After Sandy came through and no respectable scientist was willing to blame it on global warming, Trenberth jumped in and said that global warming had raised sea levels in New York.
This is complete nonsense. Tide gauges show a constant rate of post glacial subsidence since 1850. Sea level there has nothing to do with “man made CO2”
You’re right: there’s no significant difference between the rate of sea-level rise when CO2 was under 320 ppm (3/4 century ago) and now, when it is over 390 ppm. That additional CO2 has had no detectable effect on the rate of sea-level rise.
Due to land subsidence, sea-level is rising at The Battery (Manhattan) faster than most other locations (about 2.8 mm/yr), but the rate is not accelerating significantly, and just 20 miles away from The Battery there’s another long term sea-level record, from the tide gauge at Kings Point, where the rate of sea-level rise is under 2.5 mm/yr:
http://tinyurl.com/nhazburt1
For most of the long-term tide stations for which NOAA has done sea-level trend analysis, they used data through 2006 to calculate the linear trend. But last year NOAA recalculated the linear trends for 42 NOAA-administered U.S. long-term tide stations, using 5 additional years of data (through 2011). Of the 42 stations, 23 stations showed slightly decreased rates of sea-level rise (or increased rates of sea-level decline), and 19 stations showed slightly increased rates of sea-level rise. The average is unchanged.
The numbers are all in the spreadsheets on my site:
http://www.sealevel.info/
Interesting concept.
The words “respectable scientist” and “Trenberth” in the same sentence.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that done before.
Good one. 😆
Post-glacial subsidence? Subsidence of recently landfilled areas is way post-glacial, whereas bedrock areas of NY are rising post glacial as the stress from 1 mile of overburden ice is relieved.
New York was on the edge of the ice sheet, and was elevated because the center of the ice sheet in Canada was depressed.
The subsidence at Battery Park is most likely a combination of several factors: natural compression of reclaimed/landfill land, subsidence of Manhattan in general because they built a lot of tall, heavy buildings on it, and post-glacial isostatic rebound — none of which have anything to do with global warming or CO2.