anyone?)
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He WAS wrong on that point and I think one other minor issue. He himself admitted that later IIRC.
The theory of increasing temperature driven by CO2 remains valid despite the crazed theories of the right-wing blogosphere. Someplace along the line you missed the point that the science isn’t real ambiguous and Mann’s problems with statistics do not “disprove” anything. All they do is make the certainty of temperature proxy analysis by his methods, a lot lower. The problem is that a LOT of people have used a LOT of methods to analyze pre-thermometer temperatures and they have ALL come to the conclusion that the earth is warming quickly (in geological terms).
Talk to us, so we can relieve you of the ignorance the blogosphere elsewhere has imparted.
BJ
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I’m not a geologist and I don’t know where to find the proof either way, but I’d bet that the islands are sinking faster than the sea is rising and so this isn’t really a climate change story. The Carteret Islands are in a very geologically active zone where the crust moves up, down or sideways alarmingly often (remember the Gizo tsunami last year?) and the linked news story says that “waters around the atoll have risen 10 centimetres in the past 20 years“, which is much faster than the global sea level rise. What the world needs: peace, sustainability, justice, and competent science journalists.
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Fair comment pm67nz… let me think about where I might find that.
respectfully
BJ
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Yeah… google is your friend here. It would take me longer to get someone who might have proper measurement of the island’s altitude above Mean-High-Water according to the WGS84 geoid.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080801000714AAzS9oV
Not climate refugees. Not yet.
respectfully
BJ
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Speaking of refugees, is Keith going to champion the cause of this guy now?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10542391
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The latest issue of Forced Migration Review is on climate refugees, there’s loads of debate about numbers and definitions, so you can’t put a figure on it, but it’s clear that people are being displaced by the impacts of climate change.
See http://www.fmreview.org/climatechange.htm
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He WAS wrong on that point and I think one other minor issue. He himself admitted that later IIRC.
really ? he admitted it ?
I thought “An Inconvenient Truth” was going to be included in the school syllabuses as the definitive work on global warming, and we all know it won an Oscar so it must be correct
is he going to publish a retraction so all the new converts can learn the truth or is that just too Inconvenient?
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pm67nz makes a very valid point.
Coral atols are often what remains of an ancient extinct volcano. The weight of the volcanic column slowly sinks back down into the oceanic crust. If the coral dosen’t grow faster than the column is sinking, the atoll will aventualy disappear beneath the waves.
This has nothing to do with global warming and claiming it does is just propaganda preying on anyone ignorant of the geology involved.
This is almost certainly the case with Carteret Island, and greenies that promote science as the foundation of their concerns should really know better.
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Panda
Do you have any thoughts that actually involve the operation of something like working brain cells or is it all just parrot-speak from the garbage dump of the right-wing blogosphere?
Since the news that is at least 2 years old one would have expected you to have noticed much earlier. Since you haven’t actually raised any substantive issues I have to wonder if you have any substance.
Frog made a small mistake. Science is a process of correcting errors and refining theories. We corrected this error.
Gore made a small mistake. He corrected his error. I personally don’t think he went far enough, but it is there.
Here is what his spokesperson provided to the media
“· Pacific island nations needing to evacuate. On December 6, 2005, The United Nations Environment Program announced that a small community living in the Pacific island chain of Vanuatu had to relocate due to sea level rise. In addition, in 2005, the people of the Carteret atoll in Papua New Guinea announced their imminent evacuation and the government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to be ready to evacuate islanders. We acknowledge that the wording of the film here is unfortunate; however, the potential effects of global warming on human displacement as a broader topic is a matter of critical importance, which we believe warrants the attention of the global community. The IPCC estimates that 150 million environmental refugees could exist by the year 2050, due mainly to the effects of coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption.”
As for the truth… well it IS inconvenient… ( and it has a well known liberal bias too ). Gore’s piece was informational, not rigorous science but a distillation of the impact that the science predicts on human civilization. His presentation is broadly accurate (The Judge’s words, not mine) and quite well done. I can argue science. I don’t actually give a toss what Gore said or didn’t say. I just know that some specific points have been addressed repeatedly in the years since he did it, and there are a lot of lies about what he said in places on the net that are “information challenged”.
