Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Anthony has pointed out the further inanities of that well-known vanity press, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This time it is Michael Mann (of Hockeystick fame) and company claiming an increase in the rate of sea level rise (complete paper here, by Kemp et al., hereinafter Kemp 2011). A number of commenters have pointed out significant shortcomings in the paper. AMac has noted at ClimateAudit that Mann’s oft-noted mistake of the upside-down Tiljander series lives on in Kemp 2011, thus presumably saving the CO2 required to generate new and unique errors. Steve McIntyre has pointed out that, as is all too common with the mainstream AGW folks and particularly true of anything touched by Michael Mann, the information provided is far, far, far from enough to reproduce their results. Judith Curry is also hosting a discussion of the issues.
I was interested in a couple of problems that haven’t been touched on by other researchers. The first is that you can put together your whiz-bang model that uses a transfer function to relate the “formaminiferal assemblages” to “paleomarsh elevation” (PME) and then subtract the PME from measured sample altitudes to estimate sea levels, as they say they have done. But how do you then verify whether your magic math is any good? The paper claims that
Agreement of geological records with trends in regional and global tide-gauge data (Figs. 2B and 3) validates the salt-marsh proxy approach and justifies its application to older sediments. Despite differences in accumulation history and being more than 100 km apart, Sand Point and Tump Point recorded near identical RSL variations.
Hmmm, sez I … so I digitized the recent data in their Figure 2B. This was hard to do, because the authors have hidden part of the data in their graph through their use of solid blocks to indicate errors, rather than whiskers as are commonly used. This makes it hard to see what they actually found. However, their results can be determined by careful measurement and digitization. Figure 1 shows those results, along with observations from the two nearest long-term tidal gauges and the TOPEX satellite record for the area.
Figure 1. The sea-level results from Kemp 2011, along with the nearest long-term tide gauge records (Wilmington and Hampton Roads) and the TOPEX satellite sea level records for that area. Blue and orange transparent bands indicate the uncertainties in the Kemp 2011 results. Their uncertainties are shown for both the sea level and the year. SOURCES: Wilmington, Hampton Roads, TOPEX
My conclusions from this are a bit different from theirs.
The first conclusion is that as is not uncommon with sea level records, nearby tide gauges give very different changes in sea level. In this case, the Wilmington rise is 2.0 mm per year, while the Hampton Roads rise is more than twice that, 4.5 mm per year. In addition, the much shorter satellite records show only half a mm per year average rise for the last twenty years.
As a result, the claim that the “agreement” of the two Kemp 2011 reconstructions are “validated” by the tidal records is meaningless, because we don’t have observations accurate enough to validate anything. We don’t have good observations to compare with their results, so virtually any reconstruction could be claimed to be “validated” by the nearby tidal gauges. In addition, since the Tump Point sea level rise is nearly 50% larger than the Sand Point rise, how can the two be described as “near identical”?
As I mentioned above, there is a second issue with the paper that has received little attention. This is the nature of the area where the study was done. It is all flatland river delta, with rivers that have created low-lying sedimentary islands and constantly changing border islands, and swirling currents and variable conditions. Figure 2 shows what the turf looks like from the seaward side:
Figure 2. Location of the study areas (Tump Point and Sand Point, purple) for the Kemp 2011 sea level study. Location of the nearest long-term tidal gauges (Wilmington and Hampton Roads) are shown by yellow pushpins.
Why is this important? It is critical because these kinds of river mouth areas are never stable. Islands change, rivers cut new channels, currents shift their locations, sand bars are created and eaten away. Figure 3 shows the currents near Tump Point:
Figure 3. Eddying currents around Tump Point. Note how they are currently eroding the island, leading to channels eaten back into the land.
Now, given the obviously sedimentary nature of the Tump Point area, and the changing, swirling nature of the currents … what are the odds that the ocean conditions (average temperature, salinity, sedimentation rate, turbidity, etc.) are the same now at Tump Point as they were a thousand years ago?
And since the temperature and salinity and turbidity and mineral content a thousand years ago may very well have been significantly different from their current values, wouldn’t the “formaminiferal assemblages” have also been different then regardless of any changes in sea level?
Because for the foraminifera proxy to be valid over time, we have to be able to say that the only change that might affect the “foraminiferal assemblages” is the sea level … and given the geology of the study area, we can almost guarantee that is not true.
