Stefan Rahmstorf’s Sea Level Amnesia – Using His Own Numbers, Sea Level Rise Actually Slowed Down 3%!

Ulli Kulke, veteran journalist at the German flagship daily DIE WELT, posts a comment at his blog on über-alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf’s claim that “sea levels are rising 60% faster” than previously thought in 2007.

Sea levels have decelerated over the last years. Chart source: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/.

Being a devout alarmist, Rahmstorf is obsessed with finding ways to produce spectacular headlines. In Germany scary climate headlines have become a tradition every November, just before every major climate conference. Doha this year is no different.

In his latest claim, Rahmstorf claims that just a few years ago, sea levels were thought to be rising 2 mm/year. Suddenly the sea level, the satellites say, is actually now rising at 3.2 mm/ year – that’s 60% faster then they thought!

But as Kulke points out in his piece titled False climate alarm surrounds an old hat, Rahmstorf is suffering from (selective) amnesia, and forgot what he said in the UN-IPCC report of (2007): Rahmstorf back then:

Satellite measurements show a rise of 3.1 mm/year for the period 1993-2003 – and if you consider the measurements through 2006, it’s even 3.3 mm/year.”

Kulke writes, with a bit of sarcasm:

It was, after all, quite some time ago, and there was so much data in that thick report. Also with sea levels – some numbers were lower and some were higher. But Rahmstorf, the ocean scientist, had been lead author in every climate report. For this reason the data shouldn’t be anything new for him. Back then the report projected an increase of 18 – 59 cm for the coming century.

Alarm, Alarm. Let’s increase the growth of data. Or, to speak like Honecker (leader of former communist regime East Germany): Always higher, never lower! And if it’s not possible to increase the current data, then let’s just reduce the data of the past. Just like some climate scientists also want to reduce the temperature of the hottest year since instrumental measurements began, namely 1998, just so that this decade can once again appear to be on the rise. Or just like Michael Mann tried with his infamous hockey stick – but failed.”

If we take Rahmstorf’s 1993 – 2006 period value of 3.3 mm/year, then we see that sea level rise has actually slowed down by 3%, and not risen 60%. The tricks being used by alarmist climate scientists are becoming ever more obvious and desperate.

You don’t need to be an investigative journalist to uncover that.

 

9 responses to “Stefan Rahmstorf’s Sea Level Amnesia – Using His Own Numbers, Sea Level Rise Actually Slowed Down 39!”

  1. Dr Furst Dunaharm

    How dare someone bring a mathemeticien to a political science party!!

  2. chris y

    NOAA this year completely disagrees with Rahmstorf. According to NOAA, sea level rise from 1/2005 thru 12/2011 is…

    1.2 mm/year, +/- 0.9 mm/year,
    or 1.6 mm/year, +/- 0.8 mm/year.

    The steric portion of sea level rise has vanished:
    0.2 mm/year, +/- 0.8 mm/year.

    http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2012.pdf

    NOAA concludes that sea level rise has changed from 3.3 mm/year to 1.4 mm/year, a 60% DROP in sea level rate of rise.

    This is exactly what climate models predicted…

  3. David Appell

    6 years means nothing in climate science. Please tell us the statistical uncertainty of a 6-yr trend, including autocorrelations.

    You will find that this period is too small to say anything of significance. Do the calculation — if you can.

  4. November 30, 2012 | Another Slow News Day
  5. DirkH

    6 years means nothing in climate science.

    You have to use 10 years to qualify as one of the leading climate scientists.

    “Rahmstorf back then:

    Satellite measurements show a rise of 3.1 mm/year for the period 1993-2003 – and if you consider the measurements through 2006, it’s even 3.3 mm/year.”

    Everybody knows that.

  6. David Appell

    It is a question of mathematics — where is yours?

    Any time series has a linear trend, and its slope has an uncertainty. The question is, what is that uncertainty, and is it statistically significant? Including the effects of autocorrelation, at lag-1 and beyond, complicates the question, but it can be answered with proper statistics.

    So, Dirk, what is your answer, for a 6- or 10- or X-year lag?

    1. DirkH

      I gave you my answer. I defer to the authority of the masters of climate science and nonlinear trends, Tamino and Rahmstorf. 10 years a trend makes, thus have the purest scientists of the planet spoken.

    2. DirkH

      Oh, BTW, David, what gives you the idea that a linear trend has predictive skill, and is the right model to use?

    3. DirkH

      David, you should really inform yourself about the groundbreaking work of Rahmstorf and his use of the ssatrend module which he used, for instance, to show that sea level rise is unprecedented (he used some subsiding tide gauges in the sandbanks of NC for that IIRC, and of course, ssatrend).

      Linear trends are so old hat, except for when they just fit the picture.

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