Sea level may drop in 2010

The sea level rise is dropping because the sun’s output is dropping.
Sun=major influence on climate. Will the IPCC get around to suggesting positive feedback from solar output, the way it does with greenhouse gases?
The truth will out in the end.

Funny how the record temp data is precast before the end of the year and then available days after the end of the year, but sea level data showing sea levels descreasing is 5 months late and counting.

Nice post! Has there been any discovery or speculation as to why there is a cyclical variation in the seal level during the course of the year? Seems to be a little strange unless it could be that more water is downunder and so it rises during the warm periods south of the equator but not as much rise during the summer north of the equator. Anyway it is an interesting variation during the year.

This is yet another serious blow the accuracy of the official IPCC predictions for the coming century

Does anyone honestly think it’ll make the slightest difference? Someone will come up with an explanation entirely consistent with AGW!

yeah strange there are lots of things to learn from nature indeed !

Excellent post, which clearly tells me it will be safe to go to the beach for a holiday for while yet!

Now you have revealed you hand, can we not be certain that the data, when eventually released, will have been ‘adjusted’ sufficiently far to prove that we are all gong to be drownded three weeks ago last Tuesday as the models tell us?
This is Climatology after all.

I’ve calculated the rate of rise since 2003, and made it available here.
Please notice that it has been going down (be careful: the rate is going down; not sea-level) almost continuously since the beginning of 2006, only interrupted in the fall2009-spring2010, probably due to “El Nino”.
Ecotretas

The linear regression shown at the beginning of this post is rather clear. There is a strong up trend, but with too much short term variability to give any meaning to one year’s data. Seems reasonable that variability will continue but that the long term trend will also continue.

Cedar hill, those squiggly lightbulbs diminish in output over time. I also replaced mine after one year, and stocked up on incandescence before they become illegal (seriously)
Expect to hear the word LAG when questioned by the media. The storyline will be “their is a lag between ocean response and temperature increase”
In reality, one can say there is a lag between fact and fiction.

This article is trying to produce a very definite conclusion from the visual inspection of a small short term change at the end of a slow long term trend. That can’t be done.
It shows a lack of skill plus an excess of hope.
It looks to me like a repeat of the Steve Goddard Incident where a tiny blip on the arctic ice curve became, in some people’s fevered imagination, an approaching ice age. We all know how embarassing that turned out to be.

Patrick Davis says
——–
I simply do not believe a satelite can measure sea levels with levels of accuracy in milimeters, yes, they are good, but not THAT good IMO.
——–
They can measure the distance to the moon using the Apollo retro reflecting array with an accuracy of 1 foot.
An individual with a hand held gadget can measure their own position to an accuracy of about 30 feet.
Many other astonishing examples are available. Just because it is outside your personal experience does not mean it’s impossible.

John Marshall says
——–
According to the Argo date set ocean surface temperatures are falling. It follows that there will be a thermal shrinking of this water thus lowering sea levels.
——–
I may follow that up, but does this relate to the change over from ship temperatures to more and more Argo bouys being deployed? Apparently the ship temps are slightly warm due to the sampling process. This in turn gave a spurious cooling trend.

“Only government bureaucracy could put the sea level data in one of the places farthest from the ocean”
And award the space shuttle booster rockets contract to a manufacturer located in a land locked state causing the booster to be designed for train transportation instead of barge (hense the need for sections and O rings), causing the first space shuttle disaster.

The quiet sun has resulted in more meridional/equatorward jets with more clouds overall and a higher global albedo.
That is most likely due to a shift in the balance of chemical reactions inviolving ozone in the upper atmosphere which changes the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere and redistributes the pressure patterns at the surface.
That results in less solar energy into the oceans and over time a decline in both ocean heat content and sea leels.
The first consequence is and has been a tendency to skew the balance of ENSO towards more powerful and longer La Nina events as compared to El Nino events.

“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.”
It is all due to global warming the sea is evaporating?

I would not be in the least bit surprised is someone writes a paper to show how global warming can disrupt the climate causing sea level to fall.

I do wish you guys would stop confusing a good yarn with facts…

I’m just amazed that the global sea level can be measured accurately enough that a tenth of an inch difference from year-to-year can be detected.

Patrick Davis says:
January 17, 2011 at 2:53 am
I simply do not believe a satelite can measure sea levels with levels of accuracy in milimeters, yes, they are good, but not THAT good IMO.
I was thinking the same thing. And Lazyteenager, a foot is hardly comparable to a millimeter. We’re just supposed to take their word for it that the satellites are accurate despite observations on the ground (at places like decades-old docks, sea walls etc.) showing that sea level has not risen much/at all?

One side of the argument takes some numbers then pulverises them into a figure of 3 mm rise in sea levels. Then the other side takes the same numbers and purees them into a drop of 3mm. The rising side claims they are correct, but refuses to discuss any possibility of error and attacks anyone that disagrees with them, then goes off to the corner to hold their breath until their face turns blue. The falling side also claims they are correct, but welcomes discussion and encourages others to demonstrate any errors in their conclusions, retiring to absorb with interest any comments that follow.
Who in this scenario is more likely to be believed?

