A climate science bombshell: New proposal from NASA JPL admits to “spurious” errors in current satellite based sea level and ice altimetry, calls for new space platform to fix the problem.
People send me stuff. Today it is a PowerPoint presentation from NASA JPL that touts the new GRASP (Geodetic Reference Antenna in Space) satellite project. I’d say it is more than a bit of a bombshell because the whole purpose of this new mission is to “fix” other mission data that apparently never had a stable enough reference for the measurements being made. This promises to rewrite what we know about sea level rise and acceleration, ice extent and ice volume loss measured from space.
What is most interesting, is the admissions of the current state of space based sea level altimetry in the science goals page of the presentation:
The difference between tide gauge data and space based data is over 100% in the left graph, 1.5 mm/yr versus 3.2mm/yr. Of course those who claim that sea level rise is accelerating accept this data without question, but obviously one of the two data sets (or possibly both) is not representative of reality, and JPL’s GRASP team aims to fix this problem they have identified:
TRF errors readily manifest as spurious sea level rise accelerations
That’s a bucket of cold water reality into the face of the current view of sea level rise. It puts this well-known and often cited graph on Sea Level Rise from the University of Colorado (and the rate of 3.1 mm/yr) into question:
What’s a TRF error? That stands for Terrestrial Reference Frame, which is basically saying that errors in determining the benchmark are messing up the survey. In land based geodesy terms, say if somebody messed with the USGS benchmark elevation data from Mt. Diablo California on a regular basis, and the elevation of that benchmark kept changing in the data set, then all measurements referencing that benchmark would be off as well.
In the case of radio altimetry from space, such measurements are extremely dependent on errors related to how radio signals are propagated through the ionosphere. Things like Faraday rotation, refraction, and other propagation issues can skew the signal during transit, and if not properly corrected for, especially over the long-term, it can introduce a spurious signal in all sorts of data derived from it. In fact, the mission summary shows that it will affect satellite derived data for sea level, ice loss, and ice volume in GRACE gravity measurements:
In a nutshell, JPL is saying we don’t have an accurate reference point, and therefore the data from these previous missions likely has TRF uncertainties embedded:
The TRF underlies all Measurement of the Earth
Without that stable Terrestrial Reference Frame that puts the precision of the baseline measurements well below the noise in the data, all we have are broader uncertain measurements. That’s why the plan is to provide ground based points of reference, something our current satellite systems don’t have:
To help understand the items in the side panels:
GNSS = Global Navigation Satellite System – more here
SLR = Satellite Laser Ranging – more here
DORIS = Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite – more here
VLBI = Very Long Baseline Interferometry – more here
Taken together, these systems will improve the accuracy of the TRF, and thus the data. It’s rather amazing that the baseline accuracy didn’t come first, because this now puts all these other space based measurement systems into uncertainty until their TRF issues are resolved, and that’s an inconvenient truth. We’ll never look at satellite based sea level data or GRACE ice volume data in quite the same way again until this is resolved.
PowerPoint here: Poland 2012 – P09 Bar-Sever PR51 (PDF)
More info: http://ccar.colorado.edu/~nerem/EV-2_GRASP-final.pdf
UPDATE: Here’s an estimate of impacts:
Source: http://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/meetings/2011-06/bar-sever.pdf
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George Pennington says:
October 31, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Let’s presume, for the sake of discussion, that sea levels are rising (or for that matter lowering) sufficiently to have an effect on humans. Would it be more pragmatic to direct our energies and resources to adapting ourselves to a higher (or lower) sea-level or for us to attempt to adapt the planet in order to accommodate our preferences?
The only thing I can think of when you say adapt the planet is mitigation, such as geoengineering. If you are thinking in terms of building a sea wall, it might be a good idea to know if doing so is practical. People don’t build along the shore to look at a sea wall and you can’t wall in a country. It might be more practical to visit the shore and not live there, if being flooded becomes a problem. The key is to adapt to the planet and don’t live where you can be flooded.
