From the “we told you so” department, WUWT Reader Paul Carter says in Tips and Notes:
A new study shows that Pacific Islands are resilient to sea level changes.
“Dynamic atolls give hope that Pacific Islands can defy sea rise”
A study by Paul Kench, Professor, School of Environment at University of Auckland.
“It is widely predicted that low-lying coral reef islands will drown as a result of sea-level rise, leaving their populations as environmental refugees. But new evidence now suggests that these small islands…”
See http://theconversation.com/dynamic-atolls-give-hope-that-pacific-islands-can-defy-sea-rise-25436
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Yes, we told you all about this right here on WUWT back in 2010 in an essay titled “Floating Islands” by Willis Eschenbach. Willis wrote then:
Regarding atolls and sea level rise, the most important fact was discovered by none other than Charles Darwin. He realized that coral atolls essentially “float” on the surface of the sea. When the sea rises, the atoll rises with it. They are not solid, like a rock island. They are a pile of sand and rubble. There is always material added and material being lost. Atolls exist in a delicate balance between new sand and coral rubble being added from the reef, and atoll sand and rubble being eroded by wind and wave back into the sea or into the lagoon. As sea level rises, the balance tips in favor of sand and rubble being added to the atoll. The result is that the atoll rises with the sea level.
Figure 2. Typical cross section through a coral atoll. The living coral is in the ring between the dotted green line and the beach. The atoll used for the photo in this example is Tepoto Atoll, French Polynesia.
Darwin’s discovery also explained why coral atolls occur in rings as in Fig. 2 above. They started as a circular inshore coral reef around a volcanic rock island. As the sea level rose, flooding more and more of the island, the coral grew upwards. Eventually the island was drowned by the rising sea levels, and all that is left is the ring of reef and coral atolls.
Coral atolls have proven over thousands of years that, if left alone, they can go up with the sea level. And if we follow some simple conservation practices, they can continue to do so and to support atoll residents. But they cannot survive an unlimited population increase, or unrestricted overfishing, or overpumping the water lens, or unrestrained coral mining. Those are what is killing the atolls, not the same sea level rise that we’ve had for the last hundred years.
Read it all here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/
[UPDATE]
Someone in the comments asked about priority regarding the ideas in my 2010 post.
The person to claim priority for noticing the dynamic nature of atolls is Charles Darwin. Amazingly, he discovered the dynamic nature of coral atolls before he had ever seen one.
However, in terms of priority for my 2010 post, I’d have to cite my 2004 paper in Energy and Environment, the journal that alarmists love to hate on. It was published as a “Viewpoint”, and as such, unlike my other two articles in E&E, this one was not peer-reviewed.
In that study, I traced the origins of the atoll hysteria to a 2003 Sierra Club article. That article is ground zero for the “coral atoll climate refugee we’re all DOOOOMED” meme. What I found was previous research showing that the atoll they said was dying from climate change was actually being eroded because in World War II the protecting outer reef had been cut through.
Finding that previous research showing the actual reason their poster child island was being reshaped was a formative experience for me. That study totally blew the Sierra Club BS out of the water.
Nor is the current study the first recent notice by scientists of the dynamic nature of atolls. See my other post on the subject, “The Irony, It Burns” …
w.
Also
The NOAA mean sea level trends since 1998 are flat at Sabine Pass, Port Isabel, and Port Mansfield, all on the Texas coast. However, Grand Isle, La., shows a definite trend of increasing sea level. This is due to subsidence because of the greater sediment load at that place.
This is not arm-waving, as Willis claims, but telltale data. but there are those who accept what the alarmists peddle on rising sea levels. Why they would cast aside skeptical inquiry in this matter is puzzling.