Alexander K wrote “Excellent post, which clearly tells me it will be safe to go to the beach for a holiday for while yet!” But if the sea level would only rise faster, the beach could come to you!

Geoff Sherrington says:
January 17, 2011 at 3:27 am
That excess water is stored somewhere and it’s a travesty that we can’t account for it.
Now THAT is funny!

Dave Middleton – just eyeballing the graph – the change in slope would be even more marked if you used 2003 as the inflection point. Regards N

El Nino effect. We saw something similar in 1998. El Nino is a release of heat from the ocean. Therefore we expect deep cooling in the ocean, which will reverse some thermal expansion. I doubt that sea surface temperatures, as indicated by ARGO and mentioned by some other posters, has much effect. It is the DEEP temperature change that makes the major difference here (though both, of course, will have some effect).
This points to something I have often thought about: While we think of El Nino heating effects as the earth getting warmer, it is, in fact, an effect of cooling, or rather it is a surface warming face that accompanies a sub-surface cooling. If you see an increasing exodus of Iraqi Christians does that mean the population of Iraqi Christians is increasing or decreasing? Well, in this case it means decreasing. Similarly every outgassing of heat to the point where it can radiate from the upper atmosphere instead of being stored deep in the ocean corresponds to net cooling of the earth.

LazyTeenager says:
January 17, 2011 at 4:08 am
Patrick Davis says
——–
I simply do not believe a satelite can measure sea levels with levels of accuracy in milimeters, yes, they are good, but not THAT good IMO.
——–
They can measure the distance to the moon using the Apollo retro reflecting array with an accuracy of 1 foot.
—————–
I share Patrick’s sceptism about the accuracy of measurements. I do not know precisely how sea levels are measured but if it a measurement of the distance between the satellite and the ocean, how do we know that orbital decay does not contribute some part of the 1 or 2 mm change in distance? Further unless you are measuring every mm2 surface of the earth you might be observing change in distribution not overall change in height.
In any event an accuracy of a foot in the distance between the moon and earth suggests that satellite measurements may not have sufficient resolution. A foot is 304.8 mm and the moon is about 384,400 km from earth. I do not know the orbital distance between the relevant satellite and earth but if it is at a height of more than 1,300km from earth and if it has the same error as your example, it is doubtful that it would be able to measure to an accuracy of 1mm.
Additionally, as noted in one of my comments on another thread, I am concerned as to what is being measured given plate techtonics. How do we know that presently the floor of the seabed is not being pushed up by an average 0f 1 to 2 mm each year as plates ride over/underneath one another?
I also share the point made by tonyb at January 17, 2011 at 2:30 am . I have mase similar comments many times on other threads. Whilst written records and archaelogical records may not always be quantative, we can lear much from past history. This past history confirms that sea levels have risen and fallen considerably during recent history (the past 5,000 years) and how land was farmed that in many areas it was considerably hotter than today. This past historical evidence does not suggest that these hotter temperatures led to any mass extinctions and in fact man appears to have flourished in these warmer periods thereby suggesting that if the world were to now warm a few degrees, it would be entirely beneficial to us (and other species inhabiting this planet).

Rises and drops in sea level have been noted for thousands of years by anthroprogenic fishermen in S.America. Rises were known as El Señor’s and drops were know as La Señora’s. Before the advent of writing it is believed that these events were recorded somewhere inside every tree trunk on the continent. Today, many anthropologists believe that this is all an ancient fable handed down from generation to generation; the origins are disputed.

I can’t go along with the questioning of the accuracy of satellites. The biggest errors are caused by local effects such as tides, air pressure, ocean currents and winds that cause the sea level to change dramatically around the average in any one location. Moreover that average itself will not necessarily reflect the global average.
I do not know how sea level is measured but I would be surprised if less than a million measurements were made each month. By taking such a huge sample across the globe most of the geographic and climatic uncertainties would be averaged out. In so doing random measurement error is also averaged out. A systematic error could remain but calibration is a simple process given the availability of fixed points on the land to use as a height reference.
So sub millimetre accuracy for the measurement of the average is quite possible. However looking at the scatter of the plots it looks like the actual measured variable is not too stable and that is no surprise either. It is because of this instability and not the measurement that I think we need to look at the pattern and not the detail (as the post does). As such the pattern is entirely expected. The Argo measurements show little or no warming in the past decade and the sea level agrees with this. Personally I try not to fall into the same trap as the warmists and read too much into a small amount of data but the facts seem pretty clear.

