Guest essay Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
Sea level rise is the greatest disaster predicted by Climatism, the belief in catastrophic climate change. Today, leading scientific organizations support the idea that the ocean level is rising due to man-made emissions. Further, they claim to be able to measure ocean level to a high degree of accuracy. But a look at natural ocean variation shows that official sea level measurements are nonsense.
The theory of man-made climate change warns that human emissions of greenhouse gases will raise global temperatures and melt Earth’s icecaps, causing rising oceans and flooding coastal cities. Former Vice President Al Gore’s best-selling book, An Inconvenient Truth, showed simulated pictures of flooding in South Florida, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and other world locations. Dr. James Hansen predicted an ocean rise of 75 feet during the next 100 years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 mm per year.” This translates to a 100-year rise of only 7 inches and 12 inches, far below the dire predictions of the climate alarmists.
But three millimeters is about the thickness of two dimes. Can scientists really measure a change in sea level over the course of a year, averaged across the world, which is two dimes thick?
Today, sea level is measured with satellite radar altimeters. Satellites bounce radar waves off the surface of the ocean to measure the distance. Scientific organizations, such as the Sea Level Research Group at the University of Colorado (CU), use the satellite data to estimate ocean rise. The CU team estimates current ocean rise at 3.2 millimeters per year.
The organizations AVISO (Archiving, Validation, and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic Data) of France, CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) of Australia, and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) of the United States agree with the University of Colorado that seas are rising three millimeters per year. Given the huge natural variation in global sea level, the three millimeter number is incredible. The fact that four different organizations have arrived at the same number is suspect.
As Dr. Willie Soon of Harvard shows, ocean level variation is large and affected by many factors. If temperatures rise, water expands, adding to sea level rise. If icecaps melt, levels rise, but if icecaps grow due to increased snowfall, levels fall. If ocean saltiness changes, the water volume will also change.
The land itself moves continuously. Some shorelines are rising and some are subsiding. The land around Hudson Bay in Canada is rising, freed of ice from the last ice age. In contrast, the area around New Orleans is sinking. Long-term movement of Earth’s tectonic plates also changes sea level.
Tides are a major source of ocean variation, primarily caused by the gravitational pull of the moon, the sun, and the rotation of the Earth. Ocean water “sloshes” from shore to shore, with tides changing as much as 38 feet per day at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The global average tide range is about one meter, but this daily change is still 300 times the three-millimeter change that scientists claim to be able to measure over an entire year.
Storms and weather are major factors affecting satellite measurements. Wave heights change by meters each day, dwarfing the annual rise in ocean level. Winds also change the height of the sea. The easterly wind of a strong La Niña pushes seas at Singapore to a meter higher than in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Satellites themselves have error bias. Satellite specifications claim a measurement accuracy of about one or two centimeters. How can scientists then measure an annual change of three millimeters, which is almost ten times smaller than the error in daily measurements? Measuring tools typically must have accuracy ten times better than the quantity to be measured, not ten times worse. Dr. Carl Wunsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology commented on the satellite data in 2007, “It remains possible that the database is insufficient to compute mean sea level trends with the accuracy necessary to discuss the impact of global warming—as disappointing as this conclusion may be.”
Scientists add many “fudge factors” to the raw data. The same measurement taken by each of the three satellites, TOPEX, JASON-1, and JASON-2, differs by 75 millimeters and must be corrected. As a natural adjustment, researchers add 0.3 millimeters to the measured data, because ocean basins appear to be getting larger, able to hold more water, and reducing apparent ocean levels.
Tide gauges are also used to “calibrate” the satellite data. But gauge measurements are subject to errors of one or two centimeters, again many times more than the sea level rise to be measured.
Clearly, the official three millimeter sea level rise number is a product of scientific “group think.” Not only is this number far below what can be accurately measured, but all leading organizations support this nonsense number. Could it be that our leading scientists must endorse sea-level rise to support the ideology of man-made global warming?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
“Tide gauges are also used to “calibrate” the satellite data”…
even though it’s a minority of tide gauges that show any sea level rise at all….
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdfels/wpapers/Tide%20gauge%20location.pdf
Sea level rise is regional rather than global and is concentrated in the southern Baltic, the Ring of Fire, and the Atlantic coast of the US. By contrast the north-west Pacific coast and north-east coast of India are characterized by sea level fall. In the minority of locations where sea levels are rising…..
…..In the “””minority””” of locations where sea levels are rising….
[Snip ~mod.]
John Finn Sept. 23 3:39am
I am a poet and not a math guy but i got some questions for you.
In the example you give about measuring people — the people are all static in height. Therefore it seems reasonable that a certain sample size using an inaccurate ruler could determine an average height with a reasonable degree of error.
But the surface of the sea is not a glassy plain of unvarying height.
If somehow the heights of people was in flux (they grew in height or shortened randomly — no one stayed the same size for long) you would need a much larger sample to determine an “average height” with a reasonable degree of error. And if the speed at which individuals changed height was not the same for all — you would need an even larger sample.
The situation with the oceans is a hundred times more complex in the ways its height varies from place to place and in each place over time. I feel that the sample size you would need to figure out its average height would be MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than the sample size scientists currently have. Therefore their claims of accuracy are false.
