South Florida’s Rising Seas

Worth watching.

Climate change, and resultant sea level rise, are becoming impossible to ignore in South Florida, one of the world’s most vulnerable urban areas.  This documentary by South Florida Public Media depicts very matter of factly the hard facts of sea level rise, from the point of view of those whose job it is to keep up with the changes, and clean up the ever messier effects.

You can watch the whole thing at the SFPM website.
Meet back here to discuss.

182 thoughts on “South Florida’s Rising Seas”


  1. This chart on page 5 can’t make it any clearer. It details continuous sea level rise acceleration, with three trends, 1.0 mm/year pre 1930, 2 mm/year 1930 to 1990, and 3 mm/year 1990 to present. It’s from Florida Atlantic University.
    http://www.dot.state.fl.us/research-center/Completed_Proj/Summary_PL/FDOT_BDK79_977-01_rpt.pdf
    Long ago, sea level rise was dominated by thermal expansion. Then it followed ocean temperature. In the last few decades, melt has increased from less than half to 75% of the total. North Carolina stands to be hit the hardest.

    http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/causes-of-sea-level-rise.html

    Reply

    1. We have 20 years of satellite altimetry data for sea-level in the open ocean. It is of dubious quality, but, for what it is worth, it shows a clear decrease in the rate of sea-level rise over that period. Here’s a graph, with all six satellites shown:
      http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_ALL_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png
      Note that Aviso graphs the Envisat data in light yellow, and starts it way above the baseline, to obfuscate the fact that it measured much lower SLR than the earlier Tpoex/Poseidon & ERS2 satellites did. Even so, the deceleration is obvious.

      We also have over a century of tide-gauge data, from many reliable gauges, measuring coastal sea-levels. They also show that there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in the last 80 years. In fact, the most careful and thorough studies of tide gauge data show a slight decrease in the rate of sea-level rise (though it might be due to cyclical factors).

      Only by conflating measurements from different locations is it possible to create the illusion of accelerated sea-level rise.

      Why is this hard for some people to understand?

      http://www.google.com/search?q=ipcc+“sea+level”+”nature+trick”

      Reply

      1. Only by conflating combining measurements from different locations is it possible to create the illusion a rigorous global measurement of accelerated sea-level rise.

        FTFY

        Reply

        1. That’d be quite a remarkable kind of sea-level rise, if it managed to accelerate globally, without actually accelerating anywhere in particular.

          Imagine watching a moving car through the shrubbery. I watch it for a while, and although I can only see parts of it, I can see that the front bumper, driver’s-side door, roof & left rear fender are all traveling at a constant speed, or perhaps slowing slightly.

          But Jim the Democrat insists it’s accelerating rapidly.

          I protest that none of the parts I can see are accelerating at all.

          But Jim says that’s because I can’t see the whole car. On average, he says, it’s accelerating rapidly. I’ve cherry-picked my data, by depending on just the parts that I can see. He knows the car is accelerating rapidly because Al Gore said it would, and Al’s never wrong.

          Reply

          1. Wait a minute—-I just got up from my dumboldguy afternoon nap and I’m still a little confused. Al Gore is driving somewhere to pick cherries or dig potatoes or some such thing, and Dave is hiding in the bushes waiting to flash him as he drives by? Did I get that right?


      2. Why is it so hard for Dave to undersatand that the rest of us take a broader look at sea level rise, and not just at the cherry picked data that he prefers. What about GRACE, Dave? Rather than your 20 year graph, GRACE data is barely 10 years old, why didn’t you use it also? You will next be making pronouncements based on two readings of your tide gauge in Duck, NC, and will of course pick two readings that will prove your “point”.

        A more balanced discussion of sea level rise may be found here.

        http://e360.yale.edu/feature/rising_waters_how_fast_and_how_far_will_sea_levels_rise/2702

        Reply

    2. Oops, botched a link; trying again… Peter, please delete the January 16, 2014 at 11:18 pm comment with the bad link at the end.

      We have 20 years of satellite altimetry data for sea-level in the open ocean. It is of dubious quality, but, for what it is worth, it shows a clear decrease in the rate of sea-level rise over that period. Here’s a graph, with all six satellites shown:
      http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_ALL_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png

      Note that Aviso graphs the Envisat data in light yellow, and starts it way above the baseline, to obfuscate the fact that it measured much lower SLR than the earlier Tpoex/Poseidon & ERS2 satellites did. Even so, the deceleration is obvious.

      We also have over a century of tide-gauge data, from many reliable gauges, measuring coastal sea-levels. They also show that there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in the last 80 years. In fact, the most careful and thorough studies of tide gauge data show a slight decrease in the rate of sea-level rise (though it might be due to cyclical factors).

      Only by conflating measurements from different locations is it possible to create the illusion of accelerated sea-level rise.

      Why is this hard for some people to understand?

      Reply

      2. Easy. It’s the same reason muller doesn’t know about tornados. He took the data with no knowledge of its accuracy and manipulated it blindly. Experts in meteorology knew the data was more biased towards higher numbers the farther back in time you go. Recently, researchers found better ways to measure tornado intensity. Trend is up. Muller got it wrong. You, too. Envisat data was off the first few years. Researchers said it needed work to find cause and correct. Dave was told this months ago. He tells us the data is dubious. Unfazed, he tells us the the trend is down. What’s the point? The data was declared dubious and the source researchers think Envisat had some things to sort out. Why make a calculation on unfirm data? If you don’t know the data, the source, and the subject, how do you expect to know what to do with it to get meaningful or correct answers? Rhetorical. Skeptical Science deals with this bs all the time. Kicked out over there, so taking it here? Some people can’t take a hint. Even Muller wises up years later after shooting his mouth off. I think I will go with peer reviewed research from NOAA, nasa, csiro, thanks, rather than a biased nc-20 member with a real estate interest.

        https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=68&p=4

        Reply

        1. Christopher wrote, “Envisat data was off the first few years. Researchers said it needed work to find cause and correct.”

          They’ve already adjusted the Envisat data, back a full decade (not just “the first few years”), and it tripled the amount of sea-level rise reported. That’s the already-tripled sea-level rise in that graph.

          There is no reason to believe that Envisat’s instruments are inferior to the earlier Jason and TOPEX/Poseidon designs. They all use the same dual-band radar altimeter technology.

          Christopher wrote, “Why make a calculation on unfirm data?”

          As I’ve repeatedly pointed out here, satellite altimetry measurements are of very dubious reliability, so if you don’t want to use infirm data you should stick to good-quality, long term tide gauges. That’s what the GLOSS-LTT network is for.

