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The myth of melting ice and rising seas


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The myth of melting ice and rising seas
By Sam Khoury
Special to The Nation

 

BANGKOK: -- This month The Nation along with every other news source in the world reported on a massive winter blizzard that struck the US northeast one week before the start of spring.

 

On that same day Agence France-Presse reported that global warming, caused by human activity, was causing arctic sea ice to melt. It seems not a week goes by without some article appearing in the mainstream media about some catastrophic ice melt or sea level rise, usually backed by some scientific research that may not be as definitive as suggested. Is there really a massive loss of global ice and surging rise in sea level? History and the most reliable scientific research say no.

 

Sea levels have been falling since the days of the Roman Empire – the world is dotted with former port cities that now lie kilometres inland. Visit the ancient Roman city of Ephesus in modern day Turkey and you can still see the road that led to the nearby harbour, only now there is no harbour. Ephesus used to overlook a bay, making it an ideal shipping port, but it has since become land. Along the Kent coast of England are more examples.

 

Romney was a port in the 700s. When the sea retreated and it could no longer be used for shipping, it died and was replaced by New Romney, which now lies 2 kilometres away from the sea. The Vikings prospered a thousand years ago at a time climatologists refer to as the Medieval Warm Period.

 

At that time the Belgian city of Bruges was a major port. A few hundred years later the sea had receded and Bruges lay near- abandoned for 400 years. About that time, in an increasingly swampy area up the coast, people started stacking mud in rows on which they built houses, giving them access to the sea in a Venice-like labyrinth. That settlement would become one of the gems of Western civilisation – Amsterdam. 

 

To defend their theory, believers in global warming claim that these ports simply “silted up”, resulting in their downfall. But the historical evidence is overwhelming. In his book “The Mysterious Receding Seas”, structural engineer Richard Guy  produces maps of Upper Egypt dating from the 1500s (some of the oldest maps on record).

 

They show there used to be an elaborate system of canals linking the Nile with the Red Sea that have since disappeared. In the intervening centuries attempts were made to dredge out these canals, but they failed as sea levels were just too low.

 

This brings us to the modern era. Has the global warming that has occurred since the post-medieval cool period ended or reversed this trend? The science is saying no. The articles read in the mainstream media are usually about arctic sea ice. This ice fluctuates between winter and summer and does not affect sea levels (use a glass of water, an ice cube and a marker to do the experiment). The articles also report melting glaciers, but there are many glaciers all over the world that are expanding, including some big ones.

 

And there are more than 150,000 glaciers on Earth. The two landmasses that really control sea levels are Greenland and Antarctica. A Nasa study of Antarctica using satellites concluded that the continent has been gaining approximately 100 billion tonnes of ice a year since the early 1990s while a group of 15 international scientists recently concluded that the Greenland ice sheet is now almost at its greatest extent for 7,500 years.

 

This suggests that the relationship between climate change and icing is complex: global warming doesn’t necessarily equate to melting ice and global cooling doesn’t automatically mean more ice, since the climate temperature has fluctuated since the Roman period whereas sea levels seem to have only gone down. 

 

The answer to this riddle lies in the Earth’s recurring cycles of glacial periods – which last 90,000 years and see a steady accumulation of ice – and 10,000 year inter-glacial periods, which see rapid ice melt in the first part of those respective periods.

 

The last inter-glacial period started around 11,500 years ago. So current concern about modern-day cities going underwater are indeed realistic. But only about 90,000 years from now.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/30309683

 
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33 minutes ago, canopus1969 said:

Does that mean Trump is right        :sorry:

 

No, it means that the author is yet another conspiracy driven, sensationalist, charlatan:

 

The Mysterious Receding Seas (9781413439922): Richard Guy

In this book, nowhere does Richard Guy present peer-reviewed papers, or even ... levels have risen, such as the flooding of the Egyptian Port that Paul visited.

 

Just "discovered" by the "journalist"......the book was published in 2007.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

No, it means that the author is yet another conspiracy driven, sensationalist, charlatan:

 

The Mysterious Receding Seas (9781413439922): Richard Guy

In this book, nowhere does Richard Guy present peer-reviewed papers, or even ... levels have risen, such as the flooding of the Egyptian Port that Paul visited.

It's just another inconvenient truth, again...

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5 minutes ago, shows said:

Who is Sam Khoury? What are his qualifications? And why would The Nation print such nonsense?

It doesn't matter, actually. Instead looking at the article's author qualifications, it would be a more scientific approach to verify his sources such as “The Mysterious Receding Seas” by Richard Guy. The author also cites other pieces of informations which are easily to check and verify, just Google any of the ancient ports in the article and check by yourself, it's that easy....

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Iquot70 said:

It doesn't matter, actually. Instead looking at the article's author qualifications, it would be a more scientific approach to verify his sources such as “The Mysterious Receding Seas” by Richard Guy. The author also cites other pieces of informations which are easily to check and verify, just Google any of the ancient ports in the article and check by yourself, it's that easy....

 

 

 

Why not just Google:

Siltation - Wikipedia

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"Romney was a port in the 700s. When the sea retreated and it could no longer be used for shipping, it died and was replaced by New Romney, which now lies 2 kilometres away from the sea."

