As we all know far too well, dramatic rises in sea level are
one of the key catastrophes promoted by the climate alarm game. What is a
little less noticeable is how quiet the sea level narrative has become. A few
wild-eyed loons are still on the pitch, but many erstwhile players seem to have
sneaked off down the player’s tunnel.
Because the oceans are not playing ball.
The graphic below from
aviso is a little out of date, but hasn’t changed significantly. Tidal gauge
readings dating back to 1870 are spliced onto modern satellite altimetry data
from 1993 onwards. As you can see, the two data sets splice together pretty
well.
Global mean sea level evolution over the 20th and 21st centuries. The red curve is based on tide gauge measurements [Church and White, 2006]. The black curve is the altimetry record (zoomed over the 1993-2009 time span). Projections for the 21st century are also shown. The shaded light blue zone represents IPCC AR4 projections for the SRES greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Bars are semi-empirical projections. Red bar: [Rahmstorf 2007]; dark blue bar: [Vermeer and Rahmstorf, 2009]; green bar: [Grinsted et al. 2009].
Allow me to note three things.
Firstly eyeball the IPCC
AR4 projection range.
Secondly note the big coloured vertical bars. These are
crazy projections from climate models, critically important for the but it could get much worse narrative.
Thirdly, the two newest and most accurate altimetry satellites
are Jason-2
launched in 2008 and Envisat
launched by the ESA, the European Space Agency in 2002 at a cost of 2.3 billion
euros. This is an Envisat sea level graphic from the same source giving a rising
sea level trend of 0.621 mm/year or 6.21 cm per century. In other words, about
one fifth of the rise quoted in the first graphic (3.3 mm/year) and hardly
something to worry about.
In fact Envisat data shows a slight decline in sea level trends
over the past four years. That wasn’t the point of those 2.3 billion euros.
Among other things, the satellite was supposed to confirm sea level rises
linked to climate change.
Measurement of many different parameters, all affecting our global climate, its changes and the natural and anthropogenic parameters triggering such climate changes.
The rise in sea level - Envisat will improve our understanding of the causes and the impacts.
Jason-2 has been operational for less than four years and is so far showing a rising sea level trend of 1.06 mm/year. The data series may be limited, but again it shows nothing to worry about.
It’s embarrassing. Even the most modest IPCC projections may
be seriously exaggerated. Keep it quiet seems to be the current approach, so no
surprises there at least.
2 comments:
Speaking politically, what does that then say about the NPCC scientists and money? Or do some fervently believe?
JH - I think some do believe and some believe in a barrister's sense - they are paid advocates.
I suspect most have their doubts but lack the courage to be overt about it.
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