          Reply

          1. I have just broken my delete key cleaning Dave’s horsepucky out of my computer. Why must we read an endless repetition on many threads of the few small points that Dave wants to hang his hat on? Why does Dave keep insisting that the rate of sea level rise has not accelerated, when the problem is that it is JUST PLAIN RISING and the people in south Florida are paying a price for that, as the folks in NC will also.

            Why do people feed the DB troll? He just keeps puking back the same garbage no matter what is said to him. Are we “Einstein insane”?


          2. Continued evasion. So he agrees with himself, the data is no good. No explanation why he used the data he agrees is not good to come to a number that satisfies his pre conditioned view. Thats just the kind of thing that will always go over his head. No notice of that he has no concept of what to do with the data either or how Muller went far wrong. Yet, he still has confidence in his own prognostications despite being proven wrong repeatedly and having less education than Muller who has been proven wrong, publicly, and humiliatingly, so often.


        2. Christopher wrote, “Experts in meteorology knew the data was more biased towards higher numbers [of tornados] the farther back in time you go.”

          I think you’ve got that backwards, Christopher. Elsner, Elsner, Michaels & Scheitlin (2013) found that “population bias” (the under-reporting of tornadoes in rural areas) has been decreasing, not increasing. In other words, the data is more biased toward lower numbers the further back in time you go.

          Or are you thinking of some other study? Citation, please?

          Reply

          2. Christopher, neither of those CC articles contradict the fact that you got it backwards.

            “Population bias” is the under-reporting of tornadoes in rural areas. Elsner, Elsner, Michaels & Scheitlin (2013) found that population bias has been decreasing, not increasing. In fact, the title of their paper was The Decreasing Population Bias in Tornado Reports across the Central Plains.

            In other words, the data is more biased toward lower numbers of tornadoes the further back in time you go.


          3. Dave – you put words in my mouth [of tornados] those are your words.
            I was referring to intensity. See the AGU video. Maybe if you read carefully and did not jump to conclusions, or add [] your own idea of what someone else said instead of asking what their meaning was, you would make less mistakes.
            It is well known in the meteorological community that tornado intensities were overrated in the 1950s to 1970s and underrated in the last decade.
            Thats Brooks and Markowski in response to Muller. They are specialists.
            They write chapter and verse on Mullers mistakes. Its in this CC.
            http://climatecrocks.com/2013/12/13/are-tornadoes-getting-stronger-new-research-hints-yes/
            These experts know about reporting bias also. Both frequency and intensity have to be considered.
            Elsner discusses population bias in the AGU video.


          4. Christopher, I did not put any words in your mouth. I quoted you.

            Discussing tornadoes (why?) you wrote, “Experts in meteorology knew the data was more biased towards higher numbers the farther back in time you go.” Not intensity, “numbers.”

            Perhaps you didn’t write what you meant to write, but that’s not my fault, and I certainly didn’t put any words in your mouth. Elsner et al found that the number of rural tornado reports was more biased toward lower numbers the further back in time you go. You said “higher.”


      3. dave, do you really think eye-balling a ten year graph is a rigorous method of determining acceleration over a century?

        This is why tamino has no patience for you. You are analytically inept.

        Reply

        1. jpcowdrey, what ten year graph you talking about? This one is 116 years (with one gap of about 15 years):

          http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8720030

          There’s obviously been no acceleration in sea-level rise there in about 100 years. If you can’t tell that by “eye-balling” it, then you don’t know how to read a graph.

          As for Tamino, it’s not that he has no patience for me, it’s that he doesn’t believe in open discussion, and cares more about covering up his errors than he does about truth. Here are some examples of Tamino’s censorship.

          Reply

          1. More crap from WUWT about Tamino. Didn’t Dave waste our time months ago with this stuff? It’s endless Deja Vu All Over Again with Dave—a one note song, played badly. Where is Tamino when we need him to relieve us of Dave?


          4. I wrote, “Here are some examples of Tamino’s censorship.”

            Faced with iron-clad proof of Tamino’s censorship, jpcowdrey replied, “Tamino does not censor.”

            …thereby proving that proof of reality is no impediment to contrary opinion, for some folks.


          1. Weather affects tides, and weather is seasonal. But thermal expansion of seawater has no significant effect. It’s basic physics, Christopher.


        3. Yes, he does think eyeballing a graph is an accurate way of reading it and says so in this very discussion. He is not limited to eyeballing graphs. He can look at the seashore and eyeball that there is no seasonal annual variation in tide gauge. And when scientific proof is given of that, the subject is changed.

          Reply

          1. You didn’t answer the question. What “ten year” graph are you talking about, Christopher?

            W/r/t eyeballing graphs, that’s actually the whole point of drawing them. Of course, you can apply various analytical techniques to detect the presence or absence of subtle acceleration. But if there’s a visible downward arch to the graph, you should be able to recognize that it’s showing deceleration.

            If you want to do fancier analysis, please feel free to use my code. In this paper, I replicated Church & White’s approach for detecting subtle acceleration or deceleration in sea-level: minimum-variance unbiased estimator quadratic fit regression analysis. That’s a mouthful, but just means finding the “best” fit of a quadratic curve to available data points with varying uncertainty. It’s paywalled, but there are copies available on a couple of preprint servers, and all the code and data is available for free download from my server.


          2. Dave once again misleads us by referring to his “PAPER”, when in reality is it nothing but some COMMENTS made about someone else’s “paper” published in an on-line “journal”. It’s part of being “a legend in your spare time” (or is it “a legend in your own mind”—I’m just a dumboldguy and get so confused sometimes). Try citing some “paper” from a real scientist, Dave, and someone might pay a little attention.


          3. Ten year graph? I never said that. You got me confused with jpcowdrey. Slow down. Follow the conversation. Make sure there actually is communication. Im talking about annual tide gauge seasonal variation. In Australia. From measurements. There are global measurements. Even from tide gauges. But since you prefer local tide gauge measurements only, and claimed you can’t see any annual variation by eyeball, I thought I would show you some measurements that show them and how scientists do it, not by going to the beach and eyeballing it.


          4. I addressed it to jpcowdrey, but you answered. I wrote, “jpcowdrey, what ten year graph you talking about?”

            He complained that I was eyeballing a ten year graph. If you’re going to defend that complaint, then answer the question: what ten year graph are y’all talking about?

            I’ve given you links to many graphs, some of them going back more than 100 years. It is perfectly clear that there’s been no statistically significant acceleration in sea-level rise in more than 80 years, a span of time which encompasses nearly all of the anthropogenic surge in GHG levels.

