"Sea Is Rising, But Not From Climate Change" - Fred Singer's WSJ Op-Ed Calls Into Question His Mental Acuity

S. Fred Singer has been notorious in climate science circles for many years. Though ostensibly trained as an "atmospheric physicist" and even with some rocket science background, Singer has proven himself to be one of the most obdurate deniers of global warming.  More recently, as in a Mar. 18 WSJ op-ed ('The Sea Is Rising, but not from Climate Change') it appears he's devolved into full blown senility or maybe early onset Alzheimer's.   The touched -in- the- head simpleton writes:

"Of all known and imagined consequences of climate change, many people fear sea-level rise most. But efforts to determine what causes seas to rise are marred by poor data and disagreements about methodology. The noted oceanographer Walter Munk referred to sea-level rise as an “enigma”; it has also been called a riddle and a puzzle. 

It is generally thought that sea-level rise accelerates mainly by thermal expansion of sea water, the so-called steric component. But by studying a very short time interval, it is possible to sidestep most of the complications, like “isostatic adjustment” of the shoreline (as continents rise after the overlying ice has melted) and “subsidence” of the shoreline (as ground water and minerals are extracted). I chose to assess the sea-level trend from 1915-45, when a genuine, independently confirmed warming of approximately 0.5 degree Celsius occurred.

 I note particularly that sea-level rise is not affected by the warming; it continues at the same rate, 1.8 millimeters a year, according to a 1990 review by Andrew S. Trupin and John Wahr. I therefore conclude—contrary to the general wisdom—that the temperature of sea water has no direct effect on sea-level rise. That means neither does the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide. 

This conclusion is worth highlighting: It shows that sea-level rise does not depend on the use of fossil fuels. The evidence should allay fear that the release of additional CO2 will increase sea-level rise."

Of course, this is absolute nonsense, and the reaction- response of  (real) climate scientists to this offal was not long in coming.  Among the first to respond (WSJ letters, May 16) were Prof. Andrea L. Dutton of the University of Florida, and Prof. Michael Mann of Penn State.  They wrote, in deliberate sarcastic frame:

"Would the Journal run the op-ed 'Objects Are Falling, But Not  Because of Gravity'? That's pretty similar to climate contrarian Fred Singer saying The Sea Is Rising but not from Climate Change.

No, ice is not accumulating on Earth, it is melting. No, Antarctica isn't too cold for melting - warming oceans are eroding the ice from beneath, destabilizing the ice sheet. And no, legitimate scientific conclusions are not reached in op-ed pieces but through careful, peer-reviewed research".

Which begs the question of why Singer didn't get his major climate "find" published in a major journal. Well, most likely because after he sent it in - assuming he did - the referees were unable to stop laughing from hysterics.  That's because they'd know, as the authors write "research shows that sea levels are rising and human -caused climate change is the cause."

The best part is when they give Mr. "Rocket scientist" Singer a basic thermal physics lesson, this is after he writes "the cause of the trend is  puzzle":

"When water warms it expands. When ice warms it melts. To deny these facts is not just to deny climate change. It is deny basic physics."

Among the dumbest takes is seen at the end when Singer scribbles:

"Currently, sea level rise does not seem to depend on ocean temperatures and certainly not on CO2. We can expect the sea to continue rising at about the present rate for the foreseeable future."

To which letter writer Wendy Fleischer responds, citing NASA, via a Feb. 13 paper:

"Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which causes sea level to rise in two ways: first, warmer water expands, and this thermal expansion of the ocean has contributed about half of the 7 centimeters of global mean sea level rise over the last 25 years. Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also increasing sea level across the globe."


Which begs the 2nd question of whether we need to send Singer back to school for a remedial physcs lesson.

In a summary retort from climatefeedback.org we read:

This commentary published by The Wall Street Journal, written by Fred Singer, claims that warming (and therefore greenhouse gas emissions) has no effect on global sea level rise. Although Singer concedes the physical fact that water expands as its temperature increases, he claims that this process must be offset by growth of Antarctic ice sheets.

