John Droz writes in with this:
A few months ago a widely-publicized article by Houston and Dean was published in the Journal of Coastal Research (and on your site), noting that although sea-level is rising; the tide gauge data does not show any increased rate of rise (acceleration) for the 20th and early 21st centuries. This was augmented by a recent paper authored by an Australian scientist as well (<<http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1>>).
In the most recent volume of the Journal of Coastal Research, there is a point/counterpoint on this study. It was started by an attack on this paper by Rahmstorf & Vermeer and followed by a response to this by Houston & Dean (below).
Discussion of: Houston, J.R. and Dean, R.G., 2011. Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses. Journal of Coastal Research, 27(3), 409–417
Stefan Rahmstorf† and Martin Vermeer‡ <<http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11-00082.1>>
Here’s the rebuttal:
Reply to: Rahmstorf, S. and Vermeer, M., 2011. Discussion of: Houston, J.R. and Dean, R.G., 2011. Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses. Journal of Coastal Research, 27(3), 409–417
J. R. Houston† and R. G. Dean‡ <<http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11A-00008.1>>
Rahmstorf and Vermeer (RV) argue that modeling sea level as a function of temperature using their semi-empirical approach as presented by Rahmstorf (2007) and Vermeer and Rahmstorf (2009) is superior to the standard approach of analyzing sea-level rise as a function of time used by Houston and Dean (2011). Their criticism applies not only to this paper, but also to the work of eminent sea-level experts such as Douglas, Holgate, Woodworth, and others who have used the same standard approach we use. In making this claim, RV present their Figure 1 as the key evidence supporting the efficacy of their model. Figure 1 purports to show good agreement between accelerations based on their modeling and accelerations based on the data of Church and White (2006). However, it is easily seen that the portion of Figure 1 where the agreement is “good” compares their modeling versus increasingly meaningless data, and they have been selective in showing only data that appear to match their modeling and not the data that strongly disagree.
|
Houston and Dean (2011) considered only tide-gauge records with lengths greater than 60 years, noting that shorter record lengths are “corrupted” by decadal fluctuations. Douglas (1992) shows that as a result of decadal fluctuations, as record lengths become increasingly shorter than approximately 50–60 years, about half of tide-gauge records display increasingly large positive accelerations, while the other half displays increasingly large negative accelerations. These positive and negative accelerations are uncorrelated to accelerations based on record lengths greater than approximately 50–60 years. Note in Figure 1 that as the record length becomes shorter, the 2-sigma range becomes increasingly large so that for most of the right-hand side of Figure 1 it is not possible to know whether the accelerations are positive or negative, making comparisons increasingly meaningless.
In Figure 1, RV show only the data that agree with their model. On the x axis of Figure 1, record lengths are shorter than 60 years for starting years after around 1940. It happens that at around 1940 the acceleration shown is approximately zero. Thus, as seen in Figure 2, the record from 1940 to 2001 has a strong linear trend with decadal fluctuations but approximately no acceleration. If the record from 1940 to 2001 has zero acceleration, how is it then possible that all shorter records (starting years after 1940) shown in Figure 1 have positive accelerations that increase as record lengths shorten? It is not possible. Again, RV only plot the data as long as they agree with their model. If the plot is extended, e.g., to the starting year of 1985, the acceleration is −0.044 mm/y2, more than twice the range shown for negative accelerations in Figure 1. If the plot is extended further, the folly of analyzing records shorter than approximately 60 years becomes increasingly obvious. The acceleration for a starting year of 1995 is −0.51 mm/y2, about 25 times the range shown for negative accelerations in Figure 1. RV compare their model to data as long as there are positive accelerations and do not continue the plot when accelerations become negative, which must happen for the overall record from 1940 to 2001 to have an acceleration of approximately zero. Their rationale for stopping at a starting time of 1970 is that after 1970 “… short-term noise dominates the calculations and results oscillate strongly” (p. 789). But Douglas (1992) shows, e.g., that 30–40-year record lengths (starting times 1960 and 1970 in Figure 1) show positive and negative accelerations 10–20 times larger than accelerations determined from 80-year records. Yet RV criticize our analysis of 80-year records from 1930 to 2010 as being too short. The fact is that decadal fluctuations begin to dominate records shorter than about 60 years, and accelerations become increasingly meaningless for starting years in Figure 1 greater than about 1940. Moreover, positive accelerations peak some time after the starting time of 1970 and eventually plunge to very large negative values. In summary, RV compare their model results to meaningless data after the starting year of about 1940 and are selective in only showing data with positive accelerations after 1940.
|
Church et al. (2004) correctly analyze the same data set (their own) that RV incorrectly analyze and conclude that “Decadal variability in sea level is observed but to date there is no detectable secular increase in the rate of sea level rise over the period 1950–2000” (p. 2624). This conclusion is evident from Figure 2 and in stark contrast to the claims of RV and the acceleration they show in Figure 1 for a starting year of 1950.
RV link sea-level rise with temperature using a simple linear relationship with two free variables of opposite signs that allow them to “fit” any smooth data set. However, they are curve fitting, not modeling physics, so the approach cannot be used to predict future sea level. Holgate et al. (2007) criticized RV’s assumption of a linear relationship between global mean surface temperature and the rate of global mean sea-level change and concluded, “We find no such linear relationship” (p. 1866b). Further they concluded, “… at the 50- to 100-year time scale, the linear relationship has little skill in predicting the observations not included in the original model formulation” (p. 1866b). A recent workshop of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2010) considered the semi-empirical approaches of Rahmstorf (2007), Vermeer and Rahmstorf (2009), and others and concluded, “No physically-based information is contained in such models …” (p. 2) and “The physical basis for the large estimates from these semi-empirical models is therefore currently lacking” (p. 2).
RV also present less fundamental criticisms of Houston and Dean (2010). For example, they note that data considered by Houston and Dean are biased to the northern hemisphere. This criticism would apply to any study of sea-level rise and is attributable to the lack of historical tide-gauge data in the southern hemisphere. In fact, it applies to the historical temperature that RV use in their analysis. However, we note that Watson (2011) published an analysis of sea level in Australia and obtained small decelerations very similar to those of our study.
