Are Temperatures & Sea Levels Rising Dangerously? No!
There are two widely held climate-change beliefs that are simply not accurate. The first is that there has been a statistically significant warming trend in the U.S. over the last 20 years. The second is that average ocean levels are rising alarmingly due to man-made global warming.
Neither of these perspectives is true; yet both remain important, nonetheless, since both are loaded with very expensive public policy implications.
To refute the first view, we turn to data generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the relevant years under discussion.
The table below reports the average mean temperature in the continental U.S. for the years 1998 through 2019*:
1998 54.6 degrees
1999 54.5 degrees
2000 54.0 degrees
2001 54.3 degrees
2002 53.9 degrees
2003 53.7 degrees
2004 53.5 degrees
2005 54 degrees
2006 54.9 degrees
2007 54.2 degrees
2008 53.0 degrees
2009 53.1 degrees
2010 53.8 degrees
2011 53.8 degrees
2012 55.3 degrees
2013 52.4 degrees
2014 52.6 degrees
2015 54.4 degrees
2016 54.9 degrees
2017 54.6 degrees
2018 53.5 degrees
2019 52.7 degrees
*National Climate Report – Annual 2019
It is apparent from the data that there has been no consistent warming trend in the U.S. over the last 2 decades; average mean temperatures (daytime and nighttime) have been slightly higher in some years and slightly lower in other years.
On balance–and contrary to mountains of uninformed social and political commentary—annual temperatures on average in the U.S. were no higher in 2019 than they were in 1998.
The second widely accepted climate view—based on wild speculations from some op/ed writers and partisan politicians–is that average sea levels are increasing dangerously and rationalize an immediate governmental response.
But as we shall demonstrate below, this perspective is simply not accurate.
There is a wide scientific consensus (based on satellite laser altimeter readings since 1993) that the rate of increase in overall sea levels has been approximately 0.12 inches per year.
To put that increase in perspective, the average sea level nine years from now (in 2029) is likely to be approximately one inch higher than it is now (2020). One inch is roughly the distance from the tip of your finger to the first knuckle.
Even by the turn of the next century (in 2100), average ocean levels (at that rate of increase) should be only a foot or so higher than they are at present.
None of this sounds particularly alarming for the general society and little of it can justify any draconian regulations or costly infrastructure investments.
The exception might be for very low-lying ocean communities or for properties (nuclear power plants) that, if flooded, would present a wide-ranging risk to the general population.
But even here there is no reason for immediate panic. Since ocean levels are rising in small, discrete marginal increments, private and public decision-makers would have reasonable amounts of time to prepare, adjust, and invest (in flood abatement measures, etc.) if required.
But are sea levels actually rising at all? Empirical evidence of any substantial increases taken from land-based measurements has been ambiguous.
This suggests to some scientists that laser and tidal-based measurements of ocean levels over time have not been particularly accurate.
For example, Professor Niles-Axel Morner (Stockholm University) is infamous in climate circles for arguing–based on his actual study of sea levels in the Fiji Islands–that “there are no traces of any present rise in sea levels; on the contrary, full stability.”
And while Morner’s views are controversial, he has at least supplied peer-reviewed empirical evidence to substantiate his nihilist position on the sea-level increase hypothesis.
The world has many important societal problems and only a limited amount of resources to address them.
What we don’t need are overly dramatic climate-change claims that are unsubstantiated and arrive attached to expensive public policies that, if enacted, would fundamentally alter the foundations of the U.S. economic system.
Read more at Independent Institute
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Mark Tapley
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The global warming, I mean climate change fraud initiated by the Zionist elite Club of Rome as part of the globalist parasites scheme to control the “environment” which means everything while imposing a carbon credit scheme along the way for ongoing profits to the insiders while damaging the global economy and bringing down the living standards of the barnyard animals no matter what government planation they are penned up in. This climate hoax (as in Holohoax) paved the way for lots of insider profits along with economic waste and inefficiency as the politically connected subsidies were rolled out to line the pockets of the favored few from the various boondoggles including windmills, solar and the ethanol scam that no one would be doing without gov. support. These Zionist schemes are always easy to spot. They always involve big money for the elite parasites (like Armand Hammer shill Al Gore) and economic deprivation and loss of natural rights for the rest of us.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Dominick,
“It is apparent from the data that” the Earth no longer revolves about the Sun nor rotates about its polar axis. And your comments to clarify (correct?) this fact does not change that average yearly, monthly, or daily temperatures are nonsense. Especially when the maximum and minimum temperatures measured during the previous hour are reported to commonly differ by a degree or more and that some specific hours these max-min temperatures , commonly but not always, differ by several degrees as air and surface temperature rapidly warm or cool for easily observed reasons.
Especially critical to observe, and than explain, is the magnitude of cooling which occurs when the atmosphere is cloudless, and the atmosphere’s measured relative humidity is less than, say, 70%, during the entire nighttime.
Have a good day, Jerry .
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MattH
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In the video referenced Dr Moore presents photographs of islets which have their rock bases undercut by waves lapping at those bases. Clearly no sea level rise or possibly a little to-ing and fro-ing.
Dr. Patrick Moore: 12 Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom
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Jerry Krause
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Hi MattH,
But such photos do not show how much lower world’s sea levels were when the last glaciers covered the northern portions of the Northern Hemisphere’s continents. But just as we can see and lines trace the share of Lake Agassiz in North America; It would seem some must have looked unwater for evidence such wave and tidal action when the sea levels were much lower, it they were. For the lack of such evidence seems to suggest the possibility that the proposed Northern Hemisphere glaciers were not near thick as it is imagined they were.
Have a good day, Jerry
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MattH
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Hi Jerry.
You are correct of course although included in Dr Moore’s presentation is the commonly presented graph showing the approximately 240 feet sea level rise as the glaciers melted with earth’s warming, the sea level rise tailing off around 15,000 thousand years ago.
That graph shows the curve flattens off to 1 to 2 millimeters per year but Dr Moore argues that with the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period, the little ice age and our current warm period the sea level would have had subtle rises and falls.
The photographs of the islets are in quiet equatorial waters where water lapping at the rock base has undercut that base by a twelve feet undercut. For this to occur would require a relatively stable sea level for thousands of years, in times more recent than when the glaciers dumped boulders in your paddocks.
Have a nice day and night. Matt
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Jerry Krause
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Hi MattH,
You are demonstrating that you are a SCIENTIST. You have an interest and you seek out information relative to your interests. We have quickly come to a period of time when out observations exceed our abilities to put all the subtle pieces (observations) together.
And you wrote: ” although included in Dr Moore’s presentation is the commonly presented graph showing the approximately 240 feet sea level rise as the glaciers melted with earth’s warming, the sea level rise tailing off around 15,000 thousand years ago.” But you subtlety wrote this without a question mark and I believe you question what has really been observed which forces the conclusion of 240 feet sea level change? As I do. For given present technology it would be so easy to find some evidence of a similar under cut at that lower level.
And we are illustrating the productivity of having simple conversations like this without debating each other when we really do not know all the details (which maybe exist but are not yet seen by the ‘right’ person who will pass the observed information on to others as you have just done. So much is forgotten that was observed at one time.
Good work!!!
Have a good day,, Jerry
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MattH
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Hi Jerry.
Correction. According to the graph the accelerated sea level rise began around 15,000 years ago and tailed off to minor rise around 8,000 years ago.
Dang!