From NOAA Headquarters, laughable claims gift wrapped for the fall AGU conference.
They claim 8 inches to 6.6 feet (o.2 to 2 meters) over the next century….such wide variance doesn’t inspire much confidence, even though they claim “high confidence” in that spread. That’s a lot like saying that you have “high confidence that the winner of the latest NBA basketball game will score between 20 and 200 points”. I don’t think the bookies would be impressed with the skill. – Anthony
Experts available to discuss new paper detailing global sea level rise scenario
On December 6, NOAA will release a technical report that estimates global mean sea level rise over the next century based on a comprehensive synthesis of existing scientific literature. The report finds that there is very high confidence (greater than 90% chance) that global mean sea level will rise at least 8 inches (0.2 meters) and no more than 6.6 feet (2 meters) by 2100, depending upon uncertainties associated with ice sheet loss and ocean warming.
The actual amount of sea level change at any one region and location greatly varies in response to regional and local vertical land movement and ocean dynamics. The ranges of global mean sea level rise estimates detailed in this study will help decision makers prepare for and respond to a wide range of future sea level rise and coastal inundation.
Higher mean sea levels increase the frequency, magnitude, and duration of flooding associated with a given storm. Flooding has disproportionately high impacts in most coastal regions, particularly in flat, low-lying areas. In the U.S., over eight million people live in areas at risk to coastal flooding, and many of the nation’s assets related to military readiness, energy, commerce, and ecosystems are already located at or near the ocean.
The report provides a synthesis of the scientific literature on global sea level rise, and presents a set of four global mean scenarios to describe future conditions for the purpose of assessing potential vulnerabilities and impacts.It was authored by a panel of scientists from multiple federal agencies and academic institutions, and will be used to support the National Climate Assessment – a U.S. interagency report produced once every four years to summarize the science and impacts of climate change on the United States.
WHAT: Availability of scientists to discuss the findings of global sea level rise paper
WHO: Adam Parris, report lead author, NOAA; Virginia Burkett, Ph.D., report co-author, U.S. Geological Survey; and Radley Horton, Ph.D., report co-author, Columbia University and NASA
CONTACT: Brady Phillips, NOAA Office of Communications and External Affairs, 202-407-1298 or brady.phillips@noaa.gov
The technical report will be available online on Dec. 6 at http://www.cpo.noaa.gov/reports/sealevel
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, and our other social media channels.
Edim says:
December 6, 2012 at 12:20 am
Such a big range (0.2 to 2.0 meters) and they will still miss it. My prediction is -1.0 to 0.0 meters.
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Ah, but their confidence level is 90% – what’s yours 😉
It’s an improvement. 8 inches to 6 feet is at least an estimate with error bounds, and should show to anyone with a brain that it’s a pretty poor estimate. A couple of years ago this would have been reported as the average value between the two of 3.5 feet (with some mumblings about ‘with some errors’) The MSM would have ran with FOUR FEET SEA RISE!
NOAA would do well to dig into their own files:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NoaaD.htm
John says:
December 5, 2012 at 11:20 pm
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It would seem sensible to note that climate models do now fail almost everywhere.
http://landshape.org/enm/q-where-do-climate-model-fail-a-almost-everywhere/
I’d say their range of 1:10 is useless as a guide for policymakers. In any case, what is the use to US policymakers of global predictions?
Spartan Daily, the college newspaper of San Jose State University, has a report on a talk given by Larry Breaker, adjunct professor of physical oceanography at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories to students there which I picked up and posted on yesterday:
New studies show regional sea levels are dropping on the West Coast even though global sea level rise is accelerating.
