Bishop Hill Coral atolls are safe
Aug 2, 2014 Climate: WG2 Mark Lynas famously makes much of his living advising the government of the Maldives on climate change. The chief alleged threat to these low-lying atolls is of course that they are going to be swamped by rising seas.
Unfortunately for Lynas, a news article (£) in Science magazine suggests that his position is based on a misconception about how atolls work.
In 1999, the World Bank asked [University of Auckland geomorphologist Paul Kench] to evaluate the economic costs of sea-level rise and climate change to Pacific island nations. Kench, who had been studying how atoll islands evolve over time, says he had assumed that a rising ocean would engulf the islands, which consist of sand perched on reefs. “That’s what everyone thought, and nobody questioned it,” he says. But when he scoured the literature, he could not find a single study to support that scenario. So Kench teamed up with Peter Cowell, a geomorphologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, to model what might happen. They found that during episodes of high seas—at high tide during El Niño events, which raise sea level in the Central Pacific, for example—storm waves would wash over higher and higher sections of atoll islands. But instead of eroding land, the waves would raise island elevation by depositing sand produced from broken coral, coralline algae, mollusks, and foraminifera. Kench notes that reefs can grow 10 to 15 mill imeters a year—faster than the sea-level rise expected to occur later this century. “As long as the reef is healthy and generates an abundant supply of sand, there’s no reason a reef island can’t grow and keep up,” he argues.
This isn't new of course. Kench's work is years old and was mentioned in de Lange and Carter's report on sea-level rise for GWPF. But it's interesting to see Sciencemag allowing such heresy on its pages.
Reader Comments (77)
Have we now reached the point where the only CAGW alarmists remaining are the profiteers?
This seems pretty irrefutable to me. Is this the last we will hear of the pleading by the rulers of these islands? I will bet against that!
It's obviously just one of the many coincidences rife in climate science that all coral atolls currently just happen to be at sea level. It's like all river deltas also just happen to be at sea level.
Interesting: shall we expect Nature to start publishing real climate science instead of just vanity-published propaganda?
'Let us then take an island surrounded by fringing-reefs, which offer no difficulty in their structure; and let this island with its reef...slowly subside. Now as the island sinks down, either a few feet at a time or quite insensibly, we may safely infer from what is known of the conditions favourable to the growth of coral, that the living masses, bathed by the surf on the margin of the reef, will soon regain the surface' -Charles Darwin -The Voyage of the Beagle
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~clerger/Darwin.html
A great explanation of coral reefs is this one from Willis Eschenbach at WUWT, from 2010, complete with excellent graphics:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/
Lynas got the science wrong - again. Well I never.
“Kench, who had been studying how atoll islands evolve over time, says he had assumed that a rising ocean would engulf the islands, which consist of sand perched on reefs. “That’s what everyone thought, and nobody questioned it,” he says."
No it isn't. I read Earth Sciences at university in the early 1990s. I was taught that atolls are built on volcano rims that are cooling over time and therefore sinking. Thus the atoll is dynamic, and must grow in response to sinking in order to persist. Thus the idea that a small rate of sea-level rise would swamp an atoll seems inherently unlikely.
I cannot imagine any geology graduate thinking that rising seas would necessarily engulf atolls, without first considering the rate of rise and studying limits to the growth rate of the atoll.
Mark hasn't been the Maldives advisor since the president was ousted.. correction due.
Mark stopped being an advisir in 2011
http://www.uit.co.uk/Authors/MarkLynas
Maybe somebody could point kench to Charles Darwin. And his work on the formation of coral reefs dated 1836.....
Reefs are geologically classified as "keep-up", "catch-up" or "give-up" in nature.
During rising sealevel, reefs either keep up, temporarily fall behind and then catch up or give up. The geological record shows examples of all three. However, it turns out that reefs are capable of keeping up with even rapid rates of sealevel change, implying some other reason for give up, such as an environmental (suspended sediment in the water, water temperature) control.
eg. http://geology.uprm.edu/Morelock/rfcontrols.htm
or http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825201000770
Seismic sequence stratigraphy (interpreting reflection seismic data in terms of sedimentary response to changing sealevel) is a basic interpretation technique:
http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?pageid=46
Anyone involved in exploration for ancient reefs (eg.for oil and gas) would consider the same technique applied specifically to carbonates in reefs.
http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?&pageid=35&3
And while the island authorities have their hands out for anything they can get off the CAGW bandwagon, they don't seem to see the irony of building 5 new airports on islands that they say will soon be under water.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/maldives-to-build-five-more-underwater-airports/
Its kind of bizarre that these scientists had to "rediscover" exactly what Charles Darwin worked out nearly 200 years ago. Doesn't anyone read anything anymore ? Jeez they are all just so hopeless.
