Stefan Rahmstorf wins the AGU Climate Communication Prize, so WUWT compares him to Hitler

Is it the horrors of Hurricane Harvey that have unhinged deniers at WUWT? I don't know, but something has.

There have been two articles bashing Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the world's leading ocean scientists. He is Professor of Physics of the Oceans at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The AGU is awarding him the Climate Communication Prize, which he richly deserves. As some sort of payback, deniers are using the Serengeti Strategy to defame Dr Rahmstorf in two (so far) ugly and ridiculous articles at WUWT.

In the first WUWT article, Charles the Moderator has copied and pasted an unhinged article by someone called Duane Thresher, who has a huge chip on his shoulder against climate scientists. Charles the Moderator included a photo of Hitler because that's what deniers do when they want to smear and defame. It's a Law of Deniers. That article is a nasty denier take on how Dr Rahmstorf took a newspaper to task way back in April 2010, after it published false information about an IPCC report. You can read about this on Dr. Rahmstorf's blog (if you don't read German you'll need to translate).

See the update below for more context.

Circulating ocean waters of the past confuse Eric Worrall in the present, at WUWT

There was a new paper out in Science last week about past changes in ocean circulation. It's from a team led by  L. Gene Henry, a graduate student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. What they were exploring was the past relationship between climate and ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, several thousand years ago. The paper focused on changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).

Young earther, Charles Clough, misleads readers @wattsupwiththat about rising sea levels

At WUWT Anthony Watts published an article by Charles Clough (archived here). He was complaining about an article by Justin Gillis in the New York Times last February, which had the title:

Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries

Here is where the title came from, in the abstract of a paper by Robert E Kopp and colleagues (my emphasis):

GSL [global sea level] rose at 0.1 ± 0.1 mm/y (2σ) over 0–700 CE. A GSL fall of 0.2 ± 0.2 mm/y over 1000–1400 CE is associated with ∼0.2 °C global mean cooling. A significant GSL acceleration began in the 19th century and yielded a 20th century rise that is extremely likely (probability P≥0.95) faster than during any of the previous 27 centuries.

Charles Clough is from the pseudo-religious cult, the Cornwall Alliance. He has signed a "declaration" rejecting climate science, which blatantly and falsely claims in part that "Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history." He's a sworn science denier. Charles is also a young earth creationist as indicated on this YouTube session (the link goes straight to the segment at 21 minutes 18 seconds in. You'll have to skip the advert). Charles Clough thinks the earth was created at the same time as the mythical creation of Adam, 6,000 years ago.

Absurd levels of cranked up disinformation from Bob Tisdale at WUWT

This article will be short, I promise. It will be much shorter than Bob Tisdale's latest protest (archived here). Bob's posted a bunch of charts that show just how hot February was. The contrast between Bob's first lot of charts and what he wrote is quite extraordinary. (Bob then fudged the next lot of charts to make the warming go away, which is typical behaviour from him.) Bob thinks that people are silly to react to this chart of global mean surface temperature - and this is only since 1997!

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature since 1997. Data source: GISS NASA

Global sea surface temperature and model projections, with Bob Tisdale

A couple of days ago at WUWT Bob Tisdale posted a whole heap of charts of sea surface temperature and compared them to CMIP5 models (archived here). He was doing his usual thing of complaining the climate models don't model weather. He wrote:

The climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are not simulating climate as it exists on Earth. 

What he was really complaining about was that:

The multi-model mean of climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are not simulating climate as it exists on Earth. year to year variations in the weather as recorded by the older version of Reynold's OI v2 data, when looking at some sections of the ocean. 

Well, they aren't meant to do that. Climate models are for, you guessed it, climate not weather. The CMIP5 models are used for climate projections as well as learning more about particular aspects of climate. They are pretty good when it comes to global projections. Not as good (but not that bad) when looking at large areas like entire oceans. They are not intended to be used for weather forecasts. (Bob wants them to time ENSO events at the same time as they happen. That won't happen. There are other models specially developed for localised projections looking ahead a few months.)