So those are my issues with the paper, that there are no accurate observations to compare with their reconstruction, and that important local marine variables undoubtedly have changed in the last thousand years. Of course, those are in addition to the problems discussed by others, involving the irreproducibility due to the lack of data and code … and the use of the Tiljander upside-down datasets … and the claim that we can tell the global sea level rise from a reconstruction in one solitary location … and the shabby pal-review by PNAS … and the use of the Mann 2008 temperature reconstruction … and …
In short, I fear all we have is another pathetic attempt by Michael Mann, Stefan Rahmstorf, and others to shore up their pathetic claims, even to the point of repeating their exact same previous pathetic mistakes … and folks wonder why we don’t trust mainstream AGW scientists?
Because they keep trying, over and over, to pass off this kind of high-school-level investigation as though it were real science.
My advice to the authors? Same advice my high school science teacher drilled into our heads, to show our work. PUBLISH YOUR CODE AND DATA, FOOLS! Have you been asleep for the last couple years? These days nobody will believe you unless your work is replicable, and you just look stupid for trying this same ‘I won’t mention the code and data, maybe nobody will notice’ trick again and again. You can do all the hand-waving you want about your “extended semiempirical modeling approach”, but until you publish the data and the code for that approach and for the other parts of your method, along with the observational data used to validate your approach, your credibility will be zero and folks will just point and laugh.
w.
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Willis, you wrote “In climate science 2011, if you don’t archive your data and show your methods, folks won’t believe you … especially if Mann is a co-author. ”
No disagreement from me, but have you tried writing to Kemp? Try it, and let us know how it turns out.
I think that you have achieved sufficient stature that refusal to share with you is self-defeating.
How exactly do they determine that sea level was rising by 0.5 mms per year and then falling by 0.5 mms from the forams in the same sediment core.
The core goes down and earlier in time as one goes deeper and the forams are distributed as the older the deeper. In fact, it could not possibly work if sea level originally was higher and then declined and has now gone back up.
If sea level was rising throughout the period, it might be possible but not when it is going up and down so throw this physically impossible study in the garbage can.
Kemp and associates seem to have been busy milking out their data, there’s another Kemp et al 2009 paper:
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/37/11/1035.abstract
Timing and magnitude of recent accelerated sea-level rise (North Carolina, United States)
That was quick. Must have been good. 😉
Paywalled, but the Abstract is interesting (emphasis added):
Note last line. 2009, exceptionalness of location given special mention. 2011, this location representative of the US Atlantic coast. What changed?
The journal Geology does have a Data Repository for data and other info as provided by authors, here’s the link for this one (about 1753KB, 19pg, M$ Word doc in pdf):
ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/reposit/2009/2009260.pdf
It’s the same places, Sand Point and Tump Point. Transfer functions described starting on pg 1:
See table on pg 7, “Transfer function performance.” Has r^2 results: 0.59, 0.63, 0.59. I don’t know about this particular type of work, but aren’t those Sociology-grade values?
Not much time to read lately, but I am always amazed that nothing appears to have changed in “mainline climate science” in the 5 years or so that I’ve been following the issues. Willis is asking for the EXACT same basic things that McIntyre did years ago and is getting the same EXACT same inane, unscientific, untruthful, bloviating bullshit from “famous” (or “infamous?) authors. The “climate scientists” (and their poorly-informed (historically) apologists speaking in the comments here) seem to have learned absolutely nothing about how to convince interested people that they are sincere “scientists” (i.e, ones that invite replication and believe in finding the TRUTH). HENCE, the enormous loss of interest and just plain disgust by the public over the “global warming/climate change” fraud. I sure would not advise my grandson to get involved in “climate science.” Science IS self-correcting, given enough time, and we have had plenty of time now to sort out the chaff from the wheat.l Face it, you Gorites, you have NO credibility left. It gets funnier and funnier to watch your demise, you charlatans!
Thanks, Willis, for continuing to embarass the jokers!
Do you really not understand the difference between Mann’s hemispheric temperature reconstructions and Kemp’s sea-level reconstructions?
