Sea level is up... and climate change is real

Marco Cremona

Jan 14th 2010, 15:57

@ Peter Gatt.

Fact : I never "publicly claimed that sea-level around Malta is falling" - and not even privately for that matter! This is a figment of your imagination and clearly sets the tone for the rest of your malicious letter/correspondence. Your intention is to rubbish everybody else's work (including the experts in the Climate Change Committee) in order to promote your own personal interests.

Do not bother replying to this comment as I have already wasted enough time on you. Your attitude is not conducive to any proper discussion on the subject matter. Pity.

Alan Deidun

Jan 14th 2010, 14:05

Dear Mr. Gatt, unfortunately I have no time for this endless saga of exchanges and this is certainly not the right portal to exchange such views. The Institute is carefully formulating a detailed reply to your insinuations and statements and this will be sent to The Times asap. The publications of results does not constitute challenging individuals or bodies since such terminology is more reminiscent of confrontations - the report to which the PO Unit contributed is still confidential and will be published in due course but there is no fear to publish results which apparently go against the norm since this is hard-nosed science after all and not an attempt at consensus-seeking.

Peter Gatt

Jan 14th 2010, 10:49

Dr Deidun, clarifies that he is not a climate change sceptic. Notwithstanding, he publicly stated during the symposium that on the basis of the Portomaso tide gauge, sea-level around Malta is falling. Dr Deidun should know that Portomaso tide gauge has been operative for too short a period to extract a reliable sea-level trend, as confirmed by the University’s Physical Oceanography Unit and International Ocean Institute (Malta).

Sea-level may temporarily fall for a number of reasons. The problem is that Dr Deidun chose to cite only such period/s of sea-level fall in his public intervention, giving the impression that the overall trend of sea-level around Malta is falling.

On the other hand, the Grand Harbour tide gauge has a 20 year record which shows a consistent rising sea-level trend.

Unless Dr Deidun would like to challenge the Grand Harbour tide gauge readings, his assertion that Malta is an outlier of long-term sea-level fall is incorrect. Other earth scientists from overseas concur with my view and have recently presented their conclusions to government. Will the University’s Physical Oceanography Unit challenge this view in its second report for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and contradict Malta’s first UNFCC of 2004?

Peter Gatt

Jan 14th 2010, 08:33

Now that the yoke carried by taxpayers is even heavier, Mr Cremona prefers to dismiss low cost solutions resulting from the tapping of groundwater flows to the sea (a method already used in other Mediterranean countries, following geological advice) and prefers more costly engineering solutions in line with commercial interests which he likes to advertise.

Peter Gatt

Jan 14th 2010, 08:32

By misleading the public on sea-level rise (an important impact of climate change) Mr Cremona hopes to lend support to his other claim: that the impact of climate change cannot possibly override the problem of water extraction. By minimising the impacts of climate change (the subject of the symposium) relative to his pet subject, Mr Cremona demonstrates his myopic view of earth processes which is in stark contrast to the approach taken by earth scientists that study complex inter-related earth systems (as defined by his encyclopedia!).

Mr Cremona continues to mislead the public by claiming that the ‘largest groundwater discharge’ (salinity of ‘20,000ppm’) to the sea is at the Grand Harbour even though such high salinity cannot be entirely groundwater flow but a result of mixing with sea water as a consequence of coastal over-extraction. Meanwhile, he overlooks publications documenting large fresh water flows to the sea in other parts of Malta where the aquifer is marginally exploited and good quality water is mostly free of surface contamination.

Peter Gatt

Jan 14th 2010, 08:08

Mr Cremona should understand that anything said in public is subject to scrutiny, especially startling unfounded claims made to the press from someone holding a position on a national committee.

Mr Cremona insists that the aquifer will vanish or be rendered useless in 15 years and sticks to his claim because local water authorities (WSC, MRA etc..) have not contradicted him, even though he has neither told us if he has carried out any ground water modelling to support his 15 year deadline nor referred to publications that support his claim.

Just because no one prior to my letter had contradicted his claim does not mean that his assertion is correct or that everybody concurs. After all, Mr Cremona had publicly claimed that sea-level around Malta is falling and may have gone unchallenged had I not brought to the attention of readers the undeniable facts: the sea-level trend measured by the Grand Harbour tide gauge shows a rise in sea-level over a 20 year period.

