WUWT readers may recall yesterday where Dr. Mann was so eager to list this paper on his resume/CV, he broke the embargo set for 15:00 EST June 20th, today, at which time this blog post appears.
As much as this is an editorial target rich environment, I’m going to publish this press release and paper sans any editorial comment. There’s plenty of time for that later. Let’s all just take it in first. Below, figure 2 from the Kemp et al 2011 paper. It should look familiar. Note the reference in Figure 2 to GIA (Glacial Isostatic Adjustment) adjusted sea level data, which has recently been the subject of controversy, it was first noted here on WUWT.
First the press release:
Contact: Evan Lerner
215-573-6604
Penn researchers link fastest sea-level rise in 2 millennia to increasing temperatures
PHILADELPHIA — An international research team including University of Pennsylvania scientists has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
The research was conducted by members of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in Penn’s School of Arts and Science: Benjamin Horton, associate professor and director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory, and postdoctoral fellow Andrew Kemp, now at Yale University’s Climate and Energy Institute.
Their work will be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 20.
“Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change, as rising temperatures melt land-based ice and warm ocean waters,” Horton said.
“Scenarios of future rise are dependent upon understanding the response of sea level to climate changes. Accurate estimates of past sea-level variability provide a context for such projections,” Kemp said.
In the new study, researchers provided the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years and compared variations in global temperature to changes in sea level during this time period.
The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 B.C. to 1,000 A.D. During a warm climate period beginning in the 11th century known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, sea level rose by about half a millimeter per year for 400 years. There was then a second period of stable sea level associated with a cooler period, known as the Little Ice Age, which persisted until the late 19th century. Since the late 19th century, however, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, which is the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.
To reconstruct sea level, the research team used microfossils called foraminifera preserved in sediment cores from coastal salt marshes in North Carolina. The age of these cores was estimated using radiocarbon dating and several complementary techniques.
To ensure the validity of their approach, the team members confirmed their reconstructions against tide-gauge measurements from North Carolina for the past 80 years and global tide-gauge records for the past 300 years. A second reconstruction from Massachusetts confirmed their findings. The records were also corrected for contributions to sea-level rise made by vertical land movements.
The team’s research shows that the reconstructed changes in sea level during the past millennium are consistent with past global temperatures and can be described using a model relating the rate of sea-level rise to global temperature.
“The data from the past help to calibrate our model and will improve sea-level rise projections under scenarios of future temperature rise,” research team member Stefan Rahmstorf said.
In addition to Horton and Kemp, the research was conducted by Jeffrey Donnelly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, Martin Vermeer of Finland’s Aalto University School of Engineering in Finland and Rahmstorf of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Geological Survey, the Academy of Finland, the European Science Foundation through European Cooperation in Science and Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.
===================================================================
Here’s the abstract:
Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia
Andrew C. Kempa,b, Benjamin P. Hortona,1, Jeffrey P. Donnellyc, Michael E. Mannd,
Martin Vermeere, and Stefan Rahmstorff
We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment.
Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global
temperature for at least the past millennium.
======================================================================
Figure 1: Two points in salt Marshes in North Carolina are used as the basis for the study:
Materials and Methods
Sea level in North Carolina was reconstructed using transfer functions relating the distribution of salt-marsh foraminifera to tidal elevation (7, 12). Application of transfer functions to samples from two cores (at sites 120 km apart) of salt-marsh sediment provided estimates of PME with uncertainties of <0.1 m. For each core a probabilistic age-depth model (10) was developed from composite chronological results and allowed the age of any sample to be estimated with 95% confidence. In Massachusetts, plant macrofossils preserved in salt-marsh sediment overlying a glacial erratic, were dated using AMS 14C and pollen and pollution chronohorizons (Fig. S1). The modern distribution of common salt-marsh plants was used to estimate PME. Sea level was reconstructed by subtracting estimated PME from measured sample altitude. Corrections for GIA were estimated from local (13) and US Atlantic coast (15) databases of late Holocene sea-level index points. Detailed methods are presented in SI Text.
