In a new analysis published in Volume 8 Issue 2 of Environmental Science Dr. Nils-Axel Morner suggests global sea levels will rise only about 5 inches by the year 2100.
Axel Morner concludes that Australian government claims of a 1 meter sea level rise by 2100 are greatly exaggerated, finding instead that sea levels are rising around Australia and globally at a rate of only 1.5 mm/year. This would imply a sea level change of only 0.13 meters or 5 inches by 2100. Dr. Morner also finds no evidence of any acceleration in sea level rise around Australia or globally.
Morner’s findings are inline with the longest running sea-level measurements recorded at Amsterdam, in the Netherlands (think of it like the England CET record) beginning in 1700. Since 1850, the rise in Amsterdam has averaged 1.5 mm/year.
Figure and link to full paper follows.
Present-to-future sea level changes: The Australian case (PDF)
Nils-Axel Morner, Albert Parker
Abstract:
We revisit available tide gauge data along the coasts of Australia, and we are able to demonstrate that the rate may vary between 0.1 and 1.5 mm/year, and that there is an absence of acceleration over the last decades. With a database of 16 stations covering only the last 17 years, the National Tidal Centre claims that sea level is rising at a rate of 5.4mm/year.We here analyse partly longer-term records from the same 16 sites as those used by the Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring Project (ABSLMP) and partly 70 other sites; i.e. a database of 86 stations covering a much longer time period. This database gives a mean trend in the order of 1.5 mm/year. Therefore, we challenge both the rate of sea level rise presented by the National Tidal Centre in Australia and the general claim of acceleration over the last decades.
Figure 3 : Comparison among different sea level data sets; (1) the Official Australian claim (AFGCC, 2011; ABSLMP, 2011), (2a) the Australian 39 station record, (2b) the Australian 70 station record, (2c) the Australian 86 station record, (3a) the 2059 station PSMSL (2011) average, (3b) the 159 station NOAA (2011) average, (4) the reconstruction of sea level changes by Church and White (2011), and (5) the Topex/Jason satellite altimetry record (CU, 2011). All the data are shifted for a zero MSL in January 1990. The differences are far too large not to include serious errors in some of the records. The official Australian trend (1) lies far above all the other curves, indicating a strong exaggeration. The Australian (2a-c) as well as global (3a-b) curves vary between 0.1 and 1.5 mm/year. The satellite altimetry records (5) include “calibrations” previously questioned (Morner, 2004, 2011c, 2013). The record (4) of Church and White (2011) lies between the satellite altimetry curve (5) and all the graphs representing global (3a-b) and Australian (2a-c) tide gauge records. The acceleration in curve 4 is strongly contradicted by all the other records. The same absence of acceleration is found in many other records (further discussed in the text) indicating that the concept of acceleration ought to be revised.
Conclusions:
In view of the data presented, we believe that we are justified to draw the following conclusions:
(1) The official Australian claim [2,3] of a present sea level rise in the order of 5.4mm/year is significantly exaggerated (Figure 3).
(2) The mean sea level rise from Australian tide gauges as well as global tide gauge networks is to be found within the sector of rates ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 mm/year (yellow wedge in Figure 3).
(3) The claim of a recent acceleration in the rate of sea level rise [2,3,12] cannot be validated by tide gauge records, either in Australia or globally (Figure 3). Rather, it seems strongly contradicted [19,21,24,39-41]
The practical implication of our conclusions is that there, in fact, is no reason either to fear or to prepare for any disastrous sea level flooding in the near future.
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h/t to The Hockey Schtick
Here is a table of sea level measurements from NOAA from around the world, many are negative:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/MSL_global_trendtable.html
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We’ve been using metric in Australia since the early 70s, so I doubt any Australian would use inches unless he was describing his…errr…where we still use the old measurement system, slightly augmented for the southern hemisphere.
Congrats to Morner and Parker on publication of a paper that desperately needs to be broadcast by Australia’s mainstream media to correct previous inaccurate reports, but won’t be.
In December I uploaded my analysis of the tide gauge measurements, Fremantle and nearby Hillarys in particular, at http://www.waclimate.net/perth-sea-levels.html. Jo Nova also kindly posted a summary of the research at http://joannenova.com.au/2012/12/cherry-picking-sea-level-rises-in-perth-a-city-which-happens-to-be-sinking/
My work was motivated by Western Australia’s monopoly press highlighting a claim by the latest State of Australian Cities report that sea levels on the Perth coastline are rising by 9-10mm per year since 1993, three times the global average, with our Federal Infrastructure Minister appropriately describing the findings as “disturbing” and “extraordinary”.