There were some charts that were noticeable by their absence, so I figured I'd fill in the gaps in his article.

Climate things to do - a short round up

This is just to let you know of a few things that you might have missed.

First, Skeptical Science is doing a reader survey. So pop over and let them know what you like best about SkS - here's the link.

Then there's an in-depth article about Exxon at Inside Climate News. It's about how Exxon invested quite heavily in climate research at a time when few people were talking about CO2 and global warming. Before the IPCC was set up. It's a real eye-opener. The authors: Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer, are to be congratulated for their excellent research, as well as a highly readable article.

There's another new paper out disputing the so-called "pause" in global warming. It's about how the so-called "pause" fails a blind test. It has just been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The authors are Stephan Lewandowsky, James S. Risbey and Naomi Oreskes. The paper can be downloaded here.

Peter Sinclair of ClimateCrocks fame has a wonderful video featuring Stefan Rahmstorf - it's only just over six minutes. It features Stefan's beautiful photography, as well as his passion for climate science. Do go and read the article and watch the video. For the lazy ones, here's the video - but go and compliment Peter, too:

References

SkepticalScience reader survey

Exxon: the road not taken - article by Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer at Inside Climate News

Stephan Lewandowsky, James S. Risbey and Naomi Oreskes. "The “Pause” in Global Warming: Turning a Routine Fluctuation into a Problem for Science" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 2015 ; e-View doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1 (open access)

Stefan Rahmstorf – A Scientist’s Mind, and an Artist’s Eye - article and video from Peter Sinclair of ClimateCrocks.com

It was cold in the 1930s, really it was (compared to now)

There's little if any quality control at WUWT. Blog-owner Anthony Watts doesn't have what it takes to do the job, according to his friend Willis Eschenbach. And I'm inclined to agree with Willis, which makes a change, since I don't often agree with him.

Today there's an unsophisticated article that Anthony's posted (archived here). It's by someone I've not come across before to my knowledge, Sheldon Walker. Sheldon is wanting to tell WUWT readers about the change in trends in global mean surface temperature since records began.

Satellites rule in deniersville, except when sea levels are rising

Science deniers at WUWT are a funny lot. Their sole purpose in visiting denier blogs seems to be to sing the refrain "it's not happening", with the occasional faint chorus of "if it is it's not bad". WUWT deniers in the main haven't got quite as far as "if it is bad, there's nothing we can do about it".

Some of Anthony Watts' guest articles are good illustrations of that. There was a "guest essay" by David Middleton  yesterday (archived here) about a press release on the NASA website about how quickly sea levels may rise.  The press release was consistent with other recent estimates that seas will probably have risen by a metre or more by the end of this century or early the next, particularly if we stay on our current emissions trajectory (and maybe even if we don't).

David Middleton, who you might recall thinks all lizards are the same, wanted to reject the NASA article outright, claiming that "The only way sea level rise could approach the high end of the IPCC range is if it exponentially accelerates…". And he drew a chart with an exponential curve. Having made that wrong statement and putting up his exponential chart, he then drew a wrong conclusion, writing: "The rate from 2081-2100 would have to average 20 mm per year, twice that of the Holocene Transgression. This is only possible in bad science fiction movies."

One major flaw in David's argument was that he assumed that seas would rise according to some smooth chart, either linearly or exponentially. What he failed to factor in was that the main contribution to sea level over coming decades will be from melting ice. Another major flaw was that he himself used data and referenced a paper that showed that seas have risen at more than double his "impossible" rate in the relatively recent past.

ICYMI - there's no stopping the rise in surface temperature!

In case you missed it (ICYMI), a couple of new papers have been published recently, demonstrating that there has not been any "pause" or "hiatus" in surface temperature in recent years. Yes, the rate of increase wasn't as high as it has been in some other periods. However these papers demonstrate that there was nothing different from what can be expected from a warming trend with interannual variability imposed on it.

