Guest post by David Middleton

Real Clear Science and Real Clear Energy are great aggregators of science and energy articles.  But, invariably, there is always at least one article that merits lampooning, if not outright ridicule… And today was no exception.

Tuesday, May 16

“Alarmist CO2 Headlines Create Confusion”… Yes they do.  Earth has been setting CO2 records since 1809, but it never became headline news before we crossed 387 ppm.

Why you should take hyperventilating headlines about CO2 with a grain of salt — but still be quite concerned

By Tom Yulsman | May 15, 2017

This graph shows carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The last four complete years of the record plus the current year are shown. The dashed red line red line shows monthly mean values, and reveals a natural, up-and-down season cycle. The black line shows the trend after correcting for the average seasonal cycle. (Source: NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory)

Back in late April, there was a spate of hyperventilating headlines and news reports about the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This one in particular, from Think Progress, should have made its author so light-headed that she passed out:

The Earth just reached a CO2 level not seen in 3 million years

Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide hit record concentrations.

That story and others were prompted by measurements at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory showing that the concentration of heat-trapping CO2 in the atmosphere had exceeded 410 parts per million.

Some of you might be thinking this: Since rising levels of greenhouse gases are causing global warming, and myriad climate changes like melting ice sheets and glaciers, then this really was big news story.

And the highest CO2 level in 3 million years? WOW! That certainly justifies the hyperventilating hed, right?

I don’t think so. That’s because the headline is inaccurate, and the story hypes the crossing of a purely artificial CO2 threshold.

[…]

Discover Magazine

While Mr. Yulsman is spot-on in his characterization of alarmist CO2 headlines (“hed” is journalistic shorthand), he then veers right off into alarmist prattle about sea level:

My point is not that we shouldn’t be concerned about continuing to use the atmosphere as a dumping ground for the byproducts of fossil fuel burning. Quite the opposite. We should be moving more aggressively to do something about it. If you have any doubts, check out the trend in sea level since 1880:

Cumulative changes in sea level for the world’s oceans since 1880, based on a combination of long-term tide gauge measurements and recent satellite measurements. (Source: EPA.)

Moreover, sea level rise isn’t something that only future generations will have to deal with. It’s already causing significant challenges. If you doubt that, check out what’s happening in Miami right now.

So yes, we absolutely should be concerned about the rising tide of CO2 in the atmosphere, and doing something over the long run to transition away from fossil fuels.

[…]

But slapping an inaccurate, hyperventilating headline on a non-story to rile up readers is no way to do it.

Discover Magazine

I love irony.  If “slapping an inaccurate, hyperventilating headline on a non-story to rile up readers is no way to do it,” what’s the point in “slapping an inaccurate, hyperventilating” comment about sea level rise?  Mr. Yulsman linked to this article about “what’s happening in Miami right now”…

Miami Beach spends millions to hold back the sea

The city is installing powerful storm water pumps and raising some public streets by an average of two feet.

Sea levels in South Florida could rise up to two feet over the next four decades. That puts Miami Beach – an island three miles off the Florida coast – at risk.

The city is already experiencing sunny day flooding – days when there’s no rain, but high tides push water up through storm drains and flood city streets.

[…]

Yale Climate Connections

“Sea levels in South Florida could rise up to two feet over the next four decades”… No they can’t and this is not happening right now.

For sea level to rise “two feet over the next four decades,” it would have to accelerate to the pace of the Holocene Transgression:

It would take an average rate of sea level rise nearly twice that of the Holocene Transgression for sea level to rise more than 1.5 meters (~5 feet) over the remainder of this century.

Sea level isn’t behaving any differently than it has throughout the Holocene.

Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) “requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible” by 2012.

Recently the American media has begun to notice the of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.

Both figures are higher than a year ago – and the poll was taken before the non-summer of 2008, and the (latest) credit crisis.

Yet anyone looking for elected representatives to articulate these concerns will have been disappointed. Instead, representatives had a higher purpose – . And for the first 90 minutes of the marathon debate, the new nobility outdid each other with calls for tougher pledges, or stricter monitoring. Gestures are easy, so no wonder MPs like making them so much.

It was all deeply sanctimonious, but no one pointed out that Europe’s appetite for setting targets that hurt the economy has evaporated in recent weeks – so it’s a gesture few countries will feel compelled to imitate.