So can you show that the sample size that is available is large to give an accurate estimate of the ocean’s height? As you said, “its all just basic statistics”.
Eugene WR Gallun
PS — Suggest you post your thoughts on Climate Audit. The result would be — interesting.
Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
September 21, 2013 at 7:35 am
Bob Greene says:
September 21, 2013 at 4:53 am
Absent from all of these ’causes’ is a myopic view of history and a blatant abuse of the word ‘unprecedented”.
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Much better said than I could!
Fascinating debate.
All I know is that the sea level needs to be far enough above the bottom – so deep enough – for my ships to float.
Anyone got any reference for the new LNG berth at Manzanillo, Mexico, to be shown on a proper navigational chart? It’s been there for over a year, yet charts still just show beach. About 19 N 114-15 W.
Auto
I have never forgotten a hydrology lecture given as part of my Environmental Science course in the 1970s when the method of calculating the total amount of water in the planetary hydrosphere was explained to us. The lecturer stood at the board and compiled a list of water bodies in descending order of importance by volume.
First onto the list went the estimated hundreds of millions of cubic kilometres for the total volume of water in the world’s oceans; The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern. Next onto the list the estimated tens of millions of cubic kilometres of water in the shallower seas and gulfs not included in the above; The Caribbean, the North Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Black, the Caspian etc.
Having dealt with the salt water bodies he then started to list estimates for the tens of millions of cubic kilometres of fresh water in the world. First the global ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and then mountain glaciers of all the world’s mountain ranges. Having included all the frozen water he start to estimate the volume of the surface liquid water bodies; the Great Lakes, the Rift valley lakes of Africa and Lake Baikal in Asia etc. Next on to the list went the volume of the rivers of the world; the Amazon, the Nile, The Congo, the Missouri / Mississippi, the Yangtze Chiang, the Volga etc.
Having included all the surface water bodies he then added to the list the millions of cubic kilometres of sub-surface ground water bodies, shallow fresh in the gravels and alluvial sands and deep sub-surface brines in the clays, sandstones and limestones of the world’s sedimentary basins.
Having exhausted the list of surface and sub-surface water he then listed the estimated tens of cubic kilometres for the volume of water carried in the atmosphere; the humid air masses and separately the condensed water in the clouds of the Troposphere. It was a tour de force of understanding of the types of water body present below, on and above the Earth’s surface. The oceans with hundreds of millions holding the most water, the atmosphere with cubic kilometres, the least.
Then he did something which no one challenged or queried, he added all the numbers on his list together and when he finally added to his sum the number of cubic kilometres of atmospheric water vapour, announced that the total mass of water in the world had been determined to the nearest cubic kilometre.
Great arithmetic, shame about the mathematics.
Re “measurement” of the average height of males using only two measuring sticks, I thought that such measurements were applicable only for the SAME item. I remember that quite an accurate weight of a (dial-type) telephone could be obtained by combining 1000 guesses. But my limited knowledge of statistics leads me to question the ability of that averaging method to be able to calculate the average of different things.
Ian M
Mike Bromley the Kurd says: @ur momisugly September 20, 2013 at 9:43 pm
….New Orleans…. It didn’t matter, because Katrina was caused by climate change anyway. What was I thinking….!
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Isn’t it funny how everyone forgets the damage to New Orleans (Like NYC) was caused by Politicians NOT doing the jobs they were supposed to. In the case of New Orleans the levees were allowed to fall into disrepair. Instead of spending TRILLIONS on ‘Climate Change Research’ bankrupting renewable corporations (AKA take the money and run scams) and propaganda we should spend the money where it really counts, upgrading our infrastructures. However then there would not be disasters to point to and scream ‘Climate Change’
Peter Miller says: @ur momisugly September 21, 2013 at 12:13 am
Anyhow, the original article and comments here indicate the actual sea level rise is probably a great deal less than the much quoted 3.3mms/year figure…. In any event, post adjustment/manipulation satellite figures on sea level rises should be treated with a sack of salt.
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AHHhhh, So THAT is why the seas are so salty…
Aah, natural variability!
The IPCC has been preparing the last couple of months to excuse the stable temperatures with the argument:
“Were it not for a natural cooling cycle, the temperature rises would have been much worse”.
All, get ready with the response:
“How do you know your purported rise in temperature since the ‘1970s were not also a natural cycle?”
When it gets hot, it’s man-made; when it cools, it’s natural. They cannot win this argument; even the stupidest can see through it.
Get ready, also, to point the frigged temperature record.
If the volume of the sea is increasing due to loss of ice at the poles then more mass has moved towards the equator. In which case the spin of the Earth must have slowed. Has it? And in a way otherwise inexplicable?
I am not any kind of scientist but I am dutch, are there not massive amounts of water released each spring and locked up in the winter does that not have an an effect? (seeing that the Northern Hemisphere has a much larger “winter” land mass than the Southern?)
I am now at the end of the comment list at this point in time ,
Why has nobody entered the tiny little companion of earth , you know the moon and it’s eccentric orbit, yes there is talk of tides and spring and fall tides that are easily followed but what about the times in between?