 

Meanwhile, Dunwich, in Suffolk has vanished beneath the waves along with several other medieval English ports.  Does this mean that the sea level is rising in Suffolk and falling in Kent?  No, it just means that if you cherry-pick your facts instead of weighing the overall evidence you can 'prove' whatever point you want to prove.

 

Earth's climate is complex and dynamic and is affected by many factors, including the impact of human activities.  The next decade or two should show us definitively how the climate and sea level is changing.

 

BTW, shipping companies are already planning for ice-free arctic summers after 2020.

 

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13 minutes ago, Iquot70 said:

It doesn't matter, actually. Instead looking at the article's author qualifications, it would be a more scientific approach to verify his sources such as “The Mysterious Receding Seas” by Richard Guy. The author also cites other pieces of informations which are easily to check and verify, just Google any of the ancient ports in the article and check by yourself, it's that easy....

 

 

 

Or NASA itself: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

 

 

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1 hour ago, canopus1969 said:

Does that mean Trump is right        :sorry:

No, this article is just written some one that is stupid!
Because clearly the author is either stupid or maybe just a moron as he believe the trolls running around in Trumps head and don't listen to what respected organizations like NOAA and NASA say about it!!!
 

2_22_16_John_CC_NuisanceFlooding_GlobalSLR_720_492_s_c1_c_c.jpg

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NASA my ASSA..

 

 

The scientist Celcius studied the tides in Sweden. 400 years ago he rowed out in a boat to mark high tide on a rock with a chisel.

today you can walk across a field of grass and you need a ladder to climb up to see the mark..... Fact.

 

Northern Europe and North America was compressed by 2 mile deep ice 12 thousand years ago and is springing back up whilst the southern end of the continents are going down. Hence the problem in Louisiana when Katrina hit - the Mexican gulf states have being going down by about 4 inches a decade and the more than a hundred year old Levies are not high enough any more.

 

If you are prepared to believe in sea level rise and I do not. The current predicted rate(2 to 4 millimeters - maybe) for the Northern hemisphere would not get my socks wet if I was standing on beach in my leather brogues  in a hundred years from now.  I have photographs taken back in 1910 in the Shetland Isles North of Scotland that show herring boats tied up at a pier at high tide.....guess what ???

Go there today and the pier is still there and the high tide mark is still the same. The beaches and rock pools I played in as a boy on the North east coast of Scotland are still the same now as they were 50 years ago........

 

Those Pacific south sea islanders btw - do not understand basic geology. They live on coral atolls formed on the rim of  - wait for it - collapsing extinct volcanoes.......... coupled with  the fact the reefs were breached about 20 years ago by severe typhoons and broke the barrier that kept the sea out..... don't believe me check out how coral atolls are formed in the Pacific.

 

Bangladeshis - claim that their mud islands in the Sundarban are going due to rising seas....NO - they cut all the bloody trees and mangroves down that held them together - that is why they are being washed away. Coupled with total decimation of trees holding the mountains soil together up river that causes massive wash out every year with the annual monsoons. 

Note the word ANNUAL - that means every year....and every year the global press reports the flood and rain like it is a total surprise !!!

 

I saw a few years ago a Pakistani farmer on BBC world complaining  his government did not do enough to help farmers like him as his crops got washed away every year........ you can't fix stupid..

 

Satellite detection of "so called rising seas" has only been carried out in the last 20 odd years. Global tide tables are barely 200 years old........so where is the actual datum.?..4 billion years ago. Before there was water or ice .....

 

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Ice masses in Greenland and the Antarctic have a massive gravitational pull. So if they melt and as a result the average sea level rises, levels nearby would fall and levels further away would rise more than the average. So apart from direct observations of the ice sheet thickness and size near the poles, the first clues to a  global rising sea level are lower sea levels in places like Northern Europe and Newfoundland. 

An average 2 degree warmer climate and associated melting of Greenland and the associated global sea level increase, would result in a massive economic boom (more fertile land and longer growing season) to Northern Europe and North America. There are no signs the South Pole is melting, so all the extra water from the north would flow in that direction. The result is significant problems for Africa, South America, South Asia and Oceania. If the Southpole also starts to melt, the countries around the equator would have immense problems. 

 

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" Visit the ancient Roman city of Ephesus in modern day Turkey and you can still see the road that led to the nearby harbour, only now there is no harbour. Ephesus used to overlook a bay, making it an ideal shipping port, but it has since become land."

 

Ephesus was at the mouth of a river that emptied into the Mediterranean Sea.  The river silted up, probably due to deforestation of the surrounding mountains, and the port was abandoned.

 

Port cities built on river deltas frequently find themselves inland centuries later.  Delta building rivers is an ongoing process.

 

Apparently so are rising sea levels.  The ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion is now 2.5 km from shore and under ten meters of water.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleion

 

As otherstuff1957 pointed out, you can prove anything if you cherry-pick your data.  Science requires looking at all pertinent data and developing a credible explanation of the observed phenomena.