“Regional sea level rise is not uniform around the world,” said Larry Breaker, adjunct professor of physical oceanography at a talk at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories last week. “Although sea level is rising in some areas, in other areas it’s falling.”
http://spartandaily.com/92299/west-coast-sea-level-dropping
How refreshing to see a scientist telling it like it is. He has an impressive CV.
http://physoce.mlml.calstate.edu/people/breaker
Ok, here’s my tuppence worth, yet again! UNIPCC AR4 2007, Table SPM 1(0), you know, the one where 450 lead authors, 800 con-authors, 2,500 scientists, & 140 Guvments around the world couldn’t add up a column of figures nor get the decimal ploint in the right place? Rate of Sea-Level Rise, 1.8mm/yr +- 0.5mm/yr 1961-1993, 3.1mm/yr +- 0.7mm/yr 1993-2003! (wonder why they stopped at ’03 instead of continuing up to end of ’06?). Nils Axel Morner has said repeatedly that global average sea-level rise for the last 80 years is 2.3mm/yr! 1.8 + 0.5 = 2.3mm/yr, 3.1 – 0.7 = 2.4mm/yr. The same damned figure,clearly somebody has been tampering with the data, again!!!!! Nullius novus sub sollis, anybody?
December 5, 2012 at 5:10 pm | Steven Mosher says:
the uncertainty is what it is. Of course its wide since our knowledge is limited.
knowing that it could be as high as 6 feet would you plan to build valuable assets at a location that is one foot above sea level?
not if u had other choices. even the most uncertain knowledge can in practice be useful.
usefullness is the key. not the width of the estimate.
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There was a time when you actually did make sense … what happened ? Too little oxygen ?
” … our knowledge is limited … ” Any conclusion as a consequence is useless, so any prediction that the sea level will rise of 6′ in the next century must be treated as the garbage that it is. I develop real estate … developments that I put up 20 years ago are already being pulled down as demographics change … we don’t develop for 100 years hence, not even 40 years … That’s the old paradigm ! So when it comes to real estate development take your own advice and leave that judgement to the experts which doesn’t include trumped up “climate scientists.”
In other words they have total confidence that sea level rise will carry on the same as the last 100 years!
This new report is not so interesting (nothing new) but there are interesting things going on in sea level studies. See the new paper (in press) at Journal of Climate at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00319.1 . The authors are most of the top scientists in sea level (so including John Church and Jonathan Gregory who were lead coordinating authors for the 2001 TAR, but excluding Rahmsdorf).
Abstract –
Confidence in projections of global-mean sea-level rise (GMSLR) depends on an ability to account for GMSLR during the 20th century. There are contributions from ocean thermal expansion, mass loss from glaciers and ice sheets, groundwater extraction and reservoir impoundment. We have made progress towards solving the “enigma” of 20th-century GMSLR—that is, the observed GMSLR has been found to exceed the sum of estimated contributions, especially for the earlier decades. We propose that: thermal expansion simulated by climate models may previously have been underestimated owing to their not including volcanic forcing in their control state; the rate of glacier mass loss was larger than previously estimated, and was not smaller in the first than in the second half of the century; the Greenland ice-sheet could have made a positive contribution throughout the century; groundwater depletion and reservoir impoundment, which are of opposite sign, may have been approximately equal in magnitude. We show that it is possible to reconstruct the timeseries of GMSLR from the quantified contributions, apart from a constant residual term which is small enough to be explained as a long-term contribution from the Antarctic ice-sheet. The reconstructions account for the approximate constancy of the rate of GMSLR during the 20th century, which shows small or no acceleration, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing. Semi-empirical methods for projecting GMSLR depend on the existence of a relationship between global climate change and the rate of GMSLR, but the implication of our closure of the budget is that such a relationship is weak or absent during the 20th century.
So from the abstract – ” the rate of glacier mass loss was larger than previously estimated, and was not smaller in the first than in the second half of the century”. So the “reconstructions account for the approximate constancy of the rate of GMSLR during the 20th century, which shows small or no acceleration, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing”.
No acceleration in sea level rise in the 20th century. Perhaps the low end of the new NOAA estimate for sea level 2100 will be about right (200 mm, 8 inches, same as the 20th century which mankind seems to have survived).
Well I’m certain that they are useless at doing the job they are paid to do!
Just not fit for purpose and they should as a result be defunded…
Has anyone considered the poor coral when the sea level drops from the cold? Sad, really.