RV argue that impoundment by dams decreased the rate of sea-level rise after around 1960. They say that our paper claims that groundwater mining would offset this impoundment, and they then argue that this mining is relatively small. They neglect to mention that groundwater mining is only one of the offsetting factors given in Houston and Dean. Houston and Dean (2011) state, “However, in the IPCC, Bindoff et al. (2007) note that the reservoir impoundment is largely offset by other anthropogenic activities that accelerated since 1930, such as groundwater extraction, shrinkage of large lakes, wetland loss, and deforestation” (p. 415). Houston and Dean further state that “Huntington (2008) showed ranges of the contribution of each term of the land–water interchange determined in several studies and concluded that the net effect of all the contributions was to increase the sea-level trend” (p. 415). This conclusion is in direct opposition to the claim of RV that impoundment by dams significantly decreased the rate of sea-level rise.
The important conclusion of our study is not that the data sets we analyze display small sea-level decelerations, but that accelerations, whether negative or positive (we reference studies that found small positive accelerations), are quite small. To reach the multimeter levels projected for 2100 by RV requires large positive accelerations that are one to two orders of magnitude greater than those yet observed in sea-level data.
Confusing. It seems to boil down to the fact that models produce a greater sea level rise than observation.
Why is that not a surprise.
I’m fairly certain the obfuscate and confuse CACC group would argue that the accelerations are accelerating faster, then do some really complicated derivative math and lies their pants off.. but these findings aren’t really surprising or shocking, since, y’know, I didn’t believe them in the first place.
And that IS the point. Where is this large amount of land based water going to come from? Not Greenland, which is ablating at the edges, but growing in the middle. Not Antarctica, where apart from the small ice sheet melt in the Peninsula, the major ice sheets are stable and well below freezing.
Like I’ve always said, Sea Level is a local phenomenon. Whether Venice, Vanuatu or the Solomons. Come to think of it, isn’t the tide going out at Vanuatu?
What RV need is a see-level rise.
Dams and irrigation do not necessarily “hold back” waters from the ocean, unless you are talking a very small “ocean” like the Aral Sea.
Uzbekistan has used irrigation to become a world leader in the production of cotton, but as a consiquence the Aral Sea has dried up. This might seem like a proof that irrigation “holds back” water from the ocean, but think more deeply.
Roughly the same amount of water still flows in the tributary rivers. However, rather than reaching the Aral Sea, it is sucked up by cotton plants and then lost to atmosphere. It blows away downwind to other lands, is rained out, and finds its way downstream to the larger, worldwide ocean.
In other words, all the water that once was in the Aral Sea has been added to the larger, worldwide ocean.
Does this not suggest that, in this case at least, irrigation has caused sea levels in the larger, world-wide oceans to rise?
Larger image links appear not to be working …
You mean it’s not as bad as we thought?
Sorry the links to larger graphs don’t seem to work for me – IE9.
The links don’t work for me in Chrome either.
I’m struggling to understand figure 1. AFAICT, it doesn’t tell you anything about what the actual sea-level rise is in a particular year, just what the overall acceleration is between the given year and the present. But does each data point only include guages that start in that year, or does it include all gauges with data in that year?
Overall, it seems a bizarre dataset to have arguments over. It is so well-known that inferring a second derivative from measured data is prone to problems. Why not have your arguments over the actual measured data?
This is a technically detailed and impressive rebuttal. The antics of Rahmstorf and Vermeer show two things:
(1) the effect of the chosen time period on the observed SL accel/deccel, as clearly shown in the rebuttal, serves as important new evidence for the substantial effect of the approximately 60 year wavelength multidecadal oceanic oscillations on global climate and temperature; and
(2) that proponents of CAGW are increasingly forced into deceit and distortion of data to sustain their absurd catastrophist narrative.
Meanwhile in the real world, sea level rise has stopped.
More study is needed. 🙂
The multi meter sea level rise clearly comes from the need to retain funding! how about a graph plotting predicted sea level rise against potential tax payer funding?
James Reid says:
July 21, 2011 at 3:06 am
Sorry the links to larger graphs don’t seem to work for me – IE9.
=====
Strictly speaking, I don’t think they are html links although they were clearly intended to be links. Too many layers of abstraction/distraction apparently.
If you follow the three links in the text to the papers, then scan through the paper to the graph and click on its link to the graph, you will be able to look at the larger image. I know that works for figure 1.
The only modelling I enjoy looking is the stuff of high fashion and catwalks. the other kind is just, well, modelling.
I thought that the major point was that ‘RV excluded data that did not fit their preconceived views’.
This is Not a direct quote for the trolls here.
Aral sea has lost about 1000km³ amounting to about 3mm or about 1 years worth of current sea level rise.
The Caspian sea depression/basin is pretty interesting – if it was filled it would lower the global sea level by at least 30mm, and it is already a salty sea (about 1/3 of sea salinity)
If we were really worried about sea level rise we could pump seawater up into the middle of antartica or greenland at the rate of 30000m³/s – it would need nearly 1 TW of pumping power (costing a few hundred billion a year) but would actually work (unlike regulating CO2).
University of Colorado is also struggling to make the acceleration bigger:
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-hiding-decline.html
Fortunately, all the data is online, and this one more hiding the decline can be exposed.
Ecotretas
So they are accusing Rahmstorf and Vermeer of cherry-picking short time frames to get the data they want to show rapid and accelerating sea level rise. Hmmm… sounds familiar.
Caleb says: July 21, 2011 at 2:58 am
Dams and irrigation do not necessarily “hold back” waters from the ocean, unless you are talking a very small “ocean” like the Aral Sea.
[…]
In other words, all the water that once was in the Aral Sea has been added to the larger, worldwide ocean.
Does this not suggest that, in this case at least, irrigation has caused sea levels in the larger, world-wide oceans to rise?
Using numbers from the UN on the amount of water used in irrigation, that amount of water would raise the sea level 2+mm/year. Of course, all of it may not get to the ocean, but with numbers so close, and assuming some rise from thermal expansion, there is about zero chance of significant melting of anything (glaciers, ice caps) going into the ocean to raise sea levels.
In physics the rate of change in acceleration is referred to as jerk and it is clear that since Algore has been involved in sea level rise there is a big jerk in the data. 😉
> Larger image links appear not to be working …
Busted HTML.
