# Dr. Trenberth Redux

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

A couple days ago, I was given a copy of a most interesting interchange from 2011 between Dr. Kevin Trenberth and a layman asking him a question. The sender of the question recently passed it on to me. I’ve redacted the email addresses and the name of the person asking the question, but otherwise it is totally unaltered.

From: “Kevin Trenberth” <trenbert@XXXXX.edu>

To: “Dr XXXX” <xxx@xxx.xxx>

Sent: January XX, 2011 X:XX PM

Subject: Re: warming

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I’m 62 and now semi-retired. I’d like to  bring myself up to speed on global warming, which I read is one of the great catastrophes of our time. You describe rising sea levels as being the evidence for man caused global warming. It had been my understanding that sea levels have been rising steadily for thousands of years and now at a very slow rate. I know there’s been a huge increase in man’s CO2 in the heavy industrialisation since World War 2. How has this increase in man’s CO2 effected sea levels ?

The rates have not been steady and picked up markedly in the mid 20th century and even more since 1990 or so. CO2 has been increasing since 1750 although mainly since 1850.

That was Dr. Trenberth’s entire reply to the question.

Now, I found this interchange quite amazing. Here’s somebody asking for information, and Dr. Trenberth’s response about sea levels is … well … almost fact free.

First, he says that “the rates have not been steady and picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” … there are a couple of well-cited analyses of this question. One is by Jevrejeva et al., and the other by Church and White. Here’s what Jevrejeva et al. said about the rate of change of the global sea level (gsl)

Figure 1. Jevrejeva analysis of global sea level (“gsl”, upper panel), and rate of change of global sea level (“gsl rise, lower panel). Source

As you can see, the idea that the rate of sea level rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is totally contradicted by the Jevrejeva data.

How about Church and White (C/W)? Here’s their analysis of the situation:

Figure 2. C/W analysis of rate of change of global sea level. Source

Again there is little evidence that the rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”. Instead, it continued to go up and down, even as far as zero.

How about the claim that in the 1990s there has been “even more” rise? Well, there’s nothing like that in the Jevrejeva data, but there is in the C/W data. I suspect that that’s what Trenberth is referring to. Why is there such a jump in the C/W analysis?

It’s because Church and White played fast and loose. They simply spliced the satellite-based sea level data onto the tidal stations data, ignoring the fact that the satellite rise is about 50% higher than the tidal station data.  So they just hoisted up the tidal data by that amount, so it would kinda sorta match to the satellite data … and then smoothed the splice with a centered filter. Bad scientists … no cookies.

So yeah, when you go past the splice the rate of rise SEEMS to go up from about 2 mm/yr to 3 mm/yr … which is what Trenberth has reported as fact. But it’s not a fact at all, it’s just a splice.

But wait, it gets worse. In fact, far from increasing as Trenberth claimed, the satellite-measured sea level rise has actually been decreasing, as shown by Cazenave et al. …

Figure 3. ORIGINAL CAPTION: GMSL [global mean sea level] rate over five-year-long moving windows. a, Temporal evolution of the GMSL rate computed over five-year-long moving windows shifted by one year (start date: 1994). Source (paywalled)

I discussed the Cazenave et al. results shown in Figure 3 in a post called Sea Water Level, Fresh Water Tilted. Now Dr. Cazenave’s study was published in 2014, so Trenberth wouldn’t have known of that in 2011. However, I noted the decrease in the satellite data back in 2010  here, so it’s been visible in the raw data for some time. Here’s my graphic from that post:

Figure 4. Variations in the sea level as measured by the TOPEX/JASON satellites.

Since he’s setting himself up to answer questions about sea level, Dr. Trenberth certainly should have known of the decrease.

Here’s my point in all of this. A variety of people, even good honest scientists like Dr. Judith Curry, have been publishing a host of posts and studies claiming that the problem with climate science has something to do with bad communication. Dozens of theories have been advanced to try to explain why Americans are totally unconvinced by climate scientists, why we consistently rank climate as the least of our problems. Why, they ask, are climate scientists unable to get their message across to the American public?

These theories are all about how scientists are not explaining things in the right way, or about how “deniers” have a different mental makeup than the faithful, or how there is a lack of clarity in what the scientists are saying, or how the framing of the message was incorrect … but in nearly every case, the issue is cast as being one of poor communications.

(Let me say in passing that given that the climate alarmists have had the full and enthusiastic backing for several decades of the mainstream media, and of the governments, and of the schools and universities, and of the leaders of various professional societies, and of the jet-setting Hollywood stars, and have been funded to the tune of millions and millions of dollars to try to get their message across, including \$300 million from Al Gore, and \$74 million from Tom Steyer, and have had lots of advice from expensive media and communications consultants … well, after three decades of that immense pressure, “poor communications” seems the least likely explanation for their failure. But I digress.)

However, this exchange puts the lie to all of that. There is no lack of clarity in Trenberth’s statement that

The rates have not been steady and picked up markedly in the mid 20th century and even more since 1990 or so.

There’s no communication problem there, no murkiness, no poor framing. The problem is that Trenberth is spouting the same old alarmist nonsense about “accelerating sea level rise”, a claim that is demonstrably untrue. Sea level rise hasn’t accelerated. To the contrary, it has slowed down.

I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims, whether he was honestly mistaken, or he knows but doesn’t care, or he actually doesn’t know what the sea level is doing, or he is just pushing an agenda. Be clear that I make no claims about his motives, his knowledge, or his mental state. I truly don’t know why he answered the way he did.

But what I do know is that after decades of being spoon-fed bovine waste products by climate scientists, who the whole while have been confidently assuring us that it’s ice cream … the American public has wised up.

It reminds me of the joke you’ve likely heard …

A kid says to his friend, “What’s that in your hand?”

His friend says “They’re smart pills! They make you smarter. You want one?”

“Sure”, says the kid, and he eats one and makes a terrible face. “These aren’t smart pills,” the kid says, “these are sheep droppings!”

“See?” his friend says. “You’re getting smarter already!”

So yes … thanks to repeated doses of Dr. Trenberth’s Smart Pills being prescribed by far too many climate scientists, the American people are getting smarter already.

My best to all,

w.

De Costumbre: If you disagree with what someone says, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU DISAGREE WITH. That way we can all be clear about exactly what you think is incorrect.

## 319 thoughts on “Dr. Trenberth Redux”

1. Siberian Husky says:

Dr. Trenberth is busy. He has a career. And a life. In fact it’s pretty impressive that he gave a few minutes of his time to this.
The highest rate of change in the Church and White graph is around 1990.
The second or maybe third highest point is around the mid-century.
Still sea levels continue to rise. Where’s all that global cooling you keep on telling us about?
Stop nit-picking and get a life.

• Exactly where in the article does Willis Eschenbach predict global cooling? Or is in reference to some other claim he has made about the planet cooling? Or is this because you were unable to argue with anything written in the article, so you decided to make stuff up, and then refute what you’d made up, but attribute it dishonestly to the author?

• Geez, Husky, when one is looking for long term trends, you don’t focus on the short term variations, you average them out. There are peaks and there are minima, but the overall trend is gradual and counter balanced by the satellite measurements.

• Siberian Husky says:

So you’re saying that about a century of sea level rise is counterbalanced by some satellite measurements over about 15 years that show a decrease in the rate of that rise is that it?
The sea level has been rising constantly since about the mid 1920s. How’s that for a trend?

• Serial troll David Appell is worried about sea level rise. I answered him thus

There is also more to consider

[Portus] The ancient gateway to the Mediterranean was twice the size of the port of Southampton and supplied the centre of the Roman Empire with food, slaves, wild animals, luxury goods and building materials for hundreds of years. It is now two miles inland.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1217353/Face-sand-Roman-amphitheatre-unearthed-ancient-port.html
But let’s have an episode of mass hysteria as sea level never changed before in the pre carbon goldilocks era!
Professor T’s pronouncements have become more and more unhinged from reality (saying the hotspot was wherever there was a heatwave [Russia 2010] was a real doozie as the logic implies the hotspot was also over London waaay back in 1868). I hope in a way it is a mental condition (bias/denial/delusion etc) as deliberately making such statements as he does could only be percieved as mendacious, more behoving of a politician than a scientist. Sadly with the whole political maelstrom surrounding climate science, I’m inclined towards ill intent in the name of the ‘greater good’.

• sabretruthtiger says:

Siberian Husky, your grasp of statistics and logic is minimal.
It’s been rising since the maunder minimum and has been unaffected by CO2 rise as indicated by the data. Trend-berth has claimed otherwise, that it has increased in line with CO2 emissions. He’s lying.
Rising constantly since the 1920s is statistically insignificant has it has been rising constantly since 1850. If the rate of increase had risen since the 1920s then it would be.
Your logic is akin to the idiots yelling the hottest years on record are in the last 10 years. This is statistically insignificant and logically meaningless as of course, even during an 18 year pause, the hottest years are going to be at the end of an upward trend no matter if it contradicts the alarmist models and does not correlate with rapidly rising CO2.

• Patrick says:

Siberian Husky I used to live in the UK. I lived all over the south of England, Portsmouth, Gosport I have also been to Exeter and Plymouth. Why is this significant when talking about sea level rise? Because these are all several hundred year old sea ports that show no significant sea level rise.

• sleepingbear dunes says:

Husky, you are conflating rise with acceleration in the rate of rise. They are not the same. Yes sea levels are rising. No, there is no acceleration in the rate of rise, at least the latest CU data has kept it at 3.2 mm/yr for the last 20 years. The IPCC has acknowledged that the current rate is similar to that of the 1930s.

• Bill_W says:

Husky,
Trenberth said it had not been rising at a constant rate. Make up your mind. The scientific answer, if he had been thinking of the C&W paper would be to say that over the long term it had been constant but with better measurements recently we could see if oscillating over the short term and that some satellite measurements showed small increases but there was not enough data to know if this was real.

• And I might add that we are in an interglacial period, during which temperatures continue to rise…until they don’t, and then you are in another ice age. Same as with sea levels. During the Ice Age sea levels were …what, 300 feet lower than today? Some people think history began on the day they were born.

• Crispin in Waterloo says:

Some people think climate history began when they started to pay attention.
Trenberth, while I admire your esprit-de-Team it seems Facts are playing for the other side.

• brandon c says:

So even after he pointed out exactly why the 1990 uptick was an artifact of improper statistics, huskey loving points it out as proof. Totally missing the point and proving exactly why people are trusting alarmists less and less.

• sabretruthtiger says:

Is he too busy to gain a semblance of logic, scientific knowledge or honesty?
I find myself busy occasionally but never has it led to me being a lying scumbag that dismisses everything that is valid in my career.
Let me break it down so that someone of even your mental capacity can understand.
Trenberth says “The rates have not been steady and picked up markedly in the mid 20th century and even more since 1990 or so.”
The data shows that it hasn’t. Also the Rate of change is practically identical to 1960s.
Also I see YOU’RE

• Siberian Husky says:

A kindly old man takes 5 minutes out his extremely busy day to write a quick innocent response to some member of the public whose emailed him and now it’s climate gate all over again.
If he’d written a two page in depth response you’d be all over it probably saying what a waste of tax payers money or some other libertarian drivel.
Sea levels have been rising constantly since the mid 1920s, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast. But Im sure it’s just natural variation or some liberal conspiracy.

• sabretruthtiger says:

…nitpicking, by choosing the statistically reprehensible data splicing to claim a rise and ignoring the other sound, unfiddled data that shows no increase.

• MB says:

Sea levels have been rising constantly since the last Ice Age, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast.

• “Libertarian drivel” . this from a Lefty stooge. Siberian Commie
Leftists always suffer. They suffer for everyone else. Then they scheme to end the suffering, they know what’s best.
Trenberth is a notorious alarmist not a “kindly, old, busy scientist “.
You’re his apologist? Has he retained you?
You fear the rising seas. I don’t

• Skiphil says:

Siberian Chihuahua,
no one doubts that Trenberth is busy, has a (high profile) career, has a life etc. It’s up to him whether or not he answers such a query, but answer he did. As Willis shows, the answer is bizarre, and your bizarre comments (global cooling??) make no improvement upon Trenberth’s words.

• Siberian Husky says:

…and I bet after this little debarckle loads of climate scientists will banging down your door to engage with you

• nigelf says:

…and I bet after this little debarckle loads of climate scientists will banging down your door to engage with you
Not if they aren’t willing to tell the truth, like Trenberth. He made a statement and was called out on it, why do you have a problem with that?

• rw says:

Exactly. What does being busy have to do with making an inaccurate (and probably disingenuous) response?

• beng says:

russian lapdog whimpers about a poor old man. So touching & loyal….

• Klaas de Waal says:

Dear mr or mrs Husky,
I am a little offended by your closing sentence.
It seems to me that, if I disagree with the good dr., my facts can only be wrong and my opinion is unimportant.
Is that how you are going to convince me of your cause? Good luck with that.
Also, if I agree that there hasn’t been any cooling over the past 18 years, can you agree there hasn’t been any warming either.

• Siberian Husky says:

My point is that Willis should be making comments about serious peer reviewed research not throw away two liners in a random email.
This community is always complaining that the scientists don’t engage with them enough / don’t take them seriously.
Posts like this are not going to help.

• ddpalmer says:

So engaging by lying is good enough?
Sometimes you Kool Aid drinkers are just too funny.

• mpainter says:

Hello World,
please take note of the Siberian Husky who shows that it bothers him not a whit that Trenberth should author falsehoods about sea level rise, poor, misunderstood, hardworking, abused but nonetheless noble fellow that he is, that Trenberth.

• TYoke says:

Husky, you seem to have entirely missed the point of Willis’s post. AGWers everywhere are lamenting that they have failed to move the political needle because of problems with scientific communication.
But if the scientists in question lie to the public, they harm the AGW cause. How is that so hard to understand?

• “Siberian Husky November 16, 2014 at 2:24 am
My point is that Willis should be making comments about serious peer reviewed research not throw away two liners in a random email.
This community is always complaining that the scientists don’t engage with them enough / don’t take them seriously.
Posts like this are not going to help.”

Your point? You have reason to critique someone who took their time to decipher a not kind man’s erroneous reply to an honest questioner?
Definitely a true watermelon action; sham green outside and all socialist inside with the self administered power to condemn people’s actions you don’t personally like.
This community gives a good fair shake to any post and yes, like many people we seek to correct errors or understand our own errors.
The alarmists like Trenberth go to great lengths to avoid actually discussing science with anyone who questions or disagrees with them. To understand this fear, and yes it is fear of having to answer tough questions, even you can read Trenberth’s rather dismissive and definitely erroneous reply to a basic question.
Dismissive fabrications used to reply to simple questions discourage people because they realize they were not taken seriously.
One thing is obvious, posts like this are not helping you as you seem to be seeking confrontation, obfuscation and interruption or disruption of threads.

• Ceetee says:

“This community is always complaining that the scientists don’t engage with them enough / don’t take them seriously”.
Well actually YOUR scientists don’t. They demean and insult. They hide their data and collude to make sure like minded crusading souls do the same. They equate genuine scepticism with holocaust denial and all manner of antisocial behaviour. I could go on and on…
I assume you have a face and a palm.

• Duster says:

SBH, telling someone else what they “should” be doing is a load of “smart pills.” If you cannot comprehend written material well enough to abstract the writer’s intended meaning, you might possibly consider not embarrassing yourself. Trenberth could have just as easily said that he was not really that knowledgeable about sea level changes and suggested someone else to ask about the topic. Willis was far from as rough on Trenberth’s opinion as he could have been. Sea level data has undergone “adjustments” that make the alterations to temperature data look tame. In Trenberth’s “favor” I think he simply repeated the opinion of “experts” he trusts rather than his response being “agenda driven.” What his response reveals is that he has a biased pool of trusted experts.

• Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) says:

• Well said Siberian Husky, the fact that Dr.Trenberth took time out to respond personally is laudable and should be appreciated, I also agree with your view of the charts showing the increase.

• Just Steve says:

Oh, wow. The good Dr. decided to come down from on high to engage one of the little folk…..what a humanitarian!
Meanwhile, every day a whole cadre of accomplished scientists and experts come to this forum and share their expertise in answering questions from those of us you probably consider the hoi polloi. And not in the written equivalent of 15 second soundbites….see Dr. Brown from Duke, a man I’m sure is one heck of a lot busier than Trenberth ever thought of being.

• Keith Willshaw says:

Then perhaps you can explain the sharp decrease in the 1950’s and 1970’s, a time when CO2 levels were rising rapidly.

• lawrence Cornell says:

…and this is where the clues of CAGW being a religion have their seed. It has been shown, in fact PROVEN, once in the post and twice now in the thread that the shown rate in increase in the chart(s) was manufactured by the author through trickery.
Yet Gareth Phillips still CHOOSES to BELIEVE.

• OH!
Thank the lord! The big climastrologist took time out his day to answer some poor soul!
Be appreciative! Drop down and kiss the erroneous answer! Thank the man for his obtuse and incorrect answer! Be very appreciative!
Do tell. What is this; the Alarmist’s view of how the high and mighty should occasionally grant some words to the poor slobs out there working for a living?
Nothing like the humility of the alarmists…

• BruceC says:

Siberian Husky; Still sea levels continue to rise.
Where is this continuing sea level rise?
I am 52 years old (53 next month). I have lived in the one location my entire life……..on the East coast of Australia. Approx 0.5km to the east, is a bloody big body of water called the Tasman Sea. Approx. 0.5km to the west, is what is regarded as the largest coastal lake in Australia, Lake Macquarie. This lake has a direct entrance (channel) to the Tasman Sea…….and do you know what……for the life of me I can’t see ANY sea or lake levels rising, except for tidal variations.
You know what’s worse Siberian Husky? My father is 89 years old and was BORN in this same location.
Guess what?…….You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, as your science is settled and the ‘experts’ are telling you sea levels continue to rise. I only have one word to say;
BOLLOCKS!

• Siberian Husky says:

“Bruce” (lol) Maybe you should have that conversation with the folks who look after the Thames barrier or maybe the citizens of Kirabati who’ve seen half their country disappear?
The graphs Willis presented show the sea level rise quite clearly. I doubt that you will have noticed a rise of 15cm over the past century.
As an aside, I saw your head of state make the opening speech at the G20 yesterday and spent most of his time moaning about domestic issues in what was probably the most embarrassing, cringe-worthy opening address I’ve ever seen. Is he really the best your country can elect?

• Husky, the operational policy of the Barrier is to close at exceptionally low tides in order to hold water in and maintain a relatively constant water level along the tidal portion of the river. This was a policy change close to the turn of the century and is part 1 of the reason why the barrier closes more often.
Part 2 is that the city of London, which the barrier was built to protect, is sinking at about 30 cm a century on average, and in fact that gradual subsidence is the reason the barrier was built in the first place. It was already expected to have to close more often as time went by. Using its normal operation as “proof” of climate change is disingenuous at best.

• Siberian Husky says:

Bruce,
You’re Australian- and you’re called Bruce. It wasn’t meant to be an insult. Search youtube for monty python sometime…
Look at the y axis on the graphs you’ve posted. A rise of 10cm is huge. It’s not SFA.
best wishes.

