Sea level rise acceleration

You only have to look at the graph below showing sea level rise since 1880 to see that it has accelerated from about 1mm/year at the end of the 19th century to about 3mm/year at present.(from CSIRO).

CSIRO_GMSL_figure

If you take a closer look at recent sea level rise you’ll see that it has been very consistent, only deviating from the trend line by about 10mm at any time.

sl_ns_global

 

So if you were unscrupulous, and wanted to try to make it look like sea level rise had decelerated what could you do? You could split the series at a point where sea level was above the trend line and compare trends before and after.  this is what Klaus-Eckart Puls did (green line added by me):

Puls_1

Of course, you could achieve the opposite effect by splitting at  a point in time where sea level was below the trend line.  Note that the trend for the first half, 3.5mm/year isn’t significantly different from the overall trend and that the latest measurement lies on the trend fitted to the first part of the data (the green line above).

Naturally, Andrew Bolt was taken in, claiming that sea level rise was slowing, oblivious to the fact that this contradicted his earlier claims that sea level had stopped rising.

More like this

I think you are both wrong. I grant that the first graph shows a slight acceleration. However, the second graph, to me, shows a slight deceleration. Fit a 2-degree polynomial through these points and I am sure you will get a negative coefficient for the 2nd degree variable. Also, I don't see why breaking the data set in two as such is a bad idea. What is a bad idea is trying to fit lines through data that obviously exhibit seasonality which the author is doing. If you want to attack the author, attack her for not treating the data with more care.

"Hockey Shtick"... reading comprehension: you are doing it wrong.

0.5/5 for content, 0.0 for originality. Need better trolls.

"1) There was no acceleration of sea rise over the 20th century"

And no 21st century at all!

'sfunny thing. You use words without understanding them.

Gee, more variations on the 'global temps / SLR / sea-ice/glacial melt has been declining / decelerating since last Wednesday' theme! Colour me astonished...

Also, I think you'll find the justification for the fit will be the usual 'I prefer the result.'

And, lets remember the dip at the end of the charts was brought about by the massive La Nina dumping a goodly proportion of the content of the oceans on land for a longish holiday...

I suspect that by 2015 I'm sure this claim will have disappeared down the memory hole, along with all the other wishful claims that 'it's over / nearly over'.

As noted above, as little as six months ago denialists were claiming that sea level rise had reached a plateau. I'm wishing now that I'd attempted to enter into a wager on it with them.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 Dec 2012 #permalink

And if you look at the latest data it's right back on the straight line!

Neil White

By Neil White (not verified) on 12 Dec 2012 #permalink

AOne must have a good reason to make a split like that and fit two different models. You would have to have good reason to assume that the underlying model had changed to justify making that split. If the underlying assumption is an essentially linear model, it's fine to fit it with a line, but not fine to break up the data unless, again, the underlying model can be assumed to have changed, requiring a new fit.

A quadratic might be no better. A quadratic over the whole set of data assumes a common acceleration at all times. Unless there's justification for that assumption, conclusions based on such a fit cannot be taken with much weight.

What might be better overall if one feels it necessary to entertain a split is to get a distribution of fits over a series of cutoffs. Then you can get a distribution of slopes which might be interesting to see. This might be a more honest way of presenting the possibility of a deceleration - though it's still problematic (the shorter the domain of the fit the higher the variance). In reality, I think it would be a better way of showing that we can't really make any conclusions about acceleration or deceleration on that time scale - the data just has too much structure at that scale and the fit will have too much variance.

Overall, I'd say this: the fancier you get, the less you can trust the results. I'd say the only thing you can really trust from data that looks like this is: UP.

And if you look at the latest data it’s right back on the straight line!

Ah, but that graph wasn't obtained from Spangled Drongo's highly standardised datum point on Chevron Island on the Gold Coast, so it can't be right...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 13 Dec 2012 #permalink

Neil White : Ho ho, let's see them polynomial fit that, then...

Simple: just use whatever order of polynomial that predicts "recovering any time now".

You're assuming some level of honesty that frankly doesn't exist.

What irks me about these statistical magicians is that they throw up these graphs, choosing inflection points that fit their story, without ever completing the story by relating the inflection to any observable phenomenon. That is what separates wish-fulfillment and science.

By Anthony David (not verified) on 13 Dec 2012 #permalink

In the absence of editable content on this site:
s/t and s/t from s/

By Anthony David (not verified) on 13 Dec 2012 #permalink

In spite of the bed wetting you will all be relieved to note that SEQ SLs with today's king tides once again show they are lower than they were at that old benchmark of 49.9 years ago. 200 mm lower to be exact, in spite of the swell and surge.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-13/coastal-regions-put-on-high-tide-…

For Learnard Bernard's guidance, there was another benchmark going back 66 years at Cleveland Point in Moreton bay which was a similar distance below its old heights too.

Disappointing I know, but I'm sure you will all sleep better [and drier] in the knowledge.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 14 Dec 2012 #permalink

SEQ SLs with today’s king tides once again show they are lower than they were at that old benchmark of 49.9 years ago. 200 mm lower to be exact,...

Precise references please, otherwise your point is...?

His point seems to be that he hasn't a clue what "global" means.

Here is the Brisbane tide gauge since 1966. Going nowhere:

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/822.php

Fort Denison [Sydney] is similar.

Historically, SLR has been the most positive indicator of global warming and if local SLs have not risen for nearly 70 years it is very likely that neither SLR nor GW is happening on a bigger scale at much more than natural variation.

Go back to bed.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 14 Dec 2012 #permalink

And now the IPCC regrets ..er..admits:

"Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties."

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 14 Dec 2012 #permalink

Gees what a surprise dronga quotes dumbass denier crap.
Even the main stream media get it,

Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is "ridiculous".
"I'm sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite - that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,"

What a surprise. Clutching at straws again drongo.

By deniersarethick (not verified) on 14 Dec 2012 #permalink

Drongo,the Fort Denison tide data is not 'similar' to Brisbane's...which is why you chose not to link to it.

"SLR has been the most positive indicator of global warming" Bullshit claims are the most positive indicator of your ignorance.

"The IPCC regrets...er admits:" Er, you've caught the tabloid disease. The most positive indicator of daft rejectionism is the resort to quote mining.. I suppose now that Alec Rawls has misrepresented his competence,broken his confidentiality agreement and lied about the draft contents,idiot rejectionists will cease their fantasies about their possession of a so-called high ground in the so-called debate. Of course not,you are idiots after all. Idiocy--mental feebleness-- is your defining quality. You take it wherever you go.

This Rawls premature release will go the way of Climategate 2.0; it'll get the onanists (and one assumes the aptly-named drongo is one) all in a frenzied - and frankly, desperate - lather, but those looking on will only be made queasy by the accompanying degrading spectacle.

'You keep saying that - I do not think you it means what you think it means...'

The Right seems to be increasingly unashamed of it's resort to pure fantasy and blatant dishonesty; this is fine, internally at least, because their target audience is not interested in reality, having abandoned it long ago given its institutionalised liberal bias. However, from the outside it's like watching a troupe of malignant grotesques de-evolve in real time.

In short, there's nothing to this one whatsoever, chum-monkeys, and you're all left limp, damp, and with your trousers tangled around your ankles...

"The most interesting aspect of this little event is it reveals how deeply in denial the climate deniers are," says Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia – one of the lead authors of the chapter in question. "If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence."

Dear chum-monkeys: you are morons. And that's it.

You're not threatening - except in the sense that your imbecilities might well be adopted by other dishonest knuckle-scrapers who love their SUVs more than their grandchildren - you are a joke. A very bad joke that won't go away, sadly, but still a joke.

In short, you are such an intellectually dishonest and pathetic rabble that you have James Delingpole to speak for you. Much joy may you have of each other...

Fort Denison is mainly different from Brisbane because it goes back about 100 years uninterrupted. It has had SLR of about 5 cm in that time, mostly early last century but you Doltoids can only see recent acceleration.

Truly amazing!

And the rest of your logic is similarly breathtaking.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bill, for someone like you who I assume is not in climate "denial" [whatever that means] is no doubt so aware of what is going on around him that he would have rock solid reference points over recent decades for gauging SLR against these highest astronomical tides that turn up every year.

So tell me, what is your impression of observable SLR as indicated by these HATs?

Or haven't you bothered to ever check?

Just happy to accept computer-modified statistics of remote sensing systems?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Whereas you're perfectly content to concentrate on one data point that happens to give a result you prefer.

Much of Denial really is an ASD, isn't it?

We'll all just assume that you know full well your little chum quote from the IPCC leak doesn't mean what you lot are so desperately trying to convince each other it does...

And just to really, really, hammer the point home, referring to the very cherry-picked quote kindly chummed for us by our non-learned friend above:

"The single sentence that this guy pulls out is simply paraphrasing an argument that has been put forward by a few controversial papers (note the crucial word “seems”) purporting significant cosmic-ray influences on climate. Its existence in the draft is proof that we considered all peer-reviewed literature, including potentially important papers that deviate from the herd. The rest of the paragraph from which he has lifted this sentence, however, goes on to show that subsequent peer-reviewed literature has discredited the assumptions and/or methodology of those papers, and failed to find any effect. The absence of evidence for significant cosmic-ray effects is clearly stated in the executive summary. This guy’s spin is truly bizarre. Anyone who would buy the idea that this is a “game changer” is obviously not really looking at what is there."

Or is simply a dishonest, mouthbreathing yokel.

"Whereas you’re perfectly content to concentrate on one data point that happens to give a result you prefer."

No Bill, nothing to do with what I "prefer", It's the only evidence anyone can verify.

AKA the real world.

You didn't answer my question so I can only assume that you prefer to deny the evidence of simple observation and embrace computer generated assumption.

Not very scientific of you.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

From watching spangled drongo embarrass himself more and more on this thread, methinks he ought to head over to the dreaded Jonas thread where he will be at home. I am sure the two of them would make great sparring partners.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bringing out the heavy artillery are we Jeff? :-) Reverends of the climate threat shaking tent needs no infidels pointing out that sola scriptura isn't science. ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

'Reverends of the climate threat shaking tent needs no infidels pointing out' - good grief!

Trying to be a smartarse in a language you have limited command of does not work, and :-) these ;-) don't help.

You really got me there Bill. Sorry for not speaking in toungues. ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Yes, dear, we all know you think you're hilarious - for the rest of us it's like watching a dog try to play the trumpet.

More angry than usal today Bill? Is it the new "leak" perhaps? ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bill, still waiting for you to tell me whether you make any actual king tide SL observations on a long term basis or just rely on the internet blurb.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

It's amazing, ain't it? It isn't the sun, fool - as I've pointed out above.

...and I don't give a damn about your idee fixe.

So Bill, I can take that as a no-I-don't- use-observational-evidence-in-forming-my-opinions and yes-I-exclusively-rely-on-junk-science, can I?

And the sun does seem to be a bit bright today doesn't it?

Shining into unwelcome spots.

Never mind.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

All this tide stuff coming from somebody who uses the term 'king tide' which is not of scientific use, it being idiom (in Australasia) for spring tides.

Have you visited either of the sources of information in the first post on this thread and furthermore paid attention?

For then you should realise that using observational evidence from one point, using one method, is not how global sea level trends are assessed.

You are somebody else (or perhaps a sock) who tries to brush out the bigger picture.

Now as for bright sunshine, ain't it summer down there.

Yesterday's king tide was a "highest astronomical tide" [there Lionel, is that sciency enough for you?] by about 1 cm but they depend on lots of external factors so tide predictions arent always right however on this pear-shaped geoid of ours you will find that if SLs don't go anywhere but slightly downward for around 70 years then we are not experiencing SLR, accelerating or otherwise.

Ergo, if the IPCC is to be believed and SLR incorporates many aspects of global warming, we are probably not experiencing any global warming other than natural variation.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

What's interesting is this hypothetical scenario, which reveals quite clearly that the climate change deniers don't give a f*** about science (as if that wasn't clear by now).

If the next IPCC report, as will almost certainly happen, argues that the evidence for human forcing in the recent warming is greater than ever, then the denial-os-phere will go into battle mode, trying to find any minute cracks in the armor which they can assiduously exploit to ensure that nothing is done.

If, on the other hand, the next IPCC report to some extent downplays the human fingerprint, as the cherry-pickers are now doing, then watch the deniers trump it as the best and most comprehensive scientific report yet by the organization.

This is what the dopey brigade (SD, Olaus) are doing here. Hardly surprising. Neither has anything more than a kindergarten education when it comes to science. They are guided by their far-right political biases.

Olaus: given the fact that you've never uttered a scientific word in your miserable life, here or on any other thread in Deltoid, except to parrot your brainless hero, its more than a bit rich for you to criticize anyone commenting in any scientific field. Moreover, its clear to me that you have not a shred of science in your professional background (that is IF you have a profession at all). Certainly if you want me to demolish you with science, I will be more than happy to do so. Besides, given the fact that you are an ignoramus, weren't you banushed to the thread of your semi-literate hero?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

A withering rebuttal, Jeff.

The way you deal with the facts. Wow!

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

if SLs don’t go anywhere but slightly downward for around 70 years then we are not experiencing SLR, accelerating or otherwise.

Now please inform us of where, once all other factors have been considered, sea level rise is static. Back up any assertions with authentic, coherent evidence.

You have not paid attention to items in post one here now have you otherwise you would not be continuing with this sillyness.

Spangled dumbo,

Here are the facts. See if you can understand them.

The IPCC reports are based on the empirical evidence that has been accumulated in the field of climate science with respect to the various factors forcing climate. Since the last report was published in 2007, the evidence of a human fingerprint has grown, based on the peer-reviewed literature. Certainly, for every study suggesting that natural variation/solar forcing may play a major role, many, many more have pointed towards the human combustion of fossil fuels as by far the most significant factor.

The authors who contribute to documents like those from the IPCC, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and on the Montreal Protocol, are told to base their summaries on the published scientific literature. The final draft of these documents will not be allowed to stray away from the prevailing evidence found in the world's scientific journals. Some of the authors who are skeptics may attempt to dilute the message, but they will be overruled by those referring to the evidence that is again published.

That is the bottom line. These large documents cannot stray from the evidence produced in the peer-reviewed literature - in other words, they merely summarize the state-of-the-art.

The problem is that people like you, Olaus etc. and the guy who leaked the latest draft clearly don't know how these panels arrive at their decisions. Most deniers, many of whom have never published a scientific paper in their lives, must think that these committees are able to dismiss the bulk of scientific evidence and come up with alternate explanations. That is why the usual suspects can flood the blogosphere with ridiculous cherry-picked snippets in which a few phrases are taken out of context to exaggerate the influence of the sun. But, if you had read any of the published literature that has been produced since 2007, you'd realize that very, very, very few papers have concluded this at all, whereas a great deal more have supported the prevailing view of C02 emissions being the primary driver.

Thus it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever for an independent panel to emphasize the findings of half a dozens studies over the conclusions of several hundred or more.

So of course the final draft 2013 is not going to downplay the human fingerprint over solar forcing. Not in a million years.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

@spangled

Just to add to Jeff's last post;

As we've revealed on the Jonas thread, the certainties (likely, very likely, extremely etc) on various statements from the IPCC are derived using a form of magic.

They're opinion, and fairly bizarre opinion at that, often totally removed from the empirical evidence available. Like a vote amongst extremists at a greenpeace rally - you get the sort of thing.
;)

Beware GSW and Sprangeld, I have strong feeling that Jeff has an ant-collecting card up his sleeve, and that he very soon is about to show it for us.

It can beat us (and reality) into pulp! ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry, "spangled" it is.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

"They’re opinion,"

correction: they're informed opinion derived from the best available data and professional experience. 'Opinion' is what you get from some guy in a bar.

"and fairly bizarre opinion at that,"

That's because they're informed opinion derived from the best available data and professional experience. To cranks with an agenda, that seems absolutely bizarre.

"often totally removed from actually based on the peer-reviewed empirical evidence available". A fairly straightforward correction there.

"Like a vote amongst extremists at a greenpeace heartland rally – you get the sort of thing. you can see exactly what sort of thing's going on here, or indeed anywhere Griselda shows its fact-twisting face.

Wasn't Spangled Drongo the crank who tool his personal sea level experience from about a mile inland on a re-engineered river system?

re above: tool = took
Can't imagine what I was thinking.

Hey, how can you speak, Olap, when you don't even know how to measure a temperature trend????

Let me say it once more for those who choose not to live in the real world.

I have lived around the seafront of SEQ for over 70 years in bay and estuary front houses where king tides came up and covered lawns and even flooded wells that were needed in those days prior to reticulated water. My grandfather owned the jetty store and flats at Woody Point where I lived during the war and various other relatives lived and had farms by the bay etc. I also visited many similar neighbouring properties.

I still have connections with some of these properties.

Today, some of these houses still exist and some still retain the same landscaping and lawn levels, even the same old wells. I lived in one of these in 1946 and we had to put a levy bank around the well to prevent the regular flooding.

Today the king tides are not as high as they were then and haven't been for many decades.

The simple fact is there has been no SLR in SEQ over this period [~70 years] and while it may be a local fact, it is generally true for the rest of the globe.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

"while it may be a local fact, it is generally true for the rest of the globe."

Except it isn't, because by your own metric you cannot know that. You're relying on your own faulty memory, with no written contemporaneous records, and generally making shit up.

To paraphrase XKCD, "To trhe chagrin of cranks everywhere, numbers continue to be best system for determining which of two things is larger".

And numbers is what your own CSIRO and the IPCC use.

Let me say it once more for those who choose not to live in the real world.

Well, by your own admission your 'real world' does not extend much beyond your own feet.

There are many places in the world where the sea level appears to have dropped, around the Baltic for example, due to isostatic uplift in that case but elsewhere the reasons are a good deal more complex and to do with changes in ocean currents and even the shape of the globe as the weight of ice north and south lifts somewhat thus changing the dynamics of the Earth's rotational stresses.

It may surprise you to learn that there is a 'hill' of water in the
North Atlantic as the gyre moves around it, slightly offset towards the West.

Perhaps you had considered such mechanisms but this is not apparent in your posts. You will be well served to watch the Mitrovica presentation already alluded to. Don't be an ignorant numpty like Jonas.

spangled drongo is so fat, his trouser belt circumnavigates the world!

(not a joke: this would have to be the case for glittery idiot here to believe that one place constitutes "the globe").

Chek,

Thanks for correcting GSWs garbled nonsense (he spews so much crap here that its hard to know where to begin critiquing it).

What makes it more embarrassing for GSW is that he clearly has hardly ever read a peer-reviewed journal in climate science in his life yet somehow magically purports to know what the prevailing evidence shows. And, as you said, the conclusions of the IPCC are based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, and not on the opinions of right wing bloggers and pundits who loathe government regulations.

Essentially, like Olaus, GSW long ago gave away the fact that he doesn't give a damn about the scientific evidence so long as climate change is driven from the political agenda. That's what comes from being a right wing-nutter for you.

As for Olaus, he's beyond hope. Dumb as a rat's butt.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek, I've been around the worlds oceans in a very hands-on way and the story there is similar.

We all know that on this flat-spotted, pear-shaped geoid there are fluctuating SLs for various reasons. They come and they go but water seeks and finds equilibrium releatively quickly and 70 years of slightly declining SLs in Moreton Bay indicates, world wide, there is nothing to get hysterical about.

Of course, to stay on thread, 1 cm of SLR from this position will have you Doltoids bed-wetting over rapidly accelerating SLR.

Stand by, it could happen at any minute.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

"I’ve been around the worlds oceans in a very hands-on way and the story there is similar."

And the world's oceanographers haven't?
What is it with you people?

The world's oceanographers may or may not be aware of what's happening in the real world.

But tell me, have you taken any benchmark measurements of your local seafront over a long period to be able to refute what I am telling you or do you just, as you like to put it, "make shit up"?

Here's an indication of just how screwed you are on SLR:

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/maldives-openin…

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Here’s an indication of just how screwed you are on SLR:"
Wait for the reference to some peer reviewed science. Oh no! A massive fail. A link to a blog called "notalotofpeopleknowthat" about the Maldives building airports. There is you first problem drongo. The blog should really be called "alotofpeopleknowthat" given that it is on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_Maldives
and with 200 inhabited islands in the chain, flying happens to be a convenient way of getting around.

So basically we have a dispute between a drongo's eyecrometer and the NASA and European Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20121119.html
And they wonder why the world laughs at them?

A better "indication of just how screwed you are on SLR" SD, is that you have no data, apart from your very own say so. And while I'm sure your mother believes every word you say, the world, on the whole, doesn't.

Now what you do have to say no doubt appeals to many mid-continental hicks who've never travelled and for whom seas and oceans are abstract concepts, but that's by-the-by in a world increasingly reliant on verifiable measurements and data for just about everything.

I recall now that you also needed some help to understand how satellites 'knew how to maintain altitude' on your previous mission here. Perhaps you're not as in touch with the world as you like to think.

And while you're busy sneering at the Maldives airstrips maybe stop to consider what a Sandy style storm surge (which put Battery Park NYC under thirteen feet of water) last month would do to those islanders.

Mike if you dealt with the messages instead of shooting all the messengers first, you might manage to see the conflict of logic in your foolish argument.

These people can fool you that they are worried about their freeboard problem and you are happy to give them other peoples money to "solve" it yet they spend their own money as though they haven't got a problem [and they know they haven't].

They are not only smart enough to know what's going on in the real world but also smart enough to know that you haven't a clue.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek, my data happens to agree with the local tide gauges.

What about your own observations WRT long term SLs?

Anything there at all to support your argument?

Or are you just "making shit up" again?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 15 Dec 2012 #permalink

"stop to consider what a Sandy style storm surge (which put Battery Park NYC under thirteen feet of water) last month would do to those islanders."

"Making shit up" again?

How about a Fukushima-type tsunami?

Stop bed-wetting over something that will probably never happen and if it does is completely unpreventable.

The Maldives will never be anything other than very low-lying atolls that rise and fall with SLs as they have always done.

But you feel you should guarantee their existence with my money, right?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

@spangled

You're right spangled. This has been pointed out a number of times to the increasingly detached from reality here, those who wish to attribute every catastrophe to rising levels of CO2. Sandy was not caused by CAGW (AR5 draft has an update on storminess ;) ) as we've discussed at length on the Jonas thread.

The Maldives are an atoll that rise and fall with SLR, storm surges and fresh water extraction will always be a more likely threats. For atoll response to SLR see,

http://phys.org/news194769052.html

It's Environmental Politics not Science. Groucho Marx quote,

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

Which it's difficult to argue with.

"But you feel you should guarantee their existence with my money, right?"

Well yes they do, and it has nothing to do with their existence.

Thanks GSW

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangly dropkick needs his own thread. The OCD meets ASD schtick is just freakin' dull

Bill, that is an interesting gravitar. Could it be described as a Little Cuckoo or is it a Little Shrike Thrush AKA a Thick Head?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Stop bed-wetting over something that will probably never happen"

Yeah, there were quite a few folks on the New Jersey shore that last week of October that had lived there all their lives, weren't expecting anything worse than they'd seen in the past and weren't moving for anybody or anything.

Like you, they didn't understand that the world is changing, although I think shock will have driven that message home to them on the back of losing everything.

And as for your other question, the CO2 causing the change very likely didn't come from the Maldives so where else does responsibility lie?.

No climate scientist worth his salt believes that crap about Sandy:

http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/don-miss-this-in-most-of-quote…

And even John Church admits that Ross' 171 year old benchmark at Port Arthur shows only a 13.5 cm SLR in 171 years [brighter people know that it really shows a 30 cm fall but either way it says nothing is happening]

That's empirical, not the computer adjusted statistics of a remote sensing system.

My personal observations agree with the local tide gauge.

Maybe you have some long term personal obs to refute that or are you only doing a Chek?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"And as for your other question, the CO2 causing the change very likely didn’t come from the Maldives so where else does responsibility lie?"

You still don't get it Chek. Coral atolls rise and fall with SLs as they have always done. It's called the Darwin principle.

But as SLR isn't happening anyway, you can relax.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"No climate scientist worth his salt believes that crap about Sandy:"

What crap about Sandy?

Are you trying to say it never happened?

Or that hurricanes are not driven by the evaporation from a high SST?

And still you don't know how much more than Australia the world is.

You didn't go to school, did you.

"It’s called the Darwin principle. "

No such thing.

I’ve been around the worlds oceans in a very hands-on way and the story there is similar."

As have I. And do you know, surprise surprise sea level was fluctuating all the time. I put this down to the fact that I was floating on it in a sizeable ship, an aircraft carrier.

Indeed, at times it was fluctuating enough for the c45k ton ship to bury its head in the green such as to have green water poor down the for'ad lift and at other times splits to open in the side of the hull where the sea worked in with sufficient force to push one deck up towards the next and crushing the, sizeable, boat in between. On another occasion steaming through the Pentland Firth in a force 11 the pitching was so violent that a descent in to a trough caused all traps (sit down toilets) in the for'ard heads (on 4 deck under the forward aircraft workshops on 3 deck which in turn were just aft of the cable deck) to vent huge plums of water - to the great discomfort of one unfortunate caught out whilst engaged in his daily constitutional. Some bidet effect that.

But I digress. Cast you eyes to Dubai where they have had to take extraordinary and unplanned for measure during the island construction projects and where they are now forming plans for floating developments:

Spurred by Rising Seas, Dubai's Floating Ambition.

More on other aspects of this madcap scheme:

Dubai's artificial islands have high environmental cost
The Price of "The World": Dubai's Artificial Future
.

But the science show how blinkered is your vision as indicated by Mitrovica and Jeff Harvey here.

In answer to continued Drongo droppings.

Not long ago a scientist and blogger had an Oh Shit moment over the feared increase in GHG release from melting permafrost which will add to another Oh! Shit moment at the end of the last summer Arctic sea ice melt, which can only mean that if sustained over succeeding seasons, and there is no reason to think that there will be a sustained recovery, a further increase in the rate of Greenland Ice melt.

I turn this will raise sea levels enough to continue the undermining of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet leading to rapid increases of melt there. And your vision is pinned on one metric from one location, what a twerp you are.

And this is ignoring the largest elephant in the room.

@spangled

Just to give you the heads up, in case you haven't worked it out already. wow's not worth responding to, he's strongly influenced by personal observations, but as he inhabits a different astral plane to the rest of us, his comments aren't of much relevance here.
;)

spangled drongo,

What you say about South-East Queensland can be checked against real data. Firstly, we can look at a global map of sea level trends over the past 20 years of satellite altimetry. Sure enough, it shows that South-East Queensland is encased within a bubble of non-rising sea level.

We can go back further by looking at tide gauge records from the region. The longest I can find in the region is from Brisbane. Sure enough, this backs up what you say - no evidence of relative sea level change over 40 years. Going slightly further afield for longer records from Sydney and Newcastle again appears to support what you say -little more than 5cm relative sea level rise since 1900.

The kicker is that all this data which supports your contentions about a particular region also supports global SLR of ~20cm since 1900 and 3mm/yr since 1992. So, no, it doesn't provide a good indication for the global picture.

The question of why SEQ shows this behaiour is potentially interesting. One known reason for sea levels to drop is the building of dams, reducing the outflow of rivers to the sea. This article suggests South-East Queensland has been particularly active with regards to dam building.

Now if drongo dropper had bothered to actually study works on MSL rise he would have been aware of that dam effect.

The increase in the number of dams globally has put a bottleneck in the rate that deposited rain and snow melt flows to the sea.

Aside from its effect on local sea levels it also is a root cause of subsidence in many delta estuaries such as those in China, the mouths of the Mississippi and the Nile through the hiatus in supply of sediment,

Rising sediment behind dams is certain to cause many to eventually fail in their purpose at that.

But of course to consider this one has to be aware of the bigger picture which is something that the faux-science sites [1] steer their readerships away from.

[1]
We Use Wishful Thinking,
Cardinal Puff,
CO2 nonsense
JunketScience
Jo Novalue
Climate tawdry
ClimateDespot

and a number of others.

dronga dropper read Janin & Mandia before you drop any more.

Thanks Paul S for confirming my observations.

But do you really think that local dams cause local SLs to fall?

That strategy could save our bacon from JH's crazy projection from:

"global coupled climate model simulations with the new representative concentration pathway mitigation scenarios to 2300"

It's one thing to read and consider these "projections" but placing your faith in these systems and ignoring real world obs just shows you up as the wild-eyed, climate religious ideologues you are.

Not to mention your hysterical reactions against anyone who tries to show you what's really happening.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Not to mention your hysterical reactions against anyone who tries to show you what’s really happening."

In your neighnourhood, and for the present. The global picture is what everyone else is concerned about.

