The Royal Society and sea level
WUWT has a guest post looking at sea level rises...and possibly falls:
Based on the most current data it appears that 2010 is going to show the largest drop in global sea level ever recorded in the modern era. Since many followers of global warming believe that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, a significant drop in the global sea level highlights serious flaws in the IPCC projections. The oceans are truly the best indicator of climate.
Hat tip then to John Shade (of Climate Lessons fame) who notes the views on sea level rise put forward in the Royal Society's recent paper on climate change:
Because of the thermal expansion of the ocean, it is very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise will be at least as large as the rate of 20cm per century that has been observed over the past century. Paragraph 49 discusses the additional, but more uncertain, contribution to sea-level rise from the melting of land ice.'
Oops. As John Shade notes, it woud be instructive to have an annual review of the Royal Society's paper in the light of new data.
Reader Comments (90)
The precise moment was when Obama beat Hillary for the Democratic nomination for President. Like an athlete calling his shot. Believe, earthlings, believe.
================
Sea level rise with respect to which datum? A year ago I emailed M. Ablain in France, who has published several times, often with A. Cazenave, and asked just this. His team had a discussion and suggested that the present datum was the 3-D frame of reference of a network of satellites (I'm assuming ones with orbits known well enough to detect sea level change). Realistically, this limits valid observations to the last decade.
Reference: http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/6/31/2009/osd-6-31-2009.pdf
Some later papers have different rates. The measurements are affected by very many factors, some of which are new enough to be after Ablain's paper.
A good news story: "Global warming is dead, let's move on"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/global-warming-is-dead-lets-move-on/story-e6frg71o-1225990501249
"it woud be instructive to have an annual review of the Royal Society's paper"
It would be instructive to have an annual review of the Royal Society!
*sighs*
So Andrew. Once again, we see that scientists are right if findings seem in disagreement with AGW theory, but wrong if results reinforce it.
If this had confirmed sea level rises, you'd all be picking through it to say what the flaws in it are.
Another fatuous bloody comment from the resident troll.
I take it your scientific education stopped at the "water boils at 100C" level. Has it never occurred to you to consider that findings that disagree with AGW theory may be right or may be wrong but at the very least cast doubt on it and are therefore valuable.
Of more concern surely is that the RS is blithely carrying on as if there was no contradictory evidence at all. Hardly a sensible stance for a supposedly learned scientific body who ought to have no axe to grind in the argument. Kehr has done his homework and come up with the possibility that there may be a fall in sea levels in 2010. If he is right, and no-one is saying whether he is or not, then as he points out "there is something very wrong with the IPCC projections".
I don't know whether he is right or wrong; neither do you. What he has done is cast doubt on a scientific theory which is in itself a good thing. What is your problem?
"Has it never occurred to you to consider that findings that disagree with AGW theory may be right or may be wrong but at the very least cast doubt on it and are therefore valuable."
19, 2011 at 10:08 AM | Sam the Skeptic
Hi Sam. My point, and my problem, is that this site, and your nomenclature would tipify it well, styles itself as 'healthily sceptical', whilst being entirely blinkered in the application of that scepticism. To whit, it is applied exclusively to things which confirm AGW theory, and rarely, if ever, applied to findings which contradict it.
For example, I suggest you would be hard pushed to point me to your own historical postings on this site, which are critical of findings which seem to contradict AGW theory.
That is the nature of science.
You put up a hypothesis and invite others to find contra-evidence. If you are led by scientific discovery you welcome the contra-evidence and seek to evaluate it, if you are led more by faith you seek to discourage dissent and mark such dissenters as "deniers".
Once again the actual data shows a quite different picture to the popular perception. Whenever I show people a copy of the JASON data that shows slowing of the sea level rise over the last few years they're always surprised and puzzled. That's what annoys me about the RS, it's the spin on the underlying data for political convenience.
But this is as we've known for a long time: It's worse than we ever could imagine ...
I'm fairly new here so I don't know if you've all seen the documentary "Doomsday Called Off", starts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr5O1HsTVgA
The dangerous-sea-level-rise and disappearing-atolls myth (among others) is thoroughly exploded by very respectable scientists.
