Before I get into the Scafetta paper, here is some background.

Measuring sea level is more complicated than pounding a stake into a beach. Ideally, global sea level would be a rotating oblate ellipsoid of polar radius of 6365.752 km and equatorial radius of 6378.137 km in absence of any other forces. Gravity distorts this ideal shape to make it lumpy.

There are daily and seasonal variations, and storm surges in addition to the oscillations mentioned above. There are tectonic events: is the ocean rising or is the land sinking? Also, extraction of groundwater near coasts may cause the land to sink and present an apparent rise in sea level. All these confounding factors can produce a local rate of sea level change very different from global rate of change.

Since the end of the last glacial epoch, sea level has risen 120 meters (393 feet), about one meter per century. Sea level is still rising at the rate of 1- to 3mm per year, according to NOAA, about the thickness of one or two pennies.

As you can see from the figure, the rate of sea level rise has changed on broad time scales. Scafetta has found patterns of acceleration and deceleration of rise at much smaller time scales.

Scafetta studied six long-term tidal gauge records sited to represent all of the world’s oceans. He found the rate of sea level rise “…to be characterized by significant oscillations at the decadal and multidecadal scales up to about 110-year intervals. Within these scales both positive and negative accelerations are found if a record is sufficiently long. This result suggests that acceleration patterns in tide gauge records are mostly driven by the natural oscillations of the climate system. The volatility of the acceleration increases drastically at smaller scales such as at the bi-decadal ones.”

“Tide gauge accelerations oscillate significantly from positive to negative values mostly following the PDO, AMO and NAO oscillations. In particular, the influence of a large quasi 60–70 year natural oscillation is clearly demonstrated in these records.”

A conclusion from this paper has implications for climate model predictions: “at scales shorter than 100-years, the measured tide gauge accelerations are strongly driven by the natural oscillations of the climate system (e.g. PDO, AMO and NAO). At the smaller scales (e.g. at the decadal and bi-decadal scale) they are characterized by a large volatility due to significant decadal and bi-decadal climatic oscillations. Therefore, accelerations, as well as linear rates evaluated using a few decades of data (e.g. during the last 20-60 years) cannot be used for constructing reliable long-range projections of sea-level for the twenty first century.”

The cyclical nature of the rate of sea level rise, and its quite variable accelerations and decelerations at different time scales may explain why different researchers get different rate values. So, scary stories saying we are doomed because of acceleration in the rate of sea level rise, such as the ‘science fiction” stories linked below, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Reference: Scafetta, N., 2013, Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes, Climate Dynamics, DOI 10.1007/s00382-013-1771-3.

See the full paper here.

See also:

Science Fiction from the University of Arizona?

More science fiction from the University of Arizona

University of Arizona dances with sea level

Sea Level Rising?

Sea Level Rise in the South Pacific: None

Sea Level Rise Declining says EU

Obama parts the waters, sea level drops

Size matters in sea level studies

Sea level rising fast along American East Coast – or not

It is unfortunate that what will probably be an entertaining evening of song and dance is being used as political propaganda posing Pacific islanders as victims of global warming-caused sea level rise that will inundate their homes.  Such propaganda is not new.  Back in 2009, Members of the Maldives’ Cabinet donned scuba gear and held a meeting under water in a publicity stunt about sea level rise.

The UA’s Institute of the Environment has also, in the past, issued alarmist articles about sea level rise flooding low-lying coastlines, see Science Fiction from the University of Arizona.

If you decide to go to the afternoon discussion, here are a few things you should know. Auckland University Professor Paul Kench has measured 27 islands where local sea levels have risen 120mm – an average of 2mm a year – over the past 60 years, and found that just four had diminished in size, the remaining 23 had either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research published in a scientific journal, Global and Planetary Change.

The Australian government has been monitoring sea level on Pacific islands with modern instruments since 1992.   In the case of Tuvalu, they state, “If   the   depression   of   the   1998   cyclone   is   ignored,  there   was   no   change   in   sea   level   at   Tuvalu between 1994 and 2009: 14 years. The recent slight fall would probably be related to the recent earthquake.”

