Rapid Sea level rise a figment of ABC Groupthink alarmism

Sea level projected to 2100-likely further rise of 17.4 cm by 2100

ABC's Climate Groupthink propaganda machine goes into hyperdrive to support the government's carbon tax, with a report titled "Report outlines worst-case climate damage". Once again little inquiry by the ABC, who are happy to beat the alarmist drum for a government desperate to regain some credibility in the politics of climate change - by being seen to be "doing something", anything. (Ed...Doesn't matter that its proposed tax will do nothing for the environment, in fact it will harm it by reducing our economic capacity to pay for looking after it. The tax will do nothing for global temperatures, it will do nothing to reduce sea level, it will do nothing to reduce "carbon pollution". It's a "feel good" tax that will make no one feel good. Its long term outcome will be one big step backward into a third world lifestyle for all Australians)

ABC's sensationalist report states:
The report, titled Risk to Coastal Settlements and Communities, was commissioned by the Federal Government and assesses the potential damage caused by a worst-case scenario sea level rise of 1.1 metres within 90 years. 
The report identifies $226 billion worth of assets at risk of erosion or being wiped out.

It found up to 274,000 homes are at risk of inundation and erosion along with over 8,000 commercial buildings, and up to 35,000 kilometres of roads and rail around the country.

Sounds pretty scary, but just what has sea level been doing over the last 100 years or so? Based on historical  observations is a rise of 1.1 m realistic? The graph, above, from wikipedia shows sea level rise for the last 120 years (thats 4 climate cycles). If we extrapolate the observed trends 100 years into the future, out to 2100, we can see that (if these non-alarming trends continue) we can expect a further rise of just 17.4 cm! Thats less than the width of an ipad, less than the length of a brick!

The results of such a rise over the next 90 years will be insignificant. ABC's activist reporters appear to have mistaken reality for a Hollywood disaster movie.

One fish, two fish, a red fish, a blue fish

A certain lack of inquiry by the ABC exposed by this post from Watts Up With That...

Data for study based on TWO fish sample size: challenges to Australia’s Climate Comission go unanswered

In a recent ABC story on the study, much was made of the threat of fish dying from hot ocean water when in fact the sample size of the component of the study which looked at the physiological stress on fish consisted of only TWO fish.

The authors admitted: “This result may reflect the small sample size of our experiments, and further work is needed to determine the effect of increasing temperature on swimming activity in banded morwong.”

(See abstract and full text of study here in Nature Climate Change)

Unfortunately Dr Thresher of the University did not inform the listeners to the ABC of this significant limitation to the study and its findings.

and ABC didn't bother to ask!

Here's a few extracts from the paper showing the number of fish used for a critical part of the study was 2 (n=2).

"This thermal limit is also suggested by results from preliminary (n=2 fish) activity experiments for fish from the southernmost (coldest) population where we observed fish performance at the species’ typical spawning swimming speed (~1 m s⁻¹; period of highest activity) and temperatures ranging from 11 to 18 °C (thermal range at sampling site, see Methods)."

"Spawning swimming speeds were determined in the field, off the southeast coast of Tasmania (seeSupplementary Fig. S1), using fish fitted with telemetered accelerometer tags. Preliminary observations of swimming performance in the laboratory were conducted at 11–14 °C, 14–16 °C and 16–18 °C for each fish (n=2 fish and >12 trials, weight=1.8 and 2.7 kg), following the procedures described in ref 30."

Missing News: Little Ice Age

"Vikings arrived in Greenland in the 980s, during a warm period like the present."