Willis, you are wrong again. Do yourself a favor and go check out NOAA data on mean sea level trends and you will see places on stable coasts which show no sea level rise for decades. If you do not, then who is the arm-waver?
mpainter says:
April 28, 2014 at 8:32 am
“Blithely ignores”? You nasty little man, I linked to an entire article on the subsidence in the Galveston area, what causes it, and exactly how it is measured. I went on to discuss subsidence in the SEAFRAME dataset. I didn’t “blithely ignore” a damn thing. Folks interested in how ugly and untrue your accusations are can read my post above.
Y’know, mpainter, I’m reluctant to do that. Last time you started running your mouth, I got the Galveston data from the PSMSL. Now you assure me that I got the wrong data. You’re right. And the reason I got the wrong data because I was so stupid.
My stupidity consisted in listening to your uncited blather and then looking myself for your data, only to be told it was the wrong data. But I suppose I should give it the old college try … OK, mpainter, here’s what I find when I “simply dial in NOAA sea level trend galveston on the web”:
SOURCE: NOAA TIDES AND CURRENTS
See, here’s the problem again. I did what you said, but I don’t find what you claim, so you must be looking at some other dataset … because this one clearly says:
You go on to say the following:
Over at my post entitled “The Elusive 60-year Sea Level Cycle” I’ve just done an analysis of the longest tide records in the PSMSL, along with analyzing all the tide records in the PSMSL. I get the same result that every other researcher in the field gets, a rise of a couple mm per year. You should do that yourself before you start making foolish claims …
w.
What do you do when another set of PSMSL data…..shows an equal amount of sea levels falling??
Do they cancel each other out?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/sneaky-sea-level-rise-bypasses-california/
mpainter says:
April 28, 2014 at 9:12 am
The sea levels “since 1998 are flat”? Since it takes at least 50 years of data to determine the underlying rate of rise, your claims just highlight the fact that you don’t understand the system you are studying. And NOAA makes it easy for you, they post up the uncertainty that you appear to never have considered.
With only 16 years of data, the confidence intervals on your claim are ± 3 mm per year. Since such uncertainties in tidal data are typical across the field, that means there are very, very few records that show anything of interest on a 16-year time scale … and it also means that only a newbie would think a 16-year tidal swing means a damn thing.
w.
PS—Once again you spew claims without citations. Which are the “places on stable coasts which show no sea level rise for decades”??? You still seem to be under the impression that your uncited claims mean something. To me, as I mentioned, that’s just arm-waving …
Latitude says:
April 28, 2014 at 10:25 am
Latitude, I cannot emphasize enough that you have to stay skeptical. I fear that in this case our friend Steven Goddard is … well, a bit off the reservation. Let me start with an overview:
Hang on … OK, here’s the data:
The very high and low values for the rate of sea level rise are almost all from short records. If we restrict it to records longer than 20 years, here’s the result:
Out of that 820 records, about 20% of them show falling levels. A number of these are in areas of post-glacial rebound.
Returning to Steven Goddard, let me demonstrate the problem. Here is Steven’s graph from your source:
And here is his data referenced from his post. The second column shows the relative sea level:
1974; 6973;N;000
1975; 6942;N;000
1976; 6988;N;000
1977; 6966;N;000
1978; 7006;N;000
1979; 6993;N;000
1980; 7002;N;000
1981; 6988;N;000
1982; 7049;N;000
1983; 7119;N;000
1984; 7028;N;000
1985; 6993;N;000
1986; 7023;N;000
1987; 7037;N;000
1988; 6979;N;000
1989; 6985;N;000
1990; 7005;N;000
1991; 7020;N;000
1992; 7087;N;000
1993; 7056;N;000
1994; 7008;N;000
1995; 7031;N;000
1996; 7000;Y;000
1997; 7072;N;000
1998; 7046;N;000
1999; 6962;N;000
2000; 6992;N;000
2001; 7000;N;000
2002; 7014;N;000
2003; 7026;N;000
2004; 7032;N;000
2005; 7046;N;000
2006; 7042;N;000
2007; 6988;N;000
2008; 7017;N;000
2009; 7029;N;000
2010; 7028;N;000
2011; 7018;N;000
2012; 7026;N;000
2013; 7015;N;000
I’m sure you can see the problem … it turns out that Steven has truncated the early part of the dataset, and curiously, picked the starting year that gives the greatest negative trend. Bad Steven, no cookies. If we start from the beginning of the dataset, the sea level trend is positive at +0.8 mm per year.