Here is the Australian record of sea level for Tuvalu.  Other South Pacific islands show a similar record.

See also:

Sea Level Rising?

Sea Level Rise Declining says EU

Obama parts the waters, sea level drops

Size matters in sea level studies

And lo! It has come to pass. The seas have receded from upon the land.

The European Space Agency’s Envisat monitoring, global sea level revealed a “two year long decline [in sea level] was continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year.”

NASA concurs. “While the rise of the global ocean has been remarkably steady for most of this time, every once in a while, sea level rise hits a speed bump. This past year, it’s been more like a pothole: between last summer and this one, global sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter.” But NASA blames it on La Niña rather than Obama power. There goes another Nobel prize.

The explanation from NASA:

Willis said that while 2010 began with a sizable El Niño, by year’s end, it was replaced by one of the strongest La Niñas in recent memory. This sudden shift in the Pacific changed rainfall patterns all across the globe, bringing massive floods to places like Australia and the Amazon basin, and drought to the southern United States.

Data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) spacecraft provide a clear picture of how this extra rain piled onto the continents in the early parts of 2011. “By detecting where water is on the continents, Grace shows us how water moves around the planet,” says Steve Nerem, a sea level scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

So where does all that extra water in Brazil and Australia come from? You guessed it–the ocean. Each year, huge amounts of water are evaporated from the ocean. While most of it falls right back into the ocean as rain, some of it falls over land. “This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year,” says Carmen Boening, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist.

See also:

Sea Level Rising?

The information below is gleaned from the scientific literature. The data show that the current warming is not unusual, but part of a natural cycle; that greenhouse gases, other than water vapor, are not significant drivers of climate; that human emissions of carbon dioxide are insignificant when compared to natural emissions of greenhouse gases; and that many predictions by climate modelers and hyped by the media are simply wrong. There is no physical evidence showing that human carbon dioxide emissions have a significant effect on global temperature. Carbon dioxide is vital to life on earth and current atmospheric levels are dangerously low. Political schemes to cut greenhouse gases will have no measurable effect on temperature but will greatly harm the economy by impeding energy production and use.

THE CURRENT WARM PERIOD IS NOT UNUSUAL

The graph below, based on reconstruction from the geologic and historical records, shows that there have been several warm/cold cycles since the end of the last glacial epoch. The temperature during the Holocene Climate Optimum was 3ºF to 10ºF warmer than today in many areas. This is warmer than the extreme scenarios of the IPCC. Clearly, current temperatures are neither unprecedented nor unusually warm.

 Looking at the broader geologic record, we see that there is little correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide.

 Note that there was an ice age at the end of the Ordovician Period when atmospheric CO₂ was approximately 4,500 ppm or more than 11 times the current level. Notice also that the “normal” temperature of this planet is 22 C, or about 18 F warmer than it is now.

For more details and references see: Natural Climate Cycles

But what about the ice core graphs?

 These show a correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide. But what isn’t usually mentioned is that temperature changes PRECEDED changes in CO₂ concentration by about 800 years. That’s because temperature controls carbon dioxide solubility in the oceans. Notice that the temperature cycles occur in approximately 100,000-year intervals. This coincides with the precession of the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun. (Can you think of anything that would make CO₂ cycle this way if it were the driver rather than temperature?)

 For more information and references see: Al Gore’s Favorite Graph

Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect

The “greenhouse effect,” very simplified, is this: solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere and warms the surface of the earth. The earth’s surface radiates thermal energy (infrared radiation) back into space. Some of this radiation is absorbed and re-radiated back to the surface and into space by clouds, water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases. Water vapor is the principle greenhouse gas; the others are minor players. Without the greenhouse effect the planet would be an iceball, about 34 C colder than it is. The term “greenhouse effect” with respect to the atmosphere is an unfortunate usage because it is misleading. The interior of a real greenhouse (or your automobile parked with windows closed and left in the sun) heats up because there is a physical barrier to convective heat loss. There is no such physical barrier in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse” gas, but its theoretical ability to warm the atmosphere (as shown on the graph) diminishes with increasing concentration. For instance, if a certain amount of carbon dioxide can cause a 1 degree temperature rise, it will take twice that amount to warm the next degree.