Phil B
Not all river deltas are at sea level, some are in mountain lakes. Interlaken, Switzerland, is built on one such
Well - who'dve thunk it. A scientific 'assumption' blown out of the water..
Ah - did you see what I did there..?
John Marshall
But these deltas also follow the level of the lakes, barring other things changing?
The Maldives aren't sinking. Their President says so.
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/44118
Aug 2, 2014 at 10:29 AM | Registered Commenter Phillip Bratby
Nice one! The ignorance of "climate scientists" never ceases to amaze me.
So once again skeptics are proven correct. And Darwin, who noticed that atolls adjust to sea levels over 150 years ago, is vindicated again.
Perhaps the climate obsessed are going to slowly rejoin the scientific world without too much more harm to science and the world in general?
It was Charles Darwin no less who first realised that coral atolls were formed in an environment of rising sea levels.
Many of them, as we now know, originally surrounded rocky islands exposed at the last glacial maximum and now more than 100 meters below the waves. Over the past 20,000 years coral islands routinely coped with much faster and greater sea level rise than we find today.
They will suffer little harm from anything they are likely to experience in the future.
It looks like the real reef experts are paid by the oil industry. :-)
Dave said:
"Over the past 20,000 years coral islands routinely coped with much faster and greater sea level rise than we find today".
It was the first thought that came to my mind and I was sure to find someone saying it and found it. Saved me some keyboard fingering :)
Having said that, can someone tell me how long did it take for the oceans to rise to a stable level of approx. 400 feet after the end of the last glaciation, pre-Holocene?
Derek 10.23am "Last we will hear of the pleading by the rulers of these islands? I will bet against that!....."
You're right of course. Todays I (eye) newspaper includes the following item "Torres Strait authorities say hundreds living on low lying islands need to realise that one day they will have to abandon homes as seas rise, and have called on other governments to help" Equals send more money!
A similar but sillier climate science fallacy is the one currently being fabricated regarding pingos. Pingos are well documented events in tundra permafrost areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo
Now climate kooks are pretending they are new and troubling symptoms of their elusive climate catastrophe.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/01/newly-discovered-siberian-craters-signify-end-times-or-maybe-just-global-warming-mystery-of-the-siberian-crater-deepens-scientists-left-baffled-after-two-new-holes-appear-in-russias-icy-wilderne/
Alex
This might help
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
Hunter
The three craters recently described in Siberia are probably not pingos.
The latter are low hills produced by gradual expansion within the permafrost. The craters are deep, step sided holes formed explosively.
DNFTT
The next great green myth to be nailed dead, is mmCO2 = oceanic acidification? Yet, and once more island arc, spreading ridge, tectonic plate collision subduction zone vulcanism plays a big part [and the sun or lack of it].
SandyS,
Many thanks for Judith Curry's link. Will check it out.
Alex
I don't suppose that the massive investments taking place in the Maldives have anything to do with their demand for compensation for alleged rising sea levels.
Darwinism is Heresy...and..and Apostacy!!
It is always interesting and entertaining to see how the climate kooks have to rewrite history and and facts to suppport thier obsession.
From the definition of "Pingo":
"A pingo, also called a hydrolaccolith, is a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres in height and up to 600 m in diameter. The term originated as the Inuvialuktun word for a small hill." Wikipedia
Also from wiki:
"These larger pingos can have craters that have cones resembling those from volcanoes."
Once again, skeptics are right and the climate obsessed look like poorly informed kooks.
Athelstan...... somewhere around of 98% of all the CO2 in the ocean/atmosphere system is dissolved in the ocean so if ALL the CO2 in the atmosphere were to get dissolved in the ocean it would only increase the oceanic CO2 by less than 2% - an amount that could conceivably reduce the pH of sea water by a similar proportion. The pH of sea water varies between 7.5 and 8.4 - ie it is alkaline.
There are many buffering mechanisms which maintain ocean alkalinity ( including those you mention) of which the circulation of seawater through Mid Ocean Ridge basalts at active spreading sites is very important.
The term "Ocean Acidification" is another alarmist invention - the ocean is alkaline and has been for a very very long time and will remain alkaline as long as plate tectonics continue.
As a matter of interest corals and a huge quantity and variety carbonate shelled organisms flourished when the atmosphere contained 10- 20 TIMES the concentration of CO2 that it has now- as is evidenced by the vast deposits of limestone of Protozoic and Phanerozoic age.
The hypothesis that a minor increase in the present VERY LOW concentration of CO2 - by geological time scale standards - in the atmosphere would "acidify" the oceans and threaten corals is highly unlikely to be valid .
