Via Dr. Benny Peiser at The Global Warming Policy Foundation:
New Sea-Level Study Divides Climate Researchers
For the first time, researchers have reconstructed the rise in sea level over the last 2000 years. Their conclusion: Never before have sea levels risen as fast since the beginning of industrialisation. But critics fault the study with resting on shaky foundations. They see a major problem of the new study in the fact that it is ultimately based only on the finding from the coast of North Carolina. That could be too limited for a statement regarding global developments. “This study is therefore not suitable at all to make predictions,” says Jens Schröter from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. –Marcus Becker, Spiegel Online 21 June 2011
Who knows what the sun will do? I think it would be fair to say that in the past predicting solar behaviour has been little more than educated guesswork. I am reminded of a bold statement made in 2004 by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the United States. It said that the next solar cycle would be 30 – 50% stronger than the previous one “…according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model.” The sun does seem to be entering a period of low activity – the first of the space age. It’s a fascinating time for solar science, and a challenge for science journalism. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 20 June 2011
As the great global warming scare continues to fade away, the real problem is that our politicians have so much collective ego invested in this delusion that, even when hell freezes over, they will still find it impossible to admit they got it wrong. –-Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 19 June 2011
Why can’t climate scientists just bring themselves to admit that we haven’t even yet begun fully to understand the cause of climatic change? –Ross Clark, Daily Express, 18 June 2011
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A bad statistical method used twice won’t make it good.
Hugh Pepper says:
June 21, 2011 at 1:10 pm
“In time more studies will be done using similar methodologies, and these will either confirm or disconfirm the recent findings.”
You can confirm or disconfirm hypotheses. However, Mann does not deal in hypotheses. Probably to avoid the old disconfirmation problem. If you look at his work carefully, there is not one hypothesis in it. All he does is take recorded numbers or record a few himself, in this case tidal gauge readings, and then, with no explanation, associate them with some proxy whose nature he does nothing to explain. All he has ever produced is just associations between series of numbers. He never explores the hypotheses needed to explain the use that he makes of proxies. He just grabs a set of proxies, assumes they are good to go, and he is off to the races. In the case of the original hockey stick, Briffa discovered that his tree ring proxies were misbehaving. After hiding the decline, neither Mann nor Briffa attempted to discover the cause of that misbehavior. Finding the cause means formulating and confirming some physical hypotheses about that kind of tree ring. That kind of work holds no interest whatsoever for Mann or Briffa. Neither has the instincts of a scientist.
As for confirming an association between two series of numbers, neither of which has been explained through scientific hypothesis, why bother?
@Latitude… Are you saying Mann cherry picked his data? That is SHOCKING. Oh wait, my English is not very good. Shocking is the wrong word. I think “Par for the course” is what I’m looking for.
So let me get this straight…….
When the ginormous ice sheets (continental glaciers) that covered about 30% of the NH, all started melting rapidly, we saw a tremendous rate in sea level rise. The highest rate at that time was about a 9 ft. rise per century around 16,000 – 15,000 years ago.
I’m sorry, but did we eclipes that 9 ft rise this century in North Carolina, or anywhere else? Today’s rate is higher than it was then? Do we really even have those conditions on today’s Earth for that to even be possible? Ice sheets, a half mile high, stretching from New Jersey to Oregon , across Europe and beyond, are all melting away at once? The melt water coming out of the last glaciation must have been staggaring. Yet we will need more than twice those conditions to reach those zany predictions of 20 ft+ some have made for the 21 century. That has always made me chuckle.
“For the first time . . .” ? Nope. It frustrates me when ‘authorities’ proclaim such things. It only underscores their ignorance of the body of previous science. Rhodes Fairbridge did it in 1976, published in the journal Science.
Kemp11 reconstructs the sea level from 500 AD to the present, and compares this with a temperature record over the same period. I believe that earlier segments of this multiproxy temperature reconstruction are rather heavily dependent for passing “validation” tests on the inclusion of the Tiljander lakebed data series as proxies. This becomes more pronounced as one goes back from 1500, since other, shorter proxies “drop out”.
