More evidence that rising sea levels are a conspiracy theory (4 Viewers)

[Marcel]

There is far more truth in that than many will realise. Population is a significant source of heat pollution so population growth is a serious issue - even before you add in the heat from all the farming and transport etc etc etc..

When I was in school in 1957, aged 13, the International Geophysical Year, we had to do an IGY science experiment. Remember we were all war babies and much smaller than the current generation because in our critical first years rationing was in force.

My class did an experiment where all the children were weighed, the lightest, heaviest and the nearest the average were all sealed into a cardboard box each with a thermometer sticking out the side and we timed how long each student took to raise the temperature inside the box by x degrees. We then had to determine how much heat, in btu's each student was emitting.

It worked out that the typical student was emitting the very close to the same amount of heat as a 60 watt incandescent light bulb and that the heat emitted by each child was proportional to their weight. To validate the results a 60 watt incandescent light bulb was sealed in one of the boxes and this showed our calculations were correct.

Those of you aged over about 50 should be able to remember how hot those things were. I would say the average modern 13 year old probably radiates about the same heat than a 100 watt light bulb.

Now add to that the fact that many of those people require air-conditioning to keep their personal environment at the temperature they prefer and that all this heat, plus the heat generated by the air-conditioning machinery, is dumped into the local atmosphere and you will see why heat islands exist in and around major dwelling area. In the attached link the temperatures in Atlanta vary from around 18C to around 28C depending on how dense the population is.

Urban Heat Island: Atlanta, Georgia - NASA Science

Urbanization does more than just transform ecosystems, it also changes fundamental variables that influence weather and climate, such as land surface

science.nasa.gov

View attachment 860139

You are absolutely right that this contributes to warming up. But it's just a very small part in this.
The reason why cities radiate so much more heat than the surroundings is the stone and concrete. More green would absorb energy by evaporating water. No such luck in cities with the roads, buildings and less and less green gardens.
Heat is always produced, but the isolating layer of CO2 disrupts the balance.

 

[MiTasol]

Another factor is the materials used in houses and roads/footpaths.

Blacktop roads get a lot hotter than white (concrete) roads and radiate the heat back into the atmosphere causing localised heating.

Dark tile roofs again get much hotter than light coloured roofs and again radiate the heat. On top of that tiles leak air in and out of the roof space far more than other roofing materials that keep the airflow much lower so that the roof space needs less insulation. This has been known for decades but people are still allowed to have dark tiled roofs.

 

[SaparotRob]

View attachment 860139

Fake news! It's a close up of a pizza.

 

[MiTasol]

With lots of super hot chilli's imbedded.

 

[frankv]

Earth scientists say changes in sea levels are the result of tectonic plate movement and can demonstrate many examples of the sea levels both rising and settling.

Not really. I've done a little study of Earth Sciences and live in a tectonically active country. What Earth Scientists actually say is that the land rises or falls, not the sea level. Sea level changes are global and caused by climate, tectonic changes tends to be local (which can still extend for thousands of miles). You have to raise an area the size of Australia (7 million square km) by 50 metres to raise sea level by one metre (oceans are 360 million square km).

So, for example, in 2016 the 2nd biggest earthquake to hit NZ in ~200 years raised the seabed around Kaikoura by up to 2.5 metres over an area of perhaps 1,000 square km. Do the math on how much that raised the sea level. Although it presumably raised the tide gauges at Kaikoura by 2-3 metres, completely out of the sea, it didn't measurably change the sea level. Conspiracy theorists in the future will point to this adjustment of tide readings at Kaikoura as evidence of scientists fiddling with the data.

 

[frankv]

Many people don't deny global warming; they just have a problem with the idea that it is man-made. But they are lumped together with those who deny it is happening. If in fact it is not man-caused it may be cyclical. If so, we are not doomed. If it is the result of man's doing, it probably will contimue, as large portions of humanity are not inclinrd to change their habits, no matter what the "experts" say.

There is very clear evidence that climate change is man-made. The reason that the "not manmade" and "not happening at all" people are lumped together is that both lots are ignoring the science because they don't want to address the problem.

But what is causing it is actually not very important. The fact that there have been warmer climates millennia ago is also irrelevant. The key point is that our infrastructure is optimised for the current climate. We have built more-or-less hurricane-proof buildings where we get hurricanes *now*. We have built ports for the current sea level. We have built bridges for the current width and flow of rivers. We have built roads and cities where there are no floods or avalanches now. Changes to climate will mean that bridges, buildings, cities, roads, farms, pretty much everything will be inadequately built and improperly located.

So our existing infrastructure will no longer be as safe and reliable as it once was. It will be expensive to keep it where it is, or it will be expensive to move it. Look at the 9th Ward of New Orleans. Millions of dollars has gone into upgrading the flood protection, but it will be flooded again. Much of it is still uninhabitable. Despite this, some people have patched up their houses because they can't afford to move. Think about this happening in a large port city near you.

 

[MiTasol]

Many people don't deny global warming; they just have a problem with the idea that it is man-made. But they are lumped together with those who deny it is happening. If in fact it is not man-caused it may be cyclical. If so, we are not doomed. If it is the result of man's doing, it probably will contimue, as large portions of humanity are not inclinrd to change their habits, no matter what the "experts" say.