Spangled dumbo, like most other deniers, is one of those typical of the anti-environmetnal crowd who believe that 100% unequivocal proof is needed before we do anything about AGW. As I have said on Deltoid before, the same strategy has been used over and over again since the 1980s to stall co-ordinated responses to a range of other anthropogenic problems including acid rain, ozone depletion, habitat destruction deforestation etc. It is now especially being used to prevent any meaningful action being undertaken to slow the rate of warming, especially as those benefitting from the status quo see this a threat to their profit margins.

This is why I so utterly loathe the deniers in every sense of the word. What gives their political agendas away is that most of those on the internet aren't scientists and yet somehow they try and give the impression of being experts in fields they've never formally studied. Why else disagree with the bulk of the people doing the research unless (1) you think you know more than they do, or (2) you hate the repercussions of their research? Drongo, Jonas, GSW, Olaus and many others who contribute to WUWT, BH, Nova, CA etc. fall int either (or both) of these categories. Its clear that none of this bunch are professional scientists, yet they try and give the impression that they can separate poor science (meaning 95+% of it) from good science (<5%, most of it spewed out on right wing blogs).

Science has never operated by consensus, but public policy has no choice but to be based on it. Scientists rarely agree on anything, therefore the strength of the conclusions reached by successive IPCC documents is testament to the immense consensus reached by the majority of climate and Earth scientists over AGW. If we wait until the data are all in, then it will be much to late.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"This is why I so utterly loathe the deniers in every sense of the word"

How is trying to acquaint you with what's really going on outside, denying anything?

Particularly when you don't want to know?

A reasonable conclusion from any rational person would be that it is someone with your attitude that is the denier.

No Jeff love, maybe why you loathe people like me is that you are a religious ideologue who is too lazy to get of his fat backside to be rational about anything.

But I'm happy to be proved wrong when you present your own long term obs on SLR.

BTW, where's Lernard Bernard?

Hey BERRNARD!

Last year when I presented you with my obs [we only get a HAT once a year] he rolled out the big guns and shot me from every angle.

But he hasn't uttered a peep this time.

Could it be that he agrees with me?

If he does it would be polite of him to apologise.

Come out from under the table Bernie, I wont bite.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek thinks that SLs can be declining for 70 years in Moreton Bay but rising out of control in the rest of the world.

Quelle science!

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek thinks that the data is what can be trusted, not anecdotes from anonymous nobodies..

So Lionel, you think that going to sea in a 45k ton aircraft carrier is "hands on"?

That's not hands on as far as confronting the sea is concerned.

That's bloody looxury! With all the artificial aids and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other "hands on" to keep you safe.

Try making landfall on your pat malone in a 15 foot wooden boat without a motor and using a sextant to navigate.

That's just a little more "hands on".

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Chek thinks that the data is what can be trusted, not anecdotes from anonymous nobodies."

And there I was thinking it was only bill that was the Thickhead.

Paul S above has already confirmed my data.

Now, do you have any data of your own to provide?

Or does being a Thickhead only allow you to "make shit up"?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

Thanks Paul S for confirming my observations.

No problem, but you seem to be missing the point that your local observations are fully consistent with observations covering the rest of the planet which show a clear sea level rise of about 20cm from 1900 to today.

But do you really think that local dams cause local SLs to fall?

Dams mean terrestrial impoundment of water which would otherwise be in the oceans, causing sea level to drop in relative terms. Without the dam in place the water would have outflowed down the river to sea. With the dam in place less water will be flowing down the river, reducing the water input to the oceans. Clearly the first region to see such a change will be the one local to the estuary.

Dam impoundment is mostly a one time thing, taking place over a few months or years. After a while the oceans should equilibrate making the diference in local level less pronounced and the dam impoundment will register simply in the eustatic (global average) figures. However, damming in Queensland seems to be very much an ongoing thing, so even though the movement of the oceans may be filling in the gaps from past impoundment new developments may be continuing to reduce the outflow to the ocean.

I found a (long) list of weir and dam projects which have been built in Queensland.

It’s one thing to read and consider these “projections” but placing your faith in these systems and ignoring real world obs just shows you up as the wild-eyed, climate religious ideologues you are.

Real world obs show sea levels rising at the upper-end of past projections.

Paul, thanks for that but sea water isn't like trachite lava. It finds equilibrium quickly. We have an East Australian Current that is rectifying this problem every minute of our lives, some times running north, sometimes running south and sometimes in a gyre.

Also consider this, the runoff of stormwater today is enormously greater that it was prior to civilisation. Because of land clearing, cropping, grazing, roads, freeways, airports, suburban, industrial and urban development there is a greater part of precipitated water going back into the oceans than historically.

I have a pond in 60 ha of rain and wet sclerophyl forest and when I get 50 mm of rain my pond rises 50 mm. If my place was a farm 50 mm of rain would raise it 2 metres.

When we have a flood and the bulk rushes out to sea, the small portion that remains in dams is just that. A small portion.

And when the flood that has just filled the dam is rushing out to sea it would be raising local SLs, not dropping them.

"Real world obs show sea levels rising at the upper-end of past projections."

Show me your data, Paul.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

Ah, denialists. The planet isn't warming, the seas aren't rising, the Arctic isn't melting, the birds and insects aren't migrating, the droughts aren't longer, nor the weather more extreme. None of it is happening, because to admit that it is happening would mean examining the systems, politics and epistemologies of how humans live on this earth. We would have to look critically at ourselves and the world order we have built, its structures of power, at capital and its global flows, at an earth that we simply assume is available to be dug up and burned, caught, grown and killed in ever more ingenious ways. We would have to examine all those givens that we think are eternal and change them, but for some such a prospect is so unbearable that they would rather deny reality than do it.

"Alec Rawls points out just which way is up with the scientific method"

There's a lot of it about. And it all seems to come from crank sites.

Now here's a "skeptic" for us all to wonder at..

S/he really believes eg that Sydney has 160mm SLR when the tide gauge shows nothing.

S/he really has to be in love with assumption-based statistics from remote sensing systems as opposed to the real world.

I bet it can even push all its bathwater up one end while it dries itself.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"There’s a lot of it about. And it all seems to come from crank sites"

You finally talking about science here, Chek?

That'd be a pleasant surprise.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Alec Rawls points out just which way is up with the scientific method"

When a denier starts lecturing you about the scientific method, you know that you have them beat. Rawls will forever after be known as the clown who leaked a copy of the draft IPCC report and then read it upside down.

"Rawls will forever after be known as the clown who leaked a copy of the draft IPCC report and then read it upside down"

So Mike, tell us then in your own words what you think is wrong with Rawls' claim.

And while you are at it, why you think that a self proclaimed "open and accountable" institution which the IPCC insist they are, should even be concerned?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

But even before that Mike, just to install you on a half-respectable cred-pedestal, so that I can believe you, tell me what it is you think I am denying?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 16 Dec 2012 #permalink

-2 X 2 = -4

does that help SD ?

By john byatt (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

You'll have to tell me which is temperature and which is feedback, John

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

What is wrong with Rawls claim is that he cherry-picks. Moreover, he has no background at all in climate science and he clearly enters the discussion with a pre-determiend worldview.

As I said earlier, deniers tend to argue that in the absence of incontrovertible proof of a process we might as well start at zero. This is proof why Jonas and GSW on the crazy-train exile thread have no scientific arguments at all, thus revealing their Dunning-Kruger credentials (and before he claims that I am afraid of his arguments, this is for you Jonas - you don't intimidate me one little iota).

Their take on Sandy is a perfect example. Its the way the climate change deniers phrase their arguments that shows how most of them have never been into a science lab before. No scientist worth his PhD would ever say that one storm can be attributed to AGW, let alone draw a correlation with atmospheric C02. This is like saying that one sneeze is indication that a person is ill or has the flu. Essentially we must look at many symptoms before establishing causation. And their are plenty of planetary symptoms which show indeed that the climate is going through a rapid change. Sandy is one small symptom that alone means little. But in combination we can establish a link. The way the deniers phrase the arguments is deliberately dishonest - or, perhaps, simply a reflection of their profound ignorance of how science works.

Is it warming? Certainly. Biotic indicators across the planet are showing that, in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. SD here relies on one abiotic proxy (SLR) to downplay warming. But the sheer volume of biotic proxies are proof that it is indeed warming. This week I will be attending the annual British Ecological Society Annual Symposium and one entire session is devoted to talks showing examples of species, populations and systems responding to climate warming.

The next step, in full knowledge that it tis warming, is to establish what is forcing this. The vast majority of the scientific community agree that the human combustion of fossil fuels is almost certainly the most important factor. Each year evidence grows in support of this argument. Against his background we have a shrinking number of individuals and groups (it was never large to begin with) doing everything in their power to sow doubt. This explains why scientists like Naomi Oreskes have taken it upon themselves to better understand the motives underlying this denial industry.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

Actually Rawls will also be remember for this piece of tinfoil hattery. According to Rawls, the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania has been secretly constructed as a Mosque.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/28649

My guess is that Rawls is hanging on to reality by his fingertips.

Jeff, that comment is one whole tissue of denial, contradiction and messenger-shooting.

Rawls and other authors have pointed out that there has to be some other form of solar amplification and that it is scientifically well known [if not well understood] and so it got mentioned in the SOD.

Sherwood wants to return to the FOD to hide this. He is a completely unscientific denier.

Don't go the same way. Be honest with yourself.

I just happen to have observed that SLs locally, for the last ~70 years, have not risen and that coincides with Brisbane and Sydney tide gauges.

Pretty basic stuff but something you don't seem to be able to accept. But from that I know that there is not much happening outside natural variation wrt global warming.

Hang sceptical, you can do it.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

"My guess is that Rawls is hanging on to reality by his fingertips."

Just who is hanging onto reality here might be arguable. What has this got to do with the science?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

ignoring real world obs

moving the goalposts right along:

assumption-based statistics from remote sensing systems as opposed to the real world.

Yes, when dumbo doesn't like "real world obs" they become, without further explanation, "assumption-based statistics from remote sensing systems". Life in denial is so wonderful.

Faux skeptic, have you got any idea how those pretty pictures of yours were generated?

Garbage in, Gospel out. Yeah!

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

@spangled

Hopefully not O/T but there is some concern about the accuracy of the satellite derived SLR figures. There's a presentation here,

http://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/meetings/2011-06/bar-sever.pdf

that deals with one of the issues. A discrepancy between tide gauge records jason/topex derived figures is known and may be attributed to inaccurate positioning to the Terrestial Reference Frame. From the slides,

Evidence of a Problem
.High post-fit residuals for GPS43 (1st IIR sat)
.Bias in Topex GPS antenna position
.Drift in Jason GPS antenna position
.Drift in GPS realization of TRF Scale

The presentation quantifies the "error budget" for Sea Level Measurement. Admittedly these guys are pushing for a new NASA mission "GRASP" that will give better calibration down to 0.1mm/yr and may be playing up existing issues.

So it may be in the near future the satellite SLR data is revised down (or I suppose up). We don't know yet, cause for some concern at the moment anyway.

"Rawls and other authors have pointed out that there has to be some other form of solar amplification..."

Otherwise they will appear to be complete drongos.

Yes and it's well documented, so what does that make Sherwood?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

I understand Rawls has a homeopathic explanation. i.e. there is no actual solar forcing but the temperature acts as if there is the "memory" of one. For a man who can see a "mosque" in the Flt 93 Memorial this is child's play - also barking mad but what is mad between drongos.

Thanks GSW.

They are forever reviewing and recalibrating these remote systems. Look at the way they are dancing with GRACE.

And remember the "problems" they had with Envisat when it wouldn't show any SLR until it was reprogrammed?

How much assumption can a koala bear?

What really is amazing is that so many people swear it is Gospel.

A different Gospel every week, mind, but Gospel none the less.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

Just who is hanging onto reality here might be arguable. What has this got to do with the science?

Everything. If his belief system is clouded by inane conspiracy theories, how are we supposed to trust his interpretations of anything?

Proven by his latest failure - we can't. He's a froth-mouthed, loony-eyed madman who sees conspiracies under every bed.

Tend not to take those people seriously myself.

Rawls and other authors have pointed out that there has to be some other form of solar amplification and that it is scientifically well known [if not well understood] and so it got mentioned in the SOD.

Sherwood wants to return to the FOD to hide this. He is a completely unscientific denier.

And Sherwood and others have shown they are wrong, time and time again. The deniers really have kicked a spectacular own goal this time. I can see their heart just isn't in this Rawls crap, but they have to repeat it until the next big bombshell is unveiled. Sad, really. Gutless little moaners.

I just happen to have observed that SLs locally, for the last ~70 years

Buuuuuuuullshit.

Was Rawls the only author to mention GCRs?

Do you deny their existence?

What is the point of trying to eliminate scientific fact?

If they really are responsible for a large part of that 0.7c warming why do you care?

You sound like a religious crank.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

Couple of observations over the release:

1. When there are changes between the draft and the launch, the deniers will cry "conspiracy!". After all, drafts never change and any change is proof of silencing dissent!

2. Deniers hate the IPCC, yet they crave the legitimacy of either being included in the AR5 or by being an "expert reviewer". Hypocrites. Apparently their little NIPCC just doesn't cut it at the end of the day.

@spangled

"How much assumption can a koala bear?"
;)

Yes, unrelated point. I had a look at the problems with the argo data a while back. I think it was thru 2007 the data actually showed ocean cooling, but they introduced a screening process to remove anomalous "faulty" data and the warming appeared! No reason to suspect anything untoward happened, it's just unsatisfying knowing you're not getting all the data and a degree of human influence introduced.

Spangled Drongo, I'm not the one spinning grand UN conspiracies out of cherry-picked paragraphs released by a tin-foil hatted madman.

[Trolling deleted]

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

it’s just unsatisfying knowing you’re not getting all the data and a degree of human influence introduced.

Don't worry, I'm sure Spangled Drongo has been recording the temperatures at a trout farm since 1797.

John, just because you have been too stupid to look out the window all your life

Really? Is that where the cosmic rays are?

John, deal with Rawls' message and put your gun away.

He's making a very scientific point.

Sherwood isn't.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

@John

" I’m sure Spangled Drongo has been recording the temperatures at a trout farm since 1797"

I think that's unlikely John. But I never cease to amused by what those on the alarmist side of the argument find it possible to believe - it's like comedy hour!. You'll be denying Ice Ages next!
;)

GSW,

They love the cold past. And they love making it colder.

"The future is assured, it's only the past that will change"

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

@spangled

Don't know if you saw it, but Lindzen made a joke about that at a recent talk, went something like this,

"It's always difficult to predict the future, but in Climate Science it's becoming increasingly difficult to predict the past!"
;)

Sorry, which point is Rawls making that I should be paying attention to? The point that Obama is hiding Islamic imagery in the United 93 memorial?

The man is a nut.

"Really? Is that where the cosmic rays are?"

Says it all, really.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

"It’s always difficult to predict the future"

Lindzen would know about the difficulty of predicting the future. His models are the lousiest of all (John McLean excepted - whatever happened to that guy?)

Lighten up Drongo. It's a joke. You po-faced, thin-skinned deniers have no sense of humour.

It's sad watching you wither away into a witless old curmudgeon shouting at the sky and believing the interpretation of a noted lunatic over that of the actual scientist who edited the chapter.

@John

I think you've missed the point. You would be hard pushed to find any of the IPCC models that were doing a good job on future climates - it's difficult, lots of uncertainty.

The past though, there's as much adjustment been applied to that as there is signal. As Sprangled pointed out - the past just keeps getting colder. MWP and LIA wax and wane.
;)

"John McLean excepted – whatever happened to that guy?"

Die Hard 5?

spangled drongo,

Paul, thanks for that but sea water isn’t like trachite lava. It finds equilibrium quickly.

I suspect not quite as quickly as you think, but it wouldn't be measured in decades certainly. As I said though, and as indicated by the long list of damming projects I linked, the phenomenon of terrestrial water impoundment has been an ongoing project over the past 50 years at least. While the ocean has been moving towards achieving a quasi-equilibrium condition over that time, the continuously reducing outflow will have maintained an impetus towards lowering local sea level.

I should note this isn't a formal attribution I'm trying to push. Terrestrial water impoundment via dams is just one possible cause of lowering relative sea level, but it fits with the massive-scale damming projects that have occurred in Queensland so I'm suggesting that may have been a major factor.

Other common causes of local relative sea level decrease can be climatic - e.g. the signal of an ENSO pattern, in this case La Nina, is very clear on the satellite altimeter trend map for the past 20 years. As such we can see that the coastlines on the East Pacific have seen static or falling sea levels over the past 20 years, whereas the West Pacific has seen mostly rapid sea level rise. This is one reason why a climatic cause doesn't obviously fit for Queensland - that area appears to go against the wider regional trend.

Another cause could be a change in the elevation of the land or sea bed. This is a major factor in some parts of the world but not Australia, so can be mostly discounted unless some seismic activity has pushed the land upwards in that area.

Actually there is a further reason why decreasing river outflow would reduce local sea level, aside from simple mass change. Rivers discharge freshwater into a saltwater ocean and freshwater is more dense than saltwater. Accordingly the continuing flow of freshwater can cause the sea local to the estuary to be less dense and therefore higher than the surrounding ocean, known as a "freshwater bulge". Therefore reduced outflow would increase local salinity and reduce the height of the bulge. Relative to its past height this would lower local sea level (downward trend) though may be still be "higher" in absolute terms than the surrounding ocean.

Show me your data, Paul.

The data are plotted at the top of this page: satellite altimetry with coverage over much of the global ocean for the past 20 years and global reconstructions from tide gauge records around the world. The links I gave to the Australian tide gauge records earlier were to PSMSL, who are record-keepers for all the world's tide gauge data: You can find the rest of the individual site data here: http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/

I think you’ve missed the point. You would be hard pushed to find any of the IPCC models that were doing a good job on future climates – it’s difficult, lots of uncertainty.

I think you missed the point that the man mocking climate models and predictions of future warming made the worst predictions of all (besides John "2011 will be the coldest year since 1956" McLean).

GSW, look at the graph I just gave you and tell me which models are closer, Hansen's or Lindzen's. And you explain to me why this still won't change your mind.

Spangled Drongo, can we see your estuary data? Pretty please?

So Lionel, you think that going to sea in a 45k ton aircraft carrier is “hands on”?

That’s not hands on as far as confronting the sea is concerned.

That’s bloody looxury! With all the artificial aids and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other “hands on” to keep you safe.

Oh! So you have experienced life on a carrier then.

Besides, where did I mention that was my only sea going experience?

Once again you are making stupid assumptions on little knowledge.

Are you another face of Jonas N? Similar modus etc.

@John

I haven't clicked the link but I think Lindzen's "model" was a comment that he didn't think temperatures would change much.
They went up for a few years and then not much afterwards. It's the future, there are uncertainties, but I think we can all agree they're not doing that much at the moment.

Thats why Philip Stott at the Met office and others are running around saying "something it wrong[Forecasts vs Real World]". I have a horrible feeling though he thinks the Real World is broken, unreliable and should be used for future Climate Science work, we shall see.

"Paul, thanks for that but sea water isn’t like trachite lava. It finds equilibrium quickly."

If that were true, we wouldn't get tides.

"John, deal with Rawls’ message "

He and we have.

It's a load of tripe, illegally obtained and incorrect.

@John,

Sorry john, the sarcastic comment should read "the Real World is broken, unreliable and should NOT be used for future Climate Science work"

freshwater is more dense than saltwater

Should be less dense

"Was Rawls the only author to mention GCRs?"

No.

"Do you deny their existence?"

No.

"What is the point of trying to eliminate scientific fact?"

That's what we'd like to ask Rawls. He's doing just that.

"If they really are responsible for a large part of that 0.7c warming why do you care?"

They aren't.

We care about people lying saying they are.

"I think it was thru 2007 the data actually showed ocean cooling"

Gee. Its strange then why so many marine species are being found establishing breeding populations well to the north of their known ranges. This includes both verts and inverts. I think they are better indicators of marine ocean temperatures than GSW and his denier chums.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

@Jeff

Sorry Jeff, as usual you missed the point as well. The discussion was about "adjustments" to data. Data's not your thing we know, involves sums. Still at least you're trying to think, who knows, one day you might even get there.
;)

You sound like a religious crank.

Ah! The inevitable retort of projection.

You are the one with a belief system, relying as you do on crank magnetism sites and such as Rawls for your information.

Was Rawls the only author to mention GCRs?

Of course you do realise that we have been around this stuff for more than a dog-watch and thus appreciate the reality of GCRs. What we question is their importance Vis-à-vis twentieth century to twenty first century warming, irrespective of Svenmark's failed attempts to make persuasive arguments.

Some of how Svensmark's arguments fail to answer all conditions is related in William James Burroughs' 'Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach' a reading of which will fill in many of the obvious gaps in your knowledge. You will discover there, and from the scientific literature, that Svensmark's hypothesis does not hold up well when higher latitude data are considered.

Note, that with all suggestions to read a book it is important to keep in mind that one should follow the notes to cited sources and the scientific literature where relevant. In books of quality these citations will be valid and worthwhile persuing, quite unlike the record of those from such as Lomborg, Plimer and Montford where you will find much obfuscation. It seems, from your arguments, that you have already been drawing from one or more of the poisoned wells.

Dumbo, have you got any idea how those real world obs of yours were generated?

Garbage in, Gospel out. Yeah!

Jeff Harvey,

Ocean temperature change is not homogeneous globally. In particular there is a clear difference between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. That you refer to Northward migrations indicates you are talking about populations in the NH. It may be the case that these populations are moving due to ocean warming in, say, the North Atlantic but that doesn't automatically mean the oceans are warming globally. For that the best estimates are probably from averaging of ARGO floats.

“Paul, thanks for that but sea water isn’t like trachite lava. It finds equilibrium quickly.”

If that were true, we wouldn’t get tides.

Neither would there be such a thing as a seiche.

Paul S

I quite agree with you point overall but,

Jeff probably had in mind the range movement of species (he even indicates this in his wording) rather than migration per se.

My interest in the fauna, and flora, around the coast of the UK certainly indicates that climate is pushing species further north. Unfortunately not all species react to the same environmental changes for daylight length can be be the trigger for some species which then become out of kilter with those moving in response to temperature change with a resultant mismatch of food sources or other services and disruption to the life cycle of both.

Here we go, the truth in a nutshell although a large one if you follow all references which is what you should do if a true sceptic and not a nasty little denier.

And be sure to watch this on Solar output and GCRs including how CLOUD research was distorted to obscure the truth and a take-down of the odious Durkin.

@Lionel

"the truth in a nutshell" from Joe Romm and greenman3610? you'll be posting Al Gore links next.
;)

"the truth in a nutshell” from Joe Romm and greenman3610? you’ll be posting Al Gore links next".

And you wouldn't be able to refute any of the three, Griselda.

... just as you failed with those two.

@chek

I was merely pointing out that ascribing the label "truth" to anything posted by Romm et al is a either a further sign that one is detached from reality or sarcasm. I assume this was a "funny" on Lionel's part, the other intrepretation doesn't bear thinking about.

Enjoy your dreams chek!
;)

When deniers have nothing, they say nothing but are incredible windbags about saying it. Especially you Griselda.

@chek

Fair enough chek, continue to worship at the feet of apostle Romm if you wish - your place in Climate Heaven will be assured.

Ahmen!
;)

So you're a religious nutter too Griselda? That explains a lot.

@chek

"That explains a lot"

Not to you chek. it's been tried. Failure to comprehend is one of your Climate Science virtues.
;)

Au contraire, Griselda.
The only remaining mystery about you is how even a desperate old crank like Jonarse tolerates your inanity.

Otherwise you're just another ten-a-penny denier flake like your new pal sparky dingbat. Ignorance truly is the great leveller and there you are, in at ground zero and flashing smilies on your first date.

@chek

Come on chek, no need to get all grumpy. We're only having a bit of fun with you. You're worth it here for entertainment value alone. What next, maybe you'll actually read some of the "primary literature", as jeff calls it, and report back ;) .

Your interpretation of the science, such as it is, will be compulsive viewing! (Try to stay away from the ones with sums, you'll confuse jeff)
;)

"We’re only having a bit of fun with you"

That multiple personality disorder is getting harder for you to control Griselda.

"What next, maybe you’ll actually read some of the “primary literature”, "

Still waiting for your answer to Stu's challenge to name even one of the several hundred post-2008 peer-reviewed papers that enabled your blithe, handwaving 'no new relevant science' comment.

Just kidding Griselda - I already know you've read nothing at all and just pretended to while trying to look good for your boyfriends.

@Joni

Anybody claiming a link with CAGW or is it just king tide + weather?

GSW - just making an observation on king tide floods... that's all.

@chek

I'll take that as a "No" chek, you're not going to read any of the primary literature. Shame, you're outlook on what constitutes "evidence" my be shaken somewhat, have to understand what it says of course, Ah, see where you're coming from now, best stay away from them if I were you. Luckily the rest of us are not so "challenged".

As for stu, his six years of physics couldn't assist him with F=ma, took 3 weeks to calm him down. I'll pass on pushing anything more complicated his way thanks. You may engage with him if you wish, a battle of minds worth tuning in for I would imagine.
;)

@joni

Not a problem. Had to look up what a "king tide" was- an Oz expression I think. Learned something new.
;)

@Joni

Sorry Joni "Learnt something new"
;)

Anybody claiming a link with CAGW or is it just king tide + weather?

Have you never heard this, 'Climate trains the boxer, weather throws the punches'?

Of course what the not well educated and cognitively challenged types like GSW don't get is that higher water levels at sea, from whatever cause, inhibit the outlet flow of waterways. The flooding of New Farm and Bowen Hills being about 5 miles inland could just be a function of that, although I don't have a handy contour, elevation, map to check elevation. I could fire up GeoMapApp to check further but it is a little slow.

What do you think "temperate maritime" means?

What do you think "cold" or "warm" or "wet" means when you talk about the weather?

When you claim "It's cold today", you're comparing the current weather against THE CLIMATE MEAN.

But you don't know squat about the weather, do you.

"I was merely pointing out that ascribing the label “truth” to anything posted by Romm et al "

Do you have any proof of your belief here, or is it pure ad hominem?

I haven’t clicked the link but I think Lindzen’s “model” was a comment that he didn’t think temperatures would change much.
They went up for a few years and then not much afterwards.

What a ludicrous interpretation. Models may not get every short term forcing, but long term they have proven to be remarkably robust, which is more than I can say for anything Lindzen has said over the past twenty years.

Drongo drops, clearly not understanding which one is the scientist drops this little gem:

Prof Steven Sherwood is a fine one to lecture on correct proceedure to Alex Rawls.

Back in 2008 he did a paper on locating the missing hot spot and in a colour graph he put zero warming in RED so that it looked like warming even when there was none:,

So using a colour that indicates 'hot' on plumbing is illegal for use in a diagram. Well, well. But I will check this one out for you may be confused anyway.

Drongo drops then links to another non-scientist:

http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/sherwood-2008-where-you-can-find-a-hot…

Sheesh! I guess your short term memory has lost that list of mine that went like this:

But of course to consider this one has to be aware of the bigger picture which is something that the faux-science sites [1] steer their readerships away from.

[1]
We Use Wishful Thinking,
Cardinal Puff,
CO2 nonsense
JunketScience
Jo Novalue
Climate tawdry
ClimateDespot

"What a ludicrous interpretation"

But John, being a dernier entails a whole lifetime of ludicrous interpretations. 'Ludicrous' is what makes the whole philosophy hang together, as in when the most ludicrous of looney-toon cranks claim the rights to "the scientific method" (cf Delingpole, Rawls, Nova, Watts, McIntyre, Jonarse, Professor Tom Cobley et al).

Now that you Doltoids have been off-thread-and-shot-all-the-messengers, have you managed to come up with any data that refutes my Moreton Bay obs [as supported by east coast tide gauges] that there is no accelerating SLR?

And I don't mean the non-data of wishful assumptions as applied to remote sensors.

You know, the ones they have to keep adjusting as they progressively discover how wrong they are.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

Rawls is to dumb to understand

amplifying a negative number just gives you a bigger negative number, In other words, Rawls is arguing for a bigger solar cooling effect since 1980 but is to stupid to realise it .

By john byatt (not verified) on 17 Dec 2012 #permalink

spangled drongo (a few comments upthread):

In fact the PSMSL data for Moreton Bay data that you offered shows clear evidence of acceleration - the trend over the latter part of the record is higher than the trend over the earlier part (sounds like acceleration to me)! Having said that, the length of records like this is far too short to show acceleration anyway - especially given the amount of noise in the system. The same goes for silly attempts to fit quadratics and look for break points in 20-year records as Tim Lambert quite rightly points out at the start of the thread.

