There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth when Dr. Roger Pielke mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a response to Real Climate that “Sea level has actually flattened since 2006”.
Today the University of Colorado updated their sea level graph after months of no updates. Note it says 2009_rel3 in lower left.
Source here. Here is the next oldest graph from UC that Pielke Sr. was looking at.
The newest one also looks “flat” to me since 2006, maybe even a slight downtrend since 2006. Let the wailing and gnashing begin anew.
Here is the text file of sea level data for anyone that wants to plot it themselves. In fact I did myself and my graph is below, with no smoothing or trend lines.
Here’s what UC says about the graph. They also provide an interactive wizard to look at specific areas.
Since August 1992 the satellite altimeters have been measuring sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy. The TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) satellite mission provided observations of sea level change from 1992 until 2005. Jason-1, launched in late 2001 as the successor to T/P, continues this record by providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm. The latest mean sea level time series and maps of regional sea level change can be found on this site. Concurrent tide gauge calibrations are used to estimate altimeter drift. Sea level measurements for specific locations can be obtained from our Interactive Wizard.
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at 4 inches per century, 1000 feet will take 3000 centuries, a bit longer than first estimated.
I’d like to comment on Hilary Clinton’s new found “honesty” with regard to AGW and the developing countries but I strongly suspect it will be snipped so I won’t.
I’ll leave it your imaginations instead…
Why to worry? I’ve drawn the last data on the continental flooded area line and it is ridiculous the amount of square kilometers currently flooded compared with the square kilometers of continental flooded area in the geological timescale:
http://www.biocab.org/Geological_MSL.jpg
One of the Langmuir Clues for distinguishing Pseudoscience is as follows:
“Clue No. 6: The number of critics is above an average of 50 percent and subsequently it falls to forgetfulness.”
Time to send AGW to forgetfulness. As long as we maintain the debate, as long as the solipsist AGW idea will survive.
Another clue is as follows:
“Clue No. 2: The magnitude (measurement) of an effect remains close to the limit of detectability or many measurements are necessary because of the low statistical significance of the results.”
This case of mean sea levels as signals of AGW calamity is a good example on pseudoclimatology.
Finally, another clue says:
“Clue No. 5: The disapprovals upon information or reports are deciphered in the precise moment when the criticisms are offered.”
Isn’t it what AGWists do when natural explanations are disclosed which demonstrate that AGW is not real?
There are two things that impact sea level rise on the scale of these graphs. Barometric pressure is one thing. A region of high or low pressure can have an impact as can the heat content of the water. Water expands when it warms and so a couple of degrees of warming will cause the sea level to rise by an amount that can be detected by satellite. If a system such as the “Bermuda High” is stronger or weaker than normal, sea level change by a detectable amount. Seasonal changes and annual changes are often weather patterns that repeat in cycles. In other words, sea level change in short timescales is often weather, not climate.
UK Skeptic, looks like India’s Ramesh has given Mrs. Clinton a salute with the middle digit. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071900705.html
>>>>>>>>>>
As dozens of cameras recorded the scene, Ramesh declared that India would not commit to a deal that would require it to meet targets to reduce emissions. “It is not true that India is running away from mitigation,” he said. But “India’s position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets.”
<<<<<<<<<<<<
Phil writes at 07:44
“And yet the UK saw fit to invest over $1billion in the Thames barrier and had to use it with increasing frequency.”
Recent flood defences for London became popular following the Thames Flood Act of 1879 and gained momentum following the flood in 1953.
The increased risk of flooding is more to do with sinking land and narrowing of the river due to urbanization than it is to rising sea levels. Also the operating rules have been changed and the barrier is now used to keep water in the Thames at low tide as well as for flood defence.
From Craig Moore’s link above:
The ‘per capita’ argument is completely bogus. There is only one atmosphere. Therefore, what matters is how much emissions are put into that one atmosphere, not how much is emitted ‘per capita.’ India has a billion people. Of course their per capita emissions are going to be lower than ours.
