UPDATE: The feckless gold digger weighs in here with a chorus of usual suspects. It is quite humorous to watch.

Guest post by Thomas Fuller
At the conclusion of the last ice age, there was a surplus of ice on many parts of the planet. Nature took care of most of that over the next few thousand years, melting most of it, and sometimes it got pretty dramatic. The resulting legends have become part of the mythology of many cultures, from Gilgamesh to Noah, as dramatic release of pent up ice and/or water flooded lands and drove people before it relentlessly.
Sea level rose 110 meters in 8,000 years. It’s risen a couple of meters in the 6,000 years since then. It is now rising at somewhere between 2 and 3 millimeters a year. (We think. It’s very tough to measure, because the earth is changing its levels and the sea gets pushed around by the wind, getting quite a bit higher in some places than others. And when the change is that small, it’s tough to be sure.)
It is the most effective way to get people’s attention about global warming, and it has been used, overused and abused since 1988. It’s one thing to worry about the cuddly cubs of polar bears, and we can watch with (very) detached sympathy as farmers struggle under drought, but show us a picture of a modern city with water above the window line and we will pay attention.
Wikipedia, which doesn’t always play fair when climate issues are discussed, has the chart everyone needs to see to provide perspective on sea level rise. Titled ‘Post Glacial Sea Level Rise, it shows a dramatic rise in sea levels that stopped dead 6,000 years ago and a very flat line since. You could balance a glass of water on the last 6,000 years of that graph.

This hasn’t stopped the marketing gurus from trying to play to our ancestral horror stories and modern fears of flooding. Because there’s still enough ice left in Antarctica and Greenland to cause dramatic sea level rises, all they have to do is say that global warming will melt that ice and we’re in trouble. And so they do.
Again, we are forced to separate the hype from the science. Remember that the IPCC projects sea level rise this century of 18-59 cm, unless dramatic loss of Greenland and/or Antarctic ice occurs. That’s from their AR4 report. They thus wash their hands and ask what is truth? From the minute that AR4 was published, a string of papers, conferences, publicity events (such as parliamentary cabinet meetings held underwater) have been screaming from the headlines and news reports, drumming into us the message that dramatic loss of Greenland and/or Antarctic ice will in fact occur.
But just as with other aspects of their publicity push, they have to contradict their own scientific findings and theories to make this case.
As the climate has warmed over the past 130 years or so, the margins at the ends of both Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice caps have melted a bit. Climate theory predicts that increased precipitation in the much larger middle of these ice caps will be in the form of snow, which will turn into ice and counterbalance some, most or all of the melt around the edges. It would take millenia to melt it all, and the IPCC thinks that even with the world continuing business as usual, that our emissions will peak around the end of this century, shortly after the population peaks. Emissions will then decline.
But, in a scenario that many will find sadly familiar, those with a political agenda have grabbed on to some straws, such as the GRACE studies we looked at yesterday, and are busy hyping possible mechanical changes to the ice sheets (which do happen) and are simultaneously trying to blame those mechanical changes on global warming. They hijacked the science and spun it. (It’s not the scientists–not in this case.)
The upshot is that spear carriers for the activist side of climate politics are still going on about dramatic sea level rise. They’ve responded grudgingly to criticism and are not as quick to say it will happen soon, but they’re afraid to acknowledge that what they fear would actually take millenia and would need continuous warming for the entire period for it to come to pass.
They can’t give up on the images that have the most visceral impact. They will dance around the details for days, using rhetorical tactics and resorting to whatever level of insults are necessary to change the subject–as I know from personal experience on dismal wailing sites such as Deltoid and Only In It For The Gold, which could make a fortune selling sackloth and ashes online.
The bulk of Greenland’s ice cap sits in a basin that the ice itself helped to create. It isn’t going anywhere. Nor is the vast majority of ice in Antarctica, although the thin peninsula that points to South America has been judged to be at grave risk in studies that date back to the 1930s–long before global warming was of much concern.
The need for exaggerated images such as those of flooded American cities has caused as much anti-scientific double talk as the Hockey Stick chart, which is really saying a lot. And with more of their symbols getting picked off one by one, thanks to the work of people like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, they are holding on to this one for dear life.