Finally, even that full-dataset trend of +0.8 mm/yr is statistically meaningless. Everyone interested in sea level should committ the following graph to memory:
You need a lot of data to determine a statistically significant sea level trend. The graph shows the 95% confidence intervals on measured sea level trends of various lengths. The Monterrey record is forty years long. That means that the 95%CI is ± 1 mm/year … and as a result, neither Steven’s claimed trends nor the trend of the full dataset are statistically different from zero …
The moral of the story? RUN THE NUMBERS YOURSELF, AND IF NOT, AT LEAST SQUINT AT THE UNDERLYING DATA!
I shout this because it is so important. Between inadvertent mistakes, logical errors, math screwups, computer bugs, and deliberate misrepresentation, you can’t trust anyone’s claims, INCLUDING MINE. To the best of my ability I do not deliberately misrepresent anything, nor do most scientists, that’s scientific malfeasance … but that certainly doesn’t free me from the inadvertent mistakes, logical errors, math screwups, and computer bugs which continually plague everyone’s work.
Stay skeptical,
w.
I did look…and he’s right….for over 30 years sea levels have been falling at Monterey Bay
You don’t pick the starting year….You start with now…and go back..and you can go back over 30 years and show no sea level rise there
I do get the statistically different part….
So what do you do when people are claiming sea level rise….and there’s gauges showing no sea level rise or sea levels falling….for one thing you don’t tune satellites to convenient tide gauges they pass over, that are in the minority showing sea levels rising
Latitude says:
April 28, 2014 at 12:00 pm
If you get that part, then no matter where you start, the Monterey tide gauge tells us nothing. However, it is underhanded chartsmanship to show only part of the record without mentioning that fact, particularly when even the entire record is too short to establish significance.
I note also that he did not qualify his statement, as you have done, by limiting it to thirty years. He said ‘… sea level is not rising in California.”, accompanied by the graphic. Nowhere did he mention the fact that he was only displaying the part of the record most favorable to his claims.
There’s a term for that kind of misdirection, of using only the favorable part of the data, involving cherries …
My goodness, what makes you think that scientists would be that stupid? The satellites are not tuned to “convenient tide gauges they pass over”, you just made that up. Please provide a citation for such an absurd allegation.
Do you think scientists don’t know about GPS? You think they are not measuring the height of many of the tide gauges with GPS? I’ve discussed that very thing above. If you claim that they are ignoring the GPS data in calibrating the satellites, you’re … you’re … well, I fear I don’t have a word for that particular kind of disconnection from the modern reality, but I can assure you, scientists are not so dumb as to calibrate a satellite by picking a “convenient tide gauge”.
Anyhow, it’s been a while since I read the documents, but from memory the main calibration sources for the radar satellites are, curiously, not the various parts of the ocean at all.
…
…
They are lakes … and you thought the scientists were dumb? You didn’t think of that one, did you? At a lake, the water is often perfectly flat, and you can measure its average relative elevation to the nearest mm. Then you use a stationary GPS system to set up a reference absolute benchmark and you’re in business …
In my experience, scientists are often wrong, but they are infrequently dumb. Does happen, I’ve done it myself, but it’s not a common thing in the world of science.
Regards,
w.
Willis bays silt up. Erosion from tidal events does also cause land to decrease levels. But I don’t believe that atolls float. If they did they would be subject to gigantic moves. Corals form from bed rock, then harden up and new ones grow on top. Atolls are usually the remains of volcanic activity, and coral has grown on top. Anyway, I asked for sea level rises around Australia when Tim Flannery said we would be inundated with high sea levels. The BOM replied, sea rises are expected to rise 177mm by 2050. 177 MM not CM or meters. That’s around six inches.Go on another tirade about people not agreeing you, it should tell you one thing, there is no absolute.