If you do find something NEW to contribute I’ll be happy to figure out what the problem with it might be. We have however, done all the easy stuff here, so you’re going to have to work pretty hard.
BJ
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Shunda – I already agreed about that. The only person not on board with it (in the sense that he hasn’t answered in the affirmative) is Frog himself at this point. – BJ
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“Speaking of refugees, is Keith going to champion the cause of this guy now?”
Guess it depends on whether his human rights get trampled like Zaoui’s did.
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Once again, the actual science shows the greens are ignorant alarmists:-
“New Zealanders being misled by unfounded claims about sea level rises”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0708/S00012.htm
This time with graphs:-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12 /12we18.htm
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Once again Wat shows that he is a credulous and insulting person.
The scientist in question has neglected something that we’ve shown here more than a few times. This is an interglacial, not a transition from glacial to interglacial.
The transition he is relying on as an example that defines what will happen now took 5000 years and gave at best 8 degrees of temperature difference. A rate of 0,0016°c per year. Conservative I will call it 0.002°c per year. This last century has seen 0.022°c per year. Ten times the rate giving it every break. This guy is not a climatologist, he’s a specialist in prehistoric sea-level changes. He is using an environment that is an order of magnitude different from what is happening now, to predict what is going to happen next.
Worse, CO2 concentration has about a 30 year lag in its effects on climate. CO2 in the paleoclimate studies never exceeded 30 ppm increase in 1000 years. We had 30 ppm in the last 17 years. Geologically this is a step function. Hit a complex system like climate with an impulse like that and predictability and stability are gone.
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Hmmm.. hit post-by-accident key. Shame about that but it’s late and I was almost done.
The point is that the situation now is NOT the situation the scientist in question studied and he is not an expert in climate science. He should know better.
Good press of course, but lousy science.
He’d not have gotten his OPINION past a peer-review.
respectfully
BJ
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Wat Dabney,
When it comes to climate change, I listen to the experts, that is the climate scientists, not Frog, not Gore, and definitely not you. Who do you listen to? It can’t be the climate scientists, because they are saying something quite different to what you are saying.
On a lighter note, there is a science fiction book you might like (seriously) called “Fallen Angels”, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn. You can download it for free (legally) from here:
http://www.baen.com/library/067172052x/067172052x.htm
The story is about the world entering a new ice age because an authoritarian Green government has forced everyone to cut back on polluting (the idea being that the only thing stopping the world entering an ice age is our current emissions of CO2 etc). Whilst the idea makes for a good story, it is still science _fiction_.
Cheers,
Miuela
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bjchip,
He is an expert in variations in sea levels, which is the topic here.
The fact that he doesn’t buy into your alarmism should tell you something.
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Wat
He is an expert with an opinion that is based on climate changes for which he has no prior example in any paleoclimate he has studied. That makes it an opinion. The fact that he is discussing it with the media rather than submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal should tell YOU that it is an opinion. .
He is no more expert in this than I am, and quite possibly over focused on the past climates he knows so well.
Go read “Fallen-Angels” – Pournelle writes a good yarn and his politics would agree with you… though if you aren’t a Science-Fiction Fan you may spend quite some time nutting out the inside jokes
respectfully
BJ
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bjchip,
- “He is no more expert in this than I am”
Well. I have certainly underestimated you. I will certainly give more weight to your opinions in future.
Just for the record, could you perhaps list some of your studies on this subject of sea level changes? How does it compare with the ones mentioned in the above link, by the professor you compare yourself to?:-
Mörner, N-A, 2005. Sea level changes and crustal movements with special aspects on the eastern Mediterranean. Z Geomorph. NF, Suppl Vol 137, p 91-102.
Mörner, N-A, 2004d. Changing Sea Levels. In: Encyclopedia of Coastal Science (M Schwartz, Ed), p 284-288.
