The University of Colorado at Boulder releases satellite based altimetry of sea level change several times a year. This graph below is dated December 15th according to the image timestamp.
If the previous schedule is any indication, they are now almost two months overdue. I’m not implying any nefarious motives whatsoever, but I’m wondering why it is overdue. Below is the update list. Sometimes a nudge helps. So let’s call this article a friendly nudge. I sent a query from their web page asking why, and hope to hear back soon.
Changes to each release since 2006 Release 3
2007 Release 1 (10/23/2007)
Uses the new TMR replacement product version 1.0 for T/P.
Uses GDR-B for all Jason-1 cycles.
Uses Don Chambers SSB model for T/P and the default SSB model for Jason-1 GDR-B.
Correctly applies the off-nadir pointing editing criteria of Jason-1 GDR handbook.
2007 Release 2 (12/03/2007)
T/P cycles 8 through 16 are computed by correctly applying the new TMR correction.
The one-cycle-off time tag shift error is fixed.
2008 Release 1 (01/16/2008)
Corrects an error in the non-IB GMSL that mainly affected the annual variation.
Resulted from using an IB-corrected MSS reference. The error is corrected by estimating
a local mean sea level from the non-IB data.
2008 Release 2 (05/29/2008)
Applies an ad hoc JMR correction for Jason-1 GDR-B cycles 1 through 227.
Applies 1.6 mm correction for the IB error for Jason-1 GDR-B cycles 94 through 142.
2008 Release 3 (09/08/2008)
For Jason-1, a bug is fixed to correctly interpolate the mean sea surface.
Jason-1 GDR Version B cycles 1 through 232 are used.
2008 Release 4 (12/11/2008)
Uses GDR-C for cycles 180, 184, 186-190, 193-194, 196-240, 244-246, and 248.
Updates GDR-B with GDR-C standards, e.g., GDR-C JMR, range correction, SSB model,
etc.
2009 Release 1 (02/13/2009)
Uses GDR-C for cycles 11, 14-16, 151, 153-157, 159, 161-164, 166-167, 171-173, 177,
180, 182, 184-190, 193-242, and 244-256.
2009 Release 2 (03/12/2009)
Fixes a bug in the implementation of 1.6 mm correction for the IB error for Jason-1
GDR-B cycles 94 through 142.
Updates with GDR-C cycles are 3-6, 9-10, 12, 21, 133-135, 138, 143-145, 158, 165,
169-170, 174, 176, and 257.
2009 Release 3 (07/17/2009)
Updates with more GDR-C cycles. Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 1-28.
2009 Release 4 (09/18/2009)
Newly added GDR-C cycles are 13, 17, 19, 25, 47, 53, 56, 65, 118, 123, 142, 148-150, 168,
and 183. Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 29-34.
2009 Release 5 (12/04/2009)
Includes all GDR-C cycles except 69, 82, 137, 139, 178-179, and 243.
Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 35-43.
2010 Release 1 (02/10/2010)
Now includes all GDR-C cycles. Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 44-50.
2010 Release 2 (05/06/2010)
Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 51-61.
2010 Release 3 (07/26/2010)
Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 62-66.
2010 Release 4 (10/06/2010)
Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 67-77.
2010 Release 5 (12/15/2010)
Added Jason-2/OSTM GDR cycles 78-82.
They must be hiding the decline.
OK, the graph came up again.
This time a little different again:
http://crozon.colorado.edu/
The 2011 release 1.
Ocean life in most locations has adapted to and tolerates two high and two low tides each day generally around 5-6 ft. in height. (even up to 50+ ft in the Bay of Fundy).
A few millimeters per year change sea level is clearly not a problem. Shore life already has adapted to regular variations in the pulsing seas of much greater variation than a few millimeters here or there. This extra water is insignificant in the big picture and in the daily tidal flux.
It’s amazing this few millimeters is being milked by CAGWarmers like a cash cow the way that it is…. ?got milk?…. yeah, it’s also “got gullibles”… lots of “gullibles”.