Glebekinvara
Quite so. And fossil shells, from megafossil rudists
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A9mSs2oVSt1TPycAi4xLBQx.?p=rudists&fr=slv8-linksys&fr2=piv-web
to microfossil coccoliths
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A9mSs2LJSd1TUTcAkqtLBQx.?p=coccoliths&fr=slv8-linksys&fr2=piv-web
and foraminiferal uvigerinas
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A9mSs2ycSd1TG14AdXRLBQx.?p=uvigerinas&fr=slv8-linksys&fr2=piv-web
display some of the most delicate and highly ornamented skeletal structures ever evolved while thriving in past climates of elevated CO2.
It is important to note that while pH may be decreasing in some trivial and not at all reliably measured way, even true beleivers have to admit in their own arguments that the oceans are still alkaline and not anywhere close acidic.
It is interesting to see the tediousness with which the climate obsessed cling to their alarmist narrative.
It cannot be "less alkaline" for the alarmist. It must be "acidification". and then the argument they cling to is based on defending their word parsing, not the underlying issue.
And of course avoiding the obvious fact that whatever change may be occurring in no way endangers the ocean ecosystem. If the ocean ecosystem was not robust irt pH, then the dynamic ranges due to seasonal and current fluctuations would have left the oceans sterile eons ago.
As someone might point out: something cooling from 1000 oK to 999.9 oK may be cooling, but if you pick it up to see how much it has cooled it won't be for very long.
Hunter
Read the descriptions of these craters and examine the pictures, here in the Daily Mail , that bastion of climate scepticism.
Your description of a pingo as a 70m hill with a crater on top does not match these pictures and a collapsing ice inclusion does not explain the ejecta.
This is something novel whatever its cause. This region has the one of the fastest warming rates on the planet .
Correlation is not proof of causation but it is a good way to bet.
no correlation no causation: check the CO2-temp graphs..lol
Paul the Nurse
If there is no correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature records, why does a correlation coefficient calculation give an Rsquared of 0.78?
If there is no correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature records, why does a correlation coefficient calculation give an Rsquared of 0.78?
Any two things that trend over the same period will automatically give a correlation. The very first thing you teach in correlation is that it does not imply causation: http://www.tylervigen.com/
Even if we assumed a relationship the temperature could increase, but only very slowly, which will give a decent correlation, because correlation doesn't measure size effect.
Mooloo
Correlation is your starting point.
From there you look at these possibilities.
1) There is a causal link between the two variables. In this case AGW is the best candidate.
2) There is no causal link between the two variables but both are causally linked to a third variable. A possible candidate here would be the way both variables change with the Milankovich cycles.
3) There is no causal link. In which case the correlation tends to disappear as you add more data.
[snip O/T] please post on Unthreaded or make a discussion page. BH.
1) There is a causal link between the two variables. In this case AGW is the best candidate.
2) There is no causal link between the two variables but both are causally linked to a third variable. A possible candidate here would be the way both variables change with the Milankovich cycles.
There are other alternatives you neglect to offer.
What about higher temperature causes more atmospheric CO2 (via the same mechanisms as Henry's Law)? There's some evidence for that in paleo studies. (I really, really do not trust the "CO2 was stable in the less recent past" line pushed by the catastrophists - we know temperature, rainfall etc have changed dramatically over 100 year time frames, so why is CO2 blessed with apparently stability?).
My favoured "third variable" would be a combination of changing land use (causing actual temperature rises) and UHI (causing only apparent temperature rises). So that man is causing temperature rises, but not (primarily) via CO2.
"So Kench teamed up with Peter Cowell, a geomorphologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, to model what might happen."
I love it when sceptics use model results to justify their ideas. No loud voices saying models can't provide evidence here is there?
DNFTOT
I love it when trolls miss the point.
There is no need in this instance to make any comment on Kench and his models because his initial presumption was crap anyway.
As has been pointed out at several points on this thread.
Go back to to your little echo chamber. Our views on whether models can provide evidence has not been affected one way ot the other by Kench's burblings. We're just delighted he's finally caught up with what most people knew already.
Luke 15:10 applies!
It's about creating a belief in the ‘end of history’?
Reference The Plan in this http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/3/3/299/pdf
Entropic man
Your CO2 chart how far back in time does that data go, or put it another way from year do the measurements start and what/who/where data source?
Thanks
SandyS
Mike Jackson
Having quote the bible you're now amongst the Evolutionary Deniers as far as the Other Troll is concerned. This is despite the fact that, like Shakespeare, it's a wonderful source of quotations.
Gotta wonder about the reliability of that mass of dots on the left side of EM's graph, given that those figures are from around 1880.
If error was properly accounted for (an alien concept in clownatology), that slope of 0.01 C/ppm would be indistinguishable from flat, which one might expect if the CO2 effect is near saturation (it's meant to be logarithmic, remember?).
1 unit on Y axis vs 100 units on X axis = "ooh look at the scary slope"