======================================================================
They compare data at points around the world to the new SL hockey stick (in pink in the background):
======================================================================
Conclusions
We have presented a unique, high-resolution sea-level reconstruction developed using salt-marsh sediments for the last 2100 y from the US Atlantic coast. Post-AD 1000, these sea-level reconstructions are compatible with reconstructions of global temperature, assuming a linear relation between temperature and the rate of sea-level rise. This consistency mutually reinforces the credibility of the temperature and sea-level reconstructions. According to our analysis, North Carolina sea level was stable
from BC 100 to AD 950. Sea level rose at a rate of 0.6 mm/y from about AD 950 to 1400 as a consequence of Medieval warmth, although there is a difference in timing when compared to other proxy sea-level records. North Carolina and other records show
sea level was stable from AD 1400 until the end of the 19th century due to cooler temperatures associated with the Little Ice Age. A second increase in the rate of sea-level rise occurred around AD 1880–1920; in North Carolina the mean rate of rise was 2.1 mm/y in response to 20th century warming. This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2100 y.
========================================================================
The full paper is available here: PNAS_Kemp-etal_2011_Sea_level_rise
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I really wouldn’t go using the Kent coastline and Richborough Roman fort as evidence of sea level falling since Roman times – Richborough was on the end of the Wantsum Chanel, which gradually silted up and vanished in about the 16thC, partly due to land use change, improved drainage but mostly due to natural silting. There’s plenty of evidence of old jetties etc – in Sarre for example, which is miles from the sea now, there was a ferry crossing in the 1400’s. Look where it is on a map – its on the end of the Thames and is massively influenced by silt from the river and the tides from the sea (the famous Goodwin sands aren’t far away) – there’s massive erosion and transport happening on that spot of the coast.
Ross says:
June 20, 2011 at 5:30 pm
“Recently, the whole project was abandoned as there was no sign of a change in sea level at any of the 12 islands for the past 16 years. In 2006, Tuvalu even rose.”
==============================================================================
Ross,
Steven posted tide gauges from that same area and used it to show how satellite sea level data is crap…….
..his words lol
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/satellite-sea-level-data-is-crap/#comment-65272
OK, I have to hand it to Michael Mann for his smooth transition from alarmist Climate activist to Climate Cartoonist. His new Hockey Schtick is a HOOT!!!
I wonder if Jones, Hansen, Steig… have any plans to horn in on Mann’s new territory??
“During a warm climate period beginning in the 11th century known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, sea level rose by about half a millimeter per year for 400 years. There was then a second period of stable sea level associated with a cooler period, known as the Little Ice Age, which persisted until the late 19th century.”
Were these events global? In his interview, Phil Jones said:
“There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not.”
Would the team be interested in doing a similar study in the southern hemisphere to answer this question?
Could we put together a list of conundrums that the proponents of AGW need to resolve before there would be any degree of credibility in that paper? For example, the shoreline for the Viking Settlements in Greenland and eastern Canada compared to the present sea level. Or Sir James Clark Ross’s sea level mark in Tasmania?
Jeff Carlson says:
June 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
So now Mann says there was a MWP ? Its so confusing …
Convenient, huh? Like it when it serves ya, don’t like when it d’un’t.
A forminifera (2 mm) can detect a (2 mm) sea level rise? Mighty interesting. While plankton can indicate marine zonation on a geologic time scale, HTF can the MWP, now elevated to convenient star status, be resolved? Quick…time to look into Foraminiferaproximal behavior!
I would be quite interested to see among the foraminifera in the core samples whether or not there are pieces of mollusks, bivalves etc, that would show the effects of hurricanes in the sedimentation.
This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2100 y.
I think the optimal word here is “persistent”.
If you notice the boxes get smaller and smaller as you move closer to the present…ie the averages of the far past are averaged over longer periods of time and as you get closer to the present the averages shrink to cover smaller periods.
