BBgun says that:

"Bolt’s claim, which is, by the way, correct: the record for the period 1978 – 1999 does show a sea level rise of .07 mm per year.

See: http://staff.acecrc.org.au/~johunter/tuvalu.pdf "

The executive summary of http://staff.acecrc.org.au/~johunter/tuvalu.pdf says:

"A cautious estimate of present long-term relative sea level change at Funafuti, which uses all the data, is a rate of rise of 0.8+/-1.9 mm/year relative to the land."

Next time BBgun, before you give a reference to support your assertion, at least read the summary of that reference. That way you reduce the chance of looking like an idiot.

Chris O'Neill,

The source I linked to says the following (it will come out looking a bit odd due to formatting):

"Probably the most widely quoted estimates of long-term sea level change at Funafuti
have been made by Mitchell et al. (2000) and by the NTF (2002). In particular, the
NTF (2002) reported:

"As at February 2002, based on the short-term sea level rise analyses, performed by the
National Tidal Facility Australia, for the nearly nine years of data return show a rate of
+0.9 mm per year.

and:

"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of
0.07 mm per year.

"These results, which are based on quite short records and for which no uncertainty
estimates are provided, have unfortunately been quoted out of context and without
appropriate qualication."

I provided the link and qualified that the .07 mm figure might not be meaningful. It is difficult for me to comment on the context as this is a secondary source. The .07 mm figure is nonetheless correct.

What's with the idiot jibe? Having a bad day?

ChrisC

You said this about the Greenland Ice Sheet: “Based on current estimates, this would take up to 1000 years to complete, once a so called "tipping point" in temperature was reached.”

Computer models for ice sheet dynamics have been hopelessly inaccurate. Yet the likes of Perseus would seem to hold them in some regard, whilst dismissing many other climate change predictions on the basis that they were generated by computer models.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/science/earth/16gree.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=2d09bdaa06e06428&ex=1169269200

It is very unsurprising to see such efforts to downplay the potential hazard from melting ice sheets. This article gives an example of how rapid the devastation can be from sea levels rising at their present rate:

http://www.thedanielislandnews.com/artman/publish/article_1695.php

With some scientists warning of the possibility of sea levels rising several metres in a century, dismissing the risk out of hand would seem to be foolish.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/1733631.php

Now hold on a minute folks. In his posts above, Lambert has provided two figures for current sea level rise, the first was 3mm a year and the second was 4.3mm. Yet we have numerous links indicating only 0.07mm between 1978 and 1999. Lambert cought out AGAIN with more porkies.

And the comments on some claimed inconsistency on my part for supporting a model on greenland melting while contesting climate models is downright silly. One does not need a model to multiply the area of Greenland ice by it's thickness and then divide by the current melt rate to get the number of years it will take to melt. It is called a calculator. Ditto for sea level rise. Don't you people ever check the numbers you are told?

And this bollocks about tipping points which will cause a rapid melt of only 1000 years is nothing more than an excuse for suspending logic. They provide no explanation of what this tipping point may be triggered by but it sounds barely plausible to the bimboscenti.

But the prize goes to the bozos who consistently claim that all sceptics have a vested interest or are paid by oil companies. Give us a break. Do you seriously expect us to believe that scientists and bureaucrats would never exaggerate to get their hands on steady funding?

Let me spell it out for you folks, this particular sceptic spent most of his career in a job that hinged on his capacity to detect people's BS. I was paid very well for that skill. And observing the stunts of the Al Gores and Tim Lamberts of this world makes my flesh crawl.

Al Gore has backed out of a debate by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the Wall St Journal is having some fun with that fact;

"Mr. Gore says that global warming will increase malaria and highlights Nairobi as his key case. According to him, Nairobi was founded right where it was too cold for malaria to occur. However, with global warming advancing, he tells us that malaria is now appearing in the city. Yet this is quite contrary to the World Health Organization's finding. Today Nairobi is considered free of malaria, but in the 1920s and '30s, when temperatures were lower than today, malaria epidemics occurred regularly. Mr. Gore's is a convenient story, but isn't it against the facts?"

http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=wsj-users2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB116909379096479919.html

Okay Perseus, I take that back about you elevating ice sheet melting models above climate models. Instead, it would seem that you you hold a calculation by a calculator to be more reliable than climate models.

Again, I would question why there is little discussion of the wastage in pursuing CO2 emission reductions. Andrew Bolt has taken the time to criticise government grants for a thermal solar power station, a proven technology with the potential to utilise 80-90% of the incident energy:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/global_warming_hype_shrivels_our_wallets/

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=295228&area=/insight/insight__international/

Yet I have read no criticism by Bolt of the government's plan to spend $500 million researching geosequestration, a completely unproven technology.

Surely the most effective action by sceptics would be to lobby for technological funding which would be of benefit regardless of the truth of AGW. Instead, we have sceptics like perseus voicing approval for research into measures like geosequestraion:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=207