UPDATE: An Australian science paper I located from 1990 says that century scale sea level trends are 1-1.1 mm per year, and Sydney was 0.54 mm/ year. See below.
UPDATE2: a graph of the current SLR for Sydney is now available. See below.
From the Australian Telegraph:
SENIOR bureaucrats in the state government’s environment department have routinely stopped publishing scientific papers which challenge the federal government’s claims of sea level rises threatening Australia’s coastline, a former senior public servant said yesterday.
Doug Lord helped prepare six scientific papers which examined 120 years of tidal data from a gauge at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour.
The tide data revealed sea levels were rising at a rate of about 1mm a year or less – and the rise was not accelerating but was constant.
“The tidal data we found would mean sea levels would rise by about 100mm by the end of the century,” Mr Lord said yesterday.
“However the (federal) government benchmark which drives their climate change policy is that sea levels are expected to rise by 900mm by the end of the century and the rate of rise is accelerating.”
Mr Lord, who has 35 years experience in coastal engineering, said senior bureaucrats within the then Department of Environment Climate Change and Water had rejected or stopped publication of five papers between late 2009 and September this year.
Full story at: Australian Telegraph
=======================================================
This paper by E.A Bryant in 1990 at the University of New South Wales has some interesting things to say. http://ojs.library.unsw.edu.au/index.php/wetlands/article/viewFile/166/228
UPDATE2: David Archibald provides this graph of Sea Level Rise for Sydney, Ft. Dennison from the long term data. The .5 mm trend/year shown above in the 1990 Bryant paper still holds. There does not appear to be any evidence of acceleration.
The NSW Govt. has a page for Fort Denison but you have to contact a data manager for the data: http://canri.nsw.gov.au/nrdd/records/ANZNS0001005063.html#metainfo
crosspatch says:
December 1, 2011 at 10:15 am
kin2000, if the papers were never published or were “withdrawn” then there will not likely be any links to the papers. ” ]
I’m sorry it took me so long to answer this post – I had an essay on Beowulf due 🙂
My impression via Dr / Mr Lord’s statements: That these three papers were peer-reviewed – published and even sited on Government web pages etc….and then removed from the government pages., in order to support government actions.
If that is the case – there should be some history available to find these.
Way-back-Machine?
xxxxxxxxx
I enjoy your posts 🙂
[ “Blocked sea-level research probed
by:Imre Salusinszky
From:The Australian December 05, 2011 12:00AM
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NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker has asked department officials to explain why they put the lid on internal research that questioned catastrophic predictions of sea-level rises as a result of climate change.
A former senior researcher in the department, Doug Lord, said yesterday two papers he co-authored with colleagues and was due to present at conferences were suppressed because they suggested sea-levels on the east coast are rising at only one 10th of the rate estimated by the federal government, based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ” ]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/blocked-sea-level-research-probed/story-fn59niix-1226213593352
kim2ooo says:
December 4, 2011 at 10:30 am
I’m sorry it took me so long to answer this post – I had an essay on Beowulf due 🙂
Can I read your essay somewhere on line? I am burnt out on emails. GK
HenryP:
> I did reply that the data you quoted actually worked out to an average of a little less
> than 0.2 mm /yr and I did ask you if you agreed.
I didn’t think I needed to agree that (0.76-0.32)/2 = 0.175, which is “a little less than 0.2”. However, this is irrelevant, because the way to estimate a trend for two joined records is NOT to average the trends of each of them – this is trivial statistics – you actually have to do a linear least-squares fit on the total record. The linear least-square trends for the two parts, and for the whole, are:
1886-1948: -0.32 mm/year
1948-2010: 0.67 mm/year
1886-2010: 0.62 mm/year
which is perhaps paradoxical to you but not to anyone who understands elementary curve-fitting.
> I do not have access to the original data now
It’s on the web and easy to find in a few minutes.
> but I reckon that Archibald’s 0.5 mm per annum result (for a different, more recent
> period) is probably very much correct.
I wonder why on Earth you would think that – I’ve already told you that the linear least-squared trend for “Archibald’s” record is 0.89 mm/year.
> He is just analysing the data and he probably uses Excel to work out the linear trend
> – you cannot really make a mistake with that unless you are an idiot.
Correct – Archibald is an idiot – I’ve heard him speak and seen what he writes.
> you put your head in the soil, claiming this is too difficult for you….
