13 - Misleading media reports on sea level rise - a case study
Channel: potholer54
Date: 31/12/2010

Happy New Year to all my subscribers!

This addresses a response to my video "Climate Change -- Hurricanes, atolls and corals,"  which, on investigation, revealed a major error by a news agency and a TV network. The moral of the story is that sticking the label "Global Warming" onto anything that moves is not going to help public understanding of climate science.

SOURCES:

"Rising Water threatens Panama islands" -- Al Jazeera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4m_TxYTucc

"Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland" 
by Sean Mattson, Reuters July 12, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66B0PL20100712

Map of Caribbean tectonics from:
"Wide Plate Margin Deformation, Southern Central America and Northwestern South America"
R. Trenkamp et al.
http://estrella.geol.sc.edu/~agl/CASA.htm

Paper showing influence of subsidence on tidal guages:
"Changing coastal levels of South America and the Caribbean region from tide-gauge records"
- D.G. Aubreya et al, 1988

Map showing isostatic uplift of Britain:
http://www.neccap.org/NE%20Adapt/Climate/futureClimate/images/ratesofisostatic.gif