  2. Pingback: Beach Erosion Mute Evidence of Sea Level Rise | Climate Denial Crock of the Week

    1. Dave is not interested in the ever-accumulating evidence. His real interest here is posting ever more horsepucky until Peter bans him from the site. He is conducting a tolerance experiment with Peter as the subject

      Then Dave can go around whining on the looney tune sites that “Tamino and Sinclair both censored me”, of course failing to mention the earthshaking applause, whistling and foot-stomping in approval that resulted .

      Reply

      1. I just researched and found an Australian paper that shows regular, annual, seasonal tide gauge variation. I wanted to refute his, I don’t see any annual variation, that proves his “what the heck, you name his nonsense about Archimedes” principle. I found global annual variation for North/South hemisphere at CSIRO right away. I did not even know about the annual tide variation, but fishermen and locals might. Shows how little he really knows. Forget about accumulating evidence. This is like Stoneheads take my challenge. Dave says there is no annual tide variation. You show him. He changes subject. See where thats going? Its not a conversation, its a soliloquy. As discussed under trolls, the benefit for me, is I discovered there is annual variation in tide gauge readings. Didn’t know that before. I discovered something else. Whenever Dave is challenged and proven wrong, the subject is changed. Its not just the global concept he has trouble with. I think its the potty training. Every thing is met with the schoolyard, “Oh yeaaa”,” so’s your old man.” when intellect fails. Peter is right. Deniers come lightly armed. For more denier entertainment, you should see this guy at uknowispeaksense. Topic is weakest argument ever. Denier claims there is no scientific consensus. Danger. Don’t drink liquids while reading. A scientist that reads Monckton? Hilarious. Seriously. I have had some good laughs.

        Reply

        1. Good laughs indeed! I break out in guffaws every time I see the name Monckton and “science” in the same sentence. And being a “musical” guy, you should know that EGBDF, so continue having fun at Dave’s expense. I will be there doing the same, not because I’m “musical”, but because I am amused by emperors who wear no clothes.

          Reply

          1. I watched as you dissected his Archimedes sea level gibberish. I did not even go there. Too much nonsense to begin to make sense of it. I was tempted to ask him to show us his calculations for water level in a round kiddie pool, just for a warm up, but considered it inadvisable. Thats for a discussion someone more educated and gifted. On the other hand, I had to chuckle about his musings about whether sea would warm because of heating which caused evaporation. You have to be careful with reading his stuff too much. Its like grading failing science class exams. You have to take your brain out of that vast wasteland and engage some brighter and relatively saner minds. Maybe get some sunshine, take a walk, a little exercise. Its good for you.


          3. No, no! It was DAVE hiding in the bushes. Al Gore was driving the car! Pay attention, Grasshopper—-one must maintain maximum alertness when dealing with Dave if one hopes to begin to understand his chicanery.


        2. Actually, what I claimed is that gravity balances mass, not volume, so thermal expansion in the upper layer of the open ocean does not affect coastal sea-levels. That’s basic physics, and if you don’t understand it I suggest that you consult a physicist.

          Or you can try to learn it on your own. Start by working through Chapter 11 (“Fluids”) here:
          http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/intro_physics_1_review/intro_physics_1_review.pdf

          Reply

          2. The ocean is not a round kiddie pool. Round kiddie pools do not have much of a temperature-vs-depth temperature gradient, and the oceans have very large temperature-vs-depth temperature gradients.

            To understand what happens in the oceans, where the water at the bottom is very cold, and has very stable temperature and density, but the water at the top has varying temperatures and densities, you need to imagine something which has a structure like that.

            In the oceans, vast distances keep the waters from mixing, so that water in different places can have different temperatures and densities. To replicate that in a kiddie pool, you’ll need to find some other way to prevent the low density water from mixing with the high density water.

            One way is to freeze the low-density water. (Ice is just low density water that is solid, so it won’t mix.) Another way is to put warm water in a plastic bag.

            The density difference is greater for ice, so it’ll be easier to see what happens if you use an ice block.

            Put your ice block in the middle and fill your kiddie pool all the way to the brim with icy cold water. The ice block should be floating in the middle. Sight across the top of the water and observe that the top of the ice block is above the rim of the pool, but it does not flow “downhill.”

            Now melt the ice. As it melts, and its density increases, it will sink down to the surface of the pool, but the water level elsewhere will be unaffected: proof that gravity balances mass, not volume.

            (Note: ideally, you should conduct this experiment in still air with water temperature and dew point both equal to about 0.1 °C, so that you get no net evaporation or condensation.)


          3. I disassembled all Dave’s Archimedes and “gravity balances mass, not volume” stupidity on a thread in a galaxy far away and long ago, and since I’m tiredoldguy as well as dumboldguy, I won’t spend the time to do it again. Except for laughing at his audacity in once again telling us to consult a physicist or a physics text if we don’t understand his physics-ignorant craziness. Dave is shameless and incorrigible.

            I swear, he CAN’T really be serious—he’s just playing with us and seeing how long we’ll feed the DB troll. Christopher, you’re young and energetic (and smarter than Dave even when you’re asleep)—YOU go feed the DB troll.—if I can stay awake, I’ll watch.

            Try to get him to define how mass, density, and volume relate to one another, and how gravity “balances” any of them. If you remember, he had a LOT of trouble with that last time.


          4. What crap. Thermal expansion changes the density (mass/volume) of sea water. A mass of liquid that has a larger volume because of thermal expansion will raise the level of that mass in whatever shape container contains it.


          6. Dave thinks it’s funny to repeat dumb things that he has laid on us before. HA-HA-HA, Dave. We are laughing at you, not with you. But since you are here only to seek attention, I guess it makes no difference—-you’ll take it where you can get it.


  3. The ocean is not a round kiddie pool? Wow. Thanks for letting me know, Dave. Now show us your prowess and answer the question. It should be easy for someone that knows the Archimedes principle.

    Reply

    1. I just did, Christopher.

      Don’t feel too bad that this is hard for you. The Nation Science Foundation made the same error, in their “America’s Investment in the Future” eBook. They had the erroneous information on their web site for 6.5 years, until I called it to their attention.

      Unlike you, the NSF sought and found someone knowledgeable, and verified that I was correct. Then they corrected the error on their web site. It now says:

      [Editor’s note: An inaccurate statement about sea ice and rising sea levels has been deleted. We regret the error.]