Why do all the Measurements all the way back to 1990 appear to be about 5mm higher then the Measurements were a few days ago,?
Have the people looking at the data been wrong for 19 ½ years?
Do they know what they are doing?
It there some other reason that might explain a 5mm rise in sea level that had gone unnoticed for 20 years?
I was hoping they would use the data since July 2010 to extend the graph, rather then using the data since July 2010 to change the past.
Those people doing the work for the last 19 1/2 years age must be feeling pretty dumb right about now. Good thing the new people caught their predecessor’s incompetent error.
I live on an Island off the coast of Maine, USA. I Captain a passenger ferry to the Mainland and back 10 times a day from a granite stone pier built in the late 1700s. If they were to measure sea level rise here, in inches, it would be about 2?? in 200 years?? should I believe them or my lying eyes? this does not even begin to take into account that we dredge about every 10 to 15 years just to keep it deep enough to get our boats into the pier.
Anthony;
Given the changes between the ‘current’ version of the historical record and the historical version of the historical record for this graph I think that it would be helpful if the use of this graph on the ENSO and Oceans reference pages included a blink comparison between the graph as it appeared yesterday and whatever theses people settle on as the ‘new and improved’ graph.
Visitors must be able to see climate science in action.
Sometimes you need a simple backrub, other times you need a deep tissue massage. The latter takes more time.
I notice the climate widget is still showing February C02 levels?
Pamela Gray says:
April 6, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Maybe they skipped a climate control pill?
And I missed reading your post! That explains everything.
Morning sickness. Egads.
The other agencies must be planning on throwing them a baby shower.
Prenatal checkups? They should’ve told us sooner.
Batheswithwhales says:
April 7, 2011 at 10:58 am
“OK, the graph came up again.
This time a little different again:
http://crozon.colorado.edu/
The 2011 release 1.
The previous graph had Reverse Barometer adjustment as well as Seasonal applied. New one has no Reverse Barometer and shows trend as 3.2+/-0.4 mm…
http://crozon.colorado.edu/sites/sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2011_rel1/sl_ib_ns_cu2011_rel1_global.jpg
This would probably go down to ~2.9+/-0.4mm with Reverse Barometer applied – perhaps they made an oversight?
I’m not sure the data set is much use anyway as they seem to make adjustments and calibration changes each time they publish the data and the joins between Topex – Jason1 – Jason2 are subject to a degree of arbitrariness I think. The algorithms used when producing the final model are also based on assumptions about how the system works and ‘confirmation bias’ can easily creep in.
Interesting that it looks like the NOAA trend has had the Reverse Barometer adjustment…
http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/slr/slr_sla_gbl_free_txj1j2_90.png
If we can assume that Anthony’s link is one that he has used for a long time, and that it is not normal practice for the new graph to have a new address (see Peter Miller @11.26, April 6, 2011), then one might conclude that Colorado is hiding the results.
Many of us, and no doubt many teachers and others of influence, have saved links that we use to enable us to regularly look at graphs, but without always checking that the graph is up to date.
The UK Met Office is guilty of a similar slight of hand with its (HadCRUT3 global temperature graphs). At first sight everything looks fine with temperatures rising nicely, but a close look at the scale reveals a December 2009 cut-off. If you copy and paste the graph into some other document, the lack of warming will suddenly be revealed.
back in 2004, the rate of rise was 2.8 millimeters a year:
http://i29.tinypic.com/rm38lc.png
In 2005, it was 2.9 millimeters:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/150218main_sealevel-browse.jpg
Even though the rate has obviously decreased during the last few years, the rate is now UP to 3.2 mm a year, according to Colorado:
http://crozon.colorado.edu/
It makes me wonder what “adjustments” have been made….
The sea level in the paleo record geologically abruptly increases and decreases 10m to 15m. (The paper I linked to conclusion concerning cause is incorrect.) Base on what has happened before sea level will drop. The change is driven by the sun. There are a set of solar anomalies and astronomical anomalies that are explained by the mechanism. The solar effect is what is causing satellite measurement of ocean level to not agree with direct measurement using tidal gauges. I would expect the satellite estimate of ice sheet mass will show an anomalous increase in mass based on how the satellite’s motion over the ice sheets will change.