Mörner, N-A, 2004c. Sea level change: Are low-lying islands and coastal areas are under threat? In: “The impacts of climate changes. An appraisal for the future”, p 29-35. International Policy Press.
Mörner, N-A, 2004b. The Maldives Project: a future free from sea level flooding. Contemprary South Asia, 13 (2), p 149-155.
Mörner, N-A, 2004a. Estimating future sea level changes. Global Planet. Change, 40, 49-54.
Mörner, N-A, Tooley, M & Possnert, G, 2004. New perspectives for the future of the Maldives. Global Planet. Change, 40, 177-182.
Mörner, N-A, 2002. Livello dei mari e clima (Sea Level Changes and Climate). Nuova Secondaria, 10/2002, p 43-45.
Mörner, N-A, 2001. Global and local sea level changes: the interaction of multipleparametres (hydrosphre, cryosphere, lithosphere, ocean dynamics and climate). Schr. Deutschen Geol. Gesellschaft, 14, 3-4.
Mörner, N-A, 2000b. Sea level changes in western Europe. Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Autumn 2000 Ed, p 31-36, ICG Publ. Ltd.
Mörner, N-A, 2000a. Sea level changes and coastal dynamics in the Indian Ocean. Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Spring 2000 Ed, p 17-20, ICG Publ. Ltd.
Mörner, N-A, 1999. Sea level and climate. Rapid regressions at local warm phases. Quaternary International, 60, 75-82.
Mörner, N-A, 1996b. Rapid changes in coastal sea level. J. Coastal Res, 12, 797-800.
Mörner, N-A, 1996a. Sea Level Variability. Z Geomorphology NS, 102, p 223-232.
Mörner, N-A, 1995. Earth rotation, ocean circulation and paleoclimate. GeoJournal, 37, 419-430.
Mörner, N-A, 1995b. Recorded sea level variability in the Holocene and expected future changes. In: Climatic Change: Impacts on Coastal Habitation (D Eisma, Ed), pp 17-28.
Mörner, N-A, 1995a. Sea Level and Climate—The decadal-to-century signals. J Coastal Res., Sp I 17, 261-268.
Also, when you provide your list of research in this area, which ones would you recommend for novices like the rest of us?
And just what evidence have your studies unearthed which lead you to dismiss his conclusion that “observational data do not support the sea level rise scenario. On the contrary, they seriously contradict it.”?
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Wat
Once again, he knows nothing whatsoever about sea level changes in the face of a climate changing as this one is. I didn’t say I knew as much as he does about paleoclimate and sea-level-changes. I said that given the rate of change of THIS climate he knows no more than I do about what will happen next.
Which is what you ignored in order to go for the cheap shot.
His expertise in past climate change of this sort and related changes in sea level is not in evidence in your list because THERE IS NO SUCH STUDY POSSIBLE.
It has never occurred before.
If you could point to an instance of such and his corresponding study of it I might concede that he knows somewhat of the topic, but that is not the case.
Permit me to enlighten you about what is LIKELY as opposed to what belongs to the irrelevant past…. 0.8 to 2.0 meters.
http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112253
Now that’s about what my back of the envelope gave me.
The problem of course is that whatever it is we GET it isn’t going to just stop because of a big New Years Eve party. If it hits 2 meters in 2100 it will be 5-7 by 2200. IMHO the people who are alive to celebrate New Years Eve 2099 will curse us all to hell for squandering the chance to stop this while we still could.
You are also still ignoring the other problem with the CO2.
Frankly this monomania of yours complete with opinions from scientists who really OUGHT to know better than to compare the transition from glacial to interglacial to an event that is wholly contained within the interglacial. Moreover, you ought to be a lot more worried since this doesn’t actually resemble anything that has happened before. The end result may be predicted roughly, given that there have been comparable levels of CO2 back when BOTH ICECAPS WERE COMPLETELY GONE… with the temperature only one degree warmer. The sudden release that we are engineering is almost certain to induce “ringing” in the system… with no knowable results at all.
Which means that all the study that Mörner has done is irrelevant to the future he is attempting to predict from it.
Which puts him on the same footing as me when it comes to making predictions… and leads me to wonder why he is doing it.
