The Great Climate Flood Sting has hooked another big media fish. Recently the Mirror informed its bewildered, if rapidly vanishing, readers that much of London could be gone within 80 years, while large areas along the Humber and the Midlands could also disappear beneath the waves. Mirror reporter Sam Elliott-Gibbs notes the existence of “terrifying new maps” of the U.K. that predict towns and cities “will be vanishing into the sea”. Regular readers of the Daily Sceptic might already be observing the handiwork of Climate Central, a green billionaire-backed activist operation that specialises in custom-made flood catastrophes, usually aimed at local media.
Elliott-Gibbs informs his readers that the situation is bleak for many along the Humber – including Hull – “as the area becomes totally flooded, with a large portion of the Midlands submerged as well”. The Mirror prints a “terrifying” map showing water lapping Peterborough. The current annual rate of sea level rise is estimated by the U.S. weather service NOAA’s Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry to be 3.1 mm, with a 13% margin of error. Hull is four metres above sea level, so at the current rise it would take 1,290 years to be “totally flooded”. At eight metres above sea level, the current rise would leave Peterborough free of water for nearly three millennia.
These ludicrous forecasts, based partly on improbably high temperature increases, assume a sea level rise over 30 times faster than it is now. Elliott-Gibbs presses on: “If the sea level matches current forecasts, then other parts of the country could be in big trouble.” Coastal towns in Hampshire, Essex, Sussex and Kent are all said to be at serious risk. The bigger picture doesn’t escape the Mirror either. Belgium, Germany, Northern France and half of the Netherlands “are expected to be underwater by 2100”.
Climate Central is a well-funded green agitprop operation based in Princeton, New Jersey that provided the material for the Mirror story. Elliott-Gibbs obligingly notes that Climate Central “provides authoritative information to help the public and policymakers make sound decisions about climate and energy”. Meanwhile, the operation claims to work with news outlets, “to produce compelling and scientifically accurate feature stories”. On the flood stories, it supplies a free interactive map and web tools that are often used by local media to produce customised catastrophe copy.
Earlier this year, the Wiltshire Times reported that vast areas of south-west England could be under water by 2050 due to global warming. Among the sites that could be lost is Gloucester Cathedral, sited at an elevation of 19 metres. Last year, the Dorset Echo informed its readers that the waters would soon be lapping around the village of Lytchett Minster, a mere 17 metres above sea level.
Climate Central seems to be heavily backed by the Schmidt Family Foundation – money originally provided by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and Chairman of Google. Serving on the board is Carl Ferenbach from the High Meadows Foundation and Fund. The flood project is said to be funded by 12 Foundations, including Schmidt and Prince Albert of Monaco. Among the activist academics involved is Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. Oppenheimer is known for once noting: “We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialisation we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
Sea level rises are an easy hit for catastrophe forecasters. It is difficult to get a precise global figure, even with the help of orbiting satellites. As ice melts on large land surfaces such as Greenland, an enormous weight is lifted and surrounding land rises from the Earth’s mantle. This is seen in Oslo, which is currently rising 3mm a year from the sea due to ice melting over thousands of years in the ongoing deglaciation period. It is sometimes said that ice melting in Greenland has recently added 1mm a year to sea level rise. But recent evidence over the last decade suggests this process has slowed, with a possibility that the ice sheet actually increased in size in the year to August 2022.
In his recent 2021 state of the climate report, Professor Ole Humlum noted the difficulties surrounding accurate measurement of sea levels, even with the help of satellites. It is an imprecise science, with land gauges indicating a lower rise between 1-2mm.
Whatever the rise, it is hardly enough even to register on a longer trend going back to the lifting of the ice age around 14,000 years ago. In a detailed 2019 report on sea level and climate change, the American climatologist and writer Judith Curry concluded that recent changes in sea level are “within the range of natural sea level variability over the past several thousand years”.
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall
Who is the least inquiring of us all?
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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14,000 years ago you could walk from Melbourne to Tasmania.