AGW believer with blinkers accuses Sceptic blog of having blinkers.
A clip from the document shows the Japanese President at Kyoto pronouncing:
"Welcome to Kyoto to the UN Framework Convention on CRIMATE Change"
Only too true.
I don't need to go over the history of climate scaremongering from the 1970s onward. Neither should I need to go over the scientific principles involved in the proposing of new hypotheses and how they should then be treated.
There has never been any dispute among earth scientists that the climate is constantly variable. A hypothesis that "this time" it is all mankind's fault flies in the face of common sense as well as centuries (even millenia) of physical evidence which is why I have been sceptical from the beginning. My background, incidentally, is in English and History; I had to learn the science as I went along. The more science I have learnt the less convincing the AGW hypothesis has seemed.
The more I observed the debate (if you can call it that) the more evident it has become that the science of climatology is a) in its infancy; b) to a great extent practiced by people with pre-conceived ideas who (i) place excessive faith in computer models, (ii) pay little or no attention to observation of the physical world they are trying to model, and (iii) are not prepared to engage in a civilised manner, if at all, with other considerably more experienced and better qualified scientists whose findings differ from their own.
Remember that if you produce a hypothesis which differs markedly from accepted norms it is up to you to produce (as in go out and find and then make available) the evidence that it stands up and you ought then also be doing your damnedest to disprove it.
So far the climatologists have not produced one iota of empirical evidence that CO2 is responsible for the recent warming. This warming has so far followed a pattern well within norms; there is increasing evidence (that needs to be tested) that warming/cooling follows 60-year patterns and that we are at a peak with a 30-year cooling about to start.
There is also some evidence that some of those involved in the study of climate are not above manipulating data to suit a pre-conceived societal or political end. You can argue that sceptics have been known to cherry-pick data, dates and times but it is the scientific community that has the models and the data and it is their ability to "tweak" figures that is, or should be, of concern, not mine or any other sceptic's.
In summary, there are holes in the AGW hypothesis which its exponents are not prepared to accept or investigate. If they don't do it then someone else will have to. If they can come up with hard empirical evidence of their hypotheses (I use the plural because it seems to me that the climate change meme morphs relentlessly from week to week) then I will listen. As long as they can't but can only resort to playground bullying, obfuscation, and --as Steve McIntyre puts it -- moving the pea under the walnut, then I shall do my little best to expose them as the bunch of charlatans they behave like.
Sorry, your Grace, I think I got a bit carried away!!
Naive, not say malevolent, extrapolation is part and parcel of the box of tricks used to scare people about CO2 in the air. But it can be hard to resist as a source of humour. For example:
'The best source of sea level data is The University of Colorado. Only government bureaucracy could put the sea level data in one of the places farthest from the ocean, but that is where it is. I use both data sets that includes the seasonal signal. So with and without the inverted barometer applied. This is the source of the data that is used to show that the oceans are rising. Of course the rate of rise is greatly exaggerated and if the rate from 1993-2010 is used there will be a 1m rise in the year 2361.
Of course the rate is not constant. The rate of rise over the past 5 years has been half the overall rate. At the rate of the past 5 years it will be the year 2774 before the oceans rise a single meter. Of course a decrease in the rate is technically an negative acceleration in the rate of rise, so technically the rate of rise is accelerating, but in a negative direction. That statement is misleading though as most people consider acceleration to be a positive effect.' (http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/01/2010-sea-level-largest-drop-ever-recorded/)
Now one might quibble over the arithmetic, but 2361, or the like, seems a long way off, and 2774 a good bit further. If the recent trends persist much longer, the spinners will have their work cut out. Emotive pleading about grandchildren to add a personal touch to emotive prophesying of doom will have to be modified by raising 'grand' to some n'th power. In the range 12 to 25 I'd say. That won't do at all. I expect to see sea-level slip sideways and sink suddenly below the horizon of eco-journalists everywhere should these trends continue. No pain, no gain, or some similar criterion will come in to play in whichever part of their brain protects their income.