The reason it works this way is because carbon dioxide can absorb only a few specific wavelengths of thermal radiation. The current concentration of carbon dioxide has absorbed almost all available radiation in those wavelengths so there is little left for additional carbon dioxide to absorb. Water vapor absorbs many of the same wavelengths of thermal radiation decreasing the effect of carbon dioxide even more. That is why our proposed attempts to decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide will have almost no effect on temperature.

For more details see: Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect and Humans and the Carbon Cycle

WHY THE CLIMATE MODELS ARE WRONG

The IPCC says that warming will produce more water vapor which will enhance greenhouse warming, a positive feedback. All their climate models are based on this assumption. Sounds reasonable, except in the real world it doesn’t happen. Increased water vapor produces more clouds which block the sun thereby inducing cooling, a negative feedback.

According to climate models, the rate of warming should increase by 200-300% with altitude in the tropics, peaking at around 10 kilometers – a characteristic “fingerprint” for greenhouse warming. However, measurements by weather balloons and satellites show the opposite result: no increasing temperature trend with altitude. In other words, the model-predicted “fingerprint” of anthropogenic, greenhouse warming is absent in nature. The computer-predicted signature of greenhouse warming trends should look like the graph on the left below, but according to measurements from satellites and radiosondes, the actual temperature trend is as depicted in the graph on the right.

The atmosphere is not static; we have weather which tends to dissipate heat into space. According to real world measurements, the negative feedbacks overwhelm the theoretical positive feedback posed by the IPCC.

The greenhouse model is a simplified story that helps explain how our atmosphere works. However, the real world is very complicated and still not fully understood. Even global warming alarmist James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, had this to say: “The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.” — James Hansen, “Climate forcings in the Industrial era”, PNAS, Vol. 95, Issue 22, 12753-12758, October 27, 1998.

And even the IPCC once admitted, “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the prediction of a specific future climate state is not possible.” — Final chapter, Draft TAR 2000 (Third Assessment Report), IPCC.

See also:

How Mother Nature Fools Climate Scientists

HUMAN CONTRIBUTION TO GREENHOUSE GASES IS INSIGNIFICANT:

Human carbon dioxide emissions are 3% to 5% of total carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, and about 98% of all carbon dioxide emissions are reabsorbed through the carbon cycle. http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf.

We have all heard scary stories about global warming and, therefore, propose to limit our carbon dioxide emissions, assuming that they are responsible for the warming.

Using data from the Department of Energy and the IPCC we can calculate the impact of our carbon dioxide emissions. The results of that calculation shows that if we stopped all U.S. emissions it could theoretically prevent a temperature rise of 0.003 C. If every country totally stopped human emissions, we might forestall 0.01 C of warming. For the derivation of these numbers, see my post: Your Carbon Footprint doesn’t Matter .

Although Earth’s atmosphere does have a “greenhouse effect” and carbon dioxide does have a limited hypothetical capacity to warm the atmosphere, there is no physical evidence showing that human carbon dioxide emissions actually produce any significant warming.

The major greenhouse gas is water vapor which accounts for about 97% of the warming effect. The other 3% is attributed to carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs etc. Human carbon dioxide emissions represent about 3% of 3% of greenhouse gases or about one tenth of one percent of the total greenhouse effect and are therefore insignificant.

THE SUN IS THE REAL CLIMATE DRIVER

The real drivers of climate are the Sun’s insolation (light and heat), its magnetic flux, and the relative position and orientation of the Earth to the Sun.

There are three main positional variations of the Earth and Sun, called Milankovitch cycles: Orbital Eccentricity, Axial Obliquity (tilt), and Precession of the Equinoxes. These cycles affect the amount and location of sunlight impinging on the earth.

The variations in the Sun’s magnetic flux controls the amount of cosmic rays impinging on the atmosphere. Cosmic rays produce ionizations and the ions form nuclei for cloud formation. Cloud cover has a great effect on global temperature, but this area is still poorly understood and not addressed in climate models. For more detailed explanations of solar cycles and cosmic rays see my posts:

Ice Ages and Glacial Epochs

CERN experiment confirms cosmic ray effect on climate

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

Declining Sunspots my trigger deep cooling period

SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED WITH SEA LEVEL RISE?