When journals like Nature ponder what they call an anti-scientific backlash and aim it at the conservatives in the United States, they really should preface their remarks with a frank examination of how science has been abused in both practice and communication, and analyse how those trumpeting the modern call of Doom have started this reaction.
As a liberal Democrat who believes in moderate global warming, I feel a bit left out. But I think Nature is just looking for an easy target and throwing mud at it, hoping some of it will stick. I will be on the other side of the fence come election time, but not because of that.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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Leif,
“” It’s risen at an average rate of 0.3 millimeter over the 6,000 years since then. It is now rising at somewhere between 2 and 3 millimeters a year, almost 10 times as fast”.
This only makes sense if sea level rise has been continuous over the last 6000 years, with no rise and fall in between. A sign wave moving at a continuous rate will demonstrate variations in the rate of rise and fall without showing anything but a miniscule “average” rate of change over the long haul. That doesn’t mean in the short run one won’t see relatively more rapid rises and falls that dwarf the “average”. It also means the average is a rather meaningless number if there is a cyclical pattern of rising and falling in between two points used to take an “average”. To evaluate whether the current rate of sea level rise is out of the ordinary, we would have to know the full story of the last 6000 years of sea level rise and fall, not merely the mathematical average.
Tom Fuller says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:41 pm
the current rate of sea level rise does not appear threatening over the course of the relevant time frame–the century or so it will take us to get our energy solutions sorted out.
A agree that 25 cm or foot or even IPCC’s 18-59 cm seems manageable. I also find it important that the increase now is 7 times larger than the 6000-year average, so we need to figure out if the current rate will stay constant or what its long-term behavior will be.
conradg says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:14 pm
if there is a cyclical pattern of rising and falling in between two points used to take an “average”.
But we do not know if there are such cycles. So what you are saying is: “assuming it is not so bad, we don’t need to worry”. This does not seem a reasonable stance. We need to find out what the long-term behavior has been and will be, and not just assume something. I may be in a minority on this, but so be it.
It is discocenting that I am more confident over the rise in sea level over the last six thousand years than I am what is reported by ‘experts’ today.
“This discourse is not about terminology or semantics. If it is belief discussed then it is not science discussed. Tom and you did use the word belief, therefore, what are we to think?”
So people in science do not have opinions? be·lief /bɪˈlif/ Show Spelled[bih-leef] Show IPA
–noun
1. something believed; an opinion or conviction
—Synonyms
1. view, tenet, conclusion, persuasion
Legal Dictionary
Main Entry: be·lief
Function: noun
: a degree of conviction of the truth of something esp. based on a consideration or examination of the evidence
So a perfectly legitimate definition of belief is an opinion based upon the evidence. Would you be kind enough to show me where in science it says not to form an opinion based upon the evidence?
I don’t know what you are to think but what I think is that you don’t understand the entire definition of the word belief.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:04 pm
In one sense, yes. But sunspots have not been rising over 6,000 years and attained a different rate suddenly the last 150 years. The sea level rise as measured in 2-3 mm /yr is drowned (that’s an intended pun) in noise of oceanic sloshing, wind patterns, tectonic movement, tsunamis, volcanic burial, etc. And at this rate, sea level rise is a non-threatening issue. It is most definately not a catastrophic event or rate of rise. Mankind can outrun/adapt to this.
Your academic point is not in question. Rather, it’s the panicky sense of urgency that some are want to attach to it that is moot.
Correction:
“Your academic point is not in question”
should read
“Your academic point is not THE question”.
John Whitman says:
September 10, 2010 at 1:25 pm
“If it is belief discussed then it is not science discussed.”
Er… beg to differ. A lot in scientific theory is belief. Were it not so, then it wouldn’t be belief, but knowledge.
We know a lot about *what* we can observe, but when it comes to the *why* or *how* of it, that is usually subject to revision over time, and at any one moment, we have beliefs about what it means.
That is fine as long as we are aware we are believers and not knowers. However, and sadly, many scientists in each generation tend to think they have the ultimate answer, and the more agree with them, the more assured they feel about that.
It is very hard for people, even scientists, to accept the inevitable fact of uncertainty.
rbateman says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:37 pm
In one sense, yes. But sunspots have not been rising over 6,000 years
Some would say they have: http://www.rense.com/general58/8000.htm 🙂
Right.