ATTN: Cedar Hill and Robert of Ottawa
RE: Short Service life of CFL
The service life of a CFL or incan. light bulb (ILB) depends on the duty cycle, on the position of the device in and the type of the lighting fixture, and on air temperature and circulation.
A CFL has service life rating (SLR) of 10,000 hours while a ILB has a SLR of 1000 hours. These values are only valid for constant service (i.e., constantly “On”) with the base down and the device not enclosed such as in milk glass diffusing globe, with an air temperature of about 70 deg F and adequate ventilation, and with a stable current and applied voltage.
You can easily disassemble a CFL with a knife blade by inserting it in the gap between the top cap and base and twisting the blade to pry the plastic pieces apart. Lift up the coil base and cut off the leads from the circuit board at the entry points into the glass spiral bulb.
You can remove the threaded metal base by prying the metal, a little bit at a time, away from the plastic base. Lift up the circuit board assembly and cut the leads off from the metal base at the circuit board. The lead for the hot contact of the metal base has a small fuse enclosed in heat shrink tubing. Note solder in and lead button contact of metal base.
Note mass of solder on the solder side of the circuit board.
Now check out the circuit board and its components. All other things being equal, the CFL is very enviromentally unfriendly due to the amount of metal and materials used such as copper, tin, lead, iron, and zinc and of doped silicon in the transistors and diodes. Note wire-wound resistors and transformer.
The big question is: How long does a CFL last if most of the duty cycles are short? For example, how many times is a CFL in the main bathroom of house with four occupants turned on and off in 24 hours? Probably alot.
How do voltages fluctuations and power surges affect the service life of CFL?
If the CFL is installed upside down in a recessed lighting fixture or in a white glass diffuser hanging near the ceiling of hot kitchen, how does it last?
Since most CFL’s are made in China, how much fossil fuel is use to make them? There is a lot more glass in a CFL than a ILB, and more raw heat is need to bend and form the thick glass spiral.
Some final comments about ILB’s. There are two types of ILB’s for different service orientations. For horizontal service the filament is parallel to the long of the bulbs. these type of bulbs are used mostly in traffic signal lights, banker desk lamps, aquariums, etc.
For vertical or upside service the filament is perpendicular to the long axis of the bulb. The filament is can be a short arc or have a circular form.
Using a clear ILB inside a diffusing and opaque device affors more light as compared to a frosted ILB.

I believe the most recent Church and White paper that is often quoted as the authority on SLR did not account for ground water pumping and in fact corrected the SLR data the opposite direction for ponding (dams). Therefore reducing SLR by .8 mm is a huge correction. I can image the the fighting between the glacier, ice shelf alarmists and the thermal expansionists over what is left. I still put the most credence on tidal gauges located near stable cratons away from river deltas like many places in Australia which tend to show about 1.2 mm per year over the last century.

The ability to measure the sea level with accuracy like this is fairly new. I can’t find the details that I read through once, but the ability was an unexpected discovery that re-opened the study of the sea levels.
The only way for the sea level to be static is for there to be no retention of rainfall. So perhaps 50 million years ago it was stable. As long as there is ice sheets or glaciers growing or shrinking on land, the sea level will always be changing.
That it was trending up indicates there was warming, but the trend has changed and appears to be reversing. This would point towards a natural cycle. It would also indicate that beachfront property will always be risky business.

If sea-level is falling, I’d think the ocean-heat content would also have fallen — temp is proportional to density.
Stay tuned for re-run of attempted manipulation of the OHC data from the ARGO network to “hide the decline”.

There is a big uncertainty how much pumping of ground water and fossile water contributes to sea level rise. There are contributions to sea level rise when the ground water level is permanently lowered. Or when fossile water layers are opened. Numbers of estimates are: total pumped water is 1200 km3/year (would correspond to 3.5 mm rise/y). Out of that 300 km3/y are estimated as permanent effects (1mm/y). But nobody knows hard numbers. People in arid countries pump for growing food, who should blame them. Then there is evapotranspiration of the food plants and the rain water ends in the ocean.
Can we wait hundred years, before hard data are taken?

John Kehr – how about rerunning your graph as I suggested to Middleton above with two regression curves one up to and including 2003 and the other starting with 2003 and including the latest 2010 numbers. Thanks Norman

Pascvaks says:
January 17, 2011 at 10:27 am
…..and “He who laughs last laughs better”
BTW: Buy more popcorn!

Re: Jerry from Boston says:
January 17, 2011 at 6:41 am.
Jerry, may you please provide the reference for that study done past year and published (or to be published)? Thanks.

A method used to smooth out cyclical data (like sunpots fro example) is a moving average with a window of the period of oscillation, it would be interesting to see the data filtered as such to remove the cyclical oscillations.

Seems to correlate with the drop in OHC…
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/knox-douglass_fig1.png?w=552&h=453
I’d like to see a update of the OHC graph taken to the end of 2010, next to the SLR graph.

I think this is brilliant, The world is warming and the sea level is falling. I think it shows just how much they have corrupted the data that we now live of a planet that is warming while the oceans are cooling, this is spooky physics.
Brilliant.
Also to show that the tide may be turning..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12186245
An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe’s climate. The BEEB reporters seem to gob smacked by the link between the rise and fall of civilizations and climate. Until AGW no one was surprised.

