Fiji ‘Flooding’ is Fake News from #COP23
Open Letter to Honorable Prime Minister of Fiji and President of COP23 Frank Bainimarama by Nils-Axel Mörner
Mr. President,
The community assembled at the COP23 meeting in Bonn badly wants temperature to rise according to models proposed (but never verified, rather seriously contradicted) and sea level changes that may pose serious flooding threats to low lying coasts provided sea level would suddenly start to rise at rates never recorded before (which would violate physical laws as well as accumulated scientific knowledge over centuries).
We have been in your lovely country and undertaken a detailed sea level analysis, which beyond doubts indicates that sea level is not at all in a rising mode, but has remained perfectly stable over the last 50-70 years. Hence all threats of an approaching general sea level flooding is totally unfounded.
Whatever economy, politics and project agendas may want to put in the center, the true scientific community must insist that only facts as revealed in nature itself and in laboratory experiments can provide trustworthy results.
These are the facts
- Sea level has remained virtually at the present level over the last 200 years
- In the last 50-70 years sea level has remained perfectly stable in Fiji
- This stability is indicated by the growth of corals (stopped to grow vertically, and forced to grow laterally into microatolls) – and corals do not lie
o Studied your tide gauge records – Mörner & Matlack-Kelin, 2017a
o Studied sites of coastal erosion – Mörner & Matlack-Klein, 2017b
o Documented sea level change during the last 500 years in great details –
Mörner & Matlakc.Kelin, 2917c
o Noted the close similarity to similar records in nations like the Maldives,
Bangladesh and India – Mörner, 2017
o We have presented our data at conferences in Rome (4th WCCC, October 19-21, 2017) and Düsseldorf (11th EIKE, November 9-10, 2017) – see: Clutz, 2017 and Tallbloke’s Talkshop, 2017)
Figure 1. The critical depth for coral growth is 40 cm below low-tide-level (when the photo was taken). If sea level is not rising the corals are forced to grew laterally. We have studied several such cases at several different sites in the Fiji. We undertake radiocarbon dating at al number of sites of the dead center always with ages as ”younger than 1950”, implying that sea level has remained perfectly stable over the last 50-70 years – and corals do not lie.
(from Mörner & Matlack-Klein, 2017d)
Figure 2. Sea level changes in the Yasawa Island of Fiji (from Mörner & Matlack-Klein, 2917c). Sea level was high in the 16th and 17th century (1), low in the 18th century (2) and at about the present level over the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries (3) wit a somewhat higher level in the early 19th century and with a perfectly stable sea level during the last 50-70 years as indicated by C14-dated microatolls at multiple sites. Consequently there is a total absence of a present sea level rise – i.e. the threat of a future flooding is lifted off.
Our data (Mörner & Matlack-Klein, 2017c) indicate:
1. Absence of a present rise in sea level during the last 50-70 years
2. Global predominance of rotational eustasy during the last 500 years
Our message (or rather plead) to You as President COP23 is
- Listen to your own field evidence in the Fiji islands they indicate no rise in sea level
- Be faithful to the message from the Fiji corals they indicate full sea level stability since 1950
In the true spirit of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau let us say:
Retournons à la Nature
That is setting field evidence in the center
instead of models and ideas driven by political and/or religious agendas
Stockholm, November 12, 2017
Nils-Axel Mörner morner@pog.nu
Head of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, Sweden (1991-2005) President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999-2003) Leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project (2000-2007)
Chairman of the INTAS project on Geomagnetism and Climate (1997-2003) Leader of the Fiji New Sea Level Project (2016-2017)
Patronus Skytteanus of the Skytte Foundation at Uppsala University (1979-2017+)
Awarded the Golden Condrite of Merit from Algarve University (2008) “for his irreverence and contribution to our understanding of sea level change”
Author of several hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers and several books
and
Pamela Matlack-Klein
co-author and co-investigator
The Portuguese Sea Level Project
pmkdragon@gmail.com