For the sake of discussion, we really have to ask ourselves what evidence points to sea level rise and I’m not even going to entertain the concept of sea level lowering? The evidence for the past 2,000 years shows a stable sea level and only recent rising. A sea level rise requires additional water or heating causing thermal expansion. The evidence on glaciers is they have lost mass and are losing mass at an alarming rate. The evidence on wetlands is they were reduced where mankind has lived and increased in areas where permafrost has melted. The evidence on aquifers is they have been lowered. When you look at the amount of water added to oceans, the glaciers are what’s significant. I don’t find tundra wetlands significant, because the water was already on land, but dams are the most significant thing man has done to reduce sea level rise and warming causing more water vapor in the atmosphere is the most significant thing the planet has done. The evidence for increases in ocean temperature are what they are.
The fact that we don’t have perfect data doesn’t mean there isn’t sufficient data to alarm nations about a changing world. If nations weren’t alarmed, they wouldn’t be going to all this trouble to build satellites and things like the ARGO array. For every person who suggests the rate of sea level rise will be a linear function, history and logic shows it never is that way. Sea level rise is a time function, like a Gombert function, that starts off slowly and accelerates. The early stages look linear, but they aren’t. Now, you can down play the data slope, claiming it’s 2 mm/yr, when the best data shows 3.11mm/yr, but until there is accurate data to determine the rate of acceleration, you aren’t going to be able to calculate the rate over a time period.
Galane says:
October 31, 2012 at 11:53 pm
In laymans terms, the current methods of measuring sea level change based solely on satellite observations are akin to trying to measure things using a ruler with the first inch made of sponge rubber.
What gave you the idea sea level change is based solely on satellite observation?
Here is 4% of the sea level rise measured by a man who spent the last 31 winters living on top of it (at the time of the video, of course). Try to pay particlular attention to known facts, like how fast this glacier is moving and what is causing it!
Gary Lance says:
October 31, 2012 at 8:18 pm
[some text edited out]
It isn’t that hard to calculate the amount of radiative forcing produced by Milankovitch Cycles over a time period, but that amount of radiative forcing is enough to drive us in and out of ice ages.
Radiative forcing (TSI) is part of the Milankovich forcing, but not all – since glacial inception always occurs during falling obliquity, and since recent research has identified a bipolar “seesaw” – reciprocal warming and cooling at the two poles – it appears that decining obliquity somehow destabilises the symmetry between the hemispheres in global oceanic circulation, causing the unstable excursion leading to the bipolar seesaw. So orbital kinetics play a role, not just TSI – in fact previous inceptions have not required particularly low TSI values – orbital phase resonant effects seem to be dominant. Interestingly the polar seesaw indicating the imminent end of our current interglacial has already begun.
Your comments on SLR are curious, since SLR is currently deccellerating toward a slow turnover. This will, in future decades – and I agree with you on this point – give us all interesting times, climatically speaking.
So once again a Gary Lance claimed “fact” is shown to be false. Lance asserted upthread that some glaciers move at the speed of a fast walk. That would be 4 – 5 mph. But in the video posted above, the world’s fastest moving glacier flows at the speed of only 113 feet per day. At even one mph, the glacier would flow 24 miles in one day. That would be more than 126,000 feet per day. And at 4 mph the glacier would move more than a half million feet per day.
That is typical of Gary Lance’s comments. He is a know-nothing who cuts and pastes his misinformation from unreliable alarmist blogs like SkS. Readers would be wise to question everything that Lance posts, because most of it is flat wrong, as his glacier nonsense shows.
Gary Lance pretends to be knowledgeable about a range of subjects, from AGW to Arctic ice to sea level expertise. He is none of those things. His posts are filled with misinformation, as several commentators have repeatedly pointed out.
phlogiston says:
November 1, 2012 at 7:08 am
There is no data or observation to suggest a decelerating SLR.
The hemispheres are simply different kinds of places.
D Böehm says:
November 1, 2012 at 9:52 am
Look, Troll! If you haven’t spent the time to learn anything that’s your problem and stay stupid. I’ve seen a man trying to talk to a camera and having to walk quickly to stay in front of an advancing glacier. It was on TV years ago. You aren’t worth the trouble to find things to prove you are wrong again.
You think you have the right to behave like a forum troll simply because someone believes adding greenhouse gases causes warming. If you can’t discuss the climate subject, then there is no sense in posting anything to me. I keep telling you I’m not the subject.