LazyTeenager says:
January 17, 2011 at 4:08 am
Patrick Davis says
——–
I simply do not believe a satelite can measure sea levels with levels of accuracy in milimeters, yes, they are good, but not THAT good IMO.
——–
They can measure the distance to the moon using the Apollo retro reflecting array with an accuracy of 1 foot.
An individual with a hand held gadget can measure their own position to an accuracy of about 30 feet.
Many other astonishing examples are available. Just because it is outside your personal experience does not mean it’s impossible.
I would refer you to this document
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/J2_handbook_v1-3_no_rev.pdf
It is the OSTM/Jason-2 Products Handbook which covers the data products available from the Jason-2 satellite which is the latest and greatest of the satellites which have provided data for the ubiquitous UC sea level graph over the years. As such it has had numerous updates over previous units to improve the accuracy of the orbital ephemeris, atmospheric corrections and numerous other factors which affect the accuracy of the data provided.
In this context I would point out this line from Sec 2.3.1. …”The sea-surface height shall be provided with a globally averaged RMS accuracy of 3.4 cm (1 sigma), or better, assuming 1 second averages.”
This actually sounds quite encouraging relative to the data from past TOPEX/POSEIDON units, at least until you refer to the table on the next page of the PDF, where the various elements of the error budget are tabulated. Of particular interest is the line for Significant wave height where the uncertainty is given as 10% or 0.5 m whichever is greater. Since waves are present over most of the oceans most of the time, on avg. 2m with daily peaks in the 8-10 m range, it makes even that +/- 3.4 cm number look more than a little dubious. The handbook is quite interesting as it covers fairly thoroughly the elements, methods, and multitude of corrections and fudge factors involved in arriving at the MSL numbers. I think if you spend some time studying it and considering the implications of what it tells you, you will find yourself much less inclined to take these posts about tenths of a millimeter changes in MSL quite so seriously.
You might also want to check this map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Geoid_height_red_blue.png
It shows the baseline surface that the sea level anomalies are derived from. You will note that based solely on variations of the gravitational strength of the planet the equipotential surface varies about 200 METERS. For data consistency they have stuck with a Geoid model that is seriously out of date and which differs significantly with the latest GRACE models

The process of measuring ocean height by the Jason satellite is described at http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/. The raw accuracy of a single measurement is about 3 centimeters. The high resulting accuracy is obtained by statistical reduction of hundreds of thousands of measurements in 10 days, which can reduce error by a factor equal to the square root of the measurement sample. For 200,000 measurements (say), this would reduce the error to 0.07 millimeter.

Oh no!!! Sea levels are dropping! Our ports will high and dry in no time! Obviously, it’s time to panic, albeit in the other direction.

2-3 mm does not sound very much …………… just a drop in the ocean .
aaaaw come on it was to good to miss.

Anthony Scalzi says:
January 17, 2011 at 12:03 pm
To those questioning the ability of satellites to measure sea level with millimeter accuracy, I would like to point out that a current trend in construction is the replacement of optical surveying equipment with gps. It turns out that for skyscraper construction, gps is more capable of being millimeter accurate than traditional surveying methods. As an example, the current worlds tallest building was built using gps to make sure the floors were aligned.
http://www.leica-geosystems.com/en/Burj-Dubai_69024.htm
If you delve a little deeper on the link you provided you’ll find this
http://www.leica-geosystems.com/downloads123/zz/gpsgis/Viva%20GNSS/brochures-datasheet/Leica_Viva_GNSS_GS15_receiver_DS_us.pdf
If you scan down through it you’ll find that this top of the line GPS system is capable of accuracy of 10mm +/- 1 ppm horiz, 20mm+/- 1 ppm vert, in kinematic mode i.e. moving. But GPS is significantly different from sat altimetry in that the ground receivers are electronically linked to the GPS sat constellation and can avail themselves of a number of techniques which greatly improve their accuracy. The sat altimeters are bouncing signals off swaths of ocean surface hundreds of km wide. Surfaces that are varying systemically and chaotically over a range of several hundred meters in elevation as well as varying significantly in reflectance. Measurement times are barely a second and, since they only pass over a set of coordinates once every 10 days, no measurement is ever repeated.
Getting any of these systems to perform anywhere near their specs is a difficult and daunting task and that’s for ones you can actually put your hands on, monitor closely and recalibrate when necessary, which tends to be often. Systems riding on sats orbiting 1336 km above the Earth at thousands of mph are much more problematic. It is a sad fact that many in the scientific community still haven’t resolved the difference between precision and accuracy. When you analyse a data set, your computer will spit out the numbers to however many decimal places you instruct it to, but that is no indication that the data is actually accurate to anywhere near that level, even if it does appear to resolve to consistent values.

What are we gonna do with all the emergency plans for all coastal towns in Norway now?
All those people, spending late nights planning for IPCC’s armageddon?
Make stone-tablets and dig’em down for some archeologist to find a thousand years from now?

DO NOT FEED THE LAZY TEENAGE TROLL!!!
Study him to learn his devious methods. Like in his comments on the absolute accuracy of satellites measuring sea level into one single global figure, he leave out waves, tides, moon’s deformation of the goeoid, orbit pertubations, etc, etc while trying to sound scientific by repeating one simple proper statement easily Googled on radars. Don’t feed him.
But here’s a stick to poke him with. ☺

R. Gates
But the models say it should be accelerating and should have been accelerating the last 10 years. It isn’t and it hasn’t been. AGW is, again, falsified.

