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Stuart Agnew is a Member of the European Parliament for the Eastern Counties (in the UK) and stood on the UKIP ticket. His web site describes attending a global warming conference in the "mid-Eighties" at the University of East Anglia. He writes:

The highlight of the conference was a series of maps of our Norfolk coastline. The first map displayed the status quo, the second what it would look like if sea levels rose by one metre, the third five metres and the fourth ten metres. We were assured that, within 30 years, sea levels would have risen by at least one metre, probably five metres and possibly ten.

Were any climate scientists (meaning people who might reasonably have been invited to give a talk at a scientific conference) in the 1980s predicting a 1 meter sea level rise within 30 years? If so, were these predictions part of the mainstream consensus within climate science at the time?

Paul Johnson
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    I've emailed Stuart Agnew to ask if he can provide more information about who made these estimates. – Paul Johnson Sep 04 '18 at 09:46
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    I've had an email conversation with both Stuart Agnew and fellow UKIPer and climate skeptic the Rev. Philip Foster. Agnew recalls the conference as being between 85 and 87, but was unable to provide any more information. Neither were able to offer any evidence of climatologists at that time predicting 1 meter or more sea level changes by now. – Paul Johnson Sep 04 '18 at 19:12
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    This is tangential, but just because a _prediction_ is wrong, doesn't mean the _theory_ is. That's especially true in cases where the prediction is based on non-public-knowledge things (whether governments plan to adopt carbon control legislation), guesses about future culture (if 'going green' will get popular), and estimates of things that can easily change (carbon output from industry), and doesn't even account for plain ol' mistakes. Attempting to discredit the theory because the prediction is wrong is invalid. – Nic Sep 04 '18 at 20:00
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    Mr. Agnew is likely putting a spin on events. I find it very hard to believe that "We were assured that ...". I think a more accurate statement would be "We were assured that, if their model was correct, ...". No credible scientist would go to a conference with predictions and claim that there is no uncertainty in their methodology. – FGreg Sep 04 '18 at 20:27
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    Thank you for doing some direct research. I'd guess that the claim is largely apocryphal, much like the claims that client scientists thought, in the 1970s, that we were heading for an ice age, which is completely untrue, or that Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet. If people repeat it with a sneer often enough, others just accept it as true. – PoloHoleSet Sep 04 '18 at 21:09
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    Not a full answer, but it's worth keeping in mind that Norfolk is actually sinking (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/built-on-sinking-ground-norfolk-tries-to-hold-back-tide-amid-sea-level-rise/2012/06/17/gJQADUsxjV_story.html?utm_term=.6c81f5a38c50) at a fairly fast rate. Not sure that it explains someone claiming 1 meter, but the effective sea level rise is significantly larger in norfolk than other places. – aquirdturtle Sep 05 '18 at 16:13
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    @IanKemp Or he might have misunderstood. The same web page includes a misunderstanding about glaciers vs icebergs, and he claims to have planted durum wheat because he thought that the UK was going to have a Mediterranean climate the following year. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. – Paul Johnson Sep 07 '18 at 06:27
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    @aquirdturtle that's the wrong Norfolk. OP means this Norfolk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk, while Washington post is discussing this Norfolk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk,_Virginia – DavePhD Sep 07 '18 at 16:32
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    I've emailed the University of East Anglia to see if they can track down Stuart Agnew on a list of conference delegates. They are treating it as a FOI request, so watch this space. – Paul Johnson Sep 08 '18 at 07:43
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    Just as a bit of context, watch this amusing video of Agnew speaking about decarbonisation - the expression on Pitella's face at approx. 30s speaks volumes ;o) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1iN6gqOsak –  Jan 16 '19 at 13:02
  • " We were assured that, within 30 years, sea levels would have risen by at least one metre, probably five metres and possibly ten. " the "probably five metres and possibly 10" was *never* on the cards. –  Jan 16 '19 at 13:06

4 Answers4

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The 24 October 1983 report Projecting Future Sea Level Rise: Methodology, Estimates to the Year 2100 , 2nd edition, predicted (mid-range scenario, see table 4.1 on page 39):

by 2000:

8.8-13.2 cm

by 2025:

26.2-39.3 cm

The mid-range scenario assumed a climate sensitivity of 3.0 degrees C per doubling of CO2 concentration. The mid-range scenario was further split into two scenarios, one where rise due to net melting equaled rise due to thermal expansion, and a second where rise due to melting was twice that due to thermal expansion.

