As we surmised in earlier posts, the crozon.colorado.edu website was a test run. Here’s the newest graph from the revised http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
They write about the update:
Welcome to the new webpages from the University of Colorado sea level group! We apologize for the delay in updating our sea level releases, but the transition to these new web pages took longer than we thought. In addition, we have made many improvements to our data (new orbits, new tide model, new corrections) which ultimately had little effect on global mean sea level, but brought us up to date with the latest advances in the field.
One important change in these releases is that we are now adding a correction of 0.3 mm/year due to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), so you may notice that the rate of sea level rise is now 0.3 mm/year higher than earlier releases. This is a correction to account for the fact that the global ocean basins are getting slightly larger over time as mantle material moves from under the oceans into previously glaciated regions on land. Simply subtract 0.3 mm/year if you prefer to not include the GIA correction.
You may also note that rate of sea level rise over recent years has been less than the long-term average. This is believed to be due to the recent La Nina’s we have been experiencing, though research on this is continuing. We will soon add a plot to the web site illustrating this effect.
Let us know if you spot any bugs in the new web pages. Thanks for your interest!
Comments welcome.
from the original article:
“You may also note that rate of sea level rise over recent years has been less than the long-term average. This is believed to be due to the recent La Nina’s we have been experiencing”
uh, so the previously steep level of rise on the left side of the graph was due to all those El Nino phases we were having then, and now we’re starting to average back out and see the true trend? You can’t just dismiss negative noise without also dismissing the positive noise, can you?
the only reason to measure “sea level” rise is to determine what it will effect on land … if the land is rising faster than the sea level then for then as far as humans are concerned the “sea level” they are concerned about has dropped …
AG Foster,
Your gist of your comment was both accurate and pointless. It seems your intent was to defend the 0.3 mm/ year adjustment, but nothing you wrote came close to defending this indefensible adjustment. It was just more of the same “They’re scientists! You can trust them!” There are a lot of scientists here, Foster. And we call BS.
Amazing that before they were soooo good but OMG, forgot the ever so important mantle re-adjustement… What’s next? As a Canadian I certainly hope they’ll introduce a correction for political shift since the mantle has been now firmly over the shoulder of the PM… sarc/off
richcar, FYI if you are not familiar with it, please check the important work by Peltier from Uof T on the subject of glacio isostatic rebound.
Perhaps when reformulating “Data Product” there should be a mandated overlap period in which consumers can trial both to compare. New Coke anyone?
Dr. Peter Bromirski of Scipps Institution of Oceanography asserts that if it does turn to a cooling phase it will increase the rate of sea level rise (more of everything proves global warming).
I’m not sure what PDO phase charts he’s working with my all the ones I’ve seen clearly indicate the PDO has definitely shifted into a cooling phase. I guess he’ll need some more grants to be certain.
Article here: http://earthsky.org/earth/will-sea-level-begin-rising-more-rapidly-along-u-s-west-coast
Re. Ron Cram at 8:42.
But no one here has attacked the adjustment on any scientific basis whatever. Qualitatively, the need for the adjustment is obvious: rebound material has to come from somewhere–if the land rises the ocean bases must sink, and gravity measurements have advanced to the point that such movements can be detected. It is one thing to declare a qualitative BS and another to argue quantitatively. I have no idea how good the measurements are, and I suspect you don’t either, but if you deny the qualitative argument you’re really missing the boat. Just like the doubters when Richard Gross tried to measure the LOD change from the Japanese quake. –AGF
Jason F says:
May 5, 2011 at 11:40 pm
they always correct upwards don’t they
You mean center the deviations? Only actual scientists do such things, this is climatology.
On Jan 24th I looked at the data:
2006.7236 26.640
2007.7280 25.493
2008.7054 23.759
2009.7370 31.748
2010.7415 28.119
As of today it is:
2006.7236 28.870
2007.7280 30.298
2008.7054 29.811
2009.7370 36.335
2010.7415 31.270
The trend changed from 1.479mm to 2.4mm over the same period.
The trend should not have changed.
A G Foster says:
May 6, 2011 at 9:26 am
Re. Ron Cram at 8:42.
“But no one here has attacked the adjustment on any scientific basis whatever.”
Not true. Qualitative arguments have been put forward here, including the neglect of silt. When researchers only look to make adjustments in one direction, they lose credibility.
In this comment you make a qualitative argument the the adjustment may be reasonable. This is not the same as making a scientific case for the adjustment. It would be far more reasonable to increase the uncertainty range (even if it was increased only on one side) because you have identified a source of uncertainty.
An adjustment of 0.3 mm/ year in a straight line is not physical. Nature does not operate in a straight line. The adjustment has an appearance of being goal-oriented. It is not scientific and should be condemned by all scientists.
Since there has been negligible thermal expansion since 2004 most of the sea level rise since then should be attributed to mass contribution (land ice melt). Yet with the new GIA I understand that they can account for only 60% of SLR or about 1.8 mm per year. This would match what most of us skeptics believe is closer to the truth and takes out the clear instrument bias that began with satellite altimetery since 1993.
to wayne and Jason F:
“they always correct upwards don’t they
You mean center the deviations? Only actual scientists do such things, this is climatology”
Yeah, when you give one guy unilateral control over an official source and he can make any change he wants without having to subject what he does to any kind of peer review you can do all kinds of neat little “tricks to hide a decline”. Hmmm, and they think better communication will make people trust them more? Right.