If not anthropogenic CO2, whatever else made Bass Strait appear.
Could those pesky solar cycles, volcanoes, changes in the earth’s magnetic field have had anything to do with it?
That’s misinformation. Report to headmaster’s study for a caning.
That’s so last year. Doggerland was passable until probably 8,500 -8,200 years ago, practically last week. It was only that inconvenient Storegga landslip and tsunami around 6150 BC that finally did for it – you know, geology, tectonics and stuff. Shove up on that bench outside the Head’s office, will you?
It’s worrying that anyone reads the MSM particularly the Mirror!! They are really overplaying the fear game and the end result could put people off rather than terrify them.
And that would be a bad thing?
Aah, Prince Albert.
The guy who just collected a few billions from a developer, who just filled up a stretch of Monaco’s sea with sand to build a marina and a dozen luxury houses (at 100mln€ each) and hundred+ apartments (20mln€+ each) in/on it, to be bought by these oh so climate change, rising sea levels and flooding concerned billionaires….
There’s a whole generation who were taught at school around 2010 that large parts of England “might” be under water by 2050.
More recently all local newspaper editors had access to an app that could bring up a map of their local area suitably shaded with red to show how [Select Town] might be under water by [Select Date]. The articles even use a similar form of words, suggesting that the app author had kindly supplied a template with the app.
Climate Scare has gone way beyond titillating the newspaper readership with horror stories of what “might” happen at a vague time in the future. It is now an entire industry dedicated to keeping this major fraud going. Fortunately, the “Resist and Defy//Do Not Comply” movement is finally getting some publicity, despite the oppressive censorship, now that the 2010 school generation is trying to pay electricity bills and other taxes. Now is not the time to give up!
I feel so blessed. So many billionaires who care – truly care – about mankind.
First the wonderful Bill Gates, who believes in gifting the world with vaccines. I will not hear a word about his investments in vaccines, he does it out of altruism, that’s why he insisted that the patents on the corona vaxxes be shared for free – oh wait, he didn’t. But I’m sure he would have he had only thought of it.
Now this fab billionaire warning us of all sorts of impending disasters, which can be avoided if we, the taxpayer, are willing to sacrifice our economies, while investing in the green schemes of altruistic billionaires. Just think, NL could be saved from being under water – quite a feat, as about one-third of it has long been below sea level.
A more cynical person than moi would think that billionaires did not become billionaires because they love mankind, but I know better. The self-made
con-artistbillionaire SBF convinced me with his effective altruism. If only all of us engaged in such altruism we could all be billionaires.On a more serious note, through my work I recently had to be reading through some climate related documents and what struck me was how much the rhetoric sounded like the corona rhetoric – relentless propaganda, no debate or questioning – the science is settled, indeed 99% of scientists agree, same shaming, same scare tactics, same power grab, same claim that there is only one solution. Almost like they were both concocted by the same group of people, for the same reason – transfer of wealth and power to a very small group of people.
Spot on. Climate alarmism – with networks of dishonesty between government, academia, billionaire funded activist groups, PR firms, NGOs and the media laundering propaganda into fact – laid the groundwork for everything we saw with Covid.
Also funny how these billionaires are snapping up beachfront property at bargain prices. Not that this is their motivation, but it shows the depth of their conviction is slightly less than the uncertainty of sea level estimates.
The German health minister, who’s presently in discussions if forced masking can be abolished in public transport in Germany – he’s adamantly opposed to that – is also known to go to Fridays For Future demonstrations with prepubescent German pupils (who are basically shepherded there by their teachers) and whom he’s personally telling about future climate catastrophies at this opportunity.
“Large Parts of England Will Be Under Water By 2100″Some of them would be greatly improved;)
Rhyl?
How Bill Gates drives the agenda on climate change and health.