Let me help you. Mann had to generate new procedures to analyse the data. Anybody working with new procedures, writing their own code, is almost bound to do things that will later be revealed to be sub-optimal. Kemp used standard methods to reconstruct sea-level, methods that have been used hundreds of times. There is standard software for the Kemp’s methods – you load the data – you press the button – you get the results. There is no real scope for error in that analysis.
Are Kemp’s reconstructions optimal? I doubt it. But I strongly doubt a casual inspection of the code and data would reveal how to make the reconstructions better. I also doubt you are interested – spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt, while wallowing in paranoia is so much more fun isn’t it.
richard telford says:
June 24, 2011 at 1:24 pm
I tend to agree with you that the methodology for reconstructing past relative sea level from foraminifera species ratios appears robust enough.
Where I take issue with the paper is when they attempt to sort out the various causes of the reconstructed sea level change. An abrupt acceleration in rate of rise 120 years ago rise is not consistent with steric rise from AGW. Neither is it consistent with isotatic sea level change caused by glaciation or deglaciation. It is consistent with land use changes that alter aquifer recharge rates which cause abrupt and sometimes extreme isostatic change in sea level. The time when this happened coincides with a massive boom in agriculture particularly in North Carolina as that’s when its vast tobacco industry was established and in a general case for the US Atlantic coast as that was the era when steam engines became the motive power for all sorts of things that were previously powered by muscle, water wheels, and windmills. The authors, through either incompetence or nefarious design, omitted anthropogenic isostatic factors and shifted all the otherwise unaccounted-for relative sea level rise into the anthropogenic steric category even though it makes no sense at all because AGW steric sea level rise cannot be near as abrupt as that which becomes evident in the reconstruction.
@Smokey
http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/02ocean/mgtectonics.htm
This is no question whatsoever about why there are more undersea volcanoes and no amount of handwaving by you is going to change that. This is very basic earth science. Man up and admit you made a mistake fercrisakes.
Dave Springer says:
Where I take issue with the paper is when they attempt to sort out the various causes of the reconstructed sea level change. An abrupt acceleration in rate of rise 120 years ago rise is not consistent with steric rise from AGW. Neither is it consistent with isotatic sea level change caused by glaciation or deglaciation. It is consistent with land use changes that alter aquifer recharge rates which cause abrupt and sometimes extreme isostatic change in sea level.
————-
Given that their reconstructed sea-level rise matches the global sea-level rise rather well (Fig.3), there would appear to be little scope for a large groundwater-extraction effect. I don’t know where you get the idea that it is not consistent with steric sea-level changes – the paper demonstrates that it is. Nothing in the paper is contingent on the cause of the temperature change in the 20th Century – I don’t think the paper even mentions the greenhouse effect.
Dave Springer,
I made no mistake, I simply linked to a source that questions the ring of fire assumptions, and raises questions about the theory of how volcanoes form. Thanx for the interesting geology link, however, some of its conclusions have been questioned in the link I provided. As I suggested above, you should argue with the authors if you disagree. I was just posting their information.
I have been polite to you throughout this conversation, and you have responded by labeling my comments “nonsense,” and as being below 7th grade science, and telling me to “man up” and admit that I made a mistake. Yet when I said I was not an expert on volcanoes, you also admitted: “Neither am I.” So now you’ve cut ‘n’ pasted a link you found which is at least questionable, as I explained above. New data has shown that the old theory has some holes in it.
When I make a mistake I admit it. But I’m not so sure I am mistaken in this instance; I’ve found no reliable measurement of the amount of CO2 emitted by submarine volcanoes. If you find a verifiable measurement, please post it. I would like to see an accurate measurement of the “carbon footprint” of submarine volcanoes.
richard telford says:
June 25, 2011 at 5:22 am
Yes, I understand the differences.
Not true in the slightest. Both Mann and Steig used (or more accurately misused) principal component analysis, a very well understood method that’s been around for years.
The same is true of Steig’s work (which I notice you are careful not to mention), Mann’s work, and Kemp’s work. Are you truly trying to make the claim that the Principal Components method hasn’t been “used hundreds of times”?
All of them used standard methods. But if you don’t understand them there are lots of pitfalls in even the most standard of methods … and since Steig and Mann seem to be allergic to statisticians, the odds of an error went up to 100%.