• Merrick says:

So, Siberian Husky, I don’t doubt the basic information that you pointed to regarding the Thames Barrier, but Wikipedia is not only NOT a defendable source in general, but did you not notice that there isn’t a SINGLE reference to any of the claims of rising water levels, nor in the entire section on geography of the Thames Barrier? Did you also miss this bold statement at the beginning of that section?
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2013)
Quite right. I challenge it. Now, you made the claim – prove it.

• BruceC says:

10cm is nothing but a flesh wound. It could be worse, you’re experts talk in metres…..scary! The combined two graphs above shows SLR at Kiribati = ZERO from ~1986. That’s 30 years of accelerated, continuing, catastrophic……….nothing! Just like the accelerated, continuing, catastrophic nothing at my location for the past, at least, 89 years.
Oh, almost forgot. I voted for my Head of State, and just like him, climate change is cr@p.
Even better wishes.
P.S. Don’t need to youtube Monty Python……have most of their DVD’s here at home.
“icky, icky, icky, icky, kapang, zoop, boing pin”

• VicV says:

It was designed for “long-term changes in sea and land levels as understood at that time (c. 1970). Despite global warming and a consequently greater *predicted* rate of sea level rise, recent analysis extended the working life of the barrier until around 2060–2070.”
Note: *Predicted*, not *realized*.
“The Environment Agency responded that it does not plan to replace the Thames Barrier before 2070, as the barrier was designed with an allowance for sea level rise of 8 mm per year until 2030, which has not been realised in the intervening years.”
“The Thames Barrier is around halfway through its designed lifespan. It was completed in 1982 and was designed to protect London from flooding until 2030 and beyond. … The Environment Agency are examining the Thames Barrier for its potential design life under climate change, with early indications being that subject to appropriate modification, the Thames Barrier will be capable of providing continued protection to London against rising sea levels until at least 2070.”

• Jimbo says:

Siberian Husky please read the following on Kiribati. It is illuminating and should give you a broader perspective. There are a number of reasons why these islands can become inundated by sea water and it’s not just sea level rise by itself. Think over extraction of water from the lens, gravel extraction, sand mining, over fishing of beaked fish etc.

The graph reveals that there, in fact, is no ongoing sea level rise that threatens the habitation of the islands. This is the hard observational fact, which we should all face before starting to talk about future flooding and the need for evacuation.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/09/kiribati-on-the-move-not-sinking/

• Jimbo says:

Siberian Husky,
You do realise that most coral island atolls can and do rise with sea level rise and fall with sea level falls? It’s when humans begin sand mining, and the like that the natural process is interfered with causing sea water to inundate some low lying areas.

Abstract2010
Arthur P. Webba et. al.
The dynamic response of reef islands to sea-level rise: Evidence from multi-decadal analysis of island change in the Central Pacific
Low-lying atoll islands are widely perceived to erode in response to measured and future sea-level rise. Using historical aerial photography and satellite images this study presents the first quantitative analysis of physical changes in 27 atoll islands in the central Pacific over a 19 to 61 yr period. This period of analysis corresponds with instrumental records that show a rate of sea-level rise of 2.0 mm yr- 1 in the Pacific. Results show that 86% of islands remained stable (43%) or increased in area (43%) over the timeframe of analysis……..
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003
____________________________________
Abstract – 10 FEB 2014
Evidence for coral island formation during rising sea level in the central Pacific Ocean
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL059000/full

• Jai Mitchell says:

http://gu.com/p/3pjaj?index=7
Kiribati: life on a tiny island threatened by the rising sea – in pictures
Image description
A man wearing a red shirt stands in a tidal pool next to some old broken brickwork on the shores of Kirabati
Image caption
In the mid-1990s, Toani Benson would buy petrol from a shop where he stands. Today, the shop is a a submerged ruin. The centre of Tebunginako village, on Abaiang Island, is now underwater at high tide.

• MCourtney says:

Jai Mitchell, for the sake of argument I (temporarily) will accept all you wrote; now how much was the petrol station worth? Is it one offshore wind turbine or two?
It’s less than that.
Even taking your assertion at face value – the proposed green policies are wasteful.

• BruceC says:

I may not be the most sophisticated chap on the planet, but at least I’ve got the common sense not to be taken in by an un-proven theory that CO2 causes global warming and/or climate change (or whatever they’re calling it this week).

• Duster says:

SBH, may be you ought to look into the effects of eustatic and isostatic effects on sea and land levels following the last ice age and consider not doing things as bone headed as comparing the sinking Thames estuary with the tectonically stable southern coast of Australia. Just for grins you could also look up “Holocene sea level high stands” and read some of the evidence that the sea level is currently between one and two meters lower than it was between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago during the Early Holocene.

• Jimbo says:

Here are some abstracts. I hope Trenberth has seen these. Next I will post some graphs.
ABSTRACTS

Abstract – 23 February 2011
Sea-level acceleration based on US tide gauges and extensions of previous global-gauge analyses
It is essential that investigations continue to address why this worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years, and indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years.
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1
==================
Abstract – July 2013
Twentieth-Century Global-Mean Sea Level Rise: Is the Whole Greater than the Sum of the Parts?
………..The reconstructions account for the observation that the rate of GMSLR was not much larger during the last 50 years than during the twentieth century as a whole, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing. Semiempirical methods for projecting GMSLR depend on the existence of a relationship between global climate change and the rate of GMSLR, but the implication of the authors’ closure of the budget is that such a relationship is weak or absent during the twentieth century.
American Meteorological Society – Volume 26, Issue 13
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00319.1
==================
Abstract – January 2014
Global sea level trend during 1993–2012
[Highlights
GMSL started decelerated rising since 2004 with rising rate 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012.
Deceleration is due to slowdown of ocean thermal expansion during last decade.
• Recent ENSO events introduce large uncertainty of long-term trend estimation.]
… It is found that the GMSL rises with the rate of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr during 1993–2003 and started decelerating since 2004 to a rate of 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012. This deceleration is mainly due to the slowdown of ocean thermal expansion in the Pacific during the last decade, as a part of the Pacific decadal-scale variability, while the land-ice melting is accelerating the rise of the global ocean mass-equivalent sea level….
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113002397

• Jimbo says:

Here are another 2 papers out this year showing sea level rise DECELERATION.

23 March 2014
New paper finds global sea level rise has decelerated 31% since 2002 along with the ‘pause’ of global warming
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/03/new-paper-finds-global-sea-level-rise.html
7 October 2014
New paper shows global sea level rise has greatly decelerated since ~2002, opposite of predictions
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/10/new-paper-shows-global-sea-level-rise.html

Maybe sea level rise is accelerating at a decelerating rate. 🙂

• Merrick says:

jimbo, the rate of change of acceleration is generally called “jerk”, though the term isn’t usually applied in this case. Sadly, however, I’d have to disagree with you since I’ve seen plenty of jerks surrounding the issue of sea level rise and it’s mostly the ones making claims of jerk in sea level rise…

• Bill_W says:

Jimbo, What is the difference between panel a. and b. for the rd and blue bar graphs? They have identical labels but the blue bars are shorter on the right. Which paper is it from?

• Siberian_Husky says:

Excellent excellent.
So basically in summary:
(1) There’s been about a 10cm sea level rise in Kirabati since the early 1980s. That would translate to an ocean rise of a foot or so a century which would be seriously concerning. Good thing that there are some other factors that might partially explain that rise or we’d all be screwed.
(2) the post about the London barrier to hold water in at low tides was utter nonsense and the barrier has had to close because of flooding many more times since it was originally openned
(3) sea levels have been rising since early last century and continue to do so entirely consistent with AGW
(4) most readers on this post don’t understand that complex systems don’t necessarily mean a 1:1 relationship between various elements of that system
(5) Bruce is probably not the most sophisticated chap on the planet

• Robert B says:

From Siberian Husky (who thinks the screen name Bruce is funnny?)
“10cm sea level rise in Kirabati since the early 1980s” and “the post about the London barrier to hold water in at low tides was utter nonsense and the barrier has had to close because of flooding many more times since it was originally openned”.
Seriously, they close the weirs when the surge is predicted to be 4.87m but these predictions have an uncertainty much greater than 0.1m. They were closed half the time due to alluvial flooding downstream and 5 times as often in the past 5 years due to that. They were closed 25% less often for storm surges in the last 10 years than the 10 years previous.
No surge, including the 2007 and 2013 predictions, have come close to the surge of 1953.
That they are more cautious (as well as London is sinking so they were prepared to do it more often) does not justify a comment that the sea level rise is accelerating. A bit like the warmest years on record does not prove that the world is has been warming for the past decade, that the mean water level in the estuary is still high doesn’t mean that sea-level rise is accelerating.

• Jimbo says:

• Jimbo says:

Bill_W
The graphs are from this paper. Here is the note they attach but it cuts off after the word “five…”. There is a paywall. I’m still waiting for my oil check.

“a, GMSL trends computed over two time spans (January 1994–December 2002 and January 2003–December 2011) using satellite altimetry data from five processing groups (see Methods for data sources). The mean GMSL trend (average of the five…”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n5/full/nclimate2159.html

• klem says:

Siberian Husky
According to Wikipedia the world’s oceans have risen and average of 6mm per year for the past 20,000 years.
So what part of today’s 2-3mm per year is unusual?

• Alberta Slim says:

With global warming, the Siberian Husky may become extinct. ;^D

• D.I. says:

Maybe if Dr.Trenberth and yourself gave ‘a few minutes’ to watching this short video about measuring ‘Global Sea Level’ you would become aware of how complex the process is.
For Scientists to say they can measure ‘Global Sea Level’ to the Millimetre is a joke,at the end of the video it states they can only measure to the nearest Metre.
Watch it here.

• rgbatduke says:

Ah, yes, but then they’ll reply that they are only measuring the “anomaly” in a number that they cannot compute to within meters and indeed, have to work like the devil himself to extract at all.
As far as that goes, the anomaly is all that really matters. Because the ocean is essentially isostatic in the overall field, and because warm water floats on top of cold water, the ocean expands and GSL rises where it locally warms without rising elsewhere (and falls where it cools ditto!). The only global sea level that matters is the one on the coasts of the continents, and the variations in mean sea level there are determined almost entirely by variations in local mean temperature plus whatever small contribution is made by global melting land ice.
It is the latter that matters, if anything matters at all. Thermal expansion of the ocean is unlikely to accelerate or make any sort of large contribution to SLR rates simply because the ocean is Really, Really, Big. As Trenberth himself has pointed out, it can eat all of the “missing heat”, buffer naively projected global warming, and alter its own mean temperature by a tiny fraction of a degree, and all of that before breakfast. If the Antarctic or Greenland ice packs melted, OTOH, the ocean might really start to rise. That’s why they are so careful to suggest that some fraction of SLR is due to melting ice pack and that this is what might be accelerating.
The problem with this is that it is so very difficult to measure or attribute. GRACE has given them a tool to at least play with, possibly providing them with the means to measure changes in total land mass on the nearly infinitesimal scale necessary to observe the disappearance of land ice. However, we have almost no baseline, there are large error bars, snow falls and accumulates in one place as ice disappears in another in Antarctica, and then there is the extreme difficulty in attributing any observed change, where the heat that melts ice can easily be geothermal (on a continental scale, there can easily be geothermal hotspots along plate boundaries) and have nothing to do with “global warming”. For example consider this:
This is the distribution of Antarctic volcanoes, active and extinct. The all lie long the continuation of the South American plate boundary into the continent, and represent a magma flow that thrust up the major mountain ridge of Antarctica. They fairly clearly indicate where the region is tectonically active. It is highly probable that the entire ground surface of this entire region is on average receiving additional heat from a flow of magma under a thinner than usual crust. Basically all of this additional heat would be transformed into latent heat as it melts the surface ice at the points of contact, as the ice layer above is effectively an insulator kilometers thick.
What is the distribution of observed warming and ice melt in Antarctica?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r6puDKdsxHc/UN1eZGLwfbI/AAAAAAAAwp4/ICkGZ9X95sQ/s400/Antarctic+ice+sheet+thickness.jpg
So called western Antarctica is tectonically active, we know that. It is also the only part of Antarctica that is substantially warming or where substantial land ice melt is occurring. There are many possible causes of that warming — it has also been attributed to warming seawater and ocean currents delivering heat to the large glacial bays, to alterations of atmospheric circulation, and to direct GHG warming (which is, of course, largely absent in the latter case from the rest of the continent.
The problem is that it is very difficult to resolve the different possible causes, and they might not even be “distinct”! If the continent is being tectonically warmed at a changing rate (something we haven’t got the faintest chance of observing given the baseline of our observations and their resolution) it could be melting ice, which is altering ocean salinity, which is altering ocean circulation patterns, which is warming the bays, which is additionally melting ice, which could even feed back further by altering atmospheric circulation patterns. Even though we have good reason to think that Antarctica is losing land ice (on the whole — it is gaining land ice in some parts while losing it in others) and even though some of that land ice loss may be connectable to global atmospheric or oceanic warming, we do not have enough information to attribute the causes to specific fractions of what is probably not a separable process. It is, however, quite “odd” that if this is truly a global warming process its effect is so highly localized on the specific fraction of the Antarctic continent that is tectonically active. One last figure:
http://planet-terre.ens-lyon.fr/planetterre/objets/Images/chaleur-Terre-geothermie/chaleur-Terre-geothermie-04.jpg
Note that heat flows up to a half a watt per square meter persist on the western coast of Antarctica, although this particular projection is a terrible one for seeing the continent fairly represented. Similar levels are present in Iceland, where they routinely use geothermal energy as an actual energy source. Also of moderate interest is the rather enormous area of the sea floor with this unusually high heat flux at the two conjunctions of three plates to the west of South America on the Pacific floor, in pretty much exactly the place that El Nino happens.
I should emphasize that a half-watt per square meter is enormous, when delivered all $3.15x10^7$ seconds of the year over an area of a trillion square meters at the bottom of the oceanic water column — it is very likely the dominant source of oceanic heating in the stratified lowest layer over these tectonic zones by far, given the fact that water is a poor conductor of heat and readily stratifies, and the fault that runs down the pacific in this figure has an area of several trillion square meters being differentially heated at this rate right next to much cooler zones. In particular, it is more than enough to create large scale convective rolls that carry bottom water from cold bottom to warm bottom as it warms what would otherwise be the densest seawater on the ocean floor, rolls that chaotically tumble and twist as they are carried laterally by large scale currents and coriolis forces. They may not be the source of El Nino heat, but they could easily be the heat source of the large scale ocean dynamics that emerge as El Nino at the surface when they interact chaotically with atmospheric and solar absorption patterns that reinforce or weaken them.
The point being that once again, the Earth-Ocean system is a highly complex one. Increased CO_2 almost certainly warms the earth, and is almost certainly responsible for a substantial fraction of the post 1850 warming observed. It is very difficult indeed, however, to attribute precisely what fraction, nor is it possible to assert any sort of high probability prediction for future climate in the Earth’s chaotic climate system. What one can say with some certainty is that there is little evidence for substantial positive feedback on top of the carbon dioxide linked warming, and moderate evidence that natural climate variation is likely to be responsible for a substantial fraction of the warming observed in (say) the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
rgb

• maccassar says:

rgbatduke
Outstanding does not do justice to your incredible comments. As always I learn more about the climate in one of your posts than almost anywhere else. I have wondered if it was at least possible that geothermal activity in the West Antarctic could account for the loss of glacial mass. At least I know it is a possibility. I dont remember seeing any reference to this in the IPCC. The other area you covered about the hydro thermal vents in the sea floor has also intrigued me but I had no way of knowing if the magnitude was such that it could impact the OHC.
It is nice to know this is an area that needs further investigation and should be added to the ever increasing list of things we need more knowledge about. Thanks for a great post.

• george e. smith says:

So Robert,
Don’t you have anything better to do, than jot a few notes to an inquisitive inquirer. Surely you have some exam papers to mark, or some students paying for your time !
Anyway, I always like pictures of Antarctica, sans sea ice. They make it clear that much of the Antarctic peninsula is NOT in The Antarctic, but sticks up in that area where the sun never does not rise, and where the South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans slosh back and forth twice a day, lifting the edges of floating ice sheets, which eventually will crack them.
Well I should read what it is that you are saying !
G

• george e. smith says:

PS I think we should make the year exactly pi times 10^7 seconds.

• MCourtney says:

PS I think we should make the year exactly pi times 10^7 seconds.

Finally, a rational idea on this website.

• Ernest Bush says:

It’s the old problem that the supposed rise or fall of sea level to so few millimeters is inside the noise bands of the measuring instruments, especially satellite instruments. It is right up there with calculating temperatures to hundredths of a degree when it is doubtful the instrumentation is accurate to a tenth of a degree. Things only get worse when you start calculating averages from local data. Did the sea rise or the land sink. I’ve seen supposed experts try to use old and new pictures to illustrate sea level rise. The only problem is if you ask if they were taken with the moon in exactly the same place you often get a blank look.
If the figures I read were accurate, the Aleutian land bridge was 200 feet above sea level when the ancestors of American Indians walked across it. The fact that in centuries to come sea level rise could cause problems with coastal cities is meaningless. It will be so gradual that people will have decades to centuries to get out of harms way. Currently, there isn’t enough land ice to raise sea level another 200 feet. This presumes that the global temperature will begin to rise once again in the next few decades, anyway. Anybody who attempts to push their warming or cooling view on the rest of us at this time is using pure speculation. There are simply too many variable that we don’t currently understand.

• george e. smith says:

“”””…..
MCourtney
November 16, 2014 at 1:12 pm

PS I think we should make the year exactly pi times 10^7 seconds.
Finally, a rational idea on this website……””””
So how come you’re so damn smart ?
Took me a bit of cogitating to catch on.
I often have periods of irrational thinking; so there !!
G

• Catherine Ronconi says:

rgbatduke
November 16, 2014 at 7:56 am
There is also movement up or down in response to a mile of ice having been lifted off the land over the past 20,000 years or so, ie what used to be called rebound. Perhaps this up or downlift is negligible, as imperceptible on the scale of centuries, but I do note many places around the world where in historic times its evidence is obvious.
The fact that ancient and medieval cities and structures that once were on the coast but now are inland is usually attributed to “silt”, when in fact, while that may have affected some ports, the main culprit is presently lower sea level, at least locally, than in the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.
As just one example, I recently visited Harlech Castle, Wales, famed in song and story. It owed its fame to having been supplied by sea during its medieval sieges, but now the ocean is quite distant. This is all the more remarkable, since southern Britain is moving down as the north of the island rebounds from being freed of ice.
The beloved song was written about the siege during the Wars of the Roses, not that of Prince Hal, later Henry V of Shakespearean Band of Brothers renown, against Welsh rebel Owen Glendower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlech_Castle
Two of the planet’s great choral peoples:

New English lyrics for “Men of Harlech” were written for the movie. It’s sung in Welsh in John Ford’s “How Green Was My Valley”.

• phlogiston says:

It rather looks as if the west Antarctic coast is being shaved by Occam’s razor.