ALAN DEIDUN

Jan 14th 2010, 07:40

Mr Gatt tries to insinuate that I belong to the climate change myth debunkers, which is not the case. However, I am scientist at the end of the day and, data generated by the University Institute at which I work shows that sea level has decreased slightly in recent times. The same report cannot be published for now since it must first be approved by Parliament as it forms part of a larger UNFCC assessment. Hence, whilst sea level is rising in other parts of the Medn, it has fallen slightly in close proximity to Malta - this does not mean that, globally, sea level is not rising, but there might be outliers in the general trend and the Maltese case is one such outlier. Similar studies in the past showed that the opposite was happening - bottom line is that these are complex phenomena and sweeping statements are not on.

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 23:46

The UN is pushing the world to spend 80 trllion dollars/ euros to fight climate change, which science reveals to be only a natural occurance not dependent on human activities. This megacost of 80 trillion dollars should be redirected to solve reeal global problems such as: deforestation, particulate and chemical pollution especially in India and China, increase in global food production. But the most important investment that the world requires is in the development of ture and real, cheap, clean energy generation. Up to this day, wind and solar are just toys in the hands of politcians and no amount of PV's and wind turbines can replace oil, coal and nuclear power stations, especially during freezing spells such as the northern hemisphere is experiencing when wind turbines have to be braked since the ice creates a mechanical unbalance on the otherwise rotating tubine and damages the system. PV's are useless. In one case even one nuclear power station in the US had to be partially shut down due to a frozen river from which water is pumped to cool the condensers and other systems. The UN is taking our money as taxes and putting it where our mouth isn't.

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 23:33

Paul Smith: This is an extract, not from a UK newspapers or rags, as you prefer to refer to them: " In the winter period of December to March 2008/09 there were an estimated 36,700 more deaths in England and Wales, compared with the average for the non-winter period (see definition below). This was an increase of 49 per cent compared with the number in the previous winter 2007/08. This is the highest number of excess winter deaths since the winter of 1999/2000, when excess winter mortality was nearly a third higher than in 2008/09.

The elderly population experiences the greatest increase in deaths each winter. In the winter of 2008/09 there were 29,400 more deaths among those aged 75 and over, compared with levels in the non-winter period. In contrast, there were 7,300 excess winter deaths among those under the age of 75." A full report by the UK National Office for Statistics, is found here
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
Now I am waiting for your reply to call this office a rag too.
No wonder UK experts are expecting a much higher count of victims of the winter freeze of 2009/2010, in the region of 60K to 90K.

Louis Gatt

Jan 13th 2010, 21:27

@James Whelan
It is a scientific fact that carbon dioxide absorbs infra red radiation. In a
simplified approach this means that it will interfere with the emission of heat radiation from the earth during the night. No thermodynamic theory or website can disprove this. Moreover, the atmosphere is a very complex system which cannot be modelled with textbook physics.

An actual example to show the complexity of such issues is that of ozone
depleting substances. If thermodynamic theory is applied to understand the
effect of CFCs on the atmosphere one will conclude, rightly, that
CFCs are harmless. However, if one studies the very complex dynamics of
the atmosphere it will be concluded, as reality has proved, that ozone holes
are created with potentially very dangerous consequences.

Marco Cremona

Jan 13th 2010, 21:03

Mr. Gatt then asserts that 'large quantities of freshwater is leaking through natural structures into the sea' giving the mistaken impression that this water is indeed 'fresh' and can easily be harnessed. As a hydrologist I can inform him that the water leaking from the aquifer at the shore is not 'fresh' but brackish (i.e. rather saline) and therefore of little or no commercial value. Indeed, the salinity of Malta's largest groundwater discharge (or 'leak') -at the Grand Harbour (which was, until a few years ago, being harnessed by the Marsa RO plant) - is close to 20,000ppm. For the reader's information, potable water should not have a salinity of more than 500ppm.