BBC Media Action has received $52m ($52,309,126) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since 2005. Last year $1m was granted to BBC’s Media Action for ‘global health and development public awareness and analysis’
Among others, the Guardian has received $12.7m, the Atlantic has received $1.5m in grants, the Financial Times has received $2.3m, the Washington Monthly were granted $1.1m, the Texas tribune was granted $2.2m, AlJazeera was granted $1m. The media conglomerate NBCUniversal, owners of NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, was kindly granted $9.6m from the Gates Foundation
To carry on the list, news service NPR has received $5.3m from the Gates Foundation, Univision has received $5.9m, both the Centre for Investigative Reporting and the Bureau of Investigative Reporting have received $1m each. The New York Times $1m.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also stuck its money into the ‘fact-checking’ business. In January 2016, the Poynter Institute, ‘the home of the international fact-checking network’ and owners of Facebook Fact-Checker PolitiFact, announced that they were receiving a $380,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Later Google, TikTok, and George Soros would also fund the institute.
World Health Organisation has received masses of money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Currently, the Foundation’s website lists 565 different grants donated to the World Health Organisation since their first partnership in 1998. To name a few grants listed, in July 2008 the foundation donated $676m, in July 2018 they donated $121m, in September 2014 it donated $307m and the list goes on, totaling something around the $5bn mark.
These figures are about two years out of date.
In 2004 the geniuses predicted by 2024 that the UK would be like Siberia….well we are only 1 year 1 month from 2024 let’s see what happens.
2-3 mm a year sea level increase is the end? By 2100 it is 200 mm or 20 cm, or 7 inches…me thinks that is not going to drown the UK.
80% of earth’s ice volume is locked in Antarctica which is growing, 15% in Greenland which is growing, less than 1% in the Arctic which is growing….so where is this massive sea level rise coming from? None of the great ice sheets are doing much of anything except what they have always done.
Is the sea level rise from more rain or a hyperactive hydrological cycle caused by….plant food? No science supports that.
What a cult of corrupt tards.
Yes, they should make their mind up. Back in 1975 Science News had a cartoon picture of icebergs destroying New York with the headline “The Ice Age Cometh.” (If only)
https://rumble.com/v1wkn9h-bipolar-vortex.html
I remember that! Beaufort Gyre and all that. Great stuff. https://electroverse.net/the-arctics-ticking-climate-bomb-little-ice-age-imminent/
We live in an area alongside the river Severn, and catastrophists, from time to time, print their maps of doom and tell us we will all be underwater soon. They love to accompany this with warnings it will affect property values – they know how to frighten the British.
Strange then, that it is perfectly okay to build masses of houses in this area. A perfectly nice little spinney adjacent to us is now being crammed with ‘executive homes’, all for sale at top dollar. If local councils really thought there was a danger why do they continually grant planning permission for ‘at risk’ areas?
I wish it would affect property values actually, I would love a house by the sea picked up for a song.
We all know why don’t we! Same reason Obama is happy to buy beach-front property on Martha’s Vineyard and another in Hawaii. It’s all BS, we know it, they know it, but if they just keep lying often enough then sadly most of the public will believe it.
As the article points out, you could erase humanity from history and sea level rise would be no different. Industrialisation has made absolutely no measurable difference to the rate of sea level rise, and the tiny apparent increase of rate in graphs waved around by alarmists (while not very alarming) is yet another artefact of stitched-together datasets.
This presents a problem for ‘the heat is hiding in the ocean’ long term climate-equilibrium excuse for the lack of warming predicted by models, and motivation in the past two decades for repeated and dishonest post-hoc adjustment of the GHCN derived surface temperature records to match more closely with model output, through statistical cherry picking of homogenised data and limp justifications like time of observation bias.
The sadly departed Nils-Axel Mörner was one of the few scientists willing to be openly scathing about the abuse of his field by climate alarmists, claiming the satellite data to be pathologically adjusted with arbitrary, unjustified estimates – easily done due to the potential in underplaying the uncertainty inherent in measuring the height of a constantly moving ocean with millimetre accuracy.
