Sea levels to rise 10 feet in 50 years? Only in Planet of the Apes.
You’ve probably seen a rash of alarmist articles regarding a 10 foot sea level rise in 50 years. Quite scary, almost as bad as The Day After Tomorrow or Planet of the Apes.
Let’s compare a few articles written on an upcoming article in Nature which is the source of these articles. We’ll look at a small sampling of sources including:
- FoxNews.com: Sea Levels Could Rise 10 Feet in 50 Years
- National Geographic: Fossil Corals Show Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise?
- TIME: Coral Fossils Reveal Sea Levels Rising Fast.
OK, let’s stop there for a minute. Which article title is the most alarmist? My vote goes to TIME, as the title is in the present tense (the research is for 121,000 years ago). At least National Geographic included a question mark. I expected more from Fox News (side note: I usually read MSNBC.COM and FOXNEWS.COM as an attempt to get information from both sides).
Now, let’s go a step further, and see what is either alarmist or balanced about each article.
Fox News:
Alarmist: “The potential for sustained rapid ice loss and catastrophic sea-level rise in the near future is confirmed by our discovery of sea-level instability,” he and his co-authors write in Friday’s issue of the journal Nature.
Balanced: People skeptical of the theory of man-made global warming could use the paper as evidence the Earth warms up suddenly on its own, without any explanation.
National Geographic:
Alarmist: [Nothing at all, really.]
Balanced: But not all experts on corals and climate are convinced by the new study.
Tad Pfeffer, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, noted that Blanchon’s team couldn’t directly measure the rate of sea level change around the Mexican corals, because the age estimates aren’t accurate enough.
“It’s an interesting idea, but one that for me is only suggestive and not compelling,” Pfeffer said.
“I’d want to see something more solid than this if I’m going to buy the idea of such rapid sea level rise at the time [of the last interglacial].”
Even if the new study is confirmed, Pfeffer added, more research would be needed to determine if rapid sea-level rise 121,000 years ago provides evidence that similar changes can happen now.
“And of course, when would ‘now’ be?” he asked.
“But the big unknown is whether any of the things we think we know about the Antarctic ice sheet prove to be true,” Kearney cautioned.
“One camp says [rapid sea-level rise] could happen, another camp says it would take thousands of years. I’m not sure what the conventional wisdom is right now. It depends on who you talk to.”
TIME:
Alarmist: The title, which suggests the present tense, not 121,000 years ago as the source information discusses.
“…it may be a matter of decades before cities like New York are turned into swampland.”
“the seas might have risen by 6.5 to 10 ft. (2 to 3 m) over the course of 50 to 100 years — far faster than scientists had assumed.”
And the obligitory alarmist statement: But in the wake of the surprise breakaway of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which won’t raise sea levels but will speed the melting of the remaining Antarctic ice, the Nature study is a grim warning of a potentially flooded future.
Balanced: There are caveats: the interglacial period during which the Mexican coral fossils were deposited was warmer than the world today, and sea levels were as much as 20 ft. (6 m) higher.
And other scientists caution that Blanchon’s work should still be viewed as preliminary and in need of independent confirmation…
My bottom line:
Fox News skipped over a lot of the details, but presented one alarmist and one balanced counter point. TIME was by far the most alarmist by a ratio of 2 to 1 alarmist vs. balanced statements. (Side note: I’m surprised Sharon Begley wasn’t a coauthor – oh yeah, she works for Newsweek, but sometimes I get the mainstream media publications all mixed up!). Surprisingly, National Geographic presented the most factually based article, without adding much, if any, of the mainstream media-based fear mongering.
National Geographic gets my vote of confidence for presenting the facts of the study without too much editorializing.
However, Fox News gets an honorary mention for the following statement in the article:
The previous interglacial period, the Eemian, lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. It was warmer than the current interglacial, the Holocene, with hardwood forests well north of the Arctic Circle and, presumably, smaller ice caps.
Looks like the earth has warmed and sea levels have risen in the past without the help of humans’ CO2 contribution. And yes, the climate and sea levels have varied dramatically.