Change points of global temperature: Cahill, Rahmstorf and Parnell

If you're a fan of realclimate.org (the benchmark of world best practice in climate blogs), then you might remember the change point analysis written up there last December, by Stefan Rahmstorf. The article was called "Recent global warming trends: significant or paused or what?" This new work looks to be on the same topic written as a peer-reviewed paper in IOP Science: "Change points of global temperature". It's open access so you can read it at your leisure.

There's only a two year reprieve if the sun gets cold - though northern countries might feel it

Surprisingly, WUWT has foregone the temptation to tell the people who live in the denier bubble that we're heading for an ice age and the Thames is about to freeze up. Then again, Anthony hasn't mentioned any of the extreme weather of the past few weeks either. He might be busy attending to his big announcement that he promised would arrive this last week, but didn't.

About the sun - others haven't been so reticent. The Royal Astronomical Society (not to be confused with the Royal Society) put out a press release about a conference paper that was apparently presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales earlier this week. It looks as if it's part of a long time project of Prof Valentina Zharkova, of the Department of Mathematics and Information Sciences at Northumbria University.

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UPDATE:  See below. I've just listened to a NZ Radio National interview with Valentina Zharkova (h/t Hot Topic NZ). She comes across as another "it's the sun" person who doesn't understand climate. So she isn't to be taken seriously when it comes to climate. That doesn't mean that she's wrong about her magnetic harmonic dynamo theory. It does mean she is way out in her estimate of what it will mean for climate. It's probably wise to wait for her published paper and see if it stands scrutiny. Meanwhile anything she says about climate is to be ignored.

Sou - 11:03 am 13 July 2015

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Hottest May on record at NOAA. Has the "pause" gone for good?

NOAA has released the global analysis for May 2015. It reports that May was the hottest on record, beating the 2014 record by 0.08°C. NOAA has May higher than GISTemp, but that doesn't mean a whole lot.  For one thing it's only one month. For another, GISTemp does change as it receives reports from around the world. Not all data comes in at the same time.

Here is a chart with both GISTemp and NOAA data. The chart includes 2015 year to date average, which might or might not drop as the year progresses.

Data sources: NOAA and NASA GISS

You'll notice that the Y axis is shifting higher. If it stays hot this year, any "hiatus" looks as if it will be nothing but a memory soon, with all the other hiati, sorry, I mean hiatuses of the past.

Steve McIntyre's big blooper - mistaking water mass movement for water temperature!

Update: see below for the latest bit of continuing obstinate idiocy from Steve McIntyre, plus another diagram, plus another reference.

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There are undoubtedly a few knowledgeable people chuckling or groaning over an article Steve McIntyre wrote on his blog last week. In case you are, like me, loathe to visit a blog where the author has a tendency to both conspiracy ideation and alleging the work of scientists is a "scam" and their results "fake", these here are the nuts and bolts (as I understand it).

Steve McIntyre mistook water mass movement for temperature (archived here). Or more correctly, he mistook a measure which was used to indicate water mass movement as being used to indicate water temperature.

If you're wondering how anyone, even a climate science denier, could possibly make such a silly mistake, read on.

Slowing ocean circulation prompts more Mann bashing from deniers at WUWT

Update: The Rahmstorf paper is getting more important by the minute. Now there are not one, not two, but three protest articles by Anthony Watts in the space of a few hours. You'll be surprised (probably not) that what Anthony thinks refutes the study actually lends support to it. See below.

Added by Sou 6:30 am 26 March 2015

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There is a new paper in Nature Climate Change by Stefan Rahmstorf and others, which is getting a lot of protest from deniers. This signifies that it is potentially an important paper. Stefan has written about it at realclimate.org.

What the research suggests is that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may have slowed a lot in the late twentieth century (particularly between 1970 and 1990). This is attributed to the influx of fresh cold water, primarily from melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Change points in global surface temperature: and by what magic is earth warming?