BJ
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bjchip,
You are inventing entirely spurious objections simply because the evidence doesn’t fit with your masturbatory global warming fantasies.
- “His expertise in past climate change of this sort and related changes in sea level is not in evidence in your list because THERE IS NO SUCH STUDY POSSIBLE.”
So we can invent any number we like! And the more alarming the number we pull out of our backsides the more it demonstrates our piety.
No. I prefer the scientific approach. Let me quote the good professor:- “The recording and understanding of past changes in sea level, and its relation to other changes (climate, glacial volume, gravity potential variations, rotational changes, ocean current variability, evaporation/precipitation changes, etc) is the key to sound estimates of future changes in sea level.”
That sounds entirely sound and reasonable to me. Of course the problem, from your point of view, is that the necessary conclusion is that “observational data do not support the sea level rise scenario. On the contrary, they seriously contradict it.”
- “scientists who really OUGHT to know better than to compare the transition from glacial to interglacial to an event that is wholly contained within the interglacial.”
Except of course, he isn’t. That just something you invented.
- “IMHO the people who are alive to celebrate New Years Eve 2099 will curse us all to hell for squandering the chance to stop this while we still could.”
Or they might look back at the cooling that began around the year 2000 and wonder why it took so long for frothing-at-the-mouth alarmists to finally lose all credibility?
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Wat
If you want to equate a situations that are an order of magnitude different in their basic dynamics and call it science you’re welcome to maintain your delusion. You will accept as reasonable whatever the hell you think will agree with your ideological conclusion that it can’t be happening.
Neither the acidification of the ocean, nor the temperature rise at 10x any previous known rate, nor the CO2 rise at 50x any previously known rate has any effect whatsoever on the possibility that the WAIS might break loose or a fair chunk of the GIS might slide or the oceanic food chain might collapse. Mörner, for all his experience and expertise in ancient sea levels, is whistling in the wind.
The satellite data…
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003RG000139.shtml
His actual affiliation with INQUA
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3868_morner_exposed.pdf
A sample of the criticism of Morner’s work can be found here. He is largely ignored at this point. Most people outside the right wing blogosphere don’t think his point of view is valid.
http://tinyurl.com/6bn3v9
He’s comparing situations that are not remotely similar, drawing conclusions by ignoring data, not providing sources for his data and in no recent papers is he peer reviewed. He has an opinion.
———–
As for finding an acceleration in the rate of sea level rise… that bit is going to be well-nigh invisible in just the satellite data (given the time spans and timing) and it is unlikely that splicing the satellite to the tide-guages is all that indicative but they are showing different rates.
After the warming, after the drought, after the famine, after the wars… the LAST thing that happens is the ocean rises to cover the mess we made.
Certainly it is the last thing that I worry about. We may well not get global warming at all due to the nuclear winter that sets in over the rubble of civilization.
… and you STILL don’t have any response to the acidification of the ocean due to the CO2 levels.
.
Your arguments are “he’s an expert” when he isn’t an expert in what is happening to us NOW.
- “scientists who really OUGHT to know better than to compare the transition from glacial to interglacial to an event that is wholly contained within the interglacial.”
Except of course, he isn’t. That just something you invented.
His comparisons and precedents do NOT correspond to periods in which the temperature went up ten times faster than any previous record in the middle of an interglacial. I didn’t “invent” that, I pointed it out. It is a fact.
Cooling? In the midst of a hard solar minimum? Good grief I should HOPE so. Does the past 8 years have any significance to the measure of climate?
I point you at my Quaker friend again. The temperature trend is upward.
http://tqe.quaker.org/2007/TQE158-EN-GlobalWarming.html
There is a long lag between what happens to the air temperature and what happens to the ice. Less of a lag with the sea temperature but the ocean temps change slower. The WAIS is the wild-card. It is grounded below sea level.
Under the conditions we have now? I say 1.4 to 2 meters.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n1/full/ngeo.2007.28.html
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/%7Estefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_scie nce_2007.pdf
You’re welcome.
BJ
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