I think it is time to end the modeling for now. We already have enough disaster simulations to go by for now. Yes, if global warming plays out the way they think/assume/model it will, there will be significant impacts.
But we don’t need a whole ‘nother set of predictions made for 3.0C per doubling and 2.0 metres of sea level rise. We have heard that 1,000 times already.
The skeptics say the climate is not responding to date according to the predictions (compared to the early predictions at least). They are far off already.
The science needs to step-back at this point and really test/measure out the assumptions. We need to put highly sensitive radiation satellites and ground measurement devices into the field to see if CO2 is really operating the way the theory expects (at the quantum level where CO2’s GHG radiation effects actually operate at).
The modelling is a waste of time. We heard it the first time. We heard it the first 1,000 times. Now we need to know if the models are real.
Interesting. A lot of poor scientific understanding here. Firstly, let me just clear up one important misconception: a large error range is completely natural when attempting to model and predict the impact of a thermal forcing of unprecedented size and rapidity upon a geophysical system of such complexity as the entire earth. Scientific organisations such as the NOAA do their best – perhaps anyone criticising their results should put their money where their mouth is and try and do a better job modelling the global climate system. As it is I think we should all be grateful that so many talented, dedicated people are working so hard to give us the best possible information on likely impacts of our greenhouse emissions. The quality of the scientific research and knowledge they have produced has both tremendously enhanced our understanding of the planet we inhabit and is our best tool in avoiding the worst impacts of global warming.
Which, by the way, sorry to disappoint you guys, is really really 100% a real thing. It’s just silly to run around in 2012 trying to pretend otherwise.
For any sensible projection there should always be a distribution as well as a range. A range of 0.2m to 2.0m with a median of 0.4m is very different to the same range with a median of 1.1m. Even one with only 90% confidence!
Robert Bertino says:December 6, 2012 at 12:05 am
Lots of armchair “climate scientists” on this site lol
A lot of people here are researchers and engineers. Some have been looking at climate since the recent hysteria began, some have been interested in it for fifty or more years.
You think science is a joke? or just climate science?
Mosher and Bill Ilis are right. The uncertainties are what they are. The error bars are likely based on the uncertainty of the projections that come out of the models for various CO2 and feedback assumptions. And those uncertainties on the projections are based on the uncertainties on the inputs and models. It’s common however to not account for every single error or possible error so the real error bars can often be higher. Giving the error of a fit but not doing an uncertainty analysis, for example.
I like to see that they are actually giving the entire range with the errors. It allows people to see how little we really know. The problem will be when someone takes the average value from the projections which may be 0.5 meter or 1 meter and then says that they are 90% certain of this single number.
Paul Homewood, they are not saying they are 90% certain it will be the same, they are saying that the PROJECTIONS from their models show 90% certainty that sea level change will be the same or higher than the past century, possibly much higher.
Also Mosher is correct that this has some minor utitilty in that it may scare people from building as close to the sea and there aren’t too many downsides to this as long as (in the US) the costs of flooding is borne by the taxpayer.
All the money poured and continuing to pour into “climate studies”, and that’s all the better estimate they can offer? Simply pathetic. Might as well burn the money in a furnance — we’d get at least some value from that.
In other words, “We don’t know, but it could continue apace while there’s been more speculation about rise than fall in what we’re reading.” A non-random sample of non-empirical tea leaves taken from predictions rather than from predictors because the predictors are not understood and are scientifically demonstrably inadequate.
There’s almost no chance that an NBA championship team will only score 20 points. While the oceans rising only 9 inches in the next century is a very real possibility.
mbw says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Suppose I told you that a wire had between 200 and 20,000 volts. Would you touch it?
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Given the fact I can see the wire is 1 foot long, laying on the table and plainly not connected to any thing capable of providing that voltage, of course.
You really should take reality into account before making silly statements!