Scientists who reviewed this opinion piece explained that it is contradicted by a wealth of data and research. Singer bases his conclusion entirely on a cherry-picked comparison of sea level rise 1915-1945 and a single study published in 1990, claiming a lack of accelerating sea level rise despite continued warming. But in fact, modern research utilizing all available data clearly indicates that sea level rise has accelerated, and is unambiguously the result of human-caused global warming.

Since the 1990s for example, satellites have measured an acceleration in the rate of global sea level rise:

Global mean sea level (blue), after removing an estimate for the impacts of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo (red), and after also removing the influence of El Niño (green), fit with a quadratic (black). From Nerem et al. (2018)

REVIEWERS’ OVERALL FEEDBACK

These comments are the overall opinion of scientists on the article, they are substantiated by their knowledge in the field and by the content of the analysis in the annotations on the article.

Chris Roberts, Research Scientist, ECMWF/Met Office:

This article severely misrepresents the scientific understanding of the processes responsible for observed changes in global sea level. Understanding and attributing the causes of changes in global sea level is an area of active research and there are genuine uncertainties, but there is a clear consensus on the important roles for ocean thermal expansion and addition of mass to the oceans from melting glaciers and ice caps during recent decades. For example, the following paper by Church et al. (2008)* summarizes the independent lines of evidence for changes in sea level from satellite altimeter and tide gauge measurements and how these changes can be explained by a combination of thermal expansion and exchange of mass (either liquid water or ice) between the oceans and continents:

Figure – Global sea‐level budget from 1961 to 2008. (left) The observed sea level using coastal and island tide gauges (solid black line with grey shading indicating the estimated uncertainty) and using satellite altimeter data (dashed black line) with thermal expansion and glaciers melting components; terrestrial storage (e.g. dams) partially offsets other contributions to sea‐level rise. (right) The observed sea level and the sum of components.

• Church et al (2011) Revisiting the Earth’s sea‐level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008, Geophysical Research Letters

Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor, Potsdam University:

The article has almost nothing to do with the modern state of sea-level science. The author tries to call into question that global warming causes sea-level rise, and does so by cherry-picking a short segment of data from 1915-1945, a time when data quality is poor and the warming signal small—a bizarre approach that could never pass scientific peer review and is apparently aimed at misleading a lay audience.

Keven Roy, Research Fellow, Nanyang Technological University:
This article is misleading, and presents inaccurate statements about global mean sea level rise.

Other criticisms:  On Singer's reliance on "outdated, cherry -picked data":

Benjamin Horton, Professor, Earth Observatory of Singapore:

This is a blatant case of cherry picking to confirm a Singer’s position while ignoring all other instrumental sea level data that may contradict that position. This fallacy is a major problem in public debate.

Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor, Potsdam University:

It is rather ironic that the author first complains about “poor data” and then goes on to cherry-pick a time of particularly poor data that includes the World War 2 period. Even the temperature data from this period are questionable; the sea surface temperature data show a strong warm peak at the end of WW2 (the basis of his claim of 0.5 °C warming) which is probably a data collection artefact, given that no such warming is seen in the data collected at the global network of weather stations on land. Also, in the peer-reviewed literature it has been shown that minor inaccuracies in sea-level data by just a few millimeters can lead to spurious fluctuations of sea level trends when too-short time intervals are considered*.

• Rahmstorf et al (2011) Testing the robustness of semi-empirical sea level projections, Climate Dynamicsi

So the takeaway from all these climate specialists is that Fred Singer doesn't know what the hell he's writing about. But again, bear in mind it's an op-ed in the WSJ - which as one climate scientist put it "just tells its readers what they want to hear".

With this latest load of pseudoscientific twaddle, Singer has shown himself not only an incompetent agnotologist - from the Greek agnosis, or to sow doubt- but either suffering from premature senility or.....being gracious, now one of the Climate Denier Three Stooges. That would be right along with 'Moe' and 'Larry'......errrrr… Richard Lindzen and Willie Soon.

See also:

https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/sea-level-rise/

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-climate-scientist-fake-exposed.html

Kids "Indoctrinated" By Feds On Climate Change? Get Real!

