The university of Colorado has recently updated their sea level graph from the TOPEX satellite data. The 60 day smoothed trend is still stalled and shows no rise over what was seen since the peak in mid 2010:
Data
Raw data (ASCII) | PDF | EPS
Here’s the same data with season variation retained, but the really interesting data is from ENVISAT, which shows no upward trend:
(Graph from Steve Goddard). Envisat data here: ftp://ftp.aviso.oceanobs.com/
Sea level is lower than eight years ago, and according to the graph above just passed the lowest annual peak in the Envisat record.
It’s damned inconvenient.
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R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Nope Nowhere even close. Nearly all the drop in sea level over the past few years has been due to a direct transfer of that mass of water to land areas
I checked out the site you mentioned. There is not that much difference in area between the dark blue (extra water) and the dark red (drought). Keep in mind that the Mercator projection really makes the northern parts look larger than they really are. As well, the temperature did drop between 2010 and 2011. According to HadCrut3, 2011 was 0.138 C colder. Why should that not have quite a large affect on sea level? After all, density changes much faster for the water between 25 C and 30 C than between 0 C and 5 C. So a lowering of the temperature makes the huge amount of hotter water near the equator contract the most.
Obviously, there is not only the problem of the missing heat, which is still in the
pipeline, but now another problem of the missing water…..which may also be in
the pipeline?
I read, all the missing water fell onto Autralia where it is hiding deep down, because
normally you have evaporation or river run-off……
We have to do some drilling in Australia to detect the missing water in the ground….
R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Silver Ralph says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Colder sea, lower sea level – is that hard to understand?
.
Nope Nowhere even close. Nearly all the drop in sea level over the past few years has been due to a direct transfer of that mass of water to land areas and the dominant La Nina patterns over this period are the cause.
I’m afraid its spot on. So dominant La Nina is the cause of sea level fall? Then you no doubt accept that the previously dominant el Nino was the reason for the sea level rise in recent 2-3 decades. You are therefore endorsing Bob Tisdale’s argument that the cyclical changes in global temperature (and by association sea level) are attributable to shifting phases of dominant el Nino or La Nina phases (there are also of course the two butterfly wings of the ENSO Lorenz attractor) and in no way related to CO2. Good to see you are on board at last!
The “missing water” speculation at first glance is plausible, if a correlation could be established between rainfall patterns, ENSO and sea level decline. On the plus side, there was short-term sea level decline when the La Nina of ’99 kicked in.
However, on the negative side, a confounding factor is that the short term sea level decline might be due to some temporary thermal contraction instead. There was a very powerful La Nina at the start of 2008, yet the graph shows sea level rise during this period. So the idea that La Nina’s cause see level drop by itself doesn’t hold much water. As tends to be the case, the real world is more complex than the simplistic solutions frequently offered.
Easy Dave! NASA satellite measurements readily track continental drift to millimeter accuracy on decadal time periods.
Just click on a station to see the continental drift data points … that data is mighty cool, eh? It’s funny that so many WUWT folks readily accept NASA’s observations of continental drift, yet are skeptical of NASA’s observations of sea-level rise, eh?
phlogiston says:
February 15, 2012 at 6:28 pm
R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Silver Ralph says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Colder sea, lower sea level – is that hard to understand?
.
Nope Nowhere even close. Nearly all the drop in sea level over the past few years has been due to a direct transfer of that mass of water to land areas and the dominant La Nina patterns over this period are the cause.
I’m afraid its spot on. So dominant La Nina is the cause of sea level fall? Then you no doubt accept that the previously dominant el Nino was the reason for the sea level rise in recent 2-3 decades. You are therefore endorsing Bob Tisdale’s argument that the cyclical changes in global temperature (and by association sea level) are attributable to shifting phases of dominant el Nino or La Nina phases (there are also of course the two butterfly wings of the ENSO Lorenz attractor) and in no way related to CO2. Good to see you are on board at last!
_____
Fortunately, the evidence makes it quite clear which is the signal and which is the noise (i.e. natural variability) riding on top of that signal. ENSO fluctuations can be seen as noise in the overall upward trend in sea level rise over the past few decades. Cherry picking short-term noise to try to make a case for your point of view on longer-term ocean changes is…amateurish at best.
In looking at El Nino and La Nina variations, once must not just look at the SST temperature, but where the wind patterns are sending the moisture, as there can be great variations between two different El Ninos or two different La Ninas. Grace satellite data is a powerful tool for really seeing where the water has gone. Skeptics seem to hate this clear cut information. Why?