Well this is certainly easily understood. A devilish confabulation of Trenberth’s “hidden heat energy” reappearing from the deepest depths of the ocean in the hottest year in the whole history of years has literally boiled the sea off. Those bazillions of tons of water are now forming themselves into a serpentine atmospheric stream headed for Sacramento! Embattled governor Jerry Brown will have to raise taxes 20,000% in order to sop up the water in an environmentally sensitive way and to cover the “force majeure” pay claims of the WWBOSMI (World Wide Brotherhood of Slop Moppers International).
President Obama will give Republicans a scolding on the need for civility in the face of this enormous American-engineered environmental apocalypse, and demand that Chevron Oil cough up ONE TRILLION BUCKS to pay for this, since, as it is headquartered in San Francisco, it is obviously responsible and it’s his duty “to kick ass.”

Dave Andrews says:
January 17, 2011 at 2:01 pm
R Gates,
Where do you get your conclusions about long term warming resulting from AGW? Only today new research has apparently shown the effects of the deep ocean , such as the Marianas trench, on CO2 capture. This was a totally unknown phenomenon but you still persist in believing that the science is settled!
_______
I never have said the science is settled. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve only said the it is more likely than not that AGW is occurring. There is still much we do not know, and that makes science exciting– especially when dealing with a system as complex and on the edge of chaos as the climate– you can EXPECT surprises.
_____
#
#
Richard M says:
January 17, 2011 at 4:52 pm
R. Gates says: January 17, 2011 at 1:12 pm
What I see a disconnect on is AGW skeptics looking at short-term cycles and trying to draw any conclusions about long-term warming from anthropogenic GHG.
You mean like focusing on Arctic sea ice for less that a full 60-100 year cycle?
___
Oh, so now the skeptics think they’ve identified a 60-100 cycle of Arctic sea ice? Please provide the peer reviewed research on that.
Arctic sea ice is declining because the Arctic is warming and the Arctic is warming because CO2 and other GHG’s are at their highest levels in thousands of years…but please, let’s take a look at this “60-100 cycle” as researched and documented in the peer-reviewed journals.
____
mike g says:
January 17, 2011 at 6:30 pm
R. Gates
But the models say it should be accelerating and should have been accelerating the last 10 years. It isn’t and it hasn’t been. AGW is, again, falsified.
_____
Mike, you would do well to understand the difference between AGW Theory and Global Circulation Models or Global Climate Models. They are far from the same thing, and simply because the models are not perfect (nor could they ever be when dealing with a system on the edge of chaos), that does not in any way invalidate the basic premise that increasing GHG’s (initiated by CO2, but including water vapor and methane) will warm the planet. You will also do well to actually study some of the models and understand that they don’t all use the same basis, and none of them predict a straight linear relationship between rising GHG’s.

@LazyTeenager:
“..trying to produce a very definite conclusion from the visual inspection of a small short term change at the end of a slow long term trend. That can’t be done.”
Once again, spoken like a true AGW Skeptic. Welcome to the fold!
Seriously though, the conclusion of this article is that, damagingly to IPCC predictions, the rate of sea level rise is not currently increasing. If you didn’t get that then perhaps you should read the article again.
If you are trying to make the point that between an arbitrarily chosen set of dates representing a blip on the geological timescale, it is possible to extrapolate a trend and assert (without evidence) that it is linear, your comment is irrelevant to the conclusion of this article. It is also tautological.
I’ve heard the statement “sea level rise is accelerating!” parroted ad-nauseum by AGW proponents. The information presented in this article shows this statement to be false (tempted to use ‘unequivocally’ there!)
Please shout if you need a definition of the term ‘accelerating’.

Matter says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:40 am
Hahahaha, is this post serious?
IPCC sea level rise projections are less than a metre by 2100, although this should be a minimum bound due to dynamic ice sheet processes. They are not a linear increase. The last 20 years rate of sea level rise has been 80% faster than the 20th century average.”
Really, hard to see that here. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
It is not hard to find all the “scientist” and reporters warning of a possible 1 meter rise, or far greater.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

Hector M. says:
January 17, 2011 at 11:05 am
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\Global Warming\Sea Level\Rising sea levels attributed to global groundwater extraction.mht
I hope this helps. Good luck.[ that won’t work . . the link I mean]

thegoodlocust says:
January 17, 2011 at 2:19 pm
R. Gates says:
“What I see a disconnect on is AGW skeptics looking at short-term cycles and trying to draw any conclusions about long-term warming from anthropogenic GHG. If the sea level doesn’t continue going up on a decade over decade basis, that might be interesting, but to make any analysis about AGW based on short-term cycles, whether ENSO, PDO, solar, or what have you quite invalid.”
Well, Mr. Gates, I see a disconnect between global warming alarmists who conveniently ignore that fact that the sea level has been rising for the past 6000 years and yet somehow, despite this happening for the entirety of human civilization, the current rise is unprecedented and due to human activities.
Oh wait, the rise is “accelerating,” that has always been the cry of alarmists, and yet where is the proof? The claim is that the rise is accelerating, but if the opposite is occurring then that is more than simply “interesting” – it is yet another example of the failed predictions of the AGW movement being ignored.
—————————
Have a look at Figure 3a in this paper on sea level.
You’ll notice that it is certainly increasing at an accelerating rate and the time scale that it is taken at will certainly require more than year or two’s data to slow it down to what it was in the late 1800’s.