Yes, Mr. Gatt. Nitrate is a also problem but we didn't need a 'recent study' by the British Geological Survey to tell us that. I refer you to my 1997 Masters Thesis which specifically addressed the Nitrate problem and not only provided the first published information on the problem but also identified the sources of nitrate in quantitative terms. It would have saved the British Geological Survey some time and the Maltese taxpayer a lot of money if we better appreciated the work of Maltese researchers.

james whelan

Jan 13th 2010, 20:34

Mr Xuereb; the two points you make are acually in support of the point that the 'greenhouse effect' only works at the edge of the atmosphere and space , in near perfect vacuum, and that because the rest of the volume of the atmosphere is not homogeneous and in constant flux this effect does not take place. The motion of molecules and the presence of water vapour makes the possibility of 'greenhouse effect' impossible.
As a fellow physicist it is possible to inspect the fundamental assumptions within the IPCC models via the web. Again as a fellow scientist it must strike you as odd that so many variables used within their models are 'heroic' assumptions, nothing wrong in that , but to proclaim the science is ' agreed and final' is unscientific. Indeed the whole exercise is really an exercise in computer modelling, using a varant of factor analysis to get best fit on some dubious data points. Of course using factor analysis means the original inputs are merely vectors in the resulting equations. I remember from personal experience how the most significant variable in weather correcting electricity demand forecasts was the angle of the sun at 2am! GIGO.

Marco Cremona

Jan 13th 2010, 20:28

Mr. Gatt then puts to task my claim that Malta's groundwater sources will be gone before the impacts of climate change on our water resources will be felt. Indeed, at the current rate of extraction our aquifers will be rendered useless within 15 years. I repeat, 15 years. Unless Mr. Gatt has as-yet-unpublished proof that the impact of climate change on Malta's water resources is so dramatic and immediate that it overrides the huge problem of extraction, I will stick with my claim - which has as yet not been contradicted by the local water authorities, the Malta Resources Authority (MRA) and the Water Services Corporation (WSC).

Mr. Gatt then says that my assertion is a 'misleading exaggeration' and that 'basic geological knowledge shows that large tracts of the mean sea level aquifer have not been exploited'. If the solution is so 'basic' I suggest that Mr. Gatt immediately informs the Malta Resources Authority and the Water Services Corporation so that we may rid ourselves of our water woes.

Marco Cremona

Jan 13th 2010, 20:11

Mr. Gatt correctly mentions the fact that I am a member on Malta's Climate Change Committee and then claims that "the local committee on climate change does not have a single Earth scientist on board". Well, I am a qualified hydrologist. Unless Mr. Gatt is referring to another Committee I urge him to look up the Encyclopedia Brittanica's definition of Earth Sciences to find that it is "the fields of study concerned with the solid Earth, ITS WATERS, and the air that envelops it. Included are the geologic, HYDROLOGIC, and atmospheric sciences.". I therefore put into question Mr. Gatt's professional credibility as an 'Earth Scientist' if he does not know (or recognise) hydrology as being an earth science. I do not think that his fellow hydrologists in Durham University, UK would be pleased at his attempt to degrade their (and everybody else's) profession in an attempt to elevate his own.

Clearly it's a case of sour grapes which is highly unethical and unprofessional.

Marco Cremona

Jan 13th 2010, 19:53

Peter Gatt's (angry) letter deserves a reply, not because it's based on facts but because he quoted me completely out of context and makes a number of false assertions.

He says "Mr Cremona concluded that the Prime Minister of Malta was "misinformed" when he told the Copenhagen summit that sea-level was rising." I did not conclude anything of the sort. What I did say was that the Prime Minister's statement that "an increase in sea level would wreck havoc with Malta's aquifers" is incorrect . I can say this with a level of certainty because I stick to my profession as a hydrologist unlike Peter Gatt who has suddenly become a self-styled climate change expert, an expert is sea level rise, as well as a hydrologist.

continued....

Paul Smith

Jan 13th 2010, 17:51

Alex,

The newspaper articles you refer to are trying to discredit an un-popular government - they are right wing rags. Nobody need freeze to death - all over 60's women and over 65 males received a cold winter payment of £200 at Christmas - so a couple gets £400. There have been 2 extra cold weather payments in the last 2 weeks - additional monies

some of the comments in the comments section of the daily excess :)

While I normally support this paper, it really has to stop with the ridiculous hyperbole demonstrated in stories about the weather. Is Brown ineffective? Yes. Are 60,000 people going to die? No!

ERM, NO.

11.01.10, 10:05am

If you believe this, you'll believe anything.

Tony Gatt

Jan 13th 2010, 17:47

So far 2 people have been reported as dying solely due to the cold weather. Only 89,998 to go!