The same solar mechanism is causing the increase in volcanic activity and earthquakes.
http://geochemistry.usask.ca/bill/courses/International%20Field%20Studies/Sea%20level.pdf
“… the pre-Last Glacial Maximum (pre-LGM) is characterized by substantial fluctuations in sea level of 10 to 15 m about every 6000 years. The timing of these rapid change events during oxygen isotope stage 3 (OIS-3) apparently coincides with Heinrich ice-rafting events recorded in North Atlantic sediments (61), which suggest that they reflect major ice discharges from continent-based or shelf grounded ice sheets (62). Of note is that sea level falls during this period occur in similarly short time intervals and the ice accumulation also appears to have been a rapid process (39).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6981/abs/nature02309.html
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/downloads/R733_nature07080.pdf
Taniwha says:
April 7, 2011 at 3:04 am
“How do you measure sea level using satellites?
Very accurately. It is a really good way to measure sea level.”
William says:
“How do you measure sea level using satellites?
Very accurately. It is a really good way to measure sea level.”
Unreal ! Well spotted. If you right-click and open the image on it’s own you see the Inconvenitent Truth !
You can see a similar “trick” in their climate guide. They show a temperature graph based on 2005 data ( aclaimedly one they produced for AR4). Because of smoothing windows the line stops at 2000.
Now if they’d done that once, a charitable mind may be ready to give the the benefit of the doubt and think it was an error.
Doing it twice in different ways with almost identical cut-off year makes it look just a little intentional .
http://crozon.colorado.edu/
link at bottom for raw data:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.txt
2010.3071 34.415
2010.3343 33.384
2010.3614 30.460
2010.3886 30.274
2010.4157 31.264
2010.4429 35.139
2010.4700 38.781
2010.4971 37.354
2010.5243 32.792
2010.5514 32.332
2010.5786 31.099
2010.6057 30.976
2010.6329 35.785
2010.6600 31.206
2010.6872 27.135
2010.7143 27.902
2010.7415 28.119
So it looks like there is another 6 months of data available since April. The graph how seems to show this and has a tag reading ” Updated: 2011-04-05″
It looks like they had already done the update a couple of weeks ago but had “forgotten” about it when Anthony rang them . LOL.
The new data shows sea level is oscillating down. Let’s keep watching the data. If it continues to oscillate down someone will write a paper to try explain what is observed.
As noted in this paper, the 20th century global aggregate sea level changes cannot be physically explained based on mass balance (ice sheets and glaciers melting) or based on expansion due to warming. The oceans are no longer warming.
What is observed is the volume of the ocean is changing rather than the mass of the ocean. Some other variable/forcing function is causing the ocean to expand and contract (i.e. Not temperature and not mass. Hint the ocean level changes track the solar cycle however the tracking can also not be explained by solar forcing of planetary temperature. What we are observing now is a larger effect that is a consequence of the abrupt change in solar cycle 24.)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6981/abs/nature02309.html
“The rate of twentieth-century global sea level rise and its causes are the subjects of intense controversy1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Most direct estimates from tide gauges give 1.5–2.0 mm yr-1, whereas indirect estimates based on the two processes responsible for global sea level rise, namely mass and volume change, fall far below this range. Estimates of the volume increase due to ocean warming give a rate of about 0.5 mm yr-1 (ref. 8) and the rate due to mass increase, primarily from the melting of continental ice, is thought to be even smaller. Therefore, either the tide gauge estimates are too high, as has been suggested recently6, or one (or both) of the mass and volume estimates is too low. Here we present an analysis of sea level measurements at tide gauges combined with observations of temperature and salinity in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans close to the gauges. We find that gauge-determined rates of sea level rise, which encompass both mass and volume changes, are two to three times higher than the rates due to volume change derived from temperature and salinity data.”