Thank you for letting us know you doubt that a casual inspection of the code and data would reveal anything. That reveals a lot about the strength of your belief in the rightness of the analysis, along with your lack of confidence in your own inspection capabilities … but it says nothing about my inspection of Kemp (which has been far from casual) or my inspection capabilities. And having seen far too many peer-reviewed studies which could be exploded by a literate high-school senior, I also doubt the generality of your observation. Your assumption that peer-reviewed science has more than a 50% chance of being correct is not borne out by the facts on the ground.
In any case, see my latest post on the before you spend too much time congratulating yourself and accusing me of various improbable high crimes and misdemeanors … and for future reference, you might note that making that kind of vicious personal attack is generally taken by readers to mean that the person making the attack doesn’t have the science on their side.
w.
Bill Illis says:
June 24, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Yeah, I thought about that as well. At the end of the day I came to the same conclusion as you did, that this method would only work if the sea level never went down. But their analysis says that sea level went both up and down … my conclusion was that I don’t understand that part. Perhaps Richard Telford or one of the adherents of the study could explain it.
w.
To answer Bill Illis, the procedure is this:
1) Collect a sediment core and count forams from several levels in it.
2) Using the modern relationship between height above mean sea level (or some function of this) and foram community composition, estimate the height above mean sea level for each fossil sample.
3) Correct these for sediment accumulation and compaction.
4) Correct for isostatic movements.
So,
If the sea level is constant, then as the sediment accumulates, the forams will be higher up the marsh. Correcting for sediment accumulation, will give a constant sea-level reconstruction.
If the sea level falls, the foram communities will represent higher conditions than expected by sediment accumulation alone.
If the sea level rises, the foram communities will represent lower conditions than expected from the sediment accumulation.
All this is explained in the basic literature, as Willis would know if he cared to look. Unlike Willis, I generally I find it useful to understand the assumptions of the methods someone is using before I criticise their work. But then I am usually writing for a audience not so easily swayed by back of a fag box calculations.
—–
Thank you for letting us know you doubt that a casual inspection of the code and data would reveal anything. That reveals a lot about the strength of your belief in the rightness of the analysis
—-
This certainly reveals a lot about your reading skills. I wrote that I doubted their procedure is optimal. Indeed, I know how it could be improved, and I also know that you will be hard pressed to realise the problem by looking at the reconstruction code without understanding the methods.
Richard Telford wrote:
This certainly reveals a lot about your reading skills. I wrote that I doubted their procedure is optimal. Indeed, I know how it could be improved, and I also know that you will be hard pressed to realise the problem by looking at the reconstruction code without understanding the methods.
You also wrote what Willis said you wrote.
You’d be more effective if you’d remember what you wrote, and if you desisted with the superficial ad hom remarks. If you can’t point to a specific deficiency in Willis’ use of a method, then you got nothing to say to the rest of us readers.
richard telford says:
June 25, 2011 at 10:28 am
Say what? Among other things their reconstruction claims that the rate of MSL increase has been over 3mm/year since 1950 and is now almost 5mm/year … are you truly claiming that this “matches the global sea-level rise rather well”?
The reconstruction also claims that the sea level has increased 200mm (8 inches) since 1950 … are you also claiming that “matches the global sea-level rise rather well”?
Their Figure 3 that you reference is an obvious (and in your case obviously successful) attempt to confuse the issue. Note that they don’t show the unsettling facts I state above …
Three things. First, both the Kemp 2011 paper and the SOI mention the word “steric” once. In neither case do they compare thermosteric rise to their projections.
Second, Anne Cazenave’s paper gives a good estimate of the thermosteric component of the sea level rise of the last forty years.
Third, changes in the ocean’s volume (generally speaking) are from a combination of changes due to thermal expansion (thermosteric component) and changes in the amount of fresh water added/removed (halosteric component). Since Kemp et al. are working from actual measurements, presumably they are measuring the total steric sea level.
Curiously, these processes vary from pole to equator in a compensatory fashion. From Levitus:
Agreed. However, it shows the sea level rising monotonically for the last three hundred years, not in the 20th century …
w.
richard telford says:
June 25, 2011 at 10:28 am
“Given that their reconstructed sea-level rise matches the global sea-level rise rather well (Fig.3),”
You gotta be shi**ing me. Figuratively speaking those plots are all over the map. Literally speaking they’re in only a few times and places on the map.
[Language. Robt]