 
Paul H. Tice,  in a WSJ op-ed ('Schoolroom Climate Change Indoctrination', May 28, p. A15) claims American kiddies are being relentlessly "indoctrinated" on climate change via "teaching materials largely sourced from federal agencies". But who is he kidding? His real beef is that the info and materials aren't coming from the climate change deniers - recently exposed as generating a $140m blitz to try to torpedo the scientific facts on what's happening to our planet.
 -
But see, deniers aren't interested in facts, but supporting a massive campaign of agnotology, or the sowing of doubt in order to promote an unsustainable economic model based on fossil fuels. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/01/as-i-noted-in-earlier-blog-httpbrane.html

Tice is vexed that (ibid.):

"The National Research Council framework for K-12 science education recommends that by the end of Grade 5, students should appreciate that rising global temperatures will affect the lives of humans and all other organisms on the planet. By Grade 8 students should understand that the release of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels is a major factor in global warming. And by Grade 12, students should know that global climate models are very effective in modeling and predicting the current and future impact of climate change."

He then complains of the "reach" - noting "the  learning concepts have been incorporated almost verbatim into the New Jersey Department of Education model science curriculum". He then beefs that the "materials and resources used by instructors in teaching are sourced from government agencies" - to which I respond, 'So what?'

Where the hell else do you think the materials will come from, and at a price the schools and instructors can afford?  Let me correct that, where do you think the scientifically factual materials will come from?  It is precisely the federal agencies,  including the NRC, the NSF (National Science Foundation) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that will be the optimal sources for materials given the volume of work already published.

Tice then claims that relying on such curriculum materials from federal agencies "raises a number of issues". Chief among these is that the materials leave "no room for balanced discussion". What balanced discussion? There is no "balance" in this discussion because there are not two sides to this issue any more than there are two sides to whether the Holocaust occurred.  This is exactly what the economic agnotologists want you to believe: the 2 sides malarkey. Then they can keep the  pseudo debate churning  endlessly while the planet goes down the shitcan.

Tice then commits the most basic error of the scientifically uninformed by averring:

"The science of climate change is still just a theory"...

Oblivious to the fact that a theory  - by definition - has already made confirmed predictions based on the associated observations. In this case - for example  - that the polar regions are warming more rapidly than temperate regions, and that sea level increase is an accompaniment of ongoing climate change, see e.g.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/kiribati-president-buying-land_n_5860064.html

He then, as if to try to make his specious case, asks more questions typical of the scientifically ignorant such as:

"For instance, why has the planet inconveniently stopped warming since the late 1990s even as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise?"

The fact is this is a myth, originating through a goofy, statistical misinterpretation of the data that a high school science nerd ought to have spotted, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/george-will-no-warming-for-last-16.html

In addition, an important paper by Sonia Seneviratne appearing in Nature Climate Change in March last year showed another, secondary source of statistical error inheres in ignoring peak high temperatures over long duration in extended land areas. Seneviratne's team reported a clear rise in the area of land experiencing more than 30 days of harsh heat per year and other regions experiencing more than 50 days of sever heat. Both of these under-reported in satellite assays and hence disclosing a lower mean temperature than should have been noted. The results, the authors state:

"Show that it would be erroneous to interpret the recent slowdown (in the late 90s and early 2000s) as a general slowdown of climate change"   Adding:

"The mean temperature or any single variable is not enough to talk about climate change"

A more recent paper, published in the journal Science on June 4 also knocks down the "temperature pause" bunkum  noting that previous research wasn't accurate because of irregularities in how temperatures are measured on land and sea - basically confirming the research of Seneviratne appearing in Nature Climate Change  a year ago.  The lead author, Thomas Karl, quoted in a related WSJ piece ('Warming Hasn't Slowed, Study Says'. June 5, p. A12) asserted:

"We found that the rate of warming over the past 15 years was no different than the rate of warming in the second half of the twentieth century"

As I pointed out before, the whole boondoggle with this fake pause was unfortunate, given how the climate change skeptics jumped on it to try to bolster their flimsy case and push their agnotology.