Climate alarmists put forth scary scenarios saying that global warming is causing unprecedented sea level rise and the rise is accelerating. Well, don’t sell your beach-front property yet. Since the end of the last glacial epoch 12,000 years ago, sea level has risen 120 meters, about one meter per century. [NOAA puts normal rise at 1 to 3mm per year, about the thickness of a penny.]

Research on the rate of sea level rise for the past 6,000 years, based on geologic evidence and the historic record found that acceleration of sea level rise in response to increased temperature or CO₂ levels. In fact, the rate of sea level rise is decreasing.

The graph on the left above is a reconstruction of sea level rise since the end of the last glacial epoch (source). The graph on the right above shows satellite measurements of sea level. Notice there has been no acceleration of rise; in fact there has been a decrease in the rate of rise.

Research has shown that the rate of sea level rise in cyclic in response to the Sun’s internal 11-year cycle.

For more information see:

Sea Level Rising?

Sea Level Rise in the South Pacific: None

Sea Level Rise Declining says EU

Size matters in sea level studies

PROBLEMS WITH TEMPERATURE DATA

Climate alarmists and the media cherry-pick data to produce scary headlines. Official temperature records have been corrupted by deliberate manipulation, by siting deficiencies, and by ignoring inconvenient data. See:

Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?

Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception

There have also been problems with computer-read temperature data. For instance, Canadian mathematician Steve McIntyre, slayer of the IPCC’s infamous hockey stick graph, found a glitch in NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies’ (GISS) computer program which calculates surface temperature. A little less than ten years ago, GISS changed the way it recorded temperatures. No one thought to correlate the old temperatures with the new ones, that is until McIntyre tried it, and he found a warming bias in the current calculations. NASA has since corrected the error.

Thus, the previous hottest year of the 20^th Century, 1998, fell to second place; the hottest year is now 1934. Al Gore has claimed that 9 of the 10 hottest years occurred during the past decade. Under the revised figures, only three did. Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the list, behind even 1900.

Most of the warmest years occur well before the major 20^th Century build-up of CO₂. So where is the cause and effect?

Additional problems with official surface temperature readings were discovered by meteorologist Anthony Watts [see Surfacestations.org]. He found that many official weather stations were sited so as to produce a warming bias. Bad siting includes being near asphalt parking lots, next to buildings, being near air conditioning exhaust vents, and encroaching urbanization. Compare the station at the University of Arizona in 1923 vs. 2008 (see below). In 1923, the station was in an open area near lawns and dirt roads, but now, the station is in an asphalt parking lot between buildings. This change in site conditions has produced a warming bias.

More recently we have learned that a small group of scientists conspired to hide declining temperatures and manipulated official databases to show a warming bias.

See my blogs on the subject, the so-called Climategate scandals:

Climategate

Climategate Analysis

Climategate Update Feb 18, 2010 Phil Jones and the NASA files

Climategate The Plot Thickens

Climategate: Conflicts of interest and corrupted science

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

We often hear that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make the oceans too acidic and dissolve or otherwise harm carbonate-shelled marine fauna. These writers or reporters seem ignorant of the fact that marine fauna evolved when the atmospheric CO₂ concentration was more than 10 times higher than the current level.

 It has been estimated that current ocean pH is 0.1 pH unit less alkaline than it was in recent pre-industrial time, and some climate models predict a further decrease of 0.7 pH units by 2300. However, proxy reconstructions of ocean acidity, based on fossil and modern corals, show that ocean pH has oscillated between pH of 7.91 and 8.29 during the past seven thousand years That is within the alkaline range (neutral is 7). That cyclic variation is nearly four times larger than the 0.1 decrease alarmists are whining about, and even if the model predicted decrease of 0.7 units occurs, the water will still be alkaline.

 Many studies show that corals and other marine life is able to adapt to the changing pH.

