Dear Jennifer, I had a holiday on Lady Elliot Island in October 2013 and while there took the attached photos with the idea that I might send the one of the climate change sign to an Australian blog as an example of Federal Government alarmist propaganda.
Lately the tide seems to be turning against the CO2 global warming scam with the Akademik Shokalskiy debacle in the Antarctic, record polar sea ice totals, the circumpolar vortex in the northern hemisphere and Tom Switzer's article in the Sydney Morning Herald. However with the heat waves lately in Australia the warmists are fighting back with the usual dodgy forecast heat records which are very seldom reached but most people don't question them. I commend you for your open letter to the BOM requesting verification of the 2013 temperature record.
I had another look at this photo of the sign today to work out again how much sea level rise they showed in the graph from 1990 to 2013 and it scaled about 300mm or 13.04mm/year. As another check I scaled the 600mm rise over 57.5 years and only got 10.43mm/year which seemed extremely odd, (I'm a retired land surveyor used to working with graphs).
On further inspection I finally noticed that the 5 year intervals on the x axis read 2010, 2015 then jumped 15 years to 2030 and back to 5 year intervals from 2035 to 2055 which explained the yearly rise difference. The sign writer obviously made a booboo or the original information he was given was wrong. Either way the error should have been corrected before the sign was released for public viewing. The nearest National Tide Centre Gauge at Rosslyn Bay shows a rise of about 2.8mm/year and has only operated since 1993 so the 13mm/year rise on the graph is ridiculous.
As the Great Barrier Reef is in your bailiwick I thought you might be interested in publicising the gross errors on this "way over the top" sign and I assume that a similar one is also on most of the other islands controlled by the GBR Marine Park Authority but you will probably be able to find this out easier than I can. The 03 in the top left corner may be its sign number.
Regards
Sel Hopley
Click on the image for a larger and better view of the entire photograph including the how to save the Island by setting your air con at 25 degrees celsius.
At least I can say I have been to Lady Elliot Island to look at the turtles and birds. It is a coral island and it certainly is not sinking.
I would suggest apart from debris growth under and above the surface all the bird deposits are more than keeping pace with any sea level changes.
Luke's comments, as is normal are not worth reading or answering. One has to wonder if Saki is Luke in disguise or a second rate clone. Saki if you live in SEQ have a look at the weather records (particularly rain) in the 1890's and then again in the federation drought period 1901 to 1915 but then again you probably do not want to look at actual measurements and records (without adjustments) or if you come across them accidentally you dismiss them as not in line with your green inspired beliefs.
Meanwhile the Antarctic has set a new record sea ice extent.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-new-record-for-jan-31st/
And thanks to Luke's study we know that the Antarctic was much warmer from 141 ad to 1250 ad than it is today. So Saki what caused that much warmer period for 1109 years?
Co2 then was about 270ppmv and now 398ppmv. Wakey, wakey.
Perhaps Saki should have a look at Hansen's 1988 graph before he answers any of the above questions.
http://www.thegwpf.org/nasahansen-climate-model-prediction-global-warming-vs-climate-reality/
The climate models are a joke and Hansen's forecasts are a joke as well. Hundreds of billions $ flushed down the drain for a zero return and zip change to temp and climate or SLR or bushfires or cyclones or tornadoes or damage to the GBR or Kakadu etc by 2100.
Of course Saki could be the first to tell us how to fix his problem. Would you like to return to the LIA or MWP or the much warmer Holocene climate optimum etc and have SLs 1.5 metres higher as a result?
And how do you perform this miraclulous change? I suppose you think a co2 tax of 5% of 1.2% of global emissions will do the trick?
Saki,
Of course humans impact the globe. . .like duh!
If there was no such thing as humankind. . .then undoubtedly the planet would be different and most likely planet Earth would have evolved differently than it has.
I would imagine if there was no such thing as ants or perhaps trees. . .then the earth would be different too.
During the last 17 years in SEQ there was a long drought followed by some dramatic flooding. . .are you claiming that the drought and the subsequent flooding in SEQ was caused by humans?
As Robert and Graeme point out above. . .while not pleasant. . .the climate/weather has changed and behaved badly before in SEQ as well as many other places in Australia. . . and will likely do so again.
I also question your use of the phrase 'normal weather patterns'. . .and how you are conflating local SEQ weather patterns with global climate projections.
However. . .in contrast to your observations about SEQ in the last 17 years. . .during the last 17 years GLOBALLY (as opposed to your SEQ region). . .there has been what is commonly recognised as a pause or a hiatus in average temps and SLR despite the also well known facts that human activity and C02 emissions have increased.
So in answer to your questions
No. . .I think humans do have some impact and:
No. . .I think that the climate does change, has changed and is changing and:
I have no idea what your definition of normal would be so no. . .I don't expect it to return to anything. . .especially considering it can't return it can only evolve and continue.
Saki, just to back up your claims, what are the dramatic changes in SEQ in the past 20 years? How confident are you that the conditions of today are significantly different from 50 years ago? 100 years ago? I lived in SEQ for 40 years from 1959, and have been back there many times since 1999, so I have a fair feel for what it's like there, including the hot drought years in the 60s and the floods of '74.
I agree, it has definitely changed some, but the question you have to ask is how much of that matches the projections of the impacts of AGW, and how much different is it now to earlier times?
I posted this yesterday on a different thread, you may find it an interesting read:
http://www.oesr.qld.gov.au/products/publications/qld-past-present/qld-past-present-1896-1996-ch02-sec-02.pdf
Here are the main points and abstract of the Chen et al study covering decelerating global SLR from 2004 to 2012. But the 1993 to 2003 trend of 3.2 mm year has dropped to 1.8mm year from 2004 to 2012. Very similar to the Ole Humlum analysis at Climate 4 you.
Highlights
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GMSL started decelerated rising since 2004 with rising rate 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012.
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Deceleration is due to slowdown of ocean thermal expansion during last decade.
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Recent ENSO events introduce large uncertainty of long-term trend estimation.
Abstract
Projection of future sea level change relies on the understanding of present sea-level trend and how it has varied in the past. Here we investigate the global-mean sea level (GMSL) change during 1993–2012 using Empirical Mode Decomposition, in an attempt to distinguish the trend over this period from the interannual variability. It is found that the GMSL rises with the rate of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr during 1993–2003 and started decelerating since 2004 to a rate of 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012. This deceleration is mainly due to the slowdown of ocean thermal expansion in the Pacific during the last decade, as a part of the Pacific decadal-scale variability, while the land-ice melting is accelerating the rise of the global ocean mass-equivalent sea level. Recent rapid recovery of the rising GMSL from its dramatic drop during the 2011 La Niña introduced a large uncertainty in the estimation of the sea level trend, but the decelerated rise of the GMSL appears to be intact.
Here is the study. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113002397
Interesting to look at rate or trend of global SLR in the Jevrejeva et al study (2008) since the 18th century to 2000.
The trend was much faster during tha late 18th, 19th and earlier 20th centuries than the late 20th century. See figures 3 and 4 of the study on page 3.
http://www.psmsl.org/products/reconstructions/2008GL033611.pdf Certainly the trend from 1920 to 1950 was higher than 1976 to 2000 as well.