There are really big images at
http://www.jcronline.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/pinnacle/journals/content/coas/2011/15515036-27.4/jcoastres-d-11a-00008.1/production/images/large/i1551-5036-27-4-788-f01.jpeg
http://www.jcronline.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/pinnacle/journals/content/coas/2011/15515036-27.4/jcoastres-d-11a-00008.1/production/images/large/i1551-5036-27-4-788-f02.jpeg
but the better thing to do is go to http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11A-00008.1 and click the “View larger version” links which run a javascript popup think that displays a reasonable resolution image that I can’t quite figure out the URL for with out more time.
John Marshall says:
July 21, 2011 at 2:10 am
Confusing. It seems to boil down to the fact that models produce a greater sea level rise than observation.
Why is that not a surprise.
To which models are you referring? Usually when people refer to ‘models’ they are talking about GCMs but those actually underestimate recent sea level rise by about 50%. The physics of melting glaciers and ice sheets is clearly not understood well enough to reproduce real sea level change in a physical model like a GCM.
This is why semi-empirical models, such as V&R2009, have appeared recently offering the alternative approach of basing future projections on past observations.
Rahmstorf is making sure his material is out (and presumably peer/pal reviewed) for the next IPCC report. That report will ignore the material published by other researchers and conclude “its worse than we thought”.
The recent et al and Mann paper on NC off shore islands will make a good backstop for the RV paper, the us “proving” his model.
We have seen this before.
Was there really a big increase in dam construction after 1960? Here in the US, all the big dams were built well before that time, and since then, there has been a movement to decommission and remove dams.
“A recent workshop of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2010) considered the semi-empirical approaches of Rahmstorf (2007), Vermeer and Rahmstorf (2009), and others and concluded, “No physically-based information is contained in such models …” (p. 2) and “The physical basis for the large estimates from these semi-empirical models is therefore currently lacking” (p. 2).”
Yes, that is true. Now, the question is whether Vermeer and Rahmstorf can mount a successful revolution in the IPCC. This revolutionary effort will make for fascinating viewing over the next year or two.
The last digit of Pi walks around.
http://i.min.us/iehYCc.jpg
-=NYC=-
Do I understand correctly they are trying to establish water density as a proxy for sea level?
Climate Sanity posted: >25% of sea-level rise is due to groundwater depletion
citing Wada, Y., L. P.H. van Beek, C. M. van Kempen, J. W.T.M. Reckman, S. Vasak, and M.F.P. Bierkens (2010), Global depletion of groundwater resources, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 37, L20402, doi:10.1029/2010GL044571, 2010
After “worse than we thought” turned out to have a statistical methodology that was worse than we imagined possible, why does Rahmstorf have any credibility left as a scientist? Is making up pretend numbers the gold standard for climate science?
Rahmstorf works as sidekick of Schellnhuber at the Potsdam PIK near Berlin; PIK meaning “Potsdam Institut fuer Klimafolgenforschung” or “Institute for Climate Consequences Research”, literally translated. So for them, prognosticating dramatic consequences is the way to go because otherwise their institute would lose importance and funding.
Never expect objectivity from any person at that institute.
This kind of data is always succeptible to data selection (which is why I always get the data myself) and forget these smoothing algorithms which just allows one to see things that are not actually there.
I can use the (unsmoothed) data to show an acceleration in sea level since 1870.
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8127/sealevel1870.png
Or I can show a deceleration in sea level since 1926.
(There are actually some unusual step changes in the data which allows one to pick time frames – I’m not sure it is really the best dataset – for example, the large volcanoes should show up clearly since they cool the oceans a little but I don’t see it always showing up properly).
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/1146/sealevel1926.png
The numbers are about 2.0 mms/year in my mind over the whole timeframe given the unusual changes in the data. There may have been an acceleration in the trend of +0.015 mms/year up to about 1995 but the satellites are now clearly showing a deceleration in the trend of about -0.06 mms/year (and the satellites are in fact into the negatives in the current year).
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/7734/sealevelchange1870.png
RE: Robert L says:
July 21, 2011 at 4:59 am
“Aral sea has lost about 1000km³ amounting to about 3mm or about 1 years worth of current sea level rise.”
Thanks for that tidbit of information. Hopefully it is correct, for I will be using it. There is nothing like having a stray fact-bomb or two to drop, during cocktail party discussions about the sea levels rising.
Now I have another question. How much has the water table dropped, world wide? I am always hearing about how much ground water has been pumped out in arid areas, and how this-or-that aquifer will run out in X number of years. If you added up all the pumped-out-water, would you get another 3 mm of sea level rise? Is that another fact-bomb I could use?
Third question, is “factoid” the proper word for a fact-bomb?
I need all the factoids I can get, especially when I get told that the reason the sea level isn’t rising is because it is rising, and the rising causes a isostatic depression of the sea-bottom, so the rising is masking the rising.
Sometimes these discussions leave me a bit cross-eyed. Maybe some day we will be able to sit by the sea, and watch the tide come in, and watch the tide go out, with out quibbling about the width of a hair.
However then I suppose certain people would fuss about whether the seagulls are bad for the terns.
Re: What David L. Hagen says:
July 21, 2011 at 6:45 am
Thanks for those links. Being a layman, I really have a poor understanding of this subject. One of the first things I thought of reading the Climate Sanity piece was the issue of fossil water and how much that has contributed (if at all) to sea rise, considering that fossil water hasn’t been in the water cycle for a very long time. Does anyone know if fossil water is considered a subset of ground water? Wada, et. al (2010) talks about ground water recharge, so I get the impression fossil water wasn’t even considered. Thanks.