India’s message is clear: Go ahead and cap your own emissions, USA. We will more than make up for it by ramping up our own industry. We will build all the coal fired power plants that we need. And thank you for hobbling your economy, it will make things much easier for us.
Either Mrs. Clinton is being disingenuous, or she doesn’t understand.
India is going to do whatever it wants, just like China, Brazil, Russia, and a hundred smaller UN countries. Only the U.S. and a few civilized Western countries will be expected to put up with this emissions nonsense.
The BRIC countries are laughing at our insistence that they must conform to the West’s Green absolutist demands. As a result, net global emissions will go up, no matter what the U.S. does.
Smokey, I have never seen anyone like Mrs Clinton go from a position of power to a level of complete, commical empy shell. Her happy talk on climate and her India discussions smack of creating competition with Biden for the role of Squealer to Obama’s Napoleon.
Thanks Craig Moore. It’s good to see a common sense politician in action. Shame western politicians don’t understand the we are simply not in a position to take legally binding emissions targets either.
But then, that would take brains, wouldn’t it. 😉
Climate Doom-ism and Sea level Rise
A Google search of “worse than we thought” and “global warming” yields a staggering 13,700 hits as of July 19, 2009. In spite of a cooling climate and increasingly skeptical research, the state of climate alarmism may be – LOL – worse than we thought. 😉
Granted, the list is peppered with the occasional “not as bad as we thought, but bad enough”, but you get the idea. The global warming frenzy peaked in 2006 with calls for de-certification of dissenting meteorologists and so forth, but now we’re entering an era of polarization, with the skeptics emboldened with new climate data, and the warmists frantically clinging to obsolete data, debunked notions, and dog-eared pictures of polar bears. The rhetoric is rising to a fever pitch on the eve of impending legislation.
Sea level rise is a complex metric. I normally regard Wikipedia with suspicion on climate issues, because at least one of the Wikipedia editors is a climate alarmist who is known for re-editing entries that present a balanced view of climate data. Indeed, some Wikipedia authors have seen their writing disappear before their eyes, to be replaced by slanted, alarmist verbage.
In this case, I’ll give Wikipedia credit as a convenient compilation of influences of sea level rise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
The articles notes the contribution of thermal expansion. Present cooling of the climate could therefore have a diminishing effect on sea level because of less expansion as well as hydrological influences.
Several factors are listed under “Short term and periodic changes”, including the Chandler Wobble and lunar node astronomical tides, of 14 month and 18.6 year influence, respectively.
As I posted previously, at http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/greenlands-ice-armageddon-comes-end
comes word that Greenland’s melting has slowed considerably.
Mike Monce (05:55:05) : “…CU is my alma mater. I have trouble understanding how that institution publishes such a graph that is really an embarrassment with that stupid trendline.”
It’s all explicable by hypoxia.
Rising sea levels. The PROOF!!!!
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history/time/roman/art61315
Two whole miles! Hmmmm.
We are in even less shape to take on massive climate change policy than is India.
Saving the Planet is the stuff of Heroic deeds, yes, but we are not capable of such a feat. We have company. Evel Kneivel wanted to jump the Grand Canyon, but had to settle for the Snake River in Idaho (sic).
Stephen Brown,
From your link above:
I get it. It’s “coastal erosion” when it debunks AGW.
I’m not sure how they reckon that ‘erosion’ causes what was on the water to now be 2 miles inland. Maybe they’re smarter than the rest of us.
Finally, here’s an interesting chart from a previous WUWT article: click
From the global sea ice info
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
it’s not coming from sea ice.
The Thames Barrier, and the reasons for building it in the first place, from a paper written before the AGW thing became popular.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/634390
Man built a city weighing billions of tons on a clay and alluvial plain. Man then extracted billions of gallons of water from under that plain. The plain began sinking and it is still sinking and will continue to do so for an indefinite period.
The Romans boom mined much of the coastal placer deposits in France.
I cannot remember what they did in Britain, but extending coastlines was one of the byproducts of their efforts. At least that was the consensus in 1880.
The book I got this info from has been removed from public access.
Cowards.
