By Jo Nova
A candidate for this years Cult Science Oscar:
The Coal Plant God is at it again — causing the oceans to swallow South Africa on the one hand and lifting up the land by 2mm a year with the other. (A lucky coincidence that disguises the horrors of rising seas, eh?). Apparently we used to think the land was rising due to hot plumes of magma far below, but now researchers say its because a drought has made the crustal plate lighter.
Even though no model can predict rainfall, everyone reading the tea-leaves, and editing newspapers, can see that climate change caused the drought.
Satellite data reveals climate change is lifting South Africa out of the ocean
Joshua Shavit, BrighterSide
Instead of heat from below, the Earth’s crust in parts of South Africa appears to be lifting due to water loss above. When surface and underground water vanish, the weight on the land decreases. That loss of pressure lets the land subtly spring upward, like a sponge expanding after being squeezed.
The precambrian crust under South Africa is some of the oldest in the world, and the research team proudly tells us they “analyzed satellite and climate data spanning nearly a decade.” That much?
This groundbreaking conclusion comes from researchers at the University of Bonn…
The researchers used GPS measurements, satellite data, and hydrological models to study the correlation between areas experiencing severe droughts and significant land uplift.
Not to knock the detailed and creative work of said researchers but this is typical of Big Government strangled science. It must have cost a lot of money, involved many salaries and much high-tech equipment, but in the end all conclusions are tortured to blame “climate change”.
The paper itself only mentions anthropogenic climate change once, but the press release and news stories turn it into a horror show, and none of the experts at universities around the world will be able to say a damn thing about how absurd that is.
And none of the government funded science journalists at the ABC-BBC-CBC science units will think to ask if solar cycles affect rainfall in South Africa instead. Even though we know solar activity affects Central European floods, Australian-Asian monsoons, and groundwater levels in China.
All science serves The Blob, and The Science can never be wrong. If the ocean does or doesn’t swallow Cape Town, it’s because of climate change.
REFERENCE
Mielke et al (2025) GNSS Observations of the Land Uplift in South Africa: Implications for Water Mass Loss, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 09 April 2025 https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JB030350