Mike D. says:
January 17, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Oh no!!! Sea levels are dropping! Our ports will high and dry in no time! Obviously, it’s time to panic, albeit in the other direction.

Mike, while it may seem funny (given the hysteria of the AGW movement), it is serious. There are many ports that would become useless to modern ocean traffic with a drop of just a few inches in sea level. Think of the Inland ports like Philly and Richmond.

Experiment a little… do a WEB search on ‘department of ecology’ + ‘carbon credits’
I did this in my own State of Washington. You will find near countless meeting minutes and conversations about Carbon credit income. It seems as if they’ve already spent the money! This is likely the reason the AGW ‘lie’ is so hard to kill. Bureaucrats have no fear of AGW, instead they are giddy about an unlimited funding source, enough money to fund every dream…. like young children anticipating a trip to Disneyland….. and you want to take it all away from them!!
No wonder they scream “the debate is over!”

Mark
I haven’t looked back at all the comments but I may have been the first person to question whether satellites can measure sea level to within 1 mm. I am not saying that they cannot, but rather just throwing the possibility that they may not be able to do so into the melting pot. I am certainly appreciative of any comments explaining how measurements are taken and the specification of the system.
One point that galls me is that frequently data is set out without setting out the limitations of the accuracy of the data set, the relevant margin of error. Why does the satellite data not set out the measurement errors?
As regards errors, the first point is can a satellite maintain its orbital position above the earth to within 1mm? We all know about orbital decay which require satellites from time to time to be repositioned. There are also various gravitational factors which lead to samll orbital changes such as the sun, the moon and the conjunction of the gas giants. Can these cause a 1mm change in orbital course? Personally, I do not know. No doubt someone reading this thread could supply some answers.
Second, if the satellite is orbiting at say 1350 km above the earth, then that is some 1,350,000,000 mm above the target. As I understand matters, the satellite emits a signal which is then timed for rebound. It is measuring a distance of some 2,700,000,000 mm. May be, the system can measure to a wavelength of light but may be it cannot distinguish between 2,700,000,001 mm and 2,700,000,000 mm and 2,699,999,999 mm. Again, I do not know the answer. May be someone else does.
Third, there is the problem that one is measuring an ever changing randomly chaotic system. With waves, swell, wind spray, tides (gravitational bulge of the oceans) etc such that one is measuring a surface that is continuously distorting and on each subsequent pass will never be like the previous pass. I understand that statistical regression techniques are used to improve resolution. However, it is easy to see that this is not like a laser measure a fixed target in a laboratory and some error inevitably must be imparted.
Finally, what are we measuring given plate tectonics? How do we know that as plates ride over and under each other that on average they are not causing a mm or so difference in the depth of ocean floors. Continents are moving relative to one another, the shape of oceans is changing slightly, some land masses are rising some are falling, this causes a displacement effect. So too erosion. Do we know what effect these are having so appropriate adjustment can be made?
On top of these there is the interpretation issue. This is completely separate since it is not a measurement/data issue but rather a question of what are changes in ocean levels telling us, e.g., thermal expansion, ice melt, water extraction from land, reduction in river flows due to damming, irrigation etc?

Michael J. Dunn says:
January 18, 2011 at 1:30 pm
It is amazing to me that so many commenters are willing to spend time expressing ignorant opinion and speculation, instead of reading up on the subject and learning something: http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/.
…………………………………..
Well Michael, it appears from the data sheet that raw measurments are accurate to within 3 cm.
Thereafter, they carry out their statistical regression and suggest that the measurements are, after that process, accurate to within “several” millimetres. It is unfortunate that they do not define “several” but since a couple is two, and a few is three, several is usually regarded as four or more. So I guess all going well, they can state that sea level rise is say 3mm +/- 4mm. So on an annual basis the increase in sea level is within the margins of error.
Hence what this suggest is that say over a period of some years (I would say at least 5), they would give a worthwhile indication of the change, eg 15 mm +/- 4
mm (assuming that each year the sea level rose by 3 mm for each of the 5 years).
However, as I noted this is all going well. It is interesting that they test the accuracy of the orbit via set land data points which do not suffer from the same chaotic measurment problems. There is nothing in the data sheet that suggests that the problems with chaos have been fully addressed (albeit I do accept that the statistical regression does help to reduce this factor). Likewise, there is nothing in that sheet to suggest that they have taken account of possible (and I don’t put it higher than that) changes caused by moving land masses/plate techtonics.

“In order for the IPCC prediction to be correct of a 1m increase in sea level by 2100,”
This is quite false. The IPCC does NOT predicted a sea level rise of 1m. It predicted a sea level rise between 20 and 70 cm.
See here:
BRIEFING: a post-IPCC AR4 update on sealevel rise
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/downloads/797655_16br01_slr_080911.pdf
“the rate must be almost 11 mm/yr every year for the next 89 years.”
No. For the satellite altimeter period, the predicted mean rate is around 2 mm/yr , not 11 mm/yr. The rates measured are much higher, around 3.2 mm/yr. So the IPCC UNDERestimated the rate of sea level rise.
See here:
Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007.pdf
“Since the rate is dropping, it makes the prediction increasingly unlikely.”
The rate is not dropping according to AVISO and CSIRO. The University of Colorado shows a pause in sea level rise in the 2007-2008 La Niña, followed by a continuation of trend of the years before (a polynomial fit will give a deceleration, but it is more accurate to say that there was a nearly constant rate of SLR, then a pause, and then again the same rate of SLR)
“Not even once in the past 20 years has that rate ever been achieved. The average rate of 2.7 mm/yr is only 25% of the rate needed for the IPCC prediction to be correct.”
This statement is based on a fantasy “IPCC prediction”. The reality is that the rate of sea level rise (3.3 mm/yr) is 60 % HIGHER than the mean sea level rise rate predicted by the IPCC (2 mm/yr).