Look Mum – No Urban Heat Island Effect…
Where I live the sea has covered 1-2m of in 50-60 years. It all depends on the location and it’s not the warming that causes the sea levels to rise or shrink.
And lance armstrong was unable to follow?
Have you compared the amount pumped from wells to the water in the oceans? And where is the pumped water going?
Most of it goes into the atmosphere as water vapour, as does most of the water stored in dams. This is because the water is used for irrigation and either evaporates or transpires into the air. A small amount may run off into rivers or back into aquifers.
Of course, eventually that water vapour will fall as rain somewhere. But the effect of aquifer pumping and daming will have a much greater effect on the water vapour greenhouse effect than on ocean levels.
In fact, were we serious about ‘global warming’, then irrigation should be banned immediately. Which won’t happen of course, because the result would be mass starvation.
And on changes in the British coastline. Most of these effects are tectonic as land to the west and north rises and to the east falls as a result of isostatic rebound from the last glaciation. Illustrating that even if sea levels rise at the rate the Warmists predict, most future sea level changes will be from tectonic effects.
Some northern parts of the Netherlands are sinking because:
1. reducing the groundwater level
2. retracting natural gas
Some parts have sunk up to 50 cm.
The Netherlands has a history of transforming land into water.
(This activity should result in sea level rise)
These activities have a much bigger effect that the minimal sea level rise.
It also shows how easy it is to adapt to changes over time.
From personal observations over a period of 40 years, I can say that sea level rise is is futile and has futile effects.
If sea level rises, the sand beaches will rise too.
“But the effect of aquifer pumping and daming will have a much greater effect on the water vapour greenhouse effect than on ocean levels.”
Incorrect. Most waste water is treated and dumped to local waterways. Increasing water pumping will not increase atmospheric water vapor, that is just silly. The relative humidity will remain whatever it wants to be. It doesn’t keep increasing until all the water in a lake is evaporated.
If you look at all the water pumped from the ground in the Northern Hemisphere over the last century, you are looking at a HUGE amount of additional water dumped into the oceans.
Waste water has only recently begun being pumped back into the ground for ground water recharge purposes and then mostly only in areas with severe salt water intrusion resulting from pumping. As treated water is much saltier than the original water, ground water is becoming saltier in general.
Smokey and Stephen,
The whole south-eastern coastline in England is a complex pattern of erosion and deposition. The white cliffs of Dover and Beachy Head indicate long term erosion, while there are many areas of long term accumulation and deposition. A number of ports from Mediaeval times, including some of the Cinque Ports, are now well inland.
Winchelsea is a case in point; longshore drift has left it well inland, despite its earlier history as a thriving port. On the other hand, Old Winchelsea was drowned around 1250 when the shingle bank on which it was founded was smashed up by a major storm.
In the same way, there are raised beaches, cliff lines and sea caves well above current sea level a short walk from where I live in NZ. Elsewhere in the South Island the Marlborough Sounds are a region of drowned valleys. Evidence of long term higher and lower sea levels are everywhere. Erosion and deposition continue to go on as beach dynamics change.
The Otago Harbour is lined with miles of rock walls, built by Maori prisoners in the 1870s; they show no sign of sea level having changed between then and now. The earliest detailed maps of the Harbour go back to the 1850s, they show no change at all except for known patterns of dredging and reclamation. According to the long term trend, we should have seen a sea level rise of around 45 centimetres (around 18 inches); if indeed it happened, then there is no sign of it.
In the main, this has little to do with sea level change, either way. It encourages me to believe that if we are facing around 3mm a year (and it looks as though it might be less, at the moment) we can probably handle that quite easily.
Ron de Haan (17:26:03):
Some northern parts of the Netherlands are sinking because:
1. reducing the groundwater level
2. retracting natural gas
Some parts have sunk up to 50 cm.
Look at this, Ron:
http://www.wisegeek.com/is-mexico-city-really-sinking.htm
http://www.greatdreams.com/cities.htm
Some geologists think the city is sinking due to overexploitation of underground aquifers, but others think it is due to regional plate movements. This year two tremors have taken place near the area where I live, despite the fact that it is not a seismic zone.