I don’t have the time to read every hair-brained climate theory that comes up on the web and to provide advice. If you have a serious theory, write it up as a paper and submit it for peer review with a reputable journal.
And while all this discussion is going on, Anthony Watts has still not corrected the misinformation which gave rise to my original response – which is very telling.
I wish we had global warming in sydney we are in the coldest start to summer in 51 years this morning 13 deg 7 below normal
morgo: I sympathise – it’s freezing in Hobart too. But remember: this is “weather” and not “climate”!
Henry@John&Morgo
John, you must be doing something wrong, because if you do a trendline, plotting mm on the y-and years on the x -, without any prediction, (this is the least square fit for that line), then the slope of that trendline (the figure before the x ) is exactly the average rate of incline – or decline – if the slope is negative in mm per annum. You can calculate that average also normally, and if the figures you quoted are correct then it works out to 62 x 0.67 – 62 x 0.32 = 21.7. Take the 21.7 over 124 years and you get 0.175. This must be the slope you should be getting if you do a trendline over the whole of the period 1886-2010 unless the figures you quote me are not the slopes of incline / decline in mm/annum
For example, for Morgo, I determined that the average temperatures (means) in December in Brisbane have declined by an average of -0.0154 degrees per annum since 1975.
You should be able to find this figure somewhere in the table for means here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
This means that temperatures there are now, on average, 0.539 degrees lower than they were 35 years ago. That is not “weather”, that is your climate. There is no global warming there. There never was. Sorry.
Henry@John&Morgo
John, you must be doing something wrong, because if you do a trendline, plotting mm on the y-and years on the x -, without any prediction, (this is the least square fit for that line), then the slope of that trendline (the figure before the x ) is exactly the average rate of incline – or decline – if the slope is negative in mm per annum. You can calculate that average also normally, and if the figures you quoted are correct then it works out to 62 x 0.67 – 62 x 0.32 = 21.7. Take the 21.7 over 124 years and you get 0.175. This must be the slope you should be getting if you do a trendline over the whole of the period 1886-2010 unless the figures you quote me are not the slopes of incline / decline in mm/annum for the periods that you mention.
For example, for Morgo, I determined that the average temperatures (means) in December in Brisbane have declined by an average of -0.0154 degrees per annum since 1975.
You should be able to find this figure somewhere in the table for means here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
This means that temperatures there are now, on average, 0.5 degrees lower in December than they were 35 years ago. That is not “weather”, that is your climate. There is no global warming there. There never was. Sorry.
HenryP:
Oh dear. You say:
“John, you must be doing something wrong, because if you do a trendline, plotting mm on the y-and years on the x -, without any prediction, (this is the least square fit for that line), then the slope of that trendline (the figure before the x ) is exactly the average rate of incline – or decline – if the slope is negative in mm per annum.”
No – YOU are doing something wrong. Consider the set of points with (x,y) coordinates:
-1 0
0 -1
1 1
2 2
The linear least-squares slope of this set of four points is 0.8 (not 1.0 as you might expect, but don’t worry about this). If you now split these four points into two adjacent sets of two:
-1 0
0 -1
and
1 1
2 2
then the gradient of the first “line” is quite obviously -1.0 and the gradient of the second line is +1.0. The average of these gradients is 0.0 – and NOT 0.8 (the least-squares slope of the set of four points). So you are quite clearly wrong.
Look at it another way and take your argument to its logical conclusion. Consider a set of points (x(i), y(i)) for i=1 to n. Let’s calculate the trend of each adjacent pair ((x(i), y(i)) and(x(i+1),y(i+1)), and call it T(i).
Now T(i) = (y(i+1)-y(i))/((x(i+1)-x(i))
Let’s now make it even simpler and assume the points are evenly-spaced in x, so (x(i+1)-x(i) = a constant (dx) for all i.
The average of all the trends is just:
(y(2)-y(1))/dx + (y(3)-y(2))/dx + (y(4)-y(3))/dx ……… + (y(n)-y(n-1))/dx
= (y(n)-y(1))/((n-1)*dx)
which is just the trend of the slope drawn through the end points – which is what dear old David Archibald seems to have (almost) done. BUT THIS IS NOT THE LINEAR LEAST-SQUARES TREND.
Now, if you still don’t understand:
(1) Go and read a textbook, Wikipedia, or whatever, on linear least-squares analysis.
