Sea Level Data In Monthly Format
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
In this post I have also provided comparisons to scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies. As could be expected, some of the rises and falls are related to ENSO events. The step changes also appear to be direct responses to El Nino events. I am not, however, implying that Sea Level variability is only impacted by ENSO.GLOBAL SEA LEVEL
The monthly Global Sea Level data from December 1992 to March 2009 is illustrated in Figure 1. The late 1995 spike in the sea level data stands out similarly to the way the 1997/98 El Nino stands out in global temperature data.
http://i31.tinypic.com/op5nw1.png
Figure 1
Figure 2 compares Global Sea Level to scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies. The peak in late 2005 is not directly related to an El Nino. The impacts of the 1997/98 and the 2002/03 El Nino events, however, can be seen in the Global Sea Level data.
http://i31.tinypic.com/2mrgo5x.png
Figure 2
MONTHLY SEA LEVEL FOR THE ATLANTIC, INDIAN, AND PACIFIC OCEANS
As preliminary notes, the annual variability in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Sea Level data can be clearly seen in the monthly data. The Pacific data is noisier, which masks an annual signal.
Note how the smoothed Atlantic Sea Level data, Figure 3, appears to rise in steps. The first step is in 1995. This should be a rebound from the Mount Pinatubo aerosol effects.
http://i27.tinypic.com/zs4m0.png
Figure 3
The scaled NINO3.4 SST anomaly data has been added in Figure 4. The smoothed Atlantic Sea Level data rises again in 1997, which should be a response to the 1997/98 El Nino. Are the rises in 2003 and 2005 also responses to the 2003/04 and 2004/05 El Nino events?
http://i32.tinypic.com/t8nrch.png
Figure 4
The raw and smoothed Indian Ocean Sea Level data, Figure 5, show a major step change in 1998 and a curious increase in trend in 2004.
http://i31.tinypic.com/25qzrdi.png
Figure 5
The 1998 upward step in the smoothed Indian Ocean Sea Level data appears to be a lagged response to the 1997/98 El Nino. Refer to Figure 6. The 2004 change in trend does not appear to be ENSO related. Was there a shift in Indian Ocean cloud cover in 2004?
http://i31.tinypic.com/1415glt.png
Figure 6
Following the significant increase from 1998 to 2002, the Pacific Ocean Sea Level, Figure 7, has been relatively flat since 2002. The rise in Pacific Sea Level slowed after 2002, and Pacific Sea Level has declined since 2006.
http://i31.tinypic.com/hsta3q.png
Figure 7
In the comparison with NINO3.4 SST anomalies, Figure 8, note how the Pacific Ocean Sea Level surged upward in mid-1996, one year before the 1997/98 El Nino. Does this indicate that there was a sudden rise in ocean heat content in the year leading up to that El Nino? Does this confirm the findings in my post “Did A Decrease In Total Cloud Amount Fuel The 1997/98 El Nino?” It does seem to show that the 1997/98 El Nino was fueled by a short-term change (one year) in the ocean heat content of the Pacific.
http://i28.tinypic.com/2enn4lk.png
Figure 8
ATLANTIC, INDIAN, AND PACIFIC OCEAN COMPARISONS
Figure 9 is a comparison of Sea Levels for the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Note how one dataset always appears to be out of phase with the variations of the other two. Rarely do the sea levels of all three oceans rise or fall in unison.
http://i30.tinypic.com/2wh2k9f.png
Figure 9
The SST anomalies for the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans are illustrated in Figure 10. There are significant differences between the SST and Sea Level curves. (I can’t see any reason to compare the individual ocean sea level and SST data.)
http://i32.tinypic.com/2gxl5ja.png
Figure 10
SOURCE
Sea Level data is available through the University of Colorado at Boulder webpage:http://sealevel.colorado.edu/index.php
Specifically:http://sealevel.colorado.edu/results.php
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Re water added to the oceans: don’t forget to add the water created by fossil fuel combustion — it is roughly 7 cubic miles of water, from 1900 through 2008. Not even a drop in the bucket.
wonder if this could be a factor?
Maybe Anthony wants to go on an Indian Ocean cruise?
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/07/21/94421_back-paddock.html
“July 21, 2009
THE accuracy of long range weather forecasts has been copping a bit of stick recently.
Farmers reckon they could do better by looking out the window. But they could aim their scorn at deep-sea fishermen, who aren’t helping.
Word from the Bureau of Meteorology is that quite often the buoys, which monitor sea temperatures in the Indian Ocean, which in turn have a big bearing on rain in Rupanyup, are being vandalised by fishing boats.
Apparently they see them as handy anchoring points or even for a bit of target practice.”
George E. Smith: You wrote, “Somewhere I remember reading that in fact mid ocean temperatures were inferred from satellite radar measurements of the sea surface level, and then computing back from the assumed expansion. I remember reading it, but haven’t a clue where, and maybe it’s an urban legend.”
Wikipedia gives a reasonable explanation of how satellites determine SST. It never mentions your legend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature
You wrote, “So i think it is a mistake to expect any significant delay of sea level rise due to just ‘heat’ energy input.”
I would think that any lag (from ENSO or volcanic eruptions) would result from the time required to circulate the change via atmospheric and oceanic processes.
You wrote, “Now for water mass increases, due to land runoff from whatever mechanisms; I would expect a time delay.”
Agreed.
Roger Sowell (15:52:06) :
“Re water added to the oceans: don’t forget to add the water created by fossil fuel combustion — it is roughly 7 cubic miles of water, from 1900 through 2008. Not even a drop in the bucket.”
But what is that in mm of SL.
Paul Vaughn: You asked, “Major Atlantic spikes lag major Pacific spikes by (on the order of) ~1 year. This is a new set of time-series for me — is this a well-know phase-lag that has been well-explained?”
I’ve never seen it discussed, but I don’t spend much time studying sea level.
Patrik (09:11:16) :
How many homes/properties have been reported damaged/destroyed with rising sea levels as direct cause in the past 20 years?
I know that some areas in the world for varying reasons are very prone to flooding (Bangladesh for example), but is it very common that property is damaged from rising sea levels specifically?
Patrik,
Properties destroyed by a storm surge or a tsunami? Yes
Properties destroyed by coastal erosion? Yes
Properties lost by sea level rise? Mention me a single specific example
Those examples advertised as caused by sea level rise (in this case another word for Global Warming) were caused by coastal erosion as independent research found out.
One example was in Alaska where the ice pack formed a buffer protecting some eskimo sheds (wooden houses) build on an unstable sand bank.
When the ice retreated for a short period of time due to wind and sea currents, the waves undermined the foundations causing the houses to tumble over.
Sea level rise was not the culprit.
It was coastal erosion, a process that is active for millions of years.
In Bangladesh there was a problem with two islands sinking below the water line.
Sea level rise was the cause it was stated.
But when the authorities dredged the river plane which was filled with sedimentation deposited by the river, o wonder, the islands appeared again.
Just answer this question:
If sea level rise would be a serious problem. Why would Al Gore buy a million dollar condo at the sea side?
Right, because it is not a problem.
At coastal area’s with beeches the high tides and the waves flush sand upon the beech causing the beaches to rise when ocean level rise.
The speed of this process, now reduced to almost zero, is slower than your toe nails grow.
In short: THERE IS NO PROBLEM
All scary stories are based on highly exaggerated models that do not match the real world conditions.
This is a nice read about the subject:
http://www.john-daly.com/
The Florida “scare” map gives me a chuckle. I am located on the central west coast about half way between Tampa Bay and Port Charlotte Harbor. I live about 1 mile inland from the Gulf and this map has me in blue. Umm, one slight problem though, the official elevation certificate for my house used for flood insurance has me at 15 feet above sea level. So either the map is a load of crap or sea levels will have to rise over 15 feet for this to be an accurate representation. I believe it is the former.
Bob:
Nice article. What links do you see, if any, between the changing sea level in the Indian Ocean and what is happening to the Cook Glacier on Kerguelen (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090722/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarmingglacier )espcially given that the GISS data for Kerguelen gives no indication that the local air temperature has changed significantly – http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=143619980003&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1 .
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Thank you Bob.
***************************
In response to:
Bob Tisdale (14:32:30) :
Allan M R MacRae: You wrote, “If you have time, please plot seasonal (monthly) sea level vs the seasonal CO2 sawtooth data, and let us know what you find.”
Please provide a link to the specific CO2 dataset you’d like compared.
Jim, re what is the increase in mm of SL due to water added from fossil fuel combustion: negligible. Cannot measure it. Even if it were added all at one time.
Consider there is roughly 200 million cubic miles of ocean, and 7 cubic miles of fresh water from combustion were added over 100 years.
Someone may want to check that 200 million cubic miles, I did this with 8000 mile diameter sphere, 3 mile deep ocean on average, 70 percent of globe is ocean. Even if I’m off by 50 percent either way, the sea level increase is negligible.
Bernie: You asked, “What links do you see, if any, between the changing sea level in the Indian Ocean and what is happening to the Cook Glacier on Kerguelen (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090722/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarmingglacier )espcially given that the GISS data for Kerguelen gives no indication that the local air temperature has changed significantly – http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=143619980003&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1 .
Significance, one could say, is in the eye of the beholder. Is a 1 or 2 deg C rise enough to cause the glacier to recede?
But let’s look at the long-term SST anomalies for the vicinity of Kerguelen.
http://i27.tinypic.com/kaqqyr.png
If we assume that variations in the land surface temperatures will mimic those of SST, and if we assume that glacier mass is impacted by surface temperature, it’s pretty obvious why the researchers chose 1963 as the start date for their study. Would the mass of the glacier have increased from 1955 to 1963 as the temperatures dropped? And would a study that covered the period of 1963 to present have higher losses than a study that covered the period of 1955 to present?
Note that there was the big indian ocean earthquake in 2004 that caused the big tsunami. This may have increased the rate of tectonic subsidence related sea level rise and has nothing to do with global warming. Stands to reason with the release of plate tension that this would happen.
PSU-EMS-Alum (10:37:28) :
That being said, did the seafloor uplift during the 2004-12 Indian Ocean earthquake have any measurable long term affect on sea level, local or otherwise?
I can’t remember the exact figures but during this event, the plate which moved was about 1000km long by about 250km wide and was uplifted by about 10m. So yes – this would have raised sea level almost instantenaously by a small amount. Maybe someone else here would be able to estimate by how much this would have been.
There are lots of other geological factors which affect sea level – including the volume of the mid-oceanic ridges – these are always growing. Sediment input into the ocean basins also causes sea level rise. Localised subsidence causes localised sea level rise. Localised uplift causes localised sea level fall.
I’ll upload some pictures of rock outcrops which show the effects of rapid sea level rises on the rock record sometime soon.
Jim, Roger,
I get 0.056 mm – a “significant contribution from burning big oil” ? 🙂
OMG! According to figures 4 & 9 the Indian Ocean is up 38mm (1.5 “) in the last 5 years — that equates to 2.5 FEET in a century. Abandon the Maldives, Abandon the Maldives!
WWS said “Heated water expands. Cooled water contracts. Sea level appears to be a lagging indicator of global temperature trends.”
Ummm, maybe land temperatures since the water takes longer to heat up, but that’s not the same as Global temperature. How could anyone ever possibly come up with an average temperature for the entire world. All this fudging of temperatures to get hundredths of degree changes is impossible — you cannot improve accuracy through averaging, or by using tools of less sensitivity, i.e. I believe thermometers in yonder olden days measured to the nearest degree Fahrenheit, and possibly could be eye-balled to a half a degree. So combining those data with 1/10 degree accuracy today cannot give us 1/100 degree accuracy!
JohnH: You wrote, “The Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans are of very different sizes. Can you do a weighted average rise of the three?”
The area-weighted sea level graph of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans:
http://i29.tinypic.com/2a92kr5.png
I am neither a scientist nor a very good mathematician, but with the help of Google I reckon that, if sea levels were rising 1 mm a year, there would have to be an increase in the volume of water of 36.132 km3 a year or 36.132 trillion litres. Allowing for varying factors and knowing that , in spite of claims, the ice caps are not melting to any great extent; where on earth is all this water coming from.
At arm’s length this strikes me as being well withing the range of normal variability. There are a lot of possible explainations for the little bit of rise that we have seen. This is waaaay out of my field of knowledge, but it seems like a lot of things could combine to cause the very minor rise in sea levels. The top things that came to mind were (not in order) ;
Increased biomass in the oceans
Polar ice being blown into the Atlantic and rendered to water
Minor fluctuations in the hydrological cycle
Tectonics
Erosion
Undersea volcanism
Minor fluctuation in external gravitational forces
Minor fluctuation in earth’s gravitational force
Thermal expansion
All of those ARGO buoys
File sea level rise under non-issue.
Good article on sea levels: click
Allan M R MacRae: You wrote, “If you have time, please plot seasonal (monthly) sea level vs the seasonal CO2 sawtooth data, and let us know what you find… Suggest you use Mauna Loa CO2 and Pacific Ocean.”
The CO2 curve shows an almost constant rise with a seasonal signal, while the Sea Level curve shows significant year-to-year variability.
http://i29.tinypic.com/vytoqw.png
Bob,
Are you using the University of Colorado’s “inverse barometer” adjusted graph. The warmists seem to prefer it, but there’s a glaring mistake in it.
Their web site, is http://sealevel.colorado.edu/.
It shows the graph you often refer to.
If you click on this link on that page: mean sea level time series you go to a page where you can choose an option for “Inverted barometer applied”. That gives you the graph that the alarmists like to use, as it shows the sea level still rising.
The first graph shows a decreasing trend since 2006. The second shows an increasing trend. The whole of the second graph has been moved up about 10mm of sea level.
Their first webpage has a link for documentation, which has the formula they use for the adjustment:
Inverted Barometer = -9.948*(1013.3 – global_average_pressure)
It also states “The inverted barometer does not have much apparent effect on the global mean sea level because the ocean as a whole is not compressible.”. However, moving the whole graph up by nearly 20%, and changing the slope of the most recent period is a very apparent effect.
The problem lies in the coefficient in the formula: -9.948 mm/millibar
If the air pressure at one place over the ocean decreases by 1 millibar, the sea level will rise by about 9mm. But, the water has to come from somewhere that has a higher air pressure, and the sea level at that place must fall. When you take the global average, they cancel out because moving water from one place to another can’t affect the average. There’s still the same amount of water. I can see where the 9.948 came from. One atmosphere of pressure holds up a column of water about 9 metres high, so 1 millibar equates to about 9 mm. That’s correct for local effects such as storm surges, but someone mistakenly used it for a global average.
This is the correct calculation, in accordance with the statement that “The inverted barometer does not have much apparent effect on the global mean sea level because the ocean as a whole is not compressible.”:
The compressibility of water is 5.1×10-5 bar-1. The average depth of the ocean is 3790 metres. Both those figures are from Wikipedia but they seem about right. One bar would compress water by a factor of 5.1×10-5 so a millibar would give about 5.1×10-8. Multiplying by 3970 metres gives 0.000202 metres per millibar, which is 0.202 mm per millibar. The formula has 9.948, which is out by a factor of nearly 50.
The formula should be
Inverted Barometer = -0.202 *(1013.3 – global_average_pressure)
I suspect that the adjustment for inverse barometer, when using the correct formula, would be truly insignificant.
I’ve asked them to correct their formula. I’ll let you know what happens.
The other interesting thing is why alarmists go to such lengths to get to the erroneous graph, when the correct one, which you use, is right there on the first page. I think it’s like Simon and Garfunkle said “we see what we want to see, and disregard the rest.
I think this is a very important issue. I couldn’t figure out why alarmists have been saying the sea level is rising, when the University of Colorado says it’s falling, as you have mentioned many times. Now I know that there’s a mistake on their website, causing them to show an erroneous graph that the alarmists are referring to.
The following URL’s suggest perspectives that may prove interesting:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/EarthMagneticField.htm
http://www.iop.org/News/news_35352.html
Regards,
If the map of flooded Florida is an accurate projection, why in the hell are the Feds wasting our money trying to restore the Everglades if its all just going to be drowned in saltwater anyway? Or maybe the sea level scare is just another way to get our money. Nah, the Feds are always working to make our lives better. Especially Obama.
Carl Chapman: You asked, “Are you using the University of Colorado’s “inverse barometer” adjusted graph.”
No.
And thanks for the discussion on the inverse baramoter adjustments.
Regards