For more details see: Ocean Acidification by Carbon Dioxide

CONCLUSION

The basic conclusion is that carbon dioxide has little effect on climate and all attempts to control carbon dioxide will be a futile exercise in climate control. All the dire predictions are based on flawed computer models. Carbon dioxide is a phantom menace.

No researchers nor the IPCC have presented any physical or observational evidence that CO₂ is a significant driver of temperature.

Climate models are complex mathematical constructs. But the atmosphere is even more complex, so modelers must ignore many variables such as Sun-Earth relationships and clouds, in favor of a few basic parameters. The fundamental assumption of climate models is that changes in CO₂ concentration drive temperature change, but evidence from geology and astronomy show that the relationship is just the opposite.

Climate modelers also assume that the pre-industrial concentration of CO₂ was below about 280 ppmv and that the current value of about 380 ppmv is unprecedented. But that assumption is shown to be wrong by several lines of evidence including direct measurements made since the early 1800s. CO₂concentration has fluctuated widely during the last 10,000 years and has often exceeded current levels. . [Sources: Beck, E., 2007, 180 Years of Atmospheric CO₂ Gas Analysis By Chemical Methods, Energy & Environment Volume 18 No. 2 and Kurschner et al., 1996, Oak leaves as biosensors of late Neogene and early Pleistocene paleoatmospheric CO₂ concentrations, Marine Micropalaeontology, 27:299-312.].

Models, when tested by running in hindsight from the present, cannot reproduce the Medieval Warm Period nor the glacial epochs. The U.N. IPCC claims that the surface temperature rise in the last 130 years has been 0.6 C ± 0.2 C. That is a 33% margin of error in each direction. The standard for statistically significant scientific findings is 5% in each direction. The large margin of error reflects the uncertainty of the basic measurements from weather stations and the methods of averaging the data.

Climate modelers make some outlandish predictions, but occasionally there is a glimmer of honesty:

“The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.” — James Hansen, “Climate forcings in the Industrial era”, PNAS, Vol. 95, Issue 22, 12753-12758, October 27, 1998.

“In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the prediction of a specific future climate state is not possible.” — Final chapter, Draft TAR 2000 (Third Assessment Report), IPCC.

While controlling CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels my have some beneficial effects on air quality, it will have no measurable effect on climate, but great detrimental effects on the economy and our standard of living. The greatest danger of climate change is that politicians think they can stop it. But the climate has always been in a state of flux. In my opinion, the debate over global warming is truly a scam designed to control (and tax) production and use of energy from fossil fuels.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken

For more background on climate science, see the Climate section of my ARTICLE INDEX page.

]]> http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/09/08/a-perspective-on-climate-change-a-primer-for-politicians/feed/ 30 http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/08/24/sea-level-rise-declining-says-eu/ http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/08/24/sea-level-rise-declining-says-eu/#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:52:17 +0000 Jonathan DuHamel http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/?p=875 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)

I don’t have a problem with the basic premise of the paper itself but I do have a problem with the press release . The basic premise of the paper is “Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period.” I agree.

Within the press release is this sentence: “But the question remains: How much of that will be due to ice sheets melting as opposed to the oceans’ 332 billion cubic miles of water increasing in volume as they warm up?” 332 BILLION? That is hyperbole since the actual volume of the ocean is 332 MILLION cubic miles (see here and here). Okay, maybe that’s just a typo, but should not communications departments proofread their papers and have enough scientific knowledge to recognize a mistake, especially if they write about scientific research?

But apparently the English language is also a challenge. Consider this sentence that captions an accompanying photo: “If sea levels rose to where they were during the Last Interglacial Period, large parts of the Gulf of Mexico would be under water…” The Gulf of Mexico is water. Of course the intended meaning is that if sea level rose, then the land along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico would be flooded.

And, there is this almost obligatory agenda-driven sentence in the press release: “As the world’s climate becomes warmer due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, sea levels are expected to rise by up to three feet by the end of this century.” If the writer of the press release or the authors of the paper have some physical evidence that greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, cause significant warming, I would be most grateful to learn of such evidence because I have yet to find any.

