The Sky is Falling!

Oh for goodness sake! When are the media going to start challenging this Global Warming tripe? Today we have the president of the Maldives, when asked if he had any evidence of a rise in the sea level, replied "Oh yes! Measurements have shown that there has been a rise of one millimeter a year for the past ten years". He then demands urgent action from the international community (my taxes) to work on some sort of solution to this pressing problem.

Look - my beef with this sort of crap goes something like this...

A MILLIMETER?

How the hell does anyone measure a millimeter of sea level? Given that the sea never stops going up and down (remember tides?), what we are talking about here is measuring the highest point of a tide every day for a year and then comparing it to last years measurement, and so on.. Even the most amateur sailor could tell you that weather has a significant effect on the highest point spring tides will reach - wasn't there a huge flood in the fifties in East Anglia that was caused by a storm in the North Sea that pushed huge volumes of water over the sea defences?

So we can measure a millimeter rise in sea level can we? BOLLOCKS!

URGENT?

Even if this shit was true -how do we get to URGENT? Let's just indulge the scaremongerers for a moment and assume that this 'measurement' is correct, and that it is a constant trend, and it is actually the sea that is rising and not the land sinking because they've built 20 more hotels by the seaside (has anyone weighed the concrete that's been imported by The Maldivians in the last 10 years?), then...

It will take 300 fucking years for the sea level to rise 30cm (1ft)!

And what was the Today Programme's next question?

DO YOU HAVE AN EVACUATION PLAN?

Dear God, am I the only one actually listening to what is being said here? For goodness sake stop wasting everybody's time with this tripe...

Oh - just found this PRICELESS quote..

"The most easily measured effect of rising sea level is the inundation of coastal areas. Donald F. Boesch, with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, estimates that for each millimeter rise in sea level, the shoreline retreats an average of 1.5 meters. Thus if sea level rises by 1 meter, coastline will retreat by 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile. "

Hahahahaha - Given that tides around Britain rise and fall by (let's be kind) 2 meters, the sea should be flooding 2 miles back and forth every day!

Wanker!

Oh and it isn't true anyway (or at least someone who could be bothered to do the work instead of spouting the same old rubbish, reckons). See this from the International Union for Quaternary Research (a member of the International Council for Science)

In summary:

The Maldives have a uniquely position in sea level research (as discussed in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, No. 1, 2000, p. 17-20). In the last decade, they have attracted special attention because, in the IPCC-scenario, the Maldives would be condemned to become flooded in the next 50-100 years. Our research data do not lend support to any such flooding scenario, however. On the contrary, we find no signs of any on-going sea level rise. Our results comes from visits to numerous islands including extensive work on Hulhudoo and Guidhoo in the north, in Viligili and Loshfuchi (the site of “the reef woman”) in the middle, and in Addu in the south. This includes coring, levelling, sampling and dating (35 C14-dates). Present sea level was reached at about 4500 BP. In the last 4000 years, sea level oscillated around the present in the last 4000 years. At 3900 BP, there was a short and sharp sea level high-stand at about +1.2 m. For the last millennium, a detailed sea level record is established: +0 m 1000-800 BP, +60 cm 800-300 BP, 0 to just below 0 in the 18th century AD, +30 cm 1790-1970 AD, fall to 0 in ~1970 up to today. At about 1970, sea level fell by 20-30 cm (presumably due to increased evaporation). This is recorded in storm level, high-tide level, mean sea level and in lake and lagoon levels (from the north to the south). In the last decade, there are no signs of any rise in sea level. Hence, we are able to free the islands from the condemnation to become flooded in the 21st century.
Co-authored with the Maldives Project Team Members.