By the way Willis, at the Western end of the Mediteranean around Italy, one village has sunk a meter. Some of the Roman villas that Caesar used to visit are under water, they sunk. It is renown for its hot volcanic baths, that are still advertised for good health. Very seismic around there with many volcanic marine vents. Earth moves and water and tides other than spring tides or Ebb tides are predictable. I suppose you don’t see how the moon influences this.
Bays silt up Willis. One such area on the North coast, Valla has a sea entrance and usually tidal leading to a river inland, it silted up. Subsequence was water dropped, and also the place lost a lot of its tidal input and fish coming into the river. They cleared the entrance and sea levels rose again.
They are lakes … and you thought the scientists were dumb? You didn’t think of that one, did you?
====
Not my field…..but everything I’ve read has said tide gauges
http://imos.org.au/srscalval.html
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/248982542_An_Improved_Calibration_of_Satellite_Altimetric_Heights_Using_Tide_Gauge_Sea_Levels_with_Adjustment_for_Land_Motion
part two..
http://earth.esa.int/workshops/venice06/participants/1092/paper_venice06.pdf
http://www.psmsl.org/train_and_info/training/gloss/gb/gb1/alt_cal.html
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/improved-calibration-satellite-altimetric-heights-using-tide-gauge-sea-levels-adjustment-lan
Not surprised atoll.
Wrong again, willis, and variously. You ignore the effect of subsidence on SL gauge. If the Galveston SL gauge shows no increase for these last 16 years, correcting for subsidence means a decrease in SL. This is what you ignore when you heatedly seek to discredit my science. My point is this: the cited Gulf coast sea level gauges show no SL increase this century. You claim this is unreliable because it takes 50 years of data for a valid conclusion. Others do not agree. rgbatduke commented that SL gauge data offers a “sanity check” for satellite data. I agree.
And speaking of Satellite data, this seems to be what you base some of your science on. In that case, you are wrong again, because that is rigged.
My confidence is based on a multitude of stations, and that sort of verity escapes you, so wrong again, Willis.
You initially cited PSMSL data to refute me. That turned out to be AGW nonsense, did it not? So, wrong once more. Finally you got the right source (NOAA MSL trend, Galveston) but then you ignored it, implying that I was a “newbie” to rely on such data.
So Willis, my claim that NOAA SL data for the Gulf coast shows no SL rise this century stands unrefuted. For those who wish to verify, see NOAA mean sea level trend for Sabine Pass, Galveston, Port Mansfield, Freeport, Port Isabel. See also Grand Isle, La. for a false SL rise because of acute subsidence in the Miss. Delta area.
By the way, Willis, can you not be a little less insulting in your responses?
Cheers, mpainter
bushbunny says:
April 28, 2014 at 6:54 pm
bushbunny says:
April 28, 2014 at 6:59 pm
bushbunny says:
April 28, 2014 at 7:25 pm
First, “Floating atolls” is a metaphor, bushbunny, so you are correct. Your keen intellect has pierced the veil and reveals the true facts of the case—atolls are actually sitting on coral reefs that are sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Who knew?
Next, as I’ve pointed out to you before, posting lovely anecdotes about something you read somewhere about some village “at the Western end of the Mediterranean” is not what this site is about. It is about science, so if you want to play, you need to provide facts and figures. Which village? Where is it? When did it “sink a meter”? What caused it to sink? Your claim is garbage without the facts and details, that’s what science is about, not about anecdotes.
Next, if you “suppose [I] don’t see how the moon influences this”, you suppose entirely incorrectly. I see and understand pretty exactly how the moon influences this, I’m a commercial fisherman and a boatbuilder who has studied the topic extensively.