The contention that sea level will rise at least three feet by the end of the century is highly speculative. The rate of sea level rise is decreasing in spite of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Questionable statements and spin in press releases are not confined to the University of Arizona. Unfortunately, this practice is becoming too common, perhaps in an effort to grab headlines and grants. It would be nice to see press releases written in the “Dragnet style:” just the facts Ma’am.

Citation:

McKay, N., J. T. Overpeck, and B. Otto-Bliesner (2011). The role of ocean thermal expansion in Last Interglacial sea level rise. Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2011GL048280, in press.

Update: I notice that the University of Arizona has corrected the two errors that I pointed out in its press release.  Good for them.

See also:

Sea Level Rising?

Science Fiction from the University of Arizona?

What is really interesting is the first two paragraphs of the press release:

Warming of the ocean’s subsurface layers will melt underwater portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets faster than previously thought, according to new University of Arizona-led research. Such melting would increase the sea level more than already projected. [emphasis added.]

The research, based on 19 state-of-the-art climate models, proposes a new mechanism by which global warming will accelerate the melting of the great ice sheets during this century and the next.

So what is wrong with this? When water freezes, it expands, that is why ice floats; ice is less dense than an equal weight of liquid water. The researchers claim that melting of underwater ice will increase sea level. But the underwater ice is already displacing a certain volume of water. When the underwater ice melts, the resulting water will occupy a smaller volume than the ice did. How can that cause sea level to increase?

Will scientists clinging to the orthodoxy of the global warming religion say anything to get research grants?

Other research questions the basic premise of the UofA research: is the ocean warming?

See: More Evidence that Global Warming is a False Alarm: A Model Simulation of the last 40 Years of Deep Ocean Warming

Sea also:

Science Fiction from the University of Arizona?

Sea level rising?

Size matters in sea level studies

Sea Level Rise in the South Pacific – None

The paper in question is titled, “Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia.” One of the co-authors is Michael Mann of “hide the decline” fame and author of the now debunked hockey stick. (see full paper) These researchers used samples from just two sites is North Carolina to conclude: “A second increase in the rate of sea-level rise occurred around AD 1880–1920; in North Carolina the mean rate of rise was 2.1 mm/y in response to 20th century warming. This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2100y.” In other words, they say that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating.

The problem I see with this research is that there are only two sample sites and these sites are within an unstable geological environment: barrier islands/estuaries. The apparent sea level is subject to frequent change due to reconfiguration of the coast by storms and coastal currents. In fact, the two closest long-term tidal gauge records, Wilmington, N.C. and Hampton Roads, Va., show widely varying rates of sea level rise: 2.0 mm/yr and 4.5 mm/yr respectively. The sample size used by these researchers was too small and not representative of global sea level rise.

In another paper published in May, 2011, in the Journal of Coastal Research, the researchers analyzed the records of 57 U.S. tidal gauges and found that the rate of sea level rise was decreasing during the 20^th Century:

Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records. The decelerations that we obtain are opposite in sign and one to two orders of magnitude less than the +0.07 to +0.28mm/y2

accelerations that are required to reach sea levels predicted for 2100 by Vermeer and Rahmsdorf

(2009), Jevrejeva, Moore, and Grinsted (2010), and Grinsted, Moore, and Jevrejeva (2010). Bindoff et al. (2007) note an increase in worldwide temperature from1906 to 2005 of 0.74uC. 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.

An earlier study Holgate (2007), using data from worldwide coastal tidal gauge records, shows that the rate of sea level rise is decreasing. Specifically, the mean rate of global sea level rise was “larger in the early part of the last century (2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr 1904-1953), in comparison with the latter part (1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr 1954-2003).” (Citation: Holgate, S.J. 2007. On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century. Geophysical Research Letters 34: 10.1029/2006GL028492)

NASA satellite data show that sea level rise has been steady, not accelerating, and has in fact been decelerating since 2006.

For more background on sea level since the end of the last glacial epoch 15,000 years ago, see my post “Sea Level Rising?” That post presents graphs and shows that the rate of sea level rise is cyclical. It also gives more references.

It seems that both sample size and location matter when trying to determine what is happening with global sea level. And, it appears that researchers with an agenda can cherry-pick data to suit their needs.

