It’s worse than we thought. The models I mean — they are more hopeless at predicting things like regional sea-level rise than we had reckoned, and we thought they were god-awful.
Remember the awe-inspiring, grant-inducing and legislation-bending Victorian report suggesting “up to 45,000 Victorian homes – worth $10.3 billion – face inundation….Across Australia 247,600 individual buildings valued at $63 billion could be damaged or lost, while major infrastructure, including Sydney and Brisbane airports, are at risk of being flooded by increasingly damaging storms.” (The airports, forgoodnesssake, were going to be underwater, and the 737’s would need those optional float thingies to “land” where there wasn’t much … land.)
Then the poor residents of Port Albert were told to build houses on stilts to avoid the feared sea-level rise (and in a double dose of bureaucratic jeopardy: at the same time they had to keep their roof-tops below the “heritage” line — making houses fit for pygmies).
Those Hollywood-style-apocalyptic flood results are based on an estimated “1.1-metre sea level rise by 2100”. Let’s think that through: current sea level is rising roughly 2mm – 3mm a year, and thus, to hit that 1.1 metre total by 2100 those global seas will need to average a rise of 12mm (“Twelve!”) a year, that’s every year for the next 90.
But a new study with the radical idea of looking at Australian and New Zealand tide gauge data (“what! actual data, not models?!”) shows that far from sea-levels around Australia rising “faster than projected”, or being at the “lower level of estimates” — they are decelerating. The 700,000 Australian addresses that are within 3 km of the beach don’t have so much to worry about.
The thing I like about this graph is that you don’t need to be a climate scientist to see the deceleration.
Figure 2 Relative 20-y moving average water level time series (all stations). Based on monthly average water level data provided by Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (U.K.), National Tidal Centre (Australia), and Ports of Auckland Limited (New Zealand). Water levels have been normalised at January 1940 for direct comparison.
What’s possibly even more important, is that this new study made it to the front page of The Australian:
Sea-level rises are slowing, tidal gauge records show
ONE of Australia’s foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are “decelerating”. The analysis, by NSW principal coastal specialist Phil Watson, calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100 — the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change.
Based on century-long tide gauge records at Fremantle, Western Australia (from 1897 to present), Auckland Harbour in New Zealand (1903 to present), Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour (1914 to present) and Pilot Station at Newcastle (1925 to present), the analysis finds there was a “consistent trend of weak deceleration” from 1940 to 2000.
Climate change researcher Howard Brady, at Macquarie University, said yesterday the recent research meant sea levels rises accepted by the CSIRO were “already dead in the water as having no sound basis in probability”.
Here too, the wild, dangerous sea-level rise was mostly associated with the rise of Hitler and World War II, less so with CO2. Indeed in Newcastle, the seas are still not rising as fast as they were in 1942.
Figure 5: Comparison of decadal rates of change over historical record. Analysis based on relative 20-y moving average water level time series.
P. J. Watson (2011) Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia?. Journal of Coastal Research: Volume 27, Issue 2: pp. 368 – 377.
One more failed prediction? Who’d a thunk it?
40
More utter bilge.
40
Perhaps all that missing water from predicted seal level rises is hiding in an upper atmosphere wet spot 😉
20
Oh dear, those dastardly Chinese power plant aerosols have a lot to answer for don’t they.
20
Can anybody throw up a TSI track on this graph? ( even the last bit with sat data)
20
Although he will probably not appreciate my mentioning it, I read this piece of news and immediately thought:
As I said, he may not appreciate the sentiment, but it is at least honest.
I predict, and await, an unseasonable outbreak of trolls on this thread. I was probably bad timing to have this published during the school holidays … 😉
20
My #6:
Last sentence: “I was”, should read, “It was”. “Mum, somebody ate my ‘t’.”
20
Richard Denniss and his Think Tank will have a perfectly
good explanation. You’ll see
20
Is there data available up to 2010 ?
It looks like there is a level patch between 1960-1990, which you certainly wouldn’t get if it was in an way related to CO2, then a bit of a climb from 1990-2000
Sort of like there is a 30-40 year cyclic period built on top of a general long term linear trend. But of course a long term linear trend can be just part of a much longer term cycle. Not enough data.