(2) Download the Fort Denison data from http://www.psmsl.org/ (there are two data sets for Fort Denison – you’ll need to carefully join these together- also make sure you use the “RLR” data”).
(3) Perform linear least-squares analysis on this data set, and on the data set divided in two at the middle.
(4) When you are convinced that I am right, urge Anthony Watts to correct his error.
(5) Don’t waste any more of my time on trivial statistics.
Thank you for your attention.
John, I say again:
you must be doing something wrong, because if you do a trendline, plotting mm on the y-and years on the x -, then the slope of that trendline (the figure before the x ) is exactly the average rate of incline – or decline, if the slope is negative – in mm per annum.”
There is nothing that I can do wrong because Excel does it all for you: you just ask for the trendline of your plot, and you then ask for the co-ordinates of that trendline.
If I have temp. degree C on my y- and years on the x- then the slope of my trendline is exactly the average increase or decrease (when negative) in degrees C per annum. If you want me to help you, you must give me your original data (readings) in mm corresponding to the respective years and I will report here what I get.
HenryP: I don’t need any help thanks – I know I’m right. Just do the five things I ask, please, and you will see.
Henry@John
The situation you described earlier can never happen mathematically as the time scale (x) is always positive. So, as I said earlier, the slope or gradient of the trendline is always the average rate in mm/annum over the time period measured, if mm is measured on the Y and time is measured on the X.
Henry@anyone here
Comparing fig. 2 with Archibald’s graph there does seem to be a difference in the scale of the actual measurement. Assuming that Archibald’s graph is in mm, there is a 10 x difference? Can somebody here explain that to me, please?
HenryP: Again – oh dear. Analysis by linear least-squares does not depend in any way on the sign of the independent variable (“….. as the time scale (x) is always positive …..” – what on earth had this got to do with it?) or the units (“the slope or gradient of the trend line is always the average rate in mm/annum over the time period measured, if mm is measured on the Y and time is measured on the X” – again – how is this relevant”?).
You seem to have a problem with units. Bryant’s graph (Fig. 2) is in years and metres. The gradient of his trend line is roughly (0.95-0.89)/(2000-1880) = 0.0005 m/year = 0.5 mm/year. Archibald’s graph is in years and mm. The gradient of his trend line is roughly (7020-6965)/(2010-1915) mm/year = about 0.5 mm/year.
You seem to be confused by the fact that Archibald’s data is offset vertically by around 6 metres relative to Bryant’s. Of course this is irrelevant as we are only interested in TRENDS. If you just went to http://www.psmsl.org/ and downloaded the original data, as I asked, you might start to understand this stuff.
It beats me how you guys think you could possibly hold a sensible discussion over complicated issues like climate change.
eeehh, eehh, John
May I remind you that you started off with:
“David Archibald’s “trend” of 0.5 mm/year is rubbish”.
You wanted it to be 0.9, remember? I said that he probably does the trendlines and curve fitting in Excel, whereby you have to be an idiot if you make mistakes in finding the co-ordinates for the trendline.
In future you should try using Excel yourself before making wild accusations.
From you last comment, I gather you are happy now with the 0.5 mm/annum (from BOTH Bryant and Archibald). So, I am glad that we have that problem solved.
yes, but “man-made” climate change is not really that complicated. I do think that people who believe that more carbon dioxide and more global warming is bad for you are very stupid. Don’t you think it would be nice if we could have a northern passage?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
HenryP:
I don’t know what on Earth you think you are talking about. The data used by Archibald has a linear least-squares trend of 0.89 mm/year as I stated. You haven’t actually calculated it have you, with Excel or anything else? In my last posting, I simply showed that the trend line drawn on Archibald’s plot has a gradient of around 0.5 mm/year – but this doesn’t mean this line is a linear least-squares fit – anyone with any understanding of least-squares fitting could see that it isn’t. Do you have any evidence to suppose:
(a) Archibald calculated the linear least-squares fit, or
(b) Archibald used Excel?
Have you got the data and done the analysis yourself? I assume not.
Please don’t respond again until you answer these questions, and also have taken the trouble to get the data and to do the analysis yourself.
John Hunter says:
December 2, 2011 at 8:04 pm
David Archibald’s “trend” of 0.5 mm/year is rubbish.
And then this:
John Hunter says:
December 4, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Correct – Archibald is an idiot – I’ve heard him speak and seen what he writes.