Take, for instance, my home, the point on the east coast of the US, where sea level “rise” is the most pronounced.
More like “land level sink”.
Atlantic coastal plain muck….
…..plus isostatic rebound from the last glaciation (New York is still popping up from a mile-thick ice sheet, pushing it surrounding area down, like a footprint in the wet sand…..
….plus the fact that we sit on the edge of on of the largest impact craters in the world…
….plus aquifer depletion and land use issues.
Twice a week I run in hills that are ancient dunes form the early Holocene.
Sea level rises in spurts and sputters.
I would like to hear what Morner, the Sea Level equivalent to the Solar Leif god, has to say, about all this…
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Perhaps SLR has been stable overe the last 6,000 years but in that time period the west Antarctic peninsula has warmed and partly melted at least 3 times.
The last time was during the MWP.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/7/635.abstract
Correction: “that we sit on the edge of ONE of the largest impact craters”
And I meant “Solar Leif god” in respect, in case what I said is misinterpreted.
He is a very very smart man.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I wish Nils-Axel Mörner would weigh in on this discussion!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I also find it important that the increase now is 7 times larger than the 6000-year average, so we need to figure out if the current rate will stay constant or what its long-term behavior will be.
Or how we explain short term variability eg Ablain et al 2009
Abstract. A new error budget assessment of the global
Mean Sea Level (MSL) determined by TOPEX/Poseidon and
Jason-1 altimeter satellites between January 1993 and June
2008 is presented using last altimeter standards. We discuss
all potential errors affecting the calculation of the global
MSL rate. We also compare altimetry-based sea level with
tide gauge measurements over the altimetric period. Applying
a statistical approach, this allows us to provide a realistic
error budget of the MSL rise measured by satellite altimetry.
These new calculations highlight a reduction in the rate of sea
level rise since 2005, by ~2 mm/yr. This represents a 60%
reduction compared to the 3.3 mm/yr sea level rise (glacial
isostatic adjustment correction applied) measured between
1993 and 2005. Since November 2005, MSL is accurately
measured by a single satellite, Jason-1. However the error
analysis performed here indicates that the recent reduction in
MSL rate is real.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:46 pm
And the next part would be: It’s fallen off the last 2 cycles.
So, should we also expect this non-issue and overly hyped sea-level rise to continue Trend without End, Amen?
Or should we not expect it to vary, like the sunspot cycles have been doing?
In both cases, adaptation is required, not panic and hysteria driven hype.
rbateman says:
September 10, 2010 at 11:33 pm
In both cases, adaptation is required, not panic and hysteria driven hype.
=========================================
The absolute crux of the matter, no doubt, Robert!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
rbateman says:
September 10, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Or should we not expect it to vary, like the sunspot cycles have been doing?
Again that would be conjecture. The thermal inertia of the oceans is large. I don’t think we can make a comparison other than wishful thinking. But adapt we can and must, no matter how large or small the rise is.
Amidst the many non-sensical replies (future projections are all based on a model of some sort, so not trusting something because it’s based on a model is a non-sequitur) I spotted Mosher actually engaging the question in a meaningful way.
Mosher seems to argue to let those who will be affected take care of (and pay for) the problem. I think it’s more fair to let those who caused the problem take care of (and pay for) it.
Mosher’s argument seems based on somehow blaming those who live in threatened areas, whereas in most cases, they chose to live there unaware of the potential future risk (partly thanks to the great efforts of WUWT and other outlets like it). Moreover, building infrastructure is usually not an individual decision, but are affected by many stakeholders. To blame the person who lives there because that’s where the jobs are doesn’t seem quite right imo.
Tom,
Are you saying that because sea levels have risen 120 metres (over the course of thousands of years) in the past, that therefore sea level rise that we can hardly decipher on a graph stretching 20,000 years isn’t going to be a problem?
That would seem a stretch to me.
For your consideration, what slopes of 1mm/yr, 2mm/yr and 3mm/yr look like in the post-glacial SLR plot.
(link)
I’ll listen to the expert on this one.
Nils-Axel Mörner
(1) In the last 2000 years, sea level has oscillated with 5 peaks reaching 0.6 to 1.2 m above the present sea level.