      Reply

  4. This is actually an interesting argument, but it’s fatally flawed on multiple levels. What Dave’s saying is that just like an iceberg is locally “less dense” water, so is a region of warmer water. True. So just like an iceberg doesn’t affect sea level as it melts, the formation of large pools of warm water away from coasts won’t affect sea level. Seemingly true but wrong. For one thing, nothing about patterns of global warming suggests that coastal water would remain the same temp. Indeed continents warm faster than oceans, so the opposite is more likely true. Further, unlike the solid iceberg, the edge of a warm ocean pool is not contained and would spill over (with the effect of mixing anyway, even if there was some reason to think that only the water away from coasts was warming, which there isn’t.)

    Reply

    1. Crap, that was supposed to be a reply to Dave’s last comment on the first page of comments. I had trouble with the comment login system and I guess this is the result.

      Reply

    2. Hi, Greg.

      Thermal expansion increases water volume by a percentage of depth. So if you warm up 100 meters of water by enough to get a 1% meter increase in volume (maybe by 5 °C, depending on temperature), the surface would rise 1 meter. But if the depth is only one meter, the surface would rise by only one cm.

      Whether the increase affects sea-level elsewhere depends on what happens at the bottom. Thermal expansion in the upper layer of the deep ocean just causes the water to rise up in place, and doesn’t affect sea level elsewhere. But expanding the water which rests on the ocean floor has an effect similar to raising the ocean floor, so it does affect sea-level elsewhere.

      So the question becomes, how much thermal expansion occurs at the bottom? The answer is very little.

      The IPCC says nearly all sea-level rise (SLR) due to thermal expansion occurs in the top 700 meters. That’s probably right. (Note that there’s no seasonal variation in water temperature below about 100 meters.) More specifically, out of 1.6 ± 0.5 mm/yr SLR that the IPCC attributes to thermal expansion over 1993–2003, they say all but 0.1 mm/yr was in the upper 700 meters. In fact, most of that is surely in the top 100 meters.

      So we’re basically talking about the continental shelf (7.6% of the oceans’ surface area), and arguably a bit of the continental rise, which is shallow enough to have thermal expansion affect water at the bottom.

      If you click on #6 on NOAA’s heat content page, and compare the 0-700 and 0-2000 graphs, you can see that over the 1976-2012 period (i.e., starting where both graphs are at their arbitrary zero point on their Y-axis) they estimate about 4.5mm / (2012-1976) = 0.125 mm/yr SLR due to thermal expansion below 700 meters — not very different from the IPCC.

      Now, note what happens when you do get a bit of thermal expansion in the water at the bottom of the ocean, in the (small) portion of the ocean which is shallow enough for that to happen. It has an effect similar to raising the bottom of the ocean slightly at that location, displacing water there. But the effect on sea-level is spread over the entire ocean.

      More than 90% of the ocean is too deep for its bottom waters to be even slightly affected by thermal expansion, so you can begin by dividing the effect by 10.

      Then note that even on the continental shelves, the bottom water temperature is much more stable than the water near the surface, so even there most of the thermal expansion doesn’t affect the water at the bottom, and, hence, won’t affect sea-level elsewhere.

      So we’re talking about less than 1/10 of a small portion of a modest effect — i.e., negligible.

      Reply

      1. “Hi, Greg”, chirps daveburton as he prepares to unload a huge pile of horsepucky in Greg’s front yard. If ever a comment begged for “reductio ad absurdum”, this latest one of Dave’s is it. So much absurdity, where to begin?
        I will “shout” my answers so that they are easy to pick out from the absurdities—they could be in inch-high type and Dave wouldn’t hear.

        Let’s begin with “Thermal expansion increases water volume by a percentage of depth”
        WRONG—VOLUME INCREASES BY LENGTH, WIDTH, AND DEPTH.

        So if you warm up 100 meters of water by enough to get a 1% meter increase in volume
        WRONG—“100 METERS OF WATER? WATER IS NOT MEASURED IN METERS, DISTANCE IS. WATER IS “MEASURED” BY VOLUME, MASS, OR WEIGHT.

        (maybe by 5 °C, depending on temperature)
        WRONG—-NO “MAYBE”—THE COEFFICIENT OF EXPANSION OF WATER IS WELL KNOWN. YOU CAN CALCULATE THE EXACT “EXPANSION” THE WATER WILL UNDERGO FOR A GIVEN RISE IN TEMPERATURE

        the surface would rise 1 meter. But if the depth is only one meter, the surface would rise by only one cm.
        WRONG—SEE PREVIOUS COMMENTS—FAULTY PREMISES YIELD FAULTY CONCLUSIONS, AND DAVE IS TALKING ABOUT “EXPANSION” IN ONE DIMENSION ONLY

        Whether the increase affects sea-level elsewhere depends on what happens at the bottom. Thermal expansion in the upper layer of the deep ocean just causes the water to rise up in place, and doesn’t affect sea level elsewhere.
        WRONG—EXPANSION OCCURS LATERALLY AS WELL, AND DOES AFFECT SEA LEVEL “ELSEWHERE”. AND “THE BOTTOM” IS AN IMPRECISE TERM.

        But expanding the water which rests on the ocean floor has an effect similar to raising the ocean floor, so it does affect sea-level elsewhere.
        WRONG—A NON-SEQUITUR IF EVER THERE WAS ONE

        So the question becomes, how much thermal expansion occurs at the bottom? The answer is very little.
        WRONG—THE QUESTION BECOMES “HOW CAN DAVE MAKE SUCH BALD ASSERTIONS ON SUCH AN INSANE BASE OF NON-LOGIC AND NON-SCIENCE?”

        In fact, most of that is surely in the top 100 meters.
        WRONG—IT IS IMPROPER TO FIRST SAY “IN FACT” AND THEN QUALIFY IT WITH “SURELY” AND “MOST”. AREN’T YOU SURE OF YOUR “FACTS”, DAVE?

