To the editor:

Your recent editorial on global warming asserts that Bristol will be inundated when the ocean rises by just short of ten feet by 2100. To support your position, you quote the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the sea levels will rise 9 feet, 10 inches by 2100.

By this calculation, sea level will rise approximately 1.4 inches per year. This means that in less than 9 years, sea level will rise by more than 12 inches, a pretty significant rise.  Since “ …just one foot of sea level rise will drastically alter the local landscape,” perhaps you should consider selling your property at the end of Bradford Street before it becomes inundated.

It appears that your editorial on sea level rise was taken from the NOAA report. However, if one digs into the details of the report, as discussed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in various chapters of the AR5 WG1 report, you will find chapter after chapter containing many significant qualifications and caveats. 

“Variability in the Earth’s climate system, which would exist even in the absence of human-driven changes, is the predominant source of uncertainty.” In other words, variability is the earmark of the Earth’s climate even without any man-made factors. Although sea level has been steadily rising for 6,000 years, measurements show no perceptible acceleration in this rise.

Sea level rise projections are based on sophisticated computer models that are tweaked based on some added information or changes in the modeling process. The further out the projections go, the worse the accuracy of the forecast. The models may be tweaked to produce just about any answer one wants.

Global warming is one of the designated culprits since it is projected that warming causes ice melt, which causes the sea level rise. Computer model predictions of global temperature rise versus actual temperature measurements show climate models have failed to track reality. None have come close, yet climate change, and therefore sea level rise, is solely based on computer models. There has been a pause in warming and there has been no global warming for more than 18 years, as measured by satellite, a system not adjusted by global warming advocates.

In a recent article in the Contra Costa Times, in discussing projecting how El Nino would affect the local California weather in the months ahead, a NOAA representative advised that, “As in the past, NOAA scientists and local experts … stressed that nothing is certain because the Earth’s climate and weather patterns are so complex,” yet these same scientists are so certain that in 83 years the seas will rise calamitously.

It is unfortunate that you choose to label anyone who disagrees with your position “ignorant” and that  “...the most ignorant among us tend to scream the loudest.” I suggest that your position as editor is a pretty loud platform used to alarm Bristolians without presenting all the relevant uncertainties. There are many supporters of climate change who want to silence anyone who disagrees with their theories. Let’s hope that you are not in that category.

Evo Alexandre
Moraga, Calif.