A physicist says:
February 15, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Dave Wendt asks: Can you name anything from the actual planet that has been known and fixed at the millimeter level for the last thirty years?
Easy Dave! NASA satellite measurements readily track continental drift to millimeter accuracy on decadal time periods.
Just click on a station to see the continental drift data points … that data is mighty cool, eh? It’s funny that so many WUWT folks readily accept NASA’s observations of continental drift, yet are skeptical of NASA’s observations of sea-level rise, eh?
And how are the positions of the satellites that provide those measurements verified? By referencing various ground stations. And how are the positions of those ground stations verified?By referencing the satellites. Do you begin to see the problem?
Dave Wendt says:
February 15, 2012 at 8:11 pm
A physicist says:
February 15, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Dave Wendt asks: Can you name anything from the actual planet that has been known and fixed at the millimeter level for the last thirty years?
As a further note to the above, I would point out that what I requested was something that was both known and FIXED at the millimeter level over time. On that basis I’d have to say th reference you cited fails on both counts. I didn’t sample all the sites on the map but for those that I did even the usually optimistic error bounds provided indicate they are neither known and certainly not fixed at millimeter scale. Quite a number also had records for 6 or 7 yrs which wouldn’t suffice for the task at hand.
The title of the article, “Sea level still not cooperating with predictions” is inaccurate. Predictions are representations of how the data will prospectively be distributed but the straight line and 90 day moving average of the University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group are estimates of how the population mean retrospectively was distributed. Do a search on the predictions of the Sea Level Research Group and I suspect that you will draw a blank.
“”””” Eric (skeptic) says:
February 15, 2012 at 2:29 am
Doug Cotton, your source, Prof Johnson says: “Pointing this instrument to a (cloudy) sky, the reading of the instrument could be 324 W /m2 , which by alarmists may be present as experimental evidence of substantial backradiation: Since the instrument shows backradiation, backradiation must exist, right?…. No, it is not so simple….”
It is generally warmer on cloudy nights than clear nights. The generally accepted explanation for that warmth is that the clouds absorb IR and transmit roughly 50% of what they absorb back to the surface. The prof does not appear to understand that simple explanation. Perhaps he or you have an alternative explanation. “””””
Eric you have it exactly backwards:- ‘It is generally cloudy on warmer nights than cooler nights.’.
Regardless of the presence or absence of clouds, and regardless of the altitude that the clouds are at, or the altitude at which they are not, it WILL cool down after sunset, and be cooler still just prior to sunrise the next morning.
It follows that it MUST be warmer just before sunset on a warmer cloudy night than it is just before sunset on a cooler cloudless night.
It is that WARMER DAY that leads to a warmer night, and if water vapor is also present on that WARMER DAY, that will lead to cloud formation at night when the moist air drops to the dew point. And the warmer it was on that humid day just before sunset, the higher will be the dew point altitude due to the ordinary Temperature-altitude lapse rate, so the higher will be the cloud layer.
The high clouds ARE NOT the CAUSE of the WARM NIGHT, the prior WARM DAY is the CAUSE of both the WARM NIGHT and the HIGH CLOUDS, and the WARMER THE DAY, then the WARMER THE NIGHT and also the HIGHER THE CLOUDS.
I don’t know why people are unable to separate CAUSE from EFFECT.
In all physical processes, CAUSE comes BEFORE EFFECT.
R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 7:56 pm
” Skeptics seem to hate this clear cut information. Why?”
Personally I’ve never had much in the way of emotional response to any data, but I would question calling anything provided by the Grace sat “clear cut” at this point. When the system was launched and to this date it was and is a unique technology, whose creator’s have made certain claims of capability for, but for which there exists almost nothing to either meaningfully verify or contradict those claims. The European GOCE system does the same task, but with an entirely different technology, and the data sets, while similar, aren’t really up to verifying each other yet. Especially given the brief history of both. There already any number of efforts out there claiming that the GRACE data demonstrate all kinds of wonderful things, but like most of the science in this area, what is provided rarely rises beyond the level of a possible suggestion
R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Nope Nowhere even close……Skeptics seem to hate this clear cut information. Why?
Perhaps we do not see it as clear cut as you do.