So as you get closer to the present you get more of the “grainy” ups and downs. There very well could have been huge rises and drops in the past but they would not be seen because the “grain” has been lost due to longer periods of averages….but they show up closer to the present.
It looks like Mann has found a new trick….though it probably is not hiding a decline so much as exaggerating the rise by hiding past fluctuations.
You can be sure that governments around the world will seize upon this, no matter how ridiculous. I’m sure our Australian Labor Party will use it as justification for its proposed carbon tax and see North Carolina marshes as being far more relevant than our local tides gauges at Fort Denison, which show a mean sea level rise of 6 cm over the past 100 years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLI.shtml
Where is the post 2000 data??? Mann, does this guy cherry pick the facts or what! But the media will swallow it and love it.
It’s telling that he only used two sites in N Carolina, with all the data he had access to:
“…The study, “Atlantic hurricanes and climate over the past 1,500 years,” gathered results from existing sediment studies from lagoons from the Caribbean and Gulf Coast to New England to determine land-falling hurricane activity over the past 1,500 years. The studies measured fine layers of sand that overwashed beaches into lagoons during hurricanes…”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09227/991065-258.stm#ixzz1PsI3NlOs
All that data, over a wider area, for the past 1500 years. Wonder if the two N Carolina sites were included it that study, too
Nature 460, 880-883 (13 August 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08219; Received 6 March 2009; Accepted 14 June 2009.
From that abstract:
“…Here we place recent activity in a longer-term context by comparing two independent estimates of tropical cyclone activity over the past 1,500 years. The first estimate is based on a composite of regional sedimentary evidence of landfalling hurricanes, while the second estimate uses a previously published statistical model of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity driven by proxy reconstructions of past climate changes…”
Joshua Corning may have a valid point; Manns’s graph could be logarithmic in nature. It’ll be an easy check.
The issue of using modern plant distributions as a yardstick should also be examined for validity. Uniformitarianism is a cosy paradigm; shame that it’s a crock.
So esturine “sea-level” is not dependant on run-off from inland weather events, flood surges, sea and precipitation induced coastal erosion, ocean current changes, up-stream landslides and soil erosion, modern agricultural and land use changes, tectonics…. just like Mr. Mann I’m no geologist either but it seems that you could shoot holes in sediment-as-a-proxy for anything but, well, sediment. Or have I missed the point?
Some time ago I started looking at sea levels, using tidal gauge info, to see how it correlated to temperature. The So. & East coast of the US was chosen, since that seemed to have the least seismic activity, including uplift. I would have preferred the East coast of S. America, but the data records were not as good as US records. Looking at the records, noted in the figure below:
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/n_amer_s_e_composite_3-MKDwk.jpg
seven stations were selected, to form a composite anomaly. These included Galveston, Pensacola, Key West, Charleston, Baltimore, Atlantic City & New York. The composite was filtered with a 10 yr. Fourier filter, and compared a Trend line:
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/us_se_tidal_composite-EZEn2.gif
It was noted that, after ~1915, the trend line held fairly close to the filtered composite, in spite of increasing CO2. The HadCRUT3 global anomaly was also included as a comparison
An addition, some long term records were evaluated, comparing temperature to CO2. These were from stations that began recording prior to 1800:
Central England – 1659-2010
Debilt Netherlands – 1706 – 2010
UPPSALA (LÄN)Swed. – 1722-2010
BERLIN (TEMPELHOF), Ger – 1701-2010
PARIS (14E PARC MONTSOURIS) Fr, 1757-2010
GENEVE (NASA), Switz. – 1753-2010
BASEL (BINNINGEN) Swiz.- 1755-2010
PRAHA (KLEM.-RUZYNE) Czech – 1775-2010
STOCKH (GML-LAN) Sw – 1756-2010
BUDAPEST (Hungary) – 1780-2009
HOHENPEISSENBERG, Ger – 1781-2010
MUNCHEN, (RIEM FLUGHAFEN ), Ger – 1781-2010
EDINBURGH (SCOTLAND), GB- 1785- 1993
WROCLAW (SOUTH WEST), Pol – 1792-2010
CEL & Debilt were from:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/data/download.html
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ilabrijn.dat
The rest were from the Rimfrost site:
http://www.rimfrost.no/
The anomaly of each site was computed (1969-1999 base) & a composite average was formed for each year. The data set was then filtered with a 50 yr. Fourier Convolution filter, and compared to the CO2 Mauna Loa & Law Dome (DE08 & De08-2) ice core data.