In summary, the records show Fremantle tide gauge records when averaged 93-01 vs 02-10 show a 0.61mm annual rise. Directly comparing 1999 and 2010, Fremantle levels fell an average 6.5mm pa.
Averaged, Hillarys sea levels rose 2.2mm pa from 1993 to 2010. The two tide gauges together averaged an increase of 1.4mm pa since 1993, which fits neatly with the Morner/Parker finding of an average 1.5mm around Australia and globally.
The official data sources don’t adjust for vertical land subsidence at Fremantle but allow a 0.1mm pa subsidence at Hillarys which grossly underestimates the 4-5mm pa subsidence measured in the surrounding geography. In view of the falling Fremantle sea levels and Hillarys maladjustments, it could be argued that sea levels off Perth have been falling for more than a decade, raising questions about newly regulated coastal zoning policies affecting tens of billions of dollars in property values based on the AGW theory of a drowning future.
Like Morner/Parker, I attribute the government/media scare messages to cherry picking of tide level years. However, I attribute the historically low 1993 Fremantle levels to Pinatubo in 1991 with a thermal expansion/contraction lag of a couple of years from reduced solar exposure and cooler atmospheric temperatures. Morner/Parker explain it thus: “The rise 1993-1998 is somewhat strange, but may have something to do with the change in instrumental operation and the big ENSO event in 1998”.
They are far better qualified than me but my page linked above provides some evidence of the close match between Fremantle and Hillarys sea levels and annually averaged global surface temperatures since 1990 as charted by the IPCC draft AR5, with about a two year thermal expansion lag (and repeated in 12 and seven Australian tide station comparisons). Put the Pinatubo contraction and ENSO expansion together and it’s little wonder there was accelerated air temps and sea level rises in the 90s that peaked the thermometers in 1998 and the tide gauges in 1999/2000.
The following is a link to tallbloke’s discussion of Dr. Nicola Scafetta’s paper “Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes.
Thank-you tallbloke and Dr. Scafetta.
Regards,
William
Scafetta’s results from a multi-scale dynamic analysis versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes supports Nils-Axel Mörner’s assertion based on analysis of different physical constraints (changes of the earth’s rotational speed), analysis of long term records, and so on, that there has been no acceleration of ocean level changes in the 20th century. The satellite raw data shows there is no change in ocean level. The graph that is displayed to the public has been adjusted to add an ocean level change based on analysis of a single tidal gauge which Nils-Axel Mörner asserts is not appropriate.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/nicola-scafetta-major-new-sea-level-study-finds-c21st-rise-likely-to-be-less-than-a-foot/
Congratulations to Nicola Scafetta, who has successfully published a new paper on sea level rise Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level recordsversus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes in the journal Climate Dynamics. This is a major paper, which undertakes a comprehensive review of recent studies, which diverge widely in their findings. He finds that the main reason for divergence is the length of records used in studies, and shows that the quasi-cyclic oscillations of the major ocean basins largely account for the differences in those studies conclusions. Developing a powerful analysis technique with strong visualisation, it is shown that the periodicity of the major oscillations, being 60 to 70 years, require a minimum record length of around 110 years in order to prevent polynomial fitting of long term secular trends being contaminated with shorter term quasi-cyclic variation. Using tide gauge records going back as far as 1700, Nicola compares the trends in sea level rise acceleration at widely spread geographical locations once the quasi-cyclic components are removed and finds the long term global average to be very small – around 0.01mm/yr. Very little difference is found between acceleration rates between the pre and post industrial eras. It is suggested the acceleration is a natural variation due to the recovery from the little ice age as part of a quasi millennial cycle which may continue until the mid C21st. In conclusion the study suggests that sea level rise during the C21st will be around 277+/-7mm, or about 9 inches.
From the conclusion of Scafetta’s above reference paper.
In conclusion, at scales shorter than 100-years, the measured tide gauge accelerations are strongly driven by the natural oscillations of the climate system (e.g. PDO, AMO and NAO). At the smaller scales (e.g. at the decadal and bi-decadal scale) they are characterized by a large volatility due to significant decadal and bi-decadal climatic oscillations (Scafetta 2009, 2010, 2012a; Manzi et al. 2012). Therefore, accelerations, as well as linear rates evaluated using a few decades of data (e.g. during the last 20-60 years) cannot be used for constructing reliable longrange projections of sea-level for the twenty first century. The oscillating natural patterns need to be included in the models for producing reliable forecasts at multiple time scales. The proposed MSDA methodologies (e.g. MSAA, MSRA and MSACAA) provide a comprehensive picture to comparatively study dynamical patterns in tide gauge records. The techniques can be efficiently used for a quick and robust study of alternative climatic sequences as well.