By 'grand'^n I meant 'great'^n as in 'great grandchildren'. But grand grand grand grand...grandchildren kind of works.
ZedsDeadBed
"So Andrew. Once again, we see that scientists are right if findings seem in disagreement with AGW theory, but wrong if results reinforce it."
You must strain everything through a very strange filter. There's no specific mention of anthropogenic effects (only warming) in Andrew's post, nor in the selected quote from the RS. Don't you know that ice can melt due to natural warming (like the oceans can expand)? Can't you think about any scientific data without trying to frame it in terms of AGW? Probably not. That's why you come across as so deluded and troll-like. What delicious irony - you're so blinded that you're charging others with the very thing that you are displaying yourself.
I find it very difficult to imagine sea level can be measured with such accuracy. The crust moves (up or down), as does the ocean; there may be local gravitational anomalies - there are all kinds of variables. Can you really detect a few mm change either way?
Someone educate me.
John Shade
I fear I must disagree, within a year I expect to see that climate change causes devastating decline in sea levels, reducing mans capacity to harvest food from the oceans and causing deprovation in former coastal villages that will become further away from their source of income. The lower global level will inhibit trade routes from growing economies and there will have to be funds allocated to research what would happen if the trend continues into the next millenium.
/sarc
Has anyone seen the troll contribute anything positive or useful, anytime?
Robinson, there are indeed many factors in measuring sea level. Historically it's been done with tide gauges and more recently with satellite altimetry. Have a browse around the Proudman site, it has good background, access to real data and some good links to published papers.
http://www.pol.ac.uk/
and also the University of Colorado, referenced above:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Thanks Cumbrian.
It seems to me that 'Scientists' are very rarely right if the're doing work of any sophistication. If their work is good, they will add to the sum of knowledge, but invariably the initial hypothesis will not be 100% right, it will always need to be modified, other than in trivial cases. So, despite the wailings from under the bridge, the default position of a genuine scientist is to be 'usually wrong'
The one's who insist that they are right, and have the power of political patronage are just plain dangerous.
Lord B, I like it. I'd like to hire you to head up IPISS, the Intergovernmental Panel on Instigating Sea Scares.
We have commissioned a computer model from descendants of John Frum, a leading Pacific expert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum). Naturally, the code of the model will not be released (as per highly successful best practice in climate science), and key data sets will be deemed 'lost' for the same reason, or otherwise 'adjusted' to suit. Of course we shall not be producing any code at all, merely model outputs to put on display while we await their dramatic effect.
Oh no! Some model code has been released: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
We have more work to do for IPISS - the launch could be delayed by many weeks.
OT, more emissions registry theft:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE70I0HF20110119
"Prague-based Blackstone Global Ventures told Reuters on Wednesday that 470,000 carbon permits were unaccounted for in its Czech registry account.
The missing permits, which the firm has reported to the Czech authorities, came to light a day after the Austrian emissions trading registry was closed until further notice due to a hacker attack on Jan. 10."
So that's the German, Romanian, Austrian and Czech registries all hacked into in the last year. Add in two episodes of VAT carousel fraud - in France and Italy - on emissions permits, and the Hungarian government's reissue of cancelled permits, and one might almost conclude that CO2 abatement measures are providing a field day for organised crooks!
I'm sure organised criminals also support the consensus on AGW.
John Shade
I would be honored to accept the position but purely on a non financial basis apart from expenses, my belief in this work is enough for me.
There is a charitable institution that will accept donations on my behalf though if you insist on funding my efforts. Please refer to TESSA Institute, The Exact Same Signatory Account which will also organise my time and travel related to these matters. I am currently planning to travel to a conference in Cyprus by luxury yacht so if you would like to contribute to the expense of the jouney I am sure that I could fit in a fifteen minute talk on oceanic sustainability in the 22nd Century during the conference.
Scientists predicted a drop in sea level due to climate change. The real problem is that the sea may disappear by 2100 putting all the holiday resorts and ocean liners in the world out of business. Not to mention that there will be less fish and the Chinese will have to take over the world by plane not container ship.
We are all going to die.
Would that others had your visionary insight, E Smith!