Has the amount of snow on continental land masses last winter and in December 2010 been taken into account?

D. J. Hawkins says:
January 18, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Well the changes under discussion are a matter of a meter or two, not fathoms.

A fathom is 6 feet or about 1.8 meters. So 2 meters is “fathoms”.

Hmmm, what happens if data indicates a sea-level drop but climate models do not?
Prof. Lindzen knows:
“Inevitably in climate science, when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data. Thus, Santer, et al (2008), argue that stretching uncertainties in observations and models might marginally eliminate the inconsistency. That the data should always need correcting to agree with models is totally implausible and indicative of a certain corruption within the climate science community.”

The first chart above calls out for cumulative sum analysis.
I had industrial experience of the power of the technique over many years when then new computing power became available to convert from the difficult-to-interpret “mask” presentation to a bar chart.
The management value came because:
1.Cusum “Change points” became time indicators of changes in process.
2. The statistical significance between periods of production could be clearly illustrated
The technique has been advanced beyond my very limited industrial experience, see:
http://www.variation.com/cpa/tech/changepoint.html#Change-Point Analysis
Maybe someone more qualified than I would like to have a look at this?
Don

From Mars, Peru

The updated (late september 2010) AVISO data show a spike, to record levels of the sea level, just as did last year:
That link takes us to a pretty map indicating the last update was in March 2010.

Digging around that site, however, I found this:
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/products-images/index.html
Some spike. And the La Nina only set in about mid-year last year. It’s only now making itself apparent worldwide.

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
~Obama
Guess that means we should be thanking Obama now, right? /sarc

The September 2010 spike is evident in the graph that includes the seasonal signal:
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_NoAdjust.png
The spike is the combination of the trend plus the seasonal spike of late Northern Summer. What is surprising is that the last data points are well above the maximum reached last year. In late 2007, the sea level barely reached the level seen in late 2006, because of La Niña.
The current La Niña should have caused the same effect, but for some reason, it hasn’t.
Maybe is just an error in the preliminary data, maybe the ocean in late 2010 is behaving in a different way than in 2007.

I just went the source of the data linked at the top of the article and looked at the altimeter calibration against tide guages.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/calibration.php
There’s a significant swing in 2009-2010 . Has the Jason satellite has taken a bump or has someon adjusted the tide gauges ?
The scale of this adjustment seems “unprecedented” in the 30 years of the record.

Mars Man,
Yes, I do get it. You searched far and wide to find one highly smoothed graph with 2 or 3 magic points that you think constitute a “spike”. It’s sort of like dendrochronology where 2 or 3 magic trees can make a hockey stick.
Congratulations, you found the needle in the haystack.
For those more interested in the haystack.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.jpg
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_global.jpg
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html

Why Mars? Only because I found myself dancing around the maypole with someone named “from mars” a while back. Similar writing style, similar line of argument.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/19/associated-press-gone-wild-2010-disaster-article-is-unadulterated-trash/#comment-554946
If you say that’s not you, I’ll stop using it.
In the meantime, you can continue to use your preferred data.
Whether or not sea levels fall this year is not my argument anyway. You just caught my attention with that “spike” thing. It is however clear that there are no signs of the sea level trend accelerating.
And ice cores don’t absolve dendrochronologists manufacturing hockey sticks form tree rings.

“Please give me a link to a study that shows that the tree-ring paleoclimate proxies studies are flawed. And if they are flawed, why ice core data agrees with tree ring reconstructions?”
How many links do you want? I could just point you to http://climateaudit.org and let you fend for yourself, but this pretty much nails the granddaddy of them all.
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
And before you start with the revisionist history, make sure you explain this:

CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that. It looks like my time is expired, so I want to ask one more question. Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?
DR. NORTH. No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn’t mean they are false.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_house_hearings&docid=f:31362.wais
You realize of course that your last sentence is a logical fallacy. Just because the pyramids are alligned with the stars doesn’t mean they were put there by ancient astronauts. And if you want to find a fig leaf in the last sentence in the North quote above, you can hardly claim that using the wrong method leads to higher confidence in the study.
But as long as you keep mentioning it, please show me an ice core study that looks like this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hockey_stick_chart_ipcc_large.jpg
It is after all the “perfect” shape of this hockey stick that made it the darling of the global warming community. The various subsequent “spaghetti charts” hardly support this “perfect” shape.

None of those are global or even hemisphere-wide many of them are only for a couple of hundred years.
The tricky dendrochronology we’re talking about, which I guess I missed with regard to your original diversion with ice cores, involves global or hemispheric trends on the order of 1000 years.
I guess that makes your original claims about ice cores = tree rings even more of a fallacy.