In addition to the mid-range scenarios, extreme low and high scenarios, were considered.

In the low scenario assumed was: climate sensitivity of 1.5 degrees per doubling of CO2 concentration, partial mitigation of CO2 increase due to halving the price of nuclear energy, low heat diffusivity of the ocean, low rates of increase of methane, N2O, and CFCs, low economic productivity growth, rise due to net melting equaled rise due to thermal expansion, and a constant 53% of CO2 emissions being retained in the atmosphere.

The low scenario yielded an estimated rise of 4.8cm by 2000 and 13.0cm by 2025.

In the high scenario assumed was: climate sensitivity of 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2 concentration, high heat diffusivity of the ocean, high rates of increase of methane, N2O, and CFCs, high economic productivity growth, rise due to net melting being double rise due to thermal expansion, and an initial 60% of CO2 emissions rising to 80% being retained in the atmosphere.

The high scenario yielded an estimated rise of 17.1cm by 2000 and 54.9cm by 2025.

Actual change to 2000 was about 3cm and to present about 9cm.

So in summary, all the scenarios resulted in predictions of sea level rise of well below 1 meter by the present (2018) time. Actual rise has been slightly below the lowest of the scenarios.

DavePhD
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    Their prediction in the low scenario was 2.4-4.8 cm by 2000 and 6.5-13.0 cm by 2025, which makes the low scenario prediction consistent with the actual change to 2000. It also means the actual change to present is already greater than the lowest predicted change (6.5 cm) by 2025. – called2voyage Sep 05 '18 at 15:07
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    @called2voyage I see "4.8" for 2000 and "13.0" for 2025 for the low scenario in Table 4.1 (page 39). The "2.4" and "6.5" on page 61 is for "thermal expansion only", which is only one of the components of sea level change. – DavePhD Sep 05 '18 at 15:14
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    @DavePhD Good catch. That said, 4.8 cm is still not far off from 3 cm, and 8 cm at present could be on track for 13.0 cm by 2025. – called2voyage Sep 05 '18 at 15:26
  • I don't understand why this particular report is being singled out? It isn't an example of someone claiming a 1 meter sea level rise by 2015... – aquirdturtle Sep 05 '18 at 16:15
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    @aquirdturtle this was a very prominent report in the field. It is to show that significantly less than a meter was expected. See table IV here https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01901630 for a compilation of 1980s future sea level predictions if you what to see more. – DavePhD Sep 05 '18 at 16:17
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    I think the NOAA page you linked is showing sea level rise since 1993. Finding a source since 1983 has been a pain (and obviously it won't be satellite data), but https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level has tide gauges for 1983->2014. Shows ~4.9 cm 1983->2000, 8.6 cm 1983->2014. Roughly. That just comes from fitting a straight line to the data for 1983->2014 and taking the endpoints. – James Picone Sep 06 '18 at 01:01
  • @JamesPicone From your link's spread sheet, 1983 was 6.188976 inches and 2000 was 7.062992 inches, a difference of 0.874 inches or 2.2 centimeters. The rising seems to have accelerated. – DavePhD Sep 06 '18 at 10:35
  • more-recent data: https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/index.php?id=1599 – DavePhD Sep 06 '18 at 11:11
  • @DavePhD I took a linear trend over the time period and subtracted the start of the trend from the end of the trend to prevent year-to-year noise being an issue. SLR has definitely accelerated. The problem is more that satellite data starts in 1993 and the report was in 1983, so you're missing a decade of SLR - at modern trend rates, that's ~3 cm. The tide gauge data and satellite data aren't trivially comparable though, you need to do some work to align them. – James Picone Sep 07 '18 at 00:35
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The conference would have presumably been organized by the Climate Research Unit. They have published proceedings for similar conferences going back to at least 1973. It would be ideal to track down the relevant proceedings to identify the exact meeting and paper to which the quote is referring, but this would require some library research.

How about other sources on the science in general as of the mid-1980s? Here is a report from 1983 which accepts a projection (on p. 2) of a 10 cm sea level rise over 25 years. And here is a journal article from 1987 which states (on p. 17):

Available estimates generally imply a rise on the order of one meter in the next century.