According to http://www.kayelaby.npl.co.uk/general_physics/2_7/2_7_9.html
the thermal expansion coefficient for sea water at one atmosphere pressure and 20 C is 250 × 10−6 K−1. Now I know it is higher for larger temperatures and smaller for lower temperatures, but let us assume that 20 C is a good average. Further, let us assume that we are dealing with a cube of water that is 100.00000 m on each side. If we now use the UAH value of a 0.261 drop in temperature between 2010 and 2011, that comes to a factor of 250 × 10−6 K−1 x 0.261 K = 65.25 x 10-6 change. So the cube of 100.00000 m in 2010 would have a height of 99.993475 m in 2011. This is a drop of 6.5 mm. If I did not make a mistake in any calculations, and if my assumptions were not too far off and more or less cancelled each other out in the end, this is close to 6 mm from your post. (I know it may take the whole ocean about 800 years to reach equilibrium, but I am assuming the top 100 m can reach equilibrium within a year. The validity of this and any other assumption can be debated however it does not seem totally unreasonable to assume contraction has a large role in sea level drop.)
@george E. Smith,
Causes and effects can be concurrent. Speaking through a microphone can cause my voice to be heard louder than is would be if I were speaking without any amplifying device. In this case the cause — the operation of the amplifying device — is operating over the whole duration of the effect. Likewise, clothes or a blanket can cause a body to radiate heath away at a lower rate than it would without them (it also reduces convection). The effect (the lower cooling rate) also is present for the whole period over which the cause operates (e.g. while the blanket covering the body). The case of a cause occurring wholly before its effect is just a special mode of causation. My having smoked cigarettes in the past may be the cause of the present appearance of a disease. But it may also cause my shortness of breath and chronic cough while I am smoking regularly and only for as long as I am.
Clouds or water vapour can cause the Earth to cool down (through radiating heath away) at a lower rate than it would without either of them. Because the cooling rate is reduced, from the very same initial temperature at sunset, the surface temperature could be higher at sunrise after a cloudy night than it would be after a cloudless night. If you are going to dismiss this possibility on the basis of the principle that causes must occur wholly before their effects, then you would need to also contest the possibility of the first two causal processes I mentioned above.
@Werner Brozek
You say that it isn’t unreasonable to attribute the whole of a 6mm drop to some hypothetical ocean cooling (despite some evidence of ocean warming). But isn’t it at least as reasonable to attribute it to an increase in La Nina induced raining over land?
500,000 cubic kilometres fall down as rain in the course of a year. Of this amount, just 100,000 cubic kilometres fall over land. If none of it made it back to the oceans, sea levels would drop 30cm. While the residence time of surface and channel runoff average a few months, groundwater residence time averages as much as 150 years (shallow groundwater) to 10,000 years (deep groundwater). So, any significant increase (or decrease) in the amount of precipitations that, over a few years, join groundwater reservoirs is effectively lost (or gained) by oceans for the next few decades. I don’t know what fraction of overall land precipitations transits as groundwater, though. (Can anyone find out?). But on the basis of the previous figures, a mere 10% increase in precipitation over a La Nina year would result in in a 6mm drop in sea levels if the percentage of precipitation that goes into groundwater (and/or is trapped for over a year in lakes and other surface reservoirs) is only 20%. (That’s because 20% trapped of a 10% increase over the usual 30cm of evaporated sea water yields a 6mm variation). Just about the same would result from a mere 5% increase in precipitations lasting for two consecutive years.
@Pierre-Normand
Why don’t we see this same pattern of sea level drop during every La Nina event then?
I suspect the problem is that if you admit the most straightforward explanation – a modest amount of thermal contraction due to some atmospheric cooling (consistent with global temperature observations) – then the “missing heat” problem arises again. Which is a position inconsistent with certain computer models… This may be why the La Nina/rainfall speculation is now required.
Easy Dave! There are lots of details, but the three main ideas aren’t hard.
The problem of converting the raw data of time intervals (which satellites measure by timing the pulses of radio transmitters and receivers) into pure distances was solved by Maxwell and Einstein as follows: the speed of light is a constant of Nature (although the mathematical details of this idea are kinda subtle!).
The problem of converting a set of pure distances (measured by satellites) to a set of three-dimensional coordinates (including angles and directions) was solved by Pythagoras and Euclid and made practical by surveyors like George Washington: it is called constructing a geodetic net.
The problem of estimating the errors in the three-dimensional coordinates of a geodetic net was solved by the great mathematician Carl Gauss: it is called the method of least squares.
The integration of all these methods is called satellite geodesy; nowadays your car and your cell-phone use satellite geodesy to tell you *exactly* where you are. Marvelous!
That tight integration is why James Hansen and his colleagues are “all in” with a prediction that sea-level rise will accelerate by the end of the coming solar cycle, and will continue to accelerate throughout the coming decades of the 21st century.
