Guest post by John Kehr
Based on the most current data it appears that 2010 is going to show the largest drop in global sea level ever recorded in the modern era. Since many followers of global warming believe that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, a significant drop in the global sea level highlights serious flaws in the IPCC projections. The oceans are truly the best indicator of climate. The oceans drive the world’s weather patterns. A drop in the ocean levels in a year that is being cited as proof that the global warming has arrived shows that there is still much to learned. If the ocean levels dropped in 2010, then there is something very wrong with the IPCC projections.
The best source of sea level data is The University of Colorado. Only government bureaucracy could put the sea level data in one of the places farthest from the ocean, but that is where it is. I use both data sets that includes the seasonal signal. So with and without the inverted barometer applied. This is the source of the data that is used to show that the oceans are rising. Of course the rate of rise is greatly exaggerated and if the rate from 1993-2010 is used there will be a 1m rise in the year 2361.
Of course the rate is not constant. The rate of rise over the past 5 years has been half the overall rate. At the rate of the past 5 years it will be the year 2774 before the oceans rise a single meter. Of course a decrease in the rate is technically an negative acceleration in the rate of rise, so technically the rate of rise is accelerating, but in a negative direction. That statement is misleading though as most people consider acceleration to be a positive effect.
Sea Level Change
Even more interesting is the fact that from 1992-2005 there was an increase each year. 2006 was the first year to show a drop in the global sea level. 2010 will be the 2nd year to show a decrease in sea level. That is correct, 2 of the past 5 years are going to show a decrease in sea level. 2010 could likely show a significant drop global sea level. By significant I mean it is possible that it will likely drop between 2-3 mm from 2009. Since the data has not been updated since August it is difficult to guess more precisely, but the data ends at the time of year that the seasonal drop begins to show up. If the drop does show up as expected it is possible that 2010 will show the largest drop in sea level ever recorded.
2010 could show a significant drop in sea level from 2009.
Of course what will happen won’t be known until the data for the past 5 months is made available. I have been patiently waiting for the data to be updated for several months now, but I got tired of waiting and decided to put the information I have out there.
One fact is certain. A drop in sea level for 2 of the past 5 years is a strong indicator that a changing sea level is not a great concern. In order for the IPCC prediction to be correct of a 1m increase in sea level by 2100, the rate must be almost 11 mm/yr every year for the next 89 years. Since the rate is dropping, it makes the prediction increasingly unlikely. Not even once in the past 20 years has that rate ever been achieved. The average rate of 2.7 mm/yr is only 25% of the rate needed for the IPCC prediction to be correct.
This is yet another serious blow the accuracy of the official IPCC predictions for the coming century. The fact that CO2 levels have been higher in the last 5 years that have the lowest rate of rise than the years with lower CO2 levels is a strong indicator that the claims of CO2 are grossly exaggerated.
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John Kehr runs the website The Inconvenient Skeptic – I recommend a visit. – Anthony
Shhhhhhhhh.
Telegraphing to the data handlers that you expect a drop gives them the clear signal to go in and alter the data. They probably want to avoid the kinds of heat and pressure that Washington could apply to their program if they do not make sea level change in the desired political direction.
Shhhhhhhhh!
Well then, let’s just expand the data window a bit.
Over the 20th century, sea level alternated between 26-yr (+/-6) periods of 2-3mm/yr rises and hiatuses (<1mm/yr)…
Jerejeva et al., 2008: 20th Century
From 1929-1961, sea level rose at an average rate of 3.17mm/yr.
During the 1961-1979 hiatus, sea level rose at an average rate of 0.01mm/yr… In layman’s terms: Sea level did not rise during the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The satellite data begin in 1993. From 1993-2002, sea level rose at a rate of 3.45mm/yr (almost identical to the 1929-1961 rise). From 2002 through 2009, sea level has risen at 2.35mm/yr…
CU 1993-2009.
In layman’s terms: The rate of sea level rise is decelerating. As John points out in his post, since 2009, the rate of sea level rise has nearly dropped to 0mm/yr.
Since we have a century-long track record of alternating ~26-yr periods of ~3mm/yr rises and hiatuses… And the most recent rise began in 1979, it should have ended in about 2005 (+/-6-yr). The data seem to indicate that it ended somewhere between 2002 and 2010. Which is exactly in the range of natural variability established over the 20th century.
