From the Guardian, finally some refreshing honesty in Science:
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown
The Maldives – poster child for bad science Photograph: Reuters
Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.
The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.
At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.
Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.
Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.
Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.
…
In a statement the authors of the paper said: “Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.
h/t Claude Harvey
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Sea level is rising at no more than 32cm/century.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg
not 2,500cm as has been attributed to Hansen.
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/news_repository/will-oceans-surge-59-centimetres-this-century-or-25-metres
No doubt Tamino would consider Hansen’s prediction to be statistically significant.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (Feb 21 20:09),
The paper is way above my head, but if I had to throw a dart at it, I’d aim at the very last paragraph..
Doesn’t the IPCC project higher warming at the polar regions than the global mean?
That would lead to the claim the paper may have “underestimated” future sea level rise.
That’s where my dart hit anyway.
Guys – this paper was withdrawn because the sea level rise was too low to suit the alarmists (i.e. it is not scary enough). It would have never been withdrawn if the paper served the alarmist political objectives.
The fact that it was withdrawn while other papers like MBH98 with more serious errors remain on the record demonstrates once again how hopelessly corrupt the scientific establishment is.
It is NOT evidence of science working the way it should.
And their mistake for not consulting one of the world’s leading experts on the subject.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf
Logic doesn’t win, however….as “sea level rise” in this predisposed entity….is just like like “global warming” or the “melting polar ice caps.”
Sea levels rise….and they fall….as they have done for billions of years.
We really have alot to learn.
As has been said previously here…”science in the end is self-correcting.”
YES.
Survival of the fittest….survival of the truth.
Hopefully we will evolve beyond the fiasco of the past 10 years of the unnatural forcing of Gore, Hansen, and Mann….where they have successfully scammed the world….violating the public trust in science.
That will change. It has to.
Hoping for the best.
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA, USA
OT. There is a sleepy seaside resort near where I live called Akaroa. On the hillside above the town there are two historic graveyards. One graveyard is clearly marked for Roman Catholics only and the other is simply called Dissidents. Reading comments on the most recent RealClimate posts gives me clearer understanding of what that was all about.
nigguraths (21:05:09) :
Relax guys. The authors retracted the paper potentially because their sea level rise estimates were *lower* than what is modelled…..It reduces the confidence in the IPCC by the same amount it increased it in, when it was published….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
I think you are understating.
The paper shows the IPCC is acting like Chicken Little. The pulling of the paper will do more damage than the help it originally did for the IPCC. This is exactly what the IPCC didn’t need now—more damage to their credibility.
What ‘-gate’ will be next?
“the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown”
Not too worry, it’s much worse than we thought!
“the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.”
Whoa, thanks for narrowing it down, I was worried for a while there.
I think there is a hockey stick in the IPCC estimate of sea level rise. I looked at the long baseline tide gauge data e.g. New York – it was linear. But the IPCC said it had increased in the 20th century. When I looked into the basis for that statement, all I could find was a single paper Church, J.A., and N.J. White, 2006: A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826 which I think was published too late for use in AR4, but it was there nevertheless, perhaps because one J.Church was one of the lead authors of that section of WG2. Figure 2 in Church and White gives the hockey stick – between 1870 and 1940, they estimate a sea level rise of 0.7mm/a and between 1940 and today a rise of around 2.3mm/a. Why can one not see such a change in the raw data?
““Mistakes were made”-the Nuremburg excuse.”
Comparing scientists identifying their own mistakes to mass murder by the Nazis . . . climate skepticism at its finest.
“No doubt Tamino would consider Hansen’s prediction to be statistically significant.”
Steve, you really should stop using that term until you learn what it means.
“Troll Robert from Willis’ post”
I find it amusing that the community here glorifies “skepticism” — attacking the science on climate in the face of near-universal disagreement from climate scientists — yet if anyone dares question THEM — well, that person is clearly a troll.
Apparently skepticism is only admired when it is directed towards objects you despise, not when your own views are confronted with it.
@ur momisugly John A (19:22:20) : | Reply w/ Link
“I congratulate the scientists involved for retracting a flawed study rather than trying to brazen it out or “move on” as has been the habit of others.”
Hear, hear! Well, said. Mistakes do happen in science. These guys should be given credit for acknowledging their errors, and it should be assumed that they were honest errors unknown before publication. It’s not easy to admit you were wrong especially when many months or years may have been devoted to the work. I hope they will be able to publish on their revised findings regardless of which side their new conclusions may favor.
IPPC Ocean-Gate
From an interview with Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner:
“Another way of looking at what is going on is the tide gauge. Tide gauging is very complicated, because it gives different answers for wherever you are in the world. We have to rely on geology when we interpret it. So, for example, …the IPCC choose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and choose the record of one, which gives a 2.3 mm per year of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It’s the compaction of sediment; it is the only record which should not [be used]. And if that [2.3 mm] figure is correct, then Holland would not be subsiding, it would be uplifting. And that is just ridiculous. Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that. So tide gauges, you have to treat very, very carefully.”
Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden. He is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project. Dr. Mörner been studying the sea level and its effects on coastal areas for some 35 years.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/02/sea-level-expert-sea-is-not-rising.html
Don’t worry, for every report that gets pulled there are more to take its place.
Methane
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/methane-levels-may-see-runaway-rise-scientists-warn-1906484.html
They are worried about an increase of 7ppm on 1630ppm in 6 months, how come this causes concern when increasing snow cover over 10 years is not statiscally significant. Lots of ifs buts and maybes but the scare continues.