        So we’re basically talking about the continental shelf (7.6% of the oceans’ surface area), and arguably a bit of the continental rise, which is shallow enough to have thermal expansion affect water at the bottom.
        WRONG—ANOTHER BALD ASSERTION UNSUPPORTED BY FACTS. DAVEBURTON IS THE ONLY ONE HERE TRYING TO TALK ONLY ABOUT THE CONTINENTAL SHELF, THE REST OF US THAT DO UNDERSTAND PHYSICS KNOW THAT THE ENTIRE OCEAN IS INVOLVED IN SEA LEVEL RISE, AND UNDERSTAND THAT DAVE IS MAKING AN ABSURD ARGUMENT WHEN HE SAYS “FOCUS ON THE CONTINENTAL SHELF”

        If you click on #6…..ETC, ETC.
        MORE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY AND CITING CHERRY PICKED SOURCES

        Now, note what happens when you do get a bit of thermal expansion in the water at the bottom of the ocean, in the (small) portion of the ocean which is shallow enough for that to happen. It has an effect similar to raising the bottom of the ocean slightly at that location, displacing water there. But the effect on sea-level is spread over the entire ocean. Then note that even on the continental shelves, the bottom water temperature is much more stable than the water near the surface, so even there most of the thermal expansion doesn’t affect the water at the bottom, and, hence, won’t affect sea-level elsewhere.
        I’M TIRING—THERE IS TOO MUCH ABSURDITY IN THIS PARAGRAPH AND MY RESPONSE IS GETTING OVERLONG. WOULD SOMEONE ELSE LIKE TO DEAL WITH THIS ONE?

        More than 90% of the ocean is too deep for its bottom waters to be even slightly affected by thermal expansion, so you can begin by dividing the effect by 10. So we’re talking about less than 1/10 of a small portion of a modest effect — i.e., negligible.
        AGAIN, FAULTY PREMISES LEAD TO FAULTY CONCLUSIONS.

        I said it months ago on another thread, but it bears repeating. Dave is showing supreme arrogance when he lectures the rest of us on how we need to consult a physicist or read a physics text so that we can understand his “Fracsics” (short for “fractured physics”. (And I’m still waiting for Dave to explain how density, mass and volume are related, AND WHAT THE BASIC UNITS OF MEASUREMENT ARE—something most bright 7th. graders understand but he apparently doesn’t).

        Reply

          1. Rather than address my points or admit that he has a very limited understanding of basic physics, the DB troll tells ME to take a physics course? Perhaps he doesn’t remember that I said I have taken a broad range of college physics classes? That I once taught physics? At levels from 7th. grade on up through high school to adults?

            I am still waiting for Dave to demonstrate an understanding of the basic units of measurement used in describing matter—-physical size, mass, weight, volume, density, etc. Why can’t he do that? Why does he keep talking about such inanities as “one meter increases in volume”?

            In light of his ignorance, why should anyone listen to anything Dave has to say? I’m giving you a chance to try to regain some credibility, Dave—-for starters, explain the relationship between mass, volume, and density IN YOUR OWN WORDS, and restate your horsepucky about “expansion” in a way that demonstrates real understanding.


        2. I don’t know. I won’t speculate a lot on things I am not too sure of. However, here are a few observations. Are SST warmer in the center of the ocean? Thats not a given. Not scientific, but every body of water I ever stuck my toes in was warmer near the shore, than towards the center. Its also related to coastal upwelling. There is a lot of stuff regarding upwelling, but that is not conclusive, because it also says continental shelves don’t do this. Then there is this. Sure, the sea surface warms. Even if it warms in the center, it still wants to spread. What is convection after all? Then there is this. Whatever condition causes it to change may not matter. In equilibrium, if all the drivers of sea level are constant, there are no changes. But if more heat is added to the water…. it has to rise everywhere compared to its previous state. Now, is it more complicated than that? You bet your booty. This little discussion is nothing like a scientific analysis. To do that, you have to start writing partial differential equations, doing gradients, and then calibrating your model with real world measurements. That is why I was so adamant about the statement that there was no annual tide gauge variation. Its flat wrong. But you cannot see annual variation buried in monthly lunar tides and all the rest without spectral analysis. When you do, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Spectral analysis allows you to see what the eye could never show.

          Reply

          1. Christopher wrote, “Even if it warms in the center, it still wants to spread. What is convection after all?”

            The heat will spread, somewhere, but the water won’t, on net. For every molecule of water that goes left, another goes right.

            One place the heat can go is up. Evaporation is strongly driven by temperature, so as surface temperature goes up so does evaporation, which cools the surface and transfers heat from the surface to the middle troposphere, where it is released when the water vapor condenses as clouds. (This is an important negative feedback mechanism, BTW, which tends to attenuate temperature changes and stabilize the Earth’s surface temperature.)
             

            Christopher wrote, “…if more heat is added to the water…. it has to rise everywhere compared to its previous state.”

            If by “it” you mean sea-level, then I disagree. Warming surface water expands, but the expansion happens only where the water warms, and doesn’t affect sea-level elsewhere.
             

            Christopher wrote, “…why I was so adamant about the statement that there was no annual tide gauge variation.”

            I never said there was no annual tide gauge variation. I said thermal contraction and expansion do not cause beaches to widen in winter as the cooling & shrinking water retreats out to sea, or shrink in summer as the water expands. Which is right.


        3. The heated ocean is complex. Its related to Rayleigh Benard convection. Even a slight reading of ocean convection is deep. At this point, you have to call in real ocean circulation experts, not little old me, but for sure the simplified analysis we are discussing is simply too weak compared to them. IMO there is no such thing as ocean heating without convection. Convection can cause variation in level. There are variations in sea level all over the place from many things. But I never heard anyone describe them as a simple phenomena before. There are complex interactions between winds, currents, salinity, and so on.
          http://www.curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter11/Ency_Oceans/Open_Ocean_Convection.pdf

          Reply

      2. Typo correction: “So if you warm up 100 meters of water by enough to get a 1% meter increase in volume (maybe by 5 °C, depending on temperature)”

        “1% meter” is redundant — should be “1%” (or, equivalently, “1 meter”).

        Reply

        1. Dave motors on like the Energizer Bunny, beating his drum and parading around Crock in an ongoing demonstration of his logic and physics “fails”.

          He is concerned about a TYPO correction? But doesn’t correct the bad science displayed in “a 1% meter increase in volume”?

          He is so oblivious that he doubles down with “1% meter” is redundant — should be “1%” (or, equivalently, “1 meter”)”. Dumber piled on dumb there.

          DAVE! LISTEN UP!! Y ou will never get anyone to pay attention to your alleged “analyses” if you can’t demonstrate understanding of the basic units of measurement. Volume is not measured in meters!

          Reply

          2. Dave is now mindlessly lashing out in comment after comment at all of us who point out his apparent inability to understand REAL science rather than the “fractured physics” Dave spouts on Crock.

            I am done feeding the DB troll. I really don’t think he is serious anyway—-he is just playing with us—-nobody could be that dumb. Even a seventh grader can tell us what the relationship is between volume, mass, and density and list out the basic units of measurement used in science. I think Dave is just pretending to be so horrendously ignorant to get a rise out of us.