The graphs of sea level rise for the past 10,000 years such as Wikipedia depict sea level rising constantly since the end o the ice age. However based on temperature proxies from Greenland the temperatures have been falling for the last 6000 years but punctuated with warm periods every thousand or so years, such as the current one for the past 100 years. That suggested to me that sea levels must have high-standed 6 thousand years ago, and indeed there are many papers that, after accounting for tectonic changes, show sea level were higher a few thousand years ago. So what is the basis of constructing a misleading depiction of continuous sea level over the past millenia?
from Geomorphic evidence for mid–late Holocene higher sealevel from
southeastern Australia, Switzer 2010 “This beach sequence provides new evidence for a period of higher sea level 1–1.5 m higher than present thatlasted until at least c.2000–2500calBP and adds complementary geomorphic evidence for the mid to late Holocene sea-level highstand previously identified along other parts of the southeast Australian coast using other methods.”
from Impact of Mid-Holocene Hydro-Isostatic Highstand in Regional Sea Level on Habitability of Islands in Pacific Oceania, Dickinson 2003
“Highstand conditions were reached in widely spaced island groups by the interval 4000-3000 BC, and probably peaked near 2000 BC as inferred from global isostatic calculations, but persisted longer within the interior of the Pacific Ocean basin than along its western margin. Post-mid-Holocene sea level began to decline by 1200 BC along fringing island arcs of both the northwest and southwest Pacific, but highstand conditions persisted until AD 800 in the Tuamotu Archipelago”
from: Middle Holocene Sea-Level and Evolution of The Gulf of Mexico Coast (USA) Blum 2002
“New data published in BLUM et al. (2001) suggest that middle Holocene sea level along the Texas Gulf of Mexico coast was at –9 m at ca. 7.8 ka, then rose rapidly to +2 m or more by ca. 6.8 ka.”
In Fagan’s book the Little Ice Age he reports that during the Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago the North Sea was 40-50 cm higher than today, and storms caused it to breech the coast creating the Zuider Zee.
No href in your anchor tags for fig 1 and 2 links.
Jason Joice M.D. says:
July 21, 2011 at 5:06 am
So they are accusing Rahmstorf and Vermeer of cherry-picking short time frames to get the data they want to show rapid and accelerating sea level rise. Hmmm… sounds familiar.
The selective use of data to paint a false picture used to be called called advertising, propaganda or fraud. In the world of government grants and co2 taxes, it is now called climate science.
Reading just the snippets of RV’s criticisms contained in the post, I for one am beginning to see tired imitations of biblical prophesy in AGW papers. It won’t be long before a compiled sacred text appears to warn us all that it is worse than we thought. Shades of John, Jona and Jeremiah! Could this be Josh’s next cartoon idea?
Their reply to RV is quite a delicacy to read: these guys are not impressed and are not afraid to write it.
As an aside, the Globe and Mail in Canada has run at least 5 articles on the heat wave supposed to be gripping the country… that is Toronto and suburbs LOL… They also published a AP write up on Kaufmann et al. 2011 but not on Vernier and of course never on Houston & Dean…
Semi-empirical? Is that related to semi-pregnant in any way?
Looks like RV had a seda-give moment with that dam impoundment arguement. Did Mel Brooks co-author that paper?
Ahem, …well said. ROTFLOL
It is interesting to note this quote in JCR
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1
“The full range of lunar influences on tides at a given location occurs over a nodal cycle of approximately 18.6 years, during which time the Moon’s declination varies between approximately 18.3° and 28.6°. Throughout this cycle the moon is known to induce a small amplitude harmonic influence on the position of mean sea level at a fixed location”
Thus, any study of sea level on a scale of less than 20 years of so, will show acceleration and deceleration, depending upon location. By selecting only those stations that are showing acceleration, so called “scientists” (RV) have been able to show acceleration on scales less than 20 years.
Big deal. Apparently RV is cherry picking to show the effects of the moon on sea levels, and trying to say it is caused by temperature. It looks like scientific fraud to me.
Perhaps we should look at the big picture shown by William McClenney, a geologist:
“Since at least the early part of this century Dan Ponti of the United States Geologic Survey has been re-defining the Pleistocene layercake geology of the Los Angeles Basin by coring the Pleistocene sediments in the Wilmington-Long Beach Area (Figure 4). I, and most other
practicing geologists here have been watching his progress with a keen eye. In June of this year he gave a talk about his present findings and he has 16 climate change events defined in the late Pleistocene. Sixteen! Each averaging 120 meters in sea level change. Now that isn’t 400 feet, its 393.69996 feet. Close enough for government work you say? And just so you get the whole
picture, each ice age/interglacial couple lasts about 100,000 years. The interglacials (global warmings) last something like 10-15k years of that 100k. And again, just so the picture gets set firmly in your mind, these dramatic climate shifts are the most punctual things known in the
entire geologic record. You could set your geologic clock by them, all sixteen of them.”
http:icecap.us/images/uploads/McClenneyPart_1.pdf
We appear to be short for this series of several 10s of feet sea level rise.
Is it true they are claiming acc/decel accuracy to 0.01 mm/yr.
How do they do that?
I appear to have found some of the answers to my question above in this excellent post (note that it predates this WUWT post) by Pielke, Sr:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/the-role-of-fossil-water-on-climate-an-important-climate-forcing-whose-influence-has-not-yet-been-properly-assessed/
Offhand I don’t think this is what the (C)AGW-pushers mean when they say ‘RV’s will cause catastrophic sea level rise’…
Chuck Nolan said on July 21, 2011 at 9:52 am:
Calculate with an accuracy of +/- 1 mm/century, then divide by 100yr/century.
Voila, instant accuracy increase!
(Note: studying the difference between accuracy and precision should prove worthwhile.)
RE: Chris D. says:
July 21, 2011 at 10:25 am
Thanks for that interesting link.
It seems that, by sucking up all this “fossil water” from under the earth, we have created a situation wherein two possibilities exist, neither of which have been focused on very much by Alarmists.
First, by freeing all this formerly trapped water, we may have added slightly to the water available in the water cycle, which would raise the sea levels slightly.
Second, by making use of all this water, irrigating areas which were formerly dry, we may have increased the amount of water that evaporates, and is in the air. That makes me chuckle, for what is water that is in the air? It is a Greenhouse Gas!
In other words, by feeding so many by irrigating so much, we may have raised the amount of H2O in the atmosphere, and warmed our planet a bit. Wouldn’t it be a laugh if the slight warming we’ve experienced had more to do with irrigation than burning coal?
Of course, some Alarmists would then want to ban irrigation. Yikes. That wipes the smile off my face.
This article by Anthony Watts should serve as a template for all of us. This article describes the existence of an anti-CAGW camp within the IPCC. There are others in the IPCC and outside the IPCC. Everyone who can find a little time might enjoy writing about one of those other anti-CAGW camps. Then the articles could be posted here as they are completed. Each of them could be posted under a repeating headline along the lines of “The AGW consensus is a myth.”
The anti-CAGW camp described in this article is being challenged by pro-CAGW people whose science is altogether bogus and whose claims of “empiricism” are laughable. However, because it is taking place within the IPCC, one expects that the bogus science will win. This must be watched very carefully and used as gold standard evidence of the corruption of science by the IPCC.
stan says:
“After ‘worse than we thought’ turned out to have a statistical methodology that was worse than we imagined possible, why does Rahmstorf have any credibility left as a scientist? Is making up pretend numbers the gold standard for climate science?”
Yes.
Verbatim quote from the Harry_read_me file leaked during Climategate:
“Here, the expected 1990 – 2003 period is missing so the correlations aren’t so hot!
Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close).
What the hell is supposed to happen here?
Oh, yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have.”
Thirteen years of fabricated data, passed off as the real thing.
Oh dear, RV have stepped out of their safe world of climatology and models and met the world of real science and engineers who look at real data.
The problem with the RV work is these assume a linear relationship, than take a rediculous prediction of future temperatures and get a simarly rediculous prediction of future sea level – no mass balance checks, no physical basis, all built on an assumed relationshop (which doesnt hold over longer periods than they consider).
RV’s niche world of climatology is founded on such studies, but to those in other fields – where good hard science is done or were your crossing into the realms of engineering – this level of study is not tolerated, work must be based on hard solid data and the only models tolerated are those founded in known laws and well tested!
and what of sedimentation into the world’s ocean basins ? … the Amazon alone dumps billions of tonnes of sediment into the ocean every year … further, deforestation is generating increased rates of erosion … given a large chunk of Earth’s rocks are oceanic sedimentary in origin, its clearly an important natural process that must make a measurable contribution to sea level rise over time …
DirkH says:
July 21, 2011 at 7:07 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Joachim_Schellnhuber
“Since 1992, he has been one of nine members of the German Advisory Council on Global Change. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2004”
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1783.full
From 2002 to 2005, Schellnhuber was allocated from PIK to serve as the research director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Norwich. Via Oxford’s Tyndall Centre, he became affiliated with the Oxford University Physics Department and the Environmental Change Institute. “I soon became acquainted with Sir David King, who is the U.K. chief scientist,” Schellnhuber says, “and he asked me for advice. I also prepared a conference for Tony Blair for the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles.”
Ahem.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Schellnhuber. Seems like a smart guy. Yet, arrogant as he is “‘I’m not interested in giving advice to secretaries of state; I would only do it for the federal chancellor!’ And I got my way.” even he cannot provide much “Schellnhuber and his colleagues chose to consider “policy-relevant” tipping elements, providing examples where the researchers suggest that human activity is causing the change and something can be done about it; the change will occur on a timescale that humans understand, such as a century; and people care about the system because it is economically or biologically important. ” with regard to evidence of CAGW.
I bet the pay is great.
There has been a lot of confusion around sea level data. Houston / Dean have finally discussed the different views and put into context. It is now obvious, why Moerner critisised that sea level discussion has been led by modellers and sea level experts have been shut out.
And I am absolutely ashamed about the “contributions” from Germany.
Meh. Houston and Dean are looking at only US stations, limiting their analysis to 1930 or so (which shows a minima in the acceleration) even though there’s data back to the 1880’s. Looking at all the data gives results completely opposite to H&D.
Their results just aren’t statistically convincing (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/so-what/). Not a very good paper…
It’s also notable that Houston and Dean have some serious conflicts of interest (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/is-sea-level-rise-accelerating/comment-page-1/#comment-210444), in that they have been arguing that Florida and NC beachs are not at risk, on behalf of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association. It’s worth being wary of people in such advocacy positions.
The tide does seem to be turning. Scepticism levels are rising as evidenced by this article on sea level from The Australian.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/story-e6frg6nf-1226099350056
No wonder the Greens are trying to censor the Australian print media.
KR says:
July 21, 2011 at 3:25 pm
” It’s worth being wary of people in such advocacy positions.”
I presume you also extend such precautionary wariness to participants in IPCC and its various NGO cohorts.
No long-term trend (only Ups and Downs) on the Japanese coast for more than 100 years:
http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/shindan/a_1/sl_trend/sl_trend.html
I went to the beach last week. It was still there, pretty much where it has been for the 50 years I’ve been visiting the beach. Why do we pay “scientists” to tell us it’s not actually there?
KR:
At least they used more than one area and they did use long tidal gauge records.
Compare this to Kemp etal, which used one area of NC, two different sets of proxies, splicing of records. And also, they didn’t investigate the validity of said proxies……And yet, somehow that paper shows something.
The Ramstorf paper used cherry picking on a short time scale to try and prove a point that under close analysis is not proved with their paper. Ramstorf was called junk by the IPCC…and rightfully so.
KR:
You won’t have to feel bad by agreeing with me. There are lots of junk papers out there. Just happens the last few by proponents of AGW have really been junky.
By adhering to scientific rigor and analysis in ones thought process, one has to get rid of contention of bias in ones thoughts, look at the validity of evidence presented, and go from there.
Dave Wendt – Only if you look askance at folks from the George Marshal Institute, the CATO Institute, and the like 🙂
Doug in Seattle says:
July 21, 2011 at 6:12 am
“Rahmstorf is making sure his material is out (and presumably peer/pal reviewed) for the next IPCC report.”
Very true Doug but we are all aware of what happened previously, by the likes of Wahl and Amman, in 2005 and are watching closely for the shenanigans to begin!
KR:
So, you agree that folks funded by grants etc have a confirmation bias because of their funding source?
To William McQuiddy
I can’t find the McClenneyPart_1.pdf file on the ICECAP site.
The link doesn’t work, and their search feature doesn’t find it.
Ignore that, Searching for McClenney finds the source of hte threads.
KR says:
July 21, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Dave Wendt – Only if you look askance at folks from the George Marshal Institute, the CATO Institute, and the like 🙂
Why should your logical consistency depend on me? You’re either consistent or you’re not. As for me, I’m epistemologically a pretty hard sell. I don’t “know” much and I believe even less, but I have more faith in history than climate science and my read on history says that whatever “catastrophes” may eventuate from our future climate will amount to a spit in the ocean compared to what will redound to our detriment from the “solutions” to this possibly nonexistent problem which have already been attempted and the even more dangerous ones which still loom on all our horizons.
I use to have the same problem when I was a kid, the square peg would never fit in the round hole, then I grew up and did some learning.