Gary Lance says:
“If you can’t discuss the climate subject, then there is no sense in posting anything to me. I keep telling you I’m not the subject.”
If you will notice I was addressing the readership in my last comment, not you. However, you are the subject for the simple reason that you continue to post misinformation.
You assert: “There is no data or observation to suggest a decelerating SLR.”
Wrong again. In fact, there is ample data and observations. I posted numerous links in my 6:59 pm comment yesterday showing that the decade over decade rise is moderating. That is observational based data. Therefore your false assertion is as wrong as your ridiculous claim that glaciers flow at the speed of a fast walk.
You can label me a troll all you want, but I will not stop holding your feet to the fire when you make false assertions, which you do constantly. Most of the regular commentators here have forgotten more than you’ve learned about the subject. You are a noob here who floods the threads with pseudo-scientific narratives. I advise you to search the WUWT archives on any subject you feel compelled to comment on, and learn the facts first. Because the nonsense you write is pretty much fact-free, as I and others have repeatedly pointed out.
Stunning…. just stunning…
These are the kinds of people (lance) that I encounter regularly, and I assume many of WUWT’s readership as well. Loaded with “facts”, most of which are not only demonstrably false or incorrect, but based on conjecture and projection, not observation and not reality.
For the record, there is only one troll on this thread.
D Böehm says:
November 1, 2012 at 11:08 am
Claiming data was posted isn’t posting data.
Did cooling cause a melt on 97% of the Greenland ice sheet this year or a record minimum arctic sea ice by 4 different ways to measure volume, area and extent? Did cooling cause a record Northern Hemisphere June Snow Cover anomaly?
Water has to go somewhere besides the ocean to decelerate SLR, so where did it go? Showing where it went requires more than the hot air of just saying it, it requires proof supported by all the data available.
Lance says:
“Showing where it [water] went requires more than the hot air of just saying it, it requires proof supported by all the data available.”
Wrong: Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. – The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof. As to the conjecture that receding Arctic ice is undesirable: the onus lies on those who say so. As to the claim that there has been an alarming late 20th century spike in global temperatures: the onus lies on those who say so. But skeptics have shown that the alarming temperature spike is an artifact of zero baseline charts. It is not reality.
You see, skeptics have nothing to prove. It is the fact-challenged alarmist crowd that insists that every natural change is a bad thing. That is their basic belief. Therefore, they have the onus of proof, so they must demonstrate global damage or harm as a result of whatever it is they are currently arm-waving about. But so far, there is no scientific evidence showing that receding ice is a problem. There is no global harm, therefore receding ice is ipso facto ‘harmless’. In fact, it can be shown that it is a net benefit.
GPS is calibrated by measuring the gap to ground based stations and as far as I know it claims vertical calibration around 1 cm not mm. The satellite to earth centre gap is not measured. So if a non-GPS satellite uses the GSP framework to measure sea height, it is sea height compared to the GPS grounds stations, ,probably on the USA plate, not the centre of the earth.
Would appear to make more sense to just look at gauges stuck on rocks 150 years ago, unless you are in the space business like NASA. .
D Böehm says:
November 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm
You said SLR was decelerating, so I’m the skeptic. You made the claim, so back it up!
Where is the proof and where did the water from observed melt go? People in Iowa were helped out by the government to dig deeper wells, because the aquifer has been lowered. People in Spain have drained an aquifer so much they think it caused an earthquake. Glaciologists have calculated mass loss on glaciers and they study glaciers before dams are built to make sure the dam will have an adequate water supply. There is plenty of evidence of mass loss of water from the land to the oceans.
If you can’t back up what you say with all the data, it’s just mouth.
I’ve long thought that my beloved NASA should be done away with. Replaced with SEA – Space Exploration Agency. No more missions looking back at Earth. If it isn’t outside of our atmosphere, it’s none of their business.
Gary Lance says:
1. Scroll to the top of this page.
2. Hover over “Reference Pages” – hover over “Ocean” – select “Ocean Page”.
3. Scroll down until you see the curves that are labelled “Sea Level Rise” or some such.
4. Learn.
TomB says: “I’ve long thought that my beloved NASA should be done away with. Replaced with SEA – Space Exploration Agency.”
Ditto!