“You may also note that rate of sea level rise over recent years has been less than the long-term average. This is believed to be due to the recent La Nina’s..”
So an increase in sea level rise is caused by AGW but a decrease is caused by La Nina. No wonder the credibility of science in general has taken a beating recently.
Is it sea level that is measured or sea volume?
Sea level is relative to the ground around. So there is no value in adding the constant.
For sea volume they need to make a proper analysis, again the constant is just addressing a small part of the sea volume question – so adding it adds no value to the result.
As DirkH said in some previous posting:
“May 4, 2011 at 2:58 pm
If current trends continue, dishonesty in science will have wrecked the reputation of *ALL* scientific fields by summer 2015. /sarc”
Dave A says:
May 6, 2011 at 12:43 am
From http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/
Dave points out that in 17 years we have a 50 mm rise within observations accurate to 50 mm. Statistics, all statistics at 2011, 31 years after we were first supposed to be able to see the effects of global warming. All stats still (argued by warmists) within error bands of the CAGW models. As Treadgold keeps shouting, “There is no evidence!”. Perhaps he means unequivocal evidence, but along with Dave’s comments, a good point.
In the three key points of CAGW, pCO2, global temperatures and sea-level rise, so far the deviations from “normal” pre-1980 trends are insufficient to falsify any of the models – within their claimed accuracy. The end-of-the-world scenario was and still is 2100, but 2050 could easily be taken as the end-of-the-world-is-upon-us date, if not before then. During the first 31 years of a 120 or 70 year timeline to doomsday, we still experience nothing available to the man in the street as hard evidence. How long must we go before the warmists accept they have a problem? Or will, like other millennial prophets, they simple postpone Judgement Day – and get away with it. At least twice.
This could be a very long road we are on. Long enough that the Gore-Hansen-Suzuki-Schmidts are in their graves before their can be embarrassed.
Bruce has some interesting data there. If the trend suddenly changed, there is something seriously wrong with the “new and improved” corrections…
That something wrong is adjustments that instead of showing reality show someone’s belief. Science and belief should be seperated for obvious reasons…this data used to be something to take to the bank with, but I am no longer so sure anymore.
Re. Ron Cram at 9:51:
You may not be aware that GIA has been reasonably calculated to have contributed a decrease in LOD of .6ms/century for the last 25 centuries or so, via astronomical observation. This provides a reasonable framework from which to estimate the rate of change of the shape of the earth to less oblate, both quantitatively and qualitatively. That datum does not tell us whether the mantel sinks beneath the continents or the oceans, but the fact that the globe is mostly ocean gives us a high probability that volumetrically the majority of subsidence is oceanic.
Silt deposition occurs at a rate comparable to continental uplift–one or two orders of magnitude less than GIA, hence, negligible until the GIA is better understood. The cryosphere is far more variable than the lithosphere, except as affected by the cryosphere. –AGF
So even if the sea level does not change at all, it is made to rise anyway.
Wonderful!
Well I just made my own interpretation of that sea level rise graph. Id rew two; count them two, straight lines, throught the following four points:-
#1 1993, -20 ; 2011, +50
#2 1993, -03 ; 2011, +38
They happen to cross at about 2003.5, +20, but you math geniuses can simply calculate the exact crossing point, at which time, the sea level stopped rising at its former rate.
Of course as anyone can plainly see, the graph is actually logarithmic, that is the sea level is proportional to the logarithm of the date. Well theres about a +/- 50% uncertainty in the slope of that logarithmic curve or a 3:1 spread in the slope value if you prefer; but that is consistent with the theory, that it should be a logarithmic fit, and also consistent with the expected precision of predictions; excuse me; that’s projections of future sea level.
For the purposes of this thesis, a “logarithmic curve” is defined as any graph that is not consistent with the archetypical form:-
Y = m. x + c
I would like to see comparative data on the number adjustments, up vs down, to various climate related data.
My guess is, the ‘ups’ have it.
The impact on the rate of sea level rise is clear.
Please out the two graphs I’ve put in my post at
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2011/05/rate-of-sea-level-rise-going-down.html
and check the differences between 2003 and 2007…
Before, it was going slightly down, now it looks much stable.
I maintain what I said before: These changes were made so that sea level rise stays above 3mm/year! But the rate is going down, and very fast, as you can see in my post.
Ecotretas
I am not sure if you know . . . . but this is my contribution to the subject . . .
“Dyke Swarms: Keys for Geodynamic Interpretation”
http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/geophysics/book/978-3-642-12495-2?cm_mmc=NBA-_-May-11_WEST_7952377-_-product-_-978-3-642-12495-2
at the end of the page you will see some other articles that may be of interest to some . . .
like:
“Geochemical and Petrological Characteristics of Mesozoic Dykes from Schirmacher Oasis (East Antarctica)”
and others . . . .
Let me clarify . . . I didn’t write the book . . . I just ran across it . . . U of C may care to comment . . . on it’s relevence . . . .
I grabbed a copy of the msl_ib_ns.txt (inv barometer, seasonal adjusted) a couple of weeks ago when Anthony first posted the delayed update issue.
Now plotting its differential with that of the current dataset , they are clearly different data but have the same trend (within a knat’s cock).
It appears the “old” data had already been pre-adjusted for GIA at that stage.
Could anyone with a pre-adjustment copy pastebin it somewhere and post a link?