Robert L says:
July 21, 2011 at 4:59 am
Aral sea has lost about 1000km³ amounting to about 3mm or about 1 years worth of current sea level rise.
The Caspian sea depression/basin is pretty interesting – if it was filled it would lower the global sea level by at least 30mm, and it is already a salty sea (about 1/3 of sea salinity)
If we were really worried about sea level rise we could pump seawater up into the middle of antartica or greenland at the rate of 30000m³/s – it would need nearly 1 TW of pumping power (costing a few hundred billion a year) but would actually work (unlike regulating CO2).
A much cheaper solution (not that I think one is needed) may be to dig a trench or lay a large pipe from the Mediterranean to the Qattara Depression in eastern Egypt. No pumping required, and evaporation would do the rest (not sure how much on a global scale, but every little helps). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression
From a report “Pacific Country Report Sea Level & Climate: Their Present State Tuvalu June 2003”
This project is sponsored by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID),
managed by Australian Marine Science and Technology Ltd (AMSAT), and supported by
NTF Australia at the Flinders University of South Australia.
Link:
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/basch/uhnpscesu/pdfs/sam/NTC2003WS.pdf
We find the following comment on page 9 concerning on tide gauges:
“The expected width of the 95% confidence interval (±1.96 times the standard error) as
a function of data length based on the relationship for all National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gauges with a data record of at least 25 years are
shown in the figure below. A confidence interval or precision of 1 mm/year should be
obtainable at most stations with 50-60 years of data on average, providing there is no
acceleration in sea level change, vertical motion of the tide gauge, or abrupt shifts in
trend due to tectonic events.”
Camburn says:
July 21, 2011 at 9:56 pm
“So, you agree that folks funded by grants etc have a confirmation bias because of their funding source?”
No, you have it reversed, ‘folks’ start of with a confirmation bias and then seek funding from sources that will enable them to ‘confirm’ their bias.
The problem with Dean and Houston however is not the source of funding for this research so much as their long-term involvement with beach-front development and the confirmation bias they have that engineering solutions will be sufficient to defend beach-front property because Sea Level Rise is not accelerating at an increasing rate.
At least not the specific rise in rate of acceleration that they tested the limited data they used for….
@- Dave Wendt says:
July 22, 2011 at 12:04 am
…”I don’t “know” much and I believe even less, but I have more faith in history than climate science and my read on history says that whatever “catastrophes” may eventuate from our future climate will amount to a spit in the ocean compared to what will redound to our detriment from the “solutions” to this possibly nonexistent problem which have already been attempted and the even more dangerous ones which still loom on all our horizons.”
Empirical observation already confirm warming, the majority of the science and scientists expect this to continue because of the rise in CO2.
How much of a ‘problem’ this may be can be seen historically.
I can think of very few civilizations that did NOT find climate change a problem, sometimes a catastrophic one.
Usually it is changes in rainfall disrupting the agricultural infrastructure that feeds those urban civilizations that has caused the collapse.
History indicates that past societies did not respond well to climate change, in ANY direction. Does anything give you optimism for our present societies when faced with significant change ?
izen says:
“The problem with Dean and Houston however is not the source of funding for this research so much as their long-term involvement with beach-front development and the confirmation bias they have that engineering solutions will be sufficient to defend beach-front property because Sea Level Rise is not accelerating at an increasing rate.”
No mention, of course, of Gore’s beach front mansion, or of the many $millions that Michael Mann alone has collected for his climate alarmist confirmation bias — based on proxies that Mann knew beforehand were composed of bad data.
As I’ve noted repeatedly, if it were not for their psychological projection, the alarmist crowd wouldn’t have much to say.
Camburn says:
July 21, 2011 at 9:56 pm
“So, you agree that folks funded by grants etc have a confirmation bias because of their funding source?”
You have it backwards – as izen pointed out, people with a confirmation bias search out agreeable funding sources. And agreeable editors/publications, too…
Any advocacy group presenting ‘science’ has to be taken with a grain of salt, whether it’s GreenPeace, the George Marshall Institute, SEPP, Cato Institute, various wind power groups, or Florida beach property associations. They will only, in general, present the side of the data that supports their purposes, another side of the coin in terms of confirmation bias.
You yourself, Camburn, have shown a bit of confirmation bias wrt Envisat (http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=3&t=171&&a=68#58323). A bit ‘o pot calling the kettle black, eh?
Claims that the IPCC is an advocacy group, however, are pretty ridiculous. Their mandate was to assemble the best info on climate change and impacts available, and present it. If you disagree with their conclusions, you have to go to the many papers they used as inputs, and point out why the mass of them are incorrect, or conversely show that the IPCC did poor selection of works, or misinterpreted them. I haven’t seen a good case made for any of those arguments, though I’ve seen a lot of logical fallacies from various advocacy groups.
izen says:
July 22, 2011 at 10:30 am
@- Dave Wendt says:
July 22, 2011 at 12:04 am
“Empirical observation already confirm warming, the majority of the science and scientists expect this to continue because of the rise in CO2.
How much of a ‘problem’ this may be can be seen historically.
I can think of very few civilizations that did NOT find climate change a problem, sometimes a catastrophic one.
Usually it is changes in rainfall disrupting the agricultural infrastructure that feeds those urban civilizations that has caused the collapse.
History indicates that past societies did not respond well to climate change, in ANY direction. Does anything give you optimism for our present societies when faced with significant change ?”
.
“Empirical observation already confirm warming,” I would never argue that that the planet is not warmer today than in the 18th and 19th centuries, but I haven’t found anyone else willing to argue that a return to those temperature levels would be a positive development.
“the majority of the science and scientists expect this to continue because of the rise in CO2”.
My personal scientific idol is Richard Feynman, You might want to peruse the last book he published before his death. The title is “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”
“How much of a ‘problem’ this may be can be seen historically.
I can think of very few civilizations that did NOT find climate change a problem, sometimes a catastrophic one.”
I have to beg to differ on this one. I would suggest that the record is almost completely clear that climate change that made the climate colder has indeed been catastrophic, but subsequent warming periods from those low points were generally seen as positive developments. I would point out that prior to the IPCC the “Medieval Climate Anomaly” was called the “Medieval Climate Optimum” for most of my life and similarly for the other high points on the curve.