ABC seem to have a problem reporting on studies that support natural climate variability. According to prevailing ABC Groupthink, climate change is all man made and it's all due to CO2. It's no surprise then that ABC have not covered a recent study that finds a cold snap in Greenland in the 12th century may help explain why Viking settlers vanished from the island. Thankfully Reuters thought it was newsworthy:

Greenland cold snap linked to Viking disappearance
(Reuters) - A cold snap in Greenland in the 12th century may help explain why Viking settlers vanished from the island, scientists said on Monday.
The report, reconstructing temperatures by examining lake sediment cores in west Greenland dating back 5,600 years, also indicated that earlier, pre-historic settlers also had to contend with vicious swings in climate on icy Greenland.
"Climate played (a) big role in Vikings' disappearance from Greenland," Brown University in the United States said in a statement of a finding that average temperatures plunged 4 degrees Celsius (7F) in 80 years from about 1100.
Such a shift is roughly the equivalent of the current average temperatures in Edinburgh, Scotland, tumbling to match those in Reykjavik, Iceland. It would be a huge setback to crop and livestock production.

LITTLE ICE AGE
Scientists have previously suspected that a cooling toward a "Little Ice Age" from the 1400s gradually shortened growing seasons and added to sea ice that hampered sailing links with Iceland or the Nordic nations.
The study, by scientists in the United States and Britain, added the previously unknown 12th century temperature plunge as a possible trigger for the colonies' demise. Vikings arrived in Greenland in the 980s, during a warm period like the present.

Read the whole article via the link above...

H/T MB

Frances Bell

Scanning over ABC's news archive for Thursday's stories this empty "News" item caught our eye under the headline Frances Bell:

(Screen capture from ABC website 6:46am 3 June 2011)

Frances Bell is the ABC's state political reporter in Western Australia for radio and hosts the WA Stateline program on Friday nights at 7.30pm on ABC1. What news do you have Frances? We hope it's all good, but until it actually contains some news we are unable to include this story in our count of articles for our productivity survey. Count for 2 June down 1 to 278.

Missing News: North Atlantic storm frequency spurious

ABC thus far have not reported on a recent study by Gabriele Villarini, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Thomas R. Knutson and James A. Smith recently published in the JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH. The study asked the question "Is the recorded increase in short-duration North Atlantic tropical storms spurious?". The authors found the answer is: yes.

Here's the abstract:
The number of North Atlantic tropical storms lasting 2 days or less exhibits a large increase starting from the middle of the 20th century, driving the increase in recorded number of tropical storms over the past century. Here we present a set of quantitative analyses to assess whether this behavior is more likely associated with climate variability/change or with changes in observing systems. By using statistical methods combined with the current understanding of the physical processes, we are unable to find support for the hypothesis that the century-scale record of short-lived tropical cyclones in the Atlantic contains a detectable real climate signal. Therefore, we interpret the long-term secular increase in short-duration North Atlantic tropical storms as likely to be substantially inflated by observing system changes over time. These results strongly suggest that studies examining the frequency of North Atlantic tropical storms over the historical era (between the 19th century and present) should focus on storms of duration greater than about 2 days.

ABC have previously shown an interest in studies looking at North Atlantic Storms (HERE and HERE) so we look forward to their coverage of this story that debunks much said on the ABC about the relationship between NA storm frequency and climate change.

image problem - on the back burner

About our inquires about it's problem coordinating headlines and images on the ABC environment site ABC recently replied (13/5/2011)
"ABC Innovation has advised that stories from across the ABC that are filed with no image are randomly assigned an image on the Environment portal from a pool of images. I understand relevant ABC Innovation staff are aware of the discordant match-ups that this system has produced and have been working on a solution. The examples published on your website have been brought to the attention of ABC Innovation management."


We initially advised ABC of the issue on the 4th of April. It's now June and the problem is still not fixed!

ABC's lobster harvester in action.

Productivity survey for 2011

Our survey of ABC news output starts today with weekly updates commencing from next Wednesday.
The survey represents a measure of the productivity of ABC News and is based on the number of unique news stories recorded in ABC's News archive and the total number of news staff as reported in ABC annual reports. Last years survey (see chart below) revealed an alarming drop in output despite increasing staff numbers. Will the trend continue in 2011?