CU and NASA have decided that they aren’t happy with the sea level numbers, so they are adding 0.3 mm/year to bring which brings the numbers back above 3mm /year. The logic they are using is that land is rising because of glacial rebound.
Sounds pretty (cough cough) clever until you realize that the Earth is still bound by physical law, even in these desperate days of CO2. If the land mass is increasing in height in one region, then it must be decreasing somewhere else. For instance, Scotland is rising while southern England is falling.
The law of conservation of mass, also known as the principle of mass/matter conservation, states that the mass of a closed system (in the sense of a completely isolated system) will remain constant over time. This is much like the conservation of energy in the sense that both keep the energy or mass enclosed in the system (hence, “conservation”). The mass of an isolated system cannot be changed as a result of processes acting inside the system. The law implies that mass cannot be created or destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles; and that for any chemical process in a closed system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products.
In global warming science, CO2 fantasy supersedes physical law.
Steve,
another perfect opportunity for a peer reviewed article skewering this blatantly unscientific ploy!
There are no islands or land in the Caribbean that is rising…
and there is no recorded sea level rise recorded in the Caribbean either
I thought they are getting “High” in Jamaica. But that probably has nothing to do with sea level unless the researchers are using Jamaican methods.
Jamaicans swear they are sinking………….
Sorry Steve, I cannot assist you here. You are pointing out the blindingly obvious to the willfully blind; that’s a fool’s errand.
Much of this climate change discussion is nothing but fools errands.
The CU site has exposed a world of hurt for warmists. More soon.
Nice to hear! I’ll be watching for it!
As the land actually rebounds in the northern part of North America (for example, see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_Alaska.htm – sea level section), the “continental shelf” which is currently underwater will be rising, displacing water that will cause sea level “rise” elsewhere.
Are you assuming uniform density?
As a global average (which is what is being calculated) uniform density is a safe Monte Carlo assumption.
Alan Cheetham points out as well that the rising of the land at a beach will displace water and raise sea level everywhere. Which means that subtracting a local adjustment is nonsense.
Exactly……… this is nothing more than the typical psuedo-science we’re used to. If the numbers don’t agree with current thought, change the numbers. By all means, don’t allow for the possibility that current thought could be wrong.
Yes, global warming believers are uniformly dense throughout.
;O)
OT
Sharks eliminate Red Wings!!
The Colarado University’s adjustments and reasons for an extra .3 mms a year to the their sea level data just simply doesn’t make any sense at all.
To quote from their web site;
“One important change in these releases is that we are now adding a correction of 0.3 mm/year due to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), so you may notice that the rate of sea level rise is now 0.3 mm/year higher than earlier releases. This is a correction to account for the fact that the global ocean basins are getting slightly larger over time as mantle material moves from under the oceans into previously glaciated regions on land. Simply subtract 0.3 mm/year if you prefer to not include the GIA correction.”
First they are being rather coy in that they don’t state that the .3mms per year adjustment is cumulative over time.
They merely say take it off if you don’t like it but we will keep adding that .3mm to each annual Sea Level Rise data in any case.
Secondly they are justifying this adjustment as needed because ocean basins are getting bigger with the Isostatic Rebound as the ice caps and glaciers melt and the former ice covered regions draw mass from under the oceans as they rise so their data will be the hypothetical sea level rise if that Isostatic Rebound did not exist. ????
And here’s this simple old tax paying layman who thought that they were trying to measure real and actual sea level rises so that all the sea side and the ocean reliant industries could plan for the future with confidence.
Roger Pielke Sr’s “Climate Science” blog has a very recent post by the IPCC reviewer Madhav Khandekar who has also contributed a chapter on SLR to a recent book “Global Warming”,Oct 2010.
Some quotes from his fairly comprehensive post on SLR;
“A paper by Holgate (2007, Geophysical Research Letters) analyzed nine long and nearly continuous sea level records over one hundred years ( 1903-2003) and obtained a mean value of SLR as 1.74mm/yr, with higher values in the earlier part of the 20th century compared to the latter part.
A comprehensive paper by Prof (emeritus) Carl Wunsch and co-workers ( J of Climate December 2007) generate over 100 million data points using a 23-layer general circulation ocean model which include different types of data ( salinity, sea surface temperature, satellite altimetry, Argo float profiles etc) and obtain an estimate of SLR as 1.6mm/yr for the period 1993-2004. A more recent paper by Wenzel & Schroter (Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 2010) analyzes tide gauge records over a period 1900-2006 and obtains a mean value of 1.56mm/yr with NO statistically significant acceleration in sea level rise.”
And
“when analyzed in the context of present sea level rise which is just about 1.5mm to 2.0 mm per year with almost NO component of acceleration.”
Assuming that the current approximate 2 mms per year SLR as measured by satellite and numerous gauges and as Khandekar has noted above, is real and actual, CU is now apparently prepared to add about 15% extra each year to the actual measured annual sea level rise of about 2 mms to compensate for the expansion of the oceans due to the rebound effects from ice cap and glacier melts.
So what they seem to be saying to justify this .3mms addition per year to that the actual measured SLR is that the world’s oceans are expanding by about 15% per year.
If you understand CU’s justification and I don’t, that 15% annual increase in ocean area derived from that .3 mm addition to the measured SLR of about 2 mms per year to account for those expanding oceans as per CU’s post above, comes to some 50,000 sq kms of extra ocean area added onto the current 335,258,000 sq km of global oceans each year
To take this to ridiculous lengths, CU are suggesting by implementing and justifying this adjustment, the global land areas of about 150,000,000 sq kms will all be under water in 3000 years as the ice continues melting, the land continues it’s isostatic rebound and the oceans continuing expanding and finally cover the land masses of the globe.
And us laymen out here have long and innocently thought that science was a very highly regarded and scrupulously correct and honest profession that was only pursuing truth and truth only.