Your beloved NASA is gone, replaced by a political activist NASA.
Only part of NASA worth saving are those working with non-Earth probes, satellites, and explorers.
Big thumbs up to Mars explorer teams.
Gary Lance: “I haven’t seen any climate program that didn’t have it’s origin for commerce or national defense reasons.”
Nothing like jumping on the Climate Change bandwagon is there?
Can’t get funding for national defense program “Alpha?” Re-submit it as evaluating the impact of AGW on program “Alpha”.
CodeTech says:
November 1, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Gary Lance says:
You said SLR was decelerating, so I’m the skeptic. You made the claim, so back it up!
1. Scroll to the top of this page.
2. Hover over “Reference Pages” – hover over “Ocean” – select “Ocean Page”.
3. Scroll down until you see the curves that are labelled “Sea Level Rise” or some such.
4. Learn.
I’m not going to learn science by ignoring the simple fact that a La NIna will remove water from the oceans and it will return about a year later. SSTs also tend to be slightly less in an La Nina. Just how can someone claim a trend by cherry picking times when all scientists know the data isn’t normal at that time? The climate isn’t going to be dominated by a La Nina and if it was it would still follow the trend to warm from a new base.
What do you think the trend will be when a strong El Nino like 1998 returns?
Another science that is not settled.
Darren Potter says:
November 1, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Gary Lance: “I haven’t seen any climate program that didn’t have it’s origin for commerce or national defense reasons.”
Nothing like jumping on the Climate Change bandwagon is there?
Can’t get funding for national defense program “Alpha?” Re-submit it as evaluating the impact of AGW on program “Alpha”.
It’s obviously went over your head that the only thing involving climate is analyzing the data already gathered for national defense reasons. The programs were started for defense reasons.
The first real operations of our nuclear submarines in the arctic involved surfacing exercises. Do you have any idea why nuclear submarines were so interested in surfacing? Do you have any idea why the conditions of arctic sea ice became such an interest to the Navy and they didn’t want to use active sonar on nuclear submarines to determine those conditions?
There was no program sold for AGW reasons and saying so is just making things up. You live in a fantasy world.
The United States Navy, with all the naval bases throughout the world is very interested in accurate data on sea level rise. It would be interested if the sea level was declining, too.
TomB says:
November 1, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I’ve long thought that my beloved NASA should be done away with. Replaced with SEA – Space Exploration Agency. No more missions looking back at Earth. If it isn’t outside of our atmosphere, it’s none of their business.
Those satellites were put in orbit for obvious defense reasons, originally back in the Cold War, but your type wants to privatize the military, too. How has that worked out in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?
You act like it’s a shame that a branch of our government would take meteorological data already archived and analyze temperature data with computers that are idle. You act like it’s not in the interests of our government to know if it’s warming, because such knowledge doesn’t suit your agenda. I say if they have some computer time, analyze the data for relative humidity too.
Gary Lance says:
“…your type wants to privatize the military, too. How has that worked out in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?”
Wrong as always. The military is not privatized. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya were fought with a national military. Can you not get even the most basic facts correct?? Your mindless narratives are comically inaccurate.
Gary Lance says:
November 1, 2012 at 10:27 am
phlogiston says:
November 1, 2012 at 7:08 am
There is no data or observation to suggest a decelerating SLR.
The hemispheres are simply different kinds of places.
Here is a recent WUWT analysis of recent SLR. It is not rising, in the southern hemisphere especially:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/is-sea-level-rise-accelerating/
Why do you need to resort to special pleading to exclude the SH? And the same also for Antarctic sea ice, record high this year? Do CO2 radiative IR effects only operate in the NH?
Also, go to http://www.climate4you.com/ and the ocean page, and scroll down to the bottom graph.
This gives the derivative of SLR, the rate of rise. This is clearly declining since 2002.
Gary Lance says:
Got it.
Here’s one of Steve Nerem’s recent papers showing a significant drop in sea level explained by La Nina (see http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL053055.shtml )
Also consider possible oscillations over the periods being measured (see http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL053055.shtml ).
James Houston of the US Army Corps of Engineers has been doing some interesting work on GIA, subsidence, and GPS in relation to measuring sea level. Fortunately his recent paper is open access at http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11-00227.1 .