    3. All of what you say and more. If shore sea levels don’t increase due to temperature rise by someone’s theory, how come they did? We already know it happened from the historical record. So much for that. We don’t need theory if we have proof and that one just went in the waste basket.

      Reply

        1. Another bald assertion from Dave—-he thrives on them. He has made a HUGE ‘logic fail” here. Perhaps he is thinking of “floating” ice?. GROUNDED ice is by definition not floating, it’s “stuck” on the bottom and could be “sticking up” anywhere from inches to hundreds of feet above sea level. But I forgot, Dave measures volume in “meters”, so we probably can’t expect him to understand the difference between floating and grounded.

          Reply

    2. Yes, Dave, that’s certainly true. And now that many of us are addressing your foolishness, others too will likely become frustrated at your latest demonstration that you don’t want to understand science.

      I speak of your posting of conspiracy “science” about the collapse of the towers on 9/11 rather than something related to the topic at hand.

      Dave is galloping, folks—-we have fed him too much, and he is……………………
      an out-of-control-troll.

      Reply

      1. Very true! But that huge “self-awareness gap” is filled by the also huge helping of irony that Dave gives us, don’t you think? (I love irony)

        Reply

    4. Trying to explain Archimedes’ principle (and it’s application to thermosteric sea-level rise) to some of the folks here is just like trying to explain static vs. dynamic loading (and it’s application to the WTC disaster) to 9-11 Truthers.

      Reply

    5. Dave, You’ve devoted a lot more time contemplating sea level than I have. A couple of questions.

      Are you saying that if sea level rise were only due to thermal expansion there would be some kind of dome away from the shoreline? If so, how does an ice cube (a solid) demonstrate that hypothesis? Are you saying that added mass from melting glaciers is more evenly distributed?

      How does the depth of added energy affect sea level, given that water’s coefficient of thermal expansion and water’s specific heat are linear in the temperature range of interest?

      Reply

  6. dave –
    1. the kiddie pool? your error? I asked gravity only.
    2. tide gauges show cyclical annual variation.
    3. Houston is 57 tide gauges.
    4. houston record begins in 1930, right where there is a big visible acceleration,
    so it misses it.
    Lunar tides and other stuff makes them hard to see. But they are there. You can’t eye ball a noisy record to do spectrum analysis.
    Dave, you are 0 for 4.

    Reply

    1. 1. Gravity in your kiddie pool is presumably about 9.8 m/s-s.

      2. Many things show cyclical variations, in conjunction with solar, lunar, and other astronomical cycles. But the sea does not “slide downhill” when it expands due to decreases in density. The beaches do not advance and recede, and the oceans do not slosh from north to south and back again, due to seasonal warming and cooling of the water.

      3. Houston & Dean analyzed several different sets of tide gauges, and also did a literature survey. For the U.S., only, they examined the best 57 LTT gauges, because they provide the best quality data. As you say, “Why make a calculation on unfirm data?”

      4. Yes, the slight acceleration in sea-level rise over the late 19th century and early 20th century ended by about 1925 or 1930. But that acceleration wasn’t due to anthropocentric GHG emissions, because before the 1940s the anthropogenic GHG contribution was very small.

      The question at issue is whether anthropogenic GHG emissions drive sea-level rise. Since the acceleration in sea-level rise ceased before there was much anthropogenic contribution to GHG levels, and has not resumed since then, it is obvious that anthropogenic GHGs have not detectably increased sea-level rise.

      Spectral analysis is useful for identifying cyclical components within data, such as the ~60 year AMO index. But no spectral analysis is needed to see that a graph which curves down is showing deceleration.

      Reply

      1. Dave – Just one issue here at a time.
        The question is, does shore tide gauge level change annually?
        2. You said,
        “Have you noticed the beaches widening in winter as the cooling & shrinking water retreats out to sea? Have you seen the shorelines retreating in summer, as the warming & expanding water advances up the beaches? Of course you haven’t, because that does not happen.”
        So, I looked it up. I found,
        http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/frefour.jpg
        Which is a picture of the spectral analysis of tide gauges off Fremantle, Australia.
        Notice the nice sharp spectral component at exactly one year.

        Reply

        1. It’s a tidal (gravitational) effect, Christopher.

          If you look at the seasonal components for various tide gauges, you’ll find modest, usually annual, peaks and valleys at various times of year at various tide gauges, but it’s not due to the water expanding and contracting.

          The ocean sloshes at different natural resonant frequencies in different places, depending upon the shapes and sizes of the ocean basins. The Earth’s spin, and the moon’s rotation around the Earth, and the Earth’s rotation around the Sun, cause regular fluctuations in gravity which exert regular, periodic stimulations, “sloshing” the oceans. But the effects vary dramatically, depending on how the stimulating frequencies compare to local natural resonant frequencies.

          That’s why lunar ocean tides vary enormously by locale, from almost zero in some places to nearly 50 feet (range, high-to-low) in others. Where the frequency of gravitational stimulation coincides with a natural resonant frequency, you get big tides, otherwise you get much smaller tides.

          In most places, you get twice-daily peak tides, but some places, like Karumba, Australia, have peak tides just once-per-day.

          The Sun’s slightly varying gravity field, as the tilted Earth rotates around it, also has an effect, but much more subtle than that of the ~25 hour lunar tide cycle. In most places, it causes hardly noticeable annual variations in depth, but in some places the depth changes are larger, and in some places, like Mumbai, India, the peaks come twice a year.

          In most places these annual (or, in a few places, semi-annual) peaks don’t coincide with either the warmest or the coldest water temperatures. For instance, in Helsinki the warmest water temperatures are in August, the coldest are in February, and the annual peak in average depth is in December.

          These are gravitational effects, Christopher. They have nothing to do with thermal expansion.

          Reply

          3. Dave wants us to think he knows. He has googled some info about tides and is regaling us with it, although he really doesn’t quite understand it. I do love the “fractured physics” term SLOSH, though. In what units do we measure “slosh”, Dave?

            I would like to hear more about “the Sun’s slightly varying gravity field, as the tilted Earth rotates around it, also has an effect, but much more subtle than that of the ~25 hour lunar tide cycle. In most places, it causes hardly noticeable annual variations…”. Then why mention it?

            Dave closes with “These are gravitational effects, Christopher. They have nothing to do with thermal expansion”. Quite true, and I will again ask “why mention them”? Perhaps Dave is trying to gallop off in a new direction—-gravity and tides?—-in order to distract us from his inability to make his tidal gauge and thermal expansion horsepucky stick and generally disrupt the discussion?