Paul Smith

Jan 13th 2010, 17:28

Alex,

May i recomend a book i think you will really enjoy and i mean it:

Flat Earth News
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Read the reviews on Amazon

May i also point out the times is owned by Rupert Murdoch - says it all really

André Xuereb

Jan 13th 2010, 17:01

Mr Whelan: As a fellow physicist then I trust you will understand my reply, referenced from the website you linked:

"The troposphere cools as altitude increases." -- True, but the stratosphere does not have the same temperature profile; the temperature increases with height in the stratosphere. (Besides, doesn't this argument contradict what he later says, i.e., that warmer air always rises?)

"Within homogeneous gases and gas mixtures no reflections occur." -- The atmosphere is not homogeneous; its composition changes with altitude, due to different molecular weights, and other effects. Besides, this is not true. If you shine light close to the resonant frequency of a gas, then it will be scattered ("reflected in all directions", so to speak), even if the gas is completely homogeneous.

These are just two points I picked up from a quick skimming, and I could go on and on. As I said, point me to a peer-reviewed article and I will take your/his arguments seriously.

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 16:47

@James Whelan: (On a lighter note): Following the revelation by German scientists that the theory of the atmospheric greenhouse effect goes against the laws of thermodynamics, I have heard it said, through reliable sources inside the UN building, that Mr. Pachauri, that railway engineer who has no conflict of interest whatsoever in carbon financing, is lobbying the UN to declare the laws of thermodynamics null and void internationally. That way, the greenhouse effect theory will remain valid and the planet will keep on warming. Furthermore, these thermodynamic laws shall be declared to be inconsistent with, and counter to, the successful efforts being made by the UN to bring global peace and end global hunger (as also wished by all Miss World contestants). The greenhouse effect theory shall be declared as the law, and only law of thermodynamics and any scientist who refrains from burning his now irrelevant thermodynamic books that include the first, second and third laws of thermodynamics shall have his Ph.D. revoked. Meanwhile the UN is preparing a unit, called Cranial Readjustment Unit (CRU for short) to re-program the brains of AGW skeptics, thus the CRU scientists at East Anglia University shall have a job following Climategate.

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 16:30

@Paul Smith, "that nonsense" came from your London Times of 2 days ago:

"Experts predicted that up to 90,000 deaths could be linked to the cold weather this winter. The death rate in Britain is closely linked to the weather and for every 1C drop in temperature below 18C, the death rate increases by nearly 1.5 per cent." While another British newspaper said 60,000. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/150858/Freeze-may-kill-60-000.

Really Paul, you should be reading what the Brits are saying before reading what we malts are saying before trying to be so condescending. So you better go and prepare a hangman's noose in BF bridge for Mr. Brown.

james whelan

Jan 13th 2010, 16:06

Mr P Gatt and Mr Xuereb; I am a Physicist by training, I picked this particular link because its very easy to read for non-scientists. It may be from a personal website but that doesn't invalidate the simple thermodynamics it describes. Unless you can produce a viable argument against the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics I suggest you consider carefully the implications for so-called 'greenhouse effect' by trace gases in the atmosphere.
However your reaction, by using derogatory terms like 'flat-earthers', is very typical of those associated with the AGW dogma. Unfortunately there are equally silly remarks made by extreme 'deniers'. What is totally lacking in this subject is careful, reasoned, tested science and evaluation. The use of manipulated data in 'factor analysis' using 'stone-age' fortran-based models does not constitute scientific analysis. ( GIGO-garbage in, garbage out). Neither does the referencing of selective tree-rings in Siberia.
However it is likely that localised weather conditions are changing around the globe, and some of these are directly attributable to man. De-forestation, melting glaciers in Nepal due to soot from Chinese/Indian coal-fired power stations lying on the ice/snow ,etc.
The 'dogma' of AGW is obscuring issues that need resolving now.

Paul Smith

Jan 13th 2010, 16:04

Alex,

90,000 to die in Britain from the big freeze? Your avin a giraffe mate

Gordon Brown would be hanging from Black Friars bridge if that were to happen. Where did you get that nonsense?

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 15:23

Peter Gatt may be interested to read what Dr. Mojib Latif, climate modeler of the IPCC comittee has been reported saying just today: Big freeze could signal global warming 'pause'. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html
Sometimes its called global warming, sometimes climate change.. fact is that all climate models built by the IPCC, like poet Robert Burns wrote, 'the best laid plan o' mice and men, oft go awry'. Very awry. All computer models on climate change have been proved wrong by time, the best prover or dis-prover of man's theories.