Quite often you'll read deniers claiming that the earth is warming by magic, or supernatural forces. No denier will ever use the words "magic" or "supernatural". They'll pick a euphemism, like "Little Ice Age" - though how an ice age caused warming I've yet to see anyone explain.

An ice age won't cause cooling or warming. An ice age is a state not a force. Sometimes a fake sceptic will add that it's because of a recovery from an ice age, as if warm was a natural state and cold an unnatural state. Yet that would require an explanation of how earth got into the unnatural state and what forced it out of that unnatural state. A lot of deniers think of climate as a bouncing ball minus the forcing that causes the ball to bounce. And they don't seem to mind that the bounce up in the global surface temperature is showing no sign of bouncing back down, although some of them swear that we're heading for an ice age - any day now.

Occasionally there'll be a vague explanation for the unnatural state, usually something to do with the sun - but with little enthusiasm.  (The sun may have played a minor role during the Little Ice Age, recent research points to the cause of it being heightened volcanic activity, which is thought to have driven changes in the ocean which caused more cooling. See papers below.) And when one asks, well what about the decline in solar forcing recently - why hasn't it cooled down? You'll be lucky to get a response.

Denier deception: Rising seas get the better of Wondering Willis Eschenbach at WUWT

In the past three days, WUWT has been busy denying and rewriting a lot of science. Global warming, of course. Rejecting the greenhouse effect and global warming is the bread and butter of WUWT.

This time they've gone to the extent of promoting "an ice age cometh" battiness from Bob Carter, who warns of an impending ice age starting this year and ending in 2050. It's a very little "little, little ice age".

Then WUWT took a diversion and branched out into ozone hole denial - courtesy of Tim Ball. I think it might be the first time they've outright rejected ozone science. It's another sign that Anthony is scrambling to shift the Overton Window back to where he wants it. It's been shifting too far toward reality for his liking.

Wondering Willis Eschenbach thinks seas won't rise, despite melting ice sheets

Today there's Wondering Willis Eschenbach (archived here), supporting his mate Anthony who is of the view that sea level can't possibly rise as much as projected. Willis wrote in flowery prose about something he read in an AAAS Newsletter. He quoted it as:

Virginia Panel Releases Coastal Flooding Report. A subpanel of the Secure Commonwealth Panel of Virginia released a report containing several recommendations for dealing with risks posed by coastal flooding. The report, which is largely based on data from a 2013 report by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, predicts a sea level rise of 1.5 feet within the next 20 to 50 years along the Virginia coast.

1.5 feet is 45.7 cm - so keep that number in mind when you read the rest.

I got carried away again doing research, so this article is quite long. If you're on the home page, click read more if you want to, um, read more :)

Denier weirdness: Anthony Watts protests physics - ice doesn't melt in the heat? Get real!

Seas could rise dramatically in the next several decades if we don't cut carbon emissions

If we don't rein in carbon emissions, seas could rise by two metres by the end of this century, and won't stop rising there.  Within three hundred years, sea levels could be more than four metres higher than they are today!  Bye bye many coasts, towns and cities of the world.  I wonder if Richard Tol and Bjorn Lomborg have worked out how much it will cost the world to move Mumbai (pop 17m), London (8.5m), New York (20m), most of Florida, half of Jakarta (26m) and so on.

Anthony Watts once again rejects the notion that when ice gets hot enough it melts.  Yes, really.  He does.  He's done it before - here and here and here.  Today he boldly states that the world's leading experts are not "working in reality".  (Archived here.)

What causes seas to rise - in reality?

What happens when there is a rise in greenhouse gases?  Earth gets warmer.

What do you think happens when it gets warmer?  People who know about ice figure that more ice melts when it gets warmer.  They will tell you more than that, if you listen politely and don't scoff about "reality".  The ice experts will tell you that when ice melts it turns into liquid water.

People who know about liquid water on land, like from melting mountain glaciers, will tell you that when there is lots of water it usually finds its way into the sea.  People who know about ice sheets will tell you that as they get warmer their flow to the sea will often speed up.  If the water hasn't already melted by then it soon will once it's in the sea.