• Chuck L says:

So do the rest of us. Trenbarth and others’ often exaggerated claims of catastrophic climate change, half-truths, and untruths are used by EPA and other government agencies to push rules and regulations that not only negatively affect the American People’s careers and lives, but keep citizens in poor countries in abject poverty and rob them of the opportunities to better their lots.

• latecommer2014 says:

Yes his life is busy… trying to convince the world they must reduce their level of life to draconian measures to fix a non problem. Enough to keep most people busy.

• BruceC says:

As you brought up Monty Python, it seems to me they had problems with the weather in 1975:

• Pamela Gray says:

Good heavens. This is a science blog. You use “maybe” and “around the” phrasing to refute a well-referenced post. If you come to play, wear your big boy pants.

• Pamela Gray says:

Meant to be under Husky’s original comment. I hate nesting.

• MCourtney says:

I know what you mean but it seems to me that Siberian Husky deserves more consideration.
He is playing on the away turf. It isn’t easy, especially when he is still learning how the game is played here.
And his alternative view to the majority here has helped bring out all sorts of useful comments – Jimbo’s references and graphs, for example.
Let’s be nice to anyone who breaks an echo chamber.

• mpainter says:

Jumbo, Otter,
Every time you ask that question Peter takes a hike, as I’m sure you noticed.

• Put it in perspective Siberian Husky. In 100 years you will be dead and sea level will have risen 200 to 300 mm. Does 8 inches to 12 inches bother you. Put it this way. I used to work on the Pacific coast of Canada and built projects on and next to the ocean. The daily tides varied up to 4.9 metres (16 feet). We used a minimum of 1 metre freeboard above the highest recorded tide for parking lots and dykes plus some other considerations. Now that was 40 years ago and I don’t believe any of those projects will be in danger in another 100 years. And who knows what direction sea level will be going at that point. So stop nit picking and get a life.

• Jimbo says:

MCourtney,
On another thread about warm being better than cold I asked Peter where he had been on his last 4 vacations. He failed to answer the last time I looked. My point is that behind almost every concerned Warmist is a hypocrite. Go to a hot country after arguing with us about hot or cold being better OR FLY!

• MCourtney says:

I see what you are meaning but it still seems to be playing the man not the ball.
Honing the arguments about SLR requires a foil.
Driving him off because of personal details doesn’t help the debate.
As I am often in the minority here as a left-winger I have sympathy for people under the mass-attack. Don’t agree with Peter on much but I respect his willingness to engage.

• mpainter says:

MCourtney,
Lighten up. Peter provides a lot of fun. He tucks his tail and runs whenever someone says “vacation”. It’s amusing, so be amused.

• MCourtney says:

mpainter, it’s all fun and games until someone goes crazy and emigrates to the Islamic State.
OK, I may lack a sense of humour on this thrad but I do know how it feels to be in the minority here. It isn’t fun.
And bothering with personal stuff when you’re only here for the substance of the debate?
Why would he?

• mpainter says:

MCourtney:
tut tut
Let others have their fun. Your angst does not play well here.
Do not be a party pooper, nor a wet blanket, nor a sermonizer, nor a skunk at the picnic, please. Do not condemn others for their fun and games lest you be seen as one of those.

• jl says:

SB-” Still sea levels continue to rise. Stop nit-picking and get a life.” Sorry to nit-pick, but you’re only half-way there. You’d have a point if they never rose in the past, but they did, so you don’t. Now you have to prove that the sea level rise is due to humans production of additional CO2, which you haven’t. Good luck.

• So, let me get this straight. Your argument, in response to the above, is that “Dr. Trenberth is busy” and you want Willis Eschenbach to “stop nit-picking and get a life”?
Wow. First let me say that you must not have read very much of Mr. Eschenbach’s essaying or you would not think yourself such an authority on how another man should live his life. Even with my infrequent visitation to this site I’m pretty confident in saying that there are probably very few people who have used their lives in more varied and interestingly, knowledge-productive pursuits that Mr. Eschenbach. Whatever he writes about has the distinctive quality of the voyager who knows how to appreciate whatever he finds, coupled with a fierce dedication to at least strive after honesty.
As for Dr. Trenberth being a busy man, I am certain that whenever he gets an email such as the one sent to him here, he becomes *a lot more* busy than he was before getting it, so busy in fact that in his reply he cannot bring himself to tell the truth about the data. This strikes me as scientific malfeasance of a rather high order.

• Siberian_Husky says:

Man I love these threads. You can just hear the cognitive dissonance ringing as the WUWT community gets schooled and the crazies come out of the woodwork.

• lawrence Cornell says:

I think you may be projecting, perhaps a little alarm clock for your med schedule would be helpful…

• Ernest Bush says:

You will not impress anybody here with your knowledge of psychology by dropping idiot phrases like “cognitive dissonance”.
The very idea that the WUWT community got schooled by the likes of you is sadly laughable.

• Ceetee says:

“Crazies??’. ‘Cognitive dissonance’??. Grow up. This isn’t tiddlywinks. You and yours brought this apparent emergency to the table. Defend it’s veracity rationally without personal insults or sod off.

• A. Scott says:

Ahh, the term “cognitive dissonance” and a claim that he is “schooling” us despite the fact he has not presented a shred of evidence to support his claims …. tells us pretty much who and what we are dealing with.
The laughable result of a Lewney Tunes response ….
Support your claims and positions or kindly stop wasting our time.
Lets look at some REAL measured tidal gauge data – the Battery park tidal gauge – which has been in continuous operation since the 1800’s. It is also located in New York, a favorite of the climate cabal t use with their scare mongering images.
Lets see what the actual measured data – the facts – say:
NOAA’s historical page:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750
NOAA:
“The mean sea level trend is 2.83 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence
interval of +/- 0.09 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from
1856 to 2013 which is equivalent to a change of 0.93 feet in 100 years.”
NO sign whatsoever of acceleration – just a steady rise … of a whopping .93 feet, just 11.16 inches over the last 100 years … or 9.4 inches over the last 85 years.
Yet despite a NOAA 95% confidence level of an average increase of just 2.83mm annually over the last 100 years, and NO sign of ANY acceleration … the climate cabal would like us to believe we will see 1 to 3 METERS … 3 to 9 FEET … of sea level increase over the next 85 years … by 2100
Where is the data to support your claims Husky?

• Chuck L says:

Right, you are Wile E Coyote, Genius, because you use scientific language like “cognitive dissonance” while presenting no facts nor data to support your claims. You should take your act to echo chambers SkSci, Desmog, or Real Climate where you can chortle and snark with like-minded alarmists.

• Alx says:

What is impressive is that you support Trenberth who was caught being blatantly deceiving.
Stop trolling and basking in your perceived glory of ignorance and dishonesty.

• Doubting Rich says:

Did you actually read the article? It does address precisely that point, so I would assume not.

2. jolly farmer says:

My dog doesn’t eat sheep droppings, but he loves rabbit droppings.
I don’t think he thinks they make him smarter. He just likes the taste.

• Mike McMillan says:

Thank you for sharing.

• Antonia says:

What’s not to like? I enjoyed the laugh.

3. Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy says:

As per IPCC the global warming started in 1950/51. If we look at Figures 1 & 2 of Jevrejeva and Church & White, they show that there is no trend in rate of global sea level change but there is a cyclic pattern. After 2000 this cyclic pattern show a dip. Continuation of this dip beyond 2000 is seen from satellite data given in Figure 3. As far as the data prior to 1950, there is a need to explain why such steep change??? Is it a data problem???
Dr.S. Jeevananda Reddy

• Duster says:

This pretty much what Nils-Axel Morner said. He also pointed out that tide gauge data was being “adjusted” to match satellite data, leading to his notorious “sideways” presentation of a graph of the “adjusted” data to show what the tidal gauge data looked like without adjustment.

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Duster, do you have a link to Morner’s presentation of the “adjusted” data?
Many thanks,
w.

4. Gilbert says:

There is of course a communication problem. It’s difficult to make a point when the evidence doesn’t support it.

• Julie says:

Well said, Gilbert!

5. Christopher Hanley says:

“The rates have not been steady and picked up markedly in the mid 20th century and even more since 1990 or so. CO2 has been increasing since 1750 although mainly since 1850 …”.
====================
The writer was clearly referring to human CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning which was relatively insignificant before WW2 — Trenberth simply ignores that important point.
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/global.total.jpg

• Alx says:

“Trenberth simply ignores that important point.”
Yes, exactly I call that being decpetive and dishonest.

6. Martin A says:

“I’d like to bring myself up to speed on global warming, which I read is one of the great catastrophes of our time.”
That was exactly my position some years ago. I assumed it was all firmly established physical science with no room for doubt.
Very slowly it dawned on me – this is just a theory! (or a hypothesis, as stickler for the correct use of words would say). The key thing for me was the apparent impossibility of finding even one popular article that explained in it comprehensively in a way that anybody with a knowledge of physical science could make sense. No shortage of “carbon dioxide traps heat” style baloney which, for me, made it more and more apparent that something that was very far from a certainty was being dressed up and presented as such.
Then Climategate burst on us. I spent days, fascinated, reading through the emails (including Trenberth’s).
I still feel annoyed with myself that it took so long for the penny to drop and to realize that I (like everybody else) had been taken for a ride by Mann, Jones, Trenberth, and all the others.

• Jimbo says:

What Martin A has just pointed out is very important. I was a Warmist too but became angrily sceptical before Climategate. I too felt these people had mislead me on the seriousness of the ‘problem’ and exaggerated as they pleased. “children won’t know what snow is” (Viner) – “not later than 2015 there won’t be any ice in the Arctic in the summer” (P. Wadhams) etc. Most objective members of the public who go study both sides of the ‘debate’ usually see the light. There are those who don’t bother but see cold and snow in England and wonder about the warmer winters they were promised. Only to find out that the climate scientists actually meant colder and warmer winters. This makes them sceptical I’m afraid.

• nielszoo says:

What I find interesting is that you find very few engineers or applied scientists, folks who work with and in the practical, applied side of the physical sciences, who stick with the Warmist cause after even scratching the surface of the charade. Only in the government and “education” sectors do the ranks of the Climateers contain engineering types… ’cause their paychecks depend on believing, and they have to work in government jobs as that level of scientific ignorance or malpractice would get you fired in the private sector.
Truth is the enemy of the CAGW meme.

• bonanzapilot says:

nielszoo: Not exactly on topic but your comment reminded me of NASA’s report on actual vs. modeled performance of the Space Shuttle during its first orbital flight. The differences were many and not insignificant. A major one can be found on Page 5 here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88290main_H-1894.pdf

• I must be a outlier. I had trouble with CAGW from the beginning. Even though I am not from Missouri, I wanted to be shown. I was interested in sciences from biology to microbiology to physics and chemistry from about grade 6 (1950’s) when I also became intrigued by the voyages of the Vikings and claims they sailed to Greenland and possibly Newfoundland; and later I became intriqued that genetics might suggest multiple origins of humans in North America, possibly from Pacific Islanders crossing the Pacific. I took sciences in high school and graduated from the first Class at the University of British Columbia that provided a Civil Engineering Degree in the “Water and Pollution” specialty. We studied weather and water as pollution vectors; and geologic history, water resources, and a broad spectrum of other subjects too long to list including “Philosophy of Science” resulting a fairly broad based view of the world with a technical but practical bent.
I accept the world warms and cools, and I believe humans will eventually figure out the mechanisms if mankind survives long enough. “In year 2525, if man is still alive…” (Eager and Evans) But I am an eternal optimist.
“It’ll be alright in the end, and it it’s not alright, it’s not the end.”

• psi2 says:

Count me in this camp too. During my 30s I assumed by political/cultural affiliation that warming was real and it was caused by C02. I first learned this as a possibility in College in 1981, although it was only presented then, reasonably enough, as a theory. By 1995 I was sure we were in trouble. And it was very warm then, compared to now, or so it seems to me, in the places I’ve lived over that time. But at a certain point I decided to look more closely at the climate theory and modelling and I became aware of how hollow much of the alleged “science” is, since the entire discipline of climate science appears to be strongly influenced by what Wikipedia calls “Noble Cause Corruption.” That pretty much explains to the evidence, at least to me.
My pursuit of this inquiry has caused conflict among my friends, some of whom feel that I am betraying my environmentalist roots. On the contrary, to me the credible science is that we could, if we decided we wanted to, stop worrying about mitigation of that as a serious threat. There are plenty of other, realer issues that we face as a planet.

• Duster says:

I am embarrassed to say that no one mislead me except myself. Despite what I knew about the field side of historical geology, I quite lazily considered the lab properties of CO2 to be reasonable support for AGW. It took a question by my son about why water went cloudy when heated (hot water essentially forces dissolved gases out) to trigger a cross-eyed revery that culminated in a re-examination of the Vostok Ice Core data. Once you start to critically examine the AGW hypothesis, it falls apart like wet paper. In fact, it becomes quite difficult to accept the completeness of current ideas about how the climate operates, or that “climate” can be rationally discussed in time scales of less than a century minimum. I’ve no use for politics or politicians of any stripe so I’ve never had any use for the left-versus-right element in the AGW debate.

• VicV says:

It’s not even a hypothesis. It’s conjecture that’s been found useful by some people and morphed into propaganda. If it were a hypothesis, it would have been rejected long ago.

• Michael Wassil says:

The CAWG crowd lost me when they tried to disappear the MWP and LIA (ie the original 1998/9 Mann hokey schtick). I know too much history to get fooled by that malarkey. Since my background is geology, their claims of ‘unprecedented’ temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the late 20th century only further confirmed the malarkey. Every first year geology student spends at least one lecture period on the chart of the Geologic Time Scale showing temperatures and CO2 over geologic time. The only nearly ‘unprecedented’ thing about the Holocene are the low temps and CO2! The Climategate emails sealed the indictment for me. I find it a relief that this scam is finally running on empty and is going down, down…

7. Martin says:

Willis, from the Jevrejeva et al paper it says:
“global sea level trend estimate of 2.4 ± 1.0 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2000”
The latest sea level trend estimate is 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2014.
That would make your claim that sea level rise hasn’t accelerated, it has slowed down, as being not correct.

• rogerknights says:

Don’t forget that the U of Colo. has put its thumb on the scale by high-handedly redefining sea level as oceanic volume.

• mpainter says:

And by fabricating an expansion of volume by a fabricated subsidence.

• Martin says:

Thing is Willis uses the the U of Colo data in this post to help make his point.
So if as you claim, with zero evidence, that the the U of Colo has put its thumb on the scale then Willis must not use the U of Colo data hey!

• rogerknights says:

“So if as you claim, with zero evidence, that the the U of Colo has put its thumb on the scale . . . .”

Addressing Questions Regarding the Recent GIA Correction
Edited: 2011-07-18
[Update, 2011/06/20: Media Matters has published a story on the attention our GIA correction has received.]
…………………
What is glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), and why do you correct for it?
The correction for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) accounts for the fact that the ocean basins are getting slightly larger since the end of the last glacial cycle. GIA is not caused by current glacier melt, but by the rebound of the Earth from the several kilometer thick ice sheets that covered much of North America and Europe around 20,000 years ago. Mantle material is still moving from under the oceans into previously glaciated regions on land. The effect is that currently some land surfaces are rising and some ocean bottoms are falling relative to the center of the Earth (the center of the reference frame of the satellite altimeter). Averaged over the global ocean surface, the mean rate of sea level change due to GIA is independently estimated from models at -0.3 mm/yr (Peltier, 2001, 2002, 2009; Peltier & Luthcke, 2009). The magnitude of this correction is small (smaller than the ±0.4 mm/yr uncertainty of the estimated GMSL rate), but the GIA uncertainty is at least 50 percent.

Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 23, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Fourthly, when it became apparent to the Colorado team that, as a result of the stasis in “global warming”, their post-1993 rate of sea level rise was about to fall below the psychological threshold of 3 mm/year (or 30 cm/century), it was decided to add a so-called “global isostatic adjustment” to the sea-level rise as a way of demonstrating that, were it not for “global warming”, the natural recovery of land altitudes by isostatic rebound following the melting of the great glaciers that once covered much of the northern hemisphere would show a fall in sea level.

A quote from the article said:

“’We have to account for the fact that the ocean basins are actually getting slightly bigger… water volume is expanding,’ he [Steve Nerem, the director] said, a phenomenon they call glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA).”

To which I responded:

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.

==========

Steve Case says:
July 3, 2013 at 7:23 am
If you got to the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine:
http://archive.org/web/web.php
and plug in the URL for Colorado Universty’s Sea Level Research Group
You will find records that go back to 2004
The earliest functional “mean sea level time series” link is from
March 27th of that year, and if you follow that link through to “Inverted Barometer Applied” and “Seasonal Signals Removed” and click on text
you will find the data as it existed for 1992.928 thru 2003.842 It’s then rather simple to download the series into Excel and find the slope. It comes out to be 2.6 mm/yr
If you then go to Colorado University’s Sea Level Research Unit today and dowload the “Raw data (ASCII)”
You will find that the same series for 1992.96 through 2003.846 comes out to be 3.5 mm/yr
Somehow over the last ten years the data has been changed. What had been 2.6 mm/yr in 2003 is now 3.5 mm/yr. An increase of 0.9 mm/yr.

“The sea level time series release from 2004 is over eight years old, and in that time many parts of the TOPEX and Jason-1 processing have been updated to reflect instrument and ancillary data improvements. Without recreating each processing change over the last eight years, We cannot point to any specific update that is the main cause of the differences between the 2004 and the current release. But a partial list of the more influential updates include:
– updated orbits
– updated tide models
– updated sea state bias models
– updated dynamic atmosphere
“A review of the release notes shows how we continually apply what the altimeter science community considers to be the most up-to-date set of processing parameters.”

Without further comment the above stands as its own testimony.

• talldave2 says:

“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.”
The best part of this dodge is that AGW enthusiasts will promptly take that measure and use it to claim “sea levels are rising and will threaten coastal areas” even though the basin increase obviously mitigates that threat.
The whole debate is so much like a game of three card monte now. Watch that red card!

• MCourtney says:

1.4-3.4 is not necessarily lower than 2.8-3.6.
It’s a big leap of faith to start making policy on numbers that could be an increase of 2.2 mm/yr or a decrease of 0.6 mm/yr. Hardly a strong argument to hang your whole career on. Really, is that the best they’ve got?
And the discussion about splicing datasets does raise questions about the integrity of all the data.
False in one thing cannot be assumed to be true in all else.

• Bill_W says:

Exactly. They are the same within error. The scary predictions that (if they came true) we should worry about are if it goes up to 10 mm/yr. 10 mm/yr is 1 cm/yr, so 100 cm/century. Since 25.4 cm is ten inches, 100 cm would be about 40 inches or 3.3 feet by 2115, if it started rising by 10 mm/yr today and stayed that way for 100 years. 3.3 mm/year is 1/3 of that or about a foot by 2115 which is only a few inches more than if it stayed at 2.4 mm/yr. Essentially, these are all alarmist nonsense, until we see a real increase in sea level for a sustained period (say 20 years) that is over 4 mm/yr. Or that increases to 4 mm/yr then to 6 mm/yr. Until then, it is nonsense. Even 3 feet in a century is not catastrophic if it is steady and we know it is coming.