This is much less than one meter in 30 years. So clearly, while Agnew's statement may or may not be an accurate description of one particular research presentation about Norfolk, it does not represent the scientific consensus of the mid-1980s for global sea level rise projections.

Brian Z
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    A [NOAA chart](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level) shows about 15cm rise since 1950. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 03 '18 at 14:51
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    The proceedings wouldn't give a definitive answer to the question. People often include "breaking news" or other material in their presentations that isn't reflected in the proceedings, which are typically written months in advance. – David Richerby Sep 03 '18 at 16:02
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    @DavePhD, I made a correction and replaced the material referred to in your comment. – Brian Z Sep 03 '18 at 16:19
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    @DavidRicherby I don't know what field you are from, but in mine, you write the proceedings after the presentations have been given, unless you include only the abstracts sent before the conference to receive admission. – Federico Sep 03 '18 at 20:05
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    @Federico: In computer science (pretty far removed from climate science, I know), proceedings contain the final accepted papers that authors have supplied at least several weeks before the conference. Where paper proceedings exist in printed form, copies are distributed to attendees when they arrive at the conference arrival. – hmakholm left over Monica Sep 03 '18 at 23:56
  • @HenningMakholm mine is aerospace. We write the full papers only if invited, i.e. if the presentation was good and interesting, otherwise only the abstract is included. – Federico Sep 04 '18 at 04:57
  • @Federico: Not saying you're wrong about your own field, but that sounds very odd to me. How can the program committee know which papers it should accept if those papers are not even written yet? Do you draw lots to decide who gets to speak at the conference? – hmakholm left over Monica Sep 04 '18 at 10:55
  • @HenningMakholm I'll be in chat – Federico Sep 04 '18 at 11:06
  • There you go! From the 1987 perspective, January 1, 2001 would be a date that is "in the next century," even if the author meant "by 2087." lol – PoloHoleSet Sep 04 '18 at 21:12
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    @HenningMakholm In my branch of the atmospheric sciences (but I do not do climate) proceedings can contain almost anything and count as nothing. Only publish and peer-reviewed papers are important. And are always written in advance before the conference. – Vladimir F Героям слава Sep 05 '18 at 06:29
  • @PoloHoleSet But January 1, 2001 is 13 to 14 years after 1987, not 30. The quoted sentence means that after 100 years the level will have risen around 1 meter, not that the point at which the level increase will reach 1 meter will occur during the 21st century. – phoog Sep 06 '18 at 14:40
  • @phoog - I hope you didn't think I was making a serious argument there. I was facetiously pointing out that, if one wanted to be pedantically accurate but fundamentally dishonest, ***ANY*** date on or after that one would be "next century." I picked that specific date because it is the starting date for the 21st century, not because I'm saying one should look at that date and take measurements. Anyway, if I'm explaining it like a joke from a Jay Leno monologue, then it wasn't funny to start with, probably. – PoloHoleSet Sep 06 '18 at 16:13
  • @PoloHoleSet I wasn't sure. I've just been reading up on the flat earth society, so everything is murky. Furthermore, "in the next century" *could* mean "during the next century" in the right context, so people, especially those who are not native speakers of English, could easily interpret it that way even though it's clearly incorrect in this context. As a joke, I do find it funny, but I really wasn't sure whether it was supposed to be one. Thanks for clarifying. – phoog Sep 06 '18 at 16:56
  • @phoog - well, I guess reading up on the flat earth society might alter one's perception of what is considered serious vs absurd. I look forward to your informed answers about flat-earth claims. – PoloHoleSet Sep 06 '18 at 16:58
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    @PoloHoleSet I spent my lunch hour trying to find (or devise) an argument explaining in the flat earth model how the sun is seen to approach the horizon in Western Europe while it is at its highest point over the eastern US and invisible in southeast Asia (i.e. at approximately 17:00 UTC). Eventually I gave up and ate my burrito. – phoog Sep 06 '18 at 17:07
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To add to DavePhD's answer, the High range prediction was 17.1cm in 2000 and 54.9 cm in 2025.

