Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
So I open my electronic window onto the world this morning, and I find lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth about a projected sea level rise in the US state of Maine. Seems there’s something called the “Maine Climate Council”, which has un-named “scientists” advising it. Here, per the Portland [Maine] Press Herald, is an interactive map that you can use to scare yourself silly by choosing a given sea level rise and seeing who goes underwater. To give you an idea of how high they want you to dial up the alarmism, the article says (emphasis mine):
For reference, Maine sea levels are projected to rise between 1.1 and 3.2 feet by 2050 and between 3 and 9.3 feet by 2100, depending on how successful and quick we are at curbing global emissions rates, according to the scientists who advise the Maine Climate Council.
Now, folks who follow my work know that I’ve done a lot of analyses of sea level claims. And this one set my bad number detector ringing louder than Representative Bowman’s fire alarm.
And sadly, the hype runs deep in the study of the sea level. For example, in my post Munging The Sea Level Data, I demonstrated that the claims of modern acceleration in sea level rise come entirely from a totally invalid splicing of two sets of satellite-measured sea levels. Here’s the money graph from that post.
Figure 1. The four satellite records that are combined to claim acceleration.
Note that the earlier two satellites show a sea level rise of about 2.6 mm/year, which is in line with tide station data. But the latest two satellites show a rise that’s about 50% higher. And the unethical “scientists” using this satellite data fraudulently splice them all together, spread peanut butter over the splice so it can’t be seen, and scream “MASSIVE 50% ACCELERATION IN SEA LEVEL RISE!! EVERYONE PANIC!”. The fraud is shown below.
Figure 2. The artificial claimed “sea level acceleration”.
Grrr … the amount of flat-out lying by climate alarmists knows no bounds … but I digress.
Returning to Maine, NOAA has records from five tide gauges on the Maine coast. A couple of them are around a century long. And guess what?
Despite our total lack of success at “curbing global emissions rates” over the last century, not one of them shows the slightest sign of any acceleration in sea level rise.
Figure 3. Maine sea level records.
So I thought I’d project those records out to 2050, and compare them with the “scientists” claim that by 2050 the sea level in Maine would rise by 1.1 to 3.2 feet (335 to 975 mm, or 13 to 38 inches). Here’s the result. The “whisker bars” show the uncertainty in the projected rise.
Figure 4. Projected sea level rise to 2050, using the historical trends of the five cities, and also showing the rise that is projected by the “scientists who advise the Maine Climate Council”.
Yeah, that’s totally legit … not much else to say about that, except that when you hear someone talking about “climate change” and “sea level rise”, hang on to your wallet, because you’re being had.
Here, it’s a gloriously raining Sunday morning, with the football playoffs on TV (not the round ball kind) and our daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandkids whom my gorgeous ex-fiancée and I live with laughing and running around this big old house I built with my own hands … truly, dear friends, I’m the luckiest man in the world.
My very best to all,
w.
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Or in this case nonexistent evidence……..
“The “whisker bars” show the uncertainty in the projected rise.”
Show me the way to the next whisker bar. Oh, don’t ask “Why?”.
(Alarm Obama Song)
Indeed. And it’s a lot easier to manufacture evidence when you know what outcome you want.
(A CEO has decided to retire and needs to select a successor. He’s narrowed the field to the heads of sales, engineering, and accounting. He’s decided to use their answers to the same single question to determine the winner. The question is, “What is the sum of 2 + 2?”
He calls in the head of sales, asks the question, and the head of sales (with much enthusiasm and many gestures) exclaims, “It’s somewhere between 3 and 5!” The head of sales is dismissed.
The CEO calls in the head of engineering, and asks the question. The head of engineering pulls out a calculator, calmly taps away for a few seconds, then answers, “3.9999.” The head of engineering is dismissed.
The CEO calls in the head of accounting, and asks the question. The head of accounting doesn’t answer immediately, but looks up at the ceiling and pauses for a few seconds while he taps his chin, then looks the CEO in the eye and asks, “What would you like it to be?” The CEO offers his hand.)
I’ve heard Accounting Managers tell a very similar joke, only it’s the Manager of Budget asking what number would they like.
Accounting people take that joke as offensive when accountants are the ones willing to fudge a number, especially a critical number.
Yes, I spent years as a Manager of Budget, and I always laugh when the Budget Manager is willing to stretch a number.
Don’t confuse the issue with facts, we’ve made up our minds! Brilliant as always Willis.
I think with a few years it will be seen how the stated tide gauges are not matching the predictions.
Well, their take-charge Governor has a quick fix – just demolish the tide gauges and their fake reporting, and buy some that DO match the predictions. Problem solved, just as the Soviets fixed their agriculture.
Russian crops will be about 140 million metric ton in 2024, about the same as the past 2 years, of which a large percentage is exported to many countries.
Soviets != Russians
You have to rewind the Wayback Machine to the 30s and the millions who died in the Ukraine from communist ‘experts’ trying to run things instead of the farmers.
A few simple adjustments are much cheaper.
California has something similar, with specific references to tide gauges. I think with a few years it will be seen how the stated tide gauges are not matching the predictions.
The initial report may be under here, otherwise I’d have to hunt it down
https://www.coastal.ca.gov/climate/slr/
Of course when the empirical evidence does not match the predictions ….change the evidence . That’s “science” today
I’m sure they have an “electronic” tide gauge at the ready that will quickly make up for anyone’s inability to say “it’s so much worse than we thought.”
That’s “climate science.”
Being of ~ 97% (there’s that number again) Irish descent, I think I’m entitled to ask –
how do they keep the sea surfaces calm enough to take accurate readings, either by eyeballing tide gauges or bouncing signals from satellites?
Google tide gauges.The measurement is taken inside a settling well where there is no wave action. And as for satalt, waves are a big problem—just one of several. See my long ago post ‘Jason 3-fit for purpose?’ for details.
When i checked into it, part of the reduction in uncertainty is the same old, lets average it out over a month and divide √n. With tons of “samples” it is easy to create really accurate measurements! /sarc
They average tidal data out over something like 18.61 years if I recall correctly.
I’ve actually visited Fort Denison and seen the pool.
Surge tunnel is quite a long way down iirc.
And of course, Sydney Heads has a very significant effect on cutting the coastal waves of the Pacific down…
Kip Hansen did a nice essay, published here, on the working of tidal gauge, probably 2 or 3 years ago. He referenced the NOAA user guide which stated the uncertainty of a measurement in the latest technology tidal gauge is, if I recall correctly, +/- 2.4 cm. Older gauges are less accurate. In a video a while back, Willie Soon said that the best resolution of the satellite altimetry NOAA uses is 5 cm but their claimed accuracy is a little bit (not a lot) better. I think Kip Hansen also covered some of those numbers in one of his other essays on sea level measurements. The published numbers for sea level over time are statistical fantasies calculated from multiple measurements.
The wrong-headed ‘perceived wisdom’ of the climate enthusiasts is that if they average a load of readings together then, magically, all the errors cancel out and they have a magically precise and accurate measurement. Which is, as I’m sure you realise, is complete and utter codswallop.
They are like kindergarten kids playing at being grown-ups.
Nice putdown WE. Maine facts versus Maine climate fiction.
You’re right, Rud, it sure looks like Willis has the facts. So, wondering who the “scientists” advising the Maine Climate Council were, I searched the blogosphere and came up with Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They’ve been around since 1937, so they don’t need any of that satellite data.
Other sources indicate that the “scientists” involved were Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.
Ayuh, those are famous Maine-ahs – finest kind. You people from Away can’t hold a candle to ‘em.
The unnamed scientists have a difficulty with averages – see Figure 4 🙂
Willis is a true hero, a great American/Patriot, who takes pride to ferret out the truth.
we have to find those sell-out “scientists”, who were “advisors”, so we can lampoon them.
Just to say I have gone to read the letters and watch the Photos to, and of ,your gorgeous Ex fiancée, and I shall go to them again and again. Your story is so beautiful. Next post, it would be great if you included a photo of all of you now, after all those years.
¡¡¡ Enhorabuena y Un Abrazo !!!
The easy-ice™ to melt {low elevation and low Latitude} has long ago melted. I expect sea level “rise” to decelerate.
Here is an example, but it does not show the ice in the nearby mountains.
1673661183Puget_Sound_lobe.jpg (1024×925) (historylink.org)
From the Maine Press Herald:
‘Three oceanfront communities – Kennebunk, Portland and Stonington – illustrate a range of impacts as sea levels rise. Sand beaches will be underwater at high tides, beach communities and working waterfront will be inundated, and access roads could become impassable in some areas.’
This is horrible! Where can Skip and Muffy spend their summer vacations if they can’t access Mumsy and Daddy’s beach house?
/sarc
Except that sand beaches tend to gain height as sea level rises 😉
They’ll all head for Martha’s Vineyard.
(which coincidentally is where the USA – Mexico border will be by then).
Making Martha’s Vineyard part of Mexico… sounds like a good idea.
How well are Kenyan’s accepted in Mexico ? 😉
The Vineyard ain’t gonna last long, geologically speaking- it’s just a pile of sand- part of a terminal moraine.
“part of a terminal moraine”
Absolutely true. And if/when a storm wipes the island out, climate change will be the culprit and the wokerati climanazis will be foaming at the mouth with apoplectic rage. Right, nyolci?
As is about 1/2 of Long Island.
Mexican border will be with Canada, because the US border is just a name for where it used to be, just a historic relic, unless we elect Trump
helicopters
My great grandmother and her brother built a summer cottage on the waterfront of a Casco Bay island in 1908. I have spent summers there since 1961. Pictures we have from the 1930s are indistinguishable from today, except for significant erosion. The amount that high tide has risen in my lifetime is not even noticeable compared to the damage that occurs from storm surges.
A couple of inches higher tide is almost irrelevant compared to several feet of surge happening at high tide. That sort of storm damage was already common when the first generation built the place.
Better ask Barry and big Mike. They stupidly bought a beachfront property in MA and now their $20 million mansion is completely underwater….. what’s that? Oh, never mind.
Unnamed “science” experts who advise unnamed and unelected committee members who write policy statements for unnamed future political candidates who then advise you how to live is the biggest scam political parties have ever invented.
That’s why I refuse to be a member of any political party. I urge everyone to become non partisan for exactly this reason. Remember, people who want to lower your standard of living are not your friends and you should not associate with them.
If you’re not a member of a political party, you’re not involved in the process of choosing a candidate that best represents your interests in government. You just pick from the leftovers that other people already decided for you. Apathy: the best way to sit back and watch your freedoms disappear because you couldn’t be bothered to be involved.
Nonsense. I can vote for any candidate I choose in the general election. I get one vote just like anyone else and party affiliation does nothing to change that.
Primaries are just a taxpayer funded gift of ballot counting and free advertising to political parties who are more than capable of deciding which candidate they want to run all on their own dime.
Willis,
What might motivate people to reject your clear summary?
Others have shown similar data and conclusions before and it has been rejected before.
Scientists, it seems, have taken sea level rise as an issue that splits into two camps, no to acceleration and yes to acceleration. It should not be this way. As you show, the outcome should be determined by measurement, not by belief.
Climate research incorporating belief ahead of numbers has had a terrible effect on the public view of how science works. Sadly, there has been little sign of apology from the distorters. Geoff S
Sea level rise acceleration has been an alarmist article of faith for over four decades, when Hansen first made it so summer of 1988. Doesn’t matter that it hasn’t happened. As Maine shows, ‘scientists’ advising coastal committees just know it’s gonna.
Four decades of “Crying Wolf!”, and there is no Wolf.
This is Alarmist Climate Science.
without the false accuracy from combining multiple measurements and retaining results far beyond significant digits, there could be no claim of any change at most locations over the past 100 years.
Thank you Willis. I have been waiting for another post from you on sea level issues so that I could comment.
I think the claim of significantly accelerating sea level rise is one of the most insidious claims of climate alarmists and I think your work on that issue is critically important. Keep it up.
Governments, universities, scientific organizations and other institutions very commonly claim that sea level rise is now 2 or 2.5 times what it was for most of the 20th century. That claimed acceleration is used by those institutions to project massive sea level rise over the next few centuries and has induced governments around the world, including local governments, to begin massive, and hugely costly, mitigation efforts. Where I live the city is planning on sea level to rise between now and 2100 at a rate that is about 35 times the rate at which it rose over the last 110 years.
As I understand your posts on sea level rise, (a) there is no individual data set that shows the rate of sea level rise as having materially accelerated, let alone to have more than doubled in the last 30 or 35 years as is claimed by NOAA and many others and (b) the individual data sets, the tide gauge data (let’s call tide gauge data one data set for the purpose of my question) and the data from the four satellites, do not agree during periods of overlap. Can you confirm whether these propositions are correct? If they are, it seems to me the claimed acceleration is clearly not supported by the data and that claims to the contrary rest on statistical methodology of the hockey stick kind.
I’m interested in your comments if you have the time.
Lying? For the Marxists and their useful idiots the end justifies the means.
I wonder what will happen to Cabot’s Cove, and Jessica.
Jessica? by Dickey Betts
Guitar Greats – Jessica – Dickey Betts – 11/12/1984 – Capitol Theatre (youtube.com)
Murder She Wrote – in our house was called Men Are Always Stupid
Every mystery solved by brilliant Jessica after some incompetent lunkhead couldn’t make sense of the evidence and arrested the wrong person.
They’ll build a 30-foot high seawall, and then wait for the sea to catch up.
All the people in the town were murdered. 100%.
Willis writes:
Note that the earlier two satellites show a sea level rise of about 2.6 mm/year, which is in line with tide station data. But the latest two satellites show a rise that’s about 50% higher.
Do we have any idea why the latest two (newer two?) satellites show a rise that is 50% higher and not in line with the tide gauges?
Some people just naturally believe predictions. Especially scary predictions.
Other people just naturally believe the government
Predictions can scare people about the future even though nothing scary has been happening, like an imaginary boogeyman scaring children\
It seems likely to me that sea level rise would be slightly slower with global cooling, as from 1940 to 1975, and slightly faster with global warming from 1975 through 2023. I suppose you could call that acceleration, but it would be barely visible on a tide gauge chart.
I not convinced that it is possible to change the mind of any adult, whether a leftist or conservative
But if I tried to change minds on sea level rise predictions I would start with discussing what causes sea level to rise.
Warmer oceans increases sea level but that has been happening for a long time — about 20,000 years
The next cause of sea level rise is snow and ice on land melting
For Greenland, not much melting in the past 15 years
“Scientists reveal” | Real Climate Science
For Antarctica statistically insignificant melting since the 1970s. Could just be an ice mass estimate error. If the current claimed ice melt rate of 150 gigatons a year continues, and the planet does not get any colder (the current interglacial lasts forever) Antarctica ice mass of 24.4 MILLION gigatons (some estimates are higher) will be gone in 1.6 million years.
Why does Antarctica not melt?
Because most of the continent has a permanent t temperature inversion, so that increased greenhouse gases make the temperature colder.
The small peninsula is an exception along with some ice shelves affected by nearby underseas volcanoes and ocean tides.
Sea level rise can not accelerate because Antarctica is not melting.
The chart below shows areas of Antarctica that have a permanent temperature inversion in the color pink
That’s the science
Every long term climate prediction is the past century has been wrong
Do you trust science or yet another scary climate prediction?
If you discuss climate with a leftist, frequently use the phrase “scientists say”.
Because what I am reporting is what scientists say.
Aren’t you the one always asking for data ? Where are yours ?
😀
Here’s the data showing the CO2 cooling effect in the Antarctic land.
There’s a warming trend in those data. Your chart shows it.
Lol. Just when I thought Greene was today’s clown show…we have a new contender…
vroooommm.. straight over fungal’s head !!
hilarious. ! 🙂
Tilt your computer screen anticlockwise by 15° and AnalJ’s famous warming trend becomes quite clear.
And……birds that eat striped worms can fly further south than birds that eat red worms.
Please quantify your ”fact” and then show the separation from natural variability over the last, say, 200 years. Thanks!
If you fail to do so, you are just another dickhead with a loud voice.
What a moron! Lol!
“For Antarctica ……If the current claimed ice melt rate of 150 gigatons a year continues, and the planet does not get any colder (the current interglacial lasts forever) Antarctica ice mass of 24.4 MILLION gigatons (some estimates are higher) will be gone in 1.6 million years.”
is it 1.6 million years or 160,000 years?
So essentially these idiots think Maine is sinking, perhaps they should drill holes in the bottom to let the water out, that is about the level of intellect the Maine Climate Council is showing.
They need to drill the weep holes in a uniform pattern. Otherwise, Maine will tip over like Guam.***
***We should get all of our alarmist “science” from Democrats and other sundry Marxists!
Don’t we?
We need to consult Representative Johnson.
Maine to Canada before it is too late and the entire ste is underwater.
And while we are selling states, lets return California to Mexico and demand our $15 million back with interest. The state is so defective all my leftist relatives moved out
Sell Maine to Canada before it is too late and the entire ste is underwater.
Wait a minute, we’re over-run with foaming leftists already, please keep your leftists to your side of the invisible line!
Please curb your leftist and for the sake of Nature and Humanity please consider spading or neutering your leftist.
Looking at the Portland and Eastport data, I think I see a sort of oscillation with about a 60 year period over-imposed on a basic linear trend.
Are you able to confirm that? Is it related to maybe, the AMO ?
I was going to comment on the AMO as well. The last 28 years have been a +AMO. That’s the most likely cause of any acceleration. The ~30 year warm phase is coming to an end soon. Based on this “science”, we should expect a reduction in the rate of SLR over the next 35 years.
Time will tell. 🙂
But certainly, a slight deceleration and or no change in rate over the next several years, puts paid to yet another alarmist chicken-little prediction/projection, GIGO model outcome..
.. whatever they want to call it.
Why are they using Sputniks to measure the sea?
Why not use them to measure the land?
Take a photo now and again and draw a line around everywhere that is not wet.
While you’re at it, use their radar to measure how high the land is.
Or even have people on the ground with surveying tackle.
The land doesn’t have tides, or waves, or storms or surges or tsumnumumnananaies and things – it tends to ‘just sit there’ so is much easier to get an accurate handle on
Once you’ve got an area and a height, work out the ‘volume of land’ (that is not ‘wet’)
If that number is shrinking, sea level is rising, else vice versa
But nobody wants to do that, I’d be surprised if it’s not already being done.
Everybody wants their Pet Theory of GreenGasGarbage to come true and for the water to be thermally expanding as a consequence of said gasgasgarbage
IOW; In their heart of hearts they know that trapped heat is junk and are searching for evidence of it.
They don’t care about the land or the sea or the people or houses/roads/property – they only care for themselves
We explored the pointlessness of it recently, while ignoring a very real problem = The Very Thing that sets off Ice Ages
Thought experiment: If all The Land (avg height 1,000m) fell into The Ocean (avg depth 4,000m), that would create an ocean of average depth 3,000m and land of average height 0m
Does that mean:
a/ That the ocean has fallen by 1,000m to become that new average depth
or
b/ Has it risen by 1,000m so as to cover up all the land?
As to the present pursuit of sea-level – futile is not the word
I assumed equal areas of land and sea – they obviously ain’t but you get the idea.
All the land could fall into the sea and it would only go up half that much
Something to wonder about though innit – The Endgame of Soil Erosion
Hopefully you’ll regard those torrents of mud (things that used to be called ‘rivers’) in a different light now
I knew that was where you were headed Peta. You never stray far from your obsession. But you forgot the sugar rant and thanks for that.
“The land doesn’t have tides”
It does, you know. About a foot.
As a surveyor, I had to know about it.
Excellent idea – if the area measured goes up the bedwetters and propagandists can go back under their rocks.
“depending on how successful and quick we are at curbing global emissions rates,”
LOL….. “global” emission rates will continue to climb for many decades thanks to China, India and other developing regions.
And there is absolutely nothing they can do about it… 🙂
Time to set up a scuba dealership 😉
Most of the coast of Maine is ledge and cliffs. The sea level will have to go up a great deal before anyone notices. I believe it hasn’t even finished rebounding from the melting of the glaciers that covered the entire region, like further south- so anyone in Maine worried about the rise of the sea needs to find a good psychiatrist, who can prescribe a heavy dose of tranquilizers.
projected to rise between 1.1 and 3.2 feet by 2050
Oh, those dear projectionists, they’ve really had their oats this morning! Apparently they felt that 2mm/year was just not attention-grabbing enough. So they’re declaring that 2 mm should actually be from 13 to 37 mm annually to scare the bejesus out of elementary school kids. Almost good enough for Hollywood!
Notice they don’t predict anything, they just project. Legally different.
You fellows seem a lot better with numbers than I am, so I was wondering if you could help me out.
Suppose you had a very long vertical tube, say a mile long, filled with water, and suppose you raised the temperature of that water a tenth of a degree. I imagine the water in the tube would expand and the level in the tube would rise. By how much?
You can probably guess where I’m going with this: Perhaps recent rises in the sea level are no longer due to melting glaciers, but rather due to the water being slightly warmed and expanding, with the warming not caused by CO2, but by up-welling lava down at the bottom of the ocean.
Joe Bastardi mentions a geologist, Dr. Viterito, who has been studying this phenomenon. There was recently unexpected warming of the waters off the east coast of Australia, which is unusual when an El Nino is going on on the other side of the Pacific, and it matched up with shallow earthquakes in that area. (It also messed up forecasts of those who did not expect those water to get abruptly warmer.)
It would also seem that if you warm the water, it holds less CO2. So deep sea lava might be causing some of the rise in CO2 levels as well.
If we have trillions of dollars to throw around studying climate, it seems more should be spent studying the depths of our oceans, which we know so little about.
Caleb, see my old post here ‘Sea Level Rise, Acceleration, and Closure’. The part you will find interesting is closure.
Long record (you need > 60 years) dGPS vertical land motion corrected tide gauges (there are between 60 and 65 depending 60 years or 70 years) show 2.2mm/ year.
Closure is the idea that the sum of observed ice sheet loss and thermosteric rise (from ocean warming) should equal that. Depending on whose estimates, closure is either 2.3mm/year or exactly 2.2.
This is another way to know that the satellite altimetry estimates are way off.
“if you warm the water, it holds less CO2” .. not fully so. You can dissolve less CO2 in warm water, but today’s oceans hold much less CO2 than a possible maximum. Besides, CO2 solubility increases with pressure, which increases with depth.
Thanks.
I saw a video taken by a deep sea sub by a “smoker” venting, among other stuff, CO2. Under the great pressure it was a liquid! It trickled away along the sea bottom.
Surely, not Xitter again?
The same sort of trickery has been going on with the land based temp data as well.
Where they have been using the switch over to electronic thermomerters to boost the warming trend.