• Martin says:

Thing is that the U of Colo calibrates it’s measurements against a network of tide gauges.
“Since 1993, measurements from the TOPEX and Jason series of satellite radar altimeters have allowed estimates of global mean sea level. These measurements are continuously calibrated against a network of tide gauges.”
So, the tide gauges are also corrupted data? Where does it end? Willis cannot use any data from any science institution to make his claims cos it’s all bogus!

• MCourtney says:

Martin, you need to reread the splicing data account in the article.
The measurements are not being questioned. I discussed the errors that they quoted and did not question those bounds either.
But splicing different forms of data and then smoothing the join?
That’s false.

• mpainter says:

Martin
Yes the fabrication goes to the tidal gauges. The U of Colorado calibrates against tide gauges in subsiding locales. Willis Eschenbach has been suckered, and not for the first time.

• Willis Eschenbach says:

mpainter November 16, 2014 at 3:17 pm

Willis Eschenbach has been suckered, and not for the first time.

mpainter, is there some part of QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH that has escaped you? You say I’ve been “suckered” without saying where, and you say it’s “not for the first time” without saying where.
That’s just flinging feces at the walls of your cage and hoping something sticks. It’s nothing more or less than unpleasant, unsupported character assassination. I can defend my words. I can’t defend myself against your vague nasty insinuations. Quote my words or go play somewhere else, there’s a good fellow.
w.

• mpainter says:

Willis
Suckered is the word and your memory does not serve you too well, does it?
My memory serves me very well indeed and I recall the discussion the two of us had on a past thread some months ago on sea and sea level gauges. The particular thread you can go find yourself if you wish. I will spare you the discomfort of citing your most egregious error in that exchange.
Willis, you insulted me in that thread and you insult me here. I advise to
1. Be more critical of data sets, especially those concerning sea level rise,

• Willis Eschenbach says:

mpainter, once again you are unwilling to reveal exactly what you are babbling about, but you continue your ad hominem attacks.
Pathetic.
You want to discuss science? I’m your man.
You want to continue making ugly unsupported handwaving claims of my alleged faults? Not so much …
w.

• Rienk says:

Go read the article again. You missed the story about the splice and the shenanigans.

• Hugh says:

The straightness of the UColorado trend is remarkable — frankly it looks too perfect even they removed seasonal frequencies. If we believe those results, there is just very minimal nonseasonal natural variation. This is possible, but then again Trenberth’s “picked up in 1990’s” contradicts with the presented linear progress.
BTW. Sea level is of no interest at seas. It is only interesting at coasts, which may exhibit larger or smaller average rise than midseas. On the other hand, pumping ground water may sink the ground level like in Jakarta. This is as bad and in Jakarta’s case, much worse than tiny sea level rise.

• Mike McMillan says:

I began following CU’s sea level page early in this millennium, when they had the rate at 3.2 mm/yr, with your choice of seasonal adjustment on/off, barometer adjustment on/off, sort of like Coke’s caffeine and sugar choices. After a few years it drifted down to 3.1, then further down to 2.9. Not long after that the web site went offline.
When it returned, the rate was back to 3.2 mm/yr with baro included, no choice. The strange GIA that enabled the higher rate was mentioned in the text on their first page, but has since migrated back to the FAQ’s.

• Richard M says:

I don’t think so.
Jevrejeva et al. (2014)
“the new reconstruction suggests a linear trend of 1.9 ± 0.3 mm/yr [7.5 inches per century] during the 20th century” and “1.8 ± 0.5 mm/yr [7 inches per century] for the period 1970-2008.”

• Steve Case says:

Martin November 16, 2014 at 12:35 am wrote:
Willis, from the Jevrejeva et al paper it says:
“global sea level trend estimate of 2.4 ± 1.0 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2000″
The latest sea level trend estimate is 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2014.
That would make your claim that sea level rise hasn’t accelerated, it has slowed down, as being not correct.

Well it’s true, the Jevrejeva paper:
Nonlinear trends and multiyear cycles in sea level records
says:
Our global sea level trend estimate of 2.4 ± 1.0 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2000 is comparable with the 2.6 ± 0.7 mm/yr
sea level rise calculated from TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter measurements.

And it’s also true that CU’s Sea Level Research Group tells us 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2014.
What doesn’t add up is what the today’s data from CU’s Research Group says about the rate from 1993 to 2000 because now it says the rate back then was 3.1 mm/yr. If you comb through their data you will find that by the end of 2005 that data yields rates as high as 3.6 mm/yr. A bit more than it is today. But wait, was it really 3.6 mm/yr back then? Here’s their 2005 Release 5 graphic
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2lu6mhd.jpg
It was only 2.9 mm/yr by the end of the 2005, but now the data says it was 3.6 mm/yr back then. Anyone with some curiosity and modest Excel skills can verify what I’ve said.
To put it in words that everyone can understand, Colorado University has re-written the historical data.

8. oppti says:

Thanks Willis.
It confirms my suspects. Figures from fixed stations have a hard time follow the satellites.

9. Mervyn says:

It is pretty sad that all this nonsense to do with climate change, global warming, sea level rise, blah blah blah, is political propaganda, and the science is actually irrelevant.
To the supporters of the IPCC mantra, it is all about propaganda and not science. To them, the science was settled back in 2007, with the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report… the gold standard in climate science… the settled science… incontrovertible… based on 100% peer reviewed literature. Yeah.. what a lie that was. The latest 5th Assessment Report is irrelevant as the synthesis report does not even accurately reflect the detailed report. And besides, what use is it when the science was settled in 2007!!!!!
Peter Sullivan wrote all about it last year in his book:
http://www.punchdrunkonco2.com
The problem now for climate realists (a.k.a. climate sceptics) is the task to combat the high profile support for the IPCC mantra by people like Obama at Australia’s G20 meeting. No point going on about the science and data. The eco-bullies like Obama simply ignore it. The science has become irrelevant. The campaign must be about a public dismantling of the political propaganda by the political-environmental elite … exposing their lies.

• Stephen Richards says:

Only the public can do that and I hold no hope that they have the capacity so to do.

10. JJM Gommers says:

Willis, a simple question, the rise is slowing but how to combine that with the claim that the heat is in the ocean at the same time?

• Rienk says:

Well, the simple answer is “propaganda.” “Pro” as in “for” and “pagan” as in the “hicks from hicksville,” the people (us) who are treated like mushrooms. It’s just an ad hoc story with lots of loose ends that won’t match up like all the rest of the ad hoc reasons given for every prediction that hasn’t come to pass yet. Only thrown into the fray to get us to keep busy amongst ourselves. Better course of action would be to ask an alarmist and make them explain.

• Dawtgtomis says:

Don’t forget the “Duh” part…

11. Craig Little says:

My 12 year-old son asked me today if I believe the world is warming. I told him I didn’t think so and that I’m quite angry at climate scientists who have tried to fiddle with data records to make it seem that global warming is a reality. I also briefly told him about the leaked emails between high profile promoters of global warming that showed what they were up to. His response,”When people find out those scientists weren’t telling the truth, they won’t just stop believing climate scientists. They won’t believe any scientist.” Feeling pretty disgusted at the way a once-noble and respected profession has been dragged through the mud by those pushing their own agenda.

• mellyrn says:

Out of the mouths of babes — !

12. William Astley says:

The problem is not a failure to communicate by the warmest scientists, the problem is the data and science does not support their agenda.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm

After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns….
…..Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4’s Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic “Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity” along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and
reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of
Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).

http://www.newsnet5.com/weather/weather-news/us-hurricane-drought-still-in-record-territory

Its been almost nine years since the last major hurricane struck the US Mainland. That’s 3,230 days. ….
Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. is a professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He writes: “Since 1900 US hurricane seasons have seen more than 20% less landfalls and are more than 20% less intense.”
… And the strength of storms has declined as well….
NOAA uses the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index (ACE). It’s based on summing up the wind velocities of each tropical system every 6 hours. As Research Atmospheric Scientist, Dr. Ryan Maue states: “Since 2006, Northern Hemisphere and global tropical cyclone ACE has decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s.” See below.

13. ‘Dozens of theories have been advanced to try to explain why Americans are totally unconvinced by climate scientists, why we consistently rank climate as the least of our problems.’
Here’s one theory which *isn’t* about a failure to communicate: the reason for widespread climate change inaction and skepticism, so called ‘denial’, is an ‘innate’ skepticism possessed by humans and known to psychologists. It is triggered by narrative features of the concept being sold, and hence the trigger requires no domain knowledge at all. Narratives that are too coherent, too certain, too forceful, too emotive and too arrogant, will cause the public to suspect deep down (subconsciously in most cases), that the subject being pushed at them is deeply flawed. This is the case for the CAGW narrative. The ‘innate skepticism’ is most likely a long-evolved defensive reaction to narrative takeovers, which afflict us very regularly indeed. In NON climate domains, Lewandowsky calls this characteristic a ‘stable personality trait’, a ‘key to accuracy’, which lessens the chance of folks being manipulated by misinformation. Yet within the climate domain, his own wordlviews cannot admit to this effect explaining widespreqad skepticism; he um… denies his own papers that describe this effect. So to lessen internal cognitive dissonance he has to (attempt to) place (the main) skeptics beyond the pale – way outside the bounds of ‘normal’ skepticism if you will. One of several flaws in this approach is that one can’t similarily place the bulk of the unconvinced public ‘beyond the pale’. See the recently posted Psychology of Climate Psychologiaztion parts 1, 2, 3 here at WUWT. Part 1 below (long!):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/06/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part1/

• hunter says:

+10

• Steve Keohane says:

Elegant!

14. There’s no communication problem there, no murkiness, no poor framing. The problem is that Trenberth is spouting the same old alarmist nonsense about “accelerating sea level rise”, a claim that is demonstrably untrue. Sea level rise hasn’t accelerated. To the contrary, it has slowed down.
[…]
But what I do know is that after decades of being spoon-fed bovine waste products by climate scientists, who the whole while have been confidently assuring us that it’s ice cream … the American public has wised up.

No sh*t, Sherlock. This is the truth.

15. Greg says:

Excellent overview of the data Willis.
Apparently sea level is not rising as Trenberth thinks it should. Perhaps the sensor network is inadequate. It’s another travesty.

So they just hoisted up the tidal data by that amount, so it would kinda sorta match to the satellite data … and then smoothed the splice with a centered filter. Bad scientists … no cookies.

I’ve always been suspicious fo Chrch and White because they have such an alarmist position and clearly lack scientific objectivity. However, I was unaware they were doing this sort bullshit.
This is almost a perfect copy of “Mike’s Nature trick”. In fact it’s worse, it’s Phil Jones WMO version where you blend two totally different data sources, use a filter blur the discontinutiy and display it with the same line thus hiding the fact that two different things are being presented.
This is scientific fraawd. Nothing less.

• Bill_W says:

The other graph where they clearly show the error bars and the error bars are different for older data and for data from different sources is the way I do it in my own research. Splicing data from different sources with different error bars and then not showing the error bars and only mentioning it in the figure caption in an oblique way and making people hunt for it in the methods is not good scientific practice.

16. Dunham Cobb says:

I am sure this has already been noted above, but I am struck that the same “stupid voters” that bought into the Affordable Care Act (which one assumes is more the progressive extreme of my party since not so many conservatives democrats approved it) are the ones buying into CAGW? In each case it requires the need to blindly accept on faith what those in “authority” are dictating. To dear Al Gore: if the world has a FEVER, then pragmatism has already KICKED THE BUCKET. Goodness!

• You got that all wrong.
Obama and Gruber lied about the ACA so the politicians could have what they thought was a plausible story to tell.
http://assets.patriotpost.us/images/2014-11-14-f42178c4.jpg
(Although that didn’t go well in the mid term elections)
The American people have never voted to give politicians control of CO2.
Not a single treaty has been brought to the US Senate floor for advise and consent.
Even surveys (not national votes) show the people don’t buy the CO2 control knob nonsense.
The politicians promote whatever they think will get them reelected.
The politicians voted for the ACA using Obama’s and Gruber’s lies about the ACA and rejected the unsubstantiated CO2 control knob hypothesis knowing their reelections were at stake.
Reelection choices, only.
Not fact nor science.

17. Twobob says:

Duh!
Can I have some more smart pills?

18. Just Steve says:

Remember….”failure to communicate” in Progressivespeak simply means us rubes won’t bow down and accept whatever pile of excrement they’re shoving down our throats as gospel, to never be questioned. See Gruber, Johnathan

• Taphonomic says:

Or see Cool Hand Luke:

19. Oatley says:

Excellent post, Willis.
This next Congress should be interesting as both houses now have the power of oversight. Perhaps we shall see a few “Lois Lerner” types from the EPA put under oath to reveal their analysis of climate science, collusion with Sierra Club, et.al. As a precurser, watch for high level EPA staff to announce retirement soon.

• hunter says:

Let’s get the former head of the EPA’s climate negotiations and CO2 regulation in from prison to chit chat under oath for the American people.

• Oh yeah, Johnny Beale.
I thought he went into “witness protection”?
The EPA had to create a deep cover for his secret service work.

20. Dorian says:

To the Siberian Husky;
First of all you should change your moniker from Siberian Husky, to just Mongrel Mutt. I love huskies, they are very intelligent, extremely noble and loyal, and above all they love people. Everything you aren’t. I know who and what you are Mongrel Mutt, what a pathetic attempt this is on your part.
It is utterly astounding how you AGW Medieval Thinkers, are so determined to take modern science and broad facts and data and twist, turn, masticate and boil them into your witches brews and spells to get what you warmers all want; money.
That is what global warming is all about, its pure and simply fraud. Now I appreciate how Eschenbach tries to keep a promper perspective and use prim language to position his case against Trenberth, but sincerely and respectively, Eschenbach and others here at WUWT, enough of polite inanities, lets call a spade a spade.
I have a pretty good idea who the Mongrel Mutt is, and believe me ladies and gentlemen, if I am right, I would lay you odds of a 100:1 that you all WOULD NOT be taking this so calmly.
Trenberth, and his loyal Mutt, are all part of the same echelon that all have one thing in mind, to protect their beloved false science and their jobs. These people are fighting for their livelihoods, they do not give a damn about their ordinary layman or laypeople, they are only interested fleecing the public so they can have the nice pay checks and of course and a nice big church where they can play the high priest game.
I have said this before and I will say this again. THIS IS NOT THE 19TH CENTURY. We are now in the 21st century and its time that academia and society in general learned to live to 21st century standards. Having been in academia myself, I know full well how it all works and know, like many of you here, where all the “bodies” are burried. Tenure was once a principle to protect, not those who spoke openly and feared of reprisals, but to protect THE TRUTH OF SCIENCE AND PRINCIPLES OF SOCIETY, to come out and be heard. That is now being poisoned by fraudsters like Trenberth and his loyal Mutt, to use what once were honorable positions and shields of light, to now protecting lies, cheaters, fraudsters and that tools of the black arts.
We have the Internet now, no longer do we need to protect positions and people from competition. No longer should we politicise our academic institutions. Yes AGW is an evil. But its not the only evil. Climate studies is sick, but so is Economics, Physics, Law, Paleontology, Anthropology, Archeology and nearly all the departments of study at universities. Except perhaps for Mathematics and Engineering, where the former, new constructs are tested with logic, and the later, things would just fail and people could die, these subjects soforth advance with good pace (yes I know, the mathematicians can be snobbishly contemptuous, and engineers are forever eruditely myopic; disclosure, that’s a physicist’s perspective – yeah I know, arrogant and condesceding).
I know this is a science blog, but for the love of the Almight, can’t you guys understand what is really at play here! AGW and the multitude of other things that are going on in the world, in our universities, our socities, and our governments, are all part of the same and one problem…. LYING. Our governments lie about other countries and societies and so we find ourselves forever at war, economists lie about their theories for economic management and that’s because ecomomies are always failing, or physicists lie about things like the Standard Model so as to protect billion dollar play toys, our archeologist lie about Man’s evolution, Biology lies about evolution, our religions lie about our faiths…. and on and on and on it goes. The world runs on lies.
Trenberth is a liar. He knows what he is doing… he is protecting his pay check, without AGW, he has nothing. Mongrel Mutt, is his lap dog.
ISN’T IT TIME TO STOP THE PLAY ACTING. THEY ARE LIARS, WE ALL KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON HERE. I KNOW EVERY ONE FEARS LEGAL ACTION. IS THAT WHAT THE WORLD HAS COME TO? IF YOU ALL WANT A BETTER WORLD, THEN START PUTTING THESE HORRIBLE PEOPLE IN THEIR PLACE. AND STOP GIVING THEM PROTECTION THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE….TENURE ONLY PROTECTS LIARS….THE TRUTH CAN NOW ALWAYS BE HEARD VIA THE INTERNET.
Enough of this stupid madness…. the facts are there, AGW is false. We all know that, this is not about AGW, Green Energy, or spelling flowers and planting trees. Its about personal gain….and that is called fraud.

• lawrence Cornell says:

+ ~ Needed to be said. Needs to be said over and over. The time for “nice” is well past.

• Alberta Slim says:

Right on Dorian. Excellent summary.

• D Johnson says:

You go too far by lumping much of science (e.g., the Standard Model, Evolution) with what is today called Climate Science. But perhaps that confirms that accepting bad Client Science tends to discredit ALL science.

• MCourtney says:

Thanks, I did enjoy it.

• Martin says:

AGW is not false. Even the host of this site says AGW is real, and that C02 is a greenhouse gas that causes warming. Monkton says so to, and Willis as well. The facts are that humans are changing the climate,

• MCourtney says:

AGW is not false.
Newsworthy AGW that can be distinguished from natural variation? Well, prove that.
Or don’t. But if you don’t then don’t use AGW in policy making – except as a potential risk like ‘invasion of the flying saucers’.

• jl says:

Why yes, out of the hundreds of variables, we need not bother. Co2 is the giant control knob of the climate. Got it.

• beng says:

Dorian, I agree, the time for pampering trolls such as mongrel, graceless, and others is long past. Just verbally punch them in their sneering faces.
Yeah, the Grubergate stuff has got me mad ’cause it’s the exact same methods as the warmies & their useful idiots have been and continue using. How else do you respond to contempt other than with contempt? And whether or not there is AGW is irrelevant.

21. Jimbo says:

Again there is little evidence that the rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”. Instead, it continued to go up and down, even as far as zero.

We should look at from 1950 and compare to before 1950 too since the IPCC says we began to markedly affect our climate after 1950[s], AR5 is littered with this date.

22. David L. says:

These Climate Cultists remind me of old fashioned fortune tellers peering into the crystal ball, reading cards, or reading tea leaves. These guys make up intentionally murky prophesies so they are “right” no matter what happens. But why? For the same reasons fortune tellers exist: it’s how they make their living. That is easy to understand. But what isn’t easy to understand is why the gullible masses lap it up? Is it for the same fundamental reasons people visit fortune tellers?

23. Jimbo says:

I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims, whether he was honestly mistaken, or he knows but doesn’t care, or he actually doesn’t know what the sea level is doing, or he is just pushing an agenda.