The history of the planet since the turn of the 20th century has been one of the greatest increase in overall human well being that has ever been seen. Over a year ago the world past the point where the majority of the people on the planet could be classified as “middle class”(middle class being defined as those who have sufficient income beyond subsistence needs to allow significant discretionary spending). The prime driver of that trend has been the expanding availability of economical and reliable energy, particularly in China and India.
Recent history has established another notion that is most pertinent to this whole climate kerfuffle. That is, that any society’s ability to adapt to the vagaries of weather and climate is directly proportional to its level of wealth. Since virtually every one of steps we are being prodded(cattle-prodded) to take to address this “possible” problem seem custom designed to destroy the world’s capacity to create wealth and prosperity and to continue the most dramatic improvement in human conditions ever experienced, until I see some suggested remedies which aren’t entirely worse than the disease they propose to treat I will do all in my power to resist.
@- Smokey says:
July 22, 2011 at 10:42 am
“No mention, of course, of Gore’s beach front mansion, or of the many $millions that Michael Mann alone has collected for his climate alarmist confirmation bias — based on proxies that Mann knew beforehand were composed of bad data.”
The relevance of Gore’s beach front property escapes me. perhaps its a ‘dog whistle’ thing?
I think I agree with Dean and Houston’s implied conclusion from this research; that SLR will be within the bounds of engineering adaption.
I suspect that extravagant amounts of that capability may be expended on Gore’s and others’ beach front property. I am not convinced all the cost will be carried by the owners.
@- Dave Wendt says:
July 22, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“I would suggest that the record is almost completely clear that climate change that made the climate colder has indeed been catastrophic, but subsequent warming periods from those low points were generally seen as positive developments. I would point out that prior to the IPCC the “Medieval Climate Anomaly” was called the “Medieval Climate Optimum” for most of my life and similarly for the other high points on the curve.”
The term ‘Medieval climate Optimum’ was a Eurocentric term for a period that was not synchronous with other warm peaks over the last thousand years – try finding matching peaks in opposite hemispheres –
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
Its clear that the Medieval warm climate peak is ambiguous in its timing, magnitude and duration. In some regions it may have triggered drought and problems for large societies.
But by all means detail the start and duration of the Medieval optimum and why the climate was a benefit rather than political/technical changes- and for whom. I suspect not all gained the same benefit.
For instance in the Roman warm period it might be claimed Rome benefited from greater agricultural productivity, although I am not sure the dates support that. However Rome’s gain was at the expense of Etruscan, Celtic and ME cultures.
And any warmth during the Minoan warm period would not be a factor for the success of the Minoans.
“Recent history has established another notion that is most pertinent to this whole climate kerfuffle. That is, that any society’s ability to adapt to the vagaries of weather and climate is directly proportional to its level of wealth.”
I would be interested to see how that is established.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers adapt extremely well to climate change.
Large societies that emerged on river flood plains because of the agricultural fertility tended to have problems with the vagaries of weather and climate.
I think I prefer the ideas of J A Tainter that it is the problem of marginal gains/returns that threaten societies. If cheap changes make a big difference then poor societies can adapt. If small changes are very expensive to make then even rich societies will face problems adapting.
“Since virtually every one of steps we are being prodded(cattle-prodded) to take to address this “possible” problem seem custom designed to destroy the world’s capacity to create wealth and prosperity and to continue the most dramatic improvement in human conditions ever experienced, until I see some suggested remedies which aren’t entirely worse than the disease they propose to treat I will do all in my power to resist.”
I have no problem with arguments that the advocated response to AGW are wrong, expensive or counterproductive. Cheap mitigations or adaptions would not be a problem of course, it is that despite the wealth of our societies the policies advocated by some are considered expensive.
The problem is when dislike of possible political responses spills over into dismissing thermodynamic realities.
To a degree I have to agree with izen. All previous societies found climate shifts in either direction to be a problem. However it was the regional effects that caused the problems.
For example a change in global climate (in either direction) will result in some areas getting more rain and some getting less. In previous societies this was a disaster because they couldn’t import in volume from another region.
However this doesn’t hold true today. An area that suffers crop reductions resulting from CC is linked to and is able to import from other regions where the change has been beneficial. The result will simply be a change in the internal figures concerning global trade, rather than the collapse of the societies involved.
Those old societies wouldn’t have fallen if they had been able to import train loads of food from elsewhere.
izen says:
July 22, 2011 at 4:19 pm
@- Dave Wendt says:
July 22, 2011 at 12:16 pm
The term ‘Medieval climate Optimum’ was a Eurocentric term for a period that was not synchronous with other warm peaks over the last thousand years – try finding matching peaks in opposite hemispheres –
Try here
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
“But by all means detail the start and duration of the Medieval optimum and why the climate was a benefit rather than political/technical changes- and for whom. I suspect not all gained the same benefit.”
Both human and climate history are sufficiently uncertain and speculative that trying to argue the specifics and interactions of either or both is not likely to be productive. I am generally comfortable, although not entirely certain(<97%), with the notion that in terms of human well being warmer is better. If you can recommend some works, by historians or others, that you think support the opposite view I am certainly willing to consider them.
Along those lines I like to recommend this site to people
http://web.me.com/uriarte/Earths_Climate/Earths_Climate_History.html
I don't know anything about the author, other than his name, and I can't say I find much of what he says entirely flawless or convincing, but he does provide a nice overview all in one place. I suspect you would find him even less convincing than I do, but if you did take the time to read his entire work, which is admittedly of a daunting length, you would have to admit that he appears to be a person of well above average intellect, who seems to have invested a great deal of time and effort into this work. The fact that neither you nor I may find what he writes entirely convincing doesn't make him wrong, it just illuminates the point I've tried to make for a long time i.e. that the state of climate science is currently so abysmal that the phrase "I'm convinced by" doesn't merit inclusion with much of any of it.
"“Recent history has established another notion that is most pertinent to this whole climate kerfuffle. That is, that any society’s ability to adapt to the vagaries of weather and climate is directly proportional to its level of wealth.”
I would be interested to see how that is established."
I have actually seen studies that support this proposition, although I don't have the links available at the moment, but in terms of easily understood examples consider the two big tsunamis in the past decade. You might also consider Hurricane Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast of the US versus the earthquake that devastated Haiti.