I wrote a note on this issue and submitted it to RealClimate, but it was refused by their commenting software.
Further thoughts as a short post at my blog, here.
Although there is another hockey stick, this paper is useful. After all, 2.1 mm / y is 0.2 m / century.
I don’t think any coastlines have much to worry about. Is that all they could pull out of their… hat?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/20/manns-new-sea-level-hockey-stick-paper/#more-41951
Then we have the CU data indicating 0.4 mm / y rise more recently.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/update-on-the-cu-sea-level-page-status/
It will be hard to back up predictions of sea level rise in the meter plus range this century.
Jim G
You are correct – I am into Astronomy in a big way. I believe to understand earth weather/climate we also need to understand the cosmic forces at play here. BTW, good stuff.
A clue to earth’s earliest water lie in ancient mineral grains called ZIRCONS, some of which date to 4.38 billion years old. Zircons preserve the isotopes 18-oxygen and 16-oxygen. When sedimentary minerals form in liquid water they tend to favor 18-O over 16-O in their crystal lattice. To cut to the chase zircons point to oceans on earth before 4.4 billion years ago. As you well know earth and a Mar sized planet collided with earth creating the moon which would have boiled the planet. Having said that however, science has yet to discover the the source of earth’s water from comets who are water rich but lack the chemistry of earth’s water with only about half the hydrogen-to-deuterium ratio. New research of two asteroids relatively close to the sun we couldn’t see until lately, believe it or not, were found to be covered in dust yet having a rather large water content. At this time unfortunately due to the outer layer of dust on both asteroids science has been unable to measure the isotope ratio. I do think I see two targets for the future asteroid missions.
Which leads me to question how Hansen can possibly measure ocean levels to the millimeter when science has no idea of the earth’s water in its mantle or its oceans. Keeping in mind my earlier post on the wild estimates of earth sized oceans in the earth’s mantle ranging from 10 sized oceans down to a bit over one earth sized ocean.
The “inner earth” or mantle may contain five times as much total water as the oceans. See attached link. Is it possible that humans might just not have all the answers regarding water on this planet? How much is there, where is it and how do levels change? It’s arrogant to pick two spots in NA and make the kind of conclusions that were drawn.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0307_0307_waterworld.html
Wil, not to mention the possibility that the Earth receives as significant in-fall of water, just as it does of dust.
Cynic Larry’s stoopid question of the day: Will we plebs ever be allowed to see the RAW tidal gauge data from NC? Or if we say, “Pretty please,” will someone higher up on the food chain pity us, and throw us a bone, in the form of ADJUSTED tidal gauge data? (No, I have not read Mann’s recent paper.)
Another concern: cherry picking. Perhaps Mann looked at tidal gauge data from lots of places, before settling on the subset that confirmed the foregone conclusion. I’d love to see his notebooks. Would these be subject to subpoena?
Who exactly are the supposedly divided climate researchers? Three of the four quotes in the OP don’t even relate to Mann’s paper. The remaining one says “This study is therefore not suitable at all to make predictions,” I think even Mann himself would agree with that – it doesn’t try to make predictions.
John B says: “Who exactly are the supposedly divided climate researchers? Three of the four quotes in the OP don’t even relate to Mann’s paper. The remaining one says “This study is therefore not suitable at all to make predictions,” I think even Mann himself would agree with that – it doesn’t try to make predictions.”
Because it can’t. Any predictions made using Mann et al’s methodology would fail miserably.
LarryD
We do know the planet is constantly receiving dust particles on a daily basis. How much may contain traces of water is not known at this time – however we did not know the earth was round not so long ago either.
The methodology in this paper is more than a little suspect.
Take a core, try to date foraminifera planckton found in it that only grow in tidal pools and try to estimate sea level (to the 0.5 mms/year) from this.