A recent comprehensive study published a few days ago, which was much touted by the BBC, stated that melting ice from both the Arctic and Antarctica currently accounts for 0.5mms per year of ocean level rises.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bbc%20greenland%20ice%20antarctica&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnewsround%2F20552103&ei=8abAUKXCDIXntQbo3oAg&usg=AFQjCNGfSsq-QctnpkOzQLBlC0L9mV45eQ
If we assume a catastrophe and treble the 0.5mm/year figure, it gives us 150mm per century, or 15cms, 0.15 metres, or 6 inches. Anyhow, it is less than the minimum figure quoted in this article.
There is supposedly an increase of around 3.2mms/year in ocean levels per year. So whatever causes (isostatic rebound, shifting continental plates etc) the supposed balance of 2.7mms has nothing to do with ‘global warming.’
So NOAA’s figures are just another instance of alarmist nonsense.
I have very high confidence (almost 100%) that the sea level change will be between +/- 100 metres.
Just an engineer says:
December 6, 2012 at 6:02 am
mbw says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Suppose I told you that a wire had between 200 and 20,000 volts. Would you touch it?
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Given the fact I can see the wire is 1 foot long, laying on the table and plainly not connected to any thing capable of providing that voltage, of course.
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Well, I can kill you (or melt steel and burn the flesh off of your hands) at 20-odd volts DC with enough current …. or can touch a capacitor carrying many thousand volts harmlessly and quickly if I myself are not grounded. I can walk across am exposed, uninsulated, cross-country high-tension cable carrying hundreds of thousands of volts – if I prepare properly.
Don’t ask about voltages in wires unless you (and I) have a calibrated and tested multi-meter, a signed lock-out tagout, a valid work permit and a current job order, have completed a safety briefing, contacted the control room and switchyard operators, are wearing the proper personal protective gear and flash shielding, have wrapped and covered exposed surfaces on all of the tools and equipment, and have a current drawing and wiring schematic.
But, you see, a climate “scientist” relies on authority. And the sign says “High Voltage.” And the switch is shut, so the wire must be energized with “something” because the sign says “High Voltage” …. No “climate scientist” knows enough to predict the weather in a week. Much less one hundred years. And every climate “scientist” you apparently respect has been wrong about predicting the past 12, 15, 17 years (take your pick) .. but believes that unique failure qualifies him to predict the next 100, 200, 1000 years accurately.
But the “High Voltage” sign you trust so absolutely as “authority” is too foolish, too fixed in its dogmatic theism of “authority” and “I am an expert” and “The government experts wrote the sign” to notice that the generator isn’t running.
MBW: The morale of your “lesson” is: Don’t argue with an engineer with a irrelevant analogy. Unlike “climate scientists” our output must work, and must work in the real world.
Seriously? Other than this scenario prediction sounds extraordinarily similar o other predictions made about sea level change… Like Hansen in 1981 where he predicted a 5 meter rise in sea level and disastrous flooding. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal.pdf
Surely after all this time, Hansen and NOAA must have built new facilities far from the projected shorelines? Or at least have plans to? Odd isn’t it that when one is convinced of impending coastal disaster and their office is near the coast, you’d naturally think that moving their place of work would be a priority. I couldn’t find any mention of planned or ongoing facility changes in the NOAA budget nor GISS budget. Given that actions speak louder than words, can you direct us to where facility changes are planned/prepared because of coastal flood expectations?
Mitigation based on sea level site observations seems to be the best approach here. Telling scary sounding flood and disaster predictions that have not changed much over three decades is absurd. How many times can NOAA cry ‘wolf’ before even the CAGW religious faithful fail to care? Turning a deaf ear already are the honest scientists; as in those who expect full data/model/code release, result verification and validation and research where observations trump models, guesses and assumptions. Frightening flood disasters are flood disasters whether the prediction is dependent on a proven wrong 1981 5 meter prediction or on a yet to be proven 2 meter prediction. Assumed scale changes from scientists who are unable to accept reality, correct their methods and models; yet repeatedly use maybe/possible/likely/90% evasive CYA statements does not make their alarms reliable nor useful.
I do hope their feed the absurd alarmist troughs go empty soon. I’ve already written my Senators and Congressman about where $Billions can be cut without hurting innocent citizens. Throw in a few cuts from other alarmist non-scientific agency cuts and we’re almost there…