One of the last remaining bastions of the global warming scare is sea level rise.
Unsurprisingly, a handful of alarmists are still desperately clinging to accelerating sea level rise, insisting that it is just around the corner. However a new analysis on the subject by veteran meteorologist Klaus -Eckard Puls of the European Institute of Climate and Energy (EIKE) shows that sea level rise is not accelerating, and that there are signs showing a deceleration. That bastion is on the verge of collapse.
The EIKE review first starts by focusing on German coastal sea level rise, sections 1-4, before shifting on global sea level rise, section 5-10. The focus here is on the latter.
Concerning global sea level data, Puls starts by looking at a peer-reviewed tide gauge analysis conducted by distinguished Swedish scientist Nils-Axel Mörner who evaluated 182 tide gauges scattered around the world, some going back more than 200 years.
Mörner’s results uncovered gaping differences when he compared the tide gauge results to those reported by the TOPEX/POSEIDON/JASON satellite. His conclusion:
Removing outliers of obvious uplift or subsidence, there are 182 records left, which forms a nice Gaussian distribution around a mean value of +1.65 mm/yr.
Satellite altimetry is a new and important tool. The mean rate of rise from 1992 to 2013 is +3.2 ±0.4 mm (UC, 2013). This value is not a measured value, however, but a value arrived at after much “calibration” of subjective nature (Mörner, 2004, 2011a, 2013a). The differences between the three data sets (±0, +1.65 and +3.2 mm/yr ) are far too large not to indicate the inclusions of errors and mistakes.”
He adds:
The evaluation of worldwide 182 tide gauges yields a mean secular sea level rise of 16 cm, without a GIA [Glacial Isostatic Adjustment] correction. A secular acceleration in rise was not found, and thus there is no AGW-CO2 climate signal.”
Puls also quotes an article by Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt at DkS:
Despite the satellite measurements, naturally the tide gauge measurements were continued. And they don’t mislead in any way as they stubbornly stick to their old course of being significantly below 2 mm/year.”
Puls provides three charts showing the glaring discrepancy:
Chart: climatesanity.wordpress.com/sea-level-rise/
“Amazing agreement between tide gauge data and GRACE”
So which is right? TOPEX/POSEIDON/JASON or the observed tide gauges? Next Puls looks at the data obtained from the GRACE satellite, which show they are practically in exact agreement with the tide gauge measurement. Puls writes, citing multiple sources of peer-reviewed literature:
Both extremely different measurement methods of tide gauges [1.7 mm/yr] and gravity measurements (GRACE satellite [1.6 mm/yr]) agree with each other amazingly well at [near] 1.7 mm/yr, They are off by only a millimeter! That leads us to the question we often find in the literature of why the TOPEX/POSEIDON/JASON satellite measurement method – the only one of all methods – yields values that are almost double.”
From this Puls summarizes at the end:
The constant stream of alarmist announcements of a supposed dramatic sea level rise now taking place and in the future cannot be confirmed. Rather it is even refuted by the measurement data. Worldwide neither the tide gauge data (200 years) nor the satellite data (20 years) indicate an acceleration in sea level rise. This is in stark contradiction to all the former and current claims of the IPCC, some institutes and a number of climate models. Moreover there is evidence that indicate the satellite data have been ‘overly corrected'[28]: “Instead of the satellite data being adjusted to match the real measured data at the surface and being adjusted downwards, there is now a discrepancy between the tide gauge and satellite measurements, unfortunately even today. And it appears to bother no one. A mysterious case.”
Puls is telling us that if you wish to have the true story on sea level rise, then look at the tide gauge data and to be very careful with the (calibrated) data from TOPEX/POSEIDON/JASON. Again some, it would appear, are playing it very loose with the data.
Overall the review by Puls is comprehensive and an English version would be extremely useful, especially for the scientists at the IPCC.
Great job, Pierre.
Kudos to K-E Puls: thorough, as usual.
Mörner has been pointing out this discrepancy (between tide gauges and the Univ. of Colorado calculations) for years. I didn’t know that the GRACE Satellite data agreed so well with the tide gauges.
You should re-post his graph (Abb. 12) showing the changes in sea level rise predictions for the 21st century from IPCC reports over the past 2.5 decades. That alone is worth 1000 words. Shows that some of the IPCC lead authors are slowly approaching reality. Give ’em another decade or two, and they’ll get there.
Kurt in Switzerland
Thanks Kurt. Agree on Fig 12…the whole essay is worth putting up, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
My “Easy Ice” hypothesis: The low latitude and low elevation ice melted. Charts like this one document the post-glacial melt and show the typical curve for this sort of event:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
Remaining ice is high latitude and or high elevation. Such ice will not melt as easily as the ice that was in Puget Sound or in the central mid-west of the USA.
Ice mass is an integration over temperature.
Therefore Ice mass must be 90 degrees phase shifted to temperature on all frequencies.
Meaning, minimum ice mass is reached when temperatures are already steepest on their decline, assuming a simple sinusoid temperature curve.
We reached minimum Arctic Sea Ice in 2007 or 2012 it seems.
This would indicate that we are in a steep temperature decline already; and this would be consistent with solar activity if there is a solar activity – Earth temperature link.
Caveat: Absent limiting effects (disappearance of all ice; or completely iced over world – hothouse Earth / Icehouse Earth). The limiting cases introduce a nonlinearity and the linear view breaks down in that case (not a pure integrator anymore)
That is much the figure I find every time I untangle some nonsense. Here are some actual records.
I’ve posted a couple of figures, 1.6 for Freemantle where there is a saga over deep aquifer extraction from very complex subsurface.
Newlyn where the reference is a metal pin in a huge mass of Cornish granite, the UK reference. 1.74
First in the linked post and the second a link from there to the Met Office saga at MyGardenPond, shown in Update 4. There you can see the Establishment spinning, screwed up but won’t come clean.
http://daedalearth.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/met-office-spurious-sea-level-claim/
Even the lead authors at IPCCs sealevel chapter have come to the same conclusion!
Here is an radiointerview with J Gregory IPCC concerning this topic. The radioprogram starts in swedish but the interview with Gregory is in English. Remarkable straight answers from Gregory concerning sea level rise. No acceleratioin and NO traces of human footprints.
Gregory is one of the authers on this very thorough and honest article on sealevel rise.
From the abstract: 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.
The article: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00319.1
The interview : http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1650&artikel=5410247 (press the upper play button in the blue square )
In the end of the program Chamers (co author) i s interviewed to.
But of course the politbureau of IPCC dont like facts!
Chambers is interviewed on 60 year cycles in sea levelrise:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052885/abstract
So even the IPCC knows what is NOT happening with sea levels!
In recent weeks, Caribbean reef loss and destruction – not due to man made warming!
Antarctic sea ice – increasing, 1979 running average N& S polar sea ice – in balance.
Sea Level rise? Wot sea level rise?
Gradually, the madness of the alarmists – is calmed.
Mama Gaia – she loves equilibrium.
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