If Trenberth didn’t know then what about members of the public! The man is an IPCC author for crying out loud.
I keep hearing from blog commenters that sea level is rising. I tell them I know, it’s been rising for thousands of years. Some tell me it’s accelerating, I show them a few papers and graphs that says this just isn’t so.

24. Bill Illis says:

There should not even be a question about sea level rise. We should all know exactly what it is and we should all know exactly what is was in 2001 and 2012 and 1900.
There have been 500 tide gauges operating around the world for at least 100 years and dozens more going back to 1800. They are all supposed to be managed in one big database at PMSL.
In the last 10 years, more than 100 GPS stations have been co-located with these gauges providing local subsidence/uplift rates. Since 1993, at least 6 satellites have been put in orbit to measure it.
We have put at least \$400 million of society’s resources into this over time and 100s of people are working on this as a profession.
Why is there not a simple to use public database that everyone can use that tells us definitely what happened in 1955. Nope. Not even close to being available.
This is what this science is about. It is not about data and providing data and proving a point.
It is only about continually repeating the gospel of global warming as Trenberth did in this email.
Where is the frackin’ climate data we all need. It’s not there. We have to use back door methods just to get raw data for everything.
The only explanation is that they want to keep people in the dark about the facts.

• hunter says:

Bill Illis, Great point. The people declaring a crisis seem to be the people keeping the data in the dark, if not actually editing it.

• Phil Jones said he’d rather destroy the data than give it up.
People just might find out he’s been lying with the data.

• Billy Liar says:

PMSL was basically sidelined by the IPCC because their data wasn’t scary enough. The IPCC chose satellites because they gave a higher rate and are, coincidentally, more easily subject to ‘adjustments’.

• davesix says:

This is a bit of a nitpick, but it’s PSMSL: http://www.psmsl.org/
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)

• Billy Liar says:

Whoops – in my defense I just copied Bill Illis. 🙁
Another nitpick is that PSMSL measures sea level at the coast. Satellites measure sea level over the whole ocean area and NOT at the coast. These are definitely not the same thing yet the disingenuous IPCC continues to splice the two series together rather than showing them separately.

• Martin says:

The sea level data is there. Willis even links to the data in this post!

• Billy Liar says:

I didn’t say tide gauge data had disappeared. I pointed out that the IPCC ignores it to a large extent preferring the more malleable satellite data.

• “Like”, as my elderly parents type in Facebook comments when they like something! 😉

One of the main problems of climate science is that it is a case of pick you research paper.
Whenever someone finds something wrong or doubtful with The Cause, an army of foot soldiers swings into gear to put out a paper which says all is A-OK.
I’m sure there is a paper out there which says seal level rise is accelerating, another decelerating, and another that it’s pretty constant. And you can always quote a greenpeace press release if you get really desperate, like the IPCC.
Trenberth’s travesty is that he is a victim of this ‘pick your paper’ nonsense.

• Jimbo says:

But we need to see the recent papers showing acceleration. I have shown a few showing the opposite.

• Alx says:

It is pick you paper based on pick you data.
I still feel the data is suspect; just because we collect data, it does not mean we are collecting it well. Surveys that more accurately reflect election results collect data better than those that fail at predicting election results.
Right now we have a lot of different kinds of data, some of it good, some bad, some in-between. All of it is massaged, spliced and cherry picked depending on the report. Then there is the approach to the data, different methodologies can interperet the data differently with different results and still be valid. In the end what we end up with is navel gazing on climate data. Which is fine, that is also part of the scientific process but not something anyone (politician or scientist) should be making great pronouncements, with great certainty, on global catastrophe.

26. lawrence Cornell says:

“Trenberth’s travesty is that he is a victim of this ‘pick your paper’ nonsense.”
Trenberth is not a victim, he is a perpetrator of a crime against humanity.
If you think that the perpetrator is the victim you must be an American journalist or a left wing loony. (or in America today, a TYPICAL leftist.)

• The term is progressive.
They exist on both sides of the isle.

• lawrence Cornell says:

No. Progressive and leftist are different names for the same basic ideology changed over time. (At least in the U.S.) They are only found on the Democrat side.
You are trying to equivocate this also with Republicans somehow. No Republicans I know of can be described as either leftist or progressive (as it is used in the U.S. politically).
In fact, now that I have reviewed your post and my reply I’m wondering where you get such silly ideas, or are you just being contrary or diversionary ?
For full disclosure, I am a Democrat, so none of that “you guys” BS please.

• Bill_W says:

Big government, big spenders exist on both sides of aisle. Most “progressives” are from one party. But, you are right, I guess, if one thinks about Romney-care and GW Bush passing the Medicare Prescription benefit thingy. Both parties behave the same once they get in office with just a few areas where they differ. Try getting a military base closed in a democratic district or cutting weapons funding from their district.

27. hunter says:

The ability of the climate obsessed to set aside critical thinking in favor of believing in a climate crisis is impressive. That ability is only matched by the arrogance of climate crisis promoters in offering misleading information to the public.

28. blueice2hotsea says:

The trend in sea-level rise since mid-20th century appears to be flat, at best. So, if true, then Trenberth screwed up, at best.
However, it’s hard for me to see how the large majority of climatologists are anything but good, honest scientists. Even if activists and opportunists in government and media were to selectively promote the minority work of the activists and frauds in science, that, to me, would be an example of where good scientists are failing to communicate.
So, other than the angry digression, good post.

29. Bruce Cobb says:

Clearly, Trenberth lied. Either that or he is an incompetent fool, and I doubt that. It’s not difficult to make out why climate “scientists” like Trenberth lie. They do it because it is in their own best interest to. They are part of an industry based on the Big Lie, that our CO2 is harming the Earth, and that we are headed for some sort of climate catastrophe unless we stop using fossil fuels. Their entire careers are based on this lie.
Additionally, using a claimed marked increase in the rate of SLR as “evidence” that we are warming is logically flawed. Clearly, the warming, if there would show in the thermometers first. And there lies the rub. They can’t show it, because it has gone AWOL for the last 18 years. So, the way Trenberth and his ilk try to get around this inconvenient truth is to say, oh, but the warming has just gone deep into the oceans (where we can’t see it), and the “sudden” increase in SLR, melting icecaps, etc. are “proof” of that. But Trenberth himself must know that this is just another lie. It is simply a last-gasp effort to save their pseudo-scientific cargo cult climate industry.

• David L. says:

Don’t discount Trenberth being an incompetent fool. I received a PhD and I’ve worked my entire 35 year career with and for PhDs in both academia and industry. And let me tell you, incompetent fools occupy all levels of position and title.
Couple ignorance with a fanatical desire to protect one’s paycheck and you have real trouble.

• Bill_W says:

Yep. Being a good political operative (in any area) and dressing nice or being nice looking or (for a man) tall, all allow people to advance when they are not all that bright. Actually, being willing to cut corners in your research and ignore contradictory evidence and tell a good story helps you be able to publish a lot.

• “They are part of an industry based on the Big Lie, that our CO2 is harming the Earth, and that we are headed for some sort of climate catastrophe unless we stop using fossil fuels.”
———————————–
Just the US and now Australia, but not China until 2030 (if they want to).
DOH!
Either it’s important or it’s not.
Politicians and NGOs act like CO2 reduction is not important, so we Americans just agree with Al Gore and the rest and treat CO2 like it’s not important.

• richard verney says:

And Antarctic ice is at a record high. The only scrap of observational data that they can cling to, is the decline in Arctic ice. But should this begin to recover over the next 5 or so years, what then?

• Bill_W says:

That has already started. Question is, will it continue.

30. Jerry Henson says:

The reason AGW is no longer selling to the low information voter is that after Algore removed the previously accepted graph of northern hemisphere temperature, which included the LIA and the Meideval Warm, and inserted the hockey stick, the AGW industry panicked.
They started equating weather to climate. The Weather Channel. and the rest of the popular press started citing any hurricane, heat wave, tornado, etc, to climate change.
This worked right up until it didn’t.
Yesterday morning’s temperature at my thermometer in the south of the US was 28 degrees F,much lower than normal, hence, no global warming.
Pal review and climate Gruber) gate has made the serious readers skeptical of the AGW industry.

31. mwh says:

Funny isnt it how ‘skeptics should be locked up’ is seen as reasonable debate by some and now because someone disagrees with his rather ill advised post on the issue Siberian Husky thinks that ‘This community is always complaining that the scientists don’t engage with them enough’ / don’t take them seriously.’ and then goes on to say ‘loads of climate scientists will banging down your door to engage with you’. Really and you wonder why noone wants to engage with you!!! Really……Really! Theres your answer mate – when the faith is criticised the response gets nasty.
Trenbreths reply to the request may have taken up his time but the point is – why then be so dismissive and economical with the truth. There is an assumption by the CAGW believers that any questioning is aggressive and devious in intent and is not to be considered as relevant. They are convincing noone outside their own peer group and therefore argument is pointless as skepticism is seen as criminal.
The problem they have is they convinced a lot of people in the 90s (myself included) that there was something going seriously wrong with the climate. Unfortunately since the millennium there has been no warming trend to back it up when the predicted trend was truly frightening. Until there is som considerably more convincing decadal trends in their alarmist direction they are convincing fewer and fewer people that this is the thing they should be most concerned about. Lack of resources, overpopulation, contamination and pollution – those are far more pressing and the emphasis is on ever more expensive ‘proofs’ of Global warning!!!
IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY!!!!!!!…… rant over

• Global warming worse that the crazy Muslims…What???

• lawrence Cornell says:

mikerestin,
Are you quoting someone here ? What is the point of :
[“Global warming worse that the crazy Muslims…What???”]
Do you have a concern or a question ?, a point ?, seizure ? Does it mean something ? Misplaced tweet ?

32. jwl says:

Trenberth sounds like a politician who will not concede the ideology that CO2 is the cause of all our problems.

33. Eliza says:

Husky man. The problem is that Willis probably posts far too serious work for you to understand.Most of his posts are data based on peer reviewed articles as far as I can gather….

34. Johanus says:

[Willis paraphrasing Curry]

… the problem with climate science has something to do with bad communication. … Why, they ask, are climate scientists unable to get their message across to the American public?

Actually, I believe that the IPCC climate science elves (Trenberth being a Chief Elf) have done an excellent job in communicating their CAGW Hypothesis to the world.
Excellent because they have succeeded in convincing a lot of folks that CAGW is real, without having any compelling proof of the CAGW Hypothesis, that modern ‘climate disasters’ can be explained as “Climate Change” (formerly known as “Global Warming”), in turn caused by man-made CO2.
Their ‘proofs’ are always buried in the noise of “climate variability” and hand-waving. Trenberth knows this because he is considered one of the world’s best experts on “climate variability”:

Kevin Edward Trenberth (born November 8, 1944) is part of the Climate Analysis Section at the USA National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change (see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) and serves on the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program. In addition, he serves on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme, and has made significant contributions to research into El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

There is a well-known saying that “If you believe that elves make the rain, every time it rains you will see proof of elves.”
So Trenberth and his fellow climate elves have been teaching us for decades (again, without compelling proof) that manmade CO2 causes catastrophes. The effect of this teaching has been that all climate disasters now automatically seem like “proof” of CAGW, for those who never question what the elves say. So when weather events are labeled “extreme” the reporters don’t have to say “due to man-made CO2”. That response is induced ‘automagically’ in our skulls, thanks to the communication skills of the climate elves.
That is why I believe that Trenberth et al. have been “communicating” (propagandizing) very well. So please don’t try to pass it off as bumbling or misspeaking (Curry’s ‘bad communication). It’s very intentional.
To put the actual rise of sea levels in the perspective of history, take a look at mean sea levels since the last Ice Age. When the glaciers melted the seas rose relatively quickly 400 feet or so, then the rising slowed down, but still rising very slowly to this day.
You can clearly see that the rising is not completely uniform, depends on location, and of course is also subject to random (and maybe some biased) errors of observation and natural variance.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Sea_Level.png
In modern times the trend seems to have increased during the past century, perhaps to some new ‘modern’ aegus, but clearly not locked to global warming (which has paused for the past decade or so)
So that’s MSL for us skeptics. All scientists must be skeptical everything, including our own cherished theories.

• rgbatduke says:

Look at the scales of the two curves you present. They are 2-3 orders of magnitude different on the vertical, and the entire time stretch in the latter isn’t the width of a single pixel in the former. The former represents averages over time intervals at least a century or two long, and is reconstructed from data taken at specific geographic sites (as indicated) and cannot account for many, many phenomena (like post-glacial uplift or subsidence) that the latter now tries to account for.
The two simply cannot be compared, in other words. The recent SLR isn’t large enough to register on the former curve as the width of a pixel up and over, indistinguishable from a straight line.
rgb

• Johanus says:

Yes, I agree that the entirety of SLR metrics (and data noise) cannot be adequately measured and interpreted in one scale.
That’s exactly why I “zoomed in”, with decreasing scale, to show what alarms the climate elves on the small scale, compared to a the largest scale, where the ‘alarming’ trend seems to be flat.
So, having said that, the climate trolls will now scream “Skeptics don’t believe the oceans are rising!”. Mark my words.
🙂

• Bart says:

A) Your error bars in the early part are wide enough that the difference in slope of the earlier part with the latter part is not conclusive.
B) Even if you could attribute the rise to rising temperatures, how do you attribute it to CO2? It’s all cum hoc, ergo propter hoc.

• Johanus says:

The trend for the last 8 thousand years seems to be constant. Eyeballing the slope, looks like 1/2 mm per year:
http://i62.tinypic.com/24ez1oh.png
So I would use that slope as a lower bound on the modern trend estimate.
I agree, there is a some uncertainty on the recent measurements, but likely indicate a higher recent trend. Maybe 1mm or so per year. Still not as alarming as the climate change elves would like, though.

• Barry says:

From your second graph, it sure looks like SLR is accelerating to me. Apparently many people on this blog don’t understand the difference between climate variability and climate change — climate change is the long-term (multiple decades) trend that underlies interannual and interdecadal climate variability. Sea levels aggregate these changes over periods of 20-40 years. It doesn’t suffice to just say “sea levels have been rising for thousands of years.” Explain why the rate of rise has increased since the mid-1800s, when humans started affecting the climate.

• MCourtney says:

Please clarify which graph you think shows accelerating sea level rise?
I can see linear graphs that show rising sea levels but where is the one with increasing gradient?
And if you can calculate the gradients, old and new with error bars, then you would be able to prove it.
But I’ll take an eyeball if you can find a rising slope.

• lawrence Cornell says:

… and please Barry, pick a date. The IPCC want me to believe that humans have been “affecting the climate” since 1950, now you want to tell me that their statement is actually conservative by 100 years and that we humans , in fact, been “affecting the climate” with our “carbon pollution” since the mid 1800’s ?
…and you want to be taken seriously ?
How about this : (using your “logic”) I posit to you that humans, in fact accelerated us out of the last ice age by burning all those wood fires as our population exploded. The rate of SLR during that period certainly correlates with this hypothesis according to your last desperate sentence. Does it not ? And makes it just as likely using your, “Explain why the rate of rise has increased since the mid-1800s, when humans started affecting the climate.”, type [illogical] conclusion. ie. PPPFFFFFFFTTT, as an appropriate logical substitute.

35. Alan McIntire says:

“Now, I found this interchange quite amazing. Here’s somebody asking for information, and Dr. Trenberth’s response about sea levels is … well … almost fact free.”
That reminded me of a Richard Feynman quote. David L. Goodstein, a fellow Cal Tech faculty member, included it in the book, “Feynman’s Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun”,. In the introduction, Goodstein tells the story:
,’Fenman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, “Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.” Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, “I’ll prepare a freshman lecture on it.” But he came back a few days later to say, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don’t really understand it.” ‘
So, using the “Feynman Rule”, Trenberth really doesn’t understand why factual sea level rise hasn’t matched CAGW sea level l rise

• sleepingbear dunes says:

The thing I like the most about your fine story is that a great thinker admitted he couldn’t do something. He showed some humility which I have observed exists in great scientists. Thanks for sharing. Each time I read something about Feynman, it restores my faith in science.

36. Oliver James says:

Mr Husky’s link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier , is well worth reading, it confounds his position completely. BruceC has already evinced bemusement at, “Bruce”(lol), It is indicative of Mr Husky’s Hysterical frame of mind,
To be dismissive of anecdotal evidence, similar to Patrick I have lived in Portsmouth UK for the past 51 years, a port that has been in existence at least since the 4th century AD, and despite isostatic depression continuing from the end of the last glacial maximum, has shown minimal sea level rise, He uses anecdotal evidence from Kirabati, a pacific atoll that is far more greatly affected by: tectonic movement; erosion; and mantle Hotspots.
I will not give a lesson in volcanology explaining pacific island creation and subsequent atoll formation, “Google it”, any 10 year old can grasp the concepts.
The adage “Ignorance is bliss” appears to have been fully embraced by Mr Husky, I would add that stupidity is a by-product of willful ignorance, and ” a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” to have been fully proven by his comments.
The above could be levelled at the majority of the AGW scaremongers.

• Oliver James says:

I apologise to any readers of my comment that although it may be grammatically correct, it is somewhat aphoristic.

37. James Strom says:

Thanks to Willis and some of the commenters for very useful graphics.
The question about publicizing Trenberth’s private email is a serious one, but a related question I have is whether his email differs much from his writings and public statements. I’m not enough of a Trenberth aficionado to know.
In any case Trenberth gives a concise general description of sea level over a century and a half, and Willis has produced leading academic studies whose results are in conflict with Trenberth’s statement. There is no way to get around that.

• mellyrn says:

If you write me a letter, is the letter mine or yours?
I say, if you write me and explicitly ask me not to publish it, I will respect that, but in the absence of any such request, it is my call to make.

• +1
The satellites are 120 miles or so above the sea. There are these things called “waves.” The satellites do not produce valid data. They actually tried to calibrate the satellites by using tide gauges. TOPEX, GRACE, baloney…

• richard verney says:

AND one year never has the same wave pattern, nor swell pattern, as the next.
Storms always fiffer in location and in time in relation to the atmosp[heric bulge.
There is plate tectonic movements, and sometimes undersea earthquakes can cause significant displacement of the sea bed, and even move land masses. See the Wikipedia article on the 11th March 2011 Japanes Earthquake/Tsunami http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
“The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in),
The margin of error of a satellite measurement to a fixed point on land, is greater than the claimed sea level rise.” ….
“Portions of northeastern Japan shifted by as much as 2.4 m (7.9 ft) closer to North America,[19][20] making some sections of Japan’s landmass wider than before…”…
.”On 6 April the Japanese coast guard said that the quake shifted the seabed near the epicenter 24 meters (79 ft) and elevated the seabed off the coast of Miyagi prefecture by 3 meters.[68] A report by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, published in Science on 2 December 2011, concluded that the seabed in the area between the epicenter and the Japan Trench moved 50 meters east-southeast and rose about 7 meters as a result of the quake. The report also stated that the quake had caused several major landslides on the seabed in the affected area.”….
“The tsunami broke icebergs off the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica, 13,000 kilometres (8,100 mi) away. The main iceberg measured 9.5 by 6.5 kilometres (5.9 mi × 4.0 mi) (approximately the area of Manhattan Island) and about 80 metres (260 ft) thick. A total of 125 square kilometres (48 sq mi; 31,000 acres) of ice broke away”
And of the Boxing Day 2004 Indonesian Earthquake/Tsunami, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
“The megathrust earthquake was unusually large in geographical and geological extent. An estimated 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) of fault surface slipped (or ruptured) about 15 metres (50 ft) along the subduction zone where the Indian Plate slides (or subducts) under the overriding Burma Plate. The slip did not happen instantaneously but took place in two phases over a period of several minutes”:
I have seen some fantastic undersea photographs of ridges which have risen or fallen of these events. There are vertical cliff walls rising 50 or more feet high extending for hundreds and hundreds (possibly up to a thousand) miles.
How is all this land displacement calculated in the official assessment of sea level rises? I accept that the above are extreme examples, but each year such activity is going on but on a smaller scale. When one is talking of millimetre rises. all of this becomes important.
As usual, the scientists are not honest/accurate with the margin of error in their data sets.
The claim that we can measure sea level rises to the claimed accuracy is fancifull to say the least.