To further elaborate on one of John’s other salient points: Se level would have to rise ant an average rate of 11mm/yr over the next 90 years in order to rise 1m by 2010. According to the Jerejeva reconstruction, the top ten decades of sea level rise since 1700 are (mm/yr):
1804-1813 12.75
1803-1812 10.67
1728-1737 10.30
1789-1798 8.38
1842-1851 7.87
1858-1867 7.82
1788-1797 7.72
1861-1870 7.66
1808-1817 7.58
1785-1794 7.18
Sea level has not risen at a rate of more than 10mm/yr over any single decade since the early 19th century.
Since 1950, sea level has not risen by 5mm/yr any single decade:
1989-1998 4.66
1990-1999 3.95
1991-2000 3.86
1956-1965 3.79
1986-1995 3.78
1974-1983 3.71
1952-1961 3.65
1993-2002 3.63
1988-1997 3.44
1975-1984 3.30
The claim that sea level is likely to rise 1m by 2100 is idiotically preposterous. The predictions of 2m of sea level rise by 2100 are moronic.
Recently, the Univ. of Utrecht and others have estimated that the volume of world net groundwater extraction has been growing steadily since 1960, if not before. These researchers estimate that this groundwater extraction has ended up in the oceans, one way or another, and is contributing 0.8 mm/year of the 3.1 mm/year increase in sea level the world is currently experiencing, or about a quarter of the recent rise. They also estimated (as many others have) that half of the sea level rise was due to ocean heating. And if that ocean heating slows down, any rate of sea level rise resulting from CO2 drops even further.
One last thing. A few months ago people analyzed GRACE satellite data to determine how much ice was being lost from the West Antarctic Ice Peninsula and Greenland. They thought that since the top of the ice didn’t increase in elevation and the bedrock was rising very fast, any difference in between the top of the ice and the top of bedrock was due to melting. Turns out that GRACE found out through field checks there was less isostatic rebound in those locations than expected. So the increase of mass “lost” from ice melting was, in fact, from the the bedrock not moving up as fast as originally thought and ice loss was actually only one half of their originally estimated rate. Oops! So much for global catastrophic warming. To their credit, they published their error and will move on in their research. Kudos to them.
LazyTeenager said to me;
January 17, 2011 at 4:00 am
Tonyb says
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There is no evidence to show it was higher today than in the 18th century from which it declined then rose.
Similarly we know levels to have been higher than today in the Roman Optimum and MWP.
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This looks like a self contradiction. Seems to be expressed badly.
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Sorry Lazy Teenager, I make the mistake of assuming that most peoples’ first language here is English. I’ll try again.
Sea levels oscillate round a mean average and have been higher in the past, for instance during the Roman Optimum and the MWP. Levels subsequently declined through the LIA, but have risen and fallen several times since then. It is currently gently rising again.
This graph might help you-please note the cut off date so add an inch to the values shown.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1240
“Figure 1. Global sea level from 200 A.D. to 2000, as reconstructed from proxy records of sea level by Moberg et al. 2005. The thick black line is reconstructed sea level using tide gauges (Jevrejeva, 2006). The lightest gray shading shows the 5 – 95% uncertainty in the estimates, and the medium gray shading denotes the one standard deviation error estimate. The highest global sea level of the past 110,000 years likely occurred during the Medieval Warm Period of 1100 – 1200 A.D., when warm conditions similar to today’s climate caused the sea level to rise 5 – 8” (12 – 21 cm) higher than present. Image credit: Grinsted, A., J.C. Moore, and S. Jevrejeva, 2009, “Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD”, Climate Dynamics, DOI 10.1007/s00382-008-0507-2, 06 January 2009″
Tonyb
“LazyTeenager says:
January 17, 2011 at 4:08 am”
Distances between the solid objects like the Earth and the Moon are, relatively, static, certainly easy to measure, but not to within +/- a few milimeters, so not sure what your point is here. As with GPS, 30 feet, now tell me how is this relevant to the “few milimeters” we’re discussing here? With something so fluid, like seas and oceans, to measure, from space, to accuracies within milimeters is rediculous. The satelites themselves cannot remain in the same position in space to within milimeters, so again, what is your point?
PS. I’ve worked in engieering to tollerances of +/- 2 microns. I sort of have an idea about measuring, measuring devices/techniques and measurements.