Another specious question put forward by Tice is:

"How statistically significant is a 1.4 degree Fahrenheit increase in average global surface temperatures since 1880 for a 4.6 billion year old planet with multiple ecosystems and a surface area of some 200 million square miles?"

But he commits the error of statistical conflation, mixing up different epochs when average temperatures varied wildly, i.e. on account of intermittent Ice ages. Thus, "significance" is only valid for the epoch under consideration.  The key statistical fact Tice ignores? Never has an Ice Age occurred when the CO2 concentration is above 200 ppm, and never has an interglacial lasted very long when the CO2 concentration is less than 200 ppm. It now stands at nearly 396 ppm, and we believe the threshold to trigger the runaway greenhouse effect will kick in between 480- 500 ppm. At even 400 ppm, most climate scientist acknowledge any future Ice ages are out of the question.

Thus, neither the planet's age nor its total area  matters, it is instead all about the given epoch under which we consider the pertinent conditions, namely temperature increase since the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying CO2 concentration and its rate of increase. Let's also not forget the 1.4 F increase Tice references  appears to be less than it actually has been - closer to 2.0 -2.4 F. See also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-new-reality-global-mean-temperature.html

An equally absurd question, but typical of the agnotology -denier brigade is:

"How dangerous is the current level of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere when 400 parts per million expressed as a percentage of the volume of the atmosphere would equate to only 0.04% or approximately zero?"

Here Tice fails to note or process that it is the nature of the molecule as a thermal insulator that renders its proportion in the atmosphere critical, not the proportion in relation to total atmosphere per se.   To fix ideas, Spencer Weart in his excellent article: 'The Discovery of the Risk of Global Warming’, in Physics Today, Jan. 1997, p. 34). pointed out that even a tiny, minuscule amount of CO2 is vastly more efficient at blocking the re-radiation of energy than any amount of water vapor- at those bands. Part of the misconception arose because early researchers, lacking the current technology of infrared spectroscopy, assumed that water vapor bands already blocked out most of what would (ordinarily) be taken by CO2.

But using this stratagem to try to baffle the scientifically illiterate is typical of climate disinformationists like Tice.  "The tiny little number compared to the whole" ....makes it meaningless!   When in fact, the relative increase from an Ice age threshold of 200  ppm to 400 ppm is highly significant, because it means the difference between future Ice ages and no Ice ages. Not to mention further increases at the rate of 2 ppm/year push us into the maw of the runaway greenhouse within 30-40 years.

In many ways this sort of "tiny change" argument resembles that of the pro-Warren Commission disinformers who would have us believe that Gerald R. Ford's "tiny alteration" of the bullet wound placement upwards (from the  third thoracic vertebra level of back,  to the 5th-6th cervical vertebra)  "didn't change a thing". When in fact it literally provided the spurious basis for the idiotic single bullet theory and the lone gunman myth.

But this is the nature of  the bogus craft of agnotologists, pseudo skeptics and disinformationists: to always keep the hoi polloi guessing and in a state of perpetual doubt or denial.  Paul Tice, alas, has taken a page right out of this forlorn playbook.

Hyprocrisy on "Academic Freedom" Exposed Again In Defense Of Climate Change Denier

Most people who pay any attention to the news would only have heard of Roger Pielke Jr. when Nate Silver's 538 blog took him under its wings as some kind of "official" voice re: climate. But as I noted in my March 30 post from last year this is all huff and puff baloney. And Pielke Jr. is no more a real climate scientist than I'm the pope.

According to one profile on Wikipedia:

"Pielke Jr. is an American meteorologist with interests in climate variability and climate change",

 Leaving out all the fulsome  bollocks on his assorted "numerical modeling" skills  this is basically what it all comes down to: his meteorological background. As I noted in a Jan. 2012 post on the climate agnotologists,  citing the Jan.-Feb. 2011 issue of The Columbia Journalism Review,  most meteorologists have a distorted view on climate change- global warming. They can't help it, as NBC's Al Roker also demonstrated,  It's how they're taught, unable to see the "data forests for the trees." In addition, they fail to properly recognize the limits of their own scientific training – and hence the implausibility of their pronouncing on climate science.