People who know about sea level will tell you that when there is more water in the sea, sea level rises.

A survey was done of experts in sea level, who'd listened to the experts in ice, who'd listened to the experts in atmospheric physics.  These experts contributed their knowledge of sea level.  It's not as straightforward as I wrote above.  There are large uncertainties.  From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research:

Projecting sea-level rise, however, comes with large uncertainties, since the physical processes causing the rise are complex. They include the expansion of ocean water as it warms, the melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps and of the two large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and the pumping of ground water for irrigation purposes. Different modeling approaches yield widely differing answers. The recently published IPCC report had to revise its projections upwards by about 60 percent compared to the previous report published in 2007, and other assessments of sea-level rise compiled by groups of scientists resulted in even higher projections. The observed sea-level rise as measured by satellites over the past two decades has exceeded earlier expectations.

“It this therefore useful to know what the larger community of sea-level experts thinks, and we make this transparent to the public,” says lead author Benjamin Horton from the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “We report the largest elicitation on future sea-level rise conducted from ninety objectively selected experts from 18 countries.” The experts were identified from peer-reviewed literature published since 2007 using the publication database ‘Web of Science’ of Thomson Reuters, an online scientific indexing service, to make sure they are all active researchers in this area. 90 international experts, all of whom published at least six peer-reviewed papers on the topic of sea-level during the past 5 years, provided their probabilistic assessment.

The survey finds most experts expecting a higher rise than the latest IPCC projections of 28-98 centimeters by the year 2100. Two thirds (65%) of the respondents gave a higher value than the IPCC for the upper end of this range, confirming that IPCC reports tend to be conservative in their assessment.

The experts were also asked for a “high-end” estimate below which they expect sea-level to stay with 95 percent certainty until the year 2100. This high-end value is relevant for coastal planning. For unmitigated emissions, half of the experts (51%) gave 1.5 meters or more and a quarter (27%) 2 meters or more. The high-end value in the year 2300 was given as 4.0 meters or higher by the majority of experts (58%).

While we tend to look at projections with a focus on the relatively short period until 2100, sea-level rise will obviously not stop at that date. “Overall, the results for 2300 by the expert survey as well as the IPCC illustrate the risk that temperature increases from unmitigated emissions could commit coastal populations to a long-term, multi-meter sea-level rise,” says Rahmstorf. “They do, however, illustrate also the potential for escaping such large sea-level rise through substantial reductions of emissions.”

B..b..but ice can't melt wails Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts protests.  He reckons ice can't melt in the heat because it hasn't all melted yet.  He puts up various charts of sea level rises and says: Look it hasn't happened yet so it's not going to happen, even if we burnt enough carbon to heat the world by six degrees!

He doesn't use those exact words, but that's what he's arguing - archived here.  Rising seas really bug Anthony.  His little brain cannot cope with the fact that seas rise and fall as ice melts and freezes.  Anthony writes:

So, neither tide gauges nor satellite measurements suggest acceleration is occurring. Even if we use the worst case value, 3.2 mm/year cited by CU in a linear calculation……we get this:

years left 2100-2013= 87 years

3.2 mm/year * 87 years = 278.4mm  or 0.2784meter…about a quarter of the 1 meter (or more) claim made by Rahmstorf.

Rahmstorf isn’t working in reality.

Anthony thinks that 90 of the world's leading specialists from 18 different countries are not "working in reality".  He is also trying on the Serengeti tactic of ignoring 89 of the 90 experts and focusing in on one expert, Stefan Rahmstorf - with mild success as the comments show (the worst comments are not repeated below).

Anthony Watts knows all about unreality...

Working in WUWT "reality"...