 

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3 hours ago, otherstuff1957 said:

Meanwhile, Dunwich, in Suffolk has vanished beneath the waves along with several other medieval English ports.  Does this mean that the sea level is rising in Suffolk and falling in Kent?  No, it just means that if you cherry-pick your facts instead of weighing the overall evidence you can 'prove' whatever point you want to prove.

 

Except Dunwich sank well before the Industrial Revolution thanks to a very well documented series of storms - "cherry-picking" much? :)

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4 hours ago, canopus1969 said:

Does that mean Trump is right        :sorry:

Yes.   In 2016, the worst Polar ice conditions in 20 years forced a  change of plans for an icebreaker on a  'global warming expedition'!

A carefully planned, 115-day scientific expedition on board the floating research vessel, the CCGS Amundsen, has been derailed as the icebreaker was called to help resupply ships navigate heavy ice in Hudson Bay.  The icebreaker has been rerouted to escort commercial ships en route to resupply communities in Northern Quebec on the eastern side of Hudson Bay,  as ice conditions in the area are the worst  seen in 20 years. And.. it' was  mid summer.

 

With reference to the often used '97% of scientists concur',  a major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors. They pointed out that the 97% number had appeared  in a new and unknown journal. (Suspicious)?  The researchers were led by top climatologist Dr David Legates. Their  paper was published in the respected Science and Education journal and it   clearly demonstrated that number was not 97.1%, as claimed, but only 0.3%!
 
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Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers examined by Dr Legates team  explicitly stated that 'Man caused most of the warming since 1950'. 

 

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Irrespective of the differing points of view, the sea level rise is continuing.  The good news is that around 2090 most of Bangkok could be inundated.  The bad news is it is not happening sooner.

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1 minute ago, esprit said:

Irrespective of the differing points of view, the sea level rise is continuing.  The good news is that around 2090 most of Bangkok could be inundated.  The bad news is it is not happening sooner.

No Bangkok. is sinking.  Sea levels fall. Greenland has it's thickest icecap in decades. Next warming in 90K years. Don't

you read the Nation?

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36 minutes ago, TomTC said:

Yes.   In 2016, the worst Polar ice conditions in 20 years forced a  change of plans for an icebreaker on a  'global warming expedition'!

A carefully planned, 115-day scientific expedition on board the floating research vessel, the CCGS Amundsen, has been derailed as the icebreaker was called to help resupply ships navigate heavy ice in Hudson Bay.  The icebreaker has been rerouted to escort commercial ships en route to resupply communities in Northern Quebec on the eastern side of Hudson Bay,  as ice conditions in the area are the worst  seen in 20 years. And.. it' was  mid summer.

 

With reference to the often used '97% of scientists concur',  a major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors. They pointed out that the 97% number had appeared  in a new and unknown journal. (Suspicious)?  The researchers were led by top climatologist Dr David Legates. Their  paper was published in the respected Science and Education journal and it   clearly demonstrated that number was not 97.1%, as claimed, but only 0.3%!
 
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Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers examined by Dr Legates team  explicitly stated that 'Man caused most of the warming since 1950'. 

 

How many of those 11,944 papers stated that evidence suggests human involvement in global warming?  For that matter, how many of these papers were about global climate as opposed to more specific climate issues?

 

Regarding bad weather in the Hudson Bay, no climate scientist has claimed that global warming will prevent storms.  Some models suggest that global warming will make storms worse.  Also, there is a concern that warming oceans will alter Atlantic ocean currents in a manner that will lead to much colder winters in Europe while the rest of the world heats up. 

 

Once again, real scientists don't cherry pick data.

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23 minutes ago, TomTC said:

No Bangkok. is sinking.  Sea levels fall. Greenland has it's thickest icecap in decades. Next warming in 90K years. Don't

you read the Nation?

gave up comics years ago

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Quote

 

In 2016, the worst Polar ice conditions in 20 years

 

 

2016 set a new record for minimum winter extent. It was an extraordinarily hot winter this year and temperature anomalies of up to 20 degrees were recorded so the worst polar conditions for considerably more than 20 years.

 

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Quote

Only 41 out of

the 11,944 published climate papers examined by Dr Legates team  explicitly stated that 'Man caused most of the warming since 1950'. 



Get on your Jstor account and pull all the papers in biology for the last, say, 20 years. Count how many state explicitly that 'God did not create the earth in 7 days'. How many did you find? See. Proved. It's God wot done it. And if you don't like that, pull all the papers on astrophysics and count how many explicitly state that the earth orbits the sun. Hmm. Heliocentrism must be bullshit, too. I guess the Catholic church were right all those years ago and the earth really is at the centre of it all. Or at least that's what the climate change deniers would have us all believe.

 

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The articles' author (Hus)Sam Khoury seems to be a

 

"senior interactive sales executive with over 14 years of experience in creating and executing business, sales and marketing plans" according to his website http://www.hussamkhoury.com. He does not seem to be an expert on climate matters, and he very vaguely referenced on Google. His Twitter account is https://twitter.com/Hussamkhoury

 

He had another article on The Nation in 2015 on roughly the same subject

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/aec/30272650

 

Seems like purchased propaganda to me.

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