Finally, yes, bushbunny, bays do silt up as you point out. However, clearing the entrance to a bay does not make sea levels rise … that’s why they call them “sea levels” and not “bay levels”.
Overall, I don’t have a clue what your point is here, you appear to be randomly firing anecdotes in all directions. What are you trying to say here? Because if your rambling stories have a point … I’m not seeing it.
All the best,
w.
mpainter says:
April 23, 2014 at 9:03 am
I pointed out this was not true. I pointed out the NOAA tide gauges. OK, let me try again. Here is the Galveston sea level data. You can download it yourself.
Now, having chased this Galveston Pier 21data down to its lair, with absolutely no help from you, what do I find when I analyze the data?
NOAA SAYS THAT THE SEA LEVEL IN GALVESTON THIS CENTURY HAS BEEN RISING AT 6.1 MM PER YEAR!!!
Do your freakin’ homework before uncapping your electronic pen, my friend, it prevents all kinds of embarrassment.
Now, if you’d actually had the data, and if you had actually linked to the data, and if you had actually analyzed the data, you wouldn’t look stupid for shooting off your mouth with untrue claims, and more importantly, I wouldn’t have had to waste my time falsifying your bogus, uncited fantasies.
I probably could, but I’m sick of people wasting my time with uncited bullsh*t and then abusing me for not providing things I provided … what, you don’t remember? I provided and discussed a lovely study showing the nature, amount, and reasons for the subsidence in the Gulf. For that nice piece of research, here’s what I got in return from you:
mpainter says:
April 28, 2014 at 8:32 am
And yes, I bite back when I’m accused of “blithely ignoring” facts, mpainter, as I did in this example, viz:
You want to get treated nicer? Start citing your claims so I don’t have to do your work for you, and curb your tongue. I don’t “blithely ignore” anything, including your nasty insults.
w.
dunno….NOAA says Galveston pier is subsiding at 6.5 mm year…..because of extraction
Figure 1 shows the sea level trend for Galveston Pier 21, Texas, which has been rising at a rate of
6.5 mm/yr due to land subsidence from oil, gas, and water extraction
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/outreach/pdfs/sea_levels_online.pdf
dunno…just got curious about it
Latitude says:
April 29, 2014 at 11:33 am
Thanks for that interesting citation, Latitude. I read that statement as saying that the rate of sea level rise is among the higher rates on the planet (6.5 mm/yr) because of the addition of the local subsidence to the underlying sea level rise.
I do not read that statement as saying that the local subsidence is 6.5 mm/yr.
So I went to look for local GPS data. I find the Galveston 1 GPS data from a few kilometers away from Pier 21.
It gives the local subsidence from 1998-2003 as being -5.44 mm/year.
So that means that corrected for the local subsidence over the period, the sea level has been RISING, not level as mpainter claims but rising at a rate of about 1.1 mm/year, a not uncommon rate around the world.
Finally, I refer you to mpainter’s statement that opened the Galveston topic:
mpainter says:
April 23, 2014 at 9:03 am
Actually, as I’ve been pointing out, subsidence is quite measurable …
w.
Willis, I’ve visited these places, and it is known fact the silting up of deltas does affect inland tidal flows. In Australia we do remove silt so waters become deeper for boats etc. I suspect you don’t have this problem in Canada.
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 29, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Well …. Let’s see. Galveston TX is on the same bays and inlets as Baytown, TX and the battleship Texas. They are about a 30 minute drive apart, depending on which road you are on and what time of day it is…..
When I was working Baytown in the early 70’s, the tops of battleship walkways, concrete docks and slip sidewalls were underwater after subsidence from underground water and oil pumping (mainly water) from the aquifers after their initial construction in 1950. Baytown lost an entire subdivision to 8 feet of water level rise.
they stopped pumping fresh water out of the aquifer, let it refill from the natural flow from “higher up” the Texas recharge zones (and some judicious refilling) and both recovered.