If you want to talk about acceleration in GMSL it's best to look at the paleo data - e.g. salt marsh data from the last few centuries. This all shows a clear increase in the rate of sea level rise in the late 19th and/or the early 20th Century (consistent with the graph right at the top).

The paleo data agrees pretty well with the long tide gauge records where they are reasonably close together. If you want to actually learn something about this I suggest that you look up papers by Kemp et al (PNAS, 2011), and various papers by Gehrels, Donnelly and others over recent years.

Neil White

PS the early part of that Brisbane record is almost certainly wrong - it looks like there is some datum issue between the different sections of the record.

PPS Somehow the rate of GMSL rise has gone from near zero over recent millenia to 2 then 3+ mm/year in recent decades.

By Neil White (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Drongo, I want to see your ~70 years of Moreton Bay data. Where is it?

David, not quite.

If this were true, you'd not get floods (the water running over the land is not in equilibrium!).

For such bulges/dips as the reduction in MSL off Aus because of the heavy rains, this is because the water has to take time to travel the hundreds of miles necessary over the ocean to fill this dip, and the water runoff from land takes even longer to get back to the sea (and will therefore take longer to reach equilibrium with the rest of the ocean since there will be more water off the coast than there "ought").

Meanwhile, another event is making water move off somewhere else quicker than nonturbulent flow. Getting equilibrium requires the state stays static long enough to attain it, remember.

If water flowed very easily back to its equilibrium point then the tides would be a few cm, the gravipotential isometer for the sun-earth-moon system.

Neil, increase in salt marsh area can be due to SL fall just as reduction can be due to erosion or mangrove incursion.

Experts agree that it is very difficult to identify the links between salt marsh change and SL change but to claim that this dubious paleo evidence is better than visual evidence is not living in the real world.

John, if you'd bothered to read my earlier comments you would have found it.

But essentially it is about witnessing king tides during the 1940s annually flooding the lawn and having to put a levy bank around the well which was our only water supply by mid summer. These same tides [last Friday and Sat] and in recent decades are 20 to 30 cms lower.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Dumbo:

And I don’t mean the non-data of wishful assumptions as applied to remote sensors.

Did it ever occur to you to check other tide gauge data from places around the world to confirm satellite data before dismissing it "wishful assumptions"?

Didn't think so.

Spanky Dildo, aren't you leaving out the crucial information that the inland river system you're taking your curiously non-specific observations from was re-engineered over those 70 years and therefore you're not comparing like with like? Or has that location changed since your last Novacall here?

Chek, pay attention. If you want to debate something at least read what I said. This is at Cleveland Point in Moreton Bay.

You need to go back and read my comments too.

Skeptic, can you reconcile world tide gauges with satellites?

Didn't think so.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry Spanky, it's easy to lose track of just what version of what story you are telling sometimes.

Wow & Lionel A — Water behaves according to the Euler equations...

Of course, I'll not argue with that having delved into oceanography.

For Drongo's information oceanography is one vast subject the study of which could be of value to you. Then you would not drop so many drongo clangers such as this prime example:

<blockquoteAnd I don’t mean the non-data of wishful assumptions as applied to remote sensors.

So you don't know how global sea levels are measured and recorded. The focus on one area is the type of thing we see with Anthony Watts' UHI frothings, as if the continental USA is representative of the whole globe, including that large portion that is water.

And it is into the oceanic water that much of the positive heat energy systemic imbalance increase has gone thus the thermal expansion that is one portion of overall sea level rise.

Something else to consider is that the much maligned and 'alarmist' labelled IPCC 'almost certainly underestimates future sea level rise' go here for full explanation..

Note this is based upon the work of researchers and scientists in the field, many of whom brave discomfort and hazards to collect raw data. This in contrast to those bloggers who sit in comfort churning out faux-science on blogs the intellectual equivalents of The Daily Sport.

can you reconcile world tide gauges with satellites?

Yes. Prandi 2009 is a good reference for this question. Figure 1 shows a map overlaying dispersed tide gauge trends on top of a global field of satellite trends. The match is remarkably good.

Figure 2 plots the global average from the satellite data with the coastal average from their tide gauge ensemble over a 15-year period and find very similar trends in both. It also plots a coastal altimetry time series (from satellites) and shows that the temporal variability is a very good qualitative, though not perfect quantitative, match with the averaged tide gauge series.

"Neil, increase in salt marsh area can be due to SL fall"

How?

OR is this just proclamation?

Paul S, what they do say is that coastal SLs do rise at the same rate as global SLs [who'd a thought] which is apoint I have been trying to make.

This study is only over a very short period. '93-'07. And only 91 "carefully selected" tide gauges

Also it does not support SLR acceleration.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

SD's reference point is Cleveland Point in Moreton Bay. If you want to see how vacuous SD's argument is then take a look at the location on Google Earth - it is at lat: -27.511 long: 153.290. You will see that Cleveland Point is in a very complex coastal setting, with a partially enclosed water body with active barrier islands offshore. The coastline of the bay has been heavily developed. Cleveland Point itself appears to be a spit that has been developed; there is a huge, comparatively modern housing / marine development just on the margin of it.

Anyone who has even the most vague notion of coastal processes will know that such a dynamic and changing environment will show continual changes of marine processes. It is also highly sensitive the effects of wind - so for example a strong wind from the northeast would hugely amplify the high tide in a location such as this. Thus, SD's claim that his observations that King Tides are not as big as they used to be might or might not be correct, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with sea level rise.

It is possible to come up with a location that would be less suitable for analysing sea level rise (and other Denialists have tried here before), but only just.

To be clear, SD's observations are completely irrelevant to any discussion about global sea level rise. It does look like a nice place to live though!

By GWB's Nemesis (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

But local SLR is not global SLR which is a point you've assiduously avoided.

Wow, you're observant Wow.

Have you ever noticed that when the tide goes out you have a much bigger salt marsh than when it comes in.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Have you noticed you only get salt marshes where it is below the high tide minima? Therefore if the sea level rises, you get more salt marshes.

And no, you don't get more salt marshes when the tide goes out. You have more dry land when the tide goes out. It was salt marsh when inundated and it was salt marsh when abandoned by the sea.

You really are a seriously fuckwitted idiot, aren'y you, glittery dumbass?

So drongo's vaunted 70 years of data amount to vague approximations in his memory. Excuse me if I don't reel back in shock at this game changing blow.Meanwhile real equipment is doing real real measuring, but wait! Drongo has his memories!

Are your memories peer-reviewed perchance?

Paul S, what they do say is that coastal SLs do rise at the same rate as global SLs [who'd a thought] which is apoint I have been trying to make.

Your question was: 'can you reconcile world tide gauges with satellites?'

Are you now satisfied the answer is 'Yes'. If not, give specific reasons.

GWB,coastal developments do not reduce SLs you twerp otherwise we could solve SLR problems simply by more development.

And the coast is exposed to wind! Surely not.

Yet still the sea doesn't rise.

Cleveland Point has much the same development as it has had for the last century. It is a low lying, flat point that sticks out into the bay. The coastline is rock and coral. The grass levels and landscaping are the same as they were in the '40s when our family lived there. You are looking at the Raby Bay development to the west which is new development. It has no influence on CP tides.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

"GWB,coastal developments do not reduce SLs"

But river development does.

Duh.

Wow doesn't even know what a salt marsh is or looks like.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

John, if you can't understand that experiencing a high tide that covers your lawn and runs into your well makes a lasting impression on you that you don't forget easily then I am wasting my time talking to you.

The fact is it happened then and it doesn't happen now.

If you bother to check with other people who have lived in similar places, and there are many, you will get similar stories but who knows? you may get someone to support your story.

Do you have anything to support your story or are you just full of bluster like most of the Doltoids here?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Wow doesn’t even know what a salt marsh is or looks like."

Another lie from you.

I am not surprised. Truth is hardly your friend.

Paul S, there are thousands of PSMSL tide gauges and 91 "carefully selected" over a short 15 years no doubt can be reconciled.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

glittery dipshit, if you don't understand that your recollection means FUCK ALL globally or on a trend, then there is nothing at all to your posturings. You are inherently incompetent to make claims of global values or trends.

"there are thousands of PSMSL tide gauges"

So go look at the data. Stop pretending all those thousand exist in your back garden.

SD - your ignorance is remarkable. In a partially enclosed body of water, changes to the coastline, barriers, water depth, etc make a huge difference to the response to tides. Google Earth has two images less than a decade apart, and even on that timescale big differences are evident. Even Wikipedia says "The Middle Banks area close to Moreton Island has been used in the past as a source of sand for large projects such as the nearby Brisbane Airport and port facilities. Past dredging has removed 18 Mn3 and the removal of another 40 Mn3 is planned.[26] Future sand extraction is expected to aid a major shipping channel straightening project." These activities, and others, will have changed the tidal response of the area, rendering your observations redundant in terms of wider processes. It is a bit sad you don't see this.

And yes, coasts are exposed to the wind, and that changes the dynamics of the tide big time. This is accentuated when the gauge is located in a narrowing body of water, as your location is. If the wind is from the north a very large body of water will be driven into the funnel, which will greatly increase the tide.

So, to understand your "observations" you need to understand the dynamics of the coastal system, changes to river inflows, the effects of urbanisation, dredging, etc , etc, and the dynamics of the wind. This is all very interesting, but it means that you cannot use your observations in any way to extrapolate what is happening with sea level.

By GWB's Nemesis (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

"So, to understand your “observations” "

However, understanding his observations would be devastating to his case!

Paul S, there are thousands of PSMSL tide gauges and 91 “carefully selected” over a short 15 years no doubt can be reconciled.

The paper describes the selection process - they start with a database from well-monitored tide gauge stations (GLOSS), then remove records without near-complete (<80%) temporal coverage over the 15 year period when satellite data was available. That removed about half the database. They then used an independent check of record quality to remove a few dozen records which may have been corrupted by seismic events, subsidence or other such influences. The 'careful' selection is therefore independent of any subsequent match to satellite data. More information is available on this page. The resulting set shouldn't automatically be taken as a perfect global sampling (though the paper describes tests which indicate it is reasonably representative), but that's why the spatial test is compelling evidence. The chances that this reasonably large and spatially-diverse set of tide gauges would randomly agree with satellite data on regional sea level trends to such a high degree are vanishingly small.

Actually, shorter periods represent a much harder test of regional trend agreement, as you might appreciate if you studied the trend map. Regional 15-year trends can vary from about 10mm/yr to -10mm//yr just by travelling a couple of thousand kilometres.

Glittery bollocks would appear to be one of those deniers who proclaimed that AGW was a scam because the UHI hadn't been corrected for by removing this "bad" data, then asserted that AGW was a scam because they threw out data from, for example, badly sited stations.

Spangled Drongo

"Neil, increase in salt marsh area can be due to SL fall just as reduction can be due to erosion or mangrove incursion."

You have absolutely no idea of what I was talking about, do you? Perhaps (just once) you could try to inform yourself before shooting your mouth off. I even directed you to some references.

By Neil White (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Well, well Lionel, here's your big challenge to open your own mind instead of genuflecting to Grant's.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/17/sea-level-rise-data-bas…

You see, I am only trying to tell you Doltards the good news that you are actually only waving, not drowning.

But you don't wish to know that.

How does your serenety prayer go again:

God grant me the BIAS to ignore the facts I hate, the BLINDNESS to embrace the ones I love and the BAD MANNERS to abuse those who wish to show me the difference.

Merry Christmas

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

How do you know grant is correct?

Are you taking his statements on faith? Blind faith?

And tell us how 150 tons of people in Atlantic City can cause a depression in the ocean levels in Galvaston?

Indeed, if 150 tons of people could manage to depress the entire continent of the USA, how much bigger would the passage of one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II

Through a quiet village in France have wrecked the seashore of the entire eurasian continent!!!

(grand isn't correct...)

"Willie Soon is an independent scientist. Nils-Axel Morner is a sea level expert at Stockholm University".

Well that's two lies right there. Morner retired from Stockholm seven years ago and has pursued a career as a batshit crank since, and Willie Soon is as independent as fossil fuel fronts the American Petroleum Institute and anti-science crank-tanks the George C Marshall Institute allow him to be. Which is not at all.

Ha ha,
you people are so funny.
Most of the time you appear to be furiously agreeing with each other.
The point of disagreement has sweet FA to do with 'science'.
Everyone agrees that SL is in constant flux, in fact the only constant re SL is that it changes.
Throughout millenium it has gone up and down.
The 'causes' are what you're really disagreeing about.
Trying to pretend that the IPCC got it right either predictive or postdictive is looking sillier year by year.
Modelling is a very useful tool but it is not a political crystal ball.
It is becoming increasingly evident that 'real time' data does not support the hypothesis that ACO2 is a powerful agent in climate change and/or SL variation.
The 'real environment' is not particularly interested in conforming to the models.
There are obviously 'other' variables in the mix that are swamping out the hypothesised 'human signal'.
We could all do more harm than good if we attempt to interfere in something we DO NOT properly understand.
By all means keep updating the data, but please stop screeching unsupported alarmism.
The latest evidence is NOT alarming, in fact it appears that the hypothesised SLR trend was way too overstated.
That may/may not change. Who knows?

By chameleon (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Everyone agrees that SL is in constant flux, in fact the only constant re SL is that it changes."

A completely empty statement with nothing, especially nothing of science, in it.

You see, physics and science would posit that if something changes, SOMETHING MADE IT CHANGE.

A scientist would investigate what made it change and how it changes.

A denier or other form of brainless moron would merely discard it all, throw their metaphorical hands in the air and go back to shooting empty beer cans.

It is ironic that your claim "The point of disagreement has sweet FA to do with ‘science’." was followed by something that had Fuck All to do with science.

But maybe you don't mean science when you put scare quotes around it.

Maybe 'science' is that retard version that deniers, YECs and other woomancer nutcases use.

In which case, having nothing to do with 'science' is a good thing.

"Modelling is a very useful tool but it is not a political crystal ball."

Good job the models used aren't being designed to be a political crystal ball, then, isn't it?

"It is becoming increasingly evident that ‘real time’ data does not support the hypothesis that ACO2 is a powerful agent in climate change"

It is becoming increasingly evident that you have no clue what the science is. The data is precluding the lower bound of CO2 sensitivity more and more each day.

" and/or SL variation"

Who cares about its variation, we're looking at the TREND.

And though you're right, the models have been wrong, they've been

a) better than the denialist "models"
b) been UNDERESTIMATING the danger.

The absolute opposite of your claim.

"There are obviously ‘other’ variables in the mix that are swamping out the hypothesised ‘human signal’."

So you'll be able to point out the "obvious" evidence for this, right?

It had better not be the "No statistical increase in 16 years" because that is already included in the models used in the UKMO for example.

"The latest evidence is NOT alarming, in fact it appears that the hypothesised SLR trend was way too overstated."

What is alarming is that someone as ignorant as you can come out and claim this.

Mercury in the water? Fracking fluid?

Good job of missing the point Wow.
It is the actual causes, or in your words, what made it change, that is the point of debate.
The ACO2 signal Wow, the ACO2 signal, the ACO2 signal Wow.
Do you understand?
NOBODY BUT NOBODY is claiming that it doesn't change.
Those IPCC models APPEAR to have grossly overstated the case for ACO2.
BUT Wow, unlike you, I don't need to cast aspersions on your character to make my point.
Your attempt to shoot the messenger says more about you than me.
You MAY yet prove to be correct.
At the moment the passage of time and real time data is not supporting you.
I don't think you or anyone else can claim anything about SL and/or the climate/weather in relation to ACO2 with sufficient certainty.

By chameleon (not verified) on 18 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wow --- I stated in local equilibrium with the forces and according to the Euler equations. That does not mean 'at rest'.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon --- The overwhelming preponderance of the evidence is that, indeed, anthropogenic CO2 is the major causative factor in the global temperature since before 1880 CE. Of course, when it warms icy places above freezing the ice melts helping to raise sea levels.

But also all the groundwater pumping helps as well, debited by the artificial lakes behind anthropogenic dams.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

Nice one, chameleon,
"Your attempt to shoot the messenger says more about you than me."

What is it with denialists and projection?

Clustering, I guess. Mental health professionals know all about it.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

I haven't seen that evidence David,
I have only seen rapidly failing computer generated predictive models.
I am not claiming you are wrong.
I have not seen real time data that proves the IPCC models and furthed modelling that uses the IPCC data are correct.
The emergjng evidence is falling below the predicted ranges.
If there is a correlation with ACO2 it does not appear to be as alarming or as powerful as originally hypothesised.
But, hey, if you have evidence that proves those models are sound and worthwhile as predictive tools, I am open to the possibility.

By chameleon (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

What's an "IPCC model", BTW?

Are you under the misapprehension that the IPCC is a research organisation or something?

What happened to all the denialist models that predicted 2012 would be the coldest year since 1951?
Those models were completely, utterly, and hopelessly wrong.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

Nice shot VW.
Reminds me of something to do with pots and kettles.
Who said I was a 'denialist'?
What are you claiming I have clustered or projected in particular?
Indeed, what are you claiming that I have denied?
You seem to be raising an argument with yourself?
I merely questioned the veracity of the modelling.
I wasn't attempting to claim that ANYBODY was deficient in mental capacity or anything personal.
Why do you think it's necessary to do so?

By chameleon (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon:

Who said I was a ‘denialist’?

Are you denying there has been warming in the last 16 years or not?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Who said I was a ‘denialist’?"

Me.

Are you from the same "school" as Joan? Are you ACTUALLY Joan?

"What are you claiming I have clustered or projected in particular?"

You have projected YOUR misunderstanding of both the data and the models onto reality where it doesn't objectively fit.

"Indeed, what are you claiming that I have denied?"

All the data.

"You seem to be raising an argument with yourself?"

This is not a question?

"I merely questioned the veracity of the modelling."

And you were merely making shit up.

"I wasn’t attempting to claim that ANYBODY was deficient in mental capacity or anything personal."

Except all the scientists of the world apart from (possibly) a few small percent.

"Why do you think it’s necessary to do so?"

It isn't. We are pointing out you are doing so.

"Wow — I stated in local equilibrium with the forces and according to the Euler equations. That does not mean ‘at rest’."

Fair enough, I didn't realise you were an idiotic moron.

Feel free to post more bollocks if you wish.

"It is the actual causes, or in your words, what made it change, that is the point of debate."

Then you have to SAY what it is making it change.

You didn't.

Well done for missing the point whilst complaining about it being missed.

"The ACO2 signal Wow, the ACO2 signal, the ACO2 signal Wow.
Do you understand?"

I understand the CO2 signal. I assume A you're adding to be "Anthropogenically sourced. But what that sentence there means is anybody's guess: it contains no actual information as a sentence.

"NOBODY BUT NOBODY is claiming that it doesn’t change."

So why are you bringing up nobody claiming it? If nobody is claiming that, nobody is claiming the Great Green Arkleseizure is making it wobble like lime jelly.

"Those IPCC models APPEAR to have grossly overstated the case for ACO2."

Only if you're a moron who hasn't looke at either the data or the model results.

To anyone who has, the climate models (the IPCC doesn't have any models, they collate and analyse the models of others) have UNDERESTIMATED the effects of CO2.

"BUT Wow, unlike you, I don’t need to cast aspersions on your character to make my point."

Actually, you do. You claim all the IPCC authors are idiots and/or liars.

And since your point is, in base fact, wrong, what the hell does not assasinating character have to do with making it true???

For someone who whines and whinges about making up points nobody said, you certainly love the irrelevant tangent!

"Your attempt to shoot the messenger says more about you than me."

No, if I were to shoot you, you'd notice.

However, since the messenger is full of crap, apparently you think that pointing this out is somehow proof that it isn't crap.

How does that work exactly?

"You MAY yet prove to be correct."

No, it's currently proving me correct. Funny thing, reality.

"At the moment the passage of time and real time data is not supporting you."

No, the passage of time and real data is supporting me.

"I don’t think you or anyone else can claim anything about SL and/or the climate/weather in relation to ACO2 with sufficient certainty."

No, we can claim with nearly 100% certainty that we're looking at 3.2C per doubling of CO2 and our production of CO2 will lead us to 2C of warming well before 2100.

"I haven’t seen that evidence David,"

As Nelson said: I see no ships!

"I have only seen rapidly failing computer generated predictive models."

Yah, the deniers models and predictions have been bollocks. You've not looked at the actual research.

"I am not claiming you are wrong."

Yes you are.

"I have not seen real time data that proves the IPCC models and furthed modelling that uses the IPCC data are correct."

You have not looked.

Google GISS global temperature.

"The emergjng evidence is falling below the predicted ranges."

No, we have a quiet period of the sun (which would indicate a cooling of 0.2C approximately, but still the trend is warming because CO2 is increasing).

You DO know that the climate is changed by more than just CO2 and that, unlike denier misrepresentations, the climate models include these, right?

For someone who claimed "The climate obviously depends on other things" you don't seem to know that the models include other things.

"If there is a correlation with ACO2 it does not appear to be as alarming or as powerful as originally hypothesised."

No, it's solidly within the IPCC range 2-4.5C per doubling with a mean of 3C per doubling. Indeed it is looking like 3.2C per doubling.

"But, hey, if you have evidence that proves those models are sound and worthwhile as predictive tools, I am open to the possibility."

Yeah, I doubt it.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-m…

chameleon:

It is becoming increasingly evident that ‘real time’ data does not support the hypothesis that ACO2 is a powerful agent in climate change

So you are in denial of the data shown in this graph.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

If spangled dumbo believes Nils-Axel "tilt-the-graph" Morner, he'll believe anything.

I don't think he's actually believed. He's just repeated.

The beauty of being a skeptic is that you can believe many mutually contradictory lines of evidence that other people say. The beauty of being Andrew Bolt is that you can tell them to everyone else.

If spangled dumbo believes Nils-Axel “tilt-the-graph” Morner

I guess this is to be expected since dumbo models himself on Morner:

In other words, he claims that _all_ of the known data is incorrect, that his tiny subset of uncorrected data is in fact the best measure.

The similarity is uncanny.

Meanwhile across the Pacific, around cape Horn and up a bit there are people wishing they could have the experience mythologised by drongo drops for Northeastern U.S. Coast Is 'Hotspot' for Sea-Level Rise.

Of course if drongo drops doesn't like this coming from a 'popular' science site (which would be ironic considering his offerings) then he can always listen to the horse's mouth Sea Level Rise Accelerating in U.S. Atlantic Coast.

Now this one, going in circles as it were, was almost too silly to be worth a reply:

Well, well Lionel, here’s your big challenge to open your own mind instead of genuflecting to Grant’s.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/17/sea-level-rise-data-bas…

,

but what the heck.

Don't you think that readers of Tamino's post would have quickly become aware of the WashTimes Soon-Morner Magic Roundabout so why the need to link to it? It is way past your bed time Zebedee .

And, drongo drops, if you have not by now appreciated the true value of Morner's work then revisit Horseshit Power and scroll down to the post by Bill Ruddiman, read and learn and also check out Ruddiman's publishing record with some fine mainstream books too which even you could track down and read.

Follow your eyes down to the next post by John Mashey, and this is one for the whole 'Troll Collective' (or 'Wendy Club') and note the links to fossil fuel funded think tanks.

Fossil fuel companies (coal, oil, gas) should be fined for aiding and abetting faux-science and not allowed tax payer funded tax breaks or subsidies. How can that be a level playing field viz a viz alternative energy sources?

Whoa, there are still people stupid enough to deny AGW?

Hmmm,
So it's all about screeching and name calling here?
Not interested in talking about reality and what we could or should do to protect coastal infrastructure?
I visited this site on a recommendation and I am stunned at the outright beligerence.
Most of you are just interested in arguing, most of the time with yourselves.
I have not denied anything, I have merely questioned the veracity of the modelling that uses ACO2 as a powerful driver of climate.
At present, it APPEARS that something else is driving change and that ACO2 is sitting way down the back of the bus.
Anyway, unless recommended to do so, I won't be visiting again as I find the supercilious attitude here rather distasteful.
It is no surprise that this site cannot foster a robust discussion when the majority of commenters here are only interested in being rude to anyone who questions the political 'alarmism'.
'Shooting the messenger' is an age old and very boring political technique.
Enjoy the shooting folks.
It is not achieving anything worthwhile.

By chameleon (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

You should be made aware that 'screeching' is a sound heard within the head, and text doesn't do that.

You therefore might like to consider:
a) urgently having a psych evauation for the sake of your mental health
or
b) fucking off with your kindergarten-level psy-ops.

"So it’s all about screeching and name calling here?"

Uh, yeah, you keep on imagining what you think ought to happen.

We'll keep in reality.

It's not as pleasant but it's a whole lot more reliable.

"Not interested in talking about reality and what we could or should do to protect coastal infrastructure?"

According to you, there's nothing to worry about!

And when did YOU start talking about reality? Or protecting coastal infrastructure? Are you being ALARMIST?!?!?!

"I have not denied anything"

Yes you did, you denied the evidence.

"I have merely questioned the veracity of the modelling..."

Did you actually think to check what the models were first?

Or how well they stood up?

No.

You came over here to screech and complain about how it's all a scam.

And now you've had reality shoved up your jacksie, you're whining about that.

Diddums.

"At present, it APPEARS that something else is driving change and that ACO2 is sitting way down the back of the bus."

Denying the evidence again.

No, we've currently put enough in to make the temperatures about .6C warmer when it all settles down. And we're putting more in while you deny the evidence (then whine about how you deny nothing: except all the stuff you deny is real).

"Anyway, unless recommended to do so, I won’t be visiting again"

You mean unless you're told by someone to spout more gibberish here, you'll fuck off? Excellent.

Bye.

Well, wasn't he weird.

And it looks like he wasn't all that open to being shown evidence he was wrong.

Got all bent out of shape about it, rather.

Hmmm?
I rest my case Wow & Chek.
Is it necessary to be so rude to a new commenter?
What are you hoping to achieve?
You truly are very amusing and as a little bit of parting advice, your behaviour has done nothing to endear a 'fence sitter' like me to your case.
I find your behaviour just as distasteful as those 'deniers' you keep managing to refer to in every single post.
You truly are as bad as each other.
For you, like them, it APPEARS to me that it simply about arguing semantics and
arguing politics. Nothing more.
It has been an enlightening 24 hours.
Enjoy.

By chameleon (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Is it necessary to be so rude to a new commenter?"

No, but is it necessary to be rude as a new commenter?

And is it unnecessary to be rude to one? Where did you gain a right not to be ridiculed for being ridiculous?

"You truly are as bad as each other."

Excellent, FALSE EQUIVALENCE. See:

http://xkcd.com/774/

But you're actually "one of them". You aren't a fence sitter. You VERY CLEARLY claimed ABSOLUTELY that the evidence showed AGW was false.

That isn't a fence in the middle.

Why, though did you try to pretend it was?

It didn't take him long to be told to come back, did it?

"Those IPCC models APPEAR to have grossly overstated the case for ACO2. At the moment the passage of time and real time data is not supporting you.
I don’t think you or anyone else can claim anything about SL and/or the climate/weather in relation to ACO2 with sufficient certainty".

Strangely, in the real world the IPCC is considered way too conservative in its projections, so which models (the IPCC has none - that's not what they do) - exactly - are you accusing of overstating the case?

Which data are not supporting 'us' over 'the passage of time'?

How do you calculate certainty, in order to dismiss it within a sentence?

Do sock-puppets change colour and names as easily and often as a chameleon?

“Is it necessary to be so rude to a new commenter?”

I doubt very much that you are a "new commenter". What other names have you been using? No wonder you got the treatment that you deserved.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 19 Dec 2012 #permalink

Vince.
21stcenturysciencetech is the web site of the LaRouchies. Anything published there is going to batshit crazy.

I'm impressed Morner stopped dowsing long enough to write that article.

So Karen, how were previous global human civilisations affected during those previous interglacials?

** crickets **

Hey Tim

How's the job hunt going

By Whacked out (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Warmer climates mean that sea levels rise shocker from Karen...

Is it necessary to be so rude to a new commenter?

Tone troll. Boring.

Karen

Fisrtly, this is not news - there have been papers about this before. Sea level was metres higher during the last interglacial than they are now. The temperature then was what we are heading towards now.

It's a worry, isn't it!

But perhaps that was the point you were making?

By Neil White (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Neil,

I don't suppose you'd be able to provide a copy of the new Gregory et al. paper you co-authored? Is it embargoed at the moment?

SLR is accelerating? OK. Just to clarify though, what real world effects have we seen worldwide in say the past 80 years?