Funny thing is that deniers are the first to argue that just because global temperatures have been rising dramatically doesn't mean they'll continue to do so.  Anthony Watts has, with a completely straight face, posted articles that predict that earth is about to cool dramatically.  Like David "funny sunny" Archibald's prediction that earth will suddenly get cold.  Colder than it was in the little ice age.  Colder than it was in the entire Holocene.  And all this within seven years!  :

Source: Adapted from Jos Hagelaars

From the WUWT comments

I don't think any normal person bothered to comment on the article at WUWT, probably because of Anthony's silly take on the matter and his rejection of the fact that ice melts when it gets hot enough.  Some WUWT-ers accept the fact that seas are rising but don't want to do anything to slow it down. Others are like Anthony Watts and reject the science of water phase changes.  (Archived here)


phillipbratby says "experts don't know nuffin'":

November 22, 2013 at 8:17 am
Oh no, not more expert projections. How many times have these “experts” been correct?

Doug Proctor says "it's a falicy":

November 22, 2013 at 8:27 am
The linear fixation is based on either a belief in or a refutation of the linear effect of rising CO2 concentrations. That is the falicy that needs to be beaten down. All fall from that.

Bob B. says hopefully that global warming might suddenly come to a complete standstill in January 2100:

November 22, 2013 at 8:49 am

“While we tend to look at projections with a focus on the relatively short period until 2100, sea-level rise will obviously not stop at that date.”

Do we really know with any certainty that it will not stop at that date? It has to stop at some point. I guess the word “obviously” is meant to squelch that question.

son of mulder idly wonders if any of the world's leading experts have studied rising seas in any details and says:

November 22, 2013 at 9:03 am
Is there a quantified breakdown into the magnitude of the different components that make up the predicted one meter rise. eg thermal expansion, melting glaciers, melting Greenland, melting Antarctic, what else? Which are the big contributors? It would then be interesting to look at the evolution of the history of each component so that necessary changes in rate can be pinned down and the underlying expected components more deeply examined as too root cause of change. It will be far more interesting than holding a poll.

Pete Smith sez 'we've put a man on the moon' and asks are we men or mice? Adapt or die (excerpt):

November 22, 2013 at 9:14 am
...We’ve put a man on the moon. We’ve got a 30 year old space probe at the heliopause, at the edge of our solar system. We’ve got telescopes in space that can analyzer the atmospheres on planets hundreds of light years away. There is a nuclear powered partially autonomous robot tank trundling around another planet FGS.

And they’re worrying about a 1m rise in sea level.

What are we? Men or Mice? Our forebears colonised a hostile world, and some of us are losing sleep over the fact that in 3 centuries, the sea may be very slightly higher than it is now.

Adapt or die people.

Colin agrees with Pete Smith says (excerpt):

November 22, 2013 at 9:59 am
...Thanks Pete – very well put. Adapt or die…….our ancestors did. Why are we such timid creatures all of a sudden?

I guess Pete Smith and Colin eschew silly things like fire extinguishers, seat belts and life jackets.


Despite landing on the moon and all the other achievements lauded by Pete Smith, 1sky1 says "there aren't 90 people in the world who know about oceans and ice":

November 22, 2013 at 11:00 am
The fact of the matter is that there aren’t 90 persons in the world who are truly expert on the complexities of sea-level variations. But that becomes immaterial when the myopic standard of recently published papers is used as the criterion of expertise. It flies in the self-indulgent, make-believe world of academia.

Mike Maguire thinks that if we burn all the fossil fuels the impact will suddenly stop and everything will go back to the way it was.  He hasn't heard of the carbon cycle or know anything about geology, physics or probably any science.  He thinks looking ahead 300 years is way too long. (I wonder how he copes with using light years in astronomy?)  He suffers from "short-termism" disease.  He says:

November 22, 2013 at 9:14 am

“Overall, the results for 2300 by the expert survey as well as the IPCC illustrate the risk that temperature increases from unmitigated emissions could commit coastal populations to a long-term, multi-meter sea-level rise,” says Rahmstorf”

Projecting out to the year 2100 has an extreme amount of uncertainty. Going to 2300 is totally absurd. The world will have run out of fossil fuels to burn centuries earlier. There will either be a new source(s) to replace it or humans will have long since run out cheap energy and the rapidly diminishing supplies cost multiple times what we pay now and only the rich can afford, the small amounts left. This should play out well before the end of this century.