If Hansen’s predictions come true, then climate-change skeptics won’t become extinct, but they *will* become scarce, eh?
P-N;
What’s with this radiating away a “tract of level wasteland” (heath)? That’s quite a trick.
New artwork in London showing where sea levels will be in 1,000 years time. Rings of blue lights on monuments.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2101531/London-landmarks-ringed-blue-highlight-capital-sink-beneath-30m-water-3012.html
By some weird extrapolation, the artist is marking a sea level 30m above present levels. Now that’s a genuine propaganda mission, to scare the uninformed populous. This artist should be prosecuted for misrepresentation of science and promoting social panic.
.
A physicist says: February 16, 2012 at 2:48 am
[…]
If Hansen’s predictions come true, then climate-change skeptics won’t become extinct, but they *will* become scarce, eh?
What in the world are “climate-change skeptics“? Your satellite geodesy fails to impress me, as I have tried to rectify satellite images with land surveys (by satellite telemetry), and they don’t match, sometimes by hundreds of feet. Color me skeptical.
Ralph, what the artist has in mind is not complicated; neither is it a misrepresentation of science.
GHE 
AGW 
CAGW predicts is simply that the satellite data for the next 20 years will lie substantially above Anthony’s line. And in the following 20 years, the new data will be above that new line. And in the following 20 years, above THAT new line. And so on.
To see this, let’s start with the 20-year sea-level graph that Anthony posted.
What the Hansen-style physics of GHG
Supposing that Hansen-style scientific predictions are correct, then the artists’ “blue-light-rings” severely underestimate future sea levels. Therefore, whether regards Hansen’s science as accurate or or not, the artist *has* conservatively shown the science.
That is why rational skepticism respects the power of “all-in” scientific prediction like Hansen’s. Because if Hansen’s near-term sea-level rise predictions are proved right during the next solar cycle, then the long-term implications of those same predictions have to be regarded seriously too, by all rational skeptics.
All of this is just plain, rational, skeptical common sense, eh?
Pierre-Normand says:
February 16, 2012 at 12:31 am
But isn’t it at least as reasonable to attribute it to an increase in La Nina induced raining over land?
That may vary with different years. For this past year, I checked R. Gates mentioned site. There was not that much difference in area between the dark blue (extra water) and the dark red (drought). So for this particular year, it seemed as if the two more or less cancelled out. Now as for the groundwater issue, that also would need to be accounted for somehow. I am not insisting that contraction explains everything, but in my opinion, it certainly is not as insignificant as R. Gates would have us believe with his words: “Nope Nowhere even close.”
A physicist says:
February 16, 2012 at 2:48 am
“The integration of all these methods is called satellite geodesy; nowadays your car and your cell-phone use satellite geodesy to tell you *exactly* where you are. Marvelous!”
All very nice AP but, in your usual three card Monte style of dialogue, entirely beside the point. I have never questioned the possibility of satellites measuring GMSL, my challenge has always been to what “exactly” means in this context. Rather than spending your time Googling about “satellite geodesy” you might be better served by researching the difference between precision and accuracy. You seem willing to believe that satellites can ” tell you *exactly* where you are.” I and all those folks out there, whose personal GPS is telling them to hook a left into a cornfield, disagree. In my comment above
Dave Wendt says:
February 15, 2012 at 10:59 am
I pointed out just a small portion of the relatively massive number of correction factors ( I haven’t done so, but I suspect that if you followed the various chains all the way down the number would be in the hundreds) involved in deriving the Sea Level Anomaly data, which still result in a RMS error claim of +/- 3.4 CENTIMETERS. BTW, in the document I referenced that +/- 3.4 cm range is described as a TBD GOAL and I don’t know that that determination has been made as yet. To assume that even these rather wide margins are actually achieved, one must also assume that each and every one of this vast assortment of fudge factors is so precisely constructed and applied that they improve the accuracy of the data without adding even a smidgen to the overall uncertainty. You seem willing to embrace that assumption, I am not.
I’m growing weary of these increasingly pointless tete a tetes, but on the of chance that anyone else is actually following this exchange I will offer one more effort. Consider this map
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Map_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png
It shows the MSL trends averaged over the period from Oct ’92 to July ’11 as measuered bythe satellites. Pay special attention to that large red orange blob to the north and east of Australia, which indicates that area has experienced for almost two decades average sea level rise of 9-12mm/yr. Got that? Good! Now consider this news story
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/story-fn59niix-1226099350056
“ONE of Australia’s foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are “decelerating”.
The analysis, by NSW principal coastal specialist Phil Watson, calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100 — the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change.