 

As one reviewer of his book  The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You About Global Warming,  puts it:

 

"Pielke Jr. is really astonishing in the way he almost completely denies the urgent need to mitigate climate change by greatly lowering global carbon emissions. He does it in a very slick way by masquerading as someone with real and different solutions, when in reality all he proposes is that society do next to nothing about burning fossil fuels.

 

He basically brushes aside climate change as if it were a trivial concern."

 

So no surprise that ultimately someone of authority would wish to investigate Pielke Jr's background and whether he was collecting money from the fossil fuel lobbies or companies. After all. we know Willie Soon - another climate scientist pretender- is in up to his eyeballs with fossil fuel money, e.g.

 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0)'

 

So the ranking Democratic member of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva,  was quite correct to launch an inquiry into the basis for his academic views. Certainly to see if they were his own or being shaped by $$$ from fossil fuelers, as Soon's views are.  Grijalva wrote the University of Colorado demanding information, including Pielke's funding sources, communications and all drafts "of testimony before any government body"

 

Grijalva's interest was to ferret out conflicts of interest, which was totally justifiable. Again, as we saw with Willie Soon's case, even the Smithsonian - under which umbrella he's allowed to operate at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics- took issue with his failure to disclose funding sources.

 

But what was the Post's take in its fulsome Editorial yesterday?

 

"In fact, his gambit amounts to a bold, abusive assault on academic freedom"

 

Please, Spare me the phony  sanctimonious , self-righteous squawking. Because I'd like to know where the hell the Post was some years ago when CU (the same university Pielke's at now) rummaged through all of Prof. Ward Churchill's drafts, academic papers and communications - which they did with no other prof - to find hum guilty of "plagiarism" - after his essay 'On Roosting chickens' came to light. This was an essay written after 9/11 that compared the investment specialists and brokers in the World Trade Center to "little Eichmanns".

 

Every little anti-free speech dunce in Colorado went batshit crazy calling for Churchill's head,  with the university - and the Denver Post - complying in full. The Post hung Churchill out to dry in a number of editorials and op-ed columns, The guy was convicted and hung, drawn and quartered before he could ask why.  The whole episode showed the "free speech" meme for the hypocritical bollocks it was, because while someone could depict Muslims as "ragheads" in cartoons, he couldn't dare call into the question the U.S. role in inciting blowback - as Churchill did.

 

So it's kind of choice now to see the Post going all holier than thou on defending "academic freedom" for Pielke Jr. when they never did it for Ward Churchill.  In fact, they wanted him tossed out of CU as rapidly as possible. No way could a critic of government policy in the wake of 9/11 be allowed to continue to publish his work without hyper-scrutiny and kangaroo academic courts.

 

The Post at the end then quotes Pielke Jr's whining (on his blog) on his departure from climate change research:

 

"The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt. I have already shifted all my academic work away from climate issues."

 

Awwwww,,,,boo hoo hoo, cry me a river, and pass the handkerchiefs. Our hearts bleed for the poor little denier rat.  Just don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, Sparky.

 

And the Denver Post's final take?

 

"It is a sad day when bullies can push honest brokers such as Pielke into another line of research."

 

Balderdash. It's a sad day - really sad - when our supposed objective newspapers can't tell an honest broker from a dishonest one like Pielke Jr. A pseudo researcher whose specious science has helped to probably delay effective action that leaves us all at risk. As I said, good riddance he's out of the climate field so he can't pump out any more of his denier BS.

 

Before anyone sheds a tear for this "honest broker" let's recall Skeptic Science referred to Pielke Jr as a “classic misinformer.  For example, Pielke Jr. claimed:

 

"Not all glaciers and ice caps are melting. While the Arctic Ice for example has been decreasing, Antarctic ice has not"

 

But this is refuted by Skeptic Science here:Arctic sea ice loss is three times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain.

 

To see a comprehensive rebuttal by Skeptic Science of many other of Pielke Jr. claims - go to this link:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/fivethirtyeight-pielke-downplay-climate-damages.html