After all, it is real world effects that matter, not statistical representations. Spangled's observations are fair enough because regardless of the numbers, it is what happens on the ground that you are all concerned about isn't it?

From the graphs above, we see about 18 cm of rise since 1930, 80 years ago. An average person's lifetime. What would the average person have seen along Australia's east coast? How about south coast?

This is a serious question. I haven't noticed anything beyond the normal effects of erosion at say Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland beaches etc. My personal obs over 50 years are that Spangled is right.

So somewhere in the world we must be seeing the effects of sea level rise. Note: Sea Level Rise. Not land subsidence. Does anyone have some direct experience? I don't mean some report or some paper or whatever. I mean real, on the ground experience. Because it is real on the ground experience that will be the problem, not the lines on a graph.

Spangled is the only person here willing to offer some real life observation, and you are all over him for it. OK. But where's *your* real world obs to offer into the discussion?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Just for fun:

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new study by a University of Florida researcher finds that sea level peaked between 18 and 30 feet above current sea level during the last interglacial period approximately 125,000 years ago.

30 feet? No problem, right?

Paul S

This paper has now been accepted and is available from the early access part of the Journal of Climate web site (in www.ametsoc.org). This is the 'uncorrected proof' version. We haven't had the proofs yet.

If that doesn't do you any good, email me directly and I will send it to you. I think you know where to find my email address. Be warned that I'm on leave at the moment and response could be slow.

By Neil White (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Is it necessary to be so rude to a new commenter?

Here is your first sentence:

"Ha ha,
you people are so funny."

It's not necessary to be rude to assholes like you, but it's hardly unexpected.

a ‘fence sitter’ like me

You aren't a fence sitter (which itself is an unsupportable position), you're a lying sack of denialist crap. "fence sitters" do not make positive but utterly false claims like

It is becoming increasingly evident that ‘real time’ data does not support the hypothesis that ACO2 is a powerful agent in climate change and/or SL variation.

and


There are obviously ‘other’ variables in the mix that are swamping out the hypothesised ‘human signal’.

That's full-bore denialism. You came here with your mind already made up, to ridicule people here. You're an arrogant, stupid putz who lacks the most basic equipment for intellectual understanding of science.

your behaviour has done nothing to endear a ‘fence sitter’ like me to your case.

So the likelihood that AGW is valid, or your willingness to accept that, hinges on whether some of the people who accept it were rude to you? Do you realize how incredibly stupid and intellectually immature that makes you look?

For you, like them, it APPEARS to me that it simply about arguing semantics and
arguing politics.

So what? You are an ignorant imbecile and how things appear to you is irrelevant.

Am sitting killing time at the hairdressers as I am actually a 'she' not a 'he' and decided to revisit (probably against my better judgement).
The bad guess about gender was not the only one folks.
I am splitting my sides laughing.
I was seriously a first time visitor here and not a regular
anyone anywhere on blogs.
I cannot believe how quick you have been to draw negative conclusions and make 'assumptions'.
Seriously you have done nothing to endear me to your case.
I commented that I thought your behaviour was amusing because at the time (to a newcomer) you looked to be 'furiously agreeing' with each other. The comments were also mostly personal with sweet FA to do with science.
You had the opportunity to change that first impression.
I was told this was a good site to visit.

By chameleon (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon is weeping crocodile tears:

I was told this was a good site to visit.

It is a good place to visit if you are honest, intelligent sand have a basic understanding of science and how it works. it is not a nice place for dishonest AGW deniers who spew their lies, deceit, misinterpretations and obfuscation. It is very doubtful that you are a first time visitor. I do not believe a word you say about yourself.

falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Now my hairdresser is laughing after the initial shock at the rude behaviour.
Mr Forrester, I was interested in looking at evidence, not your ability to believe a or disbelieve.
You are free to believe anything you want.
I have now discovered that this site was recommended to me as a place to view poor behaviour.
I had to check as I thought the person who recommended I visited this site was 'having a lend'.

By chameleon (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

Ah, yes, the classic "citing my hairdresser" gambit.

Has it ever garnered any credibility in a discussion about science, or is it merely employed in an attempt to distract readers from the incorrectness and uninformedness - never mind the unsupportedness - of your claims about climate science?

Speaking of which, how about you attempt to support those claims? Your initial foray here provides no actual sign of your claim to be "interested in looking at evidence" - just the opposite, in fact - and your subsequent efforts don't do much for your claim either.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Dec 2012 #permalink

probably against my better judgement

You have no "better" judgment. Your latter comments are even more stupid than your comments about AGW. Your claims about this site being "recommended" to you are incoherent, but even the most charitable interpretation makes you out to be an imbecile.

And no one "guessed" your gender, and a presumption by one or two people that you're a "he" is not a "bad guess" -- you're too stupid to understand even that concept.

How many people discuss climate science with their hairdresser? Self-feeding trolls do, apparently.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 21 Dec 2012 #permalink

Thanks Neil, email posted.

chameleon --- The evidence was already so conclusive by 1979 that the Charney committee could write a book length report about it.

Charney et al. 1979 NRC/NAS report:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12181&page=R1

The route to that report (and much else besides) is in the (constantly updated) book by 'historian of science', physicist Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

I started with W.F. (Bill) Ruddiman's "Earth's Climate: Past and Future" which I recommend as an excellent starter into actual climatology.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 21 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wow --- What I posted is actually the way Euler thought about fluid dynamics. I suggest you try to emulate it rather than just tossing around cheap insults (which were not even creatively done).

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 21 Dec 2012 #permalink

Relative newcomers to Deltoid may not be aware that Spangled Drongo has a long history of blowing this particular bugle (-> bungle), which is why I invoked his name on this thread back on 13 December. I've been largely away from the keyboard since, and I haven't caught up with this thread 'til now...

For those interested in reading the long and sound thrashing that was delivered to Drongo previously, these two threads are a good start:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/19/the-australians-war-on-scien…

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/06/andrew-bolt-in-one-graph/

It's worth reading the back story just for the context and the astonishing idiocy that some folk demonstrate (not Bernard to be sure, to paraphrase Eli...).

There is at least one other thread somewhere* on Deltoid where Drongo revealed that his sea wall is on Chevron Island in the Nerang River behind the Gold Coast, a number of kilometers from the river's mouth! He even posted a link to a photo of it, and even before he revealed the location I'd narrowed the location down using Google Earth - and the happy coincidence that several decades ago I stayed at the Condor opposite Chevron, and spent a bit of time on the water around the island.

Drongo is pretending that he knows more than the professional oceanographers that study sea level rise, but all he has is a lot of time boating on a river and being completely ignorant of the complexities that determine both local and global sea leve rise relative to many different reference points.

He the emperor of a tinny, sodden with XXXX, wearing no clothes and glowing beet red with extremely servere sunburn.

[*If someone can find that thread I'd be most interested. The search engine here these days sucks...]

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

David B. Benson

I started with W.F. (Bill) Ruddiman’s “Earth’s Climate: Past and Future” which I recommend as an excellent starter into actual climatology.

Indeed, I am studying a copy of that at the moment and if the price is a deterrent for SD (which I doubt, for an ingrained refusal to adopt evidence to his contrary will exert a higher priority).

If the price does put SD off then the same author's 'Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate' will provide many pointers and also a primer into the longer influence of humans on climate.

Also a good book on oceanography such as 'Oceanography (ISE): An Invitation to Marine Science' by Tom Garrison will provide much scientific background especially the sections on tides and waves. There is much other essential material for those unfamiliar with the Earth's systems.

Thank you David B Benson,
So there are people who comment here who can talk about the actual evidence and offer suggestions (scientific & historical) without feeling the need to throw cheap and unsubstantiated personal insults?
For all of you, I actually do find the theory of AGW compelling but the alarming claims about SLR in relation to AGW & ACO2 are only appearing in the stat modelling not in reality.
I tend to agree with Bolt for PM above that it is real world effects that matter and what we should be focusing our time and energy on.
Despite the many unfounded accusations otherwise I am not in denial that human activity impacts environment. Of course it does.
Sometimes those imacts are negative and sometimes they are positive.
I do question calling the discipline of stat modelling 'science' however.
There are models that use scientific data and even Tim at this post points out that they are rather easily changed by simply altering start/stop datum points.
He chose to call that unscrupulous, but I don't think it is unscrupulous if the methodology and the datum points are clearly outlined.
Stat modelling by its very nature has start/end points and can only really take 'snapshots in time'. In that particular respect, they are all therefore guilty of 'cherry picking'.
It is all very interesting, very high tech etcetera, but it is not necessarily the best way to represent something as variable as sea levels or the best tool to dictate far reaching social policy.
Many other professions and small businesses use stat modelling for a variety of purposes and they are all aware of their failings as well as their useful applications.
To me, on my first visit here, I found it amusing that the argument seemed to be about the stat models, not the actual science or indeed what is happening in the real world to human coastal infrastructure.
People here are very quick to draw unkind and rude conclusions about others. It really doesn't do anything to endear a newcomer to your case.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time living on the coast is aware that it is always vulnerable to erosion and subsidence. Some places suffer worse than others due to their geography/geology/prevailing weather patterns ectera.
I tried to post a few links here to demonstrate the point about stat projections, but they would not paste for me.
I may try later but will probably not bother if all i have achieved by posting again is just more unfounded & rude abuse.

By chameleon (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon --- First and foremost, the big AOGCMs are not statistical models but rather based on the known physics. Spencer Weart's book provides a good historical summary of climate modeling.

Second, SLR is well understood due to the LCM to Holocene transition during which sea level rose 120--130 meters in an flattened-S-shaped curve lasting about 5000 years.

Third, SLR since 1880 is a global time series product based on known physics and actual data. Being a time series there are a variety of statistical methods which can be used to analyze it provided there is enough data (which there is). Given that the LGM to Holocene transition produced an S shaped curve for SLR it is physically reasonable to hypothesize much the same from the renewed melting of polar region ice. Indeed, the data shows the beginning of that S-shape (which will continue until the sea level has risen about 6--9 meters, at least).

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

I'll have to find some time to read Bernard J's links to previous Drongo thrashings so apologies for not having done my research.

But my earlier point remains. I am happy to admit ignorance and to having no more than a layperson's curiosity, so some eddykayshun might be useful, eh?

The article we are commenting on seems to claim that SLR is still accelerating, yet no-one offers convincing evidence of this. The graphs shown certainly don't demonstrate this. What they DO show to my unpracticed eye is a clearly steady overall trend since about 1930, and a relative deceleration since 2004.

Above it is claimed that SD is completely ignorant of the complexities that determine both local and global sea level rise relative to many different reference points."

Perhaps he is. But I still would be interested to know what real world effects the past 100 years have had where SLR is concerned. What do you have to offer? I'll even settle for actual papers if you have nothing personal to offer. SD has a legitimate point, or so it seems to me, one which agrees with my own observations over half a century. All the graphs in the world mean zip if nothing actually happens.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chameleon, people might spend more time helping you understand things, but you don't seem to understand what you're talking about and yet continue to claim that your understanding is superior. Perhaps that explains why you don't particularly seem interested to learn, and you retreat to tone trolling "justified" by false claims of "unfounded" criticism - when the criticism appears to be well founded indeed, based on your performance to date.

But on the off chance that you really want to improve your current understanding, lets start with:

1. Anyone who uses an apparent neologism like "stat modeling" that implies some sort of non-physical model suggests that they don't know how climate science works. (Feel free to elaborate on what you mean by "stat modeling" and justify that definition as an adequate description of climate models. You'll probably need to explain how climate models work to do so.)

2. Anyone who suggests that climate scientists - in contrast to "many other professions and small business" - AREN'T aware of and actively seeking to reduce any limitations in their scientific models - is either ignorant or lying, because the literature is full of them doing precisely that. Heck, some of them even take the time to write blog posts about it for laypeople.

3. Anyone who suggests that because some people make claims whose apparent support from the evidence is "... rather easily changed by simply altering start/stop datum points", that the conclusions of climate science are not robust to the selection of start/stop data points is either ignorant or lying. (I mean, you do realise that the concerns about SLR are not based on simply projecting statistical trends derived from past data into the future, right? And you do realise there's a whole swathe of scientific literature assessing how well the models do by assessing them against reality on a whole range of measures, right?)

4. Similarly, anyone who equates the kind of "modeling" done in climate science with (by implication) the kinds of "stat modeling" or "stat projections" you claim many other professions and small businesses engage in doesn't understand why one class of model based on physics might be more reliable in the physical world than the other is in (say) the financial world.

5. And while we're at it anyone arguing that climate models are not scientific doesn't understand the terms they are using.

Those erroneous assumptions invalidate practically all the sciency claims in your post, and you're still making them despite people trying to educate you, AND apparently calling the criticism of your unsupported claims "unfounded". Any wonder that they think you're not actually here to learn, and aren't even here to discuss science because you almost entirely misunderstand what it is and how it works?

But while you're here, and since you probably think everything I just wrote is wrong (or at best to be ignored as if it didn't exist), perhaps you can share some of your superior knowledge with us. You say:

I actually do find the theory of AGW compelling...

And then go on to disclaim your statement by rejecting the fairly straightforward outcomes of that theory where it pertains to SLR.

Perhaps you could explain how exactly your own mental model of how climate works is (a) at least as good an explanation for ALL the data as any of the traditional climate science understandings and models, and (b) leads one to conclude that SLR won't be significant? No doubt you'll have an explanation for the fairly simple and uncontested physics of warming water, ice melt in a body of water and salty vs fresh water which lead to the conclusion that a warming planet will experience sea level rise - and the deep historical data that leads to the same conclusion? Or do you have some hitherto unknown amazing physical effect that counteracts all of these simple and generally well-understood effects? And when can we expect to see this superior understanding published in a leading scientific journal?

(I expect you'll fall back to citing "uncertainty" as if that makes it alright. If you're tempted by that argument go look at Arctic sea ice projections by the models and compare them to reality.)

I mean, you say you came here to discuss the science and made a bunch of assertions, so you are ARE prepared to back up your "questioning" with something a little more than unsubstantiated claim, aren't you?

(And if you want to post links, go here and use the "Hyperlink" syntax - or failing that just paste the URL directly as text rather than trying to make a link.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

Gack, formatting fail :-(

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharsson --- That was obvious so you didn't need to be a self-nit-picker about it.

:-)

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM --- There are standard statistical tests which can be applied to the SLR data series to show that, indeed, in 1880+ SLR was about 1 mm/yr and by the 21st century SLR is now about 3 mm.yr.

One needs to read an beginning text on the (statistical) analysis of time series.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

David Benson I am sure that's true. And I could probably do some digging on that claim to place it in context. But this blog post specifically refers to three graphs, for example "You only have to look at the graph below showing sea level rise since 1880 to see that it has accelerated from about 1mm/year at the end of the 19th century to about 3mm/year at present.(from CSIRO)."

When I look at that graph, I clearly see an acceleration from 1880 to 1930, after which the rise is quite steady. When I look closer using the second graph, I see a deceleration. And the third graph seems quite reasonable on the basis that IF deceleration set in after about 2002-ish, then indeed one can show a less steep trend curve.

So, as a layperson, i can conclude that it is apparent that the more extreme predictions of SLR so far do not appear to be in evidence.

I can then turn to locally observed physical properties of sea level, and note that little has changed in 50-100 years. Spangled Drongo makes a similar point.

All you offer in return is dismissal because he doesn't understand all sorts of esoterica. I'm saying, where's the evidence that this sea level rise is actually doing something somewhere.

And why do the three graphs prove that it is still accelerating when blind Freddie can see that is not so?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 22 Dec 2012 #permalink

"standard statistical tests" are apparently "esoterica"
Bolt for PM prefers the "eyecrometer"

Fortunately we all get to laugh.
http://xkcd.com/1131/

Mike H, Top marks for missing the point.

The lead in for this post is;
"You only have to look at the graph below showing sea level rise since 1880 to see that it has accelerated from about 1mm/year at the end of the 19th century to about 3mm/year at present."

Nowhere does it say "Take a course in statistical methods, get the complete datasets, run the appropriate evaluations, plot the results and interpret them". No, it says eyeball these graphs and tell me you can't see the SLR acceleration.

I'm saying I can't see it.

And I'm asking for someone to point to an example of where this apparently mind-bogglingly scary SLR has actually been found to actually be visible.

Crickets...

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

I tend to agree with Bolt for PM.
The graphs at this post neither prove or disprove the claims from some of the commenters.
Tim did indeed point out that changing the datum start/stop points can change the results and/or the conclusions.
As Bolt for PM asks:
Where is the mind-bogglingly scary SLR actually visible?
From 2002 it looks as if the trend is decelerating.
And David and Lotharsson?
Are you claiming that the big AOGCMs are not using stats?

By chameleon (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM, I have yet to find anyone here who has even bothered to take any SL measurements during their lifetimes to be aware of what is happening under their noses yet they are certain I am wrong.

One would think that people like Bernard J, who spout great claims of CAGW and SLR, would have at least done the one thing that an individual can do to confirm their ideology.

When all of my benchmarks over periods up to 70 years tie in with each other and also with local tide gauges I am pretty confident that there is not too much SLR for them to get hysterical about.

It's just a shame they have never tried to work it out for themselves.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Indeed Chameleon and SD. I am not for a moment pretending I can argue the science as such. But I can certainly do my own reading and draw a conclusion, or at least develop an opinion.

In the case of this post, we are being told that SLR is indeed accelerating despite the sceptical claims to the contrary. But excuse me if perhaps I am a bit too dim, but that is NOT what those graphs tell me. Other commenters may be able to do some fancy footwork with the data, but when actual observation tends to back up the case for less than stellar SLR, I for one back the case for deceleration.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Are you claiming that the big AOGCMs are not using stats?

Sheesh, you'll have to do better than that to deflect the question.

Please describe what you mean by the unusual term "stat modelling", and what climate models actually do, and how the two compare. For bonus points describe how the "stat models" from other endeavours you cited work, and compare and contrast with climate models.

For extra bonus points define the difference between your earlier claim that climate models ARE "stat models", and your current question about whether climate models USE statistics.

Pretty sure you won't go there. Just like you haven't provided your own model that explains ALL the data better than mainstream climate science does, and yet leads you to conclude that SLR is not going to be a serious concern.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bennard J, please don't expose your ignorance further by making out that you have any idea of my involvement with the waterfront and BTW that 49.9 year old Chevron Is benchmark is exactly ONE nm from the official mouth of the Nerang R, not "several kilometers". The 40 year BMs are within a couple of hundred meters of the Southport Broadwater and the 66 and 70 year BMs are in exposed areas of Moreton bay.

They generally agree and show between 100 and 200 mm fall in SL over those periods.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spanky, please don't expose your ignorance and confuse simple provincial experience with the data.

You may dispute the global data, but until you and your mates convincingly demonstrate it to be wrong, it stands.

Got that? IT STANDS.
(That's why cranks hate numbers).
Tales based on homely, prelapsian if undocumented childhood memories notwithstanding.

If you (or your mates) really wanted to find out about real-life experience, there is one way to do it.
Use the data.
How?
Ah, that's the perennial problem with trying to enlighten the wilfully stupid. Where does it end?

Lotharsson,
I apologise if you don't like my termonology.
Would you like me to call them climate models?
Whatever the terminology, they are generated using stats are they not?
I wasn't attempting to duck any questions.
You were asking me to put up a defense over something I did not claim in the first place.
To me, that looks like you are attempting to argue with yourself.
Which I have noticed is a common practice here and which I find highly amusing.

By chameleon (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Message for Spangled Drongo, BoltforPM, chameleon.

The acceleration in the rise of sea level may have slowed (note that it is not the rise in sea level that has slowed), this is because of numerous factors already mentioned above such as dam builds and increased irrigation leading to a slow down in the flow out to oceans.

However, and this is a big however, one outstanding factor is that because of rising air temperatures globally, admittedly with a few shifting cooler small areas, there is more water vapour being held above our heads.

This has caused elevated levels of activity in the hydrological cycle with more monsoon like storms and over not normal expecting to witness such monsoon like activity.

We, in Britain, at this time are only too painfully aware of this as increasing numbers are forced out of their flooded homes, transport systems wrecked and land across vast swathes saturated and under standing water.

Seriously, you numpties nit-picking and raising straw men arguments, moving goal posts and playing at word games are beginning to seriously piss me off.

Many here are going to have a wrecked holiday period, to add to those worse off in the NE US and many other spots around the world.

The scientific basis has been itemised by Bernard J informs us that APGW is a reality and the chickens are now coming in to roost. And things are only going to get worse as the system tries to reach equilibrium but with that point moving ever further ahead as we continue to ramp up GHG emissions globally. This should not be very difficult to comprehend.

Lionel A,
Seriously?
Isn't what you're complaining about just local weather?
I'm sorry that the weather is not being kind to you over your holiday period but you're not alone and we can't control the weather no matter what the climate models say.
Bad weather is just bad weather Lionel
Where I am at the moment in Oz we are having the opposite bad weather. Very hot, very dry and incredibly windy. There are fire bans and strong wind warnings all over the media.
The forecast says it might be better by Christmas day, but who knows?
There really isn't any point in getting so negative and upset about the weather.
Just because some of us asked questions about the graphs at this post and commented on the style of commenting at this post does not mean that we are somehow responsible for your lousy weather in England at the moment (or for that matter the lousy weather here).
You may feel better if you believe you can blame someone else, but other than that it doesn't change the weather at all.
Cheer up Lionel.
Despite the crappy weather you can still have fun with your friends and family in the holiday period :-)
Despite the horrid weather here, we're still having fun.

By chameleon (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek thinks that remote sensors adjusted by stats and computers outweigh observed measurements and Lionel thinks that all the SLR is in the air and on the ground. Well, I suppose any port in a storm.

It's probably not quite a dumb as lernard bernard and others claiming that deepening harbour entrances lowers SLs.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

...they are generated using stats are they not?

In what sense? Please elaborate and clarify your understanding of how they operate. "Generated using stats" isn't a useful description.

If you can't explain how they work I'll take it as an admission that you don't actually know how they work - and you should take it as a suggestion to go find out how they work before you attempt to draw conclusions from incorrect assumptions.

Once you get that far, try searching for the blog post from a modeller who explains how difficult it would be to wiggle the parameters to force the model to generate predictions that meet some arbitrary goal such as "CO2 causes lots of warming" without also screwing up all sorts of other metrics of model performance that modellers pay attention to.

Or simply ponder this.

If climate models are so easy to bias to a particular conclusion without giving the game away by screwing up other metrics, why hasn't ANYONE come up with one that explains all the observations we have at least as well as the current lot do, but doesn't imply serious concern about anthropogenic climate change?

It's not like it would take a lot of money - and fossil fuel companies are highly motivated in this area AND have received tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies - and generally spend way WAY more on marketing in a year than this kind of effort would take. Such an achievement would really strike a blow at the case for concern (well, at least at one part of the evidence. The rest doesn't come from models so it would still be cause for concern). Since this is clearly something that would help their business, and since you think it's eminently achievable, and since they have people at least as smart as you and I in their employment - and since any scientist involved would likely earn a Nobel Prize which is a huge motivation for them individually, then why hasn't anyone done it?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

...we can’t control the weather no matter what the climate models say.

Wow, you really don't know what the climate models "say", do you?!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharsson?
Seriously?
Did you miss the fact that Lionel A is blaming his crappy holiday weather on AGW?
You have just said the same thing I said, albiet in a different tone and from a different perspective.
Lionel A is the one who doesn't seem to understand how they work. I am fully aware that they are about global climate change as opposed to crappy local weather events.

By chameleon (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharsson that is a lot of ground to cover and I for one can't put in the time to argue the case. But I think it's pretty evident from a solid examination of the evidence to hand that the models do indeed have their faults. I think it's a long bow to draw to suggest they don't. Your money quote though is this:

"why hasn’t ANYONE come up with one that explains all the observations we have at least as well as the current lot do, but doesn’t imply serious concern about anthropogenic climate change?"

I think there are a few hypotheses around that do exactly that, but as yet they haven't gained sufficient traction to have serious money spent modelling their parameters. The issue there is simply that the current paradigm if you will doesn't admit to another way to consider the matter, but that may change in time. or it may not. Perhaps the current paradigm will stand the test of time.

But that's not the subject of this post. The matter we have before us is a set of graphs that apparently show an acceleration in SLR which therefore conforms to the predictions of the AGW hypothesis.

I have argued that those graphs do not show this. SD has argued that he has empirical data that demonstrates SLR is NOT accelerating in his locale. I agree with that view and have posed the question - where is the real world effect of the supposed dangerous SLR?

Some respondents have suggested that the future will see the acceleration increase for all sorts of reasons, mostly invoking arm waving claims of tipping points and so on. Poor old Lionel A is away with the pixies, and Bill, well, he just foams at the mouth and makes no sense at all.

I simply look at the temp trends in recent years, the SLR graphs above, the CO2 values, and the complete and utter lack of change in all the indices for extreme weather and say... umm, No, it just aint happening how you expected, guys.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chris O'Neill, my eyes may need testing it's true. But they sure can see what's happening in the three graphs in this post. As for the graph you have posted, well... I'm not really sure what to make of it.

From my layperson's eyeballing of it, the temp trend is relatively flat since about 2000. Taking the starting point of 0.1 and ending at just under 0.3. 0.2 over what, 20 years? You'll note too the step change in 2002 after which we see quite a flat trend.

Now again, maybe it's my aging eyes, but all of that would seem to sit at the bottom of the IPCC range. Which as you'll note, has reduced its lower bound with each report.

This is more dramatically in evidence from the leaked SOD for AR5:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-…

Nooo... sorry, can't see it. Maybe your eyes just have an AGW enhancer fitted?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chek thinks that remote sensors adjusted by stats and computers and observed measurements from tidal gauges around the world outweigh observed measurements from tidal gauges in a very small part of the world.

Usual errors corrected.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

your brain needs testing

In denialworld Greenland is bigger than the whole world.

We all know whose brain needs testing.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

And probably the most important one that has been cherrypicked

Statements corrected while you wait.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM:

From my layperson’s eyeballing of it, the temp trend is relatively flat since about 2000.

As a layman, you probably won't know what statistical significance means, but perhaps you have no problem with repeating statements about lack of statistical significance from longer periods than 12 years, e.g. 16 years.

Now again, maybe it’s my aging eyes, but all of that would seem to sit at the bottom of the IPCC range.

Yep, definitely your ageing eyes. I recommend glasses with 1 or 2 diopters. For example 2005 was at the top of the TAR range.

Which as you’ll note, has reduced its lower bound with each report.

I'm aware that a standard denial technique is to make a big deal out of tiny differences.

This is more dramatically in evidence from the leaked SOD for AR5

Instead of wasting time posting uninformative and misleading links, why don't you read what I actually linked to that goes through this in a lot more technical detail: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/fake-skeptic-draws-fake-picture-…

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Why are people linking to misinformational internet blogs run by unqualified weathermen who've been caught out being wrong over and over again instead of to primary sources?

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

CON, if you bothered to pay attention you would have seen that the local tide gauges agree with my obs.

And the point anyone would draw from that is that if SLs have only moved downwards locally for ~70 years, then there is not much SLR happening anywhere, accelerating or otherwise.

Anyone other than an ideologue, that is.

Vince, try to deal with the message and put your gun away.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM --- Statistics is used so we don't fool ourselves. I don't trust the eyeball approach.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon --- There are many kinds of climate models. The largest are the AOGCMs in which physics is used. Some important matters are too difficult to do using just physics. A primary example is ENSO. So the El Nino and La Nina patterns are generated by an ARMA model with parameters based on the known statistics of ENSO.

So in a few small matters (some) AOGCMs use a small amount of parameterization.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

" I don’t trust the eyeball approach."

Well, not if you're blind.

How about the brail method?

D'you think that watchin' the tide roll in for ~70 years and no sign of SLR would do it for you?

David, you must have some idea of the equilibrium of water at your age.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

David Benson. "I don’t trust the eyeball approach." But... wasn't that the very basis of this blog post? Look at our graphs, see what they show?

Vince W, what can I say. It's sometimes best to reread your words before you post them.

Chris O'Neill I'll try to get the time to have a read of that post. But at the end of the day, various commenters here post up graphs to illustrate their point. Maybe statistical techniques can draw more from the data than is evident from these graphs, but you have to be kidding yourself if you think they show what you claim.

Meanwhile, where's the actual physical evidence that SLR is having any effect? Anywhere at all. No graphs. No "statistical significance". No "my brain is bigger than yours" waffle. Just some simple, everyday real life observations. Even just one.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Dumbo:

CON, if you bothered to pay attention you would have seen that the local tide gauges agree with my obs.

