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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Constant rate of sea level rise of approx 1.9mm pa throughout the last 100 years
In a definitive paper about sea level change, “Sea level budget over 2003-2008: A re-evaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo” (Global and Planetary Change Vo 65, Issues 1 – 2 , January 2009, Pages 83-88 preprint here http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Cazenave_et_al_GPC_2008.pdf )) Dr Anny Cazenave et al conclude:
“Over 2003–2008, the GRACE-based ocean mass has increased at an average rate of ∼1.9 mm/yr (if we take the upper range of possible GIA corrections as recommended by Peltier, submitted for publication). Such a rate agrees well with the sum of land ice plus land water contributions (i.e., GRACE-based ice sheet mass balance estimated in this study, GRACE-based land waters plus recently published estimates for the current glacier contribution). These results in turn offer constraints on the ocean mass GIA correction, as well as on the glacier melting contribution.”
The authors also note that since 2006 the rate of increase seems to have plateauxed, an observation since confirmed by others.
Twenty years ago in 1990 Trupin and Wahr in a highly rigorous paper (A Trupin and J Wahr “Orthogonal Stack of Global Tide Gauge Sea Level Data” pps 111 to 117 in Dennis D McCarthy and William Carter (eds) Variations in Earth Rotation Geophysical Monograph 59 American Geophysical Union and International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics Vol 9 1990) found:
“Global averages of tide data, after correcting for the effects of post glacial rebound on individual station records, reveal an increase in sea level over the last 80 years of between 1.1mm/yr and 1.9mm/yr, …. with a preferred value of 1.75mm/yr.”
The value of approx 1.9mm/yr accords with other estimates published around that time.
The conclusion from these published papers, both rigorous and definitive, is that the rate of increase of the ocean mass has been constant for over 100 years at approximately 1.9mm/yr.
If the ocean mass has been increasing at the constant rate of approximately 1.9mm/yr for the last 100 years, its temperature cannot have been increasing at an increasing rate as the IPCC hypothesised. This is because warmer water occupies a greater volume that cooler water, other things being equal. Hence there is no trace of any increased temperature in the total mass of the oceans that could be attributable to AWG as the IPCC hypothesised.
In response to Senator Fielding question about whther the planet was warming or not, the Australian Government stressed that ocean warming is the best test of the IPCC AWG hypothesis and that time periods of 50 years or longer are required to discern long term trends in climate with confidence.
Throughout the past 100 years AWG has been increasing but ocean temperatures have been rising at a tiny constant rate of 1.9mm/yr which is entirely attributable to non AWG variables.
The Australian Government’s nominated test of the basis for the cap and trade bill shows clearly that there is no empirical basis for the bill.
It’s really amazing to me how the people on this site can look at that graph, and focus on the last three years, while ignoring the long term trend, which is clearly increasing.
Three years is not long enough to see if there is a trend or not. Thirty years is long enough.
People on this site often rely on the possibility of a sun/weather connection to save us. This assumes that the sun will enter a long term quiet phase, similar to the Maunder minimum that occurred several hundred years ago, and that this will save us from forcing from atmospheric increases in CO2.
The scientists that postulate a sun/weather connection would point out that the sun has been in a very quiet phase, and is at a low spot in its sunspot cycle, right now. But that sunspot cycle has been oscillating through high and low periods with an average period of 11 years for the past several hundred years.
If we are being protected from CO2 forcing temporarily by a sunspot minimum, what is going to happen 5 or 6 years from now? This is when the next sunspot maximum will probably occur, if the past several hundred years is any guide.
Leland Palmer:
Why is 30 years long enough?
It has no physical significance.
It is simply an arbitrary number from the days of historical weather averages.
Why not 70, 250, or 310?
The reason the last 3 years are of note is the increasing shrill of AGW proponents. THINGS ARE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT LAST YEAR! or WORSE THAN THE IPCC 2007 PROJECTIONS!. Yet there is no evidence that things are worse.
