There are two widely held climate-change beliefs that are simply not accurate.
The first is that there has been a statistically significant warming trend in the U.S. over the last 20 years.
The second is that average ocean levels are rising alarmingly due to man-made global warming.
Neither of these perspectives is true; yet both remain important, nonetheless, since both are loaded with very expensive public policy implications.
To refute the first view, we turn to data generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the relevant years under discussion.
The table below reports the average mean temperature in the continental U.S. for the years 1998 through 2019*:
1998 54.6 degrees
1999 54.5 degrees
2000 54.0 degrees
2001 54.3 degrees
2002 53.9 degrees
2003 53.7 degrees
2004 53.5 degrees
2005 54 degrees
2006 54.9 degrees
2007 54.2 degrees
2008 53.0 degrees
2009 53.1 degrees
2010 53.8 degrees
2011 53.8 degrees
2012 55.3 degrees
2013 52.4 degrees
2014 52.6 degrees
2015 54.4 degrees
2016 54.9 degrees
2017 54.6 degrees
2018 53.5 degrees
2019 52.7 degrees
*National Climate Report – Annual 2019
It is apparent from the data that there has been no consistent warming trend in the U.S. over the last 2 decades; average mean temperatures (daytime and nighttime) have been slightly higher in some years and slightly lower in other years.
On balance–and contrary to mountains of uninformed social and political commentary—annual temperatures on average in the U.S. were no higher in 2019 than they were in 1998.
The second widely accepted climate view—based on wild speculations from some op/ed writers and partisan politicians–is that average sea levels are increasing dangerously and rationalize an immediate governmental response.
But as we shall demonstrate below, this perspective is simply not accurate.
There is a wide scientific consensus (based on satellite laser altimeter readings since 1993) that the rate of increase in overall sea levels has been approximately 0.12 inches per year.
To put that increase in perspective, the average sea level nine years from now (in 2029) is likely to be approximately one inch higher than it is now (2020). One inch is roughly the distance from the tip of your finger to the first knuckle.
Even by the turn of the next century (in 2100), average ocean levels (at that rate of increase) should be only a foot or so higher than they are at present.
None of this sounds particularly alarming for the general society and little of it can justify any draconian regulations or costly infrastructure investments.
The exception might be for very low-lying ocean communities or for properties (nuclear power plants) that, if flooded, would present a wide-ranging risk to the general population.
But even here there is no reason for immediate panic. Since ocean levels are rising in small, discrete marginal increments, private and public decision-makers would have reasonable amounts of time to prepare, adjust, and invest (in flood abatement measures, etc.) if required.
But are sea levels actually rising at all? Empirical evidence of any substantial increases taken from land-based measurements has been ambiguous.
This suggests to some scientists that laser and tidal-based measurements of ocean levels over time have not been particularly accurate.
For example, Professor Niles-Axel Morner (Stockholm University) is infamous in climate circles for arguing–based on his actual study of sea levels in the Fiji Islands–that “there are no traces of any present rise in sea levels; on the contrary, full stability.”
And while Morner’s views are controversial, he has at least supplied peer-reviewed empirical evidence to substantiate his nihilist position on the sea-level increase hypothesis.
The world has many important societal problems and only a limited amount of resources to address them.
What we don’t need are overly dramatic climate-change claims that are unsubstantiated and arrive attached to expensive public policies that, if enacted, would fundamentally alter the foundations of the U.S. economic system.
Read more at Independent Institute
No true conservationist could be happy to see trillions spent for no result. Real conservation works could achieve remarkable results with just a fraction of that.
It should also be pointed out that during this same period CO2 has slowly continued to increase. It’s obvious that CO2 has little to do with temperature variation. Over geologic periods the correlation indicates the opposite of what glorious leader Gore contended. Temperature variation happens FIRST, followed hundreds of years later by similar CO2 variation !
Incidentally, there is no evidence that CO2 increase has EVER had anything to do on our planet with global temperature. Even now CO2 remains 4/100 of one percent of the atmospheric gases.
On sea level, one must take into consideration the entire history over the past 12 to 15 thousand years. Sea level began increasing as our last glaciation began melting. Sea level is now up over 400 feet, and all this hand-wringing has to do with the last few inches. Look at graph of sea level over the past 12,000 years. It becomes obvious what has happened. Something similar occurs in the warm period following every glaciation – namely melting glaciers.
We may certainly be despoiling our planet in various ways, but our influence on temperature is still NIL.
World sea level (independent of local uplift or subsidence), governed by Sun-driven polar-ice loss (melt) or gain (snow), is ALWAYS either rising or falling; stillstand is not an option; ask any geologist.
Right now sea level is rising AND the rate is accelerating (upward curvature of NASA or Church or Jevrejeva sea-level curves, for example).
A very large sea-level rise is beginning, totalling about 3 meters by 2130, nothing to do with CO2, instead driven by the Sun’s strongest Grand Maximum (1937-2004) in at least 9,000 years, its global-warming (and ice-melt) effects delayed decades by ocean thermal inertia …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330912182_Kiribati_atolls_sea-level_rise_accelerating
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341597747_The_Sun_not_CO2_makes_sea_level_rise_and_fall_another_3-metre_rise_imminent
The UNITED NATIONS IPCC pretends our star, the Sun, does not affect Earth’s climate(!), because they have an extreme anti-CO2 political agenda; they also don’t speak to geologists …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331974185_IPCC_next_climate_assessment_report_AR6_due_2022_-_784_authors_but_again_no_geologists
From the article: “For example, Professor Niles-Axel Morner (Stockholm University) is infamous in climate circles for arguing–based on his actual study of sea levels in the Fiji Islands–that “there are no traces of any present rise in sea levels; on the contrary, full stability.”
From the Sydney Morning Herald (12/12/2020) e-mail: ‘Sacrificial canary’: Fiji warns Australia not to let Pacific sink
Fiji’s PM says Australia and other wealthy nations must act on climate change and cannot treat the Pacific like sacrificial canaries in a coal mine.
So, who do I believe – a ‘hands-on’ researcher, or a politian?
some of those South Pacific island nations that were allegedly disappearing beneath the rise have actually been measured and photographed as gaining land mass in the past several decades since the identification of “sea level rise”
IT’S A 1 Degree warmer on a one day and those screwballs are blaming Global Warming/Climate Change and demand we all live in Caves
Mean global temperature shows warming
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/27/globalwarming-1979-2020/