While proponents of AGW have been saying that the science is settled, it now seems that time has toppled their applecart and they are in disarray with no ocean rises, no temperature rises for the last decade and now we have cooling, glaciers are growing back, etc etc. Polar ice cover is recovering like the proverbial phoenix and record low temperatures being recorded around the globe with snow in Saudi Arabia, 80000 wild animals dying of a big freeze in Mongolia...90000 people expected to die due to the freeze in Britain alone...No wonder they are cooking their books to try to show some warming.

Alex Ellul

Jan 13th 2010, 14:45

Quote taken from the following report: Sea-level Expert: It's Not Rising. Found at
!http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/sealevel.htm
"Data Fudged
Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their (IPCC's) publications, was a straight line— changed suddenly, and showed a very strong uplift, 2.3mm per year, the same as tide gauge. That didn't look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something, but they hadn't. It was the original data which they suddenly twisted up, because they entered a "correction factor," which they took from the tide gauge."

Sea levels have been rising for centuries by about 2mm/year since the end of the Little Ice Age.

Satellite monitoring reveal that there has been no sea level change during the last 6 years.: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Furthermore, the Argos Buoys project reveals that the oceans have cooled slightly, causing sea levels to fall by thermal contraction-decreased volume

So what Dr. Deidun is saying is substantiated by sea level expert Dr Nils-Alex Morner and satellite records.

Furthermore it has been found that IPCC climate change paradigms are full of cooked records. It is called climategate, the perpetrators coming from a British university.

Peter Gatt

Jan 13th 2010, 13:54

Mr Whelan is entitled to his opinion. After all, there are people who still believe that the earth is flat (not the Earth scientists).

I prefer to base my views on reputable peer-reviewed journals such as Nature and Science and my own research at University rather then rely on personal websites on which Mr Whelan bases his views. I also depend on tide gauge readings to assess sea-level change.

I believe most other scientists would do the same.

J Farrugia

Jan 13th 2010, 11:26

I am no scientist, and I am no expert in this subject but of one thing I am certain. I just have the memory of the Millenium bug when millions if not billions of money was wasted "to prepare ourselves" for the fini mondu of the millenium bug. The clock struck 00.01 of the new millenium and nothing happened except that someone got richer by the billiions paid to "prepare ourselves". I dont believe in climate change. I just believe that the people are sucking our planet earth, given to us by God the Creator of heaven and earth, dry. And we will have to pay for the consequences.

Tony Gatt

Jan 13th 2010, 10:56

Looking at the snow falling right now in Chester I could do with a bit of global warming myself!

C Micallef

Jan 13th 2010, 10:51

Well written. I too agree that sea level is up. I suggest you get hold of my artlcle that was published on the Sunday Times of 25th March 2007. The article was featured on 2 pages and included a future map of Malta! It was titled, "Malta trims down for Climate Change: Much more than low-lying beaches will disappear". If you need a copy of this article I am permitting the webmaster of The Times to give you my mobile number.

André Xuereb

Jan 13th 2010, 10:50

Mr Whelan: Without going into the merits (or lack thereof) of your, or your source's, arguments, please note that publishing on a website cannot be taken seriously. Point me to a properly peer-reviewed article showing that climate change violates something or other and I will take you and your source seriously. The rest is just hot air.

james whelan

Jan 13th 2010, 10:40

It is alarming that someone who calls himself a 'scientist' does not understand simple thermodynamics. I refer readers to the link below from an emminent German Physicist who very simply explains why 'greenhouse effect' cannot exist in the conditions encountered in the earth's atmosphere. CO2 in the volumes present in the earth's atmosphere is not a pollutant, does not contribute to 'warming' or acidification, or changes in sea levels.
Localised environmental degradation is certainly happening all round the world, but the reasons are complex and the solution difficult. Far easier than try to alleviate them is the 'earth scientists' rant about 'climate change' . Indeed the incidence of nitrates in Malta's water table is something needed to be tackled, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with so-called AGW or the now more commonly used phrase 'climate change' ( used because inconveniently ,the messaging of data has been discovered).
http://www.freenet-homepage.de/klima/error.htm