Ocean acidification is the last refuge of the global warming scoundrel. The second last refuge is sea level rise. Check out this refuge for AGW scoundrels:
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_about_us.html
Our Dr Hunter is third down on this rogues’ gallery. It is strange that Dr Hunter is calling my trend rubbish when it agrees with the trend from the Bryant paper of 0.54 mm/year from the figure at the top of the post. But perhaps Bryant was an idiot too, so let’s settle the matter by seeing what NOAA says: http://kenskingdom.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/sydney-noaa.jpg
NOAA says 0.59 mm/year.
There is no cause for alarm, is there Dr Hunter? No need for alarm at all. No accelerating rise of sea level, no imminent ice sheet collapse, or whatever it is that ice sheets threaten to do. You sea level people down there in Hobart are a modern version of the Brothers Grimm, concocting scary stories for the self-loathing.
kim2000 [December 4,10.45am],The problem with that article from ‘The Australian’ newspaper is that it makes an erroneous claim for the Australian government’s estimate for the rate of SLR on the east coast of Australia. The government-or more correctly agencies like the CSIRO,which the government cites- gives the figures for current east coast SLR at 1.5 to 3mm since the early 1990s. In no way,shape or form does the government claim that SLR there is at a rate of 10mm/annum as the article states. Yes,the SLR rate will have to accelerate to reach that projected figure by 2100,but the government does not claim that that rate is being observed currently,which is what the article claims.I doubt that Doug Lord would have made that claim either.
David Archibald:
It’s about time you turned up and cleaned up your mess.
Now it may come as a surprise to you that the linear trend you get from a sea-level record depends very much on the time period you choose. I have analysed a number of different periods for comparison with the values quoted by others in this posting. If you read my original response (2 Dec) properly you would see that I said “Bryant, of course, did it correctly using linear least-squares fitting” – I agree with the trend he found (within 0.01 mm/year). Here are my linear least-square trends for various portions of the Fort Denison record (I used simple least-squares linear regression on annual data downloaded from http://www.psmsl.org):
1915-2009: 0.89 mm/year (this is “your” record, David – the trend is NOT, I REPEAT NOT, 0.5 mm/year)
1886-2010: 0.62 mm/year
1886-1988: 0.55 mm/year (this is Bryant’s record – he found 0.54 mm/year – the small discrepancy is probably due to the records not being exactly the same length)
1886-1948: -0.32 mm/year (the first half of the 1886-2010 record)
1948-2010: 0.67 mm/year (the second half of the 1886-2010 record)
1886-2003: 0.59 mm/year (in agreement with the NOAA result to which David refers)
So I am in agreement with Bryant and NOAA but not with you, David. It is no use trying to justify your “trend” for 1915-2009, by claiming it should be the same as the trend for 1886-2003. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY THE TRENDS FOR DIFFERENT PERIODS SHOULD BE EXACTLY THE SAME.
So David, it comes back to a very simple analysis (or lack of it). You claim that the trend for the Fort Denison data for 1915-2009 is “0.5 mm per annum”. This is WRONG (it is nearly a factor two out) and, moreover, you (and HenryP) seem incapable of even demonstrating you know how to estimate the trend correctly.
You make a number of other silly assertions in your response:
> Ocean acidification is the last refuge of the global warming scoundrel.
So you really believe that the pH of the ocean isn’t decreasing due to the absorption of excess carbon dioxide? Do you also, therefore, believe that the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not increasing? And your qualifications for these beliefs? You are an atmospheric or marine chemist?
> No accelerating rise of sea level
If you read my original response properly, you would see that the 1886-2010 record (the longest record available from Fort Denison) shows an acceleration of about 1 mm/year over 60 years.
> no imminent ice sheet collapse
Your qualifications for this statement? You are also a glaciologist?
If you could just show me the sea-level record for Fort Denison for 1915-2009, and an accompanying analysis which gives a trend of 0.5 mm/year then you and this site may be able to retrieve some morsel of credibility. Otherwise, I’m afraid this posting and some of the responses will serve as a perpetual monument to the incompetence of certain climate contrarians.
NIck: welcome to the weird parallel Universe of”Watts Up With That!”. So there is intelligent life to be found here after all!
John Hunters says
You haven’t actually calculated it have you, with Excel or anything else?