The result is shown below:
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/co2_temp_1650-2010-6OeMR.gif
Since all the long term temperature data was taken from central & western Europe, the HadCRUT3_NH anomaly was also included.
A few items noted were:
On a long term basis, there was little CO2 change, while Europe went through some temperature swings, comparable to the present.
While the Ave14 & HadCRUT3_NH seem to follow each other (especially the post 1900 rise, 1940 dip & subsequent rise), CO2 seems to have little correlation.
Ave14 seems to lead the HadCRUT3_NH curve by about 10 years, so we may be in for a NH dip, or are already in it.
That’s the most pathetic excuse for “science” I have seen since Mann’s last hockey-stick paper. He pretends that this one place on the Carolina coast is important and indicative, he refuses to use data from the last ten years, he never looks at the geology to see if there are know subsidence problems, he never compares his data to satellite measurements and he doesn’t produce enough of his data-massaging to make a judgment on validity.
My high school physics teacher would give him an F on this homework. Mann has to learn that BS is no substitute for real science.
Dag nabbit !! I still can’t use pasted to put stuff in the comments box.
Note #2
Now, wait just a second. No part of North Carolina was covered by a glacier within
the past 18,000 years. We <i. can't be talking about isostatic uplift or subsidence
of this North Carolina region that has any reason or need to be somehow
compensated for in sea level calculations.
See:
http://upload/wikimedia.org.wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Iceage_north-intergl_glac_hg.png
And
http://www.zonu.com/fullsize-en/2009-11-09-10972/Wisconsin-glaciation-in-North-America.html
I know our corner of northeasten Ohio has been going through a slow isostatic
uplift, A.K.A. a “Glacial Isostatic Adjustment” for at least the past 10,000 years.
All that means is the land is several hundred feet higher in altitute (relative
only to the current sea level) than it was a couple thousand years ago. It
means the water from Lake Erie flows a bit faster in Lake Ontario. What goes
down the Ohio River watershed gets to the Mississippi River faster than it
did centuries ago. But the rise in land level doesn’t increase the amount
of water reaching the Atlantic throught the Saint Lawrence River. It doesn’t
add to the amount of water flowing down the Mississippi and dumping into
the Gulf of Mexico either.
See:
http://www.ohiodnr.com/LakeErieLiteracy/LakeErieLit_Principle2/tabid/9384/Default.aspx
To credit any type of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (whether it’s a rebound
or a subsidence) t the Atlantic shore regions of North Carolina is superficially
unrealistic or, at worst, deliberately deceptive and misleading.
The paper’s footnotes:
(13) Horton, B.P., Holocene sea-level changes…, , 2009. Deals only
with calculating sea level changes in Scotland and the North Sea.
(14) Peltier,W.R. Global sea level rise…, 1996, Geophysical Letters.
Nowhere in the regular text is there any mention of a sea level rise
at the North Carolia shore, nor is there a specific citation footnoted in the
text for this “rise”.
However, See Figure 5 of this paper, especially the note
within the Figure 5 box which contains the comment that the Mid-Atalntic
shores (which would include North Carolina) seem to reflect roughly
twice the global SRL norms.
Additionally, the Peltier paper distinguishes the differences between
using geological and a geophysical to measure any sea
level rise. The Kemp, Horton, Mann et al. paper above doesn’t differentiate
between the two methods, and doesn’t specially state which method they’re
using.
See:
http://journals.ametsoc/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%282004%29017%3AEOTRDO%E2.0CO%3B2
This study includes the following: [ Golly, I wish I could paste this in ! ]
Nuts !!