So, where does this modern Galveston data of “inches per year” explain 6 and 8 feet of “sea level rise” only a few miles away over a period of time from 1950 through 1980?
The Japanese have also managed to flood some of their land from aquifer pumping …. Taiwan, Philippines.
Willis, so glad to have your assistance on this intriguing question of Sea Level trend. Subsidence is measureable to within + or – 1 cm, according to the Harris/Galveston Subsidence District, the agency charged with the monitoring of subsidence there. Yet they have a map at their website that gives subsidence rate contours in mm and it looks like the Galveston might be 1-2 mm per year, although the map is incomplete and is not clear on this.
But, if the Galveston SL figures are to be corrected for subsidence, you must correct gauge data negatively.
You, above, added subsidence rate to a flat trend- wrong direction, Willis. You should have subtracted. Hence, the flat SL trend at Galveston becomes -1 mm/yr, when adjusted for subsidence.
I would point out that the SL trend for the Texas coast gauges from Port Isabel at the southern tip to Sabine Pass at the easternmost border ( six stations, excluding those with data incomplete) all show agreement on a flat trend since the end of the last century. This is some seven hundred miles of coastline. Gulf of Mex. gauges at Florida sites generally agree. The one exception at Grande Isle, La., shows a trend of increasing SL. But in fact, this is actually a measure of subsidence which in this case is caused by the terrific sediment load in the Miss. River delta region.
This universal agreement of Gulf Coast gauges on a flat SL trend gives me confidence that SL is not rising today, and has not for sixteen years or so. I very skeptical about SL data to be found on the web. Your referred PSMSL confirms me in this, as it shows a fabricated rising SL trend for Galveston while citing NOAA for the source.
I believe that the SL rise is another contrivance of the global warmers, and their most successful, as they seemed to have duped most everyone. But I believe that I have taken their measure.
Cheers
mpainter
Oh dear another Willis run thread. I’m outta here. Just google sunken cities.
bushbunny says:
April 30, 2014 at 7:37 pm
My dear, you vastly overestimate my meager powers. I cannot “run” a thread. I cannot stop you from having your say, nor do I have the slightest desire to do so. I’m not a moderator on the site, I don’t snip anyone. I cannot bully you, where is the threat? I cannot interrupt you when you are speaking. I don’t know any more about you than you’ve chosen to reveal, and I have no way to verify any of it.
And you are also free to stay or leave, I cannot force you to do either.
However, saying you are leaving because I’m running the thread? Sorry. Not buying that one. That’s not happening. I have no more power over the direction the thread takes than you do. All I can do is to encourage scientific discussion, by asking people to provide citations, links, quotes, data and other identification and support for their claims.
Finally, telling folks to google something is generally considered poor etiquette in a scientific discussion. It is not our job to locate the facts to back up your claims about some unidentified Mediterranean village. You need to google them and give us the links.
Best of luck whether you stay or leave,
w.
Bushbunny:
Willis Eschenbach is usually very good about responding to comments. Some commenters/posters never do when they should. He always makes for a good discussion of issues, even if he sometimes gets a little rough.
mpainter, sorry but I find him a bully and boorish. It’s a known fact that erosion, subsidence affect many human settlements, look at your latest mud slide, and it occurs more where there is coast (tidal) erosion or underwater movements. Sea levels go up and down, during silting up of deltas, or river inlets, and rocks are less manipulated than sand and gravel or limestone. Anyway, I am finding Anthony’s blog because of Willis a bit of a pain, I am interested in the politics of this more than graphs that I can’t understand, and I am not meant to understand, and if I make a comment that I know is true, I don’t have to prove it just Google yourself, either sunken cities, or drowned cities. Very much a part of marine archaeology. Cheers I am departing this blog for a while, and I will say Willis has bored me and I found his responses to me, illogical and also arrogant. If you want to debate his ‘scientific’ essays, fair enough, I have better things to do! All it does is boost his flagging ego.