He was of course smeared and handwaved away by the climatistas of the Guardian et al, primarily using his personal interest in dowsing to poison the well. Because of course this was how he obtained his position as head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Unit of Stockholm University, president of the International Union for Quaternary Research Commission on Neotechtonics (a position that would give him a pretty thorough grounding on the uncertainties of satellite altimetry), and head of the INTAS project on geomagnetism and climate.
He was also predictably shunned by the IPCC for speaking out, which he did publicly and with vigour. He became another Voldemort to the doomsday cult, drawing their most intense ire for being unrestrainedly vocal in his criticism, while highly qualified and demonstrably correct.
Personally, I’d take any noisy satellite sea level data with a pinch of salt.
This interesting interview with Albert Parker PhD shows explains why these satellite measurements aren’t what they’re cracked up to be:
Senior Researcher Questions Satellite Measurements of Global Sea-Level – NewsBlaze News
The area around the Humber were formally waterlogged and drained. Central London is below sea level and London generally is built on formerly waterlogged and drained land. Strand is Saxon for beach and was named because it was on the shoreline of the Thames until it’s banks were built up to strand the Strand high and dry.
And… from the Daily Telegraph
“The University of Durham looked at levels of land uplift and subsidence in the British isles since the Ice Age. As the ice retreated 20,000 years ago the release of the enormous weight meant the north slowly tilted up while the south sank down. Scotland is still experiencing this “springboard” effect while southern Ireland, Wales and England continues to sink.
The new study shows that land levels could rise by up to 10cm in some areas of Scotland over the next century, offsetting the effects of sea level rise caused by global warming. But in parts of England, where the land is set to sink by up to 5cm over the next century, it could add between 10 to 33 per cent on sea level rises. “
So that global warming thingy has been going on for 20 000 years, causing sea levels to rise – yet amazingly we are all still here with dry feet.
And of course those ‘effects of sea level rises caused by global warming’ will take place slowly, incrementally over thousands of tears and dozens of generations, not overnight or with a lifetime.
Global warming/climate change is all part of the natural process of planet Earth and nothing to do with Mankind. The notion that a few decades of increased industrial activity can derail such a massively energetic 4.5 billion year old climate system is the jabber of the mad house.
PS ‘… the release of the enormous weight meant the north slowly tilted up while the south sank down. Scotland is still experiencing this “springboard” effect…’
That’s why the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall, to stop the heathen Scots from sliding down into England. Far sighted those Romans were.
“We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialisation we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
How kind.
Cutting energy usage as a means of controlling industrial output is both inhumane and counterproductive for the environment. Poor developing countries are far less inclined to be protective toward the environment than developed countries. It is the poorest countries that are currently deforesting while richer countries are reforesting at a pace.
Points of note
The road these idiots are taking us down will not only preside over a human catastrophe, but also an environmental one. A far better way would be to help developing countries grow, then they will be in a better position to look after nature.
“The road these idiots are taking us down will not only preside over a human catastrophe”
This is precisely what is planned for humanity. Otherwise known as depopulation.
I can say with absolute certainty that I won’t be around in 2100 so why should I live my life in anticipation of something that won’t, well probably won’t happen?
Absolute firkin madness.
The more ludicrous the bollocks they come out with, the fewer people believe it.
Look on the bright side. If the sea rises by 20 metres as they claim, we’ll no longer be a small island off the coast of EU-land. There’ll be several hundred miles between us and them …. and we’ll be able to push back the dinghy invaders.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Sea level rise is approximately 7 inches per century. But crucially there is no evidence of any increase in the rate of sea level rise. ——–This is important because if humans were affecting sea level rise with our alleged global warming from emitting CO2 then we should be seeing an increase in the rate of sea level rise which has been rising for more than 12,000 years in this warmer period called an Interglacial. The idea that a 7 inch rise in a hundred years will have large areas covered in water is absurd, and once again we have modelling full of speculation and guesses, mostly in support of politics masquerading as science.—Models are NOT science.
There now appears to be little difference between the MSM and showbiz.
I disagree – showbiz is more believable.