I reject a lot of what "climate scientists" say about sea level rise and what is causing hot spots in the oceans (every one of the dozen or so hot spots I have studied is above or downstream of an active volcano but that does not mean that all are) but I have no doubt that mankind is responsible for a significant percentage of warming issues. The heat islands wherever mankind gathers in large numbers clearly show, often major, local warming. Natural air circulation spreads that heat elsewhere. The amount of heat that every person and animal radiates is a problem and then we get into things like air-conditioning and vehicles. Even electric vehicles radiate considerable heat. Add them all together and, to me, it is undeniable that mankind is responsible for much of the problem. Add to that the fact that volcanic activity is highly variable and currently more active than in the not to distant past and the combination is not good.

 

[ThomasP]

What frankv said, plus:

The various tectonic plates that make up the earth's solid surface actually float on the molten core of the Earth. During the height of the last ice age (about 20,000-40,000 years ago) the ice sheet covering North America was about 2.5 miles thick at its thickest in the center of the continent around the US/Canada border. As you can imagine, an ice sheet 2.5 miles thick in the center of the continent weighed an enormous amount. Just as putting cargo in a ship causes said ship to sit lower in the water, adding that much weight of ice caused the North American Plate to sit lower in the 'sea of molten rock' that all the continents float on. As the ice melted, the weight of the continental 'cargo' gradually decreased until the center of the North American Plate had risen by approximately 1,000 ft to its present-day height above sea level. This phenomenon is called "post-glacial rebound".

As the Antarctic Ice Sheet melts. the same thing will happen to the land mass of Antarctica, though (probably) to a lesser degree. Scientists have made predictions using models based on the known geologic behavior of the past along with computer models, but the issue is extremely complex and they really don't know what the end result will be with any precision. But using frankv's example above, and substituting Antarctica for Australia, and you can see what would happen in general to the sea level - if everything else stayed the same.

Part of what makes predicting the results so complex is that many other things will not remain the same. About 45% of the current Antarctic continental land mass (land crust) is actually below sea level to varying (relatively speaking minor) depths. In addition, what we think of as the land mass (land crust) of Antarctica only accounts for about 25% of the Antarctic Plate. How much of the currently below sea level (ocean crust) Antarctic Plate will rise to any degree as the land crust rises is not known. However, any rise of the current ocean crust of the Antarctic Plate will also cause a rise in sea level.

Another part of the complexity, is that as the Antarctic Plate rises, other tectonic plates may sink, due to the displaced molten rock flowing into the space vacated by the rising Antarctic Plate. This (by itself) could either raise or lower the seal level. Our lack of understanding of the behavior of the Earth's mantle (the region below the Earth's land and ocean crust) makes this currently too complex to model effectively. Questions like "Will the Antarctic Plate stay in one piece and form a dome like the North American Plate did, or will it break up into smaller plates?" is an example of what can make any rendering of high confidence predictions impossible.

Just some more info.

 

[MiTasol]

Not really. I've done a little study of Earth Sciences and live in a tectonically active country. What Earth Scientists actually say is that the land rises or falls, not the sea level. Sea level changes are global and caused by climate, tectonic changes tends to be local (which can still extend for thousands of miles). You have to raise an area the size of Australia (7 million square km) by 50 metres to raise sea level by one metre (oceans are 360 million square km).

So, for example, in 2016 the 2nd biggest earthquake to hit NZ in ~200 years raised the seabed around Kaikoura by up to 2.5 metres over an area of perhaps 1,000 square km. Do the math on how much that raised the sea level. Although it presumably raised the tide gauges at Kaikoura by 2-3 metres, completely out of the sea, it didn't measurably change the sea level. Conspiracy theorists in the future will point to this adjustment of tide readings at Kaikoura as evidence of scientists fiddling with the data.

I was not aware of that result from the "Christchurch earthquake". Very interesting. Often such tectonic plate shifts involve one plate rising and the other being subsumed. Did that also occur in this case?

Last year there was an article in newspapers world wide on how a large man made hotspot in the ocean off NZ's East cape was affecting rainfall and crops in South America. Climate scientists said they did not know what caused this hot spot but it was definitely a result of global warming.

The interesting thing is that particular area has been known to fishermen for many years as the rumbles (because of the background noise) and they dislike it because it stinks of sulphur. The Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii regularly shows volcanic activity at that location. These facts make it clear that the cause of that particular hotspot is volcanic activity. Given that this volcanic activity has been going on for over 30 years to my knowledge at that location I trust the Climate scientists on what caused that hot spot as much as I trust any politician and to me politicians should all be buried, preferably alive, in graves 100 metres deep (because deep deep down politicians are quite good people).

 

[ThomasP]

One more bit of info.

Geologists estimate the overall rise in sea level to be about 400 ft since around 20,000 years ago - the time period of the maximum amount of ice and the lowest sea levels during the last 400,000 years or so.

The reason it was possible to walk from mainland Europe to England around 10,000 years ago was that much of the Earth's water was still tied up in the ice sheets. As the ice sheets melted the Doggerland area gradually became smaller and smaller until it disappeared around 8,000 years ago.

 

[MiTasol]

The English Time Team TV program had several episodes that showed the lowering of sea levels in England since Roman times. One included the lowering in sea levels since the sinking of the HMS Mary Rose.

 

[AerialTorpedoDude69]

MiTasol there are parts of europe where the landmass is rising because of a phenomenon called isostatic rebound. We know that isostatic rebound is causing this because we have access to GPS and altimeter measurements, which shows that while northern England is rising, southern england is falling.

Here's the critical proof about sea level rises: when altimeter and GPS measurements are accounted for, global average sea levels are rising. This is proof that climate change is occurring.