How dumb can you get? Where did I say they didn't? No wonder you're a denialist, you're just so plain dumb.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

then there is not much SLR happening anywhere

You are in just plain denial of tide gauges in other parts of the world.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM:

I’ll try to get the time to have a read of that post.

Oh whoopee doo. It must be such an onerous task reading graphs and the small amount of text needed to explain them, seeing as how your eyesight is so feeble.

these graphs, but you have to be kidding yourself if you think they show what you claim.

You're certainly kidding yourself, without a shadow of a doubt, if you think the trend of actual temperature is not within the trend limits of FAR, SAR and TAR. It's also plain in this graph: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/rates.jpg

But I guess you must have your denial lenses on so you'll just dismiss it out of hand as usual.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 23 Dec 2012 #permalink

spangled drongo & Bolt for PM --- When I was in high school in the 1950s "How to Lie with Statistics" first appeared and I wrote an extra-credit review of it. I believe it is still in print.

To use statistics properly requires doing a certain amount of calculation. In those days an electro-mechanical calculator was a big help. Nowadays statistics is much more advanced and we have computers. Tamino, on his Open Mind blog, shows how to properly analyze geophysical time series.

So that we don't fool ourselves.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

David Benson, I'm sure statistical techniques are very advanced now, and I am equally sure I wouldn't understand most of it at all. But this post tried to illustrate an increase in the rate of SLR by showing several graphs.

Now, regardless of the slicing and dicing, if those graphs can be taken as relatively accurate, I cannot see how you can argue for an increase in the rate of sea level rise.

The first graph shows a fairly steady rise since about 1930.

The second graph uses a shorter period, but in this case it demonstrates a clearly steady rate of rise in those 20 years. Even the text says "If you take a closer look at recent sea level rise you’ll see that it has been very consistent, only deviating from the trend line by about 10mm at any time."

The third graph may be held to be suspect for all sorts of reasons but if we only had an instrumental record dating from 2002, what trend would you assign to that record?

Of course using various arbitrary dates and periods is cherry picking, but at the end of the day, IF the rate of SLR has slowed for whatever reason, it would show up. As indeed it has. Does that mean it will continue in that vein? perhaps not.

But none of those graphs or the statements made support a case for an accelerating SLR.

Now, both SD and I claim that regardless of those graphs, the actual picture locally seems to be that there is nothing happening. And it is the real world, local effects that are what the whole fuss is about, not how well you've geophysically analysed the data.

Chris O'Neill, you're foaming now. I love it when you guys do that. That last graph... oh my aching sides. Lordy Lordy Lordy how that Tamino gilds the lily.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Thankyou once again David B Benson for actually dealing with the questions & dealing with the actual message.
I agree the big AOGCMs use physical data. However, they still use stats no matter how extra tecchie and complicated and clever they have becom

population models that use that data.

By chameleon (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry,
Samsung tablet fail.
What I attempted to write was that there are big global economic models or big global population models and many others that use specific data as well.
At their base they are still using statistics.

By chameleon (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Well CON, it's at least a relief to see you agree with my SL obs anyway.

However strange your method of agreement may be.

Now that we have established agreement on local SLs over ~70 years, what do you think could be causing other tide gauges to disagree?

So David, you still think that Stats beat measured obs?

And do you think with post-tropical storm [not hurricane] Sandy that a king tide and sea surge combined, of over 14 feet may have had something to do with the flooding?

You may have seen the horrifying scenes of the Fukushima tsunami for instance. Sea surges, storm or shock related have nothing to do with SLR and they will always occur given the right circumstances.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

David Benson, that post of Taminos is remarkable. I know I am not able to learnedly argue statistical techniques but that looks like a snowjob to me. Let me get this straight. The model projections are averages of many many runs. And the models have to make a lot of assumptions, depend on initial conditions, and ignore some factors. So to compare them properly with the real world, we smooth the real world data. say what? There is only one run of the real world and it is what it is. Either the model's projections match what DID happen or they didn't. You can't make up something different and say hey, this is what happened and look at the match.

How well did the model projections of say 30 years ago match what really happened? Why do you think today's models have got it a lot better? Because you can load the initial conditions to ensure a decent hindcast? What if we find in 10 years that the models really did get it wrong? Tamino's (or R&F was it) fiddling will look pretty silly then won't it? You might read some of the commentary on the leaked SOD of AR5, there does seem to me to be some open questions that were not acknowledged in earlier reports, wouldn't you agree?

Hurricane Sandy. A remarkable confluence of events that saw the record storm surge cause so much devastation. However you will note the record was not in itself historically freakish given the factors such as very low barometric pressure, high tide, full moon, etc etc. Have you some data to offer that actually apportions some measure of the impact of SLR? Here is a graph of previous storm surges:
http://www.geo.brown.edu/georesearch/esh/QE/Publications/GSAB2001/JDonn…

I can't claim this is accurate but it is in a journal. GSA Bulletin Volume 113 no. 6, pages 714 –727 (June 2001).
I'm not arguing that SLR did NOT have an impact, but that storm was one of those extreme events we can expect every so often and it would have been bad even if sea level had been several cm lower. I suspect that local sea levels have very little bearing on the effects of storm surges anywa

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry last para should have read:

I'm not arguing that SLR did NOT have an impact, but that storm was one of those extreme events we can expect every so often and it would have been bad even if sea level had been several cm lower. I suspect that local sea levels have very little bearing on the effects of storm surges anyway, though that's just a gut feeling. But hey, happy to be shown I am wrong. Where's your evidence?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM, spare us the hypocrisy.

how that Tamino gilds the lily

Says the layman who thinks he knows better than the mathematician.

You have provided absolutely zilch to demonstrate that the trend of actual temperature is not within the trend limits of FAR, SAR and TAR. And then all you can come up with is "how that Tamino gilds the lily". What a learned response that is.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Gee, you got me again Chris O'Neill. I see in that graph the same game as the SLR ones. But what do we see in that most inconvenient of places, the real world?

We start in 1990 with what, 0.03? And 2010 is at around 0.05 or so. That's 0.02 for 20 years. Yep, got me worried. Tamino's graph implies that temp is rising at 0.01-0.02 per YEAR. By my reckoning, that's as much as 0.4 over 20 years. We should be closing out in 2010 at around 0.06-0.07.

Alright, that's a bit unfair, after all, it's the trend isn't it? Ahahahahaha... yeah, sure it is. Let me take a look. Ummm... oh look at that. Temps all over the shop from 1990 to 2000, mostly affected by the great El Nino of 1998. But from 2000 to 2010, it's mostly flat.

You see Chris, you can do all the fancy footwork in the world, but at the end of the day, what happens is what happens. And what happened is not very much at all.

But you might be right. With enough arm waving, maybe it'll get so much worse. I am so worried. Not.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Seriously?
Did you miss the fact that Lionel A is blaming his crappy holiday weather on AGW?

Nope.

But you apparently missed the point I was making. You appear to be claiming that climate models say we can control the weather. They don't.

You also appear to be arguing that climate change doesn't increase the likelihood of the kinds of weather events that Lionel is talking about, especially at the tail ends (both of them) of the distribution. That's not correct either.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon:,

Isn’t what you’re complaining about just local weather? I’m sorry that the weather is not being kind to you over your holiday period but you’re not alone and we can’t control the weather no matter what the climate models say.
Bad weather is just bad weather Lionel

With that, and the remainder of your reply you reveal that you are woefully ignorant (at best) about climate science and especially how climate change can affect weather as the remark from Deke Arndt of NCDC reveals 'Climate trains the boxer, but weather throws the punches', so no it isn't, 'just local weather.

Now what about the word 'global' that I used do you not understand?

2012 - A year of extreme weather and take note of the comment by Nick Graham from 0:29.

I also well acknowledged that we in Britain were not alone, you clearly didn't absorb that either. Another comprehension fail. This is a common track record amongst you ilk.

Sorry but you have revealed your true colours as a denier, plain and simple not matter what other excuses you raise.

Most of us here have studied this topic for a decade or more and know the history of the science and of the denial machine and we easily pick up on the wilfully ignorant and/or the ideological denier, or even those being paid to infest blogs with rabid anti-science.

Having studied this topic, with input from many scientific disciplines, for so long we come not from a position of faith but from trust in the science. They are quite different things except to those suffering from, say, dyspraxia or some other learning ability affliction.

Sorry but your true colours are now clearly visible.

But I think it’s pretty evident from a solid examination of the evidence to hand that the models do indeed have their faults. I think it’s a long bow to draw to suggest they don’t.

It would be, if someone was making that claim on their behalf. Bet you can't quote someone here doing that, and bet you can't get anyone to agree with that statement.

It's ALSO clear from a solid examination of the evidence to date that the models (a) do a reasonably good job on the most important metrics and are improving on many of the others and (b) are doing much better than any of the alternatives implied by any of the "skeptic" positions.

I think there are a few hypotheses around that do exactly that, but as yet they haven’t gained sufficient traction to have serious money spent modelling their parameters.

1. What hypotheses?

2. Why haven't fossil fuel companies - or governments who are desperate to avoid political losses from carbon reduction measures - thrown what amounts to pocket change for those organisations at it?

Your claim appears to be at odds with known forces.

The issue there is simply that the current paradigm if you will doesn’t admit to another way to consider the matter,...

...which doesn't imply what you seem to hope it will. The current paradigm will change if a better way is convincingly demonstrated.

I repeat my question. Why haven't (say) the fossil fuel companies invested some of the change stuck down the back of their couch into such an effort? What on earth would hold such hard-nosed businessmen back from a small investment that could have a huge political and financial payoff for them?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

... there are big global economic models or big global population models and many others that use specific data as well.
At their base they are still using statistics

And at their base climate models are using well known physics. (And climate science has pretty strong non-model evidence for the central claims.)

That's the key difference I've been trying to get you to cotton on to.

We don't have anywhere near as robust a level of empirically testable understanding of global economics and global population that physics provides to climate science.

Arguing that climate models "at their base" are using statistics rather than physics is deeply misguided - and concluding that therefore they can be arbitrarily tweaked to produce a given outcome is fallacious.

FWIW I've worked on some kinds of computer economic models with well respected economics professors - and even on those it simply wasn't possible to get a desired result on one metric without completely screwing up some other metric(s) - unless the result you wanted was a fairly natural outcome of the model. The existing data is a huge constraint.

Also, contra Bolt For PM's allegations:

Because you can load the initial conditions to ensure a decent hindcast?

even in models that may be largely statistical at their base no-one competent -no-one - over-tunes their model for the best hindcast. (Any fool can see why that would be stupid.) There are well-established procedures for tuning your model based on some of the historical data, and then testing the result on other historical data so that you don't fall into the trap that Bolt for PM seems to think every single climate modeller has fallen into. Mind you, arguing that isn't very smart when the literature is full of people measuring how well their models perform via these kinds of procedures.

Also contra Bolt for PM, there are plenty of literature articles - and even blog posts - comparing model projections with real world outcomes that eventuated after the projections were made - which makes his implication even more ignorant.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

We start in 1990 with what, 0.03? And 2010 is at around 0.05 or so. That’s 0.02 for 20 years.

Good effin' grief.

You're now resorting to start and end temperatures rather than trend calculations?

That's Monckton level bulldust that only takes in audiences ignorant of basic statistics and basic science - which rules out the majority of readers here.

But wait, you acknowledge it's the trend that matters!

But from 2000 to 2010, it’s mostly flat.

And then you, who accuse a professional statistician of "gilding the lily" choose a period that's historically been way too short for statistical significance, and fail to test for statistical significance.

And that's ignoring the other posts directing you to the trend with various short term natural forcings and variations removed, and the ocean heat content data.

Your opinion is clearly uninformed and uninformative, if not downright misinformative.

Better trolls please.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

This post addresses what both Bolt For PM and chameleon appear to be claiming:

Critics thunder that the models contain a “large element of subjectivity” with parameters “tweaked by those who operate the models” to achieve results that conform to scientists’ preconceptions. Some seem to think that these models simply represent a grandiose exercise in curve fitting, forecasting future climate based on the trend in temperatures over the past few decades.

Go read the whole thing. Then go find (say) one of the RealClimate posts comparing future projections of models (made some time in the past) with what happened after the projections were made.

For even more LOLZ go find a blog post that compares the projections published by "skeptics" with what subsequently happened and ask yourself which has the better track record.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM:

But what do we see in that most inconvenient of places, the real world?

Har, har.

We start in 1990 with what, 0.03? And 2010 is at around 0.05 or so.

Where do you get those numbers from? Out of your ass?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

@Loth

Myles Allen has a slightly different view to Gavin,

http://climateprediction.net/content/modelling-climate

Introduction to Climate Models-
"The equations are tweaked, within reasonable boundaries, so that the model does as well as possible at producing past and current climates (compared to archived observations). It can then be used to try to predict what the climate is going to do in the future."

The models aren't pure physics as Gavin was trying to claim - that's why they all have different climate sensitivities, different aerosol forcings etc to match the observed 20th century warming- more curve fitting than science. He's just doing an Amstrup!
;)

SD:

local SLs over ~70 years, what do you think could be causing other tide gauges to disagree?

Why are you asking me? Do you think I'm an oceanographer? I suggest you find out what people who research this field say (apart from the few who are clearly deranged).

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

@Olaus

Merry Christmas! I saw your post about it on the other thread. Another "alarmist" with odd views, how typical.

"More generally, I propose that we limit the death penalty to people whose actions will with a high probability cause millions of future deaths"

So he's rationalized a "good reason" for killing people. Are all alarmists nutters? they seem to have more than their fair share at any rate; the same view's been expressed by various Deltoids in the past, the rest keep quiet to signify some sort of agreement I suppose.

What is "Systematic Musicology"? Wiki has it as,

"Systematic musicology includes music acoustics, the science and technology of acoustical musical instruments, physiology, psychology, sociology, philosophy and computing"

So I take it he'll also claim to be a scientist then, like jeff, but probably numerate.

So, this alleged page can't actually be viewed but is brought via well known denier paranoid flakes Codling and Roger Talltales.

Hmmmm.....

Lotharsson, what a lot of waffle. No wonder you can convince yourself of anything.

"You’re now resorting to start and end temperatures rather than trend calculations?"

Yes, I am. And it's the same point I made re SLR. Trends and statistical machinations are all very wonderful but it's the real world that counts. Now OK, I admit to using the numbers you guys have posted up and maybe they are wrong. But what good is all the worry about AGW if it doesn't actually happen? All your hand wringing is about a projected real world effect, and that effect must be an actual temperature. Now over the period you are all so playfully offering up, the 1990 to 2010 period of the IPCC projections, what have you got?

0.02 from start to finish. Nothing happened boys. Zip. Zilch. OK, so let's play with trends starting in 1990. After all, that's what the IPCC is doing with their projections. 0.02 from start to finish is 0.001 per year. Colour me terrified.

As to the shorter period from 2000 to 2010, sure it doesn't meet your outraged demands re stats evaluation. But it's what I argued re SLR. IF something changes, it does so, regardless of what your pretty graphs say to you. That's what happens in the real world (that's the one outside boys, not on your Excel screen). So, IF things changed in 2002 and temps went flat in response, then they went flat. Doesn't matter what happened in 1959 or 1880.

Chris O'Neill you drip. Tamino's graph of obs versus IPCC projections. Gilding the lily. Are you really as dim as you seem? Or do you practice? Look, the first IPCC projection in FAR was in 1990. How close was it? Where did obs fall? Now, SAR was in 1995, TAR in 2001 and AR4 in 2007. What do you reckon, would they have gotten better at guessing how the period 1990-2010 would go? Gee, I'll go out on a limb here. I'll betcha that AR5 will get the projections from 1990-2010 exactly right. Those crafty modelers, they are good aren't they?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Trends and statistical machinations are all very wonderful but it’s the real world that counts"

So BFPM, you looked up the actual data and then checked the locations and..... oh that's right you didn't, you just composed another ignorant rant on that of which you know next to zero about how data aren;t measurements taken from the real world but some otherworldly pixie dust, or whatever it is your tiny mind imagines.

You don't have the intelligence to either do the work, or presuming you get that far, understand it.

Lional A... a BBC report on extreme weather? Oh my Lordy. Hahahahahahahahahahaha....

Oh stop it please. It's Christmas morning here and I'm doubled over laughing. Guess it could be way worse, the weather could strike at any moment.

Ahahahahahahahahahaha...

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

chek, what are you trying to say? Spit it out in English. I didn't do anything weird, I used the exact numbers the other pro bed wetters posted up. You got something different, let's see it.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

The data are the data, BFPM. Either you know how to use it or you don't. Bear in mind this isn't a remedial school for the stupid, although wandering in here with your moniker one has to wonder about that aspect.

Man up and get a grip of what the numbers tell you - check it against stories in the local press to be sure - or get a grown up to explain it.to you.

So chek, you got nuthin eh? Look, I could go off and do all that you say. But on this very blog people like Chris O'Neill, Lotharsson, David Benson et al have posted a variety of graphs and numbers. So they must be confident these show something.

Most of these use the 'global' average temperature anomaly - it is routinely used to show just how AGW is progressing. That seems good enough for the IPCC. OK, happy to go with that for the argument.

Now, the IPCC began its projections in 1990 with the FAR. So, I simply look at how the real world acted in that period. I used this graph:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/compare2.jpg

Now, you look at it, tell me what we started with and what we finished with. Just do that and tell me what you find. It's not the easiest to read maybe, but it looks to me like a spread of 0.02-ish. If I use the 2012 figure it's worse for you - down to maybe 0.1-ish.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry, typo. Last para should be:

Now, you look at it, tell me what we started with and what we finished with. Just do that and tell me what you find. It’s not the easiest to read maybe, but it looks to me like a spread of 0.2-ish. If I use the 2012 figure it’s worse for you – down to maybe 0.1-ish.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon --- Lotharson made the point already but I'll elaborate a little.

Climate models use physics. Economic models are based on some highly non-physical assumptions. Population models might fair a bit better but simply have not the breadth of understandings which enter into climate models.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

BFPM, you're talking about sea level, then point to a temperature graph? Sorry, I'm not psychic or fruitcake enough to make that connection easily.

Bolt for PM:

Chris O’Neill you drip

Yes it's all about the abuse isn't it? Because that's all you've got. Whatever you imagine the numbers are is totally at odds with reality. e.g. GISStemp (which is one of the sets Tamino uses) goes from 0.37 deg C in 1990 to 0.64 deg C in 2010. How you get 0.03 and 0.05 whose difference is supposed to bear some relationship to the corresponding GISStemp difference is beyond belief.

I'll leave you to your delusions. Being in denial, that's all you've got.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

I'm not seeing Myles Allan say anything significantly different from anyone else in that quote. I suspect you don't or won't comprehend enough to understand why.

The models aren’t pure physics as Gavin was trying to claim – that’s why they all have different climate sensitivities, different aerosol forcings etc to match the observed 20th century warming- more curve fitting than science.

I don't see anyone claiming they are pure physics. Everyone involved acknowledges that certain aspects are discretised and certain aspects are parameterised. What they do say is that you are strongly bound by (a) the physics, (b) historical data and (c) the assessment of multiple simultaneous criteria. Furthermore the claim that models are tweaked in order to falsely produce anthropogenic warming trends or much larger warming trends than reality or are or "more exercises in curve fitting" is untrue.

No-one who implies this can yet explain why a fossil fuel company hasn't exposed this alleged fudging by producing an "unfudged" model that shows nothing to worry about. Heck, a talented amateur could presumably do it - the source code for a number of models is freely available, as are significant historical data sets. None of the people making this claim have yet been able to explain why the models end up showing climate sensitivities in much the same range as those derived from paleoclimate data either - at least, not without invoking unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Yes, I am.

So we have an admission that you haven't the first clue on this subject.

All your hand wringing is about a projected real world effect, and that effect must be an actual temperature.

And you follow it up with a second, albeit more nuanced, admission of the same.

For starters, you really didn't comprehend the link to the post about ocean heat accumulation, did you? And you didn't understand the post where the impacts of some of the larger natural variations were removed from the recent temperature record, did you? The whole concept that natural variation and anthropogenic forcings act at the same time, and the former can work against the latter for a decade or two, but not forever - that was too complicated for you? Of course it was - you clearly haven't even understood the very basic reason why trends are far more revealing than comparing endpoints in a noisy signal such as the global temperature records.

I mean, it's good of you to reveal just how misguided you are on these matters, but you might not want to parade it around quite so pridefully whilst insulting other people who are pointing out some of your miscomprehensions.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Why are you asking me? Do you think I’m an oceanographer? "

Dunno what you are CON but you sure act as if you know everything. Mainly by telling anyone who offers an opinion, even one that apparently agrees with your own, how dumb they are.

So now you are admitting your knowledge is limited? I haven't noticed you being as refreshingly honest as this before.

But maybe you only do confessions at Christmas.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

But to get back to why tide gauges can show SLR yet obs can show a fall is because SLR theoretically occurs if, for instance, daily occurring half-tide levels rise yet annually occurring highest-tide levels fall.

Personal obs can easily pick highest-tide levels but only long term measurement can pick half-tide levels.

It is the less often occurring highest-tide levels that really impact human infrastructure. If half-tide levels rise 10 cm and highest-tide levels either fall or don't rise there is very little to be concerned about.

This is often what has been happening at tide gauges around the world.

This is not to say that cyclones, storms and other forces won't create dangerous SLR above existing SLs as has always happened.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 24 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangled Drongo:

"If half-tide levels rise 10 cm and highest-tide levels either fall or don’t rise there is very little to be concerned about.

This is often what has been happening at tide gauges around the world. "

This sounds like nonsense to me. Can you back this up with some citations, or tidal analyses or a clear explanation of what it is that you're trying to say, or a list of some of the gauges where this has been happening, or something?

From your wording "This is often..." it sounds like you think that this has been happening at quite a few gauges?

You don't know much about tides do you?

By Neil White (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Neil White, tide gauge data on the web does not provide that sort of data but I have beed told by scientists and engineers responsible for tide gauges that this is how SLR at tide gauges can translate into no observable SLR.

I have requested a detailed print out of the local tide gauge data but so far it has not been forthcoming.

Are you saying that a daily raised half-tide level would not show SLR if there was an annual reduced or non-raised highest-tide level?

"You don’t know much about tides do you?"

Enough to know that after observing them and designing vessels to cope with the vaguaries of them for most of my life they haven't risen any higher than when I first started.

How about you?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt 'through the neck'

Lurched with this:

Lional A… a BBC report on extreme weather? Oh my Lordy. Hahahahahahahahahahaha…

Which of course totally ignores the fact the the pertinent bit I was referring to was when a person with scientific qualifications described why there has been a massive increase in the amount of H2O moving through the atmosphere-ocean couple.

It seems that your comprehension fail does not stop with the written word but extends to video presentation too. Perhaps you failed to get the best out of the lectures higher education.

When warm surface waters evaporate into vapour what happens to the temperature at that point?

Ever heard of the concept of latent heat?

Temperatures do not alone tell us about the amount of heat energy in a system we require an understanding of physics, based upon well documented experiments, to show the amount of heat other than sensible in a system.

Rarely do we see any demonstrations of understanding of such from the likes of you.

PS
Using a moniker such Bolt for PM is clearly your attempt at winding us up, the equivalent of waving a red cloth at a bull, so right off the bat you don't expect to be taken as having any serious valid points to make. In other words you are a self declared troll.

Spangled Drongo:

"I have requested a detailed print out of the local tide gauge data but so far it has not been forthcoming."

You can download hourly tide gauge data from the BoM/NTCs ABSLMP tide gauge network around Australia from their web site, Please go to it and demonstrate what you are claiming.

"Are you saying that a daily raised half-tide level would not show SLR if there was an annual reduced or non-raised highest-tide level?"

No, that's not what I'm saying.

By Neil White (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharrson and David B,
unfortunately, except for a different perspective, I can't see where you think you have disagreed with me.
Of course economic models and population models use different data sets to climate models!
Like doh!
I would even agree that climate models are more complicated because they deal with far more relationships between variables.
However, they are still using stats and mountains of data.
They are essentially using the same discipline, which is not science, it is stats.
They even graph and physically present in a similar manner.
They are also open to different conclusions in a similar manner as Tim did indeed highlight at this post.
They are not magic doomsday soothsayers. They are merely useful tools to help plot and graph the world around us.
IMHO they are being somewhat misused and misrepresented by people and politics who are mistakenly trying to claim they are infallible and that they have uncovered an alarming truth and that it is all 'settled'.

By chameleon (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chameleon wrote:
> They are essentially using the same discipline, which is not science, it is stats.

GIven that statistics is "the study of the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data"[1] it's kind of hard to escape it in quantitiative science.

> They are merely useful tools to help plot and graph the world around us.

Yes. Given the current understanding of atmospheric physics, chemistry, observational data and paleo evidence from ice cores, sediments, etc. we get the current models.

They are far from perfect - but the only way to get 'no problem' outcomes from them is to start them running with rules that aren't seen in the real world e.g. no feedbacks leading to ~3 degrees C sensitivity to doubled CO2.

By Yet another Rob (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry, [1] refers to "The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms".

By Yet another Rob (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Neil White, I offered this scenario to you here as an explanation for statistical SLR over observational non-SLR.

First you say: "This sounds like nonsense to me."

Then you say you are not saying that it wouldn't show what I claim.

So now you obviously don't think it is nonsense.

So are you just saying now that it couldn't possibly happen and never does?

And you didn't answer MY question about YOUR expertise with tides.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Of course economic models and population models use different data sets to climate models! Like doh!

Like doh! That wasn't the basis of my point!

Since you apparently can't understand where I disagreed with you let me help you out. Here's you reiterating your false claim:

They are essentially using the same discipline, which is not science, it is stats.

And since you're prone to misunderstanding my disagreement with you, and most of what I've written earlier has gone way above your head let me spell it out. The models are indeed using science no matter how many times you claim otherwise, and they are not "essentially doing stats" rather than science, no matter how many times you say it. They are doing science - with, as is rather common in science, the aid of some stats. You seem to have the idea that there's no physics involved and that models are malleable at will to produce any kind of result you want because they are little more than a glorified curve fitting exercise. (Go download one and start understanding the code...)

And worse still, if you bothered to look at the evidence you'd find that some of the key conclusions are fairly easily reached without the aid of a single computer model. (Try this as one massively simplified example, but you may have to wait until the server becomes accessible again.)

The rest of your comment fares little better. You are trying to paint a false equivalence, apparently based on personal ignorance and/or incomprehension.

I realise, of course, that just like everything else you've been pointed at this will fail to sink in. Like doh!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

chameleon --- Once again Lotharsson has rather fully explained.

But I'll attempt a bit more. A climate model begins with the conservation of energy. [There is direct empirical evidence for this, based on Emmy Noether's (first) theorem]. No such conservation principle holds in either economics or population biology, It then goes on the conservation of momentum. [Different empirical experiment, but same theorem.] We'll also need Euler's formulation of fluid dynamics not to mention Stefan's Law and so on...

But actual economics (as opposed to idealized academic exercises) is summarized in
physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17435/does-the-global-financial-system-violate-laws-of-thermodynamics-and-energy-conse
as aphysical. Indeed, the models are 'just' stats.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Thanks YA Rob,
I agree with that entirely except for your inference that I claimed 'no problem'.
What I pointed out earlier was real time data does not match the original 'alarming' projections especially in relation to SLR.
Lotharrson,
you are essentially 'furiously agreeing'. Splitting hairs between science and scientific data as opposed to the example of economics and economic data neither proves or disproves a point that you think I made or you made.
Our perspective is obviously different.
Even though Tim chose to call it 'unscrupulous' he actually did highlight how changing start/stop datum points can alter the conclusions.
Considering the methodology and the points were clearly outlined, I question the 'unscrupulous' tag.
It would've been unscrupulous if it wasn't clearly explained.
It is actually the nature of the beast we are apparently furiously agreeing about.

By chameleon (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

...you are essentially ‘furiously agreeing’.

ROFL!

Oh, the delicious irony of you telling me that my explicit disagreement, repeatedly explained, is actually agreement! How could I have been so mistaken as to write the opposite of what you claim I meant to write? Doh indeed!

You go on to emit more ludicrous handwaving attempts to justify your claim based on denying clear differences so that you can claim two very different things are "essentially" the same, and then reiterate claims that have been previously debunked.

I mean, you couldn't make this stuff up.

(Well, you obviously can, but most people couldn't. You have the advantage of feeling free to choose your own interpretations even if they are in direct contradiction of the facts.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Dumbo:

Dunno what you are CON but you sure act as if you know everything.

Dumbo, just because I read a few tide-gauge graphs doesn't mean I know everything. Just means I'm not so arrogant as to only be interested in tide gauges where I live.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

It’s probably not quite a dumb as lernard bernard and others claiming that deepening harbour entrances lowers SLs.