  7. The last comment should be connected like this.
    2. tide gauges show cyclical annual variation.
    Lunar tides and other stuff makes them hard to see. But they are there. You can’t eye ball a noisy record to do spectrum analysis.

    Reply

  8. Ok. Now 3. Houston & Dean analyzed several different sets of tide gauges, and also did a literature survey. For the U.S., only, they examined the best 57 LTT gauges, because they provide the best quality data.
    OK.

    Reply

      1. Ho-Hum. Dave gives us links to McIntyre and Moriarty? Two of the biggest denialists around. Why am I not surprised? While he is in the “M” section of that garbage heap he calls a website, he should give us a link to Monckton—-that would complete the trifecta of uninformed and useless “rebuttal”.

        Reply

          1. Actually, Dave, they have no trouble “cramming those IQ points” into their hamster-sized skulls, since they have no credibility in the climate change field.

            McIntyre has been described as a “persistent amateur who had no credentials in applied science before stepping into the global warming debate”. He works in the mining industry rather than ckimate science, and speaks at Heartland Institute conventions. The other “M” you cite is not much better (and don’t forget yet another “M”—McKitrick, a charlatan who has teamed with McIntyre.

            (PS Where do you keep your “IQ points”, Dave? Your “fractured physics” knowledge would fit on the head of a pin.)


          2. A genius could be taught the rules of chess and sat in front of a chessboard against a skilled reasonably bright sixth grader who studied chess openings, mid game and endgame. The sixth grader will win. The genius will lose for lack of experience and knowledge. A non specialist who thinks otherwise is in for a rude shock. That dave thinks otherwise has more to do with philosophy and lack of wisdom that is evidently shared with him by the likes of M and M, than genius.


    2. That paper certainly flushes Dave’s “Houston toilet” once and for all. Do you think Dave will now remove all references to Houston from his “website”? Or should we ask, will Dave even read this paper in his “search for truth”?

      Reply

      2. “That paper,” Old Guy?

        Now you call Rahmstorf & Vermeer’s comments on Houston & Dean a compelling “paper,” but three days ago you said that comments in a journal about someone else’s paper in that journal didn’t count as a real paper.

        Reply

        1. Didn’t R & M answer H & D with a separate full article in that sea level journal?

          Yes, Dave, your COMMENTS on an article in a non-peer-reviewed on-line “journal” do NOT qualify as a “paper”, even though you parlayed them into your unearned “reviewer” status and insist on trumpeting them.

          Reply

          1. Old Guy wrote, “…in a non-peer-reviewed on-line ‘journal’…”

            Why do you have so little regard for reality, Old Guy, that you just make up nonsense, without even trying to find out the truth?

            The ISSN for the print version of this quarter-century-old peer-reviewed Springer journal is is 0921-030X.


          3. Yes indeed they did. H and D is littered with errors, and Dave has added to them.
            1. Who says sea level rise should be accelerating? Why should it? Global temperature rose from 1900, flattened 1940 to 1980 and rose thereafter. The historic record and research shows lags in Sea level rise vs temperature. And what’s the big deal about acceleration anyway? Its a denier fixation on H and D that echoes through denier sphere like all the other crocks endlessly rejuvenated by WUWT sites to lure the innocent. I know one thing. Sea level rise is predicted from temperature rise and water expansion. Nobody is predicting sea level rise without temperature rise. ( unless it’s lag ). If anything, sea level rise vs temperature shows two separate effects, a linear one with no delay, and another with about a 30 year delay. Since temperatures started rising again in 1970-80 timeframe, we are about to see an acceleration in sea level rise. Claiming we didn’t see any before is not so swift.
            2. If Dave- Archimedes is correct we could not have seen shore tide gauge levels increase after 1900, when global temperatures increased. We don’t need any more proof to debunk it. Throw it in the wastebasket.
            3. This is just a note of warning about data analysis, curve fitting, and data analysis. This is where Dave goes bonkers. I don’t need to tell you that a linear curve fit will not detect a quadratic curve, it will suppress it. Likewise, I need a better than cubic curve fit to catch a quadratic and so on. H and D used quadratic on a record with much higher order information and missed it. R and V caught the mistake.
            4. H and D was sloppy about their choice of data start point. R and V showed any other start point shows more acceleration. Poor analysis.
            I could go on, but there is no point. I finally realize what Dave’s acceleration spiel is about. It’s conflated incorrect denier sphere echo. The inference that sea level did not accelerate in the previous record so it won’t in the future is based on a provably false premise that it should have accelerated over the past 80 years or so. It should not have and did not because of lag and because there was no temperature increase 1940-1980.


          4. Christopher wrote, “Who says sea level rise should be accelerating? Why should it?”

            Thank you, Christopher!

            Perhaps my time here is not a complete waste, after all.

            Thank you for acknowledging the basic fact showed by sea-level measurements. (I’ll bet some other folks here are feeling a bit uncomfortable!)

            Now that we’ve established the fact that, despite more than 2/3 century of enormous GHG emissions, thus far there’s been no detectable increase (acceleration) in sea-level rise, we can move on to the next point.

            Christopher wrote, “sea level rise vs temperature shows two separate effects, a linear one with no delay, and another with about a 30 year delay. Since temperatures started rising again in 1970-80 timeframe, we are about to see an acceleration in sea level rise. Claiming we didn’t see any before is not so swift.”

            Is that so? Well, in the first place, the linear component seems to have been mighty small, because there hasn’t been any detectable acceleration thus far.

            But what about that 30 year delay? How, exactly, do you think that works? By what physical mechanism could a warming of the Earth’s average temperatures wait for 30 years before it begins to melt grounded ice?


          5. Thank you, Dave, for misinterpreting and misusing what Christopher said—-I’m busy with real life today and getting ready for another “present from the polar vortex” as well, so I’ll let him work you over for now.

            I know it’s a waste of time to say it, but one can always hope. Pay attention!


          6. Christopher wrote, “I need a better than cubic curve fit to catch a quadratic and so on.”

            I think you mistyped that. I think you meant the other way around, since a quadratic is just a cubic with a zero coefficient for the cubic term.