The spin has slowed (I don’t know the cause), because there have been 24 leap seconds added to the year over recent decades. Apple’s iPhones are up to date on this, but some non-updated Android devices show times that are 15 seconds too fast.
tobias, back at ya. Yes, it is better to be a pert (IE spert) than an ex- “spert”. Since I am quite short, I would definitely be a spurt. And since I speak from an armchair, I would most clearly not be a climate expert.
Not quite sensical. 10X better than the total range? The expected variations? The differences between samples?
Let’s say the ocean basins were shrinking. Would he have reduced the rate of sea level rise to compensate? To ask the question is to know the answer.
Say, does the U. of Colo. deduct this sedimentation increase from its GIA? If not, why not?
The U of Colo. says, on its FAQ page:
Is this really true? If so, the scandal in climatology isn’t what’s done that’s unacceptable, it’s what’s done that’s acceptable (to tweak an adage).
Also the mass of the atmosphere DOES change depending upon the quantity of water content. For example warmer periods like late 20th c. will have more total global atmospheric water content then cooler periods.
Water vapour is only 0.25% of the atmospheric mass and varies by a few %age points, for most places averaged over a year. Annual average atmospheric mass variation due to WV is well under 0.1% for most locations. Small enough to ignore IMO when we are talking about changes in global average SL over years to decades..
It’s not clear whether atmospheric WV is increasing or not. I agree it should if the atmosphere is warming as claimed. But then I think the observed surface warming doesn’t result, in the main, from atmospheric warming. So i’d expect no measurable increase in atmospheric WV.
As for CO2 and CH4 emissions. Again we are talking about less than 0.1% of atmospheric mass.
Not sure I get your point about ‘land doesn’t move’.
dalyplanet says:
September 20, 2013 at 11:20 pm
“Thank You for your post and a most excellent link !!!”
You’re welcome. 🙂
The situation with the oceans is a hundred times more complex in the ways its height varies from place to place and in each place over time. I feel that the sample size you would need to figure out its average height would be MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than the sample size scientists currently have.
The causes of any change are irrelevant to sample size, assuming random sampling. All that matters is the size of the change you are trying to detect. The smaller the change the larger the sample size needed to reliably detect it.
However, if you are not sampling randomly, then bias rears its ugly head. But AFAIAK satellite measurements are for practical purposes random. What is decidedly non-random is using some tide gauges and not others.
Thanks, great sense of humor but as as I am not tall either and also sitting in my chair, maybe we should both become “primate” experts and use all 4 appendages to get around?
to Pam Grey sorry momentary lapse.
I seem to have now lost it, that is an earlier message,@ur momisuglyPam Grey @ur momisugly 10 40 pm, thanks you have a great sense of humor . And seeing that I am shortish as well (and getting shorter at each Dr’s visit and spend time in my chair as well here goes . Maybe we should become “Primate” ” Spurts”, you know using all four appendages? I think those guy are secretly laughing at us , no credit cards or Quantative Easing?
Radar telemetry of the ocean’s surface is specious, very akin to the idea that climate computer models are accurate.
Water in the oceans are under constant movement; tidal, wind, currents are big drivers, but don’t underestimate low and high pressure fronts.
What does the satellite actually measure? The trough or peak of a wave; or perhaps psychically determines the average for that precise moment?
Radar returns from hard objects are sharp defined lines and outside of atmospheric effects (atmosphere turbulence & density affects radar & laser), can be reliably measured to the accuracy level of the instrument.
What I didn’t get from the article above, (no offense intended, Steve Gorham), is whether the satellite measurement error includes all the supposed variables and whether the measurement error is a guess or hard observation data. I suspect the guess, possibly statistically derived but still a guess until verified. And no, satellite measurement of hard surfaces does not translate to satellite measurement of the ocean’s surface.
Radar returns from the oceans surface is mushy, lacking a defined absolute surface. Add water level adjustment to other factors and as Steve and other commenters have shown achieving accuracy ten times better than the measuring device is delusionary.
For a number of years, I rode a train into work; right up the west side of the Potomac estuary to Washington DC. On days when winds blew from the northwest, water is literally blown out of the entire Chesapeake bay system. One day of hard wind would empty small bays, two days and large sections of the estuary would be exposed, three days and the effect is startling. Winds from the opposite quadrant push water well up the streams and smaller rivers emptying into the bay.
And someone insists they can measure sea level rise within millimeters? Don’t rebut, belly laugh long and hard.
Um, I wouldn’t worry about such claims Jimbo. Every river that I’ve seen throughout America has greater problems every year making it to the sea. Especially in America’s west.
Just because water is extracted from an aquifer or drainage system does not mean it ever makes it back into the drainage system, at least until it falls as rain elsewhere.
despite all the potential variations, water seeks a gravitational flat surface. Add one inch global and it will show plus one inch due to effects, globally. I.e. If monsoon rains raise surce two feet, it will become two feet one inch
Thus all that is needed, is to select say five well dispersed points, not subject to either land rise/sink and not subject to transient high or low pressure atmospheric events. Select sight with a long record, history.
Then see what comes out.