NASA scientists claimed that 2014 was the hottest year ever! ...Oops! Never mind. When the facts were subsequently checked, the NASA scientists sheepishly admitted that there was only a 38% chance this was true which means probably not true.
However, for you fans of broad climate predictions, I have good news. NASA scientists are now claiming that rising seas threaten to flood NASA launch sites. And swallowing this latest claim with no discernible skepticism is Brandon Griggs of CNN.Com. Griggs' bio describes him as "specializing in coverage of pop culture, entertainment, technology, travel and lifestyle trends." Therefore he must have a great deal of expertise on rising sea levels, right? Of course, if his report is as wrong as 2014 being the hottest year ever, at least it can be classified as entertainment:
Rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps threaten to disrupt a handful of NASA launch sites along U.S. coastlines, the space agency warns. In the coming years, launch facilities at Florida's Kennedy Space Center and other places may need to be retrofitted or even moved inland, NASA says.
Translation: Spend more money due to future projections based on adjustable fudge factor "data."
...NASA says that more than half of its infrastructure stands within 16 feet of sea level. That includes more than $32 billion in laboratories, launch pads, airfields, testing facilities, data centers and other stuff -- plus 60,000 employees -- from Florida to California.
More money! Spend more money! After all computer models can't be wrong.
...NASA says it will need to design smarter buildings and rebuild others. In some cases, crucial laboratories, storage or assembly rooms will need to be moved to higher floors. And repairing sea walls and rebuilding sand dunes along launch pads may become part of routine maintenance at Kennedy Space Center.
I repeat. Spend more money even though the ocean is about the same distance from A1A as it was 30 years ago. To get an idea of how laughably manipulable the varying tiny bits of sea level data is, let us check with Climate Change Dispatch:
We’re analysing the decimal points of the acceleration of a trend that was largely created by adjustments in the first place. Why bother? The raw satellite data showed almost no rise at all from 1992-2002, and was post hoc adjusted up from less than 1mm to 2.3mm/yr (Aviso, 2003). And the raw low rate was skewed high by the El Nino in 1997. These adjusted figures have been used to generate thousands of headlines about how sea levels are rising faster after 1992.
...The acceleration is so small it’s less than the errors. (Be afraid, it’s accelerating at 0.043 +/- 0.058 mm/yr2.) Normal scientists don’t get excited at this. They don’t issue press releases.
Killjoy! Why can't you allow us to enjoy the fudge factor fantasy of rising seas flooding NASA launch sites? After all that's entertainment...and pop culture too!