Ah, a friend of janama and a Brother in his Band of Wrong.

I did not say that dredging rivers near their mouths lowers sea level. I said that dredging near river mouths reduces the choke effect of the mouths, and lowers the mean local river level where such is still above mean sea level.

Your sea wall is in a river that has been dredged.

Bennard J, please don’t expose your ignorance further by making out that you have any idea of my involvement with the waterfront and BTW that 49.9 year old Chevron Is benchmark is exactly ONE nm from the official mouth of the Nerang R, not “several kilometers”.

Let's test that, shall we?

Here's a map of the Nerang River from Chevron island to the mouth. Note the scale bar. For those who don't want to fiddle with measurement, the scale bar shows that the seaward side of Chevron Island is approximately 6.67 km in a straight line from the mouth - it will be more by the time chainage distance is determined.

I'd call something close to 7 km "several kilometres". Heck, even if it were just one nautical mile from the mouth, that would put the island 1.852 kilometres from the mouth, which is by definition still "several kilometres".

The point though is that you are up the bloody river - and without a paddle. You are referring to riverine hydrology, and not to sea level.

“You don’t know much about tides do you?”

Enough to know that after observing them and designing vessels to cope with the vaguaries of them for most of my life they haven’t risen any higher than when I first started.

Oh, so you "design... vessels to cope with the vaguaries [sic] of [tides]". Surely you don't mean anything like tying fenders to tinnies or - heaven forefend - nailing old tyres to jetties? Perhaps it all has to do with the paint that you use for your pad?

Please elaborate. I have a few contacts at the Australian Maritime College who are world-class engineers in designing wave-piercing catamaran hulls, so I would like to run your claims past them to see just what your "designs" have to do with "the vaguaries [sic] of [tides]".

I have requested a detailed print out of the local tide gauge data but so far it has not been forthcoming.

You're a slow learner. I presented such data to you almost three years ago.

Drongo, you're out of your depth when discussing sea level. You are falling victim to unsophisticated folk 'wisdom' washed with ideology. It's the same sort of thinking that leads to superstitions and quackery and a myriad of other nonsensical beliefs.

Go sit on your jetty with a blankie on your knee and watch the tides turn. You have nothing more useful to offer.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 25 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharrson,
I don't know what your problem is.
I am not denying differences I was pointing out the similarities which does not mean they are exactly the same.
Nothing you have said disagrees with that.
I agree that climate models use scientific data as do other models use relevant data.
That therefore means they are not exactly the same.
And once again I have to say : Like doh!
However, they do have basic similarities which are indeed linked to stats not science.

By chameleon (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Following on from Bernard J's excellent comment, in an environment like this changes to the configuration of the waterways can change the tidal regime. This has been shown for Liverpool Harbour in the UK (closer to the open sea than Chevron Island). There is a paper by Phil Woodworth and others on this. Sorry, I'm on leave, and don't have access the exact reference. Of course, if you change the tidal regime you can also change the HAT, so maximum water levels (ignoring non-tidal effects) can change with changes in the configuration. If you throw in some storm surges, especially if they come at a very high tide, this confuses the issue further. Old benchmarks can't be used to look at long-term changes in this situation.

Bernard, I've been wondering what all this stuff about designing boats for the "vaguaries" of the tides is too. Thanks for putting it so well.

By Neil White (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Just means I’m not so arrogant as to only be interested in tide gauges where I live."

CON, but still arrogant enough to insult people you agree with?

" I said that dredging near river mouths reduces the choke effect of the mouths, and lowers the mean local river level where such is still above mean sea level."

We've been through all that LB and I also agreed with that point. That is kiddie stuff. But as I said then, not only does it reduce those mean SLs, it reduces lowest SLs and raises highest SLs. IOW, where you have an increased opening, the two areas will be more in equilibrium.

LB, you mean you still haven't found out where the official mouth of the Nerang River is? Smarten up.

Not only designed but designed, built and raced large and small yachts that have won international series and broken records doing so.

I wouldn't expect someone of your limited vision and unlimited arrogance to understand the complexities of trying to design and build an extremely deep draughted vessel with a high self righting index that can also cope with shoal water so I won't elaborate but you haven't got the slightest idea of what I have accomplished in this regard yet you are quite happy to claim that I am out of my depth.

What a pompous bag of wind.

As I have pointed out here, this benchmark of 49.9 years is but one of many around Moreton Bay over ~70 years of observations and they all agree that the highest tides are not as high as they were all that long ago.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spare me the strawman, dumbo.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wondering, were you Neil? Well now that you know, what about answering my question about your tide expertise?

Or can I take from your no reply that you are just another Berny Blowhard?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

However, they do have basic similarities which are indeed linked to stats not science.

Nope. The basics are very different.

I guess you could try claiming it a few more times in the hope that will finally make it true.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

The great Bernard thinks that SLs are reduced by simply dredging river mouths.

Don't raise the bridge, lower the river, hey Berny?

Was this your thesis for your PhD?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

But as I said then, not only does it reduce those mean SLs, it reduces lowest SLs and raises highest SLs. IOW, where you have an increased opening, the two areas will be more in equilibrium.

You keep speaking about sea levels when you're refering to a riverine system. Does this not ring a bell in your head?

With respect to dredging raising "highest s[ea] l[evel]s", that will most likely occur when the ingress of tidal water volume is greater than the original impoundment effect. I say "most likely, because there are many other factors in play, not the least of which in the Gold Coast example is that the history of the Broadwater is hydrologically complex, with much other dredging, shifting of banks, diversions of terrestrial run-off, and moving and opening of channels. In the Nerang there's also been a very complex history of alteration of the river banks' flow resistance characteristics, and indeed of just about every other Gauckler–Manning parameter one cares to poke a stick at.

And then there are the Little Nerang Dam and the damming of the Nerang at the Hinze Dam. The former was completed 50 years ago, and the latter 36 years ago, with an expansion 23 years ago and again last year...

What do you think the progressive additions of these dams would do to the hydrology of the Nerang? Coincidentally their history starts with your hyped sea wall mark on Chevron Island. Have you done the work to establish that the reduced flow of the Nerang does not reduce the tidal heights reached in the river at the point of Chevron Island?

And have you done yet the background checking to account for barometrtic pressure and ocean current inflences on highest astronomical tidal values?

Hmmm?

...you mean you still haven’t found out where the official mouth of the Nerang River is?

Hydrology doesn't give a hoot about official designations. All that matters is the combination of highly variable and impacted riverine hydrology interacting with the complex estuarine hydrology of the Broadwater, and with the oceanography and the meteorology of the region. To this end what is important is where the actual egresses to the ocean are, what channels occur between your much-vaunted sea wall and the aforementioned oceanic connections, the overall history, and how these interact with the highly altered river flow.

Oh, and the fact that the neighbouring tidal gauges at Brisbane and the Gold Coast tell a different story to yours.

And for what it's worth, my comment that Chevron Island is "several kilometres" from the ocean still stands. Quite robustly I'd say, but do invite dissenting voices to come here and explain why they so do...

Not only designed but designed, built and raced large and small yachts that have won international series and broken records doing so.

Really?! So with all of this apparent expertise in draughts and sounding how did you manage to miss out on the lessons of complex riverine hydrology?

If you'd be so gracious as to indicate which vessels you've designed/built, I'd be happy to get in touch with my Australian Maritime College contacts and sound them out about the capacity of the designers associated with the builds to comment on riverine hydrology and the oceanography of sea level rise.

For that matter, one of my neighbours was a crewman on the Eye of the Wind for quite a few years. He's a (very gruff and 'salty') skipper now on a scientific vessel and I had the good fortune to work with him for six months last year. He's intimately familiar with most of the sailing who's who on the Eastern Seaboard, so if you can give me a few hints about your nautical design history I could run it by him and get an expert assessment of your capacity to comment on sea level rise. I should warn you though - he doesn't suffer fools, and he's quite familiar (and in agreement) with the science of sea level rise - he'll talk for ages about Lempriere's mark at the Isle of the Dead...

I wouldn’t expect someone of your limited vision and unlimited arrogance to understand the complexities of trying to design and build an extremely deep draughted vessel with a high self righting index that can also cope with shoal water so I won’t elaborate but you haven’t got the slightest idea of what I have accomplished in this regard yet you are quite happy to claim that I am out of my depth.

Try me.

You'd be amazed at the amount of material on hull design and stability in water that I've had to review since we last tried to get sense from you about your sea wall. One of the benefits of working at a university that has more than its fair share of world-class experts in an impressive diversity if disciplines, and also of living and playing on the water of what it perhaps the most maritime place in Australia...

What a pompous bag of wind.

And yet you pretend to know better than professional experts in hydrology and oceanography, even though you have no working understanding of these sciences.

Oh, you meant me?! Sorry Mangled Drongo, but you'll have to try harder than that to scratch my hide.

As I have pointed out here, this benchmark of 49.9 years is but one of many around Moreton Bay over ~70 years of observations and they all agree that the highest tides are not as high as they were all that long ago.

And as I have persistently tried to get through into your rusted head, without standardised documentation such claims are useless, and without an understanding of the complex regional riverine/estuarine/marine/atmospheric milieu, they are also absolutely irrelevant.

Face it Drongo, you've spent too much time in the sun without a hat.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

The great Bernard thinks that SLs are reduced by simply dredging river mouths.

Are you demented?!

From one of my comments earlier today

I did not say that dredging rivers near their mouths lowers sea level. I said that dredging near river mouths reduces the choke effect of the mouths, and lowers the mean local river level where such is still above mean sea level.

Do you understand? I am speaking about river level. Tidal movement occurs in the lower reaches of rivers, but it superimposes on riverine hydrology so the existence of tides in a river does not inform about tidal patterns in open oceans. Especially when the river's hydrology has been as profoundly altered as the Nerang's has.

How many more times must this be repeated before it sinks through the rust encrusting whatever it is that rattles inside your head?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

I note that whenever Spangled Drongo is confronted with the abject insupportability of his case, and whenever he is challenged to answer the raft of questions to him that have banked up over the last few years, he reverts to fizzing about straw men and (heaven forefend that I even mention it) ad hominem distraction.

As Lotharsson beseeches - better trolls please.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wait, what? Is the argument seriously "I build boats, so I know more about river hydrology"?

Oh, and then calling others blowhards.

Holy canoli, it is true: IT'S ALL PROJECTION.

Lotharrson,
It appears that you are only interested in arguing academic semantics.
I learnt some time ago that is a pointless exercise.
May I suggest you read YA Rob's comment as well as David B's?
They were able to understand the actual point I was making without accusing me of saying something I didn't say.
I also note you have failed to recognise that Tim has essentially outlined the same issue despite his use of the word 'unscrupulous'.
I don't have a problem with the use of stats BTW. They are very useful accross a wide spectrum.
I am not however enamoured with an over reliance on their projective capabilities, especially by politicians.
As I commented earlier, IMHO they are repeatedly somewhat misused by others (and perhaps I should have said NOT scientists) who claim they are like reliable fortune tellers and that they have demonstrated that the science is totally 'settled'.
So Lotharrson, I apologise, but I continue to remain highly amused by your prickly responses that seem to be more about a political stance than anything else.

By chameleon (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bernard, are you waving now or only drowning?

You are really struggling to extract complex correctness from simple and obvious error.

Run a few levels over the lower reaches of the Nerang and the Broadwater and then get back to me. For example, check which way the river runs during flood peaks. [And spare us the lecture on hydrology]

And then we can discuss my other benchmarks if you wish.

So you have friends who have designed wave piercing cats?WOO! WOO!

Tell me LB, when these vessels have neither the ability to self right nor travel in shallow water what makes you think they are qualified to pass knowledgable judgement on my boats?

Or don't you get that either?

But possibly your salty mate from Eye of the Wind could advise on ultra-light yachts with hydraulic lift keel systems.

But as they're self-proven and successful systems that have many times been passed and approved by the American Bureau of Shipping, Lloyds etc, I won't trouble him, thanks.

At least my rusted head has had to sense to pay attention to SLs throughout my life.

I recommend you start doing likewise. It will vastly improve your education.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Yep, Bernard J has it.

This lurker is now convinced Drongo probably is demented.

I remember reading that old thread and all the thoughtful analysis, links to evidence, links to the science, suggestions for further study, and exhortations to look at the wider context then and now ... have made no impression at all.

Like some un-flushable turd, Drongo's year's old, evasive, one trick SLR drivel just keeps bobbing back up round the S-bend.

Kinda sad.

Chris W,

Back to your old methods of dealing with the facts, I see.

Haven't learnt much since we last met have you?

Is that because you're dumb or still in denial?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

^ This, boys and girls, we refer to as 'projection'.

I would suggest that anyone who could possibly spend "a few years" on an iron clunker like "Eye of the Wind" with twin Caterpillar diesels that would make her go upwind like a witch [koff], isn't really into the who's who and what's what of sailing.

But it gives a sharp signal of who, where and what you get your information from and how relevant it must be.

But maybe he redeemed himself and put you straight on that Ross-Lempriere mark.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

It appears that you are only interested in arguing academic semantics.

Nope. More wrongness.

These semantics are anything but academic especially to you - because you keep seeking to erase them and then argue from the resulting picture, presumably knowing (if only subconsciously) that you can't argue from a picture that includes them.

For example, here's you doing it again:

...IMHO [statistics] are repeatedly somewhat misused by others (and perhaps I should have said NOT scientists) who claim they are like reliable fortune tellers and that they have demonstrated that the science is totally ‘settled’.

Remarkable!

So: citations please.

Citations that show that statistics when inappropriately used are generally abused in order to claim that the science is 'settled'.

What I (and many others) overwhelmingly observe in cases where statistics are abused to make climate science claims is the opposite. Abused statistics are generally used to claim that mainstream climate science is anywhere from sloppy - and wildly off base - to outright fraudulent - and wildly off base.

If the bee in your bonnet is the inappropriate use of statistics to make claims about climate science and you have not observed this, then you're either wilfully blind, statistically incompetent or haven't looked around very much.

I also note you have failed to recognise that Tim has essentially outlined the same issue despite his use of the word ‘unscrupulous’.

That's because, as I pointed out to you much earlier, the same issues do not arise in the scientific literature reporting the results of the climate models. I don't recognise claims that cannot be substantiated. Once again you seek to erase an inconvenient fact so that you can argue from its absence. Sense a pattern here yet?

I continue to remain highly amused by your prickly responses that seem to be more about a political stance than anything else.

"Prickly" is in your mind.

I remain amused by your responses that seek to claim a counter-fact by denying other facts and via repeated unsubstantiated assertion. Does that work well for you in other forums?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

"You’d be amazed at the amount of material on hull design and stability...."

Yes LB, I would be and I'm still waiting to be.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Chuckle :-)
I rest my case Lotharsson.
I truly have no wish to feed your negative perception of me. I wasn't attempting to argue with you.
I can only apologise that you find my style of commenting so irritating.
We clearly have a different perspective about what is relevant and important.
I do not deny what you have said (even though you clearly think I have).
I have found the politics surrounding climate science rather counter productive and distasteful.
People have become more interested in trading insults than anything I would consider practical, realistic or productive.
I didn't comment on much of what you have said because with
it's attendant personal insults I found it rather typically irrelevant

By chameleon (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

I rest my case Lotharsson.

I'm not sure you've made a case. You've made several claims, but I'm not sure you've substantiated any of them - and you've entirely ignored material provided by various commenters that strongly rebut many of those claims.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

:-)
Chuckle.

By chameleon (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lernard Bernard's Freudian choice of multihulls as his admired vessel reflects the dichotomy of the weather as seen from the Alarmists v the Sceptics PsOV.

The Alarmists would have it that the world's weather, like a multihull, generally travells in a blissful state of Goldilocks comfort unles and until, hit by excessive [ACO2] force, reaches a tipping point from which it cannot recover and whammo! over it goes, down the gurgler. [positive feedback]

Sceptics OTOH, see it as a ballasted monohull that rolls with the punches and even if knocked flat has auto- increasing reserves to always recover. [negative feedback]

Eventually it will dawn on the alarmists that maybe this is how we have survived this long.

That is, if they don't scuttle the ship in the meantime.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 26 Dec 2012 #permalink

So, let me get this straight. In the world according to Popeye - or the nautical Forrest Gump, with life like a marina of dinghies, if you will - the planet's climate system is somehow designed to move back to the very equilibrium state that just happens to be most beneficial for us?

Yeah, right. Read any paleohistory there? Hate to break the bad news to you, but the continuing survival - let alone the comfort - of you, me, Polar Bears, the Indian Tiger, and the Northern Atlantic Right Whale is a matter of complete indifference to Mother Earth, I'm afraid.

So what's your excuse - insouciance, arrogance, imbecility, or an abiding sense that The Lord wouldn't do it to you? A combination of the above, perhaps?

Bill, is that the Thickhead or Little Cuckoo talking?

Hellooo! Are you there bill?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangled Drongo:

"The Alarmists would have it that the world’s weather, like a multihull, generally travells in a blissful state of Goldilocks comfort unles and until, hit by excessive [ACO2] force, reaches a tipping point from which it cannot recover and whammo! over it goes, down the gurgler. [positive feedback] "

You know even less about climate than you do about sea level. This is a truly remarkable state of affairs.

By Neil White (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

So you deny that you believe in positive feedbacks then?

You know even less about yourself than you do about the weather and SLs.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

You notice I didn't say TIDES Neil. I'm still eagerly anticipating details of your expertise on tides.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

So you deny that you believe in positive feedbacks then?

Hard not to unless you're in abject denial. (Oh, wait...) There are a whole bunch of well-documented ones some of which are really obvious. And the earth would be a LOT cooler without them, which is pretty easy to demonstrate with basic physics.

Then again, you seem awfully confused about what effects positive feedbacks have, as revealed by your deeply misguided portrayal of "What Alarmists would have it...", so it's entirely possible that there's no-one here who believes in whatever it is that you are talking about.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Your parochial homespun might impress then down at the local, dear Drongo, but, frankly, the fact that you're desperately polishing some pearl with regard to some tidal inlet on the Gold Coast (whose geography you can't even manage to get right) as if that's going to disprove, um, the whole world, and, um, science, and then sneering at others for lacking your splendiferous nautical credentials - as if they had anything to do with anything and that you won't elaborate anyway, no doubt because they're over-inflated if not completely imaginary - only indicates how waaaaaay out of your depth you really are in the real world...

And what are these common destabilising factors that grow exponentially to a runaway extreme and finally destroy the earth?

Other than alarmists, that is.

Or do you mean things like water vapour and clouds?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

And it is sad when one of your fav bed wetters recants:

'I made a mistake': Gaia theory scientist James Lovelock admits he was 'alarmist' about the impact of climate change

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

'waaaaaay out of your depth"

Am I bill?

In that case you should find it easy to refute any of my obs listed above.

let's have your pearls of wisdom, bill.

Or can you only parrot others' insults??

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

In that case you should find it easy to refute any of my obs listed above.

Such as? You've been talking about boats and Gaia. You're a pathetic, corner-bar level tone troll. Why do you feel you have put forth anything worth engaging?

Spangled Drongo

It is a remarkable leap to go from criticism of an incorrect statement that includes the phrase "positive feedback" to claiming that the person who wrote that criticism doesn't believe in positive feedbacks.

Unfortunately this is fairly typical of your level of argument.

I'm not wasting any more time on you.

By Neil White (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

@Neil White

"I’m not wasting any more time on you."

Fair enough Neil, a great loss for everyone I'm sure. Close the door on your way out.
;)

Wait, did Griselda just get dismissive? That's precious.

Stu the drive-by hit man.

Either that or he can't read.

GSW,

Bbbbbut Neil's a TIDE EXPERT. We're still waiting for his radiating, rationalising intellect to shine the light on our tangled pathway.

He's not leaving yet, surely?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry, you seem to have left out the point.

Wow, James Lovelock, at random! How long ago did we do that one? Running out of live ammo, eh? Rest assured, Drongo: I'm sure the IPCC will document all his important papers on the issue, just as they have in the past.

Do you think you should perhaps seek out a forum somewhere to debate hull design and tidal influences on the Gold Coast? You seem to be demanding that this blog becomes one.

Oh, adding to the preciousness of the thread:

And what are these common destabilising factors that grow exponentially to a runaway extreme and finally destroy the earth?

OH HAI, spangled whatever. This is is what is commonly known in conversations amongst rational adults as a "straw man". It means that you are attributing a viewpoint to your opponent that they actually do not hold.

Or, and I shall attempt to use smaller words for your benefit, it's you arguing against something nobody ever said, or would say, because it is stupid, and you hope really hard that nobody notices this juvenile tactic.

Climate will not destroy the Earth. Nobody said that, as you damned well know. The only issue here is whether the climate can change sufficiently, and sufficiently rapidly, to make things really hard on billions of people.

To be clear, this also means that the equally doltish "the climate changed before" is cute yet moronic. Yes, the atmosphere has held much more CO2 than it does now in the past.

Are you a large fern, spangled? If not, that should worry you.

Stu,
And that little display of yours is also known as arguing with yourself.
Would you care to explain why you think this is all about what you obviously believe is everyone else's short comings?
Your little rant here just basically argues if people don't unquestionably believe in your view of the world then that automically follows they are mentally deficient.
Not just a little 'straw mannish' in logic by any chance?

By chameleon (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

And that little display of yours is also known as arguing with yourself.

I directly quoted you and refuted you. Obvious and stupid lie.

Would you care to explain why you think this is all about what you obviously believe is everyone else’s short comings?

You have been proven to argue in bad faith. You have been proven to be really bad at it. If there is an "all about", you are more than welcome to BRING IT UP, MORON.

Your little rant here just basically argues if people don’t unquestionably believe in your view of the world then that automically follows they are mentally deficient.

Wow. Umm...

This is is what is commonly known in conversations amongst rational adults as a “straw man”. It means that you are attributing a viewpoint to your opponent that they actually do not hold.

Or, and I shall attempt to use smaller words for your benefit, it’s you arguing against something nobody ever said, or would say, because it is stupid, and you hope really hard that nobody notices this juvenile tactic.

Thank you for doing the same thing again. Cutting and pasting saves a lot of time.

I never called you mentally ill. I called you pathetic, I called you incompetent, and I called you stupid.

You would not, by any chance, be someone on another thread coming in here under false pretenses, would you?

Not just a little ‘straw mannish’ in logic by any chance?

"Straw mannish in logic"? You have no idea what the hell a straw man fallacy is, do you precious?

What is it about you deniers that prevents you from Googling even the most basic damned things? Are you that afraid of knowledge? Are you that insecure and delusional?

Never mind. Don't answer that.

Still wondering whose sock puppet you are. I wish I had IP check rights on this site.

Of course, the para starting with "Your little rant here" should have been a quote. Edit feature, where art thou.

Well that would be because you - that's you, chameleon - haven't managed to demonstrate a single correct understanding of real world data, and appear to be content to remain coasting on your admittedly impressive gargantuan ignorance, and then unsurprisingly find yourself left with nothing but tone trolling.

It's a lomg goodbye that really should ne nipped in the bud before any more pixels are inconvenienced.

:-)
Chuckle.
You guys are truly funny.
It has been a great education and great entertainment stumbling on this site :-)

By chameleon (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

So Stu?
Is that your way of trying to ask who I am or what I do?
If it was, has it occured to you if you tried just simply politely asking that you may perhaps have a better chance of getting what you wish for?
That may save you the time and energy required to obtain IP check rights. :-)
As a little hint. I have never visited this site before last week. Neither am I a regular blogger anywhere else. I do however visit many different sites on recommendations from others and have rather eccelectic web site reading habits.
I like to try and understand all points of view.
I usually only comment when I percieve the behaviour is stifling any genuine debate.

By chameleon (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Stu, to get us all back on thread, were you capable of reading my claims on [lack of] SLR and do you have anything cogent to offer to refute them?

Or would you prefer to waffle on about your [lack of] understanding of positive feedback.

You see Stu, words like pos feedback and misogynist etc have certain meanings and you are stuck with them.

Terribly unfair, I know, but as they say, you can have your own opinion but you can't have your own facts.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Do you think you should perhaps seek out a forum somewhere to debate hull design and tidal influences"

Bill, you poor old chap, you just don't get it do you?

Tidal obs and SLs is what this thread is all about.

And my analogy of alarmists being all aboard a powered multihull with absolutely no self righting index [positive feedback] as introduced by your own Lernard Bernard as a standard by which other boats should be judged, and sceptics crewing a ballasted yacht with top category SRI [neg feedback] which is what I design and build and which said LB was casting aspersions on, probably went right over your tiny bird head.

OH, the irony and the agony!

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sigh - Dear Spangly Thingo,

As I stated, your bizarre claim that the world climate system is self-regulating for our benefit is manifestly absurd, ahistoric, and probably a religious delusion, though, like your alleged nautical expertise, you remain coy on the matter.

This thread is not about SLRs in a tiny localised region of your choice, the geography of which you cannot even get right in your own head. Nor is it about hull designs - their inefficacy even as an analogy has been dealt with above.

You are well paired with your fellow-traveller Karen, who does not know which year this is.

So when was the last tipping point, bill?

When we last went irreversibly over the cliff?

Y'know, like a multihull does when it capsizes?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

"This thread is not about SLRs in a tiny localised region of your choice, the geography of which you cannot even get right in your own head"

When you seem to have the attention span of a gnat, bill, there is no point in repeating my claims but should you wish to go back and read them thereby getting your confused mind in focus, I will be happy to address any specific point you wish to make.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

How on earth can you conclude that I have a limited attention span from the above? How absurd! What the voices in your head keep telling you - jolly, salty tars all, no doubt - and what actual reality is don't necessarily coincide, you know.

We know from history that eras with CO2 level equivalent to current were very different to our own, and the CO2 level just keep rising, with each incremental upward tick separating us further from the benign late-Holocene that made us what we are. We also know that the abruptness of the transition to these higher levels is virtually unprecedented, and despite whatever the voices may be telling you - 'Arrr, there, matey, as long as Sweet Baby Jesus is your Captain, you'd best believe he'll always be steering you Right through the shoals of unpleasant reality' - this is unlikely to result in anything good.

You see Stu, words like pos feedback and misogynist etc have certain meanings and you are stuck with them.

I've got my popcorn now.

Spangled Drongo:

1) Please define the term "positive feedback".
2) Please define the term "tipping point" in terms of "positive feedbacks" as understood by those you call "Alarmists".
3) Please give examples of "positive feedbacks" and "tipping points" as you think are understood by "Alarmists"
4) Please cite the likely range of outcomes of those positive feedbacks and tipping points as understood by those "Alarmists".

There may be follow-up questions.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lotharsson,

You are stuck with them because your Great Panjandrum Alarmist, AKA Whinnying Jimmy, invented them.

Why should I define them for you?

If you wish to recant, you will have to do a James Lovelock.

Oh, the irony is exquisite!

Now, what're the follow ups?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

"How on earth can you conclude that I have a limited attention span from the above?"

I know you really don't want me to answer that bill, but a specific question on any one of my claims WOULD help me change my mind.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bill,
what on earth do you mean by 'virtually unprecedented'?
It is either unprecedented or it isn't.
Lotharsson,
Spangled is correct.
There are plenty of accepted definitions of those terms supplied by what I'm guessing is what you perceive as your side of the political debate.
That is just a guess BTW. Happy to be corrected about your political views.

By chameleon (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

And bill, It would help if you answered some of my specific questions:

So when was the last tipping point, bill?

When we last went irreversibly over the cliff?

Y’know, like a multihull does when it capsizes?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Trollboy - 'virtually unprecedented' means there's still some uncertainty as to just how fast some transitions may have occurred in the past.

Spangly, you're just asking the wrong questions.

No matter how many semantic games one plays very abrupt transitions remain both uncommon and generally very bad for those organisms adapted to current regimes.

You are stuck with them because your Great Panjandrum Alarmist, AKA Whinnying Jimmy, invented them.

Good grief.

Are you so abjectly stupid that you make a blatantly false claim that wouldn't fool a five year old with a dictionary, or anyone who's done any engineering course in about the last century?

(And I don't know who "Whinnying Jimmy" is in your mind.)

Why should I define them for you?

Because doing so will force you to demonstrate either that you do actually know what you're talking about, despite the numerous misrepresentations and dubious claims you have made to date, or demonstrate that you don't - as your ducking and weaving in response to my questions suggests.

Now, what’re the follow ups?

More illogic from you.

You don't get followups until you've answered the first set of questions. Declining to answer is not an answer.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangled is correct.

You may wish to rephrase that, or at the very least add some major qualifications. But that would require you grok what he claimed, and I strongly doubt you have.