The “results for 2300″ and “expert survey” are a contradiction. No authentic expert (knowledgeable of factors mentioned above) in this field would project to the year 2300. This is 200 years beyond outlandish.

By contrast with Mike Maguire, noaaprogrammer says we should be looking ahead more than 300 years. [Sou: if we look ahead far enough seas will rise much higher]:

November 22, 2013 at 10:52 am
Why do they stop at the year 2300? If we go far enough into the future with their 1st-grader straight line reasoning, we will have global inundation. Is that what Noah, I mean NOAA wants?

Bruce Cobb is another one who uses his common sense to say that ice can't melt in the heat and says:

November 22, 2013 at 9:26 am
“Expert assessment: Sea-level rise could exceed 1 meter in this century”
Common sense assessment: SLR, which has been rising at about 6″ per century for centuries will probably continue to do so, or even decline slightly due to expected cooling.

Jim G can't make up his mind about whether science is right or not and, in a very mixed up comment, says:

November 22, 2013 at 9:28 am
Sea Level! And so, since there is nothing we could do about it, even were it true, and even were it due to activities of people ( which it is not) as opposed to naturally occuring events, and since China and India are not going to change their ways, WTF? Most of us do not live on the coast, in any event, and the costs of even trying to change it in terms of human suffering are probably greater than any potential benefits, assuming one could do anything about it. Forgetaboutit.

tadchem says - who cares about the next generation?  It's all about me in the here and now:

November 22, 2013 at 10:03 am
The “high-end estimate below which they expect sea-level to stay with 95 percent certainty until the year 2100″ translates to “they are 95% sure sea level rise will be LESS than that.”
It makes no sense to worry about the sea level in 2300 before 2200 at the earliest; that will still be beyond the lifetime of anybody able to think rationally in 2200.

JimS says bravely "I'm not scared.  No, really - I'm not scared...not scared...not scared..refuse to panic...":

November 22, 2013 at 10:50 am
The warmist alarmists use projections as scare tactics, like the result of what rising sea levels will be or could mean. They are like a lion roaring at you from a close distance, but when you look into the lion’s mouth, it has no teeth. Regardless, the lion’s roar will scare you, and some even into a panic mode.

TRM is down deep in denial, even by WUWT "standards" and says:

November 22, 2013 at 10:55 am
What if the whole idea that CO2 will heat the Earth up is WRONG? Oh we never thought of that because we know that isn’t true. What happens to ocean levels when the Earth cools? Uhhh …..

As much as I hope Dr Libby was wrong I’m thinking it will take another ice age to get rid of these ID10T types.

Anymoose says:

November 22, 2013 at 11:36 am
The whole sea level rise bogey man is a bunch of B.S. There are hundreds of ports around the world with docking facilities, some of which have been in use for centuries. Who has ever heard of one of them being abandoned because of sea level rise?

Sou:...any decent planner will make sure new ports are being built higher these days.


Mike Dubrasich takes a pollyanna approach and says:

November 22, 2013 at 12:01 pmHooray for rising sea levels.

MarkW has what he thinks is an ingenious solution and says:

November 22, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Few if any of the buildings currently in existence will still be in existence in 200 to 300 years.
Long before the seas take these buildings, they will have fallen down on their own from old age.
The simple solution is to let these buildings age away, and then not replace them when they do.
A no cost solution to rising tides and cities.

John W. Garrett is very relieved to have a science denier like Anthony Watts telling him what to think and says (excerpt):

November 22, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Thank god for WUWT and Mr. Watts, eh? It’s my “go to” source for information.

Chuck L decides there should be a poll of science deniers to see how sea levels will change:

November 22, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Hey, I have a great idea! We have many scientists, engineers, and other experts posting here. Let’s take a poll of people’s estimates of sea level rise and get it published. It would be at least as valid as Rahmstorf et al’s paper, and most likely, more so.