Remote Islands Drowning From Global Warming?

[Reason]

YouTube - Remote Islands Drowning From Global Warming? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbGU7p3vRI)

[Andrew-Austin]

If there are islands that are pretty much equal to sea level, its not all that hard for natural causes to fuck up the island. Its just his guess that man made global warming is the culprit.

The idea that if we all just start driving hybrids or whatever the island will stop flooding is a bit retarded to me. Maybe they just didn't pray enough to Gaia you know.

[erowe1]

So wait? You mean the world is changing? All of a sudden after billions of years of staying exactly the same, now out of the blue it starts changing on us?

Holy smokes! I'm going to pee my pants!

[Danke]

Check the Science

Well, rather than rely on Brown's "sense" of sea level rise, let's check the instruments. As it turns out, estimates of globally averaged sea level rise in the 20th century are irrelevant since Tuvalu's local sea level change is very different from the globally averaged change. There are three estimates of sea level changes for Tuvalu. The first is a satellite record showing that the sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993 when the hundred-million dollar international TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite project record began. Second comes from the modern instruments recording tide gauge data since 1978. There the record for Tuvalu shows ups and downs of many inches over periods of years. For example, the strong El Nino of 1997-98 caused the sea level surrounding Tuvalu to drop just over one foot. The El Nino Southern Oscillation is a natural - as opposed to man-made -future of the Pacific Ocean, as areas of the Pacific periodically warm then cool every few years, causing significant sea level rises and falls every few years in step with the co-oscillations of the ocean and atmosphere. The overall trend discerned from the tide gauge data, according to Wolfgang Scherer, Director of Australia's National Tidal Facility, remains flat. "One definitive statement we can make," states Scherer, "is that there is no indication based on observations that sea level rise is accelerating." Finally, there is the new estimate by scientists at the Centre Nationale d¹Etudes Spatiales who also find that between 1955 and 1996 the sea level surrounding Tuvalu dropped four inches.

All these measurements show that Tuvalu has suffered, at worst, no sea level rise. So much for Brown's sense of sea level trends for Tuvalu.


Man-Made Problems

That said, there are some local problems that have changed the coastline of Tuvalu and mimic sea level rise. Sand is excavated for building material on Tuvalu. The excavation for building material has eroded the beach, thus giving the impression of rising sea to the casual observer. "The island is full of holes and seawater is coming through these, flooding areas that weren't normally flooded 10 or 15 years ago," according to Tuvalu environmental official, Paani Laupepa.

It is likely that the beach erosion and building on the island caused the sea flooding of areas over the last decade. And that is a true environmental concern. But it is a local, man-made problem that will not be solved with massive cuts in carbon dioxide emission.

An environmental official of Tuvalu, Elisala Pita, is concerned with the alarmism of western eco-imperialists. In an interview in the Canadian Globe and Mail on November 24, Pita says that, "This [coastal] erosion is caused by man-made infrastructure. Tuvalu is being used for the issue of climate change. People are telling all these lies, just using Tuvalu to prove their point. No island is sinking. Tuvalu is not sinking. It is still floating." These small atolls have few natural resources, including fresh groundwater. Catch basins or desalination plants form the only fresh water available.

With such limited resources, the alarmism of western environmentalists will do nothing to help Tuvaluans. Only the scientific facts will.

Dr Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, are co-hosts, Tech Central Station and Associate of the Harvard College Observatory.

YouTube - Chicken Little "The Globe Is Warming!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWnMlUPqnas)