New predictions for sea level rise
Sea level graph from the University of Colorado is shown below:
University of Bristol Press release issued 26 July 2009
Fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements have been used to place better constraints on future sea level rise, and to test sea level projections.
The results are published today in Nature Geoscience and predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm (0.22 to 2.69 feet)
– depending on the amount of warming that occurs – a figure similar to that projected by the IPCC report of 2007.
Placing limits on the amount of sea level rise over the next century is one of the most pressing challenges for climate scientists. The uncertainties around different methods to achieve accurate predictions are highly contentious because the response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to warming is not well understood.
Dr Mark Siddall from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, together with colleagues from Switzerland and the US, used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct sea level fluctuations in response to changing climate for the past 22,000 years, a period that covers the transition from glacial maximum to the warm Holocene interglacial period.
By considering how sea level has responded to temperature since the end of the last glacial period, Siddall and colleagues predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be similar to that projected by the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr Siddall said: “Given that the two approaches are entirely independent of each other, this result strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results. It is of vital importance that this semi-empirical result, based on a wealth of data from fossil corals, converges so closely with the IPCC estimates.
“Furthermore, as the time constant of the sea level response is 2,900 years, our model indicates that the impact of twentieth-century warming on sea level will continue for many centuries into the future. It will therefore constitute an important component of climate change in the future.”
The IPCC used sophisticated climate models to carry out their analysis, whereas Siddall and colleagues used a simple, conceptual model which is trained to match the sea level changes that have occurred since the end of the last ice age.
The new model explains much of the variability observed over the past 22,000 years and, in response to the minimum (1.1 oC) and maximum (6.4 oC) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC model, this new model predicts, respectively, 7 and 82 cm of sea-level rise by the end of this century. The IPCC model predicted a slightly narrower range of sea level rise – between 18 and 76 cm.
The researchers emphasise that because we will be at least 200 years into a perturbed climate state by the end of this century, the lessons of long-term change in the past may be key to understanding future change.
Please contact Cherry Lewis for further information.
Further information:
The paper: Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level reconstructions. Mark Siddall, Thomas F. Stocker and Peter U. Clark. Nature Geoscience .
“The researchers emphasise that because we will be at least 200 years into a perturbed climate state by the end of this century”
So let me get this straight … they consider recover from the Little Ice Age a “perturbation”?
“Between 7- 82 cm” is little more than a child’s guess.
None of the bastard prophets is alive in the year 2100.
Sounds like a real catastrope… Oh, the humanity! Why, at this rate, half of Florida will be underwater by the time we’re fixing all the computers for the Y10k bug!
“. . . predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm – depending on the amount of warming that occurs . . .”
That’s what we like—precision! Though I was hoping for something closer to just one order of magnitude variance from the low estimate to the high.
I’m glad too that they reminded us that it all depends on the amount of warming that occurs. Thank you Captain Obvious.
“Furthermore, as the time constant of the sea level response is 2,900 years, our model indicates that the impact of twentieth-century warming on sea level will continue for many centuries into the future. It will therefore constitute an important component of climate change in the future.”
That’s what I call really tootin’ the horn over unproven predictions.
And how valueable is that model once a major cooling event hits?
About as valuable as “It’s never been a better time to buy a home” and Mortgage Backed Securities a sure thing.
I predict that sea-levels will be lower in 2100 because a 60 year cooling warming cycle gives this century two cools and a warm.
Uh huh so sea levels fluctuate.
I run regularly through “hills” on the sandy, clayey coastal plain of Virginia where there are no hills.
Yet running through this forest at points you forget you are near the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream because hardwoods like beech and maple and then seasonal wild blueberries predominate. Then you cross a “hill” and the tupelos, bald cypress and spanish moss are staring you in the face.
Reality sets in as you are running along near one of the boundaries of the worlds’ great oceans and the hills thereto are not tectonic or volcanic.
They are sand dunes [now forested] which formed at an ancient ocean boundary during the Holocene Climatic Optimum…
Climate changes….that’s what it does.
And so does sea level….
No f-ing big deal….
SEA LEVEL CHANGE HAPPENS.
If we are smart we will learn to adjust to the natural cycles.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
It must be an authoritative study, as they used the range of warming predicted by IPCC 4 to calculate the possible sea level rises. Its a pity they didn’t do some detective work instead, & investigate if the data & methods used by the modellers whose papers were looked at, (not reviewed in the scientific sense), to produce IPCC 4, has any basis in reality.
It is of vital importance that this semi-empirical result
Semi-empirical is Climate_Science_Speak for, we took some real data, ran it through a model of unknown validity and produced these results.
Had they used telephone numbers instead, which are real data, the result would have been semi-empirical.
Models, and more models? Why don’t scientists use real time data readily available?
The analysis of 53 sea level stations, distributed all over the world,
suggests a decline of sea level by almost two feet, by 2100, if it
continues the downward trend observed over the last three years. Even
considering the average value for the last 9 years, this would lead to
a rise of only one inch during the XXI century.
The data used was obtained from the University of Hawaii, which has
the most updated data available on the Internet. Why is the official
data from the IPCC, and others, so different? Simply because it does
not take into account updated and recent data. According to the
Wikipedia page about sea level rise, the most recent data used in
international studies is related to 2003! The data used in this study
is updated up to May this year.
The original data and report is available through
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2009/07/sea-level-decline.html
Ecotretas
7 to 82 cm?
They do like to hedge their bets, don’t they?
Or how about: “Our models show conclusively that bees can’t fly.”
Ecotretas (23:13:47) :
I went to check the sea-level report, clicked through to here:
http://www.slideshare.net/Ecotretas/sealevel-1792065
But the website doesn’t load up so well, maybe due to my PC, but just to let you know the website might need some work…
Interested in the report though – I do wonder about these sea level figures, I expect they are open to manipulation or at least +ve bias by the warmers.
Not to mention that even if they hit the median we’re looking at 1 foot in 100 years which is to the low side of natural variability, ie. of practically 0 consequence.
Dr. Siddall and colleagues studied the precedent fluctuations of the sea level using the proper methodology. The problem is that their projections are based on speculations, i.e. the projections made by the IPCC based on a spurious climate sensitivity constrained by carbon dioxide.
I agree on the probabilities of increasing temperatures in the next centuries; however, I don’t attribute those changes to carbon dioxide produced by human activities, but to nature.
As I have said it many times here, the Earth is leaving off a regression phase caused by a prolonged icehouse. The natural fluctuations of temperature given in the past 12000 years have been of around 6 °C to 10 °C, so it would be quite normal a change of 6 °C to 10 °C.
Regarding the rising of the seal level, it has occurred many times in the geological records. The “movements” of the sea level usually occur in long alternate periods consisting of four phases:
1. Transgression phase, which consists of larger flooded continental areas.
2. Highstand phase, which is the maximum (highest) sea level.
3. Regression phase, the sea level retreats and the percentage of continental flooded diminishes.
4. Lowstand phase, which is the minimum (lowest) sea level.
The Earth has left the lowstand phase and perhaps is abandoning the regression phase for reentering to a transgression phase classical of a warmhouse period which has nothing to do with human activities.
Perhaps human activities could put us under genuine perils by socioeconomic reasons, not by environmental disasters. Nonetheless, the fluctuations are perfectly ordinary on this planet.
Unfortunately, not all the people are biologists. Heh! (It’s a joke) 😉
7 to 82 centimetres and that is termed ‘nailed?’ I would not wish to live in a wooden house built by a carpenter who holds the same idea of ‘nailing’!
REPLY: It is sarcasm you know
“Between 7- 82 cm”
Well at least they are honest that they have no idea. They may as well say our models show the rate of sea level rise depends on the rate of sea level rise.
Some background.
The 20th century sea levels rises are generally accepted (by climate science) to be be approx 2/3rds thermal expansion of the oceans, 1/3 glacial melt.
The problem is we don’t have any worthwhile measurements to back this up. It’s little more than speculation.
Someone here pointed out that you could account for 2/3rds of the sea level rise to aquifer water extraction and the rest to seepage from relic ice age bogs.
For those of those of you who haven’t been to the permafrost. It is one vast bog, beneath which there is a column of frozen water of varying depth. I have never seen an estimate of the amount of water stored in the permafrost, but I am sure it is a very large number.
NS,
As I can’t upload PDFs in blogger, I had to use slideshare. It works OK with me. I can send the PDF to whoever is interested. Please send me an email (look for the gmail email on the top left side of my blog), and I will send it back.
Ecotretas
So in short:
“Sea level rise will either slow, remain the same, or increase.”
That just about covers every possibility. I believe their conclusion has a chance of being 100% accurate.
They predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm – depending on the amount of warming that occurs.
Does that mean if there is cooling that the level will fall by between 7-82 cm?
Is another way to express it 37.5 cm plus or minus 30.5cm or therabouts?
between 7 – 82 cm
Close enough for government work — if by “work” you mean trillion dollar Tax-and-Stifle economy-busting boondoggle programs designed by Enron-wannabe Euro-trash worshipping Nobel lariat demagoguing $cientists from the Alarmosphere …
“The new model explains much of the variability observed over the past 22,000 years and, in response to the minimum (1.1 oC) and maximum (6.4 oC) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC model”
1.1oC relative to when and what baseline?
I think they should give their models to the Met office, if they just change cm for F, the met office could say that this winter will average somewhere between 7F and 82F. That would be there most accurate forecast to date.
Richard Heg said: “Between 7- 82 cm” Well at least they are honest that they have no idea. They may as well say our models show the rate of sea level rise depends on the rate of sea level rise.
yep. That’s about right!
Anthony
With this sort of precision from the well funded climate industry now becoming the norm, you can work within the same high quality parameters and will never get a weather forecast wrong again (not that you do of course!)
“Tomorrow the high will be between 20 degrees and 100 degrees F, there will be between nil and 15 inches of rain and there will be anything from no cloud at all to heavy overcast skies….”
Tonyb
do i have to be climate scientist to draw linear extrapolation 90 years ahead? honest reply should be “we have no clue”.
I like announcements like “if Greenland ice sheet melts, sea level rise will be..” as some IPCC author let himself heard recently. We have similar joke “if the dog does not sh*t, he will crack”.
“Furthermore, as the time constant of the sea level response is 2,900 years, our model indicates that the impact of twentieth-century warming on sea level will continue for many centuries into the future. It will therefore constitute an important component of climate change in the future.”
I smell a big dirty rat in this argument. Can I assume this effect works retroactively and that the climate three millenia ago (Roman hot period) is impacting sea level now? If this is the case then we should be looking at past climate (pre ‘anthropogenic’) rather than current climate as a significant contributor to the current sea level trends (increasing or declining).
And then there is the big picture. Milankovitch described orbital cycles influencing the earth’s climate. These cycles are observed in the 3.6 billion year geological record as workdwide synchronised progradational and retrogradational sediment depositional patterns in response to sea level fluctuations of 1cm to 100’s of metres. Deciphering the current sea level trend with a few years of data is akin to describing the shape of a building by examining a single molecule of its fabric. Its a small part of a much bigger picture.
This report, if taken seriously by the Dutch Government, would save them approx. 50 billion Euro planned for the adaption coastal and river defenses able to withstand a sea level rise of 7 meters by 2050.
Read about the latest “New Bluff” in Climate Alarmism here:
Jul 30, 2009
The New Bluff in Climate Alarmism
By Dr. David Evans
http://www.icecap.us (third column)
It is normal that kind of changes in climate and nature. But this changement is made by human being. It is unrecerseble and dangerous
Did they forget the minus sign before the eight?
Did they forget the minus sign before the seven? (mixing up my digits)
“Between 7- 82 cm” – Wow, a variance of over 1000%. Imagine trying to figure out your monthly budget if your boss told you you were getting paid between $7 and $7000… Let alone allocate decades worth of “preventative” spending to avert climate catastrophe.
Reply: The math in your example is a bit off. Do you mean between 7 and 70 dollars? Or 700 and 7000?~ charles the moderator
82cm is not a big deal. And that’s probaly not even going to happen.
Are they using the Wheel.. Of … Oceanrise? Lemme guess then ran the simulation 78 times and it never hit the same level twice… Brilliant!
Archaeologists Discover Roman Coastline – Two Miles Inland
I was looking for a famous roman harbour built in an english city two millennia ago at the mouth of a river and nowadays is about 1 or 2 miles inland, and I found that. I don’t know if it is the same city. Any help?
More well meaning BS. “In response to the minimum (1.1 °C) and maximum (6.4 °C) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC models………..” So that’s a pretty big assumption right there, but gives them an easy out.
Predicting the future is dicey at best. Certainly their is no penalty for failure, no followup statement by the media for wild statements that so frequently miss their mark.
Simultaneously brash predictions are the stuff that makes headlines.
PS: Also, since most Americans don’t know the difference between a centimeter and carrot, here’s the translation: 2.75″ to 32.28″ .
So the more heat you give the more melting you’ll get.
With deep thoughts like that I’m going to need a long lie down in a darkened room
I want to know how they can claim that a worse estimate than the previous IPCC one is supposed to actually be useful in any way.
With computer model produced accuracy like that, we’d better forget heading back to the moon anytime too soon! Perspective:- The sea level @ Exmouth docks rises far more than this in a single day! Twice! Even more in a Spring tide. Another thing, I didn’t know the IPCC actually carried out any research of its own, but relied purely on GCMs. This guy implies they do by his language. Surely a computer model plugged withh the same faulty data, using the same faulty assumptions, will produce a similar answer? If I’ve said it before I apologise, but in engineering, if you get the wrong design approach at the start, no amount of computing power/reinforcement/steel,/concrete/masonry, will solve the problem. That’s why good consultants have a check stage part way through a design solution, just to make sure the designer is on the right track! How is this done for this type of research?
How daft people are to live of low level islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean, one sub-terrainian earthquake driven Tsunami & it’s all over! One tropical storm surge would be enough I would have thought.
Another thing, if all this crap is true, why do prices of sea-front properties remain so high? Did not one A. Gore recently spend a few of his hard earned squillions on such a property? If so, he clearly doesn’t believe in it. So why should we?
(I also heard that aerodynamically it is impossible for bees to fly).
One of the biggest casualties (and deservedly so) of the AGW mythology, is the sacred pig of “peer review”. Other than covering the editor’s derriere, it never meant anything, it still doesn’t, and the more crap that gets by, the more stupid its “authority” becomes. Oddly, the warmalarmists keep claiming Anthony is never “peer reviewed”… Apparently they don’t get what happens in every hour of every day on this blog. The warministas “peer review” process should be as thorough.
What if it gets colder?
Can someone please send this to chief alarmist James Hansen so he can retract his silly statements like this,
“Despite uncertainties in reserve sizes, it is clear that if we burn all the fossil fuels, or even half of the remaining reserves, we will send the planet toward an ice-free state with sea level about 250 feet higher than today. It would take time for complete ice sheet disintegration to occur, but a chaotic situation would be created with changes occurring out of control of future generations.
from here http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090715/james-hansen-climate-tipping-points-and-political-leadership
Independent: but not so
“Dr Siddall said: “Given that the two approaches are entirely independent of each other, this result strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results. It is of vital importance that this semi-empirical result, based on a wealth of data from fossil corals, converges so closely with the IPCC estimates”
https://www.bris.ac.uk/iris/publications/details/person_key$XoQfstn0O6ulBYA9LdZ70VNazTiamC/personPublications
111049 Hansen, J, Sato, M, Kerecha, P, Russel, G, Lea, DW & Siddall, M. ‘Climate change and trace gases’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 365 (1856), (pp. 1925-1954), 2007. ISSN: 1364-503X 10.1098/rsta.2007.2052
the egg and chicken
HarryG (00:11:06) :
“Does that mean if there is cooling that the level will fall by between 7-82 cm?”
– they don’t say anything about that senario
“Is another way to express it 37.5 cm plus or minus 30.5cm or therabouts?”
– no, another way to express it 44.5cm +/- 37.5cm
I remember Hansen’s AGU presentation where he stated the CO2 climate sensitivity was “nailed” at 3.0C per doubling based on the ice age temperature changes.
I’ve been doing some experimenting and it turns out Albedo changes alone are capable of explaining all the temperature change during the ice ages. Based on the estimated increase of ice and snow during the ice ages, enough sunlight would have been reflected, rather than absorbed, to drop temperatures by 6C. Milankovitch cycles kick-off and pull-back the ice-Albedo feedback and that is all that is needed.
I’m sure some climate model could then build in a reduction in clouds to offset some of the ice-Albedo affect and then GHGs could be brought back into the picture but, again, all the “nailing” would have to be done by a climate model.
Sea level models based on climate models based on theoritical global warming models based on adjusted data models. Nice circle.
Latest University of Colorado sea level time series:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg
This deserves close study.
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/193/2009/os-5-193-2009.pdf
A new assessment of the error budget of global mean sea level rate
estimated by satellite altimetry over 1993–2008
M. Ablain1, A. Cazenave2, G. Valladeau1, and S. Guinehut1
Sorry, we don’t get any Ancient Roman visitors here. The web server can’t handle Ancient Rome’s IP address of VII.LX.IX.. And their runners are all hanging around Olisipo, messages moldering while waiting for a long ship.
There will be at least 1 but fewer than 95 named Atlantic storms this year. Fewer than 96 of these will be a severe Cat 3 or greater…
Where’s my grant money…?
7 – 82cm is a range.
Key question:
What’s the difference in flooding betwen 7cm and 82cm?
If none, say so, because it won’t matter a stuff.
If a lot, show where gets flooded for 25cm, 50cm and 75cm.
Then it means something.
Although I do wonder whether I agree with the prediction…….
Between 700 and 7000. Thanks for the correction, charles. My brain is not the place to be at 2am…
Isn’t the IPCC’s range 0.18 to 0.59 m?
Jimmy Haigh (05:30:44) :
What if it gets colder?
I don’t think so because the progression is about alternate phases and the last icehouse, i.e. the present cooling period prolonged a bit beyond the typical span. Perhaps the Earth will have small periods (waves) of cooling into a longer warmhouse period.
Anyway, answering your question, if it gets colder, the sea level would undergo the regression phase… again, which is quite improbable. The natural trend is towards a transgression phase, again. It has nothing to do with anthropogenic activities. So nature behaves from more than 4000 million years ago.
Nasif Nahle (08:00:01) :
Here’s a field photograph I took when I was doing geological mapping in Trinidad showing Pliocene age (approx. 3.5MY) shallow marine sandstones (to the left) overlain by deep marine mudstones (to the right). The sandstones were deposited in about 5m of water and the mudstones about – say 50m. This was a very rapid transgression. The overall sequence (about 2km thick) was regressional.
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad34/Jimmy1960/8TopofPtaPaloma.jpg
Alan the Brit (04:49:55) :
(I also heard that aerodynamically it is impossible for bees to fly).
Fortunately aerodynamics has advanced a little since 1934!
Can someone find out how much government money the group received for this study any 12 year in a science class could have figured out in a weekend?
What a waste
Underra
I wonder if it was Pevensey that you are thinking about- one of the ‘forts of the Saxon shore’-built in the 3rd century to keep out the Saxon invaders. The castle -still visible-now lies a mile or two inland but was very important at the time of the Romans. It is in Sussex, the next county along to Kent (sorry, I dont know if you are British and are aware of our geography or not,)
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Anderitum
It was also where Wiliam the Conqueror landed and it is believed that the bay where he stepped ashore (now a mile inland) had recently been found. The Roman castle evolved into a Saxon fort and then a medieval castle. When it was built it commanded the entrance to a harbour and was surrounded by the sea on three sides.
It is one of several castle sites in Britain that show the subsequent retreat of the sea since Roman and Medieval times (separate to deposition or stasis) leaving castles high and dry. Harlech Castle in Wales is another good example. I posted information on Harlech here some months ago-if you are interested in this subject matter I will dig it out.
TonyB
Wouldn’ t it be, instead, from 6.9999 cm. to 81.9999cm., or from 7 meters to 82 meters….and why not from 7 nanometers to 82 nanometers?
It’s all the same: pure speculation. Once more: “Hollywood science”.
That doesn’t say much for their certainty of how much warming will occur, now does it?
None of the models and predictions take into account increased water usage (irrigation, creation of manmade rivers and lakes, etc) and absorption of sea level rise into coastal water tables. Taking these two into account I would say sea level rise for the foreseeable future is negligible.
Jimmy Haigh (08:26:48) :
Nasif Nahle (08:00:01) :
Here’s a field photograph I took when I was doing geological mapping in Trinidad showing Pliocene age (approx. 3.5MY) shallow marine sandstones (to the left) overlain by deep marine mudstones (to the right). The sandstones were deposited in about 5m of water and the mudstones about – say 50m. This was a very rapid transgression. The overall sequence (about 2km thick) was regressional.
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad34/Jimmy1960/8TopofPtaPaloma.jpg
Indeed, the transgression sequence had its highstand some 3.42 mya, so the transgression phase, some 3.5 mya, happened exactly as you say, into a regression phase. The picture clearly shows the impetuosity of the transgressional event… quite interesting and informative. I have seen a similar kind of mud depositions somewhere in the eastern slope of the Anahuac Plateau, in Veracruz, but I didn’t give it too much importance because I was working into a different research (I was getting some facilities for indigenous people working in local mines). I’m planning to travel again to those places for obtaining more data, although I think the age could be different, perhaps older than 3.5 mya.
Urederra (03:43:15) :
Sorry for my mispelling of your name
tonyb
So, they have looked at 22,000 years of sea levels, and projected those findings forward and found that the rate of sea level changes agrees with the IPCC models. Let’s run the logic in reverse: the amount of sea level rise that is projected by the IPCC as a result of AGW is no different to that which occurred in the past. In otherwords, the projected warming is UNEXCEPTIONAL.
Case closed!
Phil. (08:43:20) :
Alan the Brit (04:49:55) :
(I also heard that aerodynamically it is impossible for bees to fly).
Fortunately aerodynamics has advanced a little since 1934!
Thankfully, otherwise the poor little things will start to fall out of the sky! I always have a problem with a theoretical law that says something should not do what it actually does, & clealry very efficiently too!
TonyB;-)
Well said sir!
Haven’t we been in a cooling trend for 10,000 years with the interglacial maximum reached 8,000 years ago? I read somewhere on this site that even with global cooling the ice will continue to melt and the sea will continue to rise until some level of cold is reached. I think the analogy used was that if you take ice out of the freezer and put it back in the refrigerator, it will continue to melt.
Curiousgeorge (04:01:43) : PS: Also, since most Americans don’t know the difference between a centimeter and carrot, here’s the translation: 2.75″ to 32.28″ .
This makes me remember that it is a silly thing for americans to change from their system of measures to SIM which has foolish measures as a circle of 400 degrees instead of one of 360 degrees. 360 comes from nature’s cycles while the 400 degrees figure comes from a fevered french revolutionary (Mssr.Tayllerand), with quite other objectives than those of a measuring system.
Don E wrote: “I read somewhere on this site that even with global cooling the ice will continue to melt and the sea will continue to rise until some level of cold is reached. I think the analogy used was that if you take ice out of the freezer and put it back in the refrigerator, it will continue to melt.”
I’ve never heard that, and would be suprised if it were true. It takes energy to melt ice, so imo if the temperature was below freezing the ice would not melt. It may have something to do with the notorious “heating still in the pipeline,” whereby cooling and warming can occur simultaneously. This is a very complex area of climate change, analogous to quantum mechanincs were a particle can exist in two places at once. Maybe it should be called the duality or simultaneity of climate forcings. Sorry, I’m meandering here.
well, let’s see, the Tide in Florida is about 3 feet. That would be….. ah, er, ahem…… 90 cm.
Anthony,
With all due respect, I really think you should publish the latest publication from Dr. David Evans, icecap.us and publish the Argo Graph that shows the sinking ocean temperatures on the right side of WUWT blog under the Arctic temp. graph, if possible.
As Dr. Evans explained in his article, ocean heat content is the latest “Bluff in climate alarmism and we should tackle it.
If I’ve done the calculations correctly, the rate of sea level rise would have to increase by 60% per decade from now until 2100 to get close to 82mm. That means sea level rise would increase from 3.2mm +/-0.4mm per year currently to 12mm +/-.5mm per year in the last decade of the century. That’s assuming the rate of increase is linear. If not, then it would have to be even higher.
That works out to about 1/2 inch of sea level rise per year by 2090!
Hmm.
Just looking at the chart we see that we have a rate ( since 1994) of 3.2mm
per year plus or minus .4mm. First we all need to recall that all measurement comes with error and if you propagate that error over time you get a spread.
Propagate that .4mm error over 100 years and you get +- 4cm.
If I have to make a guess ( put a gun to my head and make me guess) the first guess I will make is a naive guess. For sake of argument, you’ve got 3.2mm per year +- .4mm that gives you a 28cm-36cm rise over the next 100 years. That’s an 8cm spread. basically, you can’t get a more narrow range through modeling. On the assumption that a rise in C02 will result in a rise in temperature, and on the assumption that a rise in temperature will result in a rise in sea level, your error band can only increase. Why? because the models of C02 increase ( the SRES) assume wide bands of potential increase. and because the models relating the increase of C02 to the increase in temperature ( GCM) have a wide range of sensitivity. The error bands, of necessity, get wider. The wider the C02 projections ( SRES) the wider the error band at 100 years. The wider the sensitivity figures, the wider the error band. Nothing about the range of 7-82cm is surprising. The system is guaranteed to give wider bands than a naive estimate. That is the point. It shows our uncertainty about the future. Now, you are a government. You have to set standards for building near shorelines. You have to plan for disasters. Which kind of estimate do you want to use? Do you plan for 28-36cm like the naive estimate would dictate? Or do you plan for as much as 82cm? The planner in me says you plan for the “worst,” and worst of course carries with it assumptions, assumptions that could be wrong. If you plan for too little rise, you have huge costs that hit you later.
If you plan for too much rise, you may impose unnecessary costs in the present. But you can’t not plan. You have to model. you have to estimate. You can’t just shrug your shoulders. So, I see nothing wrong with producing estimates with wide error bands. That just indicates our lack of knowledge about the future levels. And, we have act under this cloud of uncertainty. What to do? Cut C02 or plan for a 82cm rise and establish building codes appropriately? Cut C02 which impacts everyone, or focus the costs on people who choose to live in low lands near water? Tax malibu.
I wonder about the sources of water available to produce a rise in sea level. At the last glacial maximum, or near its end actually, ice filled the Puget Sound lowland south to near Olympia with melt water flowing to Grays Harbor via the Chehalis River. Much of this glacier was below current sea level. Melting, breakup, and flushing (to the ocean) of this low elevation ice would be less difficult than melting the ice fields now at elevations above, say, 2,000 meters. Likewise for the ice of NW Europe. It seems to me there ought to be an inflection point between the “easy-to-melt” ice and the “hard-to-melt” ice. Assuming that inflection point has been crossed, future melting ought to slow, if not stop at some point. Sea level rise should slow and then stop. (All other issue held constant.) The slowing part is already occurring, I believe.
Vincent (11:20:45) : You are not. It is all about the “new order” with which you will be blessed to live in. Enjoy it!
steven mosher (12:38:42):
What to do? Cut C02 or plan for a 82cm rise and establish building codes appropriately? Cut C02 which impacts everyone, or focus the costs on people who choose to live in low lands near water? Tax malibu.
Cutting CO2 wouldn’t work because the CO2 is not the real cause of warming or climate changes. We cannot set down the Sun, change the planet orbit, or change the mechanics of the oceans, etc., so the unique option is to plan, not for 0.82 m, but for 1.5 m and establish contingency programs before the mother nature acts.
If the current cooling continues or expands and sea levels continue to decrease, part of the adaption costs will be expanded dredging of navigation channels and harbor areas in all tidewater areas. Where would the dredge spoils be deposited? What would the price be for resultant environmental degradation? I believe these costs would amount to “serious money.”
It seems reasonable to plan and provide for what is actually occurring rather than what might happen when bumble bees learn that they cannot fly.
Nasif Nahle (13:02:08)
We will politely have to disagree about the connection between GHGs and Warming. All I am saying is that on the assumption of the connection we both know that the error bands will increase. So, all this talk about the width of the error bands is not exactly pertinent.
best regards
steve
LukeWarmer: Free the data, free the code, free the debate.
Alan the Brit –
“Thankfully, otherwise the poor little things will start to fall out of the sky! I always have a problem with a theoretical law that says something should not do what it actually does, & clealry very efficiently too!”
But this may be down to the fact that they’re not bright enough to understand the physics so they just go ahead and do it anyway.
Others who appear not to be bright enough to understand the figures just churn out claptrap instead. Give me the bumble bees any day!
“Also, since most Americans don’t know the difference between a centimeter and carrot, …”
Quick, what’s the difference between a caret and a carat?
(Gotcha!)
TIDES are a big part of all this. Anyone who has ever seen the sea or even watched movies about the sea will have noticed WAVES and also TIDES.
Have any of these modellers factored changing tides into their projections ? Tides are caused by water sloshing around the earth pulled by the moon and the sun. If we have a different volume of water sloshing around then the dynamics are totally changed – it’s not just the tide tables from 100 years ago uplifted by a number of inches. Or is it ?
Vincent, you have to read carefully. Don, knowingly or unknowningly, gave you the obvious answer. If you take ice from the FREEZER and put it back in the REFRIGERATOR, of course it will melt.
And a karat… ^ (<< caret)
Anthony: For those not wanting to cough up $18 to read the paper, here’s a link to the FREE supplementary information for Siddall et al (2009) “Paleo-constraints on future sea-level rise”. It helps clarify what Siddall et al did:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/extref/ngeo587-s1.pdf
Well, well. Isn’t this also good support for a natural climate variability acting on sea level? Isn’t this also good support for the notion that the climate has indeed been warmer than it is now? This may not be embraced so enthusiastically by ipcc.
So much for poor Jimmy’s twenty feet.
OT, but interesting: Forbush events confirm cosmoclimatology, Motl about a new report by Svensmark:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/07/forbush-events-confirm-cosmoclimatology.html
World sea level observation from satellite began only in 1992, and shows an seemingly linear rise as suggested by the top Figure. However, according to Japan Met Agency, the 100-year sea level data around Japan:
exhibits only a 20-year oscillation and absolutely NO long-range trend.
I’m a little late to the game, but are you sure they didn’t leave out a decimal point? As in “7 to 8.2 cm”?
Paddy (13:26:41) :
If the current cooling continues and sea levels drop, they had better pick up the pace on planned deeping/widening of Suez and Panama Canals, for starters.
They may soon find out that a deep-water port ain’t so deep anymore, and shallow ones become useless without clearing.
Yes, they had better make thier contingency plans. A decade or two can sneak up on lethargic beaurocrats.
Julie L (17:26:22) :
If that was the case I believe they may have stated “7.0” instead of “7”.
Nasif Nahle (13:02:08) :
steven mosher (12:38:42):
What to do? Cut C02 or plan for a 82cm rise and establish building codes appropriately? Cut C02 which impacts everyone, or focus the costs on people who choose to live in low lands near water? Tax malibu.
Cutting CO2 wouldn’t work because the CO2 is not the real cause of warming or climate changes. We cannot set down the Sun, change the planet orbit, or change the mechanics of the oceans, etc., so the unique option is to plan, not for 0.82 m, but for 1.5 m and establish contingency programs before the mother nature acts.
Nasif Nahle,
Forbush events confirm cosmoclimatology,
Motl about a new report by Svensmark:
Quote:
“An independent set of measurements has also shown that the amount of aerosols, i.e. potential nuclei of the new clouds, also decreases. All these “strength vs decrease” graphs display a lot of noise but the negative slopes are almost always significant at the 95% level (with one dataset being an exception, at 92%).
Each Forbush decrease can therefore warm up the Earth by the same temperature change as the effect of all carbon dioxide emitted by the mankind since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. While you might think that such an effect is temporary and lasts a few weeks only, it is important to notice that similar variations in the solar activity, the solar magnetic field, and the galactic cosmic rays take place at many different conceivable frequencies, so there are almost certainly many effects whose impact on the temperature – through the clouds – is at least equal to the whole effect of man-made carbon dioxide”.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/07/forbush-events-confirm-cosmoclimatology.html
I do not understand how they get a base trend for sea level measurement. They can only compare sea level with the levels of the continents. I do understand that geologically continents typically move a few centimeters horizontally every year, and vertically of the order of a few millimeters. The trend seems suspiciously large compared with the satellite temperature record, where the variations in temperature are much larger than the trend in temperature.
peter_ga (18:45:30) :
“I do not understand how they get a base trend for sea level measurement. They can only compare sea level with the levels of the continents. I do understand that geologically continents typically move a few centimeters horizontally every year, and vertically of the order of a few millimeters.”
A good point, Peter, and one that isn’t factored into AGW as far as I can see. As Bob Dylan said:
“The carpet too is moving under you”.
Why don’t they just ask Jane?
Jane Lubchenco as head of NOAA, says “climate models are robust enough to predict wind patterns 100 years from now and help municipalities locate wind farms”.
Stupid on it’s face as no one would ever locate the wind farm where wind is not currently located, but the notion that she can predict anything 100 from now is complete BS.
Of course if she was talking about with the accuracy level of this 7-82 CM spread she’s probably got a “clear” prediction of where wind will be.
No doubt it’s a wide variation centered where it is today.
Remarkeble heh?
How is it that people making such asinine claims can rise to head an organization like NOAA?
So, Jane, what’s your robust guess on sea level rise?
A good point, Peter, and one that isn’t factored into AGW as far as I can see.
“Axe” Moerner said the IPCC systematically cherrypicked areas that were subsiding and avoided factoring in areas that were uplifting, in order to fudge their sea level numbers.
He said that sea level has a direct effect on the earth’s rotation (by a small degree), and that figuring it out that way, sea level rise was being exaggerated by quite a lot.
evanmjones (20:54:38) :
“Axe” Moerner said the IPCC systematically cherrypicked areas that were subsiding and avoided factoring in areas that were uplifting, in order to fudge their sea level numbers.”
So they do factor some of it in – the bits that fit their models. Well, no surprises there then. Not only are they cherry picking, they are picking the good bits out of the cherries!
Ron de Haan (18:21:19):
…it is important to notice that similar variations in the solar activity, the solar magnetic field, and the galactic cosmic rays take place at many different conceivable frequencies, so there are almost certainly many effects whose impact on the temperature – through the clouds – is at least equal to the whole effect of man-made carbon dioxide”.
Forbush effect is unambiguous as a measurement of the intensity of solar radiation. The decrease of thermal neutrons during Forbush events, that is, when solar flares come up, determines the frequency and velocity of Rosby waves and the formation of cyclones.
For example, El Niño should be causing a warm and dry summer over our area; however, it would seem that we are in a neutral period, i.e. without ENSO. We have undergone some thunderstorms and the temperatures have not been higher than 38 ° C.
I think this is an effect of the absence of significant solar flares through the last two years, weakening the El Niño by giving place to more and stronger Forbush events.
I would like to know how the galactic thermal neutrons have increased in the lower stratosphere and the upper troposphere during the last two years.
The last year, under La Niña influence, we didn’t see cloudless days during the summer, which is quite unusual in our region. Obviously, the incoming galactic cosmic ray are increasing. I could be wrong, of course.
Steve S. (20:50:02) :
How is it that people making such asinine claims can rise to head an organization like NOAA?
I will make a prediction for 100 years from now:
The Dinosaurs will reapper and there won’t be humans on the Earth’s face. Failures on weather prognoses will continue. Insects will become intelligent and will dominate the planet.
If my predictions are unsuccessful, you have the right to argue before my tomb.
I think those people are living the “here and now” in pursuit of money and power.
Well, I predict that polar ice will increase in Antarctica and will gain 7 to 82 million square miles by this time, depending on how much warming there is not.
Furthermore, I predict the winning lottery numbers will be the ones you do not have.
Also, I predict that any complaints about my predictions will result in a full refund.
I love posts like this because of the animosity they instantly generate. At the most we are all here for another 100 years or so. The sun rises and falls just as it has done since the beginning of time. Life your life and stop worrying about things you can’t control. Just a thought.
Is Svensmark right?
http://www.landscheidt.info/oulu.jpg
Its been warming quite a bit in July according to AMSU. I think this where Leif Svaalgard tries to prove that he is correct (solar does not affect temps). However, I don’t think he right, because there is obviously quite a time lapse re ocean SST which can take many years. ie A cooling is coming because of solar activity but its long term (just surmising BTW)
Talk about a bold prediction!
I predict the high temp in Phoenix today will be between 80° and 140°F.
I tell ya, it’s not easy being a scientist and making all these precision models which yield such profound results.
“Phil M: – no, another way to express it 44.5cm +/- 37.5cm”
So if 37.5cm is one Standard Deviation, we can be 95% sure that it will be between minus 30.5 cm and plus 119.5 cm.
“Nogw: This makes me remember that it is a silly thing for americans to change from their system of measures to SIM which has foolish measures as a circle of 400 degrees instead of one of 360 degrees. 360 comes from nature’s cycles while the 400 degrees figure comes from a fevered french revolutionary (Mssr.Tayllerand), with quite other objectives than those of a measuring system.”
Americans do not have a system of measures; they use a crazy mixture of different systems (can you tell me the power of a light-bulb in horsepowers, or blood-pressure in PSI, or spectacles in 1/foot ?).
The gon, used by surveyors, would have the advantage that on a great circle it equates 100 km, just as a minute of arc equates a nautical mile. There is nothing natural about the deg, but 360 can be divided by 2, 3, 4 ,5 ,6, 8, 9, 10 etc. Neither is part of the International System, which is coherent and therefore uses the rad.
Vacationing in Wildwood NJ in July I noticed there were some freakish high tides I have never seen before. Could this be changes in the AMO PDO?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/hightides/
Alexej Buergin – are you French?
The Americans use the good old British Imperial system, which is why sometimes their Mars Probes miss their orbit & crash land!
Is anyone into models enough to answer this?
If water in a narrow tube is heated, it will rise in a linear manner, thermometer-wise.
If the water is in an inverted cone-shaped vessel it will rise in a less quickly with increasing heat as it has to fill a wider area.
If the water is on a flat plate, it will hardly rise at all because it will increase in area unless bounded somehow.
Do the usual models have a linear assumption? Given shallow shorelines and the like, they ought not.
Sea level models using dynamical methods should be compared against straight forward statistical models (the setting events that happened prior to sea level change in the past). This model they used in the above paper sounds like a mixed breed, part dynamical and part statistical. There is no way I would say anything about this new model’s accuracy other than to say that further research is needed to compare it to the gold standard: the statistical model, otherwise known as the control. Their conclusions go way out there in a land unsubstantiated by their research design.
” Phil M (05:50:22) :
Alexej Buergin – are you French?
The Americans use the good old British Imperial system, which is why sometimes their Mars Probes miss their orbit & crash land!”
1) No, I am not
2) No, they do not
Of the 7 basic units (m, kg, s, A, K, cd, mol) of the SI, they use s, A and mol (I don’t know about candela). Instead of m thay use foot, instead of kg they use either pound(-mass) or slug, and instead of K it is °F. But scientists use the SI, of course.
If you want to do any calculations at all, the SI is the way to go, because it is very simple and coherent (SI-units in, SI-units out, no conversions).
I’ve been doing some experimenting and it turns out Albedo changes alone are capable of explaining all the temperature change during the ice ages. Based on the estimated increase of ice and snow during the ice ages, enough sunlight would have been reflected, rather than absorbed, to drop temperatures by 6C. Milankovitch cycles kick-off and pull-back the ice-Albedo feedback and that is all that is needed.
This is what I was taught in atmospheric physics in graduate school in the 80’s. I still think it is the most probable explanation. Anyone with common sense has long realized that CO2 is a drop in the ocean compared to other first order factors. If positive feedback reinforced CO2 warming, which releases even more CO2 as oceans warm, then obviously the atmosphere would have long ago became runaway hot. Clearly other factors are at work and which cool the planet despite the historically documented fivefold increases in the tiny trace amounts of CO2 in the air.
@Alexej Buergin (06:52:25) :
You’re right. America and Americans will never accomplish anything using their archaic system. (Insert smiley face or the SI equivalent).
evanmjones (20:54:38): …He said that sea level has a direct effect on the earth’s rotation (by a small degree), and that figuring it out that way, sea level rise was being exaggerated by quite a lot. This is an excerpt of a 2007 pdf I have on file: The Ice Caps are Growing By David J. Ameling (he has commented here) “The IERS determines the rotation of the Earth. Data only exists from 1972 to the present. From 1972 thru 1998 (26 years) 21 leap seconds were added. From 1999 to the present (9 years) only 1 leap second has been added. This means since 1999 to the present the Earth’s rate of rotation has increased. There are two possible (but not mutually exclusive) causes for this.
1. Some of the Earth’s mass has moved closer to the Earth’s axis of rotation similar to a spinning skater bringing his arms closer to his sides, and thus spinning faster. For the Earth this would occur when some of its ocean water is moved to the polar ice caps to form snow and ice.
2. An electromagnetic force that would slow down the Earth’s rotation is lessening.”
I suppose #3 could be the sea level, with what I assume a tiny effect, re: mm’s of sea level relative to radius of earth. Have you seen other papers re: rotation speed Evan, I’m curious? This seems like one metric that would be hard to fudge with the atomic clock as the measure for length of day.
And I’ve ‘nailed’ that today’s temperature where I live will be between 60 and 100 F.
” Dave (08:02:35) :
@Alexej Buergin (06:52:25) :
You’re right. America and Americans will never accomplish anything using their archaic system. (Insert smiley face or the SI equivalent).”
We are not talking music or sports or politics here, but engineering. It is not a good idea to use different “systems” at the same time. See Phil M and the Mars probe that crashed (systems of measure), or the Airbus 380 (computer programs). During WW II pilots got into trouble by mixing up sm and nm, or US gallon and Imperial gallon.
Bee scale aerodynamics.
Conventional aircraft wings operate on the principle that air flowing more rapidly over the curved upper surface has a lower pressure than the air flowing under the less curved lower surface, generating lift. This requires the smooth flow of air.
Bees wouldn’t be able to fly using that principle. At their small scale, the wings instead produce turbulent vortices that keep the little guys up. Turbulent flow over aircraft wings destroys lift and has the opposite effect.
It seems the low end is a bit low if one assumes that the current satellite measured rate of about 32mm/year continues for this century yielding 32cm.
I just love that sea level graph from CU. 3.2 +/- 0.4mm/yr., such exquisite precision. But lets consider for a moment the system that provides the data from which it is derived. We have a set of radar altimeters mounted on satellites . I couldn’t find the orbital heights for the JASON units, but for the TOPEX set it’s given as 1330 km, so for purposes of discussion we’ll use that. This would indicate that to achieve 1mm accuracy the altimeters would need to be capable of reading to one part in 13 billion, hardly likely since it would require the instruments be able to differentiate to less than a single cycle at the frequencies at which they operate. After 15 years of practice and adjustment the lads are fairly confident that they can describe the orbital ephemeris for the satellites these units are riding on to something like 10 to 50 CENTIMETERS rms or more depending on who’s telling the story. These altimeters operate in the C and Ku bands which means that if the temperature, pressure and humidity of the atmosphere are not perfectly known and accounted for chaotic errors will be introduced into the measurements. At the height the sats are operating any deviation from perfect orthogonality which is likewise not perfectly known and accounted for will also introduce significant errors. Then we have the oceanic surfaces the altimeters are reading, which are subject to a variety of perturbations of height and reflectance from winds, tides, gravity, currents, etc., which also need to be accounted for. Now I know the dedicated number crunchers will tell me that the vast toolbox of modern statistical mathematics allows for the extraction of a signal from even such a noisy and error ridden data set, which may be true. And NOAA does show on their website a calibration to a set of ten Pacific tidal monitoring stations, but the differences noted generally range from 2 to 4 cm rms, which seems to me to indicate that virtually all of the difference in the graph is within systemic uncertainty. If the folks involved had a long history of disinterested pursuit of the truth, one might be tempted to grant some credence to their efforts, but since their description of the project on their website implicitly indicates that a primary goal was to verify global warming, I don’t think it is unreasonable to question whether the dramatically sloping trend line on their graph is a true reflection of the state of sea levels or a statistical fantasy founded on the conscious or unconscious biases of those doing the data adjustments. The statistical toolkit can be a powerful weapon in the pursuit of scientific truth, but, as has been demonstrated numerous times in this affair, it also offers copious opportunities for mischief.
Dave Wendt (16:49:29) :
He swings, it’s going back, way back, it’s outta here!
But, er, sea level rise of 500mm since 1993??
Where was that?
” Ian (01:44:41) :
But, er, sea level rise of 500mm since 1993??
Where was that?”
One zero too many, 50 mmm=2 inch.
And yes, where was that?
Alexej Buergin (10:07:13) :
” Dave (08:02:35) :
@Alexej Buergin (06:52:25) :
“It is not a good idea to use different “systems” at the same time.”
If you have a Russian scientist and an American scientist in collaboration on an important project, you’d better have a very good translator. How many errors of serious consequence would be made in the transition if Americans were ‘forced’ to change from their system to the metric? IOW, two systems in use at the same time. The key, IMO, is to recognize the probability of human error and to diligently search for it.
Dave Wendt (16:49:29) :
Had a brain fart while writing this, 1300km is obviously 1.3 billion mm, not 13 billion. Was going to let it slide since evidently not many people read it, but if I expect integrity in others I guess I have to have some myself, so cancel my first point, although I still suspect their actual achievable accuracy is off by at least an order of magnitude. I worked with EDM in the surveying business for many years and the topline units, even today are only good 2mm +/- 3ppm to a precision retro prism on a tripod over a couple miles and generally require regular recalibration to maintain that. Actually, even if they can only achieve centimeter level accuracy, it’s a fairly heroic accomplishment. I just resent the constant requirement to scale every graph so that barely consequential trends have slopes like an Olympic downhill track.
Steve Keohane (08:17:29)
The Ice Caps are Growing By David J. Ameling
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/the_icecaps_are_growing/
Apr 14, 2008
OK: But
http://pcdsh01.on.br/Imagens/IERSCircularC36_20080704_LeapSecond.JPG
I agree that in general. The planet earth “accelerated” after 1999.
PDO effect?
“Dave: If you have a Russian scientist and an American scientist in collaboration on an important project, you’d better have a very good translator. How many errors of serious consequence would be made in the transition if Americans were ‘forced’ to change from their system to the metric? IOW, two systems in use at the same time. The key, IMO, is to recognize the probability of human error and to diligently search for it.”
1) You do not need a translator; Russian scientists, as well as American scientists, are smart people and both can speak English.
2) American scientists already use the SI (what you call the metric system).
3) As far as I know American cars are metric. So are American spectacles.
4) Other American people should not be forced to change; they should change because it would simplify their life. (Who wants to learn numbers like 43560 or 5280?)
My two ha’p’orth is that metric is better for physics, but for carpentry, cooking &c. imperial has it due to more factors.
Thanks, Fernando. I would suspect that ice accrual at the poles would have a greater effect on rotation than sea level change. I find it interesting that from what I can tell about irrigation by humans is that it can account for over 80% of the sea level rise. So, if the seas are actually rising(slowing rotation), and the earth’s rotation is speeding, there must be a lot of mass going to the poles. Since the arctic ice isn’t growing over the years, the antarctic must be growing.
Steve Keohane (11:16:49) :
Thanks, Fernando. I would suspect that ice accrual at the poles would have a greater effect on rotation than sea level change. I find it interesting that from what I can tell about irrigation by humans is that it can account for over 80% of the sea level rise. So, if the seas are actually rising(slowing rotation), and the earth’s rotation is speeding, there must be a lot of mass going to the poles. Since the arctic ice isn’t growing over the years, the antarctic must be growing.
But we keep adding leap seconds because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down not speeding up.
Alexej Buergin (10:51:36)
1) You do not need a translator; Russian scientists, as well as American scientists, are smart people and both can speak English.
2) American scientists already use the SI (what you call the metric system).
3) As far as I know American cars are metric. So are American spectacles.
4) Other American people should not be forced to change; they should change because it would simplify their life. (Who wants to learn numbers like 43560 or 5280?)
1) Why do they speak English? Romance languages are much easier to learn than either English or Russian. Just ask the French.
2)Except, of course, for some of the American scientists working on the failed Mars probe. It failed because people who’s job it was to check for those kinds of things didn’t.
3)AFAIK, some are, some aren’t, some are a mixed bag.
4)I find it fairly simple to use both systems. Do so on a daily basis.
Steve Keohane
Well,
For this criterion. The Earth’s rotation drags the atmosphere
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/reanalysis/aam_total/gleaam.gif
Conclusion crazy:
El Nino: it is condemned to a life short.
Only speculation
“Dave: 1) Why do they speak English? Romance languages are much easier to learn than either English or Russian. Just ask the French.”
Russian is much more complicated than either French or English (my mother gave it a try, but never got anywhere; and it is not just the Cyrillic letters. But my grandfather must have succeded (living in Russia)). French and English are about equally difficult, Spanish more so. But the UK was the greatest power, and that made English the lingua franca.
Phil. (12:16:16) :
“But we keep adding leap seconds because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down not speeding up”
Yes .. We do not discuss this fact.
Only: We are speculating after 1999.
Lingua Franca is the language of the Franks or French.
English is a mongrel not least because under Norman rule the law had to written both in old english and norman french and so was duplicated.
Hence Seize and Detain, Assault and Battery, Cease and Desist, etc.
As for variations in the rotational speed of the earth did you know this was first discovered in the 1930’s with the completion of the Shortt’s clock which was designed to be the most accurate pendulum clock ever built.
Except it ran erratically due to the above variations: atomic clocks don’t really suffer this problem.
Kindest Regards
Alexej Buergin (13:01:57) :
“Prouver que j’ai raison serait accorder que je puis avoir tort.”
Enjoyed the back-and-forth with you.
And now… back to the weather.
Phil. (12:16:16): But we keep adding leap seconds because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down not speeding up.
Not true Phil. It means the ‘day’ as measured by rotation of the earth is slower than the atomic clock, but is less slow since the late 90s. As I originally posted above: “From 1972 thru 1998 (26 years) 21 leap seconds were added. From 1999 to the present (9 years) only 1 leap second has been added.“, and as Fernando posted, one other was added at the end of 2008. So, in 11 years we added 2 seconds vs. 26 years and 21 seconds. Were all things equal, in those 11 years we should have added 8, not 2 seconds. That’s an increase in rotation.
Steve Keohane (20:56:39) :
Phil. (12:16:16): But we keep adding leap seconds because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down not speeding up.
Not true Phil. It means the ‘day’ as measured by rotation of the earth is slower than the atomic clock, but is less slow since the late 90s. As I originally posted above: “From 1972 thru 1998 (26 years) 21 leap seconds were added. From 1999 to the present (9 years) only 1 leap second has been added.“, and as Fernando posted, one other was added at the end of 2008. So, in 11 years we added 2 seconds vs. 26 years and 21 seconds. Were all things equal, in those 11 years we should have added 8, not 2 seconds. That’s an increase in rotation.
No the rotation continues to slow down, just not as rapidly as formerly.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Leapsecond.ut1-utc.svg