          7. Dave – you jump to conclusions. A perfect example of how you put words in people’s mouths. A question becomes a statement. You do a lot of miscommunication, innuendo, and faulty reasoning. My question establishes no fact whatsoever. You are debating, not reasoning. Then you say my idea, a linear component and a delayed one is wrong for temp vs sea level. I dunno, I’m not a scientist. I just see the relationship between temp and sea level and say, gee, looks like this. That’s nice. But then you say it’s wrong because the linear part should predict acceleration. You need to start using equations. Your communication seems to be failing. I don’t think you mean a linear relationship produces a non linear ( quadratic result), but maybe you do mean that. In any case you must declare specifically what variables you are talking about. FYI, I know exactly what I said, I am sure dumboldguy knows exactly what I meant when I said the order of the curve fitting had to exceed the order of the curve fitting. I trust his review of my statement is correct, and I expressed myself correctly. A quadratic is just a cubic with zero coefficient for its last term? I checked to see if I was sane and looked it up. Gosh damn Dave, how bad can it get? See I make mistakes sometimes, but I really, really, hate it. So much that I read and reference the Shaving cream out of diddly. See, you make so many unreferenced and wrong claims… Dave, just pack it in. You told us we were idiots for thinking there was annual tide gauge variation and I caught you. You used it to buttress Dave Archimedes theory. Then, when forced by weight of evidence, you admitted there was annual tide gauge variation, but claimed it had nothing to do with temperature. First it’s related,then it isn’t. The point is, there is a pattern of deception, all to support your world view. You will never stop doing it, so there is no point. If somebody speaks authoritatively all the time, but doesn’t check carefully, there could be some names for that. None of them polite. I bid you good day and farewell, Dave. And good luck on your cubic.


          8. Watching all of us attempt to pin Dave down reminds me of an amusing email sent out before the 2012 election by one of the Democratic campaign organizations—DNC or DCCC.

            Nice graphics, with a big heading——“Do you want to know Mitt Romney’s position on any of the following issues? (Just click on it )”,

            That was followed by a list of issues, but whenever you moved your cursor over an issue, the issues all jumped to new positions. None of them ever stood still long enough to be “clicked”.

            Conservative birds of a feather, I think. Romney would say anything to get elected, Dave will say anything to get noticed and disrupt the dialogue on Crock.


          9. Christopher wrote, ” I am sure dumboldguy knows exactly what I meant when I said the order of the curve fitting had to exceed the order of the curve fitting. … I read and reference the Shaving cream out of diddly. “

            Uh, what?

            Oh, never mind. Maybe I’m just too old to understand the lingo you kids use. Just tell me about that 30 year delay, please.

            You wrote, “sea level rise vs temperature shows two separate effects, a linear one with no delay, and another with about a 30 year delay. Since temperatures started rising again in 1970-80 timeframe, we are about to see an acceleration in sea level rise…”

            How, exactly, do you think that 30 year delay works? By what physical mechanism could a warming of the Earth’s average temperatures wait for 30 years before it begins to melt grounded ice?

            I can’t think of any plausible cause for such a delay. But you think there is one, which will cause the long-expected acceleration in sea-level rise to begin soon. “We are about to see [it],” you say.

            So how do you think that could possibly happen?

            Note that we already have ice melting. There’s probably a net grounded ice melt (that is, melt less ice & snow accumulation) of at least 100 cubic miles per year (probably closer to 150), between glaciers, ice sheets, and mountain snow pack. But that post-LIA melting has been going on for over 80 years, with no increase in rate, despite the huge increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions and levels over that time period.

            100 cubic miles of ice sounds like a lot, and it is. But it’s only enough to raise global sea-level by a little over 1 mm. If 100 cubic miles of ice melted every year from the Greenland ice sheet, it would take about 7000 years before it was all gone, and the Antarctic ice sheet is nearly 10x as large as the Greenland ice sheet.

            If anthropogenic GHG emissions were going to cause accelerated sea-level rise, it should have happened by now. After all, we’ve been driving up GHG levels pretty dramatically for over 2/3 century! But there’s no sign of any increase in the rate of sea-level rise, so far:


          10. Dave, How about some citations for the “probably a net grounded ice melt of at least 100 cubic miles per year (probably closer to 150)”. “Probably” is not “good science”

            You say, “100 cubic miles of ice sounds like a lot, and it is. But it’s only enough to raise global sea-level by a little over 1 mm. If 100 cubic miles of ice melted every year from the Greenland ice sheet, it would take about 7000 years before it was all gone, and the Antarctic ice sheet is nearly 10x as large as the Greenland ice sheet”.

            You oh-so-casually skip over the fact that the total melting of the Greenland Ice sheet would raise sea level by ~24 feet, and that some scientists are predicting that it may all be gone in 2000 years rather than the 7000 you posited.

            You and I may not be around in a few thousand years, but “those future generations that have never done anything for us” will be. Do you think that they will enjoy having to abandon everything and move so far back from the ocean in 5492 (#PFTA) because half of NC and FL are under water?


          11. I promise you: mankind will not be producing CO2 at anything like current rates 70 centuries from now, nor even 20 centuries from now.


          12. That’s probably a good guess. There may not be many (if any) humans left on the planet that far in the future if things continue on the same path, and that’s going to cut the CO2 production way back. A few scattered camp fires are not as bad as coal-fired power plants.


          14. Ooooooh! Dave wants to play today and is going “cryptic secret message” on us rather than deal with the many direct questions he has been asked. Same old game, but I’ll play, Dave. Tell us why you can “promise” that?


  10. That was a nail in the coffin of the sea level acceleration fraud/ myth. This is the cement casing. R and V again. As I suspected, sea level rise due to GW has two terms, an immediate one due to expansion, and a delayed one due to melt. R and V model that and make a good fit between GW and sea level data. The myth of sea level rise and acceleration is dead. Not only does the flat temperature 1940 to 1980 contradict denier memes, the connection between GW and sea level is good. The myth that existing sea level trends lack of acceleration proves no future acceleration is obliterated. It’s based on false premises about the global temperature and the relationship between GW and sea level. We knew deniers were wrong and trusted scientists. Now you know the how and why summarized. If you get into technical areas, search Skeptical Science. Chances are, they have covered it.
    http://www.pnas.org/content/106/51/21527.full

    Reply

    1. Tom Moriarty analyzes and absolutely demolishes Vermeer & Rahmstorf 2009 here:
      http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/critique-of-global-sea-level-linked-to-global-temperature-by-vermeer-and-rahmstor/

      Vermeer & Rahmstorf are shilling for Munich Re, and their “semi-empirical” nonsense is junk science, with no predictive value.

      The fact is that it’s warmer now than it was from the mid-1940s through the early 1990s, yet the rate of sea-level rise isn’t any greater now than it was during that period. Temperatures have been holding at near their 20th century peak for over 15 years, and they rose steadily for over 15 years prior to that. Yet still there’s no sign of accelerated sea-level rise.

      Reply

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