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/envirophilo/estimating.pdf
Estimating future sea level changes from past records By Nils-Axel Mörner.
With the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission, the situation changed. We now have a very good cover of the global mean sea level changes over the areas covered by the satellite. The record (Fig. 2) can be divided into three parts: (1) 1993–1996 with a clear trend of total stability (and a noise of F0.5 cm), (2) 1997–1998 with a high-amplitude rise and fall recording the ENSO event of these years and (3) 1998–2000 with an irregular record of no clear tendency (but possibly with a small rise of < 0.5 cm/year in years 1999–2000). But most important, there is a total absence of any recent ‘‘acceleration in sea level rise’’ as often claimed by IPCC and related groups.
But the level will not go on rising. It will start to fall when the cooling sets in!
Extrapolation shows only one of an infinite number of scenarios!
“Pedantic old Fart says:
April 26, 2013 at 2:46 pm”
I stand corrected. Not that it matters that much given we’re talking about 1.5mm p/a changes.
nc says:
April 26, 2013 at 10:01 am
rgbatduke I think you may enjoy this read over at No Frakking Consensus. Everyone have a look
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/04/26/how-climate-scientists-think/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Great post as ever rgbatduke. Great link nc, echoed by Jimbo.
I liked, in particular, this quote:
“People sometimes accuse climate scientists of being liars, of perpetrating a deliberate hoax or scam. Kahneman, though, talks about “the sincere overconfidence of professionals who do not know they are out of their depth.”
IMO, that second sentence sums up Hansen and Trenberth admirably. Unless someone can tell me otherwise, however, I think that the vile Tamino and Mann are more accurately described in the first sentence.
This 2008 paper “Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?” says:
“The fastest sea level rise during the 20th century was between 1920–50 and appears to be a combination of peaking of the 60–65 years cycle with a period of low volcanic activity [Jevrejeva et al., 2006; Church and White, 2006].”
They even quote Mann on 60 year cycles: The multi-decadal variability in global sea level for the past 300 years shows the same pattern as previously found in the climate system [Delworth and Mann, 2000], including a 60–70 years variability in sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level pressure (SLP). Similar 60-year cycles exist in early instrumental European records of air temperature (1761–1980) and longer paleo proxies from different locations around the world [Shabalovaand Weber, 1998, 1999], suggesting a global pattern of 60-year variability.
Their conclusion says:
“A reconstruction of global sea level since 1700 has been made. Results from the analysis of a 300 year long global sea level using two different methods provide evidence that global sea level acceleration up to the present has been about 0.01 mm/yr2 and appears to have started at the
end of the 18th century.
The time variable trend in 300 years of global sea level suggests that there are periods of slow and fast sea level rise associated with decadal variability, which has been previously reported by several authors [Douglas, 1992; Woodworth, 1990; Church and White, 2006].”
They then say: “The lowest temperature rise (1.8C) IPCC [Meehl et al., 2007] use is for the B1 scenario, which is 3 times larger than the increase in temperature observed during the 20th century.”
In spite of all this they finish with the statement that: “However, oceanic thermal inertia and rising
Greenland melt rates imply that even if projected temperatures rise more slowly than the IPCC scenarios suggest, sea level will very likely rise faster than the IPCC projections [Meehl et al., 2007].”
ftp://soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Jevrejeva_2008%20Sea%20level%20acceleration%20200yrs%20ago.pdf
Sea level rise is caused by a giant inland sea in the centre of the earth and is slowly leaking out of the crust. It is leaking out because CO2 has created holes in the crust and since our industrial output is creating CO2 then we are the problem.
Of course it could be the giant floating iceberg in space that will land in the ocean causing sea level rise.
Does this need a /sarc
On a more serious note: Us Aussies think that we have the best and brightest minds in the whole world. We do have big ego’s don’t we? NOT
Bruce Cobb says:
April 26, 2013 at 9:44 am
They just need to know that size doesn’t matter.
===========
50% of the population believes this to be true. the rest are women.