38. Thermalization of the energy in absorbed photons is not accounted for in the Kiel & Trenberth charts. The physics of thermalization is part of the explaination of why CO2 change has no significant effect on climate.

39. climatologist/meteorologist says:

Right. This discussion is not honorable. Trenberth is no devil but an honorable person.

• Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) says:

I agree with you that your discussion with Socrates is not honorable.

40. Area Man says:

Willis, I’d be careful stating as fact that this was in fact a verbatim response from Trenberth. Are you basing that completely on your assessment of the trustworthiness of your source? If so I’d characterize it as a claimed or reported response from him.
Just sayin.

41. Gunga Din says:

Obviously Trenberth must see the finger-nail-width rise in sea levels as proof of CAGW. He just thought it would come from the the Mann-Made Heat making the Arctic ice free by now. But now he knows it is proof that the “missing heat” is hiding in the oceans. As water heats, it expands. As the oceans expand, the sea level rises, hence proof of Mann-Made-Something-Or-Other!
(Now where’d I put that sarc tag….)

42. Steve Oregon says:

Siberian Husky,
Your mendacious attempt to represent Trenberth’s deceitful retort as a gracious gift of his time is petulant.
You have no idea what Trenberth committed to the reply or what his attitude was.
Just as you have no idea how historic sea level rise is inconsistent with AGW or how nothing about sea level validates anything about AGW.
Your behavior is what AGW is limited to and it ain’t science.

43. climatologist/meteorologist says:

Are you sure, Willis that you understand what “rate of change” means? As long as it is positive the SL doesn’t decrease.

• MCourtney says:

In fact, far from increasing as Trenberth claimed, the satellite-measured sea level rise has actually been decreasing, as shown by Cazenave et al. …

Measurements and a reference.
Can you expand on your challenge to Willis? He does request precise quotes when people question what he says.
It’ll save time if you can clarify your question.

• Mark Bofill says:

Good lord. Are you sure you want to play dumb word games? I assure you, Willis correctly referred to the rate of change in sea level rise. The rate of change in a rate of change, not just rate of change of sea level.
For example, his text under figure 1:

As you can see, the idea that the rate of sea level rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is totally contradicted by the Jevrejeva data.(emphasis added)

You must not read WUWT regularly. Just about ever time Willis posts some genius gives this game a try and gets stomped. It gets old, really.

44. Greg says:

Not very self aware are you Mr. Sniper. The point of the post if you had read it, was to offer an explanation as to why the public is not buying into CAGW as expected. Hint – it’s because they lie and exaggerate, and people don’t like being lied to

• Ernest Bush says:

=1

45. Mark Bofill says:

A point that seems to be being ignored; Sure, our best guess is that CO2 probably increased some between 1750 and 1850. Maybe 11, 12 ppm over those hundred years? That’s not noise, but as far as climate effects it might as well be, obviously.

46. Good post Willis. Your point that it not a communications problem, it is a false message problem, is well taken. Essay Pseudo Precision in Blowing Smoke tackles sea level rise. Even the Caveneze paper is junk science, bad statistics supposedly indicating something physically impossible, additional rainfall retention in the AmZon and Congo basins. The fact is that the annual instrument drift spec of Jason 2 is plus minus 1mm. As RgB points out about, it all within the error bars

47. stevek says:

We have to understand Trenberth is not actually talking about the oceans that exist in reality. He is talking about the ocean and sea level that exist on his computer programmed planet earth. On his model planet earth by 2014 there is no pause, oceans have rose to flood coastal cities, and there is no longer any ice at the North Pole. And all the polar bears are dead.

• Jimbo says:

Why stop at Church and White 2011?

Abstract – January 2014
Global sea level trend during 1993–2012
[Highlights
GMSL started decelerated rising since 2004 with rising rate 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012.
Deceleration is due to slowdown of ocean thermal expansion during last decade.
• Recent ENSO events introduce large uncertainty of long-term trend estimation.]
… It is found that the GMSL rises with the rate of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr during 1993–2003 and started decelerating since 2004 to a rate of 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012. This deceleration is mainly due to the slowdown of ocean thermal expansion in the Pacific during the last decade, as a part of the Pacific decadal-scale variability, while the land-ice melting is accelerating the rise of the global ocean mass-equivalent sea level….
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113002397

• Thank you Jimbo
I did not stop at Church and White 2011. The first link show data up to July 2014. One can see a dip in 2012, but that has been catched up later. Your paywalled link seems to stop in 2012 and has therefore not taken in account the catching up after 2012.
I mentioned Church and White because they have an overlapping time series based on gauges and their measured rate is whidthin the error level of the satellite data.
/Jan

• Jimbo says:

Jan Kjetil Andersen,
The Univ of Colorado says they constantly revise their estimates as new data, corrections and models arrive. We will have to wait and see over the next few years. 3 or 4 years is noisy and prone to adjustments. See above. Does it not surprise you there has been NO acceleration in the rate of sea level rise after
– the hottest decade on the record
– glaciers melting left right and centre
– missing heat, thermal expansion and so on…….?

Since 1993, measurements from the TOPEX and Jason series of satellite radar altimeters have allowed estimates of global mean sea level. These measurements are continuously calibrated against a network of tide gauges. When seasonal and other variations are subtracted, they allow estimation of the global mean sea level rate. As new data, models and corrections become available, we continuously revise these estimates (about every two months) to improve their quality.

• Jimbo says:

I found this at the Univ. of Colorado which further complicates things. Sea level rise is a complicated beast to pin down. I prefer longer time spans to show clearer signals. The media likes headlines so this to and fro will not end between sceptics and warmists.

Abstract – 09/2012
Is there a 60-year oscillation in global mean sea level?
We examine long tide gauge records in every ocean basin to examine whether a quasi 60-year oscillation observed in global mean sea level (GMSL) reconstructions reflects a true global oscillation, or an artifact associated with a small number of gauges. We find that there is a significant oscillation with a period around 60-years in the majority of the tide gauges examined during the 20th Century, and that it appears in every ocean basin. Averaging of tide gauges over regions shows that the phase and amplitude of the fluctuations are similar in the North Atlantic, western North Pacific, and Indian Oceans, while the signal is shifted by 10 years in the western South Pacific. The only sampled region with no apparent 60-year fluctuation is the Central/Eastern North Pacific. The phase of the 60-year oscillation found in the tide gauge records is such that sea level in the North Atlantic, western North Pacific, Indian Ocean, and western South Pacific has been increasing since 1985-1990. Although the tide gauge data are still too limited, both in time and space, to determine conclusively that there is a 60-year oscillation in GMSL, the possibility should be considered when attempting to interpret the acceleration in the rate of global and regional mean sea level rise.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL052885

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Thanks, David. Stockwell seems entirely unaware of a) the effect of autocorrelation on statistical significance, and b) the difficulties of using the cross-correlation function (CCF) with a highly cyclical dataset. He desperately needs to run the TSI data against random data to give himself a benchmark. I just re-ran the numbers on the data that Stockwell uses … no statistical significance in the slightest.
w.

• David L. Hagen says:

Thanks – passed it on.

• W. There are much larger logical problems with Cazenave’s paper’s physical interpretation. See essay Pseudo Precision in Blowing Smoke. Any feedback gratefully acknowledged in advance.

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Rud, a google search doesn’t find “Pseudo Precision in Blowing Smoke” anywhere … PLEASE, folks, INCLUDE LINKS. I don’t take well to being sent on a snipe hunt like this one.
w.

48. Ulric Lyons says:

“As you can see, the idea that the rate of sea level rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is totally contradicted by the Jevrejeva data.”
Looking carefully at fig 1, I would say it picked up from the 1930’s, probably the warm AMO mode. Fig 2 shows the rate of rise generally higher from the 1930’s, but then it gives up a couple times when the AMO is in its cold cold mode from ~1965, except around the sunspot cycle maxima.

49. phlogiston says:

Sea level rise is a big deal. Not nit-picking. As RG Brown has pointed out here previously, absence of a recent acceleration of sea level rise is the single observation with most potential to falsify AGW. No surprise then that they send in an attack dog.

• Jimbo says:

Indeed phlogiston. Sea level rise is the exposure. Consider the ‘hottest decade on the record’, glaciers is spiral meltdown, ‘warming oceans’, heat and hot everywhere I tell ya! Yet if the rate of sea level rise does not accelerate then there appears to be a little problem. On this thread there is some evidence for a DECELERATION in the rate of sea level rise. Even if it isn’t, it’s not accelerating. That is a problem. RG Brown hinted at snowfalls. The IPCC projects an increase in snowfall in Antarctica towards the end of this century. Extreme snowfalls have been recorded in East Antarctica. It is complex I have to say.

Abstract – 2 NOV 2012
Snowfall-driven mass change on the East Antarctic ice sheet
An improved understanding of processes dominating the sensitive balance between mass loss primarily due to glacial discharge and mass gain through precipitation is essential for determining the future behavior of the Antarctic ice sheet and its contribution to sea level rise. While satellite observations of Antarctica indicate that West Antarctica experiences dramatic mass loss along the Antarctic Peninsula and Pine Island Glacier, East Antarctica has remained comparably stable. In this study, we describe the causes and magnitude of recent extreme precipitation events along the East Antarctic coast that led to significant regional mass accumulations that partially compensate for some of the recent global ice mass losses that contribute to global sea level rise. The gain of almost 350 Gt from 2009 to 2011 is equivalent to a decrease in global mean sea level at a rate of 0.32 mm/yr over this three-year period.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053316/abstract
=================
Abstract – 7 JUN 2013
Recent snowfall anomalies in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica, in a historical and future climate perspective
Enhanced snowfall on the East Antarctic ice sheet is projected to significantly mitigate 21st century global sea level rise. In recent years (2009 and 2011), regionally extreme snowfall anomalies in Dronning Maud Land, in the Atlantic sector of East Antarctica, have been observed. It has been unclear, however, whether these anomalies can be ascribed to natural decadal variability, or whether they could signal the beginning of a long-term increase of snowfall. Here we use output of a regional atmospheric climate model, evaluated with available firn core records and gravimetry observations, and show that such episodes had not been seen previously in the satellite climate data era (1979). Comparisons with historical data that originate from firn cores, one with records extending back to the 18th century, confirm that accumulation anomalies of this scale have not occurred in the past ~60 years, although comparable anomalies are found further back in time. We examined several regional climate model projections, describing various warming scenarios into the 21st century. Anomalies with magnitudes similar to the recently observed ones were not present in the model output for the current climate, but were found increasingly probable toward the end of the 21st century.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50559/abstract
=================
Abstract2014
High-resolution 900 year volcanic and climatic record from the Vostok area, East Antarctica
…..The strongest volcanic signal (both in sulfate concentration and flux) was attributed to the AD 1452 Kuwae eruption, similar to the Plateau Remote and Talos Dome records. The average snow accumulation rate calculated between volcanic stratigraphic horizons for the period AD 1260–2010 is 20.9 mm H2O. Positive (+13%) anomalies of snow accumulation were found for AD 1661-1815 and AD 1992-2010, and negative (-12%) for AD 1260-1601. We hypothesized that the changes in snow accumulation are associated with regional peculiarities in atmospheric transport.
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/8/843/2014/tc-8-843-2014.html

• Billy Liar says:

So, as the heat hides in the deep ocean, the water hides in East Antarctica.
That explains everything!

50. David A says:

Yes, I tried to engage some CAGW proponents at Eco Watch about SL rise. The conversation went like this…
Shashumna (me)
There has been no GLOBAL increase in floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme storms
etc. There has been zero acceleration in SL rise, which has continued unabated since the earth came out of the little Ice Age, and has zero to do with CO2. In fact at least 20 peer reviewed studies show a slowing in SL rise.
——————————————————————-
xploit22 > shashumna • 3 hours ago
What space ship did you just crash land in, shash???????
===================================================
shashumna > xploit22 • 2 hours ago
The world of peer reviewed science…http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/11/david-
Do you wish to see the science on hurricanes droughts etc, or just SL?
————————————————————————————-
Wells > shashumna • 2 days ago
Ignorance is bliss. Nevermind. Have a nice day.
—————————————————————-
shashumna > Wells • 2 days ago
Here are the papers on SL rise. The ignorance is your sir. “In response to roughly 3/4 century of substantial anthropogenically-driven CO2 increases, there has been no detectable acceleration in the rate of sea level rise. In fact, some studies have detected small a deceleration (slowing). Here are some papers which have reported the lack of acceleration in rate of sea level rise”
Douglas B (1992). Global Sea Level Acceleration. J. Geophysical Research, Vol. 97, No. C8, pp. 12,699-12,706, 1992. doi:10.1029/92JC01133
Douglas B and Peltier W R (2002). The Puzzle of Global Sea-Level Rise. Physics Today 55(3):35-40.
Daly J (2003). Tasmanian Sea Levels: The ‘Isle of the Dead’ Revisited. [Internet].
Daly J (2004). Testing the Waters: A Report on Sea Levels for the Greening Earth Society. [Internet].
Jevrejeva S, et al (2006). Nonlinear trends and multiyear cycles in sea level records. J. Geophysical Research, 111, C09012, 2006. doi:10.1029/2005JC003229. (data)
Holgate SJ (2007). On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century. Geophysical Research Letters. 34, L01602.
Wunsch R, Ponte R and Heimbach P (2007). Decadal trends in sea level patterns: 1993-2004. Journal of Climatology. 5889-5911.
Woodworth P, et al (2009). Evidence for the accelerations of sea level on multi-decade and century timescales. International Journal of Climatology, Volume 29, Issue 6, pages 777-789, May 2009. doi:10.1002/joc.1771
You ZJ, Lord DB, and Watson PJ (2009). Estimation of Relative Mean Sea Level Rise From Fort Denison Tide Gauge Data. Proceedings of the 19th Australasian Coastal and Ocean Engineering Conference, Wellington, NZ, September 2009.
Wenzel M and Schröter J (2010). Reconstruction of regional mean sea level anomalies from tide gauges using neural networks. Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans. 115:C08013.
Mörner N-A (2010a). Sea level changes in Bangladesh new observational facts. Energy and Environment. 21(3):235-249.
Mörner N-A (2010b). Some problems in the reconstruction of mean sea level and its changes with time. Quaternary International. 221(1-2):3-8.
Mörner N-A (2010c). There Is No Alarming Sea Level Rise! 21st Century Science & Technology. Fall 2010:7-17.
Houston JR and Dean RG (2011a). Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses. Journal of Coastal Research. 27:409-417.
Houston JR and Dean RG (2011b). J. R. Houston and R. G. Dean (2011) Reply to: Rahmstorf, S. and Vermeer, M., 2011. Discussion of: Houston, J.R. and Dean, R.G., 2011. Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses. Journal of Coastal Research. Volume 27, Issue 4: pp. 788-790. doi:10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11A-00008.1
Watson PJ (2011). Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia? Journal of Coastal Research. 27:368-377.
Modra B and Hesse S (2011), NSW Ocean Water Level. 21st NSW Coastal Conference. (or here)
Mörner N-A, (2011a). Setting the frames of expected future sea level changes by exploring past geological sea level records. Chapter 6 of book, D Easterbrook, Evidence-Based Climate Science, 2011 Elsevier B.V. ISBN: 978-0-12-385956-3.
Mörner N-A, (2011b). The Maldives: A measure of sea level changes and sea level ethics. Chapter 7 of book, D Easterbrook, Evidence-Based Climate Science, 2011 Elsevier B.V. ISBN: 978-0-12-385956-3.
Boretti A (2012a). Short Term Comparison of Climate Model Predictions and Satellite Altimeter Measurements of Sea Levels. Coastal Engineering, 60, pp. 319-322. doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2011.10.005. (Also, an article about this paper.)
Boretti A (2012b). Is there any support in the long term tide gauge data to the claims that parts of Sydney will be swamped by rising sea levels? Coastal Engineering, 64, pp. 161-167. doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2012.01.006
Hughes W (2012), Continued existence of Maori canals near Blenheim in New Zealand indicates a stable relative sea level over 200 years. [Internet].
Boretti A and Watson T (2012). The inconvenient truth: Ocean Levels are not accelerating in Australia. Energy & Environment. doi:10.1260/0958-305X.23.5.801
Burton D (2012). Comments on “Assessing future risk: quantifying the effects of sea level rise on storm surge risk for the southern shores of Long Island, New York,” by Shepard, et al. Natural Hazards. doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0159-8
Lüning S and Vahrenholt F (2012). Fallstudien aus aller Welt belegen: Keine Beschleunigung des Meeresspiegelanstiegs während der letzten 30 Jahre. (Case studies from around the world: no evidence of accelerating sea level rise over the last 30 years – English translation.)
Homewood P (2012). Is Sea Level Rise Accelerating? [Internet].
Schmith T, et al (2012), Statistical analysis of global surface temperature and sea level using cointegration methods. Journal of Climate, 2012, American Meteorological Society. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00598.1 (or draft)
Mörner N-A and Parker A (2013). Present-to-future sea level changes: The Australian case, Environmental Science, An Indian Journal, ESAIJ, 8(2), 2013 [43-51]
Scafetta N (2013a). Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes. Climate Dynamics. doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1771-3 (In press; preprint here.)
Scafetta, N (2013b). Discussion on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming. Pattern Recognition in Physics. 1, 37-57, 2013. doi:10.5194/prp-1-37-2013.
http://www.populartechnology.n
==============================================
Wells > shashumna • a day ago
Good for you. You’ve learned how to cut-and-paste. For your next lesson, try collecting a scrapbook of other things that are interesting TO YOU, though they have nothing to do with the topic of discussion.
==============================================
shashumna > Wells • 9 hours ago
I make a comment asserting no acceleration of SL rise. You call me ignorant.
I show you a list of peer reviewed papers in support of my assertion that SL rise has shown no acceleration in the CO2 era, and in fact there is evidence of a slow down. I also give you a link.
You make the inane claim that my comment and link to the peer reviewed literature is not cogent.
Weird, just really weird.
===============================
This is typical, but I think reasonable skeptics should post more at CAGW sites.

51. rgbatduke that was an excellent post about Antarctica and why warming may be taking place in some places .

52. If sea level rise is the issue, we could flood the Qattara depression for the price of “a large canal or tunnel being excavated of about 55 to 80 kilometres (34 to 50 mi) depending on the route chosen” (from wikipedia) and lower the sea level by about 3 mm (one or two years worth of rise). An 80 km canal would not be cheap but it would be more efficacious than the same money spent on windmills. There would also be geopolitical and regional climatic benefits. I’m not saying we should do it I’m just saying it would be better than windmills.

53. The IPCC projects an increase in snowfall in Antarctica towards the end of this century. From Jimbo.
The IPCC’S climate basic climate premise is WRONG therefore any other conclusions they may make are essentially meaningless.

• Jimbo says:

Oh I agree. The references I gave show evidence of extreme snowfalls in East Antarctica in more recent times.
The IPCC also projects a decrease in Antarctica’s sea ice extent this century, in contrast to the record extents on the satellite record.

• Jimbo says:

Oh I agree. The references I gave show evidence of extreme snowfalls in East Antarctica in more recent times as opposed to their projection towards the end of the century. A failure to project the extreme snowfalls now on the IPCC’s part I think.

54. Dr Burns says:

Most of the posts seem to miss the key point here. Trenberth was asked “what is the key evidence for MAN CAUSED warming”. This was his best shot – sea levels. Even if sea levels did have a sudden spurt, which obviously they haven’t, how could this be directly attributed to man?
If Trenberth and the IPCC still can’t find a shred of evidence to support the catastrophic man caused warming theory, why hasn’t the nonsense been put to bed?

• Joel O'Bryan says:

Too much money is at stake, that’s why.
New carbon emission taxes promised an endless gravy train of money to redistribute by the political class.
Green energy subsidies, social spending, votes to be bought with other peoples money. Carbon taxes for the Greens was the environmentalist’s dream tool to slow down and eventually choke-off industrialization, mining and oil and mineral resource extraction.

55. Willis Eschenbach says:

Socrates November 16, 2014 at 12:26 am

“I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims”

So, given that he appears to be amenable to being asked questions and answering them (although, having it passed on to be used as click bait cannon fodder seems a betrayal of that trust and works against forthright discussion), as the email suggests, why didn’t you do him the courtesy of asking him?
Why give him you[r] straw man conjecture when you might get a more reasoned response or even an acknowledgement of mistake?
Better fun trying to make him look incompetent, which is the object here.

Socrates, I don’t have to try to make Trenberth look incompetent. He’s done that quite well on his own, inter alia through things like this answer. Nor did I offer a “straw man conjecture” as you state. To the contrary, I said clearly that I was making no claims about his motives and reasons
As to why he answered that way, I didn’t write him because I don’t care in the slightest why he is spreading misinformation. His motives make no difference. He could have said “I don’t know” in response to the question, but instead he has set himself up to answer the question, and he has a responsibility to answer it accurately. He has the information available to him to answer it accurately. Instead, he spreads misinformation … why? I couldn’t care less why he does it. I’m discussing the effect of the constant spreading of misinformation, for whatever reason, by those who are leading alarmist climate scientists.
Don’t forget, Trenberth is the man who futilely tried to reverse the null hypothesis … meaning that the null hypothesis would henceforth be that human-caused global warming is happening, and it would be the skeptic’s job to show it’s not happening. This was a blatant attempt to change the scientific rules when he saw his side unable to meet the burden of proof.
After a man tries that totally anti-scientific trick, Socrates, I fear he has no scientific credibility left … so no, there’s no need for me to “try to make him look incompetent”. He’s already been there and done that most effectively.
As to whether revealing Trenberth’s answer is a “betrayal of trust”, say what? This was a supposedly scientific answer to a scientific question, not private details about his life.
Regards,
w.

• MCourtney says:

Trenberth is the man who futilely tried to reverse the null hypothesis

Seconded.
And he has succeeded in the minds of certain Guardian commenters. The damage he has done to the UK’s intellectual life is incalculable, immeasurable but yet still immense,
Trenberth knew the science was a travesty and chose to push it as truth regardless. He is not a hero of science.

• rogerknights says:

Don’t forget Trenberth’s role in encouraging editor Wagner to quit in protest of Roy Spencer’s article, and T’s rubbishing of the same.

56. Below is another classic example of Trenberth’s AGW alarmist exaggerations when speaking about an El Nino for 2014 in a two part interview earlier this year.
In it, among other things, he forecasts during this year’s El Nino “we will go up, you know, 2 or 3 tenths of a degree Celsius to a next level and maybe we won’t come down again”. He also claims that NOAA underestimated the extent of this year’s El Nino… and on and on.
At the end of the interview, Trenberth suggests that if his predictions don’t come true that he and interviewer John Sinclair could bury the interview. The both then just laughed at that.
As it turns out, there has been no El Nino in 2014, let alone the Super El Nino Trenberth warns us about.
Part 1:

Part 2:

57. Willis Eschenbach says:

Martin November 16, 2014 at 12:35 am

Willis, from the Jevrejeva et al paper it says:
“global sea level trend estimate of 2.4 ± 1.0 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2000″
The latest sea level trend estimate is 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2014.
That would make your claim that sea level rise hasn’t accelerated, it has slowed down, as being not correct.

Thanks for the question, Martin. As I pointed out in the head post (but obviously not clearly enough), the satellite data on sea level is about one mm/year higher than the tidal gauge data. Jevrejeva used tidal gauge data. UColorado is reporting satellite data. It’s that simple.
This does NOT mean that sea level rise has increased or that it is accelerating. It means that the satellite data doesn’t agree with the tidal gauge data, and it never has.
This is why splicing the two datasets together, as happens all the time in the alarmist world, is bogus. It is also the reason that Trenberth is claiming (falsely) that sea level rise accelerated in the 1990s.
Finally, it is not just my claim that sea level rise has slowed. I linked to a discussion of the Cazenave paper regarding the slowdown in the head post, it’s worth reading.
w.

• JJM Gommers says:

Concluding from the Cazenave paper(fig.03) the slowdown of the sealevel rise is synchronised with the temperature hiatus. Meanwhile there is a claim that the heat during the hiatus is in the ocean what should mean thermal expansion still continues and should show up. However this is not the case Can the claim be put ad acta?

• Martin says:

Thanks Willis, I read the papers you linked to and have more questions.:)
From the Jevrejeva et al paper it says:
“Our global sea level trend estimate of 2.4 ± 1.0 mm/yr for the period from 1993 to 2000 is comparable with the 2.6 ± 0.7 mm/yr sea level rise calculated from TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter measurements.”
So going by that satellite data on sea level is not one mm/year higher than the tidal gauge data. Both datasets are in close agreement. Which makes sense cos the satellites are calibrated against the tidal gauges.
From the Cazenave et al paper it says:
“Present-day sea-level rise is a major indicator of climate change. Since the early 1990s, sea level rose at a mean rate of ~3.1 mm yr−1 However, over the last decade a slowdown of this rate, of about 30%, has been recorded. It coincides with a plateau in Earth’s mean surface temperature evolution, known as the recent pause in warming.
Here we present an analysis based on sea-level data from the altimetry record of the past ~20 years that separates interannual natural variability in sea level from the longer-term change probably related to anthropogenic global warming.
The most prominent signature in the global mean sea level interannual variability is caused by El Niño–Southern Oscillation, through its impact on the global water.
We find that when correcting for interannual variability, the past decade’s slowdown of the global mean sea level disappears, leading to a similar rate of sea-level rise (of 3.3 ± 0.4 mm yr−1)”
So going by that your claim that sea level rise has slowed down is not correct. The paper directly contradicts what you said! Tis madness!

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Thanks, Martin. The early returns from the satellites were indeed about 2.6 ± 0.7 mm/year, but after more data came in and earlier figures were adjusted, the new trend was about 3.4 mm/year.
Next, did you read my analysis of the Cazenave paper? Her desperate attempt to erase the decrease in observed sea level is based on very weak evidence.
Finally, you and many others seem to be missing the point. It’s not whether the rate of sea level rise has decreased. It’s whether the rate of rise has accelerated.
There has been no statistically significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise, either in the tidal data or the satellite data, no matter how much handwaving Cazenave has done. The alarmists have been predicting such an acceleration for decades now … but despite increasing CO2, there is no significant evidence for the claimed acceleration.
w.

• Martin, there is a rather complete refutation of Cazenove’s physical explanation in essay Pseudo Precision. Read it, and then get back. Maybe you know something about the Amazon and Congo river basins that no one else, including Cazenove, does… But probably not.

• lawrence Cornell says:

Actually eustatically adjusted data. What do you conclude from this “data” J. Peterson ?

• I conclude, not from just this data, but from his life’s work, that the rate of sea level rise is closer to 1mm/yr than 3mm/year. I think his study of the Maldives and other Pacific Islands deserve more respect. I assume you know about the famous tree in the Maldives that was removed by “scientists” to try to disprove his studies that there has been no SLR in the Maldives.

• He (Axel Mörner) has done more hands-on research than you or Dr. Kevin Trenberth has done on the subject. Do you refute that?

• lawrence Cornell says:

Thanks. yes I’m painfully familiar with this tree incident, not as familiar with these particular studies. I hadn’t, and still haven’t read the full pdf and frankly thought you were about to push some CAGW “study”.
Thanks for the link and new info which is always welcome.

58. Willis I responded to your commentary about you saying you do not believe any one who thinks he has an answer to what the climate may be do. I did it under the topic :warmest oceans ever recorded.
I presented my case right or wrong and the why behind it. I think every single one of us has a conclusion. Your conclusion is there is no good conclusion for example. CORRECT? Which I respect and welcome believe it or not.
Nevertheless you will see I have many questions at the end of what I say which means I am by no means sure about my conclusions only that I have a conclusion.

59. Robert of Ottawa says:

Trenbeth is Grubering

60. mpainter says:

Socrates,
Why don’t you fetch Trenberth here so that he can speak for himself. That way, he can explain what he meant in his EMA.
Why don’t you do that, because we would all like to know.

• mpainter says:

EMA=email

61. Willis Eschenbach says:

Jai Mitchell November 16, 2014 at 11:13 am Edit

http://gu.com/p/3pjaj?index=7
Kiribati: life on a tiny island threatened by the rising sea – in pictures
Image description
A man wearing a red shirt stands in a tidal pool next to some old broken brickwork on the shores of Kirabati
Image caption
In the mid-1990s, Toani Benson would buy petrol from a shop where he stands. Today, the shop is a a submerged ruin. The centre of Tebunginako village, on Abaiang Island, is now underwater at high tide.

Dear heavens, Jai, you truly are out of touch. We’ve discussed this “HELP! MY ATOLL IS SINKING, GIVE ME MONEY!” nonsense here on WUWT several times.
Start by reading Floating Islands, which discusses why some atolls are in trouble. SPOILER … it’s not CO2 or sea level rise.
Then segue to “The Irony, It Burns“, which shows that most Pacific atolls (~80%) have either been stable or gained land area in the last 50 years … just as Charles Darwin explained so many years ago.
Then, if you disagree with anything in those two posts, please come back and let us know.
Best regards,
w.

62. 4 eyes says:

Someone tell Trenberth he can clear up some attacks on him by simply posting a response at WUWT.

63. Willis Eschenbach says:

Jimbo November 16, 2014 at 3:13 pm

I found this at the Univ. of Colorado which further complicates things. Sea level rise is a complicated beast to pin down. I prefer longer time spans to show clearer signals. The media likes headlines so this to and fro will not end between sceptics and warmists.

Abstract – 09/2012
Is there a 60-year oscillation in global mean sea level?
We examine long tide gauge records in every ocean basin to examine whether a quasi 60-year oscillation observed in global mean sea level (GMSL) reconstructions reflects a true global oscillation, or an artifact associated with a small number of gauges. We find that there is a significant oscillation with a period around 60-years in the majority of the tide gauges examined during the 20th Century, and that it appears in every ocean basin. Averaging of tide gauges over regions shows that the phase and amplitude of the fluctuations are similar in the North Atlantic, western North Pacific, and Indian Oceans, while the signal is shifted by 10 years in the western South Pacific. The only sampled region with no apparent 60-year fluctuation is the Central/Eastern North Pacific. The phase of the 60-year oscillation found in the tide gauge records is such that sea level in the North Atlantic, western North Pacific, Indian Ocean, and western South Pacific has been increasing since 1985-1990. Although the tide gauge data are still too limited, both in time and space, to determine conclusively that there is a 60-year oscillation in GMSL, the possibility should be considered when attempting to interpret the acceleration in the rate of global and regional mean sea level rise.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL052885

Thanks for that, Jimbo. I do so love a paper whose abstract contains the following two statements:

We find that there is a significant oscillation with a period around 60-years in the majority of the tide gauges examined during the 20th Century, and that it appears in every ocean basin.

and

Although the tide gauge data are still too limited, both in time and space, to determine conclusively that there is a 60-year oscillation in GMSL, the possibility should be considered …

Say what?
Sadly, it’s paywalled, so I can’t determine what they mean by “significant oscillation” … but given the second statement, it can’t be all that significant. Nor is that a surprise, given that we have few tidal records that are much longer than 150 years … which is only two and a half 60-year cycles. Hang on, let me look …
OK. We have two tidal datasets over 180 years, and only 9 from 150-180 years. As a result, when someone claims that there is a “significant” 60-year cycle from seeing only two or two and a half cycles, I just laugh. Nature is naturally deceptive about cycles, they appear and disappear. For example, sea level from about 1960 to 1990 agrees well with the sunspot data … but before and after that period, the correlation vanishes. My rule of thumb is that I need to see four cycles to even begin to draw conclusions, and even then I’ve been fooled.
So claiming a 60-year swing in sea level based mostly on seeing only two cycles or so is a joke.
w.

• Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy says:

“So claiming a 60-year swing in sea level based mostly on seeing only two cycles or so is a joke.” — the instrumental observation data started around 150 years then study of that data is joke then read WMO (1966) “Climate Change” manual written by top meteorologists of the world. We every other day a truncated data of an observed cycle, two different groups are coming to different conclusions. Both the papers are published and media highlighting them. Even CO2 data measurements started around 1956 but we are discussing on this day in day out spending billions of US\$.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

• Willis they conclude as follow:
“Until we understand whether the multi decadal variations in sea level reflect distinct inflexion points or a 60-year oscillation and whether there is a GMSL signature, one should be cautious about computations of acceleration in sea level records unless they are longer than two cycles of the oscillation or at least account for the possibility of a 60-year oscillation in their model. This especially applies to interpretation of acceleration in GMSL using only the 20-year record of from satellite altimetry and to evaluations of short records of mean sea level from individual gauges.”
They attribute some of the apparent oscillations to local wind variation: “It is likely that a significant fraction of the multi decadal fluctuations in local and regional sea level represent dynamical adjustments to winds, and resulting fluctuations in the strength of the circulation, propagation of Rossby and/or Kelvin waves, or other effects that when averaged globally do not cause a significant amplitude in GMSL. “

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Thanks, Phil. Their idea that we don’t have to be cautious if we have say three cycles of the oscillation just reveals that they haven’t looked at enough natural datasets. For example, from about 1940 to 1980 there are four sunspot cycles that line up kinda well with sea levels.
But when we look at the longer record, the correlation disappears entirely.
So no, three or even four cycles of a given oscillation may mean exactly nothing. It’s a recurring problem with looking for possible natural cycles—they can persist for a surprisingly long time, and then vanish entirely.
w.

64. Goldie says:

I think this is just a case of selection bias. Dr Trenberth clearly believes and owns the AGW meme. That being the case he will naturally select those data that support his belief. There is no such thing as objectivity when it comes to human beings and science conducted by human beings.
I do the same thing myself all the time except in the opposite direction. In my case if I see a particularly damming study that supports CAGW I naturally assume it must be faulty. Not because I have read the paper, but because I believe that the weight of evidence indicates CAGW to be faulty and therefore by association this paper must be faulty too.

• Goldie, there is a difference between selection bias (ignoring inconvenient counter stuff) and plain old prevarication. Trenberth (main thread) prevaricated. Period. Proven by W. and by many more.
Never trust a liar. Which was the main point of the “communications issue” of this thread.

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Rud Istvan November 16, 2014 at 5:40 pm Edit

Goldie, there is a difference between selection bias (ignoring inconvenient counter stuff) and plain old prevarication. Trenberth (main thread) prevaricated. Period. Proven by W. and by many more.

NO, NO, NO. I have not established that Dr. Trenberth “prevaricated”, which is a fancy term for “lied”. I thought I’d put this issue to bed in the head post, but I guess some folks didn’t see it, so let me repeat it:

I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims, whether he was honestly mistaken, or he knows but doesn’t care, or he actually doesn’t know what the sea level is doing, or he is just pushing an agenda. Be clear that I make no claims about his motives, his knowledge, or his mental state. I truly don’t know why he answered the way he did.

I do NOT say Trenberth lied (prevaricated), absolutely not. I made no claims about why he what he did. For all I know, it could be he just doesn’t know, as I said.
w.

• W. You are far too polite, or afraid. You up thread proved that he (Trenberth) lied to the commentator, and then denied that you did that out of what?? When is written above thread?
Come on, W. War is hell. Mix it in.
Yes, prevarication is a fancy word for lied. And what the hey was the point of your original post upthread, other than to point out that Trenberth had originally prevaricated on SLR? Oh, if that does not suffice, please see essays Missing Heat and An Awkward Pause in the new ebook forward from Judith Curry.
It is about time to call liars “liars”. And to let the resulting chips fall where they may.
Highest regards to one who could do so, but here has not…
Rud

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Rud Istvan November 16, 2014 at 7:29 pm

W. You are far too polite, or afraid. You up thread proved that he (Trenberth) lied to the commentator, and then denied that you did that out of what?? When is written above thread?

Absolutely not. It is not a question of either politeness or being afraid. It is a question of lack of knowledge.
The fact is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone but Kevin Trenberth knows why he wrote what he wrote … and maybe not even him. I’m often unaware of my own deeper motives until after the fact, if then.
If I were forced to guess, I’d guess that the words of the song apply here:

`"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest."`

I’d guess that Trenberth heard what he wanted to hear about sea level, disregarded the rest, and never checked the facts. I’d guess that he honestly thinks he’s telling the truth.
But I don’t know that, any more than you know that he lied. You have no way at all to determine if he’s lying, mistaken, playing a prank, recalling something incorrectly, or believes he is telling the truth.
Rud, I do my best to avoid speculating on motives. In my youth, accusing a man of lying was something that wasn’t done unless you had ironclad proof in your hand when you made the accusation. It was taken very seriously, and in my opinion rightly so.
In fact, my thread proved nothing about whether he lied, and I personally doubt that he did. But since I have no knowledge about that, as I said clearly in the head post, I take no position at all on his motives or the beliefs behind his actions. We have no evidence regarding his inner mental state, so speculations on the question are meaningless.
w.

• Yeah, for all you know, maybe he was just trying to blow the guy off, so he gave the guy a sentence or two. If the Dr. was a layman as the article emphasized, why would Trenberth want to waste his scientific time with the hoi polloi? An important man like Trenberth? Wouldn’t he view his time as far too valuable?

• I suspect he believes he is right and the data is wrong, but based on good theoretical grounds, the data will eventually be cleaned up and vindicate what he always knew must be true.

65. What constantly amazes me about these climate “scientists” who evidently love to fabricate data is that they actually seem to believe that they won’t get caught. Evidently because they keep doing it!
They are like Putin who claims to that his forces are not in the Ukraine. They fabricate even though they know we know they are fabricating. They just can’t help themselves.

66. Danny Thomas says:

rgbatduke,
Thank you for your discussion re: Antartica and the tectonic “hot spots”. Can you offer a reference where I could read more fully?
Especially regarding the last paragraph:
“The point being that once again, the Earth-Ocean system is a highly complex one. Increased CO_2 almost certainly warms the earth, and is almost certainly responsible for a substantial fraction of the post 1850 warming observed. It is very difficult indeed, however, to attribute precisely what fraction, nor is it possible to assert any sort of high probability prediction for future climate in the Earth’s chaotic climate system. What one can say with some certainty is that there is little evidence for substantial positive feedback on top of the carbon dioxide linked warming, and moderate evidence that natural climate variation is likely to be responsible for a substantial fraction of the warming observed in (say) the mid-1980s and early 1990s.”
This, in summary is what I’ve perceived and yet have so far been unable to find addressed as succinctly as you’ve done so here. I could copy and paste but attribution is important so if that belongs to you I can use your offering as presented.
I’ve found the natural climate variation to be lacking in the AGW side of the discussion and when I’ve asked for it directly no offerings have been provided.
I just do not have the scientific background (yet, but hopefully?) to tease this out for myself.
As your likely aware, wearing the shoes of the “unknowing” in sites such as these one can become “raw meat”. No matter which side one asks. Even bringing up the possibility that the answer lies somewhere in the middle becomes becomes a suggestion of weakness and the “piling on” begins.

67. Willis Eschenbach says:

rgbatduke November 16, 2014 at 7:56 am
Doctor Robert, thanks as usual for your detailed and always fascinating comments. I was with you right to the end, where you said:

.. Increased CO2 almost certainly warms the earth, and is almost certainly responsible for a substantial fraction of the post 1850 warming observed. …

I fear I don’t understand where your certitude comes from. As far as I know, we have good evidence that increased CO2 increases the amount of upwelling radiation absorbed by the atmosphere.
However, that’s very different from saying that increased CO2 “warms the earth”. This is one of the things that people have been trying to establish for 30 years, with very little success … so what evidence makes you “almost certain” that increasing CO2 warms the planet?
And even if such evidence existed, saying that “CO2 warms the earth” is very different establishing to a near certainty that such an increase is “responsible for a substantial fraction of the post 1850 warming observed”. Again, people have been looking for evidence for this claim for decades, and I certainly haven’t seen enough evidence to make me even “vaguely convinced”, much less “almost certain”, that CO2 is a major player in the post-1850 warming.
I mean, as far as we know from the ice cores, the CO2 level didn’t vary much in the thousand years prior to about 1850. As a result, CO2 was NOT a major or even a minor player in the pre-1850 warmings and coolings, (LIA, MWP, etc) … given that we have good evidence that such large temperature swings happen without CO2, what makes you “almost certain” CO2 is not just a player but a major player in the modern warming?
As a result, I’m curious … what is the evidence upon which you base those two “almost certain” comments?
My best to you as always,
w.

• Even the consensus view is that there was not enough extra CO2 in the atmosphere to be detectable until at least 1950. The 1850 claim is clearly nonsense based on wishful thinking and lack of understanding of the actual scientific theories…

• Michael Wassil says:

Even the consensus view is that there was not enough extra CO2 in the atmosphere to be detectable until at least 1950.

If that doesn’t get a laugh out of everyone, nothing will! Do I have to show this to you again?
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological.jpg

• The claim that CO2 started to measurably warm the atmosphere comes out of the IPCC reports. You may find the claim funny, but to be honest, I doubt very few people care what amuses you. Note, that doesn’t mean the claim is necessarily accurate. But to attempt to refute the claim by posting a graph that shows temperature fluctuations versus CO2 over millions of years is clearly futile. For example, Pangaea existed 300 million years ago. It would have totally altered the climate of the planet at that time. I’m a sceptic, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to use a very silly argument like that.

68. DBD says:

Willis – I doubt the fellow who passed his email exchange with Trenberth thought it would lead to a comment string this long!

69. Boris says:

You know when Al Gore made his predictions that the seas would rise by 12 feet by 2012. I was a little concerned. I live beside the ocean and my dock would have been under 6 feet of water as of 2 years ago by Al’s prediction. What to do? Well I attached a 3 FT stainless steel ruler to the piling and made some observations as to the height of the seas as to where in relation it was to the height of my dock. I reasoned that if there was a sharp rise in the overall level then I would have to move the dock upward to be able to still use it before the seas closed over it. Well my dock is still in its original place and as far as I can see the overall height of the water is about where it was 12 years ago. The funny thing about my little experiment is it did not cost much about \$22.00 for the ruler and .60 for the screws. Unfortunately the data points were written down on a board beside the shed door and we painted over them after we found no real change as my shed needed painting. So I am not a scientist but if I can see the results of a long term experiment (12 years) and it does not agree with a learned scientist like Dr Trenberth then I guess I am a denier then.

70. albertkallal says:

Reading that response, the big increase in CO2 did occur about 1990, and the comments were NOT about rising sea levels, but correcting the assumption that CO2 been steady rising. The “big” increase and upticks start around 1990. Did I miss something here? Read the response again – the context and statement is pointing out that CO2 has NOT been rising steady – no one made or make a claim that sea levels started rising significantly after 1990, but anyone following the CO2 levels would most certainly correct to make such a claim.
I fail to see how this is a false statement. It is false to claim that CO2 been steady rising and the response seems rather clear and correct in that context. How did 200+ posts fail to read this correctly?
Regards,
Albert D. Kallal

• Just like in the post about the bees there were many posters claiming that the paper referred to was wrong about the behavior of the different sexes of bees based on what they knew about honeybees. Despite it being pointed out multiple times that the paper was not about honeybees! Some people don’t read the posts.

• lawrence Cornell says:

albertkallal,
I see in the email only ONE question being asked of Mr. Trenberth. It is a question about SLR.
Are you telling us that Mr. Trenberth simply chose NOT to answer the ONE question asked by this gentleman, but instead chose to randomly address something else entirely ?
Now that’s a bit odd to say the least, don’t you think ?

• albertkallal says:

So while everyone is reading the context of rising sea levels (and that includes the question), the answer is “open ended” as it states nothing about sea level rise. The simple issue is the answer does not claim that sea level rise started appreciably in 1990, but ONLY stats that CO2 starting rising significantly around 1990.
So while the answer given is NOT an answer to the question, the answer SIMPLY clarifies what is a simple fact (that being CO2 started to rise However in the given context).
We can lament that no answer about sea level rise was given.
We can lament the fact that the question was not addressed.
We can lament the fact that the answer was a dodge.
However the statement made is benign and the poster should have then followed up with:
So you stating that CO2 only appreciably started rising around 1990, hoes does then correlate to sea level rise then?
So again, it rather clear to me the question was not answer, and perhaps one can consider the answer a “dodge”. However I cannot fathom in ANY WAY that the answer and the context of 1990 refers to sea level rise – it does not, and could have not, and the answer does not claim as such. I admit that such kinds of answers are ambiguous or this is simply a person attempting to correct and answer “part” of the question.
I fully admit that someone who does not have a good answer would MOST LIKELY resort to correcting the person asking the question. This is exactly what occurred. You can always win points in a debate by correcting the assumptions made in the question.
It is STILL WRONG to post and assume the answer given was about sea levels rising in 1990, it was not. For me this is clear as day. I have no intention supporting such a clown, but I VERY MUCH dislike someone’s context being taken out of context to bash someone.
This is like the widely reported claim that Lord Monckton claimed he had a cure for AIDS. He NEVER EVER made such a statement – the statement Monckton made was taken out of context – VERY MUCH like what is occurring here. As much as I despise these scoundrels, this thread is based on WRONGLY taking something out of context.
Wrong is wrong – even when I don’t like who we are bashing here!
Regards,
Albert D. Kallal

• mellyrn says:

The original question mentions “steadily” in the context of sea level rise — “It had been my understanding that sea levels have been rising steadily for thousands of years” — and concludes by asking, “How has this increase in man’s CO2 effected [sic] sea levels ?”
The question is about sea levels, plural, and “steady” refers to sea levels’ (plural again) increasing.
Dr. T replies, “The rates” (plural) have not been steady. Then he states that “CO2 has been increasing” — singular.
I can see how you might read the exchange as OP asking about sea level and Dr T ignoring that to reply only about CO2 — but I do dispute that that is in any way the “correct” reading.
Since “sea levels” and “The rates” are both plural, and since “steady”/”steadily” is attached to “sea levels” in the original question, it is perfectly reasonable to interpret Dr T’s ambiguous “The rates” as referring to sea levels, plural, and not to his singular CO2.

• lawrence Cornell says:

Gee, can you please be MORE convoluted on the way to your cryptic point. And who are addressing mellyrn ?

71. Alx says:

You are making stuff up, that has nothing to do with the article. Start your own blog about the evils of skeptics.
Meanwhile this article points out Trenberth was asked and gave a specific answer Trenberth cast as fact, but was actually an opinion outside the evidence. The question in this article “Why Trenberth made those crazy claims”. is rhetorical. There is no good answer to being deceptive.

72. Alx says:

Trenberth like many climate scientists have dual careers, one in scientce and one in propaganda. He obvioulsy had his propaganda hat on for his reply to the email.

73. lawrence Cornell says:

Also:
“It had been my understanding that sea levels have been rising steadily for thousands of years and now at a very slow rate” is the quote from the gentlemans email.
Please tell me how that equates to : “It is false to claim that CO2 been steady rising and the response seems rather clear and correct in that context. How did 200+ posts fail to read this correctly?”
I’d say nice try, but it really wasn’t, was it ?

• lawrence Cornell says:

The above reply is for albertkallal, the bad placement is mine, sorry.

74. Epiphron Elpis says:

[snip – Epiphron Elpis is yet another David Appell sockpuppet.]

• lawrence Cornell says:

LMAO. Not even worth a serious reply at this point, but thanks for the chuckle Elpis.

• Epiphron Elpis says:

[snip – Epiphron Elpis is yet another David Appell sockpuppet.]

75. Brandon Gates says:

Willis,

As you can see, the idea that the rate of sea level rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is totally contradicted by the Jevrejeva data.

Really? According to the graph, in 1950 the rate was 2 mm/year. In 1850 it was -2 mm/year.

How about Church and White (C/W)? Again there is little evidence that the rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”. Instead, it continued to go up and down, even as far as zero.

Again, really? Note that in the C/W graph prior to 1950 there are several years between 0 and -1, whereas after 1950 it only flirts with zero in 1963, and briefly dips below in 1985. Draw a regression line in either chart, and ponder the meaning of a positive slope of such a line against a plot showing rate of change.

But wait, it gets worse. In fact, far from increasing as Trenberth claimed, the satellite-measured sea level rise has actually been decreasing, as shown by Cazenave et al. …

Yah. From 2009. The most recent data are here: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
My plot of it, showing rate of change over a trailing 61 month sampling period: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSYTk0MW1GX251TXc

I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims, whether he was honestly mistaken, or he knows but doesn’t care, or he actually doesn’t know what the sea level is doing, or he is just pushing an agenda.

Dunno, I’m not a mind-reader. But I think it would be good of you to think about such things the next time you make claims about short-term trends based on a 5 year old graph … such trends have a tricky way of reversing themselves in that amount of time.

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Brandon Gates November 17, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Brandon, thanks for your detailed response.

Willis,

As you can see, the idea that the rate of sea level rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is totally contradicted by the Jevrejeva data.

Really? According to the graph, in 1950 the rate was 2 mm/year. In 1850 it was -2 mm/year.

Yes … and it “picked up markedly” from the 1850 value, but it did so around 1900, fell, rose again, fell again, and rose again. To describe this by saying that the rate “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century” is a very poor description of what actually happened … and one that fits the AGW narrative. When you read that it “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”, you certainly don’t imagine it immediately dropping again, but that’s what happened. And that doesn’t fit the narrative at all.

How about Church and White (C/W)? Again there is little evidence that the rise “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”. Instead, it continued to go up and down, even as far as zero.

Again, really? Note that in the C/W graph prior to 1950 there are several years between 0 and -1, whereas after 1950 it only flirts with zero in 1963, and briefly dips below in 1985. Draw a regression line in either chart, and ponder the meaning of a positive slope of such a line against a plot showing rate of change.

Did you not read the head post? C/W spliced the satellite data onto the tidal gauge data, and then smoothed the splice. You do that and you can get any result you want.

But wait, it gets worse. In fact, far from increasing as Trenberth claimed, the satellite-measured sea level rise has actually been decreasing, as shown by Cazenave et al. …

Yah. From 2009. The most recent data are here: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
My plot of it, showing rate of change over a trailing 61 month sampling period: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSYTk0MW1GX251TXc

2009? Say what?? The Cazenave study was published in 2014, it’s not from 2009.

I don’t know why Trenberth made those crazy claims, whether he was honestly mistaken, or he knows but doesn’t care, or he actually doesn’t know what the sea level is doing, or he is just pushing an agenda.

Dunno, I’m not a mind-reader. But I think it would be good of you to think about such things the next time you make claims about short-term trends based on a 5 year old graph … such trends have a tricky way of reversing themselves in that amount of time

A five year old graph? My friend, I think it would be good of you to look at the dates of the graphs before you start foolishly lecturing me. The Cazenave paper was published in 2014, it’s not even a year old. The graph I showed contains the results of a 5-year centered average, so the graph contains data up to 2011. Elsewhere, the Cazenave paper comments on sea levels up to 2013.
Since this is well after the 2011 date of Trenberth’s email, the deceleration was happening at that time, as your graph clearly demonstrates.
So I fear that at the time of Trenberth’s email, yes, sea level was indeed decelerating, and had been doing so for about nine years … but gosh, somehow he failed to mention that.
Finally, you’ve made an error in your calculations for your graph. The trend of the 61-month trailing UColorado data actually looks like this:

Note that unlike in your graph, the trend has NOT recovered to what it was before the drop, much less exceeded it as your graph shows. Also note that had Trenberth done this calculation in 2011, it would have shown a clear decrease in the rate, as both your and my graphs show.
I suspect that the error in your graph lies in the fact that there are different numbers of observations each year, with the 61-month observation totals ranging from 169 to 187 observations. As a result, you have to put in an adjustment for that in your worksheet calculations.
Short answer? If you want to disagree with me, as I surely encourage people to do, “it would be good of you” to get your facts straight first, and to make sure that your graphs don’t have errors …
w.

• SonicsGuy says:

What you should have used for your Figure 3 is Casenave et al Figure 2b — which corrects for natural variability, and shows almost no trend in SL (just a very slight decline that I suspect isn’t statistically significant). Figure 2a does not correct for NV. There was a big La Nina in 2008, hence the temporary decline in SL.
The trend of your Figure 2 is obviously upward. The rate of SLR is increasing. That’s a positive acceleration of the level of the sea over the long-term.

• Epiphron Elpis says:

[snip – Epiphron Elpis is yet another David Appell sockpuppet.]

• Willis Eschenbach says:

Epiphron Elpis November 17, 2014 at 10:05 pm Edit

You should have used Casenave Figure 2b, not their Figure 2a. 2b corrects for natural variability, and there was a large La Nina in 2008.

Thanks, Epiphron. So your explanation is that the large La Nina in 2008 caused the drop in the rate of rise that started in 2002?
In any case, I used the actual data above. You can make any kind of claims that you want as to WHY the sea level decreased … but neither Trenberth nor I were talking about anything but the variations in the actual observations.
I went through and identified the problems with their analysis step by step, start to finish. Read my paper again (linked above), and if you have an objection, bring it up. There are a number of problems, each one enough to sink their analysis.
Finally, “natural variability” is just climatespeak for “we have no clue about the cause”. It is not possible to remove from the data something for which we have no idea about the cause.

The data in your figure 2 obviously has an upward trend. That’s an increase in SLR, that is, a positive acceleration in sea level.

Are you truly not reading? I just discussed this question in the comment you are replying to, saying:

Did you not read the head post? C/W spliced the satellite data onto the tidal gauge data, and then smoothed the splice. You do that and you can get any result you want.

In addition, Trenberth’s claim is that CO2 is the cause of the sea level rise … and since there was little change in CO2 until 1900 or later, I fear that the gradual increase since the 1800’s is not relevant.
w.
PS—Jevrejeva provides error estimates on his results. Church and White can’t be bothered … which is another reason their results are useless.

• Epiphron Elpis says:

[snip – Epiphron Elpis is yet another David Appell sockpuppet.]

• Brandon Gates says:

Willis,

When you read that it “picked up markedly in the mid 20th century”, you certainly don’t imagine it immediately dropping again, but that’s what happened. And that doesn’t fit the narrative at all.

Numbers speak for themselves:
1800-1899: -0.08 mm/yr
1900-2009: 1.92 mm/yr

C/W spliced the satellite data onto the tidal gauge data, and then smoothed the splice.

There were no satellites in the 19th century.

The graph I showed contains the results of a 5-year centered average, so the graph contains data up to 2011.

The caption says nothing about a centered average: “Figure 3. ORIGINAL CAPTION: GMSL [global mean sea level] rate over five-year-long moving windows. a, Temporal evolution of the GMSL rate computed over five-year-long moving windows shifted by one year (start date: 1994).”

Elsewhere, the Cazenave paper comments on sea levels up to 2013.

Ok, what does it say about sea levels up to 2013?

Since this is well after the 2011 date of Trenberth’s email, the deceleration was happening at that time, as your graph clearly demonstrates.

And yet in 2011 when Kevin allegedly wrote his note, the rate of sea level rise well north of 2 mm/yr. 1800-1899: -0.08 mm/yr. 2011: 2 mm/yr. Today it stands at 4 mm/yr, as my graph clearly demonstrates.

My calcs say 4.6 mm/yr in 2003, 1.9 in 2010, 2.6 in 2011, 2.0 in 2012, 4.1 in 2014, just like your graph.

Note that unlike in your graph, the trend has NOT recovered to what it was before the drop, much less exceeded it as your graph shows.

My graph does not show a “recovery” to the 4.6 mm/yr peak in 2003 any more than yours does because it’s the exact same plot.

Also note that had Trenberth done this calculation in 2011, it would have shown a clear decrease in the rate, as both your and my graphs show.

Which number represents the highest rate of positive change: 2.0 or -0.8?

76. Barry King says:

This has probably appeared on WUWT previously,but from the far side of the world and for what it’s worth: http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2003/casestudy/4/
Of course the Tasmanian government, like other governments, has the usual number of warmists working for them.