Two recent articles in the Citizen (Sea Level Rise Accelerating" and "Hottest Year on Record") were more notable for what they omitted than what they contained.
Only the Western Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet is melting, a comparatively tiny spit jutting north from the vast continent which is not melting. They omitted the word "peninsula".
Only the southern part of Greenland's ice sheet is melting (and Greenland is nowhere near as warm as it was when the Norse colonized it 1000 years ago - their graveyards are today encased in permafrost.)
Mountain glaciers are melting and some of them (including the Garibaldi glacier in BC and the Tschierva glacier in Switzerland) are uncovering the remnants of old growth forests (far above today's treeline) that carbon date to 7000 years ago. Proxies indicate that temperatures were 2.5 degrees warmer at that time. There is nothing unusual about a warmer climate.
The amount of melt cannot raise sea levels at the rate claimed in the article. Sea level expert Nils-Axel Mrner recently published a paper demonstrating that most of the current "rise" is due to man-made "adjustments" - levels aren't actually rising much at all, and haven't been for years. Sea level is measured both by tide gauges and, since 1992, by satellite altimetry. Professor Mrner was informed that the record had been interfered with to show sea level rising, because raw data from the satellites showed no increase at all.
Another paper (Chen, Feng, Huang 2013) shows that sea levels rose faster in the ten years from 1993-2003 than they have since. Sea levels are still rising but the rate has slowed since 2004. In fact, NASA reported a 6mm drop in 2010!
Measurements don't show any acceleration, and nor did the raw recordings from satellites, so statistical analysis and computer modelling were used to "adjust" the record and get the numbers they wanted. Models are wonderful tools but they aren't evidence and they don't trump measurements.
Hottest year ever? Global temperature is determined by measuring land, sea surface and atmospheric temperatures.
Overall land temps for 2014 do not set a record.
NOAA in their press release claimed there was no El Nio for 2014 in order to give the impression that there was a general overall sea surface warming that could not be attributed to El Nio. However, the Japan Meteorological Agency reports that El Nio conditions have existed since June. This resulted in unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the North Pacific, not caused by greenhouse gasses. Before 2013, the North Pacific had not warmed for 24 years. That is the source of the claimed record warming. There were elevated sea surface temperatures in parts of other ocean basins, but they had no impact on record highs.
As for the most accurate measurements, two satellite atmospheric records (RSS & UAH) show 2014 was nowhere near the hottest year. Had they been added in, temperature would have been brought considerably lower, so they were excluded. Since the hypothesis is that our CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are causing warming, such an omission invalidates their claim.
.If one reads far enough into the NOAA report, one can find the link to the "Calculating the Probability of Rankings for 2014" webpage where they considered the known uncertainty of the global land and ocean annual temperature and rank the chance of 2014 being the warmest year on record at 48.0%, or "more unlikely than likely". This is hardly surprising since the amount by which 2014 is supposed to have beaten the old record is 0.04 degree, with a one-tenth degree margin of error!
Gavin Schmidt, head of NASA GISS, is even less certain - he admitted NASA thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year is just 38 per cent. (Does that mean 97 per cent of climate scientists are 62 per cent certain that 2014 was NOT the warmest year on record?)
The globe warms and cools naturally on regular cycles. These reports are an unethical misrepresentation of the facts from which warmists extrapolate the need for greater control of our behaviour. Control of us seems to be their goal, the temperature is irrelevant.
Art Betke
Prince George