Yes, the satellite record do show sea level rise only post adjustments. We saw this repeated with each new satellite, they all need adjustments, ahem calibration, to the older ones which have been already calibrated to show rise:
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/sea-level-rises-to-new-lows/
Here a description of the changes (in german):
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/was-nicht-passt-wird-passend-gemacht-esa-korigiert-daten-zum-meeresspiegel/
Measurement by tide gauges do not show the rise:
http://www.marklynas.org/2012/04/where-sea-level-rise-isnt-what-it-seems/
they do not show any changes for the satellite era compared to the previous era:
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/
Which raises the very pertinent question that Dr. Nils asked:
“The satellite altimetry records (5) include “calibrations” previously questioned (Morner, 2004, 2011c, 2013)”
It is clear that those calibration disconnect the satellite record from the real sea level measurement. With each year the discrepancy becomes greater. According to the adjusted satellite record the sea level is now 6 cm higher in average against the level of 1990 difference which is not found in the tide gauges record.
I live in a Northern New South Wales coastal town on an estuary(that narrows it down….), and have done so all my life.(43) On an average high tide of say 1.8 metres, you can easily see the water under the grates in the streets. On a peak tide, say, 1.95 to 2.05, it is in the streets in a half a dozen or more places to a depth of up to 12 to 15 cm. If we get a rain event with moderate rain, it pools on top of the tide and occasionally just enters houses and shops.
Given projected changes in rainfall patterns(either natural or man made-it’s academic as to the cause) to a model where we get roughly the same amount of rain, but in heavier events with longer dry periods in between, we may well be seeing heavier rain events on the high tide. More rain+ nowhere to go= into shops and houses.
Add six inches in tidal raise…………..it starts to get hairy.
Not just to us townies, but to local farmers.
It is concerning.
Drew, what are the estimates of subsidence of land levels in your area ? From my many years, northern New South Wales coast all the way down to Taree have always been prone to significant flooding in any rain event … flat as a tack and very low altitude.
I have a place on the river at Noosa, spring tide + heavy rain + storm surge and the water has never broken the banks … low tide, normal, is a few feet down on the revetment wall. No concerns though it rains a lot in this area.
@ur momisugly Drew says:
April 27, 2013 at 6:47 pm
I live in a Northern New South Wales…
————————————————————-
Drew, you are experiencing ASLR. (Anthropogenic Sea Level Rise) However CO2 is not the cause. It appears likely that the decision to build a town in that location, certainly an antropogenic decision, is the likely cause. In some Calif cities we have “CAEC” (Catestrophic, anthropogenic earthquake concerns ) due to the human decision to build cities on certain large earthquake faults.
Five inches by 2100? Does that presume no cooling along the way?
The Climate Commission ‘Critical Decade’ report cited by N-A Morner does not claim that SLR around Australia is ‘officially’ a mean 5.4mm/year. That figure is the mean of the ABLSLMP/SEAFRAME data from the 16 station network beginning in the early 1990s. Nowhere in the ABLSLMP annual reports are the finalised individual station figures presented as a mean; they are listed individually. ABSLMP reports always stress that the data collection period is short. Thus I don’t think it is accurate to represent this data as an ‘official claim’ or ‘Australian governmental offices claim’ about national mean SLR , particularly when comparing with longer term data from other sources.
The Critical Decade report also presents figures of 50 to 100cm rise by 2100 from 1990 levels as ‘plausible’ estimates. N-A Morner should acknowledge that.
Nick:
Your post at April 28, 2013 at 3:52 am is a classic fail.
You conclude
The Critical Decade report presents figures of 50 to 100cm rise by 2100 from 1990 levels as being ‘plausible’ estimates.
N-A Morner does acknowledge that, and he shows the estimates are not plausible.
Richard
“Morner’s findings are inline with the longest running sea-level measurements recorded at Amsterdam, in the Netherlands (think of it like the England CET record) beginning in 1700. Since 1850, the rise in Amsterdam has averaged 1.5 mm/year.”
Hardly – more accurately “from 1850 to 1925, the rise in Amsterdam averaged 1.5 mm/year”. The gauge stopped recording anything useful beyond 1925, after which sea locks around Amsterdam, and finally the enclosure of the Zuiderzee isolated the gauge from the North Sea. The available record ceases in 1925.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
William Shakespeare
No, Richard Courtney, Morner states in his paper that the figure derived from averaging the sparse and short-duration SEAFRAME data is an ‘official claim’… Nowhere does Australia-through the Climate Commission or the Office of the Chief Scientists or departmentally ‘officially’ derive this figure or present it as an official claim. Why would they? The data network is too young.
Morner’s claim about this matter is contrived.
The SEAFRAME data is included with provenance in a Climate Commission graphic showing a range of data on SLR,nothing more or less. It is not given separate status as an official claim or one that is paramount.