As that other visionary, David Viner, might well have remarked 'Children just aren't going to know what tides are'.
Zed
Reflexive comments, short on content.
If you want to critique the sea level rise argument, why not do so properly?
Mean SL falls sharply during La Nina years. Examine the UC curve in the linked WUWT post and you can see sharp drops in MSL that correspond to strong La Nina events such as that of 1998, that of 2008, and the current LN of 2010/11.
Whist Kehr is correct in his observation that MSL is falling at the moment, he must be careful not to over-interpret the cause.
Alarmists have been making much capital over the last year out of misrepresenting ENSO as CAGW - moderates and sceptics need to be wary of making the same mistake in reverse.
That said, there are problems with the sea level claims in general. Like others here, I am sceptical of the measurement accuracy obtainable by satellite-borne instruments. There are two other problems with the satellite SL record:
1. It is discontinuous and has been stitched together from several different instruments over the decades. Calibrating each record to the next is difficult and requires assumptions to be made. Errors and uncertainties creep in.
2. The SL measurement relies heavily on a modelled reconstruction of sea bed movement caused by the rebound from the weight of ice sheets during the last glaciation (‘glacial isostatic rebound’).
Problems with this calculation have emerged recently (Wu et al. 2010) and again, real questions over the reliability of a measurement with a claimed accuracy of tenths of a millimetre remain.
3. There is no such thing as global mean sea level, which further complicates the question of providing a supposedly accurate measure of its rate of change.
Sea levels are altered by lunar tidal forces, solar tidal forces and the interactions between the two (tidal harmonics), relative sea temperatures, the strength and size of gyres, the strength and type of ocean currents and the gravitational effects of land and ice masses that distort the geode. There are lots of other things too, but this will do for starters.
With all this in mind, let’s have a look at a determined attempt to measure sea level over a small area of the South Pacific. The SEAFRAME monitoring project was instituted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and is an attempt to monitor what might happen to those islands we hear so much about as being the first ‘casualties of global warming’.
SEAFRAME uses GPS-calibrated tide gauges to provide a cross-referenced and highly accurate measurement for the island group. For example, it estimates sea level rise at Tuvalu at 5.6mm/yr. While this is higher than the global average (a claimed ~3.1mm/yr) the island group is almost in the West Pacific Warm Pool.
This is where the warm water that powers El Nino builds up, substantially raising sea level. Sea level falls dramatically when La Nina conditions are prevalent. This makes for a very noisy data set and arguably makes the task of discerning and measuring a trend more difficult.
What is absolutely essential viewing in the light of all the talk about evacuating the population and the urgent need for multi-billion dollar handouts is Figure 15, sea level trends (page 30 pdf) in this BOM report:
The South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project
Sea Level Data Summary Report
JULY 2008 - JUNE 2009 (1.6MB pdf)
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60033/IDO60033.2009.pdf
It shows – unequivocally – that there is no trend whatsoever in sea level change at Tuvalu or any other island in the study.
See also Figure 10, sea level means (page 23 pdf) and Figure 11, sea level anomalies (page 24 pdf).
The last full Summary Report (2006) concluded:
[Emphasis mine.]This raises several points:
1. The rate (trend) of sea level rise at Tuvalu is not increasing.
2. Scientific opinion (and a huge amount of media hype) is directly contradicted by observations.
3. But nevertheless, ‘it is more a case of when, rather than if’.
And what ‘recent accelerations’ in climate change is the 2006 summary report referring to? I have no idea and it doesn’t say.
I did notice that the trend for sea level rise at Tuvalu was 5.8mm/yr back then, and 5.6mm/year in 2009.
Perhaps the residents of Tuvalu continue to place a high value on land because they remain privately unconvinced that they will be evacuating any time soon.
There is a further summary report up to June 2010, but it has been taken down from the BOM website.