Leland Palmer,
It’s really amazing how you can assume CO2 forcing, by which you no doubt mean AGW. Are you aware of how very little CO2 is produced by human activity compared with natural CO2 production? : click
Regarding the sea level, if you don’t want to focus on the past few years, here’s a chart that shows what’s been happening naturally: click.
The planet has been warming naturally since the Little Ice Age, and from the last great Ice Age before that. The planet is currently in an interglacial period, and a good thing for us that it is. If it weren’t, then Chicago would still be covered by mile thick glacier ice.
Believers in AGW simply can not seem to accept the fact that the planet warms and cools just the same with or without human emissions, and has done so for millions of years. Natural climate variability explains everything we observe, without the unnecessary explanation of CO2.
Leland Palmere:
Download and read the following paper (made by the same UN of the IPCC). You will see there, a forecast of temperatures until 2100, where there is no global warming at all. At FAO they use this study to forecast temperatures and fish catches all over the world.:
You can dowload the complete paper from (12 pdf documents):
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
Which UN report will you believe?…It is up to you to decide. If armageddon or your happy life.
@ur momisugly Leland Palmer (12:54:42) :
“People on this site often rely on the possibility of a sun/weather connection to save us.”
To save us from what, exactly?
Leland Palmer, thanks for your comment. You say:
The long term trend shows an increase in sea level … but the trend is not “clearly increasing”, it is not increasing at all.
w.
Quite true. Go back several thousand years, we haven’t re-reached those “sea levels” yet.
Hi all-
Three years is not long enough, because the noise in the data is great enough to obscure the long term trend.
A quick and dirty way of determining the signal to noise ratio in data is to visually draw confidence limits. Draw a line roughly through all the high points on the graph. Draw another line roughly through all the low points on the graph. The vertical distance between the two confidence limits gives you a rough figure for the noise.
Data with a trend greater than three times the noise (a trend that is larger than three times the vertical distance between your visually drawn confidence limits) is generally considered to be significant, and is considered to be showing a statistically significant trend. In this case, the trend in the last three years is within the confidence limits, and so is not generally considered to be significant. Extend the time line long enough, though, and a clear upward trend, greater than three times the noise, clearly exists.
Like I say, it is amazing to see people on this site look at that graph, which contains a lot of noise from seasonal variations, tidal variations and measurement error, and think that the last three years is significant (it’s not, any trend over this time period is obscured by the noise) while ignoring the long term trend.
Sea level rise is very strong evidence that global warming is indeed occurring, and is increasing along with greenhouse gas concentrations.
So, if we can’t agree on anything else, just looking at the long term rise in sea level should convince most of you, if you were being reasonable and rational, that global warming is indeed occurring.
It’s obvious. Just look at the long term trend.
How dangerous global warming is, whether it could trigger runaway positive feedback effects that totally destabilize the system, as many scientists fear, can reasonably be debated, perhaps.
But the fact that warming is occurring seems pretty obvious from the long term trend in sea levels, which, over a long enough period of time, are clearly increasing.
Ice melts, and increases sea levels.
Does anyone have an alternate explanation for the clear long term trend in sea levels, other than global warming?
Leland Palmer
Perhaps you might address the empirical finding I reported on my post above (21/07/2009) that the sea level has risen at a constant rate of no more than 1.9mm/for the last 100 years and that this rather small and constant rate is attributable to variables other than those hypothesised by the IPCC et al.
Leland Palmer (19:25:49) :
Does anyone have an alternate explanation for the clear long term trend in sea levels, other than global warming?
No I believe it IS due to warming seen since LIA at around 20cm per century, with warming at 0.7C per century, over the last 2-300 years.
And yes, even some CO2 impact in there, maybe as much as 20%.
Richard Mackey (04:04:48) :
Leland Palmer
Perhaps you might address the empirical finding I reported on my post above (21/07/2009) that the sea level has risen at a constant rate of no more than 1.9mm/for the last 100 years and that this rather small and constant rate is attributable to variables other than those hypothesised by the IPCC et al.
The GRACE results you referred to showed that the ocean mass increased by 1.9mm/yr, the sea level as shown above has been increasing at 3.2mm/yr which leaves 1.3mm/yr due to temperature change.
Leland Palmer, you advise a “quick and dirty” method of determining errors, which apparently involves looking at the data and drawing some confidence interval lines where you think they should be.
Here on this site, we prefer the scientific method over homespun “just draw a line somewhere” methods. For example, the excellent paper by Anny Cazenave et al referred to above, which says:
So you are free go ahead and draw your lines where you wish, and try to convince the credulous that yours is a valuable, accurate, and valid procedure for determining errors. Me, I’ll put my trust in science and mathematics …
w.
PS … you do note the part where she says the recent reduction in sea level rates is real?
In Central California where the coast line is west of the San Andreas Fault, wave cut terraces have been measured with elevations above sea level ranging from zero to 900 feet. Near Santa Cruz, CA, a wave cut terrace measuring 210 meters above sea level has been age dated using radio activity methods and determined to be 100,000 years old. That is an average rise of 2.1 mm per year of the coastline along with an unknown extent of sea floor. With all the recent seismic activity around the Pacific Ring of Fire, the sea floor must be writhing like a tread upon serpent. Who is to say if it is the land or the sea elevations that are changing and how much of it is attributable to what?
“”” Leland Palmer (19:25:49) :
Hi all-
Three years is not long enough, because the noise in the data is great enough to obscure the long term trend.
A quick and dirty way of determining the signal to noise ratio in data is to visually draw confidence limits. Draw a line roughly through all the high points on the graph. Draw another line roughly through all the low points on the graph. The vertical distance between the two confidence limits gives you a rough figure for the noise. “”
So; under whose authority do you claim this is “noise” ?
It actually IS the data. The whole climate/weather system is chaotic, and of such a nature that regardless of what variable you are measuring; temperature, sea level, ice area, etc; at no point is it possible to predict what the result of the very next measurement will be; it is not even possible to predict, whether the next value will be higher or lower than the most recent value.
If there is any “noise” or fictitious value, it is the mathematically extracted so-called “trend” that is a noise; it is a complete fiction generated by mathematics; and it has no physical significance whatsoever.
Whatever tomorrow’s climate/weather will be; we can be certain that it will be the result of adding the result of the operating physical effects to whatever today’s climate/weather is. You will not get any meaningful prediction for tomorrow, by starting from some fictional point of global mean; because the real physical processes that determine the climate/weather are functions of what the present values are not some mathematical abstract value that can be observed nowhere in the system.
Hi Willis –
Your quote seems to come to the conclusion that the rate of increase has declined, and according to an error analysis the person quoted says that this decline in the rate of increase is real.
But even if the rate of increase slows down, the overall sea levels continue to rise – just not as fast as before. And of course, year-to-year variations in the rate of increase don’t really mean anything, and are a normal part of noisy data. Certainly any decline in the rate of increase is not big news compared to the overall, long-term, obvious upward trend in sea levels.
There seems to be a very large amount of wishful thinking in these posts. Jamie, for example, seems to think that land levels all over the world, pretty uniformly, are sinking rather than sea level rising. This seems almost infinitely unlikely, and this very unlikely assertion went unchallenged.
Anybody have a reasonable physical explanation of why land levels all over the world should simultaneously sink like this?
Isn’t the simplest explanation – ice melts, water expands, sea level rises – as supported by multiple measurements from many different sources, the best explanation?
Regarding separating out the contribution in sea level rise according to cause, and attributing only 20 percent of it to CO2 forcing, if a real scientist – and most of us aren’t – were to make that claim, I would wonder how he claimed to be able to be able to do this?
What we do know is that the long term trend in sea levels is upward. The most likely, obvious physical explanation for that is that the atmosphere and upper levels of the oceans are warming. Ice melts, water expands upon heating – this is not rocket science.
Regarding simply drawing in confidence levels, this is a reasonable quick and dirty way to do this, based on sound underlying mathematics.
Leland Palmer (10:05:06):
So the long term trend line is, in fact, flattening. But, but…
It’s not AGW, either.
What you’re observing is the natural trend line of sea level rise that can be traced back to the LIA, before the industrial revolution. And since that trend line is not increasing [and is, in fact, flattening], the alarmist argument that sea level rise is caused by human CO2 emissions is effectively demolished.
Hi George-
So, now we’re challenging the validity of the science of statistics, apparently in order to deny a conclusion that global warming is real. Scientists would not do this. Scientists would keep the statistics, and question the conclusion.
Most of us, if we are being logical and reasonable, would admit that many statistical concepts are useful and help us understand the real world. If I were to say that “adults are taller than children” most of us would admit that this is generally true, and is a valid statistical observation, although there are certainly exceptions to this rule.
Scientists use statistics because statistics is very useful, and helps us understand the behavior and characteristics of whole populations of things.
If you want to live in a personal reality that denies any statistical concepts, go ahead.
But you won’t be as successful in understanding and predicting phenomena in the real world as people who do admit the reality of statistical concepts, if history is any guide.
Phil. (07:44:24) :
Patrick Davis (05:44:58) :
Well, I will say this, if you dig through very old Royal Naval (UK) maritime records, hundres of years old, you will see there is *NO* sea level rise of any significance. These records are now lock from public view, which is a shame. Not sure when that happened.
The whole south coast of England, an old naval nation after all it was ships in “Great Britain’s” time which made it a “suprepower”, and all the records show no significant change in sea levels. Hundreds of years of measurements, not just 30 years of “data”.
“And yet the UK saw fit to invest over $1billion in the Thames barrier and had to use it with increasing frequency”.
Phil, the closing of the Thames Barrier has nothing to do with sea level rise.
It has everything to do with the track of storm depressions and the fact that the surge they cause is pushed into a funnel.
Just have a look at the map and you see what is causing this problem.
Hi Smokey-
So based on three years of data, you’re willing to say that the rate of increase is declining, when the increases have been going on for hundreds or thousands of years?
Isn’t it more likely that your time-line is too short, and the noise in the signal over this short time period is obscuring the long term trend?
Another alarmist story, 12 meter sea level rise!
http://www.canada.com/technology/Climate+clock+ticking/1462485/story.html
Leland, thanks for your response.
As you point out, if the global sea levels are rising, it’s due to increasing temperatures. According to Jevrejeva et al., Nonlinear trends and multiyear cycles in sea level records, http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005JC003229.shtml, the sea level has both risen and fallen over the course of the 20th century.
Regarding your statement that
If the trend of sea level rise were to have increased by 2 mm/yr, to 5 mm/yr, it would be all over the news reports, “Sea level rise increases by 60%, EVERYONE PANIC” … so I fail to see why the sea level rise decreasing by 60% is “not big news” in the current climate. Yes, it is short-term, but as Anny Cazenave points out, it is statistically significant.
Finally, there is no “long-term, obvious upward trend in sea levels”. Like temperatures, you only have two choices — rising and falling. It’s always doing one or the other, and we shouldn’t read anything significant into it.
Read Jevrejeva.
w.
Howdy yourself, Leland.
What you’re trying to do is re-frame the argument so you can win it. Those word games don’t work here. For example:
No one is trying to “deny… that global warming is real.” [And BTW, are you still beating your wife?]
By admitting that “even if the rate of increase slows down, the overall sea levels continue to rise – just not as fast as before.” [my emphasis]
You are acknowledging that the rate of increase has been flattening. And you’re right, the trend has been flattening.
We can also see that steadily rising CO2 concentrations are not the driver of sea level rise: click
So, to recap [please sit up straight and pay attention this time] :
No one is claiming there is no global warming. That is a strawman argument, which you’ve used several times now. Please stop it.
We are saying that global warming is natural; any warming caused by human activity is so small that it can effectively be disregarded.
Recently the rise in sea level has been flattening. It is a cyclical process that has nothing to do with AGW or CO2. If you disagree, present your evidence [but please, no computer model “evidence”].
The trend of sea level rise predates the industrial revolution, therefore human activity can not be the cause. QED.
Finally, I am skeptical of any organization that receives large dollops of taxpayer loot [UC comes to mind]. “Who pays the piper calls the tune” and all that. So let’s skip the UC graph, which is routinely “adjusted,” and look at some other sea level records:
Click1
Click2
Click3
It bears repeating that the alarmist claim that sea level rise is caused by human CO2 emissions has been effectively demolished by those pesky facts.
Hi all-
It’s a shame, it’s all very sad.
So much brain power going into [snip], because you’ve swallowed some commercially motivated propaganda, with the money originating ultimately from the fossil fuel corporations, I am convinced.
Comments are often made about “taxpayer loot” being made by the “alarmists” and so on, but I doubt that Rush Limbaugh’s 400 million dollar contract to continue being “[snip] in chief” is mentioned very much at all, on this site.
Rush Limbaugh says the he is a “friend to corporate America”.
Oh, who knew?
Really, all this exultation over a what may or may not be a decline in the rate of increase in very noisy data, over a three year period, which may or may not be significant, is pretty hard to take seriously.
Really, ignoring the long-term trend to focus upon that supposed decline in very noisy data, is simply not scientific, nor is it reasonable or logical.
All of the skepticism, and assumption of bad motives, and demonizing of the “alarmists” or “warmists” who have committed the crime of trying to tell you all something you really don’t want to hear, is discouraging.
I’ll leave you to it, mostly.
Visiting this site, looking at all the unreason and [snip], is very depressing, and I’m depressed enough already over what I believe to be runaway global warming.
I’ll come back, to try to argue you all out of your commercially sparked [snip], triggered by propaganda from paid propagandists, once in a while.
But I won’t waste my time on people whose minds are closed.
Really, even if the “alarmists” are wrong (they’re not), they are still right. Even if the [snip] are right, they are still wrong.
Risks are commonly assessed by multiplying the probability of an event by the consequences of the event. In this case, the probability of runaway global warming is looking pretty high, but the consequences are absolutely huge.
In the words of Stephen Hawking – “the risk is that the temperature increases could become self-sustaining”. In other words, a series of vicious cycle positive feedback events could be initiated, which would be hard or impossible to stop.
Even a small probability of the end of the world as we know it should trigger emergency, drastic action.
Reply: Further use of this word as an insult will be cause for unannounced deletion of post. ~ charles the moderator
Leland, in the midst of a variety of insults directed at I don’t know who, you say:
I know Hawking is brilliant … but so is Steven Chu, and he seems to be equally clueless about climate.
First, perhaps you might comment on why such a thermal runaway has (as far as we can determine) never happened in the history of the planet, and what that means for our ability to estimate the odds of such a runaway …
Second, saying that “X might happen, and although the probability is low, the probable cost is high” is meaningless. Nor can we get from that to a expected cost by multiplying the two.
For example, the sun might go nova tomorrow. Probable cost? Trillions and trillions and trillions. Multiply that by any conceivable probability of nova, and you end up with a huge number. Does that mean that we should begin studying ways to prevent the nova?
Out at the fringes of probability, such calculations are … well, not to put too fine a point on it, meaningless. You might profit by a look at Michael Crichton’s speech on the Drake Equation to understand why a small probability of the end of the world as we know it should not trigger emergency, drastic action.
w.
Leland Palmer,
Sorry about your tantrum, but OTOH, it’s fun to deconstruct it:
First of all, you did not address a single one of my points, or refute any of my links. That’s a sure sign of having no credible facts to back up your [repeatedly falsified] runaway globaloney conjecture. Talk about a closed mind, yours is actually somewhat of a classic.
OK, on to the fun deconstruction…
1. About those ee-e-evil “fossil fuel corporations.” To avoid charges of hypocrisy, please assure us that you don’t use their products, and that you have no mutual funds or other investments in any provider of fossil fuels.
2. This Rush Limbaugh person of whom you speak… was his contract entered into freely, without coercion? Or did this Limbaugh hold a gun to the heads of everyone, and force them to sign contracts? Clearly you are opposed to his right to free speech; why is that trait so widespread among the warmists?
3. Point out the “exultation” over the facts presented. It is not ‘exultation’ to point out that the alarmist contingent has been absolutely wrong about almost everything: CO2=AGW, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, sea levels, sea ice, the ozone hole, climate sensitivity, drowning polar bears, etc., etc. They are wrong about everything! But even a stopped clock is right on occasion, and the first time the alarmist crowd is right about something, THEN you’ll understand what “exultation” means. But until then, the AGW crowd’s batting average is 0.000.
4. You only hate the “supposed decline in very noisy data” because it’s just one more thing that the AGW crowd got wrong. They — and you — absolutely crave a rapidly rising sea level. Sorry about that.
5. The “assumption of bad motives” is entirely justified: click
6. You say, “…what I believe to be runaway global warming.” Please provide empirical evidence [and computer models are certainly not real world “evidence”] of “runaway global warming.” I challenge you on this. Put up or shut up.
7. You accuse us of using “propaganda from paid propagandists.” That is pure psychological projection on your part; you are imputing your faults onto others. Are you unaware of the recent articles about the $7 billion+ that has been funneled almost exclusively into the pockets of the climate alarmists? Are you unaware of the almost $1 million that has flowed into James Hansen’s pockets from individuals like the convicted felon George Soros [who also funds realclimate], and similar organizations with a heavy AGW agenda? And you claim skeptics have closed minds! Look at your astonishing comment: “Really, even if the “alarmists” are wrong (they’re not), they are still right. Even if the deniers are right, they are still wrong.” Yet you provide absolutely zero facts to back up that closed-minded True Believer statement.
8. The probability of a large asteroid hitting the Earth is much, much more likely than your baseless “what if there is runaway global warming” fear mongering. A large asteroid just smashed into Jupiter within the past few days. Yet almost no funds have been allocated to address the high probability asteroid threat. Instead, the demonization of a minor trace gas has people like you totally terrified to the point of wearing Depends, when you should be concerned instead about actual, verifiable threats to this planet. It would take considerably less than $7 billion to address the asteroid threat. Unfortunately, that scientific endeavor, and many others like it, have been starved of funds that were sidetracked into the AGW racket instead.
You say, “Risks are commonly assessed by multiplying the probability of an event by the consequences of the event.” Since “runaway global warming” due to increased CO2 has never happened in the past 4.6 billion years, and the Earth has routinely been struck over and over by large asteroids, sane people should be advocating that the funds now being completely wasted on AGW should be used instead for addressing real problems.
9. Steven Hawking is an astronomer. The head of M.I.T.’s Atmospheric Sciences department, Prof. Richard Lindzen, is not impressed. Betting on Hawking over Lindzen is a fool’s wager.
10. “Even a small probability of the end of the world as we know it should trigger emergency, drastic action.” Not when the probability of runaway global warming from increased CO2 is 0.000000000001. If you disagree, don’t be a hypocrite by driving your car, or riding your bike, or even stepping outside. Compared with the imagined AGW threat, those activities are dangerous. Stay in your mom’s basement, where you’re totally safe. Just pray that an asteroid doesn’t hit you.
This was fun, Leland. Let’s do it again soon.