Based on century-long tide gauge records at Fremantle, Western Australia (from 1897 to present), Auckland Harbour in New Zealand (1903 to present), Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour (1914 to present) and Pilot Station at Newcastle (1925 to present), the analysis finds there was a “consistent trend of weak deceleration” from 1940 to 2000.
Mr Watson’s findings, published in the Journal of Coastal Research this year and now attracting broader attention, supports a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both raise questions about the CSIRO’s sea-level predictions.”
There is more and I would encourage you to read it all, although I have no expectation that it will do you any good.
Werner Brozek says:
February 16, 2012 at 8:32 am
“I am not insisting that contraction explains everything, but in my opinion, it certainly is not as insignificant as R. Gates would have us believe with his words: “Nope Nowhere even close.”
____
Let’s be clear about what “Nowhere even close” means. The contraction through the ocean cooling of the La Ninas over the past few years would be nowhere close to enough to account for the large drop in ocean level. It doesn’t mean that some of the drop wasn’t as a result of cooling, but the actual percentage is nowhere close to being enough of the total, especially considering that total ocean heat content did not take a similar big dip.
In looking at Grace images like this one:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/grace/earth20110823b-full.jpg
You can’t just consider raw areas of land, but the properties of stream flows in the areas, draining, retention in the previously dry ground etc. For example, the large amount of moisture that the Australian continent has received over the past few years must to looked at relative to all these factors. How dry had Australia been previous to the sudden influx of moisture? That will dictate how much of the moisture will go toward replenishing ground water supplies (i.e be absorbed) into the ground, versus running off back to the ocean.
The bottom line is that nowhere close to the kind of drop seen in sea level during the past few La Nina’s could be attributed to contraction from cooling alone, but rather, a large part of the ocean water was transported to land masses. Some of this water drained back to the ocean, and we saw the consequential rise in sea level, but this winter, we’ve seen another round of flooding in Australia and other regions, and hence, another small dip in sea levels. When weather patterns change again, and some of that water drains back to the ocean, you can expect sea levels to catch back up to the longer term trend line once more.
To R.Gates:
Why dont you join the geoengineering climate doctors and engage in pumping
ocean water onto Australia’s surface in order to lower the menacing increasing
ocean levels…?
All the water will disappear into the big black hole below Australia, all water will
fit in “down under”, no doubt……..
and we have resolved Hansen’s ocean level scare…..
JS
The ill knowledge of why sea levels are rising at the rate they were previously in your arguments is very apparent. I’ll give you some things to look up.
Effects of La Nina on Sea level rise.
ENSO index showing a very negative La Nina at the same time sea levels dropped
What the difference between ‘unadjusted’ and ‘adjusted’ means on the Envisat webpage (linked below) and why adjustments are done.
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/products-images/index.html?type=98
select Time Serie -> Global -> Envisat -> *see below*
From here you have 3 options to chose from regarding ‘corrections’. What is being done is selecting ‘correction not applied’. If you click on the ‘Calval’ link in the updates you will see a listing of possible corrections including instrument drift. What you are doing is taking the uncorrected data and coming to the wrong conclusions based, not on actual corrected measurements, but instead on measurements affected by contamination of other variables.
The correction they are using is available here: http://envisat.esa.int/handbooks/ra2-mwr/CNTR2-7.htm under Ref 2.8 with the calculations under 2.7.1.9
As you have been blogging for quite awhile now I would expect you to be more knowledgeable at this sort of stuff.
R. Gates, ye can be of stout heart and good cheer!
Because there’s a 2011 survey article by Church and White, titled Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century, which summarizes *both* the tide-gauge data *and* the satellite data.
The two data-sets agree nicely. This is good news for rational skepticism, eh?
R. Gates says:
February 16, 2012 at 11:50 am
The contraction through the ocean cooling of the La Ninas over the past few years would be nowhere close to enough to account for the large drop in ocean level.
R. Gates says:
February 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-nasa-satellites-pothole-road-higher.html
So approximately what percentage of ocean contraction of 6 mm over the past year on the above site that you quoted earlier do you attribute to cooler temperatures?
How dry had Australia been previous to the sudden influx of moisture? That will dictate how much of the moisture will go toward replenishing ground water supplies
This raises an interesting question since you say but this winter, we’ve seen another round of flooding in Australia so I can understand that a lot of moisture went into the ground water the first year of flooding. But if we have two years of flooding in a row for Australia, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, the second year would have much less water being retained as ground water. So for all those dark blue areas on your map, how many were also dark blue last year?