Catching the Alarmists in a Baldfaced Sea Level Lie

Guest “catching them lying through their teeth” by David Middleton

Unprecedented and Worrying Rise in Sea Levels Poses Serious Threat to Coastal Cities
TOPICS:Climate Change, Environment, Oceanography, Simon Fraser University
By SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY JANUARY 1, 2020

A new study led by Simon Fraser University’s Dean of Science, Prof. Paul Kench, has discovered new evidence of sea-level variability in the central Indian Ocean.

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Underscoring the serious threat posed to coastal cities and communities in the region, the ongoing study, which began in 2017, further suggests that if such acceleration continues over the next century, sea levels in the Indian Ocean will have risen to their highest level ever in recorded history.

The research paper authored by Kench and others, and entitled, “Climate-forced sea-level lowstands in the Indian Ocean during the last two millennia” was published December 16, 2019, in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

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SciTech Daily

An alarmist headline regarding a paper by Paul Kench just didn’t pass the “smell test”. This is the abstract of Kench’s paper:

Sea-level reconstructions over the past two millennia provide a pre-industrial context to assess whether the magnitude and rate of modern sea-level change is unprecedented. Sea-level records from the Indian Ocean over the past 2,000 years are sparse, while records from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans show variations less than 0.25 m and no significant negative excursions. Here, we present evidence of two low sea-level phases in the Maldives, Indian Ocean, based on fossil coral microatolls. Microatoll growth is constrained by low water levels and, consequently, they are robust recorders of past sea level. U–Th dating of the Maldivian corals identified lowstands at ad 234–605 and ad 1481–1807 when sea level fell to maximum depths of −0.88 m and −0.89 m respectively. These lowstands are synchronous with reductions in radiative forcing and sea surface temperature associated with the Late Antiquity Little Ice Age and the Little Ice Age. Our results provide high-fidelity observations of lower sea levels during these cool periods and show rates of change of up to 4.24 mm yr−1. Our data also confirm the acceleration of relative sea-level rise over the past two centuries and suggest that the current magnitude and rate of sea-level rise is not unprecedented. Two intervals of distinctly lower Indian Ocean sea level during the last two millennia occurred during times of relatively low incoming solar radiation, according to an analysis of U–Th dated coral microatolls in the Maldives.

Kench et al., 2019

In case you missed it:

Our data also confirm the acceleration of relative sea-level rise over the past two centuries and suggest that the current magnitude and rate of sea-level rise is not unprecedented.

The acceleration of sea level rise over the past 200 years is due to the fact that it was falling and then static during the Little Ice Age lowstand before it started rising. It’s not a recent feature. It began in the early 1800’s.

Furthermore, neither the rate nor the magnitude of recent sea level rise is unprecedented. The SciTech Daily headline is a baldfaced lie.

The basis of this bit of alarmism:

Underscoring the serious threat posed to coastal cities and communities in the region, the ongoing study, which began in 2017, further suggests that if such acceleration continues over the next century, sea levels in the Indian Ocean will have risen to their highest level ever in recorded history.

Kench et al., 2019

Is the last sentence in the paper:

Collectively, our coral evidence suggests that rates of recent sea-level change are not unprecedented over the past two millennia. However, these rates of rise set a sea-level trajectory that will exceed the elevation of the late Holocene high-stand in the Indo-Pacific in the next century.

(1) Climate-forced sea-level lowstands in the Indian Ocean during the last two millennia | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337953634_Climate-forced_sea-level_lowstands_in_the_Indian_Ocean_during_the_last_two_millennia [accessed Jan 02 2020].

The full text of the paper is available to Researchgate members. Their data indicate that sea level was 0.5 m higher than it is today during the late Holocene high-stand. The “serious threat” alleged by SciTech Daily is that Indo-Pacific sea levels will rise by a bit more than 20 inches over the next 200 years.

Reference

Kench, Paul, Roger McLean, Susan Owen, Emma Ryan, Kyle Morgan, Lin Ke, Xianfeng Wang & Keven Roy. (2019). “Climate-forced sea-level lowstands in the Indian Ocean during the last two millennia”. Nature Geoscience. 1-4. 10.1038/s41561-019-0503-7.