KR:
After reading the problems with Envistat, I believed it was not a reliable reading of sea level rise. Then, I read a paper published in 2009 using Envistat and Jason-1 as the base of the paper.
Now I am not quit as sure that Envistat data as presented has not been corrected before it was presented.
At this point and time tho, until I can find more postive confirmation, Envistat, in my opinion, is not a reliable measure of current sea level trends.
@- JohnB says:
July 22, 2011 at 6:43 pm
“….. a change in global climate (in either direction) will result in some areas getting more rain and some getting less. In previous societies this was a disaster because they couldn’t import in volume from another region.
However this doesn’t hold true today. An area that suffers crop reductions resulting from CC is linked to and is able to import from other regions where the change has been beneficial. The result will simply be a change in the internal figures concerning global trade, rather than the collapse of the societies involved.”
That presupposes that an area with famine will be offset by an area of comparable surplus. Even if this condition is met both provider and receiver have to be willing and able to carry out the transfer of resources. Recent events in NE Africa do not indicate this is always the case.
@- Dave Wendt says:
July 22, 2011 at 7:02 pm
“I am generally comfortable, although not entirely certain(<97%), with the notion that in terms of human well being warmer is better. If you can recommend some works, by historians or others, that you think support the opposite view I am certainly willing to consider them."
I am reluctant to disturb your comfort, and would agree that warmth is correlated with human well-being at least in those ecologies where warmth improves agricultural yield. But rainfall is more often the limiting factor in agriculture. Water management the key civilizational skill.
The industrial revolution that has added a whole new qualitative level to human well-being emerged from the LIA – but correlation is not causation!
"Recent history has established another notion that … any society’s ability to adapt to the vagaries of weather and climate is directly proportional to its level of wealth….. but in terms of easily understood examples consider the two big tsunamis in the past decade. You might also consider Hurricane Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast of the US versus the earthquake that devastated Haiti."
I am not sure those example make the point as unambiguously as you think. Subsistence farming on a remote island coast may be easier to re-establish than the urban infrastructure of a city/port. Japan will need its wealth to adapt to the flooded nuclear power stations.
In the context of Sea level rise from a warming climate melting land-based ice, the rate, and rate of acceleration, are probably within relatively cheap adaption responses. Catastrophe is avoidable with engineering solutions given the maximum probable rate.
But the necessity for adaption seems inevitable.
I see no convincing arguments that Sea level will fall over the next century, or even stabilize. Observations of the major ice-caps do not favor expansion, or even stasis. Exhibiting unpredictable instability might be a better description.
John: Both approaches to determining acceleration in the rate of sea level rise appear to have serious flaws. Houston and Dean fit sea level rise data the following equation, which appropriate only when acceleration is constant: h(t) = 0.5*at^2 + vt + h0. Unfortunately, there is no theoretical basis for assuming that the acceleration in sea level rise should have remained constant over the historic record. As the authors point out, noise in data makes it impossible to determine the “average effective” acceleration over time periods shorter than about 60 years – periods much to long to assume acceleration is constant. Using equations that assume acceleration is constant with time, they calculation the acceleration over varying segments and get different results. IMO, such results are meaningless. In particular, they tell us nothing about the acceleration of sea level rise since the major shift in climate in the late 1970’s, which began a period rapid warming. Without a means to detect acceleration of sea level rise since 1975, it is completely senseless to speculate about what past “acceleration” means for the future.
RV’s approach appears equally flawed. They fit data to the equation: dH/dt = a*(T-T0) + b*(dT/dt). The a*(T-T0) term could be called the “term that keeps on giving”. If sea level and temperature were in equilibrium with neither rising and the temperature suddenly and permanently rose 1.0 degC above T0 (approximately where we are today), this term predicts that sea level will rise at a constant rate of almost 1 mm/yr (a = 0.8 mm/yr-deg) until all of the ice caps on earth have melted and still continue to rise afterwards. Extrapolations involving this term are obviously risky and unphysical. The b*(dT/dt) term represents the immediate rise in sea level as heat diffuses into and thermally expands the top mixed layer of the ocean – a process which must take less than a decade to fit the large decade-to-decade variation in the rate of sea level rise. The value of b is consistent with the top 100 m of the ocean fully responding to rapidly to changes in surface temperature or the top 200 m of the ocean responding to half of the average surface temperature change. This mixed mixed layer is significantly deeper than the mixed larger associated with seasonal changes in ocean temperature or modeled from Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption. Slower warming of the deeper ocean during the last century (which observations apparently show has occurred) and the associated expansion are handled by the “term that keeps on giving”. That’s also physically absurd: The RATE of thermal expansion of water after warming depends on the RATE the water is warmed, not the magnitude of the warming.
What fraction of 20th century sea level rise can be attributed to each of these terms? If one modeled 20th century warming as a linear 1 degC/century increase in temperature (from T0 to T0+1), the a*(T-T0) term would average 0.4 mm/yr and total 4 cm for the century and the b*(dT/dt) term would be constant at 0.25 mm/yr (b = 2.5 ± 0.5 cm/degC; dT/dt = 0.01 degC/yr) and total 2.5 cm for the century. The total of rise sea level for this model would be 6.5 cm, in excellent agreement with the results (ca 7 cm) shown in Figure 1 for the 20th century. However, the IPCC and Figure 3 of RV indicate a rise of 17 cm for the 20th century! How can the same equation give two different answers? Looking more closely, it turns out that RV calculated parameters a, b and T0 by fitting to the sea level rise from a climate model, not to actual sea level rise data. Climate models predict less than 50% of actual 20th century sea level rise. Then, somehow the same eqn can be used to predict actual 20th century sea level rise (which is more than twice as big) from actual 20th-century temperature data!
The purpose of the RV paper was to find an eqn capable of predicting sea level rise because climate models underestimate sea level rise. So RV starts by using data from a climate model to find parameters for their eqn????
Frank:
Pretty amazing isn’t it?
Tidal guages measure sea level per location. The rate of rise, whatever it is, has been so small over a long period of time that no infrastructure changes have been required.
I think that sums it up in a nutshell.
The failure of sea level rise pick-up is a BIG PROBLEM. Maybe it’s in the pipeline after over 30 years of global warming, melting glaciers, melting Greenland ice cap, melting Antarctica and so on…………..
What a pile of lies!!!
I forgot about thermal expansion in the pipeline. ;O)