(And while I'm at it, don't you have some concern and advice for Spangled Drongo re: his tone, frequent use of insults and infrequent ability to substantiate his claims and implications? Or are you not an equal opportunity advice giver?)

Happy to be corrected about your political views.

You are again making incorrect assumptions.

My political views have zero to do with the well-known definition of "positive feedback" for example, a question for which there are no "sides". The term was defined outside of climate science long before certain political views attempted to delegitimise its conclusions.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

They're your little orphans Lothe.

Your mate Whinnying Jimmy used them to the max to promote your ideology and his alarmism for the last 3 decades, YOU tell ME what they mean.

When they were virtually unheard of prior to that in common weather and climate parlance, YOU tell ME what they do.

When they have never occurred in the history of Climate Change, YOU tell ME what they are.

Hint, take a cue from chickens as in coming home to roost.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

(While we're at it, would someone please re-inform Spangled Drongo that, just as it was the last time, James Lovelock is still not a climate scientist, still was never revered or influential as one, his earlier (e.g. 2006-2009 vintage) views still did not form the past basis of the scientific case for concern (which arose years before that) and whatever his current views are they are still not evidence about the scientific case for concern?

The comment about the IPCC including his climate science papers was clearly too subtle to get through.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangly, your true self is showing. You're getting SHOUTY and INCOHERENT. And in mid-rant any pretence - and it is a pretence - of reasonableness simply drops away, doesn't it?

And who the hell is this 'Whinnying Jimmy'? Is this some kind of pseudo-folksy, aw-shucks, Huck Finn, baffled-old-man attempt to abuse James Hansen, perhaps? Bizarre!

And are you really saying that the climate has never reached a point where it has irreversibly shifted from one state to another? Surely you're not really that stupid? Well, actually...

...YOU tell ME what they do.

That's a pretty pathetic ducking and weaving attempt.

I'll take that as a strong admission that you've been using those terms to make assertions but you don't actually know what they mean.

And that's odd, you having designed really successful boats and all. You give every sign of not knowing how to apply the concepts to a system which has feedbacks (even though one would imagine that the control systems for a boat would constitute such a system).

You certainly haven't been able to demonstrate a basic understanding of what different magnitudes of net positive feedback does to a system, let alone what happens when both positive and negative feedbacks are in play at once. This is even more odd because you seem so confident that scientists claim it must always lead to an "irreversible tipping point". (Funny how you use the example of a boat tipping over as an irreversible tipping point though. I'm sure you've untipped a number of boats thereby reversing it, but you would have noted that it required a great deal of extra effort. Hmmm.....)

Oh, and I still don't know who "Whinnying Jimmy" is. Seems like you'd prefer to use insulting names than to be understood.

Says a lot, really.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

"And who the hell is this ‘Whinnying Jimmy’?"

Go on bill, have a wild stab.

"And are you really saying that the climate has never reached a point where it has irreversibly shifted from one state to another?"

And you can tell me about that too, bill, while you're at it.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

I did have a 'wild stab'! So you're not even going to have the courtesy to simply state outright whether you're abusing Jim Hansen? Has your analyst ever suggested that you're manipulative at all, Drongo?

They're your babies Lothe, you define 'em.

"the example of a boat tipping over as an irreversible tipping point"

You're getting like bill, Lothe. Gnat's attention span.

That's not what I said at all. I hope you haven't got a job where lives depend on what you do.

Have you ever seen a capsized multihull? It cannot recover without outside help. It does not self right and it can capsize relatively easily. A properly ballasted monohull OTOH will not remain in an inverted position. It self rights and it capsizes only with extreme force.

Remind you of anything?

Now, back on thread eh?

You work out the difference.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wow! While I claim no expertise in psychology, I suspect there's a whole conference worth of material in this one...

" While I claim no expertise in psychology"

Well that's a relief bill, as with SLs, you mean?

And while you'at it bill, you could invoke Oliver Wendell Holmes' last resort rule:

If you're stong on facts, pound the facts...etc

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 27 Dec 2012 #permalink

Thanks for acknowledging that I'm strong on facts. Certainly true relative to you, but, then, that's not really an achievement, is it?

Bill, I simply left out the rest of the quote to take ie easy on you.

You don't even realise that what you're in effect saying as per that quote is:

"if you've got neither, pound the psychology.

You're a bit slow, bill love.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

So virtually means uncertain?
I wasn't trying to play semantics Bill.
The term is a nonsense term.
You supplied no evidence BTW it was just an absolute statement.
Can I also ask how abrupt is very abrupt and also which organisms are suffering from this particular 'virtually unprecedented' phenomenon?
Those sweeping statements sound very alarming.
Lotharsson,
Maybe you need to re read my post?
I did explain the particular point that I believe was correct.
Those terms have been widely used by the politics that surround CC.

By chameleon (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Oeer, the shame. Imagine having no interest in that quote! Funnily enough, I don't feel the need to run 'round after your handwaving references, Spangly.

Especially since, when asked simple direct questions - such as 'Who the hell is Whinnying Jimmy?' - you won't respond, not even when subsequently asked specifically if you were referring to Hansen. It's this kind of thing that makes me suspect you've got issues, frankly.

Perhaps you were trying to spare yourself the embarrassment of revealing you'd referred to Lovelock in this ludicrous manner, given that: one; I've not heard him referred to as 'Jim', yet alone Jimmy, and, two; he is to Climate Science as Puccini is to the Delta Blues. Clearly my little 'all his papers' joke went straight over your head, but so many things do...

And chameleon, you're simply boring. Goodbye little troll.

Bill, you're not much good at pounding the psychology either.

Better call it quits.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sorry bill, I missed where you first asked whether WJ was Hansen and yes of course he is.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Maybe you need to re read my post?

No, but maybe you need to read mine.

At the point where you jumped into the interchange I had asked Spangled Drongo, whom you allege was correct (seemingly on this point), whether he could substantiate his claim that some (presumably) climate scientist that he will only refer to by a (presumably) insulting epithet had invented a certain term or two. I furthermore gave strong hints that one of the terms, if not both, was much older than that and had a widely accepted definition from common usage in other fields of studies.

You attempted to redirect this to a discussion of terms used in politics which is not what I was talking about.

And it's worse than that. As far as I can see it's not even what Spangled Drongo was claiming to be talking about. He seems to be referring to terms used in climate science by climate scientists, although it's difficult to confirm this because he refuses to use people's actual names or define the terms he's using or give any citations.

On the other hand it appears that he's claiming to be virtually certain that the terms are applied incorrectly to the climate system - which is quite remarkable given that he clearly doesn't know what they mean! Maybe you could give him some advice about not making assertions of virtual certainty when he doesn't know what he's talking about?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Crikey, Chameleon - you *do* realise you aren't very smart, right? You can't have got this far through life without realising that you aren't really understanding a whole lot ofr what is going on around you.
What makes you think your ignorant twitterings are any use here?

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

So now Spangled Drongo has admitted he's talking about Hansen's use of "positive feedback" and "tipping point" and perhaps even "irreversible", perhaps he can go one further and define the terms as used by Hansen?

Or two further, and demonstrate his theory of the climate history of the earth which adequately explains the main observations without invoking "positive feedback" or "tipping point"? ("Snowball Earth" might be a good starting point. Or even merely looking at Milankovitch cycles.)

After all, Spangled Drongo is asserting what chameleon might call an "absolute judgement" that they "...have never occurred in the history of Climate Change", and since as we know "climate is always changing", that means they've never occurred in the entire history of the earth.

If that's too hard, perhaps he can tell us what difference a positive feedback of 50% makes to the response of a system to a change in an input, compared to an otherwise identical system without the positive feedback? Ideally he would explain how this generates a "tipping point", under what conditions a tipping point occurs, and what limits the effect of a positive feedback in a physical system.

Nah, I predict he will sneer and name-call because that's all he's got. And I'm sure any day now chameleon will weigh in with deep concern about his tone hurting his case, right?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Spangled Drongo's obsession with Hansen and calling him alarmist for 3 decades is interesting, because Hansen's 3 decade old predictions have turned out to be pretty decent using what is now considered a primitive climate model.

IIRC an even earlier simpler model from the 60's wasn't bad - and it was much better than Spangled Drongo's claim that climate is "self-correcting".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Some information for Spangled Drongo on claims that Hansen's 1988 forecast was massively wrong.

Summary: for anyone to make the claim that WUWT does, they first have to re-run the model with the forcings that eventuated, not the ones the model projected. The author of that WUWT article has massively cocked that up, and either dishonest or incompetent enough to continue with the claims. When you get the actual forcings right the model is about 20% too warm primarily because climate sensitivity was too high - which, when matched to observations implies a climate sensitivity well within the "concerning" range.

Note carefully how (badly) WUWT fudges things to try to get their readers to follow along.

1. Underneath the graph they talk about CO2 forcings since 2000 increasing at higher rates ("as much as 2.5%/yr"). They don't say how they calculated this, nor even bother to inform their readers what the average increase was (whether under a linear or exponential increase model).

2. They then claim this implies that total forcings have increased (by some amount). Note the bait and switch! The model includes a number of other forcings - some of which experienced strong reductions after the 1988 predictions were made (e.g. CFC reductions due to the Montreal Protocol).

3. They claim that (1) - about CO2 increases since 2000 - implies total forcings since 1988 have increased "faster than scenario A" (which is an exponential increase) but they don't substantiate it. Anyone sensing a potential problem with the extrapolation across two different dimensions here?

4. They then calculate under these dubious assumptions an increase in temperature allegedly "predicted" by the model.

5. They appear to calculate the "150%" figure by using endpoint differences rather than trends - a favourite of cherry-pickers everywhere.

There are probably still other issues - but this should be enough. In other words, the authors are either lying to people who don't know enough to tell the difference, or they don't know enough to know when they're making major analytical mistakes - and those in charge at WUWT went along with it (presumably for one of the same two reasons).

And note how Spangled Drongo fell hook, line and sinker for it - despite some of the comments pointing out some of the errors. I reckon he'll dismiss all of this or shift goalposts or throw a new red herring, of course.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Please, lets do as Spangled Drongo suggests and return to the topic of SL rise... Like where he/she seems to be making the claim that some unnamed "experts" are telling him that mean high water has remained constant and the tidal range has merely been reduced worldwide. Please do tell SD, who are these experts and what is their exact area of expertise? Care to share with us their proposed mechanism by which the tidal range would be reduced since astronomical factors and coastal geomorphology are the two main determining factors of tidal range. If there are significant systematic changes in either of those that would seem to be quite "alarming."

I'm also interested in hearing more about your expertise on sea level data given that you didn't even realize that this is freely available online from many countries' oceanographic/ meteorological offices. That and the fact that you use strange terminology for basic concepts (eg. "half-tide") almost gives one the impression that you aren't that familiar with the subject matter and the people's views you are parroting aren't exactly experts either.

Also note how Spangled Drongo has ignored the 1981 predictions which presumably are the ones he referred to when he described Hansen as an "Alarmist" for "3 decades". Perhaps they were good enough that Drongo can't argue they were "Alarmist!"?

And do click on the "Advanced" tab in that link I posted in the previous comment. In particular look at Fig 2. which shows actual forcings since 1998 running BELOW SCENARIO B, not well above scenario A as claimed at WUWT.

The great irony here is that the size of the error in the claim in the WUWT article is approximately 6-10x, which is far greater than the discrepancy in the 1988 model predictions. And yet Drongo will (likely) cling to the former as "more accurate" and call the latter "alarmist".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Distractions first:

I would suggest that anyone who could possibly spend “a few years” on an iron clunker like “Eye of the Wind” with twin Caterpillar diesels that would make her go upwind like a witch [koff], isn’t really into the who’s who and what’s what of sailing.

Drongo, he travelled around the world a number of times, during which he sailed on many other vessels and took part in many tall-ship events and - like you apparently - races. He's skippered/captained everything from fishing boats to yachts to schooners to freighters. But the fact that you're acquainted with the Eye implies that its background also is not unknown to you, so you should have some idea of the type of sailers who have crewed her. They're certainly not exclusively "iron clunker" types... although some, I suspect, would love to pursuade you of the error of your disparaging ways by inviting you to clean the keel whilst handily tethered to a length of rope looped around the hull....

And my analogy of alarmists being all aboard a powered multihull with absolutely no self righting index [positive feedback] as introduced by your own Lernard Bernard as a standard by which other boats should be judged, and sceptics crewing a ballasted yacht with top category SRI [neg feedback] which is what I design and build and which said LB was casting aspersions on, probably went right over your tiny bird head.

Let's not go too far sideways into one of your shoals of red herrings. I asked you to elaborate on your design/building experience in order to ascertain exactly from where you are coming in terms of your understanding of riverine hydrology and marine oceanography. So far you've supplied nothing to buttress your claim of decreasing riverine king tide height as a proxy for global sea level. Instead you fixate on the relative stability of multihulls - a straw man gambit typical of the sort you are wont to employ.

But before we leave your diversion...

Have you ever seen a capsized multihull? It cannot recover without outside help. It does not self right and it can capsize relatively easily. A properly ballasted monohull OTOH will not remain in an inverted position. It self rights and it capsizes only with extreme force.

Remind you of anything?

Yes, the planet's climate. But as others have observed, in diametric opposition to the spin you placed on it.

The climate, pushed out of whack by a forcing equivalent to as much CO2 as humans are emitting, does not simply "roll back" after a couple of years to its Holocene mean. If you have some science though that says otherwise please share it. However, as I have said before, be prepared to defend yourself - in doing so you will have to explain why the planet has transitted between glacial maxima and minima for the last 2.6 million years in response to fluctuating forcings, rather than hanging around the pleasant, narrow Holocene temperature range in which human cultures as we known them developed.

Hardly a self-righting "monohull"-type of pattern, that, especially on the time-scale relevant to the preservation of a climate conducive to human society and perhaps even to human ecophysiology... In fact, given the countering forcings and forcing-related phenomena that are required to reverse from a maximum or a minimum, I'd say that a multihull metaphor is most apt.

But enough of that. If you've mucked around with lifting-keels yourself you should have at least some passing familiarity with hydraulics. It surprises me then that you once said (on 22 February 2010 to be precise):

At my benchmark the ’74 flood was about 1.5 metres above the king tide mark and the current was still running UPSTREAM at its peak. IOW this rise was possibly all due to the cyclone and sea surge. Not the flood.

Do you seriously not understand how a strong surge can interact with a riverine flood and still run upstream?!

Really? Seriously?! Are you claiming that this is not possible?

Let's just summarise your position.

1. You have a mark on a sea wall in a river about 7 kilometres from the nearest mouth to open ocean.

2. You claim that this mark indicates higher king tide levels in the 70s compared to recent times, although you provide no testable substantiation of this.

3. Notwithstanding points 1 and 2, you claim that professional oceanographers are wrong in their assessment that global sea level is increasing.

4. In the process of making your claim as described in point 3, you have presented no evidence that you have accounted for the modifying impacts of dredging, of riverbank alteration, of mouth modification, of significant canal estate developments, and of other riverine structural alterations that affect the Gauckler–Manning parameters that in turn affect tide height/water depth in rivers.

5. In the process of making your claim as described in point 3, you have presented no evidence that you have accounted for the modifying impacts of barometric pressure history over the period that you claim riverine king tides have declined.

6. In the process of making your claim as described in point 3, you have presented no evidence that you have accounted for the modifying impacts of onshore current characteristics over the period that you claim riverine king tides have declined.

7. In the process of making your claim as described in point 3, you have presented no evidence that you have accounted for the modifying impacts of the extensive upstream damming of the Nerang River over the period that you claim riverine king tides have declined.

8. In the process of making your claim as described in point 3, you have presented no evidence that you have accounted for the fact that the two nearest tide gauges, at Brisbane and at the Gold Coast, indicate no decline in overall sea levels, and in fact demonstrate the opposite - that sea level is increasing.

9. Throught the 3 year history of your unsubstantiated slandering of professional oceanographers, you have repeated your claim without any scientific evidence at all, and without demonstrating that you even understand the complexities of riverine hydrology or of sea level dynamics.

10. Throught the 3 year history of your unsubstantiated slandering of professional oceanographers, you have steadfastly refused to answer the many, many questions put to you that attempt to clarify your understanding, and that attempt to address serious flaws in the understanding that you present, such as your attempt to apply linear regression to periodically oscillating phenomena.

You've been bleating about your bloody river wall for nigh on three years Drongo. When are you going to start applying science to what is no more than an untested anecdote? And when are you going to address the multiple scientific counters that render completely irrelevant that anecdote even if it could be fully substantiated?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Throughout...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

I return today to briefly cast my eye over this thread after a pleasant Christmas break. I hope you all had a happy and peaceful Christmas.

Unfortunately I just haven't the free time to follow all of the discussions and various links, I have no idea how you all manage to do that. You either have a lot of free time or stay awake a lot longer than I do.

Now, all I can see since I was here last is an awful lot of arm waving and diversions. But if I can try to summarise.

The original post argues that sea level is clearly accelerating and shows several graphs to confirm this. Spangled Drongo noted that his local sea level does not appear to reflect that. I noted that that was a similar situation from what I could see of my own locale. I also suggested that the said graphs actually show me that SLR has not accelerated in the past 70 years. And in fact, the past 10 years or so show a deceleration, a trend shared by the global temperature anomaly. Various really smart folk have then spent lots of time and words shooting down these thoughts with much reference to graphs, papers, other blog posts and so on.

Now, the funny thing is that the real question seems to have disappeared from the discussion. SD is simply saying that where he is, there is little sign of any SLR. In the real world. I have observed a similar thing. The question then is, what real world observations back up a claim of accelerating SLR? I mean, what physical on the ground effects are we seeing? So far, no-one has advanced any evidence.

Someone earlier (was it Bernard J) trotted out some graphs of tide heights for Brisbane and Gold Coast, which, try as I might, didn't seem to me to be a ringing endorsement for accelerating SLR. Actually I think they did more for SD's cause but I guess that's just my denialist take on things, huh?

But come on, someone somewhere must have some physical evidence of real world effects of SLR over the past century. I'd prefer Australia, but anywhere is OK.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Spangled Drongo noted that his local sea level does not appear to reflect that"

You seem to be forgetting that he's not near an ocean, therefore local measures cannot be measuring SEA LEVEL RISE.

You seem very busy if you missed that out.

Far too busy to take your valuable time to post here.

I would suggest you wait until you have time to read glittery bollocks' posts before making statements and asking questions already answered.

Thanks for that very neat and thorough summary, Bernard.

Turns out we have developed this thing we call 'science' specifically so we are not misled by the parochial, anecdotal, and incidental, Spangly.

"You seem to be forgetting that he’s not near an ocean, therefore local measures cannot be measuring SEA LEVEL RISE."

No I did read that, though not with enough depth I'll grant you. But regardless of all of those confounding additional factors, one would imagine that SLR should still impact at some point.

In fact, that goes directly to the nub of my question. Surely there must be an actual physical impact from SLR. Various local factors can't constantly mask those can they? If they do, then what concern should we express for a SLR that doesn't actually DO anything?

SD makes a fair point regardless of the charges against him. Where he is, SLR has had little appreciable impact. You seem to agree with this by the very lengthy detailed arguments as to why local river conditions will not reflect the SLR discussed. So, if his location can't show SLR where does? And when can we expect SLR to overwhelm these local conditions? After all, it hasn't happened for 70 years so far...

And yes, my time is far too valuable to spend here but you seem like such a nice bunch.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

"one would imagine that SLR should still impact at some point."

Only if one wanted to imagine such. One would have no reason to do so though, unless one wished to pretend something that had no basis in reality.

"In fact, that goes directly to the nub of my question. Surely there must be an actual physical impact from SLR"

Hurricane Sandy.

"Only if one wanted to imagine such. One would have no reason to do so though, unless one wished to pretend something that had no basis in reality."

Oh... how silly of me. So one need not imagine that SLR will have an impact? So this is all just a theoretical exercise? No need for all those silly council by-laws based on the impacts of a future SLR? Damn, i missed that.

Hurricane Sandy. that it, eh? Your smoking gun. Excuse me while I recover from another round of side-splitting mirth.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

As several have pointed out there seems to be a lot of arm waving and not much supplied evidence.
I have not had much luck trying to paste links from my samsung tablet but will attempt again now I am at my office computer.
Last time I tried to paste it was a dismal fail.
These links are links to graph reps of observations similar to the ones above.
Interestingly, they show different conclusions.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the source of the data and the methodology has been clearly outlined.
As with the graphs above, they are a 'snapshot' representation of the available data. I neither absolutely believe them and/or disbelieve them.
I think they're all useful to help us understand the world around us.
I do not believe they should be used in the manner that the politics are using some of them currently.
I also will re iterate that they bear similarities (though not exact sameness) to other models that are used to help us understand the world around us.
They are indeed useful tools, but they should not be considered prophetic (IMHO)
I hope it works this time.
http://www.climate4you.com/Text/Climate4you_June_2012.pdf
http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/acorn-sat-a-preliminary-ass…
http://www.climate4you.com/Text/Climate4you_February_2012.pdf
http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/image277-1.gif
Of course there are many more of these all over the place and they all reach varying conclusions, which was the point that I was trying to make earlier and which I think Tim also highlighted...although he did choose to call it unscrupulous.
Based on the data they use and the assumptions about the relationships between the variables....they are correct for those circumstances at those moments....however their projective capabilities are not set in stone because those relationships can change quite remarkably.
It appears from data collected over the last 10+ years that the correlation between ACO2 and SLR is not as definite as was originally hypothesised.

By chameleon (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

"So one need not imagine that SLR will have an impact?"

On rivers far inland?

No, one should not find themselves imagining that river levels have any bearing on sea level rises nor the other way round.

One should also make clear what one is talking about when one uses the indefinite article in a continuing statement sentence that is preceeded by two nouns that could be the indirectly asserted indefinite article.

If one wished to maintain honesty.

"No need for all those silly council by-laws based on the impacts of a future SLR?"

What council bylaws are you referring to? They would have nothing to say about RIVER LEVELS, if they are about SEA LEVELS right?

Or is one being deliberately obscure so as to score " talking points"?

One things one is doing so.

"Hurricane Sandy. that it, eh?"

You asked for one.

There is one.

And if one were honestly enquiring about such events, one would be satisfied that one had been promulgated to one and assess the assertion.

But one is not being honest, are you.

"Of course there are many more of these all over the place and they all reach varying conclusions"

Of course, you have access to Acorn et al's raw data right? And the modifications of that data, right? And they HAVE assessed UHI and siting errors, right? And you have checked this, correct?

No, you wish to pretend that Australia is the entire world, that some unknown dataset is correct and that the entire world is not subservient to the physical realities, right?

PS wasn't some numbnuts recently going on about how nobody denied it was warming? Yet here is chammy giving a link to someone who claims there has been no warming, even a cooling.

Ummmm,Wow?
Some of that work I posted comes from Norway.
Maybe you should actually read it first?
I also didn't say that I agreed/disagreed with any of the conclusions.So I have no wish to pretend anything of the sort.
If you can prove that there is something wrong with the actual data sets that were used and/or the methodology I am all ears.
Other than that you still seem to be doing a champion job of missing the point.

By chameleon (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

"Some of that work I posted comes from Norway."

Ummm, So?

"Maybe you should actually read it first?"

Hey, you first!

From your acorn link:

"In March, a new daily temperature reconstruction was released, called the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network- Surface Air Temperatures, or ACORN-SAT (Acorn)"

Did you notice the "ASUTRALIAN" there?

Did you?

Or did you not read it at all?

"If you can prove that there is something wrong with the actual data sets that were used and/or the methodology I am all ears."

They would need to release that information first.

But one thing I CAN say definitely is wrong with their data: It's ONLY AUSTRALIA.

Big though it is, it isn't the globe.

Chameleon, you might try posting links to reputable sources of scientific information if you want to be taken seriously.

As just one example, anyone with a modicum of scientific literacy who spends more than a minute at real-science.com will quickly conclude that the posters are cranks who don't know what they are talking about. (UFOs, the future 50 billion population of the earth, the NOAA has been faking temperature records for 840 months in a row I tell you because only the raw data is accurate!, Stephen Goddard's astonishingly inaccurate understanding of Arctic ice, a beautiful example of how to mislead the gullible by stretching the y-axis - and that's just from a quick skim of the first page.)

That's why people here generally want to see peer-reviewed papers and the kinds of data sources that meet the bar for peer reviewed publication. That's why - as you point out - you can find all sorts of opinions on scientific questions if you scour the Internet, but not all opinions have equal scientific merit.

Did you not learn anything from Spangled Drongo's post to a non-peer reviewed article at WUWT claiming that Hansen's peer reviewed predictions from 1988 had overestimated warming by 150%, when only a small amount of analysis was required to show that it was only about 15-20%? Do you not understand that the WUWT "analysis" would have been immediately rejected for egregious error had it been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal?

By posting a link to real-science.com - which appears to be at least as bad at science as WUWT - you demonstrate very clearly that you don't have the requisite scientific skills to determine when someone is promoting false scientific claims. Interestingly the climate4you.com website states as its objective that it "...assist[s] reflective people to form a personal opinion on meteorological and climate matters". What kind of scientific merit do you think should be attached to the personal opinions of reflective people whose reflections still leave them unable to sift the most basic pseudo-scientific bullshit from actual science?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Let's take just one of your (frequently reiterated?) claims:

It appears from data collected over the last 10+ years that the correlation between ACO2 and SLR is not as definite as was originally hypothesised.

Perhaps you should start - as Spangled Drongo refuses to - by specifying what you understand the climate science says about it.

1) Specify the definition of ACO2 as used by mainstream climate science
2) Specify the definition of SLR as used by mainstream climate science
3) Specify the relationship that mainstream climate science claims between (that definition of) ACO2 and (that definition of) SLR. In particular, as found in your claim, please define the expected correlation between (that definition of) ACO2 and (that definition of) SLR. And in order to fully clarify your claim please define the term "definiteness" of correlation and specify what definiteness is attached to the ACO2/SLR correlation by mainstream climate science.

Cite references please. That should be easy - the IPCC AR4 report is online, searchable, and report name + page numbers are acceptable should you prefer.

Once you've done that we can discuss whether the data merit your claim that the correlation "isn't as definite" as previously hypothesized.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

BJ, you hand-waving simpleton, you still don’t choose to understand that an upturned multihull is the result of positive feedback. An unrecoverable situation that the world’s climate has never entered whereas a self righting system is what we have or we wouldn’t be here.

Now even you may have noticed while sipping absinthe on your balcony that the Gold Coast is essentially a flood plain. The Nerang estuary has the same tide range as the Broadwater and with the Seaway construction it also got lower low tides and higher high tides however the highest high tides are still lower than they were ~50 years ago.

Are you seriously inferring that dam construction would reduce these estuary and SLs?

As well as dredging entrances?

Just think of the govt grants you could get for this and solve the world’s problems at the same time. You may have stumbled on something here, but probably just stumbled is nearer the mark.

If you had paid attention BJ, you would have seen that this is just ONE of many benchmarks on SLs that I have accrued over ~70 years and they all agree. For example, the house I lived in at Cleveland Point in 1946 where the highest tides covered the lawn and threatened to run into the well we had just dug that was our only water supply, forcing us to quickly put a levy bank around it. The highest tides today are ~ 30 cms lower yet the landscaping is still the same and the well is still there.

My grandfather owned the Woody Point Jetty store and flats and I spent WW2 there where high tides also came up on the lawn. On the remaining original lawn today that doesn’t happen by ~ the same 30cms.

I also have many friends who have spent their lives by the sea in sea-front houses and sea-front businesses with sea-front infrastructure, who naturally pay great attention to the world’s concern with climate change and SLR and who are aware of what it entails for them much more than the average person and while many of them don’t measure the high tides to the last millimetre, they invariably tell me that the highest tides are no higher than they ever were in their experience.

And my benchmarks also agree with the few tide gauges that go back that far.

BJ, the only advice I can offer is that you mend your ways by coming down from your lofty balcony, cutting back on the absinthe, interacting with the real world and making a few personal observances for yourself while you still can.

The only advance you have achieved from this debate is that you are now waving and drowning at the same time.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

I've just had a quick skim through a climate4you.com "report". It's ... about as bad as what you'd expect someone making the claims chameleon is making to rely upon.

Far from the website's stated objective of presenting the data and allowing people to form their own opinions, it takes well-known data sets and layers its own interpretation over the top using such well known tactics as (I kid you not) Curtin's "5th order polynomial fit" (the June report, p24, fitted to 20 years of HadCRUT3). They claim that the 5th order and accompanying linear trend are shown to "clearly demonstrate[] the differences between two often used statistical approaches to determine recent temperature trends.", and they point readers to the R^2 values. They slyly add a disclaimer "...that such fits only attempt to describe the past, and usually have little predictive power."