One side of the argument takes some numbers then pulverises them into a figure of 3 mm rise in sea levels. Then the other side takes the same numbers and purees them into a drop of 3mm. The rising side claims they are correct, but refuses to discuss any possibility of error and attacks anyone that disagrees with them, then goes off to the corner to hold their breath until their face turns blue. The falling side also claims they are correct, but welcomes discussion and encourages others to demonstrate any errors in their conclusions, retiring to absorb with interest any comments that follow.
Who in this scenario is more likely to be believed?
This will actually be very easy to explain away. We had a strong Niño in 2010, so a lot of heat left the ocean and went into the atmosphere. At the same time we had an extreme solar minimum, so less heat than usual went into the ocean. Consequently ocean temperature went down (confirmed by Argo) . A cooler ocean takes up less volume, ergo sea-level goes down.
Simple, and quite possibly true as well. The only drawback is that it makes “the warmest year evah” less scary and makes Trenberth’s missing heat go even more missing.
Alexander K wrote “Excellent post, which clearly tells me it will be safe to go to the beach for a holiday for while yet!” But if the sea level would only rise faster, the beach could come to you!
“John Stover says:
January 17, 2011 at 6:06 am”
Good post, and I am well aware of the methods used however, I am still unconvinced they are milimetre accurate in the context of these published sea level measurements, especially when these measurements are used as proof climate models and predictions of sea level rises are correct AND a direct result of human induced climate change, this is the context IMO. As I stated before, some very old sea ports and villages at “sea level” show none of this rise. You will also find no significant indication in Royal Naval archives of sea level rise in Royal Naval history, nowhere. And nowhere do I see sea level rises relative to changes in land levels, which fluctuate just as much as the tides.
Maybe OT, but related to water I guess…but WOW, literally WOW, to have this published in the Australian MSM….I am truely stunned!
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/eco-doomsayers-blind-to-history-unreliable-tipsters-20110117-19u0i.html
There appears to be a change in coverage happening.
Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans and the lack of any UHI effect the best indicator of recent temperature trends is the Hadley – CRU Sea Surface Temperature data. The 5 year moving average shows the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows a global cooling trend since then . The data shows warming from 1900- 1940 ,cooling from 1940 – about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period. It is clear that the IPCC models have been wrongly framed. Humidity, and natural CO2 levels are solar feedback effects not prime drivers. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot even estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but in the context of declining solar activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the PDO and AO a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
With regard to the sea level curve it would make sense to replot the regression analysis in two segments one up to 2003 and another from 2003 to the present.Just as the temperature curve rolled over we should see sea level flatten and then begin to decline as SSTs fall.
That is exactly what has happened.
1993-2002: 3.45 mm/yr
2002-2009: 2.35mm/yr
Interesting. El Nino years the sea level goes up faster, La Nina years it doesn’t. A strong and long La Nina (and 2 of them in the past 5 years) would be the source of this. Check back in a decade and see if the decade average isn’t showing a trend upward. If the sea level isn’t higher a decade from now, time to rethink the models.
Geoff Sherrington says:
January 17, 2011 at 3:27 am
That excess water is stored somewhere and it’s a travesty that we can’t account for it.
Now THAT is funny!
My guess:
Easterlies bring about choppy tropical seas in the Pacific. Choppy seas kicks up water spray that turns into vapor into the atmosphere, thus cooling the surface. That wind also shoves that warmer, expanded, layer to the West as far as it will go till it piles onto land. The choppy seas also bring up colder, denser layers from under the now highly disturbed warmed skin. This is rather simple.
The sea level rises and falls because of wind-driven changes in temperature in a very thin (relatively speaking) layer of water, not because the entire depth expands or contracts. The Sun is a constant. The gasses that keep us warm instead of much colder build and fall to their own tune. The highly variable and oscillating “wind” beats the tiny changes in Sun and atmospheric gasses. Rock, paper, scissors.
Dave Middleton – just eyeballing the graph – the change in slope would be even more marked if you used 2003 as the inflection point. Regards N
Jerry from Boston says: January 17, 2011 at 6:41 am
Recently, the Univ. of Utrecht and others have estimated that the volume of world net groundwater extraction has been growing steadily since 1960, if not before. These researchers estimate that this groundwater extraction has ended up in the oceans, one way or another, and is contributing 0.8 mm/year of the 3.1 mm/year increase in sea level the world is currently experiencing, or about a quarter of the recent rise.