General info on SEAFRAME:
http://www.bom.gov.au/pacificsealevel/index.shtml
Download reports here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/projects/spslcmp/reports_6mths.shtml
And famously the High Priest Gore has a Sea Front property, so he's really scared of raising sea levels ;) sarc off
Here is another flawed study that clearly misrepresents the uncertainties in science. This study was produced by Universal Ecological Fund (Fundación Ecológica Universal FEU-US), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation. This study was the subject of a press release by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
http://www.hoffmanpr.com/world/ClimateChangeFoodGap/The%20Food%20Gap%20-%20The%20Impacts%20of%20Climate%20Change%20on%20Food%20Production%20by%202020.pdf
Study Title: The Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production - A 2020 Perspective.
Quote from report,
"Following the current business-as-usual path, by 2020:
1. The temperature of the planet would be, at least, 2.4ºC warmer.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important man-made greenhouse gas. In 2008, CO2 levels reached 385.2 parts per million (ppm). With current increase rates of about 0.5 percent per year, CO2 levels could reach 410 ppm in the next decade. These levels correspond to greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations above 490 ppm CO2-equivalent (all greenhouse gases combined). This equals a 2.4ºC increase in global temperature."
This claim is in serious error.
One of the contributers to this study is Dr. Osvaldo F. Canziani, former Co-Chair of Working Group II, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC statement on the Himalayan glaciers was the esponsibility of the panel’s former Co-Chairs, British scientist Dr Martin Parry and Dr Osvaldo Canziani.
The AAAS have now removed all references to their original press release.
BOFA
Well, you do wonder how the conversation went between Big Al and his buildings/contents insurer:
B/C chap: 'Well Mr Gore, you did make the point rather forcefully in your film. My wife and children were quite upset, actually.'
Big Al: 'C'mon buddy, ease up. That's just the movies. Now, forget this high-risk premium BS okay? Just work with me on this. That sea level stuff it's more for, ah, the Bangladeshis and the Brits to worry about. You know Britain is an island, right?'
After this AAAS clanger about erroneous claims on a sudden increase in global temperatures over the next decade I wonder what the letters AAAS now stand for?
The Royal Society and the AAAS exhibit the same behaviour in promoting climate alarmism.
Readers of this blog are probably aware, but in case some missed it, here's a post on Anthony Watt's site on the "sinking" atolls.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/
Mac
Even the usual alarmists are refuting that one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/19/false-climate-change-study
In an email, Gavin Schmidt, a Nasa climatologist wrote: "2.4C by 2020 (which is 1.4C in the next 10 years – something like six to seven times the projected rate of warming) has no basis in fact."
My own thoughts were that this may be a ploy to show exagerated science either side of what they would describe as unrefutable science of warming of whatever the next extrapulation from updated data provides.
A case of don't look at the extreme highs or lows our figures are nicely in the middle and more dependable as a new offensive on public sentiment.
But as you know, I'm just an old sceptic....
It seems to me that too much of the warmist literature reads like that.
The 2.4 degrees rise is current on Haunting the Library just now.
One of RC's finest, Scott Mandia, has made a post as to why the claim is incorrect.
He gives a link to show why. Loved his graph of historical OHC. I hope he's taken my advice to fix the y-axis labelling or you may have difficulty in dealing with negative energy!
BBD
"... the residents of Tuvalu continue to place a high value on land...."
Not as high as values in the Maldives.
"But in the Maldives, too, land prices are holding. Indeed, land is selling for as much as one million Euros per hectare, comparable to the finest vineyards of the hilly and deluge-safe Champagne region of France."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9987/
Shub
Has anyone seen the troll contribute anything positive or useful, anytime?
No, but better to let her (a consensus finding) blatter than have monitors guardian the door. Besides, she does get some interesting retorts up.
"...Has anyone seen the troll contribute anything positive or useful, anytime?..."
Nope.
And has anyone given the Prince of Wales a bell to tell him that his beliefs about rising sea levels require some urgent reassessment and possible adjustment?
Fellow skeptics, we need to be measured here. Sea level, like all things climate, is subject to natural variability. There is a trend of rising sea levels over the past few hundred years - but individual data points fall randomly on either side of the trend line. Because of natural variability, there is a significant chance that any given year could see a decrease in sea level when compared to the prior year. Just because this decrease is large, doesn't mean that it is unexpected. Nor does it suggest that there is a reversal in the long term trend. Let's not do what the alarmists do -- i.e., deny the existence of natural variability. Of course, the opposite is also true -- natural variability is not evidence that rising sea levels are in any way due to man-made CO2.