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/PastRecords.pdf
“Estimating future sea level changes from past records
In the last 5000 years, global mean sea level has been dominated by the redistribution of water masses over the globe. In the last 300 years, sea level has been oscillation close to the present with peak rates in the period 1890–1930. Between 1930 and 1950, sea fell. The late 20th century lack any sign of acceleration. Satellite altimetry indicates virtually no changes in the last decade. Therefore, observationally based predictions of future sea level in the year 2100 will give a value of + 10 +/- 10 cm (or +5 +/-15 cm), by this discarding model outputs by IPCC as well as global loading models. This implies that there is no fear of any massive future flooding as claimed in most global warming scenarios.”
“Fig. 2. Sea level changes in mm as recorded by TOPEX/POSEIDON between October 1992 and April 2000: raw data before any filtering or sliding mean average. The variability is high, in the order of +/- 5– 10 mm. From 1993 to 1996, no trend is recorded, just a noisy record around zero. In 1997, something happens. High-amplitude oscillations are recorded; a rapid rise in early 1997 at a rate in the order of 2.5 mm/year, followed by a rapid fall in late 1997 and early 1998 at a rate in the order of 1.5 mm/year, and finally, in late 1998 and 1999, a noisy record with unclear trends. The new factor introduced in 1997 and responsible for the high-amplitude oscillations, no doubt, is the global ENSO event, implying rapid redistribution of oceanic water masses (characteristic for mode III in Table 1). This means that this data set does not record any general trend (rising or falling) in sea level, just variability around zero plus the temporary ENSO perturbations.”
They were waiting on 4/20 for some creative thinking
John A’s excellent graph says it all. And..
Darren Parker says: April 7, 2011 at 6:06 pm
which is exactly what I was concerned about. I rather expect CO2 levels to track sea level rise. Now if the rise in both is slowing significantly, it really is the end of the current incarnation of AGW and the script needs to be rewritten. Well, Team, this is what you need:
And now can we have the latest figures please.
Looking back in time at their main page the graphic they present changes as they add more data on the right side… however they seem to stop plotting peak data points on a number of the graphs. I don’t know if that is just their plotting program settings or if it is an attempt of some form of manipulation, it is curious though. A detailed analysis should be done to see if the graphs have other hints of data manipulations of earlier data in later graphs. If they do they better have damned good and already well documented reasons for such mannipulations.
Also they don’t expand the size of the bit map at all, you think as they added data they’d make the bit map bigger but they don’t. The effect is that the slope of the sea level rise steepens. I find that this practice in climate science to be deceptive. In presenting information to humans you must keep the graph consistent in scale. Altering the x-axis scale as you add data will lead to misconceptions about the data. I’m surprised that scientists don’t know this, or maybe they do and take advantage of it. Clearly they should provide a version with the same scale if they wish to be honest and have scientific integrity.
A blink comparison movie of four graphs from sealevel.colorado.edu to visually compare the changes in plotting and data over approximately six years.
The four graphs are from 20040215, 20041223, 20060930, and 20100923.
http://youtu.be/cE1mXQkWIoU?hd=1
The video has a HD 720p quality for best viewing.
Looking back in time at the sealevel.colorado.edu main page the graphic they present changes as they add more data on the right side… however they seem to stop plotting peak data points on a number of the graphs. I don’t know if that is just their plotting program settings or if it is an attempt of some form of manipulation, it is curious though. A detailed analysis should be done to see if the graphs have other hints of data manipulations of earlier data in later graphs. If they do they better have damned good and already well documented reasons for such mannipulations.
Also they don’t expand the size of the bit map at all, you think as they added data they’d make the bit map wider but they don’t. The effect is that the slope of the sea level rise steepens. I find that this practice in climate science to be deceptive. In presenting information to humans you must keep the graph consistent in scale. Altering the x-axis scale as you add data will lead to misconceptions about the data. I’m surprised that scientists don’t know this, or maybe they do and take advantage of it. Clearly they should provide a version with the same scale if they wish to be honest and have scientific integrity.