As well,his representation of the ‘plausible 50 to 100cm’ is to frame it as ‘the predicted 100cm’. There is a difference of emphasis that is material.
Nick:
I am replying to your sophistry at April 28, 2013 at 7:20 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/australian-sea-level-data-highly-exaggerated-only-5-inches-by-2100/#comment-1290785
The Climate Commission is an official body so information provided in its publications is official information.
You say
Nobody said it was “given separate status” or “is paramount”.
Morner said it is an “official claim”.
IT IS because it is published in an official report of an official organisation.
And Morner showed it is gross exaggeration.
Nobody can know to what use that exaggeration may be put in future if not refuted. But your attempt to defend that exaggeration implies that you think it has use.
Richard
richardscourtney said : “Morner said it is an ‘official claim’.
IT IS because it is published in an official report of an official organisation.”
What claim? I read the report and, as Nick said, they’re reporting the data for 19 separate stations while saying “Caution must be exercised in interpreting the ‘short-term’ relative sea
level trends (Table 2) as they are based on short records in climate terms and are still
undergoing large year-to-year changes.” The 5.4mm/year average isn’t even computed. So, where is the claim that supposedly constitutes and exaggeration? Could you quote the relevant bit?
Pierre-Normand:
Thankyou for using what I assume is your name and not – as the troll you are supporting – posting anonymously.
Your post at April 29, 2013 at 4:26 am adds sophistry to Nick’s sophistry.
Nick claimed the information was not an “official claim” because he said
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/australian-sea-level-data-highly-exaggerated-only-5-inches-by-2100/#comment-1290785
I explained that it is an “official claim” because
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/australian-sea-level-data-highly-exaggerated-only-5-inches-by-2100/#comment-1290930
You have replied that by writing in total
The claim is the possible rate of rise shown in the graphic.
It is an exaggeration because – as Morner shows – it is so improbable as to be effectively impossible.
The fact that a caveat was put with the claim is not relevant. The claim was published as an official statement of what is considered possible.
I repeat to you what I said to Nick
Nobody can know to what use that exaggeration may be put in future if not refuted. But your attempt to defend that exaggeration implies that you think it has use.
Richard
More to the point, it is the official government actions that resulted FROM this study (and the thousands of government-selected and government-funded) so-called “scientific research papers” like it) that DO form official government policy …. The Australian coastal use policies and taxes and land use requirements and dam-emptying decisions DO COME from this kind of self-funded “study” …. And those policies and restrictions and taxes and destructive decisions ARE deliberate. These kinds of papers ARE deliberately written and funded to influence official policies.
Thus, like the IPCC documents that do actually have deeply hidden caveats and cautions and estimates inside the formal reports, the official government policies that came BECAUSE of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers does NOT have any cautions or restraints – instead they are deliberately written to incite panic and influence politicians. And funding. And future propaganda. And current propaganda. And current education. And future laws.
RACookPE1978:
re your post at April 29, 2013 at 7:01 am .
Yes, thankyou. That is precisely how such exaggerations have been used and why they need to be refuted.
Your bluntness is appreciated.
Richard
Richard,the attempted sophistry is yours. Morner’s paper misrepresents the SEAFRAMEdata and the National Tidal Centre,and attempts to make an untenable claim that its data is an official claim Bluster might be fun,but is no substitute for fact. The figure 5.4mm/y is nowhere in the Climate Commission document,and is never calculated by the NTO. Morner cannot make the calculation on their behalf then claim that it is officially theirs,or their governments projection for rise to 2100. Face it.
And that is just the start of the problems with Morner & Parker. The next diversion is to suggest Church and White’s global analysis and global trend is in some way devalued by comparison with at Australian data. It’s interesting to note regional variation,but it is not exactly a secret.
@Richardscourtney
“The claim is the possible rate of rise shown in the graphic. It is an exaggeration because – as Morner shows – it is so improbable as to be effectively impossible.”
It doesn’t look like you even looked at the report. You first argued that the “claim” is official because it figures in an official report. But the claim isn’t there, with or without caveat. You now seem to be suggesting that although no explicit claim was made in the report, the “claim” is implicitly made in the presentation of some “graphic”. But there is no such graphic in the report either. Mörner’s graphs are his own. The 5.4mm/year average rate from the 19 stations isn’t mentioned, computed, or shown in the report. There just is a warning about *not* inferring reliable trends (from individual stations) from the SEAFRAME data, because the period is too short and year-to-year changes are too big.