1. sea level rise has increased 20 cm (8 inches) between 1900 and 2000 (this is a rate of 2 mm/year)
2. sea level rise (from other historical sources) shows sea level rise from 1870 to 2000 being at a rate of 1.7 mm/year
3. Satellite RADAR shows the current rate of increase to be 3.2 mm/year (which is double)

• If you see the world through the prism of politics then this message is for YOU!
• If you are an American, Canadian, or British politician then this message is for YOU!
• If you think you are smarter than climate scientists or vaccine scientists then this message is for YOU!
• If your idea of "doing research" involves looking up stuff on the internet then this message is for YOU!
• if you think the world is less than 10,000 years old then this message is for YOU!
• UDUMASS - United to Defeat Untruthful Misinformation And Support Science

comments:
1) according to tide gauges by sea-faring nations, sea level increased by 19.5 cm (~ 7.7 in) between 1870 and 2004 which equates to 1.44 mm per year. Radar measurements by satellites show the new value as 3.3 mm per year (and rising). So even if you do not accept the values published in this recent article, sea level is absolutely guaranteed to rise an additional 33 cm (~ 13 in) in the next 100 years but remember that this rise is vertical. Beaches are sloped which means that tide-surges will make things a lot worse much sooner.
2) Ocean rise should not be a surprise to anyone educated in ice ages where CO2 levels normally bounce between 180 ppm (when in an ice age) vs. 280 ppm (when in an interglacial). Why? During an ice age a lot of water accumulates in glacial ice. But humanity's industrial age has pushed co2 levels more than 130 units past 280 which is pushing "the melting of ice" to a totally new place. Had we known this earlier, then none of us would have built large cities so close to the coast. I fear that Venice Italy stands as a symbol for American cities like New York, San Francisco and Miami to only name three of many.
3) Some climatologists have hypothesized that sea level on Earth (where water covers 70% of the globe) has a near-linear relationship with co2 levels where 100 pm translates into ~ 100 ft. When I first heard this I was skeptical of the units and values until I later learned that "one foot" was just their lowest starting point. But where did they get that number? Well, is now commonly accepted that humans walked to North America via the Bering Straight at a time when the ocean level was much lower than it is today. These migrations happened numerous times so it is difficult to determine the exact time periods BUT some ancient human artifacts have been located 120 ft below the current surface. So here's what worries me: let's assume that an increase in co2 levels triggers new melting which causes the ocean levels to rise even more. The industrial age increased co2 from 280 to the current value of 410 so can we assume that we will see the oceans rise another 128 feet?

Continued here: New Scientist (2 August 2017)

• Size differences in two brain structures, the amygdala and the anterior cingulate, bias human perspective of the world. Therefore ...
• Conservatives see things as “black and white” while liberals see “shades of gray”
• Conservatives play politics as a team sport so will almost always vote their party while Liberals will split their vote choosing alternate parties (now you know how Trump got in)
• Conservatives (larger amygdala) are more fearful of others so are more easily encouraged to vote for POPULIST issues like restricting immigration by voting for Trump or BREXIT (funny point: Britain had the lowest number of Syrian immigrants but apparently the highest political reaction against them)
• Since conservatives only see things as black and white, they try (and sometimes succeed) in converting liberals over to their way of voting

Isaac Asimov PhD
(Biochemistry)

-- Isaac Asimov (Column in Newsweek, 21 January 1980)

• why is it that English-speaking countries have less respect for science and scientists than other European countries?
• why does this not apply to people from New Zealand and Tasmania ?
• does the internet provide a venue where wacky people can meet up with other wacky people to share dopey ideas while trading conspiracy theories? Perhaps, but why are New Zealand and Tasmania immune?

• The independence of the courts is, to all of us, the guarantee of freedom and the equal rule of law... It must, therefore, be the first concern of the citizens of a free country to preserve and maintain the independence of the courts of justice, however inconvenient that independence may be, on occasion, to the government of the day.
• On August 17, 1949, on the occasion of the first session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Sir Winston Churchill expressed the wish that once an agreement on Fundamental Human Rights was achieved on a European level, it would be possible to create an International (European) Court before which any violation of such rights might be submitted for judgment by the civilized world.

1. Facts are observations
   • the Sun rises in the morning then sets in the evening
2. Hypothesis (hypo-thesis literally means 'below thesis') is a proposed explanation; here are three of many:
   1. the Sun moves around the Earth (jump to step 3a)
   2. the Earth moves around the Sun (jump to step 3b) in circles
   3. all planets moves around the Sun in elliptical orbits (although they all have different elliptical eccentricities)
3. Theory is the result of an experimentally tested Hypothesis; at this point a scientist will write, then publish, a thesis 
   1. experimental test of hypothesis 2a...
      • passes (until the era of precision measurements) so jump to step 4 to build models (mathematical, mechanical, computer-based, etc.)
      • fails during the era of precision measurements (Tycho Brahe) so go back to step 2 to develop hypothesis 2b
   2. experimental test of hypothesis 2b...
      • passes for a time (we have a theoretical understanding of the issue) so jump to step 4
      • fails during the era of evermore precise measurements so jump to hypothesis 2c
4. Law is a detailed mathematical description
   • develop a model to test the hypothesis with greater precision (early physical models were machines; modern models employ computers)
   • many times, a successful theory produces yet-unobserved predictions (eg. Atomic Theory, Quantum, Theory of Gravitation)
   • improved observations (new facts) through newer instrumentation may force us back to step 2 (eg. General Relativity morphs into General Relativity)

• Example 1: "S1 immediately engages S2 but fails to pass accurate information to S2 (causing S2 to make an error)"
• Examples 2-5: "S1 will answer incorrectly without ever engaging S2"
• Example 6: "S1 immediately engages S2; S2 employs a little algebra to compute the answer then notifies S1; S1 doesn't believe S2 so requests S2 to double-check; S2 repeats the solution then notifies S1; S1 still doesn't believe S2 so requests S2 to perform a detailed rationalization of where S1 had gone wrong"

1. This graphical algebra problem employs picture symbols rather than x, y and z. Calculate the answer. (answer)
   Calculation: 2 + 12 + 7 = 21 (one picture contains three bananas)
2. "All flowers need water. All roses need water. Therefore, all roses are flowers". Is this logically true? (answer)
   S1 usually answers "yes" but this is logcially false as many things require water
3. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (answer)
   S1 usually answers 10 cents but the correct answer is 5 cents (Proof: 1.05 + 0.05 = 1.10)
4. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? (answer)
   S1 usaully answers 100 but the correct answer is 5
5. A patch of lily pads are found in a lake. Every day the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of it? (answer)
   S1 usually answers 24 but the correct answer is 47
6. Three people check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each guest pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't know the total of the revised bill, the bellhop decides to just give each guest $1 and keep $2 as a tip for himself. Each guest got $1 back: so now each guest only paid $9; bringing the total paid to $27. The bellhop has $2. And $27 + $2 = $29 so, if the guests originally handed over $30, what happened to the remaining $1? (answer)
   The misdirection in this riddle is at the end of the description, where a bunch of unrelated totals are added together, and the listener assumes these numbers should add to 30 (should be 27 after the 1 dollar refund)

• When sunlight falls on the light-mill, the vanes turn with the black surfaces apparently being pushed away by the light. But there is a problem with this explanation. Light falling on the black side should be absorbed, while light falling on the silver side of the vanes should be reflected. In that case the mill is turning the wrong way.
• In 1901, with a better vacuum pump, Pyotr Lebedev showed that the radiometer only works when there is low pressure gas in the bulb but the vanes stay motionless in a hard vacuum. This is proof that the thermal properties of the low pressure gas are responsible for the motion, not the direct action of photons. Climate-Warming Food-for-thought: too much gas traps too much heat causing the machine to stop working.
• The radiometer can also be made to rotate backwards in a refrigerator.
• Other mistaken explanations for the radiometer: Since the black side of each vane would absorb heat from infrared radiation more than the silver side, then this would cause the rarefied gas to be heated on the black side.  In that case, the obvious explanation is that the pressure of the gas on the darker side increases with its temperature, creating a higher force on the dark side of the vane which thus pushes the rotor around.  Maxwell analyzed this theory carefully and discovered that, in fact, the warmer gas would simply expand in such a way that there would be no net force from this effect, just a steady flow of heat across the vanes.  So this explanation in terms of warm gas is wrong, but even the Encyclopedia Britannica gives this false explanation today.  A variation on this theme is that the motion of the hot molecules on the black side of the vane provide the push.  Again this is not correct, and could only work if the mean free path between molecular collisions were as large as the container, instead of its actual value of typically less than a millimeter.
• The correct solution to the problem was provided qualitatively by Osborne Reynolds in 1879 in a paper to the Royal Society in which he considered what he called "thermal transpiration". To explain the radiometer, therefore, one must focus attention not on the faces of the vanes, but on their edges.  The faster molecules from the warmer side strike the edges obliquely and impart a higher force than the colder molecules.  Again, these are the same thermo-molecular forces responsible for Reynolds' thermal transpiration.  The effect is also known as thermal creep, since it causes gases to creep along a surface that has a temperature gradient.  The net movement of the vane due to the tangential forces around the edges is away from the warmer gas and towards the cooler gas, with the gas passing around the edge in the opposite direction.  The behavior is just as if there were a greater force on the blackened side of the vane (which as Maxwell showed is not the case); but the explanation must be in terms of what happens not at the faces of the vanes, but near their edges.