I forgot to transcribe the freaking /blockqoute AGAIN !
Dr. Dave says:
Use of Mann’s 2008 temperature reconstruction seemed rather weak (if not entirely foolish). The statistical analysis seems a bit hinky to me, but I do not possess the expertise to challenge it.
+++++++++
If you are referring to the Dec 08 paper, it was dissected within 10 days of publication showing the trickery used to again suppress the magnitude of the MWP temperatures. The method used was to carefully select from a wide range of proxies, data that would give hockey stick-ish shapes while not being so wildly inaccurate as to place the confidence index at lower than 95%.
Using a filter mechanism, he selected enough data sets that when average, produced a 95% confidence index, but which still gave a suppressed MWP and an elevated modern era temperature. The paper discusses how he eliminated (undesirable) data sets and kept others.
As I recall the dissection looked at what happened if all the data, or the best data, or the most detailed data were used instead. The MWP reappears (as per usual) and the suppression of the MWP is lifted.
You will notice in the MM08 paper there is a lot of emphasis on the confidence index. He was playing the ‘95%’ card which is to say that by convention, something with a statistical confidence index of 95% is considered to be considered ‘true’ scientifically. The trick was to find data set selection criteria that would meet the double need for 95% confidence and a hockey stick shape. I was surprised that he put his name to a study that had such a hump of an MWP because it is much more pronounced that the 1998 paper where it was all but not there. Quite a climb down.
” Bwaaaahaaahaaahaaaaaahaaahaaahaaa! ” is right! (I just scrolled past the graphs and that was my first reaction too.)
Anybody surprised by the striking uptick at the end(s)?
(I thought not …)
.
From the paper:
From reading the study, I’m sorry but I fail to see the correlation between foraminifera and sea level. Can anyone explain the so-called “transfer functions”?
This sounds like a much more credible explanation of the observed data. Thanks for the cogent argument.
R.S.Brown says:
June 20, 2011 at 8:51 pm
====================
I don’t disagree that it’s deliberately deceptive and misleading regarding what normal people think the sea level is, but from the reading I’ve done on this, my understanding is that the frauds are saying that the capacity of the oceans has increased, hence the GIA.
It’s probably a trial balloon that the frauds are flying, to see if the sheeple and otherwise dumbsnip unwashed masses will fall for a CNFA (cloud negative feedback adjustment), and a GCRA (galactic cosmic ray adjustment), amongst many other adjustments, that they will then apply to arrive at the “REAL” global temperature RISE/CRISIS.
In other words – Your thermometers may actually read the same or less, but CO2 is a greenhouse gas so …. blah blah snipping blah …..
Anthony,
I want ao take one step away from my Notes 1 & 2 above, as poorly formatted
as they have been, and toss an off-the-wall politcal comment into the ring:
This paper appears to be yet another part of the recent effort
to make Mike Mann’s original hockey stick, and subsequesnt Team studies which
include it’s data and/or conclusions even more critical to the academic,
scientific and political communities.
There are still petitions and letters circulating to challenge the FOI request
under court order at the University of Virginia, and another batch trying quash
the Virginia Attorney General’s inquiry.
Here in Ohio it’s now being proposed that our State University system be given
new leeway in NOT having to comply with our state’s Freedom of Informaton
Act and parts or our Open Meeting Act (ORC 121.22)
The sponsors don’t SAY this is in reaction to Mike Mann’s situation at the
University of Virginia, or that it’s even a response to the recent Ohio State/NCAA
sports program problems with it’s own little e-mail scandal.
Watch for more of these hide-the-sausage tactics between now and the end
of August.
I’m underwhelmed. Data splicing in the temperature record, cutting off data at 2000 AD, wide error bars, focusing on a few locations, high past variability, use of models, AND a change point that falls well before high industrial fossil fuel burning. My expectations of this paper are very low.
My thoughts on “hockeysticks”
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/amending-the-past/#more-11786
Sorry. They just seem so darned non-intuitive to my simple engineering mind.