Jennifer Marohasy

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Sea Level Fall, Accurately Reported in Local Noosa News

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So much thanks to Peter Gardiner of the local Noosa News for so accurately reporting on Senator Malcolm Robert’s visit to Noosa National Park this morning in the article now available online: Scientists, Senator Claim Noosa’s Sea Level is Falling. It begins:

Noosa’s climate emergency declaration could well be on the rocks if a One Nation senator and his scientific advisers are right.

Sen Malcolm Roberts and two scientists, locally-based Dr Jennifer Marohasy and Dr Peter Ridd, have inspected Noosa National Park’s Boiling Pot headland and declared there are clear signs there the sea levels have fallen over many years, with only small rises in more recent times.

“With climate change you often have cycles within cycles,” Dr Marohasy said.
“We’ve got a rise of 36cm over the last 100 years, that’s what the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) talks about.

“That needs to be placed in the perspective of that over the last four-and-a-half thousand years the longer, more significant cycle that you can see in the landscape here is one of sea level falls of about 1.5m,” she said.

She said the IPCC has been selective in its data use, while linking the latter rise to the Industrial Revolution.

“There is a little bit of a human effect but maybe in the scheme of things it’s really quite insignificant,” Dr Marohasy said.

“When you walk along the shoreline here at Noosa you can see, for example, at the bottom of the cliff face that would have been eroded by the waves, that’s actually way above where the waves ever come to.

Jen, Malcolm and Peter Ridd at the bottom of the cliff face (below Boiling Pot lookout) this morning.

Such cliff faces are formed where the cutting action of waves brings down great lumps of rock from above. The debris is then removed by the wash, and the headland recedes landward as the sea eats into the cliff face creating what are called wave cut notches.

That the waves, even on the very highest tides, don’t reach the bottom of the cliff face is evidenced that the more significant trend is one of sea level fall.

Can you see us, on the cliff face this morning … humankind is really so punny in the scheme of things.

Malcolm Roberts and Peter Ridd spent a good amount of time walking the shoreline with me this morning. Ever interested in water quality, I did notice Peter Ridd tasting the water in the marine pot holes to check whether they were fresh, brackish or salty.

Jen, Malcolm and Peter about a marine pothole at Tea Tree Bay this morning. Potholes are formed by the relentless grinding of harder rocks caught in a depression in softer sandstone. Pounding surf causes the harder rock to swirl round and round, grinding around and also down. The grinding that created the potholes at Tea Tree Bay could only have happened when sea levels were higher, when this platform was between the high and low water mark. For as long as I have visited this bay, it is only the highest tides that splash some water into the marine potholes. Last December they were full of freshwater and breeding tadpoles of the green tree frog.

Peter Gardiner did include comment in the article that:

According to the Department of Environment coastal areas like Noosa are facing a sea level rise of 1.1 metres by 2100. More than an estimated 2200 Noosa properties could be impacted by sea rises and storm flooding.

Part of council’s policy is to adopt a precautionary approach to climate change adaptation and emissions reduction, while implementing short and long-term actions that seek to achieve resilience and carbon reduction.

Climate models – the results of which are compiled and assessed by the IPCC – forecast that one of the consequences of global warming from greenhouse gases will be rising sea levels due to the thermal expansion of the ocean water mass, plus the contribution of water from melting of ice sheets and glaciers residing on land.

In 2013, the IPCC concluded that the oceans had already risen 19 cm (17 to 21 cm) between 1901 and 2010, which is an annual rate of 1.7 mm/year (1.5 to 1.9 mm/year). They further predicted the oceans will rise approximately an additional 51 to 98 cm with a substantially accelerated rate of increase during 2081–2100 of 8 to 16 mm/year. There are a few things, however, that are almost never pointed out in discussions about climate change and sea-level rise. For example, the estimates of past and current global rates of sea-level rise, and the future projections, are calculated constructs that are largely the product of extremely complex computer models. We are being asked to simply trust them. However, the success of this modelling is dependent on chains of assumptions. If one assumption turns out to be incorrect then the results produced by the models could be wrong. This applies equally to estimates of past and present rates of global sea-level rise, as well as to future projections. They are hypothetical. Yet these calculated values are broadcast widely with such a sense of confidence that a false impression is created.

None of the global estimates derived from models correspond to directly observed and measurable sea-level change at any point on the open sea, or along any coastline.

Jen, Malcolm and Peter above the cliff face, at Boiling Pot lookout just this morning.

Senator Malcolm Roberts is so hard working, and completely fearless … and I thank him for taking the time to visit with me in Noosa this morning and also for helping Peter Ridd with his fundraising. You can donate to Peter Ridd’s appeal here: https://au.gofundme.com/f/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund-2019.

The Useful Things

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“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” TS Eliot

So much thanks to each of the Queensland nurses who have just left for Melbourne… for doing the useful thing.

This must be such a difficult time for everyone in Melbourne, and for the families of each of the Queenslanders now flying in to that state to lend a hand.

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Photo credit Neil Hewett: Northern Leaf-Tailed Gecko – Saltuarius cornutus (Ogilby, 1892) – Daintree Rainforest – Cooper Creek Wilderness. Buy The Book with the Beautiful things.

Peter Ridd Asks for your Help – Now

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PROFESSOR Peter Ridd is a physicist at James Cook University who has dared to question scientific findings that purport to show the Great Barrier Reef is in trouble. Specifically, he has been formally censured by the University and told to remain quiet about the matter – or risk his job.