The US Senate has Senator James Inhofe, but in the Commons, there wasn’t an out-and-out sceptic to be found. It was 90 minutes before anyone broke the liturgy of virtue. When Peter Lilley, in amazement, asked why there hadn’t been a cost/benefit analysis made of such a major change in policy, he was told to shut up by the Deputy Speaker.

(And even Lilley – one of only five out of 653 MPs to vote against the Climate Bill in its second reading – felt it necessary to pledge his allegiance to the Precautionary Principle.)

It fell to a paid-up member of Greenpeace, the Labour MP Rob Marris, to point out the Bill was a piece of political showboating that would fail. While professing himself a believer in the theory that human activity is primarily the cause of global warming, he left plenty of room for doubt – far more than most members. The legislation was doomed, Marris said.

MP Rob Marris

<p>Marris had previously supported the 60 per cent target but thought that 80 per cent, once it included shipping and aviation, wouldn’t work. We could have a higher target, or include shipping and aviation, but not both.</p> <p>He compared it to asking someone to run 100m in 14 seconds – which they might consider something to train for. Asking someone to run it in ten seconds just meant people would dismiss the target.</p> <p>“The public will ask ‘why should we bother doing anything at all?’”</p> <h3>Out of bounds</h3> <p>The closest thing to a British Inhofe is Ulsterman Sammy Wilson, Democratic Unionist Party, who’d wanted a “reasoned debate” on global warming, rather than bullying, and recently called environmentalism a “hysterical psuedo-religion”. Wilson described the Climate Bill as a disaster, but even colleagues who disagree with his views of environmentalism are wary of the latest amendments.</p> <p>The Irish Republic is likely to reap big economic gains if it doesn’t penalise its own transport sector as fiercely as the UK pledges to penalise its own in the bill. Most Ulster MPs were keenly aware of the costs, and how quickly the ports and airports could close, when a cheaper alternative lies a few miles away over the border.</p> <p>Tory barrister Christopher Chope professed himself baffled by the logic of including aviation and shipping. If transportation was made more expensive, how could there be more trade?</p> <p>“As we destroy industry we’ll be more dependent on shipping and aviation for our imports!” he said.</p> <p>“When the history books come to be written people will ask why were the only five MPs… who voted against this ludicrous bill,” he said. It would tie Britain up in knots for years, all for a futile gesture, Chope thought.</p> <p>However, Tim Yeo, the perma-suntanned Tory backbencher who wants us to carry carbon rationing cards, said it would “improve Britain’s competitiveness”. He didn’t say how.</p></div> ” data-medium-file=”” data-large-file=”” class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-3877″ src=”http://ift.tt/2pSFX7L&#8221; alt=”sl6_zps417bba83″/> Sea level was 1-2 meters higher than it currently is during the Holocene Highstand. All of the sea level rise since 1700 is insignificant relative to the natural variability of Holocene sea levels. http://ift.tt/2cng8YP

Sea level rise in the Miami area is not accelerating and it is rising at a rate of about 1 foot per century.

The satellite data indicate virtually no statistically significant sea level rise in the Miami area:

I intentionally retained the “seasonal terms and mean” and did not smooth the data because the seasonal variability is real and at least 10 times the magnitude of any secular trends in sea level.

To the extent that there is a trend (R² = 0.0945), the rate of sea level rise in the Miami area is about 3 mm/yr.  This would lead to about 5.5 inches of sea level rise over the next four decades.

A review of USGS topographic maps reveals very little in the way of inundation by rising seas:

<p>The North Atlantic hurricane season has nearly come to an end. As November progresses, the chance of another storm developing becomes <em>smaller</em>. Climatology (last 60 years) tells us that roughly 4 in 10 years see a November storm formation including 4 in 2005 (Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon), Hurricane Michelle (2001), Hurricane Lenny (1999), and Hurricane Kate (1985). Jeff Masters from the <a href="http://ift.tt/2pSExd6 Underground</a> has an <a href="http://ift.tt/2qnUziS; of previous early-November storm tracks especially clustered in the Western Caribbean.</p> <p><strong>So, what has the 2008 season wrought in the North Atlantic and how well did the seasonal prognosticators fare?</strong></p> <p>Even with the expected post-season tinkering of the real-time storm tracks by the folks at the National Hurricane Center, we can provide fairly accurate preliminary numbers. The community at Wikipedia constantly updates many interesting facts about the ongoing <a href="http://ift.tt/2pSFWkd hurricane season</a>.</p> <blockquote><p>Total Named storms (34 knots + one-minute maximum sustained winds): 15<br /> Total Hurricanes (64 knots +): 7<br /> Total Major Hurricanes (96 knots +): 4<br /> Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 132 <!–more–></p></blockquote> <p>The respective forecasts made by <a href="http://ift.tt/2qnM7jA (Klotzbach and Gray)</a>, <a href="http://ift.tt/2pSltMm;, as well as the UK Met Office came in quite close to the actual experienced storm activity. Before handing out trophies, please keep in mind that forecast “skill” is a function of many forecasts over longer time periods. Each of the forecasting outfits prefers to use different techniques and variables to calculate their storm numbers, so we will have to wait until each completes their post-season analysis to determine if they were “right for the right reason” or got lucky.</p> <p>Now, to answer the question: how active was the 2008 hurricane season, we need to define climatology. This is where the tricksters can play pranks on the public. Where is the beginning point of the analysis? How well do we trust the frequency and the estimated intensities of each storm? What metric do we use – number of tropical storms, number of hurricanes, ACE (accumulated cyclone energy), Power Dissipation, or perhaps some complicated statistical measure? All of these questions are entangled in the debate surrounding whether anthropogenic climate change is indeed a modulating influence upon current and future Atlantic hurricane activity.</p> <p>A well-accepted metric which convolves storm frequency, intensity, and duration is called accumulate cyclone energy (<strong><a href="http://ift.tt/2qnOtyM;) and is calculated very simply: take the maximum sustained winds reported by the NHC every 6-hours for all storms (> 34 knots), square this value, and sum over the entire lifetime, then divide by 10,000. In 2007, even though there were also 15 storms, the ACE was only <strong>72</strong> compared to <strong>132</strong> for 2008 with the same number of named storms. This is partially because the storms in 2008 were much longer lived especially Bertha.</p> <p><span are three different views of the Atlantic hurricane climatology depending upon what period you look at. The data is from the NHC Best Tracks without any corrections to the intensity data. </span></p> <p><img src="http://ift.tt/2pSQik0; alt="" /></p> <p>Links to two other time periods:<br /> <a href="http://ift.tt/2qnKaDW /> <strong>1978-2008</strong></a><br /> <a href="http://ift.tt/2pStHnD /> <strong>1944-2008</strong></a></p> <p>Thus, since 1995, Atlantic hurricane activity measured by ACE is hugely variable with feast (i.e. 2005) and famine (1997). 2008 ACE is nearly equivalent to 2006 and 2007 combined, but about half as what was experienced in the record 2005 season. The choice of 30-years is a particular favorite for many researchers in the tropical cyclone community (1978-2007). The second image clearly shows the nearly stepwise increase in ACE between 1994 and 1995. In this reference frame, 2008 ranks as one of the more active years of the past 30. Now, back up to 1944, when admittedly the intensity (and detection) data is somewhat less reliable. However, since the ACE metric is the convolution of an entire year’s worth of storm lifecycle information, and is most sensitive to higher wind speeds, the track data points prior to satellite observation (~1970s) are probably sufficient for this exercise.</p> <p><strong>Final verdict:</strong> When encapsulated in the recent active period in North Atlantic activity (1995-2007), 2008 experienced normal or expected activity as measured by ACE. In terms of a long-term climatology, either the last 30 or 65 years, <strong>2008 is clearly an above average year</strong>.</p> <p>Note: for the Climate Audit seasonal forecasters, especially those that showed exemplary skill (however you wish to measure it), please fill us in on your methodology and perhaps provide guidance for 2009. Or, for those feeling shame about being “blown off track”, time to think of good excuses.</p> <p>Also, a new Science perspective has been published by <a href="http://ift.tt/2qnTBDn et al. (2008) entitled Whither Hurricane Activity?</a> More on that later…</p> ” data-medium-file=”” data-large-file=”” class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-3953″ src=”http://ift.tt/2pStJvL&#8221; alt=”miami3″/>

Miami Beach, Florida topographic maps for 1994 and 2012. The 2012 map has no 5′ contour because it has a 10′ contour interval. However, it is abundantly obvious that Florida is not being inundated.