See also:

Climate Data, Fact or Fiction

Sea Level Rise in the South Pacific: None

The press release says that greenhouse gas emissions will cause warming which will raise sea level by at least one meter by the year 2100. It also says that “warming will likely lock us into at least 4 to 6 meters of sea-level rise in subsequent centuries…”

In my opinion, this study is nothing more than speculative science fiction with little factual basis and it presents just another scary scenario that begs for government grant money.

I emailed Mr. Weiss asking for information on their sea level projections and asked this question: “What specific physical evidence do you have that carbon dioxide has a significant effect on global temperature?” He emailed some references to me (see below).

  On Sea Level

For sea level to rise one meter by 2,100 would require the current rate of sea level rise to more than triple beginning this year and continue for 89 years. For a review on measurements of sea level, see my blog: Sea Level Rising. Research documented in that article shows that sea level, as measured by world-wide tidal gauges, was rising 2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr from 1904-1953 and 1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr from 1954-2003. Satellite measurements indicate a rate of 3.2 mm/yr since 1994 with a decreasing rate since 2006. The apparent discrepancy between tidal gauges and satellite measurement is due to the fact that sea level rise is cyclic and the satellites started measuring at the bottom of a rising cycle. However, even using the higher number, it would require tripling of the currant rate of rise to produce a one meter sea level change by 2100.

In the press release, Weiss claimed to use “the most recent sea-level-rise science…” He referred me to two papers:

Pfeffer WT, Harper JT, O’Neel S (2008) Kinematic constraints on glacier contributions to 21st-century sea-level rise. Science 321:1340-1343.

The Pfeffer research was a computer modeling study but with no actual measurements. The abstract reads in part, “We find that a total sea-level rise of about 2 meters by 2100 could occur under physically possible glaciological conditions but only if all variables are quickly accelerated to extremely high limits. More plausible but still accelerated conditions lead to total sea-level rise by 2100 of about 0.8 meter.”

The other paper was: Vermeer M, and Rahmstorf S., 2009, Global sea level linked to global temperature. P Natl Acad Sci USA 106:21527-21532. This too is essentially computer modeling. I found two critiques of the Vermeer-Rahmstorf paper, one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says their math was wrong; the other by a Senior Scientist at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory lists multiple problems, including using out of date data and bad math.

Greenhouse gases and global warming

The “greenhouse effect” is this: solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere and warms the surface of the earth. The earth’s surface radiates thermal energy (infrared radiation) back into space. Some of this radiation is absorbed and re-radiated by clouds, water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases. Water vapor is the principle greenhouse gas; the others are minor players. Without the greenhouse effect the planet would be an iceball, about 34 C colder than it is.

Since the press release said that greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., carbon dioxide) were responsible for the warming that would raise sea levels, I asked Mr. Weiss, “What specific physical evidence do you have that carbon dioxide has a significant effect on global temperature?”

At first, he emailed reference to two old textbooks and referred specifically to a chapter in one of them. I found that book online via Google Books. That chapter discusses the theoretical basis for climate modeling but presents no physical evidence to support the theory.

I asked again for sources and Mr. Weiss emailed links to abstracts of several papers in the scientific literature. It often requires a paid subscription to find the full paper online, but I did find some of them. Here are my comments on the papers Mr. Weiss referred to.

1. Harries, J.E., Brindley, H.E., Sagoo, P.J. and Bantges, R.J. 2001. Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature 410: 355-357.

2. Jennifer A. Griggs and John E. Harries, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present”, Proc. SPIE 5543, 164 (2004); doi:10.1117/12.556803

These two papers use satellite data to compare the strength of the greenhouse effect at two different times. A review from CO2Science.org says:

Harries et al. (2001) analyzed the difference between the spectra of outgoing longwave radiation obtained by two orbiting spacecraft that looked down upon the earth at periods of time separated by a span of 27 years. The data utilized were obtained over a specific area in the central Pacific (10°N-10°S, 130°W-180°W) and a “near-global” area of the planet (60°N-60°S). The data were further constrained by masking out land/island areas and areas believed to contain clouds.