The issue dates back to August 2017, and comments he made on television promoting the book I edited last year – Climate Change: The Facts 2017.

Peter wrote the first chapter in this book, and in it he suggests that there are major problems with quality assurance when it comes to claims of the imminent demise of the reef. He has also published in the scientific literature detailing his concerns about the methodology used to measure calcification rates, including a technical paper in Marine Geology (volume 65).

After some reflection over the last couple of months, and some thousands of dollars on legal fees – so far paid by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) that first published the book that got him into trouble – Professor Ridd has decided to fight the final censure.

In short, he has decided he would rather be fired than be quiet.

But he is now going to have to find about A$95,000!

So, this university Professor has set-up a crowdfunding account. It is now your turn to show support and help fight the case.

https://www.gofundme.com/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund

Peter Ridd and Jennifer Marohasy speaking about the need for quality assurance in science last November in Sydney.

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UPDATE – Saturday morning

This screenshot was snapped early Saturday morning (Queensland, Australia – time).

So, we have reached and exceeded the target in just two days!

Peter Ridd is exceedingly grateful to everyone who donated.

Also, a huge thank you to Anthony Watts who owns and manages https://wattsupwiththat.com/ for so actively supporting this campaign, and also the Executive Director of the IPA, John Roskam, who has backed Peter Ridd on this from the beginning. I would also like to thank ‘BM’ for his very generous donation, and also my Mum for her A$100.

Remembering Diane Ainsworth

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I can’t find a good photograph of Diane Ainsworth – one that does her justice.

Thirty years ago, she had a cheeky smile, deep-set eyes, mousey-coloured thick wiry hair, and a very thin waist.

We were friends at boarding school, and in the same hockey team: I was the centre-forward and she my fast and fearless left-wing.

After high school, she went to art college. But rather than becoming a professional graphic designer, ended-up the head-housekeeper at the Thredbo Alpine Hotel.

If she had become an artist, she would no doubt still be alive. As it turned-out, twenty-years ago last week (30 July 1997), Diane was buried alive under a landslide on the slopes of Mount Kosciusko.

“As the unstable slope above the four-storey Carinya Lodge (owned by the Brindabella Ski Club) slipped downhill, it hit the east wing of the Carinya Ski Lodge, tearing it in two. This initial landslide removed the support for the Alpine Way road which in turn collapsed, shearing the western half of Carinya from its foundations, allowing it to slide downhill and crossing a road before colliding with the Bimbadeen Ski Lodge at high speed, destroying both. Bimbadeen Staff Lodge was then hit, and it, too, collapsed. Witnesses reported hearing “a whoosh of air, a crack and a sound like a freight train rushing down the hill“. 

Diane Ainsworth was 34 years young.

Today, I’m going to lunch with her sister Barbara, and two of her other best friends from boarding school – now, like me in their 54th year.

What would Diane think about us surviving twenty years longer – than her?

She would probably just insist we make the very most of every extra year alive on this beautiful Earth.

Snow Gums in Kosciusko National Park. I’ve just order a print of this photograph from http://www.michaelscottlees.com.au/473926/snowscape/

In Search of a Moderator

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GROUPS of people, by their nature tend to seek out a consensus, but groups are more resilient and more likely to get closer to the truth when they are open to new ideas and when they confront dissent with rational argument.Nothing Great

So, I’ve been very tolerant at this website of what many would call trolling.

Wikipedia defines a troll as, “a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

While trolling is not generally productive, every group should encourage the presence of a devil’s advocate, or two.

Wikipedia defines a devil’s advocate as, “someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position they do not necessarily agree with (or simply an alternative position from the accepted norm), for the sake of debate or to explore the thought further. In taking this position, the individual taking on the devil’s advocate role seeks to engage others in an argumentative discussion process. The purpose of such a process is typically to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position. It can also refer to someone who takes a stance that is seen as unpopular or unconventional, but is actually another way of arguing a much more conventional stance.”

It can be surprisingly difficult to both encourage critical thinking, particularly on the internet and with such an emotive topic as climate change, while also progressing understanding because devil’s advocates can be perceived as troll, and trolls mistaken as devil’s advocates.

Then there are others who simply want to defend their perspective at all costs, and who will go to great lengths to both undermine alternative perspectives, and new ideas, and in the most insidious of ways.

I’m looking for a moderator, to work with me to try and ensure this blog is more than an echo chamber for scepticism, but also a place that can nurture the best from different perspectives.

If you are interested in this unpaid position, please email me jennifermarohasy at gmail.com

This blog will be 10 years old on 14th April next year. As of this morning 3,415 articles had been posted attracting 132,643 comments. Over the last month there were more than 15,000 sessions with users spending more than 2 minutes on average at the blog during any one session. The most popular post this month was Corrupting Australia’s Temperature Record posted on 17th May.

Enchanted Pools, Sierra Nevada, California

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Jennifer,

I would like to share a photograph of a ‘magical place’ from a cross-country hike, from several years ago, of the Enchanted Pools loop, in the Northern Sierras. The amateur photographer is tiocampo.

Here’s a link to all of the photos taken by Frank Farmer (aka tiocampo) on that day.
http://tinyurl.com/c2rsa5t

He includes a short write-up of the hike, including a topo map, as well as a link to a report of a possible Bigfoot sighting in the area.

The total distance of the loop version of the hike is approx 5 mi (8 km), with several hundred feet of altitude gain. The Enchanted Pools are just over 7000 ft elevation. Frank calls this hike Larry’s Rockbound Ramble.

Cheers,
Larry (from California, USA)