Smokey says:
January 24, 2011 at 4:55 pm
““We are back to levels seen in the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) and the Minoan Warming Period, and between 1ºC and 3ºC warmer than the Medieval Warm Period!”
Absolutely ridiculous.”
As usual, you are hiding the incline. Your timeseries ends in 1905, 105 years ago!
See what has happened in all those years in Greenland:
http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=294
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2001&year2=2010&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=250&pol=reg

Smokey says:
January 25, 2011 at 9:39 am
“From Mars,
You are to science as astrology is to astronomy, living in the illusory dream world of your fevered imagination.”
What a perfect decription of yourself, as usual. Psychological projection at work!
“105 years ago the global temperature was only 0.7° below today’s temperature, making the MWP still much warmer than today.”
We are talking about GREENLAND. GREENLAND!
Greenland is not the whole planet Earth. There any warming and cooling that happens on Earth is AMPLIFICATED. The Global average temperature anomalies are measured in tenths of a degree, but in the ARCTIC (where GREENLAND is) the temperature anomalies are measured in full degree units. See this MAPS and then comment:
Anomalies with respect to 1951-1980
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2001&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Anomalies with respect to 1900-1910:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2001&year2=2010&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=1200&pol=reg
Please note that while GLOBAL temperatures in 2001-2010 are 0.77ºC warmer than the 1900-1910 average, ARCTIC temperatures (see the Greenland area) are between 2ºC and 4ºC warmer than the 1900-1910 average
“The chart I posted, based on real data published in a peer reviewed journal, says it all.”
It is a good chart, but do NOT show modern global warming because it ends 105 years ago. You are misrepresenting the data used in that chart, chopping off the last 105 years of warming! (that years are found in the instrumental temperature data)
“Run along back to your realclimate echo chamber, where they believe your ridiculous globaloney.”
Mr Smokey, you are the one that make ridiculous claims. I just posted what the DATA show, you are comparing apples (Greenland temperatures) with oranges (global temperatures).

Smokey:
I am not talking about the proxies used by Mann. I am talking about temperatures in Greenland, that have warmed between 2ºC and 4ºC in the last century, are you denying that?
Are you denying the results of these meteorological stations?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=1&name=&world_map.x=290&world_map.y=41
Note that the temperature variations showed there are not in the order of tenths of a degree, are in the order of several degrees.
Your question:
“Is ‘amplificated’ a realclimate word? ”
Nope. It the english word that describes what is happening in the Arctic.
“Is the warming robustly amplificated?”
I do not know what you mean by “robust”, but certainly it is clear from the temperature measurements that any climatic change in the planet, either warming or cooling, occurs in the Arctic at a rate many times bigger: in the last 100 years the warming was 0.7ºC in the globe, 3ºC in Greenland. Or are you perhaps blinded?
Finally you show your refusal to think by saying:
“And when you say, “You are misrepresenting the data used in that chart, chopping off the last 105 years of warming!”, I’d like you to find me some recent ice cores. See, as I’ve explained to you before, it takes time for the snow cover to compact into ice.”
Yes the ice has not yet compacted, but you have actual temperature measurements fro weather stations. Just check the weather station data that I linked above. It is such a difficult concept to undestand?
If you can’t, then really I am wasting my time with you.

Smokey says:
January 25, 2011 at 6:33 pm
“Martian from Peru,
Since it’s been shown recently that no thermometer used by the USHCN is calibrated, and that the error tolerance is 2° – 4° or more on a properly calibrated thermometer, and furthermore, the fact that all “adjustments” are either upward, or long past “adjustments” are lower, making the rise look scarier, you’ll understand if I question the credibility of organizations that are financially rewarded, and their corrupted scientists given job security, for showing more global warming – whether it’s real or not.”
So for you in the world does not exist a single temperature record that is trustworthy, because “the error tolerance is 2° – 4° or more on a properly calibrated thermometer” , that is, nobody has any idea of the actual temperature of any place. How then the weather reports show temperature readings with a precision of at least a degree?
“Then you complain because Greenland is only one region; a capricious argument that shifts with the winds. We’re talking about global temperatures, not regional.”
Nope. The GISP2 ice core is in Greenland, so we are talking about temperatures there.
“And I reject the claim that Grenland is warming as a result of AGW, unless you can provide verifiable evidence that all locations above the Arctic circle are warming as much.”
See here:
Temperature anomaly (2001-2010)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2001&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
Every location in the Arctic area that has a weather station show warming greater than the global average.
For 2006-2010, the Arctic temperatures are even higher than for 2001-2010:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2006&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
Do you see it, or are you blinded?
“They’re not, which debunks your ‘amplificated’ conjecture.”
Arctic amplification is NOT a conjecture, it is a actual observation.
“I’ve shown that the null hypothesis remains unfalsified, which is a falsification of the alternative CO2=CAGW hypothesis.”
Any respectable hypothesis must be explicitly formulated. You have not shown what that “null hypothesis” is nor any evidence in favour of whatever it is. What is your “null hypothesis” you talk about so much?