Sorry, that is even a smaller sea level rise per year than the size of the foraminifera themselves. If sea level went up and down, they would be all mixed up in the core. If sea level is going down and then goes back up, your core is completely contaminated. The method can’t possibly be accurate.
Its like the tree-rings in bristlecone pine trees which are a complete mess and depend on what part of the tree was alive at different times which also overlap each other.
Cross-section of a live bristlecone pine tree.
http://www.rmtrr.org/images/bcp.jpg
Latitude said: “Mann’s sea level paper conveniently stops before sea level rise stops.’
Is anyone surprised? The original hockey stick had three major flaws, limited number of proxies, bad math, and he hid (actually truncated) the decline in the proxies. This paper so far has two of those flaws but we have yet to see his mathematics. It looks like the same old Mann sham. He has learned nothing from his previous screw ups.
Wil says @4:49 – however we did not know the earth was round not so long ago either.
And you were doing so well up to this!
Off-topic news tip for those who haven’t seen it yet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/21/greenhouse-gas-targets-eu-vote
The EU Parliament is getting ready to vote a stiffer CO2 reduction target, and the Conservative British members of that group will vote against it. Their votes may be enough to stop the move.
Article also talks about Janus Lewandowski, a major EU official who has turned into a real skeptic, and is using his budgetary influence to slow down the EU’s slide.
These are real changes in the headquarters of Gaian power!
Looks like yet another reason why Dr. Muller won’t read this Mann’s papers.
N. Carolina???
Sea level is such a very, very, very complicated thing:
Sea:
-Thermal Expansion (Possibly negligible at shore where continental shelf is shallow)
-Redistribution of the Earths water masses (Over many, many decades)
-Migration and Fluctuation of Currents (When the Gulf Stream is stronger, less water slackens to the coast…and vice versa).
-Changes in Atmospheric Pressure (ie the NAO)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/hightides/
-Eustatic change. (Really? Show me what “icecaps” are melting to have a more than negligible effect?)
Land:
-Isostatic Rebound
-Soft Sediments (river deltas and barrier islands of sand)
-35 Million Year Old Meteor impact crater nearby
And more….
Complicated, huh?
Certainly infinitely more complicated than Schmid’s pathetic, spineless account in the AP “Science” article.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Greg, Spokane WA says:
June 21, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Looks like yet another reason why Dr. Muller won’t read this Mann’s papers.
N. Carolina???
=============================
What is your implication here?
Are you saying North Carolina is not important?
Actually, Greg (in Spokane) you are making a cut against one of the most important and geopolitical states in the entire nation.
You know….a banking capital and one of the highest concentrations of high-tech on the east coast.
What the hell did you mean by your comment “N. Carolina?”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
The North Carolina coast is sinking, see
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-admin/news/inthenews/archives/2005/10/Charlotte-Observer-NC-Coast-a-concern.cfm
at a rate of 8 inches per century.
This study uses a sinking rate of 1 mm /year, or about 4 inches per century.
is this a problem?
Is not the coast of North Carolina sinking due to the rebound farther north due to the loss of mass as the Ice Age glaciers melted? I thought this was well recognized by geologists.
This is a kind of repeat of mine from Dr. Curry’s site. Permit me to point out Cosquer’s Cave. http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/fr-cosqu1.htm The entrance is now 37 meters below sea level. The paintings on the wall, above sea level, needed to have happened at a time when that entrance was also above sea level. So here we have, in recorded history, what I suspect is a menu. These are pictures of food. People – this is what sea level rise looks like.
37 meters below sea level. Are we agreed that this kind of sea level shift has a global component to it?
And we’re worried about the survivability of the barrier islands? They’re here today! They were there then. They’ve been through millenia of sea level change hell on earth and yet here they stand. And we’re worried about 1/16″ inch/year sea level rise?
I have a retirement to fund – I can’t be thinking about the impact of a sea level rise that cannot keep up with the rate of growth of my toenails.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t subsidence rates calculated from comparison of land and sea levels? Isn’t Mann in the end measuring that during last 2000 years, sea level was at … sea level?