Give me a Grant-R-Us
They go on: “During the first half of 2009, globally averaged atmospheric CH4 was [approximately] 7ppb greater than it was in 2008, suggesting that the increase will continue in 2009. There is the potential for increased CH4 emissions from strong positive climate feedbacks in the Arctic where there are unstable stores of carbon in permafrost … so the causes of these recent increases must be understood.”
Professor Nisbet said at the weekend that the new figures did not necessarily mark a new excursion from the trend. “It may just be a couple of years of high growth, and it may drop back to what it was,” he said. “But there is a concern that things are beginning to change towards renewed growth from feedbacks.”
The errors of this paper was highlighted on realclimate.org a long time ago.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/ups-and-downs-of-sea-level-projections/
Most of you guys dont seem to get the significance of this withdrawal. The withdrawal actually strengthens the growing consensus in the sea level community that the IPCC projections were much too low. Most (if not all) new sea level projections are roughly 3 times higher than the IPCCs estimates.
I wonder if anyone has found the time (or inclination) to inform prince Charles? I’m sure he’d be most interested…
from the NZ Herald:
“I am indebted to a reader for sending me a copy of an article which appeared in this newspaper and which I hadn’t read.
Under the headlines “Man is making the earth too warm, Threat of melting polar caps”, it quoted a prominent physicist as saying that the levels of the oceans could rise 12m and flood vast areas of the Earth in the next half century unless atmospheric temperatures were controlled.
The physicist, Dr Joseph Kaplan, professor of physics at the University of California, said such flooding could occur as a result of accelerated melting of the polar ice caps.
..Now the reason I missed that story is that it appeared in this newspaper on Tuesday, April 9, 1957, at which time I was 16 years old and preparing to travel by ship to the United States on an American Field Service scholarship.”
Climate hysteria won’t last test of time
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10626802
Why would they publish a retraction and not define the errors?
What did they asssume that is incorrect? If the paper was based on past work by Briffa, Mann, etc, then the paper assumes we are now in an unprecedented time of warmth, and likely overestimates SL rise. OTOH I am confident that this has nothing to do with why it was withdrawn, as the community is not ready to abandon the hockey stick.
@JohnH (00:02:05),
I think you mean ppb – parts per billion, i.e. none.
Robert (23:38:58):
Ok I will bite. I have no science background. I am not a climatologist.
I am a true skeptic, like lots of people here. I like to see the evidence presented so that I can form my own opinion. I have tried to ask questions on various warmist websites but none of my posts have been allowed. My questions, or comments, have not been insulting in any way. They have been enquiring asking for answers when I do not understand the science being discussed. I have posted here, but never had my posts moderated or deleted. I visit plenty of websites to try and gain the balance I would like.
Over the past few months I have seen lots of articles here and elsewhere that seriously question the damage caused the the climate by humans burning fossil fuels, and generally increasing CO2 levels. I have been shown mistakes in the IPCC reports. I have been shown errors in data and assumptions. I have been denied balanced reporting in the media when these revelations have come to light. I have seen claim and counter claim by both sides.
I have been seeing your comments over the past few weeks. Some have been interesting and questioning, allowing me to go and look elsewhere and verify what you have said. But some of your posts have had arguments that do not stand up to scrutiny. Some of the questions you have asked the author of the topic seem logical and I always follow them through.
So basically my questions are these:
What qualifications (or experience) do you have in climate science (or any other science for that matter)?
What is your website (or blog) address? I ask this so that I can see your substansive posts and not just comments.
Have you actually written any rebuttals to any of the topics here (or anywhere in skeptical sites?) You seem as though you are very knowledgeable of the subject, and have a good understanding so you should use that for the education of others like me.
So basically I am asking this: Why should I trust your comments over others here?
I would like to trust your comments enough so that I keep checking what you say, so please be kind enough to answer.
Monty Python always comes to mind when I think of AGW Proponents… I’m sorry, but I just can’t help it;-)
The AGW Black Knight tries to stop the Skeptical Knights from crossing the scientific divide and discovering truth……
From http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/full/ngeo587.html
“In response to the minimum (1.1 °C) and maximum (6.4 °C) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC models, our model predicts 7 and 82 cm of sea-level rise by the end of the twenty-first century, respectively.”
Is there anything technically shakey in their original premise?
Don’t forget that this study is just one of many that predict alarming sea level rises. The research of Al Gore proved that the sea level will rise by 20ft in the near future.
@ur momisugly J.Hansford
“The AGW Black Knight tries to stop the Skeptical Knights from crossing the scientific divide and discovering truth……”
You mean there are other AGW skeptics out there who like to walk around humping the air while pretending to ride imaginary horses? Wow! All this time I thought I was the only one 😉
Another month rolls by and more and more of the claims in the IPCC document are shown to be wrong.
It is interesting to consider the Gravy Train , similar to that enjoyed by the Bankers, enjoyed by the IPCC.
This is yet another section of society desperately trying to enjoy an elevated life style , the difference is they have political sponsorship and an entrenched position eventually the same people who are leading the Human Induced Global Warming farce will be given equally elevated positions espousing a new cause possibly Natural Variability in Global Climate.
“Science is self correcting” Yeah we knew the world was round and even how big it was 2500 yrs ago but with the burning down of the Alexandria library (destruction of data) and an anti-science agenda,(manipulation of info) the truth took two millennia to correct itself. We were on the verge of a of a repeat with much graver consequences to intellectual endeavor, freedom, and indeed, economic survival. Don’t get too touchy feely with good honest fellows jumping off a sinking ship. The author’s remark that they don’t know if its an under- or over estimate pretty much neutralizes his scientific honesty. It’s no estimate at all if It’s a mistake!