How accurate are the satellite measurements?
The MSL data comes from the Jason-2 satellite.
The data products handbook for the Jason-2 satellite provides an insight into the size of error bars that should be used with estimates of MSL provided by the instruments it carries (section 2.3.1 Accuracy of Sea Level Measurements.)
[All emphasis added. Comments in square brackets added.]
We should note that:
1. The standard error bar for MSL measurement is given as 3.4cm (1 sigma or 1 standard deviation). This is greater than the actual value of the measurements provided.
2. The ‘corrections’ (see 1.4.2 Correct Conventions, below) are data processing procedures which refine the results to within the required parameters for accuracy. This is not at all the same as making an accurate measurement in the first instance.
3. Even with the correctional processing applied, the error bar falls to 2.5cm, still a significant percentage of the measured value.
The table (p17) providing a summary of specifications and and error budget at the end of the verification phase immediately following 2.3.1 makes interesting reading. Look at the value for ‘significant wave height’ – 0.5m to 0.4m depending on the instrument, with a goal of 0.25m. And all still TBD. This suggests that with a 40cm – 50cm swell, the measurement accuracy of the full instrument package will be seriously affected.
Download Jason-2 data products handbook here:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/J2_handbook_v1-4_no_rev.pdf
I do not find this convincing support for a claimed millimetric-scale measurement accuracy with an uncertainty of +/- 0.4mm/year.
Does anyone?
That would be the same Maldives that has recently annouced a planned expansion.
http://www.airport-int.com/news/maldives-international-airport-expansion-planned.html
Maldives Airport
Male is one of two international Maldives airports – the other is Gan International. Like much of the Maldives, it sits at minimal distance above sea level - just six feet – and it boasts a single 10,499-foot-long runway.
The new Male Airport terminal will cover a 55,000M2 area and the overall airport development contract has a value of $373 million, for which the State Bank of India will supply the majority of investment.
Makes you wonder why they need any CO2 mitigation money as they paln to increase their own CO2 emissions. Also why are we still giving aid to India if they can support such projects.
Justice4Rinka forgot the multi-billion carbon trading frauds (recently estimated at $7B USD, or 2% of GDP) in Denmark which lead to this richly ironic Guardian headline ...
"Copenhagen summit: Denmark rushes in laws to stop carbon trading scam"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/03/copenhagen-summit-carbon-trading-scam
BOFA
Actually, not the Maldives - SEAFRAME is looking at the South Pacific island group that includes the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, PNG, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanatu (and many others).
Same story though: dubious claims of runaway SLR and misattribution of inundation caused mainly by ground water extraction and coastal building to SLR from AGW.
ZDB
Newlyn has the longest sea-level information in the UK ranging from 1915 to the present and the annual MSL from its tide gauge data is indeed rising. The CO2 emissions from fossil fuel from that date shows an increasing trend around 1950 - around half-way through the period of reliable measurement. Have a look at both graphs and spot the correlation that you believe exists.
SSAT
Just a word of caution - the Newlyn tide gauge measures mean annual sea level for Newlyn - not global MSL. To assess what the Newlyn measurements can tell us, we need to know if the tide gauge is stable. Is there local subsidence? Is the area of coast subsiding because of glacial isostatic rebound elsewhere in the UK? See how tricky it gets?
Never, ever read too much into a single tide gauge!
;-)
EU suspends Emissions Trading
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/docs/transitional_measure_ets.pdf
As of today, 19 January 2011, 19:00 Central European Time, the European Commission will
suspend transactions, except for allocation and surrender of allowances, in all EU ETS
registries at least until 26 January 2011, 19:00 Central European Time.
This transitional measure is taken in view of recurring security breaches in national registries
over the last two months.
SSAT
Even the one at Ordnance Datum Newlyn ;-)
I've been trying to find some hard information about vertical movement for the ODN gauge but everything is very vague.