Guest post by David Archibald
Anthony’s post of the Jason data reminded me that I had produced this graph:
It is derived from a post on Climate Audit of Holgate’s rate of change of sea level rise over the 20th century.
The saw tooth pattern reminded someone of the solar cycles and he overlaid it. I had the graph redrawn. The correlation is striking. The reason the Earth came out of the Little Ice Age is because we had a more active Sun, more active than at any time for the previous 8,000 years. Holgate determined that 70% of the sea level rise of the 20th century was due to thermal expansion of the oceans and the rest due to melting glaciers. Now that the Sun has become less active, that will work in reverse.
Craig Loehle’s recent paper derived that the oceans post 2003 lost one third of the heat they had gained from 1990 to 2003. Although the maximum amplitude of Solar Cycle 23 was in 2000, maximum activity was in 2003. While we are mentioning solar activity, the Oulu neutron count is still climbing.
Dan B (01:13:38) :
There may be an “ongoing debate”, but those arguing that it is unknown when the mean tide mark was created, or why, are arguing from ignorance.
John Daly demolishes the critics here: click
Also, this NOAA gif shows tide gauge anomalies for the past eleven years. There is little apparent change in the sea level: click
Martin38 (17:42:02)
“[…] reflective energy from that rock called Luna. […] Does somebody keep temperature measurements of the moon during these cycles?”
Here’s a fascinating sci-news release (May 23, 2007) out of the University of Michigan:
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5864
A highlight from the article:
“”One of the main scientific objectives of the Apollo 15 mission was to drill two boreholes about three meters into the lunar soil and insert specially designed probes,” Huang said. “The point was to see how temperature varies with depth, in order to calculate the heat flow outward from the interior of the moon.” But drilling in the moon’s powdery soil, or regolith, turned out to be much more difficult than expected.
“The Apollo 15 crew overspent their precious time on the moon for this particular task, yet could only penetrate a little more than half the depth they wanted to reach. When the probes were inserted into the boreholes, several thermometers designed for measuring subsurface temperature ended up measuring surface temperature instead.”
Consequently, NASA acquired 41 months-worth of records of the moon’s surface temperature.”
A related poster:
http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/msgc01-poster.pdf
Related research article:
http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/Huang07ASR.pdf
No wonder I can’t go to the ocean and witness sea levels rising over the span of 50 years. It just goes up and down, and down and up, and up and down.
So does a bouy in the waves.
Nothing much doing in massive sea level rise.
Aron (08:46:31) :
I uploaded the debate between Christy and Schlesinger on YouTube.
Thanks for the posting: When did this debate occur? All links to Christy’s publications and database seem not working. Anyone with help? Thank you.
Leif:
Which explains your meaningless question:
Claude Harvey (22:25:38)[Mar.7]
“[…] I’d be more inclined to believe solar activity might have an effect on the instruments used to MEASURE sea level.”
Leave no stone unturned….
The comment from Boudo 02.11.36 was the most thought provoking,its a pity the graph did not extend to cover a much greater period of time.
john k (14:47:49) :
“The comment from Boudo 02.11.36 was the most thought provoking”
The topic raised by Boudu (02:11:36)[Mar.8] is currently banned on this site (after a recent overdose-thread).
If we graph the elevation of the sun (say over 8 days) against the ambient temperature and got a correlation similar to the one above it would be reasonable to conclude that the sun might be the driver of temperature changes throughout the day. Any number of other factors, such as cold fronts, cloudy days or even poor data could be responsible for the imperfect match. Nevertheless the suggested relationship would be strong enough to warrant further work.
I’m surprised that the world’s scientific community has not unearthed the possible connection between solar cycles and Leif’s “rate of change of sea level rise” long ago.
On the other hand, I’m not the least bit surprised by the tone of discussion on this and similar blogs. For me this tone confirms an even stronger relationship between the reach of global warming ideology and the standard of warmaholic science. This relationship, more than anything else, is causing the global warming hypothesis to implode.
“Any number of other factors, such as cold fronts, cloudy days or even poor data could be responsible for the imperfect match.”
As well as the fact that the smoothed sun spot curve is only one proxy for solar activity. Note, e.g., that sunspot numbers collapsed Feb. 2007, well after the aa, ap numbers in Oct. 2005.
Comment inspired by Bayrunner (01:49:14)
For a good example of 2 deterministically related time series that do not look related, scroll to Figure 2 at:
http://www.recurrence-plot.tk/crps.php
It’s not linear relationships that challenge with paradox.
The human race is being held back by linear thinking.
“The human race is being held back by linear thinking.”
May I be exused now? My head hurts, it’s full.
How scary is the threat of sea level rise?
Not so much.
California Coastal Commission yesterday (April 9) approved a new electric power generating plant (expected investment $50 million U.S.) on the beach at Oxnard, California. Investor/owner is Southern California Edison. Expected plant life is 25 years.
One of the special conditions is that SCE will not build seawalls or berms or other devices to keep out the sea, should it begin rising.
Another special condition is that SCE will report the sea level, and any threat to the new power plant, 20 years from now. Even if the sea rises 3 mm per year for 25 years, that is just under 3 inches total. Not going to make a bit of difference to the plant.
Also, the Port of Long Beach is investing multi-millions in a port expansion project. Sea level rise does not seem a deterrent there, either.
That’s even more than strange, Roger, as the Los Angeles Basin really is sinking at the rate of [1″ / century?]. Not even the 2 combined are enough to stop the build.
Those interested in understanding the correlation between sea level rise and solar activity shown in Archibald’s figure should visit Nir Shaviv’s blog at sciencebits.com. He gives a simple summary of his recent paper, which has been quoted here in several comments already. He derives the magnitude of the 11 year oscillations in the rate of energy input into the seas from three independent sets of data, direct measurements of the energy content in the seas, sea surface temperatures, and rates of sea level increase, and gets consistent results. Moreover, the oscillation magnitude of about 1 W/m2 is consistent with the estimated forcing from the oscillations in low cloud coverage, which are proposed by Svensmark to be caused by the oscillations in the flux of cosmic rays. The oscillations are larger by about a factor of five than the cyclic variations in solar irradiance.
Solar cycle and:
–earthquake cycle
–Volcanic Aerosol density
–Sea level
–Variations in gravity
–Variation in the mass of earth’s core
and so on…and why not?
New paradigms–corelations point to questions that lead to greater understanding of causality–I think it’s grandiose to conlude Man drives the earth’s climate when the interaction between the Sun and the earth’s core is so poorly understood. What climate variables are as powerful as the sun and the earth’s core…and the interaction thereof?
The colrelation between solar cycle and sea level could be explained not only by increased sea temperature but by the solar cycle’s effect on the earth’s gravitational variance. Increased gravitation would lower seas levels…right?.