Thanks for that Jerry. A couple of years ago I posted my own guesstimate of that contribution to sea level, using the UNs numbers, I came up with about 2mm/year. Considering we have had 10k years with an average increase of 9+mm/year, the rise in sea level now is insignificant. This is especially true considering what it took to produce that 9+mm/year, that is a 45-50° cap of mile high ice (NH only) plus whatever was melting in the SH. None of that exists today, we are not glaciated, therefore the rise in sea level can not possibly approach the fantasy projections of the IPPC.
El Nino effect. We saw something similar in 1998. El Nino is a release of heat from the ocean. Therefore we expect deep cooling in the ocean, which will reverse some thermal expansion. I doubt that sea surface temperatures, as indicated by ARGO and mentioned by some other posters, has much effect. It is the DEEP temperature change that makes the major difference here (though both, of course, will have some effect).
This points to something I have often thought about: While we think of El Nino heating effects as the earth getting warmer, it is, in fact, an effect of cooling, or rather it is a surface warming face that accompanies a sub-surface cooling. If you see an increasing exodus of Iraqi Christians does that mean the population of Iraqi Christians is increasing or decreasing? Well, in this case it means decreasing. Similarly every outgassing of heat to the point where it can radiate from the upper atmosphere instead of being stored deep in the ocean corresponds to net cooling of the earth.
Dave Middleton – add to my previous comment – and included the latest 2010 numbers.
LazyTeenager says:
January 17, 2011 at 4:08 am
Patrick Davis says
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I simply do not believe a satelite can measure sea levels with levels of accuracy in milimeters, yes, they are good, but not THAT good IMO.
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They can measure the distance to the moon using the Apollo retro reflecting array with an accuracy of 1 foot.
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I share Patrick’s sceptism about the accuracy of measurements. I do not know precisely how sea levels are measured but if it a measurement of the distance between the satellite and the ocean, how do we know that orbital decay does not contribute some part of the 1 or 2 mm change in distance? Further unless you are measuring every mm2 surface of the earth you might be observing change in distribution not overall change in height.
In any event an accuracy of a foot in the distance between the moon and earth suggests that satellite measurements may not have sufficient resolution. A foot is 304.8 mm and the moon is about 384,400 km from earth. I do not know the orbital distance between the relevant satellite and earth but if it is at a height of more than 1,300km from earth and if it has the same error as your example, it is doubtful that it would be able to measure to an accuracy of 1mm.
Additionally, as noted in one of my comments on another thread, I am concerned as to what is being measured given plate techtonics. How do we know that presently the floor of the seabed is not being pushed up by an average 0f 1 to 2 mm each year as plates ride over/underneath one another?
I also share the point made by tonyb at January 17, 2011 at 2:30 am . I have mase similar comments many times on other threads. Whilst written records and archaelogical records may not always be quantative, we can lear much from past history. This past history confirms that sea levels have risen and fallen considerably during recent history (the past 5,000 years) and how land was farmed that in many areas it was considerably hotter than today. This past historical evidence does not suggest that these hotter temperatures led to any mass extinctions and in fact man appears to have flourished in these warmer periods thereby suggesting that if the world were to now warm a few degrees, it would be entirely beneficial to us (and other species inhabiting this planet).
R. Gates says:
January 17, 2011 at 7:46 am
If the sea level isn’t higher a decade from now, time to rethink the models.
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Gates, they’ve been modeling now for over 40 years, and still adjusting it constantly, and still claiming accuracy.
Do you see a total disconnect it that?
“R. Gates says:
January 17, 2011 at 7:46 am”
In a decade, if the Atlantic isn’t 10″ wider, if the Pacific isn’t 10″ narrower, if Australia isn’t 10″ further north and if the moon isn’t 10″ further away from the Earth than today, yeah, time to re-check the models.
I agree… And I don’t recall Why I choose 2002.
Rises and drops in sea level have been noted for thousands of years by anthroprogenic fishermen in S.America. Rises were known as El Señor’s and drops were know as La Señora’s. Before the advent of writing it is believed that these events were recorded somewhere inside every tree trunk on the continent. Today, many anthropologists believe that this is all an ancient fable handed down from generation to generation; the origins are disputed.
IF they are going to tell us that “Global Warming” causes an increase of water in the air, thus more snowfall and extreme cold, they are going to say that the drop in the ocean’s level is more proof of Global Warming, because all the water is falling as snow on the land thus the ocean must drop…..