(2) From 1790 to 1970 sea level was about 20 cm higher than today
(3) In the 1970s, sea level fell by about 20 cm to its present level
(4) Sea level has remained stable for the last 30 years, implying that there are no traces of any alarming on-going sea level rise.
(5) Therefore, we are able to free the Maldives (and the rest of low-lying coasts and island around the globe) from the condemnation of becoming flooded in the near future.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/20/maldives-president-all-wet-on-sea-level.aspx#ixzz0zHJdnR3V
But surely Sea Level is generally a local issue.
Venice is sinking (man-made). The Maldives are actually rising not sinking (bad press for someone holding their hands out for International sympathy and cash). The Ganges Delta is being diverted in places causing flooding in others. etc. etc.
Here in New Zealand, tectonic activity is lifting the eastern side of the Country, causing rapid sea-level drop. In downtown Wellington, in the main CBD, plaques mark the waterfront as it was in 1840. The airport exists 30 feet amsl on uplifted land.
In many places, we have accretion, yet in others erosion is impacting far more than any small variations in “Global Average” Sea Level
Andy
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:19 pm
“No, not at all, just pointing that whatever the cause, the recent rise is 7 times larger than the average over the past 6000 years.
This would only be true if the “recent” rise were the 2-3mm/yr claimed. Which it isn’t. Actual observations suggest a figure more like ~0.5+/-1mm/yr over the past twenty years. This includes my personal observations, and the like observations of many other coast-living people, which frankly trump anything that anyone with an ideological axe to grind might publish to the contrary and agree with the work of experts like Mörner. This figure is fully consistent with a claim that sea levels are rising at or about the average rate for the past 6000 years. It would also be consistent with a claim that sea levels are currently falling.
I am perplexed at the apparent need for some people to rigidly adhere to the IPCC version of sea level rise even though it is demonstrably inaccurate or misleading, and they admit as much in their careful wording of how it was put together.
Let us give some highlights of the empircal evidence we have which demonstrates a frequent oscillation of sea level to around 1 metre higher than today. All these are detailed and substantiated within the numerous links I made in a detailed post I made here at 10am on 10th September, which included the material I had posted on the previous thread.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/10/sea-level-rise-hype-and-reality/
*England was part of the continent until as recently as 6000 BC when rising sea levels caused by post ice age warming filled the North sea. This displaced the people of ‘Doggerland’ who had peviously inhabited this area. By 3000 BC the ocean was at near modern levels.
* The North Sea had a ‘nasty little jump’ between 350 and 550AD, flooding the coasts of northern Europe with an extra 2 feet of water and sending its inhabitants — Angles and Saxons — fleeing (although “conquering” might be the better word) into ill-prepared Roman territories. Many of those posting here would have names that would suggest they had ancestors affected by this climatic ‘tipping point.’
* After falling in the subsequent centuries, sea levels rose significantly again after 1000 AD. Over the next two centuries the North sea rose as much as 40-50 cms above today’s height in the low countries then slowly retreated again as temperature fell.
*There was ‘innundation’ around 1200AD of many parts of low land coastal Europe including Holland and Britain. This displaced thousands of coastal dwellers and caused conflict with those whose land they tried to move on to, further inland. Sea levels then were about 0.50cm higher than today. The Vikings are thought to have used the deeper rivers at the start of this period to raid Eurpope, sailing their shallow draught ships up the Seine and deep into the continent in an attempt to destroy Charlemagnes Holy Roman empire.
*Sea levels subsequently fell during the sporadic periods of intense cold we know as the LIA. They started rising again by 1850 which is the point the IPCC choose to measure from.
* In AR4 Chapter 5 they confirm that in 1900 there were only some 20NH tide gauges and 2 in the SH.
* Of these some 7 were unchanged in location since first measuring from around 1850/80. However in the modern equivalent of UHI, development happened around them e.g New York, rendering their information less useful.
* There are some 3 NH tide gauges, all from the same tidal basin, which date back around 100 years further. These have all moved and their data is very intermittent but was subsequently ‘interpolated.’
* According to the IPCC “Data prior to 1993 are from tide gauges and after 1993 are from satellite altimetry.
* Satellite data has their own inherent problems with an admitted accuracy of some 5cm-dependent on methodology used. The earlier data is particularly dubious.
* So highly imperfect satellite data was grafted on to virtually non existent tidal gauge information. From this embarassingly sparse data the IPCC constructed a global sea level. Bearing in mind the relative size of land and ocean this methodology is akin to using some 4 or 5 short term thermometers, all clustered in much the same area and with large chunks of missing data and affected by development, and then proclaiming it as some sort of highly accurate measurement of a global temperature
So what is our best guess of what has actually happened recently-apart from the evidence of our own eyes and those of our ancestors- and whilst remembering that complications set in due to land rising/falling and deposition.
*According to S. J. Holgate, a recognised world authority in geophysical research at the UK-based Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, in his paper published in 2007, the following results represent the most comprehensive measurements of decadal sea-level change rates during the 20th century.
Between 1904 and 1953 global sea levels rose by 2.03 mm per year, whereas from 1954 to 2003 they rose by only 1.45 mm per year, giving an annual mean rate of 1.74 mm per year over the 100 years to 2003, or seven inches per century. Importantly, there was no increase in the rate of change over the whole century.
So, based on these peer reviewed and generally accepted numbers, 20th century sea levels rose at a 25% slower rate in the second half of the century than the first which, on any reasonable interpretation, contradicts the notion that global temperature increases during the last 50 years contributed to any sea level rise!”
This is graphically illustrated here.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
Average rate of rise:
1904-1953: 2.03 ± 0.35 mm/year 1954-2003: 1.45 ± 0.34 mm/year
* If we want to believe satellites have an accurate handle on all this, here is Ablain et al 2009
Abstract. A new error budget assessment of the global
Mean Sea Level (MSL) determined by TOPEX/Poseidon and
Jason-1 altimeter satellites between January 1993 and June
2008 is presented using last altimeter standards. We discuss
all potential errors affecting the calculation of the global
MSL rate. We also compare altimetry-based sea level with
tide gauge measurements over the altimetric period. Applying
a statistical approach, this allows us to provide a realistic
error budget of the MSL rise measured by satellite altimetry.
These new calculations highlight a reduction in the rate of sea
level rise since 2005, by ~2 mm/yr. This represents a 60%
reduction compared to the 3.3 mm/yr sea level rise (glacial
isostatic adjustment correction applied) measured between
1993 and 2005. Since November 2005, MSL is accurately
measured by a single satellite, Jason-1. However the error
analysis performed here indicates that the recent reduction in
MSL rate is real.
It is somewhat meaningless to cite a steady rise in sea levels over the last 6000 years. It rose quickly then has oscillated round a metre up and down on around 5 occasions. Current sea level rise is extremely modest and has fallen back from the already modest increases seen from around 1850/80.
To experience a sea level rise of up to a metre by the end of the century requires a fantastic rate of increase of around 1.10cm a year, that’s around 2inches over a five year period, which is not being observed, and has not been observed.
All the links to the information encapsulated above are contained in my link made on this thread at 10am on the 10th septemberr. It is here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/10/sea-level-rise-hype-and-reality/
This includes the link to the IPCC AR4 chapter 5.
I would very much like to see an article from Bart Verheggen or Michel Tobis in which-after looking at the empirical information and the history behind it-they justify their understanding of sea level rise. Whilst they are about it they can also justify the supposed accuracy of historic sea surface temperatures .
Tonyb
———————-
Steven and Michael Larkin,
Thank you for commenting.
Definitions of “belief” applicable to law, social discourse, theology and psychological phenomena aside; I very very rarely run across actual “belief” involved in specific formal physical science. Where I have found “belief” in such cases, it is incidental to the science.
I would argue that a quite good working definition of science (strictly for the purpose of our discussion only) is: Science is a non-belief based body of knowledge.
A non-belief body of knowledge would hold:
aaa – assumed things are stated as assumptions
bbb – unknown things are stated as unknown
ccc – uncertainty is openly admitted and shown
ddd – data, code and methods are documented and preserved
ggg – reality, per se, is the only authority that can establish validity
hhh – etc, etc, etc
Note #1: In my experience, it is common to find some scientists (whom I respect in a given field) who have belief systems (for example religion) in their private life. But in their professional life I respect them because they are non-belief oriented.
Note #2: Private research can be science in a private sense. To belong to the public body of science, privately held non-belief must be released to the public.
John