The results of their analysis showed a number of differences in the land-masked and cloud-cleared data, which the authors attributed to changes in atmospheric concentrations of CH4, CO2, O3, CFC-11 and CFC-12 that occurred over the 27-year period separating the times of their two sets of measurements. Hence, they concluded their results provided “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the earth’s greenhouse effect” over the 27-year time interval. Such a conclusion, however, is somewhat misleading, for it does not provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in earth’s total greenhouse effect. It does so only for the cloud-free part of the atmosphere located over a portion of the planet’s oceans. Furthermore, research that has been conducted on the cloudy portion of the atmosphere over the oceans has revealed the presence of a highly negative feedback phenomenon that is capable of totally overpowering any temperature increase forced by the rise in greenhouse gases.

Furthermore, the attribution of cause is without supporting evidence. This is interpretation bias. Another review explains interpretation bias and cites other studies which show why the Harries conclusion is unjustified.

 3. Wang, K., and S. Liang (2009), Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D19101, doi:10.1029/2009JD011800.

These researchers estimated the downward longwave radiation over land for the period 1973 to 2008. The concluding sentence from their abstract: “The rising trend results from increases in air temperature, atmospheric water vapor, and CO2 concentration.” What did they expect? When the surface warms from any cause, we should expect these results. The results still provide no evidence on the significance of carbon dioxide emissions.

4. Evans, W.F.J. and Puckrin, E., 2009, Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D17107, 14 PP., 2009 doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.

The introduction says that these researchers used infrared spectrometers to measure the individual radiative flux of “a number of greenhouse gases”: CFCs, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon tetrachloride, nitrous oxide, and tropospheric ozone. Carbon dioxide is not mentioned, but they do show carbon dioxide in some tables. To obtain the greenhouse flux of individual gases, they used a simulation of the atmosphere. The researchers say that the total greenhouse radiation (excluding water vapor) has increased by 3.5 watts per square meter since pre-industrial times. They also say that the radiation from water vapor has doubled to over 200 watts per square meter. These data suggest that other than water vapor, other greenhouse gases in totality are minor players.

Dr. Roy Spencer, a NASA scientist, explains in a blog why measurements such as those obtained by Evans do not really show what they are claimed to show.

5. Murphy, D.M., et al., 2009, An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D17107, 14 PP., 2009, doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.

This paper deals with the authors’ estimate of earth’s energy balance and the assumed forcings and feedbacks of atmospheric components. The Spencer comments above and in this article apply. This paper provides no physical evidence that carbon dioxide has a significant effect on temperatures.

The bottom line here is that Mr. Weiss could not provide unequivocal evidence to support the thesis. A point not addressed by any of the papers which mentioned some effect of carbon dioxide is that human emissions of carbon dioxide make up less than 5% of the total amount in the atmosphere. This makes the claim that human emissions are causing warming even more spurious. Much of science is speculation which investigates the what-ifs, but so is science fiction.

Study co-author Michael Oppenheimer, who is also geosciences and international affairs professor of Princeton, said that the recent findings are “something to worry about.”

“Is this the end of the world? No,” Oppenheimer said. “Does it mean there’s a premium on reducing the level of greenhouse gases as fast as reasonably possible? Yes.” (Source)

What the researchers don’t seem to realize is that they provided evidence which shows carbon dioxide is not a driver of global temperature. During the last interglacial, when temperatures were 5- to 9 F warmer than today, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were about 280 ppm versus about 380 ppm now. (NOAA) So why are temperatures cooler now if there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

By the way, it would take thousands of years to melt enough ice to produce the sea level rise the authors claim.

To read more about sea level history, see Sea Level Rising?

Update:

I asked Michael Oppenheimer, one of the co-authors, “how is it that temperatures were warmer in the last interglacial when carbon dioxide levels were lower if carbon dioxide is a driver of temperature?”

He replied: “Because the Earth’s orbital inclination was different, allowing more radiation to reach the northern hemisphere high latitudes, melting back ice and causing various global feedbacks.”

This shows that natural variations trump any alleged effects of carbon dioxide.