John, I never disputed the trend, you did. I’m not interested in sea level rise.
Perhaps you should learn to work with excel?
But I am glad I had the opportunity to put everything for you in the right perspective, what with figuring out that we must have had an annual rise of ca. 6 mm per annum since the ice began to recede 20000 years ago and all that…..and it perhaps not being so bad for us if there is a northern passage. It could save our shipping lines a lot of money in transport costs. So I am sure you realize now that we all know that the 0.2 mm difference is only about you wanting to split hairs.
I am more interested in studying surface temperatures; the maxima and minima in tandem with means. Namely, it tells me what is causing the dreaded “global” warming, which is not global, afterall. And afterall, it looks like it is not me or you that is causing it. Except if you accuse me of planting trees. I have done that a lot….sorry…
I refer to my tables, which I suggest you study carefully
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
I realize that I can bring a horse (John Hunter &&&X?????) to the water, but I cannot make him drink.
John Hunter says:
December 6, 2011 at 3:55 am
One of the simple pleasures in life is tormenting warmers. Normally I would have to put some effort into that to get a satisfying result. But in the case of Dr Hunter, my very existence seems to get him worked up into a lather of bile and self-righteous indignation. It is very amusing but not a quality experience.
What are my qualifications? It was only this afternoon that I decided that I am an Aboriginal botanist. Perhaps I knew all along in a way but only became consciously aware of my powers recently.
To all you warmer scientists taking Gillard’s coin to subvert the Commonwealth of Australia, I quote some Shakespeare:
Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of His mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences.
When Shakespeare said “death”, I don’t think he meant anything drastic like loss of your pension or the like. You will be retired on the next change in Federal Government. Sacrifices will have to be made to pay down the national debt. You will join a severe glut of climate scientists at the time.
David, that’s interesting. You are a botanist. Well, in that case, I must warn you if you plant too much stuff, you too will be found guilty of causing (some) global warming, as my tables seem to suggest.
David:
This isn’t a game or a joke. Climate change is serious. That you don’t understand it doesn’t alter the fact that it is serious.
You and Anthony Watts have had a quite adequate time to admit and correct your error. You have not done this, thereby turning what was basic spin into an outright lie.
Your actions demonstrate one of the common tactics of the climate contrarian – to present something like a graph and to claim that it shows something which it does not. The late John Daly was good at this (www.members.iinet.net.au/~johnroberthunter/www-swg/ and search for “Misrepresent or Misinterpret Information”). Nils-Axel Mörner is also good at it (see the “sealevelgate” emails at http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~johnroberthunter/www-swg/morner_emails.txt).
I have described Nils-Axel Mörner as a “prevaricating duffer who, after ….. obfuscation, provided nothing to substantiate his wild claims” – this fits you too, David.
You mention death. It has been said that action to address climate change will only truly get off the ground when the “old guard” like you, Watts, Morner, Carter, Plimer, Monckton, McIntyre are dead – when the young can move in and take on the new ideas which so scare the old men. It is a common way in which major changes in society come about.
Yes – I’m “old” too – past “retirement” age – but I happen to think that the future of my children is too important to be left in the hands of people like you, to whom a lie is just a tool of the trade.
@John – sorry, perhaps you are joking. Climate change is as serious as the weather. Both change and none can do anything about either. Now if you are talking about AGW (and just were too flushed to adequately state what it was you are talking about), then that is called science, and science tells us how we go about determining if it is serious. Step one – disprove the null hypothesis.
As Step one has not been done, then the only screaming hysterically are the hysterians. I am sure they fit quite well in a revival tent, but not in a science lab or course.
What is serious is for the audacity of some men to think they know everything, when in fact they do not even know what they know not.
Hernry@Philjourdon
If you put everything you know in a circle, then the more you know, the more you should realize how much you don’t know. A few years ago I set out to determine if carbon dioxide is bad for us, and found out it is not. It rather works as a fertilizer, even in the water. As an example: the nonsense you get when they tell us that CO2 destroys coral. Hard corals build by secreting calcium carbonate, which they cannot do if there is no carbon dioxide and carbonates building up in the sea water?
In the meantime I figured out that “global” warming occurs largely naturally – either the sun shone more brightly or there were less clouds. The CO2 act as plant food and fertilizer and that makes earth more “fertile” and the extra greenery is causing some of the extra (natural increase) in heat to be trapped.
>
You agree?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok