New satellite data from the European Union for the period 2003-2011 show a decline in the rate of sea level rise. Projections from the EU data suggest a sea level rise of 3.4 inches by 2100 rather than the approximately 39 inches claimed by others, including researchers at the University of Arizona. (See: here).

 Temperature data from the British Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change for the same period shows a declining temperature trend in spite of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide content. This is more evidence that our carbon dioxide emissions have no significant effect on temperature.

There is a caveat for interpreting both the EU and UofA sea level projections. The rate of sea level rise changes on an approximately 11-year cycle, the same as solar cycles. Both groups could be looking at different small parts of the cycle and thereby getting a skewed view of the actual long-term rate which is declining. For more background details on the history and rate of sea level rise see my article Sea Level Rising?

Sea level rose rapidly during the transition from the last glacial epoch to the current interglacial period. During the past 6,000 years, however, rise has been very small and the cyclical nature probably reflects the solar-driven atmospheric cycles such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation.

Since several researchers say the planet is entering a cooling period, sea level may stop rising altogether. See:

NASA Says Earth Is Entering A Cooling Period

Astronomers predict a major drop in solar activity, that means a cold spell

Declining Sunspots my trigger deep cooling period

Geophysicist predicts new “Little Ice Age” by 2050

(Graphs courtesy of C3Headlines)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 7:52 am and is filed under Climate change. Tags for this post: carbon dioxide, Climate change, global warming, sea level. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.