There's also the presumption on p22/23 from very dubious arguments about the length of time it was warming before the IPCC was established that "...it may safely be concluded that 10 years was considered a period long enough to demonstrate the effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 on global temperatures." This is used to "justify" - and I use scare-quotes advisedly - some unspecified procedure which assigns to 10 or more year periods on a CO2 and temperature graph a "positive" or "negative" relationship between temperature and CO2. There is (a little earlier) some lip service given to the point that other factors influence temperature over short periods, but instead of using well-known procedures for testing their claims, they avoid any test for statistical significance (of course) and do not even specify the procedure they used for choosing the breakpoints between "positive" and "negative" time periods.

They show surface temperature anomalies on p1 - but against the very unusual choice of baseline period = 1998-2006. Three guesses for why they chose a baseline too short to qualify as climate, starting in one of the warmest years ever!

They show ocean heat content to 700m (p10), but not to 2000m. Three more guesses why. On p16 they show sea ice extent - but total, NOT anomalies (for chameleon's benefit this makes the trend far harder to see); on p17 they show a snapshot of Arctic sea ice thickness but not history/trend, and they CERTAINLY don't show any sea ice volume history/trend. It's almost like they know which charts to leave out in order to give a certain impression.

I haven't gone through all of the graphs - who knows what other tricks they have used to bias the uninformed reader.

Oh, and p18 gives a SLR graph showing pretty much a steadily continuing trend. I wonder how chameleon plans to argue that it shows that the "hypothesised correlation isn't as definite"? Perhaps he's going to try using the accompanying "simple empirical forecast [apparently an extrapolation] of sea level rise by 2100" which predicts 18cm using a method they don't specify, although they are much more willing to say which dataset they used - presumably in an attempt to bask in reflected credibility, or maybe even in the hope that readers will think the "forecast" is from the same source.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

...you still don’t choose to understand that an upturned multihull is the result of positive feedback.

I'm not seeing that.

You, on the other hand, still won't even define positive feedback, let alone demonstrate that you have the first clue what scientists say about it with respect to the climate. And leaving climate aside, you are operating from fundamental misconceptions about what positive feedback means for a system.

Since you determinedly refuse to answer more abstract questions that would help you learn, how about we try it with your preferred subject.

1) Under what circumstances does a multihull remain upright?

2) In your understanding, does the fact that it remains upright under those circumstances mean that positive feedback or negative feedback is at work?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Wow:
"So one need not imagine that SLR will have an impact?

On rivers far inland?

No, one should not find themselves imagining that river levels have any bearing on sea level rises nor the other way round.

One should also make clear what one is talking about when one uses the indefinite article in a continuing statement sentence that is preceeded by two nouns that could be the indirectly asserted indefinite article.

If one wished to maintain honesty.

No need for all those silly council by-laws based on the impacts of a future SLR?

What council bylaws are you referring to? They would have nothing to say about RIVER LEVELS, if they are about SEA LEVELS right?"

Wow, SD's claimed benchmark is not on a river far inland, it is relatively close to the river's mouth and it's affected by tides. Now, perhaps it is largely invalidated by all of the effects others have noted, but SD backs up by observing similar trends elsewhere. My own anecdotal obs from nearby over 50 years match. I am not saying this is definitive evidence one way or the other, but it IS real world observation that despite the global trends in the graphs shown earlier in this post, there is little real world evidence of this that I have seen. But perhaps there is. So cite it.

Hurricane Sandy - perhaps sea levels had an effect, but there are far too many other factors to use this as an arguing point. As the data I posted earlier shows, there have been similar tidal surges in the region and it is even suggested that there have been higher ones in historic times. That extreme events can cause new records is not an indicator of a broader trend or effect. If we could clearly observe a more typical storm in the region evoking an unusual response, then yes we'd have a case. Or so it seems to me. Now maybe that's happening, but I've not read of it. But always keen to see such empirical evidence.

The rest of that post of yours is just more arm waving. Who cares about indefinite articles preceded by swinging participular nouns? The underlying point that you don't wish to tackle is simple. Show me some clear evidence of real world effects caused by SLR on the Australian coastline. All we've got so far is complaints that SD doesn't have the smarts to properly assess the data, and some rather unsupportive tide data from nearby gauges which as far as I can tell seem to support his case.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

"All we’ve got so far is complaints that SD doesn’t have the smarts to properly assess the data, and some rather unsupportive tide data from nearby gauges which as far as I can tell seem to support his case."

Alright, it's a crap sentence. What I mean is that the tide gauge data offered up as evidence of SLR doesn't seem to do that from my perspective.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lothe, If you haven't the faintest idea, and you haven't, dont comment.

Just stay on thread instead.

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Blot for PM.

With respect to your comment about Drongo's denial of sea level rise...

Spangled Drongo noted that his local sea river level does not appear to reflect that.

Fixed that for you.

I noted that that was a similar situation from what I could see of my own locale.

Data? Evidence? Records of histories of relevant hydrodynamic/hydrological parameters?

I also suggested that the said graphs actually show me that SLR has not accelerated in the past 70 years. And in fact, the past 10 years or so show a deceleration, a trend shared by the global temperature anomaly.

At my local jetty the sea level was a metre lower around 6:00 am this morning than it was just after midnight. Ergo sea level rise is accelerating...*

Now, all I can see since I was here last is an awful lot of arm waving and diversions.

Yes, but that has always been Drongo's modus operandi. If he actually addressed any of the points put to him, his only subsequent option would be to concede that he is wrong.

Someone earlier (was it Bernard J) trotted out some graphs of tide heights for Brisbane and Gold Coast, which, try as I might, didn’t seem to me to be a ringing endorsement for accelerating SLR. Actually I think they did more for SD’s cause but I guess that’s just my denialist take on things, huh?SD is simply saying that where he is, there is little sign of any SLR.

The same situation likely exists for anyone else located on a highly-modified river at least 7 kilometres from an opening to the open ocean. Drongo likes to call the Broadwater open ocean, but he should recall that he once referred to it as a stilling pond which should give him a clue about its effect on marine hydrodynamics (and disregarding relevant changes to riverine hydrology/hydrodynamics)...

“You seem to be forgetting that he’s not near an ocean, therefore local measures cannot be measuring SEA LEVEL RISE.”

No I did read that, though not with enough depth I’ll grant you. But regardless of all of those confounding additional factors, one would imagine that SLR should still impact at some point.

"[R]egardless of all of those confounding additional factors"?!

Really?

Seriously?

Surely there must be an actual physical impact from SLR. Various local factors can’t constantly mask those can they? If they do, then what concern should we express for a SLR that doesn’t actually DO anything?

Sea level hasn't been masked. In Australia, at Port Aurthur, mean sea level has risen 24 centimetres (almost 10 inches for the non-metric) since 1870. That's a change that has been accomodated to date.

However, science that is more reliable than your eyechrometer shows objectively that sea level rise is accelerating, and the future rise is a different story to that of the last century or so.

You don't spent all of your time looking over your shoulder when you drive. The same principle applies to sea level rise.

SD makes a fair point regardless of the charges against him.

No, he doesn't. His point is specious, and wrong

Where he is, SLR has had little appreciable impact.

For the hard of learning - that would be a consequence of the fact that where Drongo's wall is, is not the sea.

And when can we expect SLR to overwhelm these local conditions? After all, it hasn’t happened for 70 years so far…

It's quite possible that sea level rise will not "overwhelm these local conditions" within your lifetime, except during storm conditions when they superimpose on surges. However the whole issue of sea level rise (and of global warming) is about considering future generations - although I realise that self-absorbed retirees all too frequently don't give a rat's arse about their grandkids, and especially about the grandkids of other people.

Given the influx of Drongo's friends, I'm guessing that Marohasy has gone quiet on her blog again. This sudden appearance of moral support for a scientifically-bankrupt claim occurred last time the Swamp dried out.

[*Ironic pointing out of context...]

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Still on the distractions huh? Still, I'm happy to play your game.

BJ, you hand-waving simpleton, you still don’t choose to understand that an upturned multihull is the result of positive feedback. An unrecoverable situation that the world’s climate has never entered whereas a self righting system is what we have or we wouldn’t be here.

1. Tipping over a multihull usually has nothing to do with a positive feedback. Take the simplest case of a strong gust. It's the equivalent of a climate forcing, and it can shift the position of the multihull to a new equilibrium with no change in feeding back from other 'forcings'. You are wrong.

2. There are positive feedings-back involved in global warming. So once again you are wrong.

3. Feedings-back can have gains greater than or less than 1, and further these gains may be variable over the range of the independent variable(s). The evidence suggests that warming feedings-back have a gain less than 1.

Now even you may have noticed while sipping absinthe on your balcony that the Gold Coast is essentially a flood plain. The Nerang estuary has the same tide range as the Broadwater and with the Seaway construction it also got lower low tides and higher high tides however the highest high tides are still lower than they were ~50 years ago.

If you stopped in your persistence of ignoring all of the confounders that have been pointed out to you, you'd realise why your claim about a high king tide decades ago is specious.

Are you seriously inferring that dam construction would reduce these estuary and SLs?

As well as dredging entrances?

I note that you answered my question with a question (or two). However I will answer yours because I am not afraid of the answer.

Yes, damming a river upstream will affect the tidal height it achieves in its lower reaches. Whilst any river is affected by impounding effects (that is, whilst it is not wholely hydrodynamically contiguous with the open ocean) it's own flow superimposes on oceanic tidal inflow.

Crack open a text for once and learn. Or speak to a hydrologist and learn from practical knowledge, instead of inventing grandpa theories yourself that aren't based in reality.

..this is just ONE of many benchmarks on SLs that I have accrued over ~70 years and they all agree. For example, the house I lived in at Cleveland Point in 1946 where the highest tides covered the lawn and threatened to run into the well we had just dug that was our only water supply, forcing us to quickly put a levy bank around it. The highest tides today are ~ 30 cms lower yet the landscaping is still the same and the well is still there.

So, the local ocean hydrodynamics are the same? The meteorological factors (especially the barometric pressures) are the same, and coincident with the tides? The Bay's engineering and hydrodynamics remain the same? For that matter, what's your proof that the "landscaping is still the same"? How do you know that there hasn't been build up of soil/sand/other substance, whether deliberate of by erosion from elsewhere?

As ever, you are evidence-free, and context free.

I also have many friends who have spent their lives by the sea in sea-front houses and sea-front businesses with sea-front infrastructure, who naturally pay great attention to the world’s concern with climate change and SLR and who are aware of what it entails for them much more than the average person and while many of them don’t measure the high tides to the last millimetre, they invariably tell me that the highest tides are no higher than they ever were in their experience.

Well, that's a how-do-you-do. I too have friends, acquaintances, and clients who have historical knowledge of tides, and in my corner of the world some have recently experienced tidal surges that they've never experienced before. I'm sure that there are one or two other locations* around the planet where similar situations have occurred.

By your logic that proves that sea levels are rising...

For the record, I have as little regard for positive anecdotes as I do for negative ones, unless they are supported by accurate and objective data. The presence of such data is something that has never cluttered your posts.

But let's go back to the beginning.

Are you claiming that this is a fabricated phenomenon:

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html

A simple "yes" or "no" will suffice for starters.

[*Sarcasm, for the old autistics here]

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bernard, the first of your two responses above do little more than agree with what I am raising. You have pointed out firstly that SLR at Port Arthur has risen 10" since 1870, which is around what, 1.7 mm/yr. Regardless of the rate, that is hardly dangerous and appears to have been well managed.

You then go on to note that appreciable impacts may not be noted in our lifetimes, this is all about the kids. OK... But all you've done is show that SLR is still relatively steady. Sure there was (according to the graphs) some small acceleration in the early 20th C, but not so much since. Yet we are at a time of quickly rising CO2. So, no sign of anything as yet.

Nonetheless, are there any real world effects? Well, no seems to be the consensus. Not yet.

SD's place of observation is in a river close to its mouth, yet you argue strenuously that SLR is unlikely to affect it. Maybe that's so. But wouldn't you agree that one day it will? Your very next sentence appears to suggest that. So, we are back to this 'future' impact for which records to date do not support?

In summary then.

SLR has been relatively steady since about 1930.
It did accelerate in the early part of the 20th Century.
Recent numbers do not show a significant change in that rate of rise.
No-one here can point to a real world effect of any magnitude. So far.

In your second post, after a bit more waffle, you throw up a nice graph which I'll admit does show something actually happening in the past few years but which itself argues for a steady rate of rise overall. So where's this acceleration that the actual main post is arguing for? As that graph says "This is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century. Whether or not this represent a further increase in the rate of sea level rise is not yet certain." How would that number of 3.2mm compare to the average value over the period from say 1940 to 1990? What is the average from the data for the period 1940 to 2012? After all, the really big increase in CO2 and presumably the effects of this occurred after 1940.

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM --- The warming effect of atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic in the concentration relative to some chosen starting concentration. So the effect is (quite) approximately linear since about 1750 CE.

Your time intervals are much too short to be of climatological interest.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Lothe, If you haven’t the faintest idea, and you haven’t, dont comment.

That's precisely why I comment, my dear. I only do it when I have a lot more than the faintest idea, or I'm asking questions of those who claim to. Like your good self.

Shame you don't follow your own advice though.

So we see that you refuse to define your terms. And you won't answer questions that are simple to answer if you understand those terms. The sum total of what you have to date appears to be bluster and misconception - and you're grimly hanging on to both.

Here's half a clue.

1) A system may have more than one feedback operating at the same time. In particular a positive feedback may be operating at the same time as a negative one.

2) What matters when figuring out how the system will behave in the short term is the nett feedback - the sum of all feedbacks, both positive and negative.

3) The set of feedbacks - and their various strengths - that affect a system may change over time, depending on what state the system is in. Some feedbacks may even cease to operate outside of certain parameters. Just to make it clear, that means the nett feedback may vary from positive to negative or vice versa, and from strong to weak or vice versa, over time.

4) A NETT positive feedback may affect a system at all times and under all states without causing the system to "run away". (This is precisely why I asked - and you refused - to answer the question about a positive feedback with a 50% gain.) This is part of Feedback 101. It's a fundamental principle that forms the basis of signal amplifiers that use positive feedback.

5) Because of (2)-(4) you can't infer that there are no positive feedbacks from observation that a runaway situation has not occurred. Heck, (3) alone breaks your claim, as does (4) alone.

6) "Self-righting" in boats is not THE SAME AS negative feedback, and the existence under normal conditions of A negative feedback is not sufficient to create a "self righting" system. Self-righting is (roughly speaking) an example of what is known as a system with a "stable equilibrium" perturbed by a set of time-changing forces. Sure, there must be nett negative feedbacks at work in systems that exhibit stable equilibria, but merely having a negative feedback at work ISN'T SUFFICIENT. You need either (a) the nett feedback to be strong enough (gain <= -1) to overcome the change in input, or (b) with weaker nett feedback you need the change in input to be non-permanent so that once the change in input goes away the feedback can push the system back to equilibrium.

In particular a positive feedback may operate at the same time as a negative one, and one can STILL have a stable equilibrium.

7) Furthermore, many systems with stable equilibria have a limited range over which the system will revert to the equilibrium state. Push them (with a strong enough input change) outside of that range and they will go elsewhere, and without some other strong enough push back they will not revert to the equilibrium state. (I'm pretty sure if you carefully analyse a multi-hull - given that people use them without routinely needing to call for help to right them - you'll find this is the case. They exhibit a stable equilibrium up to a certain point but after that the nett feedback becomes sufficiently strong to cause a tip over.)

You can see that (4) and (5) and (7) are why I asked you about multi-hulls. You allege they tip over because of positive feedback - but presumably many of them never tip over at all. And yet you allege that there is (and apparently cannot be) any positive feedback in the climate system because it hasn't run away yet. Even if you won't admit the fallacy - either about boat observations or about climate - I'm sure practically everyone else who's read this far sees it.

The long term existence (up to and including today) of some positive feedbacks are well established. They are what enabled life as we know it to evolve - the earth would be too cold otherwise. But if we perturb the climate enough, additional positive feedbacks will come into play (some of which are being observed as we speak) and existing ones will be strengthened, and it's not at all clear that additional negative feedbacks/negative feedback strength will offset them. This will increase the nett positive feedback, which increases the effective amplification factor for any and all forcings on the system and causes it to warm even more than it would without the strengthened feedback (just like turning up the gain a bit on a positive-feedback amplification circuit, but not enough to generate a feedback screech which is a "runaway" effect).

When climate scientists talk about positive feedbacks operating or new ones coming into play, they aren't - no matter how many times you imply it - saying that a runaway situation must occur as a result (unless they're specifically talking about pushing the climate to extreme conditions, which doesn't get discussed very much). So your point that we haven't had runaway warming in the past DOES NOT IMPLY that they are wrong about the various positive (and negative) feedbacks at work in the past, now and in the future.

And I predict you will dismiss all of this ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

David Benson, you say:
"Bolt for PM — The warming effect of atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic in the concentration relative to some chosen starting concentration. So the effect is (quite) approximately linear since about 1750 CE.

Your time intervals are much too short to be of climatological interest."

Doesn't that just confirm what I am saying? That firstly, the claims of the main post are wrong and that SLR is NOT accelerating? And secondly if responses are linear, then in effect little is different today than 100 years ago. And presumably, 100 years into the future?

By Bolt for PM (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Sure there was (according to the graphs) some small acceleration in the early 20th C, but not so much since.

Not quite. Several recent 20-yr trend rates have been the highest set on record (Fig 4 here), and (very roughly - eyeball estimate only) about 1mm per year higher than the average of 20-year trends centered on 1940-1990, as you were asking. As that article points out (including some of the comments) you probably want to account for some other factors at play too.

And secondly if responses are linear, then in effect little is different today than 100 years ago.

Well, apart from (a) rising annually at 2-3 times the rate 100 years ago, and (b) other clear signs that other factors that affect sea level rise are having larger and larger effects, some of which are expected to be decidedly non-linear, and others that will continue to do so for a long time. (Some effects operate over fairly long time intervals. The fact that their impacts due to past CO2 rises have not fully eventuated yet does not mean that those remaining impacts will not occur in future - along with the impacts of future CO2 emissions.)

In summary, the fact that sea level rise has only doubled or tripled from a century ago thus far does not mean that it won't get a lot faster still.

So:

And presumably, 100 years into the future?

That's an extremely unlikely outcome.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

You then go on to note that appreciable impacts may not be noted in our lifetimes, this is all about the kids. OK… But all you’ve done is show that SLR is still relatively steady.

Blot for PM.

You misrepresent my comments.

A rise of around 2 mm to 3 mm per year is not going to have an appreciable impact on coast structures in the short term and outside of extreme weather event. In this sense you and Drongo aren't saying anything that all scientists don't themselves recognise.

This however does not preclude the fact that even centimetres of sea level rise have appreciable impacts during extreme weather events, that the near future will see such events, and that smarter people than you are preparing for it - my countrymen in the Netherlands for starters...

Sure there was (according to the graphs) some small acceleration in the early 20th C, but not so much since.

There doesn't need to be a large acceleration in the current rate of sea level rise for serious destruction of much coastal infrastructure within a century or so, as that rate is already above the Holocene mean.. That said, there is no science that can explain why there won't be acceleration in the future (and the OP shows that this is the case) - but by all means please point us to any of which you are aware.

Yet we are at a time of quickly rising CO2. So, no sign of anything as yet.

You are engaing in the gambit of confabulating signal with noise, especially by cherry-picking short intervals of time.

That's either unconscious or deliberate ignorance.

SD’s place of observation is in a river close to its mouth, yet you argue strenuously that SLR is unlikely to affect it. Maybe that’s so. But wouldn’t you agree that one day it will? Your very next sentence appears to suggest that. So, we are back to this ‘future’ impact for which records to date do not support?

Eh? You think that past changes to the Nerang watershed should support indications of "'future' impact"?

You're off your rocker.

SLR has been relatively steady since about 1930.

Not compared to the mean Holocene rate of change, it hasn't.

It did accelerate in the early part of the 20th Century.

Again, the acceleration emphasis, without acknowledging that there's already a significant positive rate of increase.

Recent numbers do not show a significant change in that rate of rise.

A rate which is already significant...

And compared to a century ago, the rate has significantly increased.

In your second post, after a bit more waffle, you throw up a nice graph which I’ll admit does show something actually happening in the past few years but which itself argues for a steady rate of rise overall.

What you are doing here is implicitly regressing beyond the independent variable range. This is one of the basic mistakes of employing regression. A regression is not a physically-based model, and so should not be used for extrapolations or predictions - especially as oceanographers recognise that the physical processes involved are in dynamic flux.

And surprise,surprise, the longer-term graph of sea level rise (that first graph in the OP) shows that there is indeed something happening that is not identified in short-term graphs.

So where’s this acceleration that the actual main post is arguing for?

Calculate a second differential for the first graph. That's the whole bloody point.

As that graph says “This is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century. Whether or not this represent a further increase in the rate of sea level rise is not yet certain.” How would that number of 3.2mm compare to the average value over the period from say 1940 to 1990? What is the average from the data for the period 1940 to 2012? After all, the really big increase in CO2 and presumably the effects of this occurred after 1940.

You're the one saying that there's no acceleration, so you should be the one answering all of your questions. Or are you making claims about "acceleration" without having actually done any work to support them?

On the matter of the relationship with atmospheric CO2 concentration, you seem to be ignoring the small matter of huge thermal mass/inertia...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

You then go on to note that appreciable impacts may not be noted in our lifetimes, this is all about the kids. OK… But all you’ve done is show that SLR is still relatively steady.

Blot for PM.

You misrepresent my comments.

A rise of around 2 mm to 3 mm per year is not going to have an appreciable impact on coast structures in the short term and outside of extreme weather event. In this sense you and Drongo aren't saying anything that all scientists don't themselves recognise.

This however does not preclude the fact that even centimetres of sea level rise have appreciable impacts during extreme weather events, that the near future will see such events, and that smarter people than you are preparing for it - my countrymen in the Netherlands for starters...

Sure there was (according to the graphs) some small acceleration in the early 20th C, but not so much since.

There doesn't need to be a large acceleration in the current rate of sea level rise for serious destruction of much coastal infrastructure within a century or so, as that rate is already above the Holocene mean.. That said, there is no science that can explain why there won't be acceleration in the future (and the OP shows that this is the case) - but by all means please point us to any of which you are aware.

Yet we are at a time of quickly rising CO2. So, no sign of anything as yet.

You are engaing in the gambit of confabulating signal with noise, especially by cherry-picking short intervals of time.

That's either unconscious or deliberate ignorance.

SD’s place of observation is in a river close to its mouth, yet you argue strenuously that SLR is unlikely to affect it. Maybe that’s so. But wouldn’t you agree that one day it will? Your very next sentence appears to suggest that. So, we are back to this ‘future’ impact for which records to date do not support?

Eh? You think that past changes to the Nerang watershed should support indications of "'future' impact"?

You're off your rocker.

SLR has been relatively steady since about 1930.

Not compared to the mean Holocene rate of change, it hasn't.

It did accelerate in the early part of the 20th Century.

Again, the acceleration emphasis, without acknowledging that there's already a significant positive rate of increase.

Recent numbers do not show a significant change in that rate of rise.

A rate which is already significant...

And compared to a century ago, the rate has significantly increased.

In your second post, after a bit more waffle, you throw up a nice graph which I’ll admit does show something actually happening in the past few years but which itself argues for a steady rate of rise overall.

What you are doing here is implicitly regressing beyond the independent variable range. This is one of the basic mistakes of employing regression. A regression is not a physically-based model, and so should not be used for extrapolations or predictions - especially as oceanographers recognise that the physical processes involved are in dynamic flux.

And surprise,surprise, the longer-term graph of sea level rise (that first graph in the OP) shows that there is indeed something happening that is not identified in short-term graphs.

So where’s this acceleration that the actual main post is arguing for?

Calculate a second differential for the first graph. That's the whole bloody point.

As that graph says “This is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century. Whether or not this represent a further increase in the rate of sea level rise is not yet certain.” How would that number of 3.2mm compare to the average value over the period from say 1940 to 1990? What is the average from the data for the period 1940 to 2012? After all, the really big increase in CO2 and presumably the effects of this occurred after 1940.

You're the one saying that there's no acceleration, so you should be the one answering all of your questions. Or are you making claims about "acceleration" without having actually done any work to support them?

On the matter of the relationship with atmospheric CO2 concentration, you seem to be ignoring the small matter of huge thermal mass/inertia...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Bolt for PM --- While thermal expansion of the ocean via heating is about linear in the temperature increase the melting of ice is highly nonlinear as the local temperature first peeks above the melting temperature of the water.

After that I cannot easily state, but look at SLR from LGM to the Holocene; an S-shaped curve over 120--130 meters. I'll predict a similar S-shaped curve this time around, but I doubt the eventual increase will be quite so large.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

“Tipping over a multihull usually has nothing to do with a positive feedback”

Yeah, sure.

When a multihull starts to incline beyond an angle where everything on board tends to fall to the low side and the wind gets under the wings, forces that will make it capsize increase and stability reduces. The centre of gravity moves even further outboard of the centre of buoyancy and positive feedback is happening. The multihull is now beyond saving and will overturn. This can happen at an inclination of as little as 45 degrees. Once overturned it will not self right. A properly ballasted monohull OTOH can be fully inverted to 180 degrees and will still self right. The more it inclines the more the forces to make it incline, generally, are reduced. Also the mast is more likely to break off than the keel. More negative feedback.

“So, the local ocean hydrodynamics are the same?”

BJ, are you now saying the same for Moreton Bay? That you can reduce SLs by dredging the Shipping Channel? Or the port of Brisbane?

That is about as smart as the argument that local SLs can fall over ~70 years but world wide they can acceleratingly rise to alarming heights.

“I too have friends, acquaintances, and clients who have historical knowledge of tides, and in my corner of the world some have recently experienced tidal surges that they’ve never experienced before.”

In case you hadn’t noticed BJ, we aren’t talking about SURGES. Post tropical storm Sandy was a SURGE. Fukushima was a SURGE. Surges come from a one-off force, tides are regular. But if you have friends who have intelligent, long term observations of regular SLR from king tides, please supply details similar to mine; time, place, levels etc.

Detailed anecdotes ARE data. And here’s me thinking I am dealing with a scientist.

“But let’s go back to the beginning.”

Bernie love, that link we have discussed ad nauseum in the past. Your beloved Church and White won’t even admit that the Ross-Lempriere mark shows a SL fall of around 30 cms but at least they agree that it shows a SLR of 13.5 cms over 171 years which is 0.8 mm/y which in effect shows that nothing much is happening.

As I have said before, when SL is measured from an orbiting spacecraft that cannot fly parallel to our pear-shaped-geoid-with-flat-spots and the sea surface has possibly one hundred thousand different levels in any one day if you are using 0.1 mm increments, which they are, which are then fed into supercomputers with their usual assumptions and adjustments, to think that is empirical measurement you have to have rocks in your head. How many times have they decided to “adjust’ GRACE and she is supposed to be much more accurate. Envisat showed no SLR until made to toe the line.

I’d rather believe detailed obs any day.

How are you going with your PhD?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 28 Dec 2012 #permalink

Loved your link David B and also like the way you comment.
You actually deal with the message.
So even though we may disagree, good for you.

By chameleon (not verified) on 29 Dec 2012 #permalink

Things may not be as bad as we thought.

So now you agree with GRACE (but only as interpreted by (well-known for pushing denialist talking points) The Register?!)

Here's another report indicating that the paper your article talks about doesn't change the current understanding very much.

Here's another.

Measurements show the rate of melting is accelerating by 9 billion tons each year, Harig said. The study doesn't include measurements from 2012, when a record-breaking amount of ice melted in Greenland.

"I would fully expect when I get that data, it'd show ice loss accelerating even more," he said. "Records keep being broken."

Here's another one saying much the same.

And that journal article doesn't cover the last couple of years of record Greenland melt.

Your article's interpretation appears to be inaccurate.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 29 Dec 2012 #permalink

"In the latest work, Princeton University researcher Chris Harig and Frederik Simons applied a new method to analyzing the GRACE data"

It seems that when you are dancing with GRACE you can choose your own tune.

That's really the point I am trying to make.

How can you call this stuff data?

And Lotharsson, I wonder if that 13,000 years includes the refreezing that's happening with a vengeance right now?

By spangled drongo (not verified) on 29 Dec 2012 #permalink

"How can you call this stuff data?"

Because that is what it is?

PS What freezing with a vengeance?