Also, from the page following the one he cites:

AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD PRODUCES SIMILAR ESTIMATES OF SEA LEVEL RISE

To cross check our projections, we estimated sea level changes by another method: extrapolating past associations between temperature and sea level. Sea level rise in the last century has been estimated at 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches). The surface temperature rise for the same period has been estimated at 0.4C. Thus, the ratio of sea level rise to temperature is somewhere between 25 and 37 cm for each degree. Including the effects of trace gases, global warming should be equivalent to at least a quadrupling of CO2 by 2100, which would raise surface air temperatures by 3.0C to 9.0C (based on the National Academy of Sciences' range for climate sensitivity, ignoring delays caused by the heat absorbing-capacities of the oceans). using the 25 cm to 27 cm ratio for the 3C to 9C range yields sea level rises of 75 cm to 333 cm. These estimates are in line with those produced by our more elaborate approach.

If I'm reading correctly, that 75-333cm range is for 2100, but I'm not sure. This may be the source of the quote, though.

Benjol
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    The paragraph is estimating sea level rise against temperature rise, so it is saying that a 3 degree rise would cause a sea level rise of 75cm regardless of the time frame. It is not the source of the quote because Agnew claims the estimates were in the range 1-10 meters. – Paul Johnson Sep 04 '18 at 09:45
  • I'm a little suspicious of the reliability of the quote as both the projected temperature range is *very* high as is the projected future CO2 concentration (compared to IPCC consensus). – matt_black Sep 04 '18 at 19:15
  • @PaulJohnson that's *presumably* the final sea level rise, and even after a new stable temperature is reached the sea level will take a long time to catch up (some of the rise is due to thermal expansion, for example, and the lower ocean isn't well-coupled to the atmosphere). That's why an arbitrary date of 2100 is widely used - while not long enough for all processes stabilise, it characterises the long-term effects quite well and allows comparisons – Chris H Sep 05 '18 at 11:03
  • @matt_black with an ECS range 1.5->4.5, which is around the IPCC range, a quadrupling of CO2 concentration is a total 3c to 9c rise. Those numbers are fine (although it won't happen by 2100 and they're not saying that; they're saying that's the total rise). RCP 8.5 has CO2-eq concentrations at 1200 ppm in 2100; that's a bit more than quadruple the commonly-accepted preindustrial figure of 280 ppm. – James Picone Sep 06 '18 at 01:06
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I emailed Stuart Agnew to ask for more information. He forwarded my email to Rev. Philip Foster, who has provided this piece of evidence from "People" magazine on 8th October 1979. It features Dr Gordon MacDonald apparently predicting a sea level rise of 2 meters by 2030.

Dr Gordon J F MacDonald

However what Dr MacDonald actually said in his Congressional Testimony is considerably tamer than this headline (see page 101 in the linked document). After emphasizing how little was known about the way in which sea temperatures would affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), he suggests that once the sea temperature rose the WAIS could then shed 1/3 to 1/2 its mass over 100 years (my emphasis), and that complete melting of the WAIS would cause a 5 meter sea level rise. Presumably this is where the headline writer got the "up to here" bit. Nothing in Dr MacDonald's testimony suggests that this would happen by 2030.

Update

DavePhd has located the original People article on line. The article describes a "disaster movie" scenario "early in the 21st century" where increasing CO2 leads to temperature rises of up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit and a 20 foot sea level rise. However the article is ambiguous: its not clear whether "early in the 21st century" refers to just the CO2 increase or to the effects.

At the end of the article there is also a quote about world catastrophe "not 200 years from now but within our lifetime". Again the article is unclear, but this seems to have been a quote from an Energy Committee staffer rather than MacDonald.

Update 2

I emailed University of East Anglia to see if they had any records of Stuart Agnew attending a conference. They took it as an Freedom Of Information Act request but they didn't have any records back that far. Not surprising, but it was worth a try.

Paul Johnson
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  • text of the article: "Early in the 21st century... Oceans rise everywhere by perhaps 20 feet, inundating coastal cities. Some 25 percent of the world’s population must flee to higher ground. " https://people.com/archive/co2-could-change-our-climate-and-flood-the-earth-up-to-here-vol-12-no-15/ – DavePhD Sep 11 '18 at 17:13
  • Hard to believe that People magazine would be so sloppy and imprecise about science..... – PoloHoleSet Jan 16 '19 at 18:44