20
meant to type 40-60 year cycle…
note that the Pacific ones are similar, but the India Ocean sea level has what seems to be a longer cycle. Interesting.
20
“It’s a travesty that we don’t know where the extra water is going!”
Comment repeated from
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/record-melt-in-greenland/
20
I have Surfed and Fished up and down the NSW coast all my life and have seen no signs of “sea level rise”.AS sea ice melting would have no effect on sea level that leaves Glacial Ice,for the Antarctic Ice Cap to melt THE TEMPERATURE would have to rise by “40 degrees” so that leaves subsidence which is incremental and would account for the minute amounts of change.CO2 is life and CLIMATE CHANGE is NATURAL
20
G/Machine:
Of course! As with any orthodoxy, when observations do not fit the scriptures, clearly the observations are wrong. It cannot possibly be that the good book of the IPCC be wrong.
I hope you can sleep better now.
20
Missing water!!
Big Oil has stolen the water and shared it with the tobacco industry?
My good we have to replace ewery responsible idiot in this climate scam.
20
Thanks Jo.
IPCC models are pure fiction. I’ve commented on this same study here: http://sabhlokcity.com/2011/07/the-rise-in-sea-levels-is-slowing-making-a-total-mockery-of-the-ipcc-models/
Till data conclusively prove it, all scientific hypotheses are merely that: hypotheses. This, the AGW hypothesis, is not proven. Indeed, it has been falsified by numerous studies of data
S
20
Corrigendum – Pl. read: “Till data conclusively prove otherwise, all scientific hypotheses are merely that: hypotheses.”
20
Maybe all the missing water is responsible for what is being added to the Anarctic ice cap? Oh no, sorry, the models say all of that ice is melting. /sarc
20
so those catasrafarian posters at canberra airport showing a third of australia underwater was a complete and utter lie? I want to know who made the doomsday pictures so I know not to trust a word coming from their self serving dirty filthy thieving traps.
who prepared the doomsday graphics? I want names!
20
Interesting.
In Figure 5, the rate of change is positive and increasing from the ’70s, at all of the four sites on that chart. When do those lying warmists say the warming signal was first detectable again?
20
And what do we know about land movements up or down over that period?
It has never made sense to me that claimed global sea level rise can lead to wildly different rates at different locations. The reason of course is that the land can move up or down due to a number of factors – coal mining (Newcastle?), groundwater withdrawal (Adelaide and Port Adelaide?), increasing load of delta sediments (Bangladesh, Nile Delta?), volcanic movement (Pacific Islands?), plate tectonics and probably other factors.
What measurements are made of changes of land level by reference to some satellite datum so that we KNOW what is actually happening. The efforts of the CSIRO and others in this area is lamentable.
20
Also recently reported on is the Earth tide caused by the moon which pulls at the land mass as well as the sea.
20
The following link leads to the best explanation of la Nina and el Nino on the net. It shows how Pacific Ocean levels well up by up to 640mm and fall again and it’s normal.
http://www.youtube.com/user/taichiatduke
10
[…] Australian sea-levels respond to CO2 by slowing down… […]
10
is greenpeace in germany actually in the business of selling energy?
(part translation) We show that the future of renewable electricity storage problem can be solved, which is a central task for a supply of 100 percent renewable energy, “said Robert Werner, Director of Greenpeace Energy, with more than 100,000 electricity customers in Germany’s largest power cooperative.
http://www.greenpeace-energy.de/service/news/aktuelle-meldungen/newsdetails/article/greenpeace-energy-startet-mit-prowindgas-den-ersten-gastarif-fuer-gas-aus-wind-wasser-und-sonne.html?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1&cHash=e14712e543
10
Here is a great read on the sea level “issue”.
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/paper_540.pdf
10
Mondo @ 17
Land Movement?
This is in the Journal:-
Analysis of ITRF2008 data for two surface monitoring stations within ≈30 km of the Fremantle tide gauge indicates measured vertical velocities of at least −2.6 mm/y over the past decade in the Perth region
So if the gauge is sinking 2.6mm/y over the last decade – and no corrections for this in Figure 2 – then all the measurements could be out by 260mm plus over the 100 year period – makes the decleration even more than stated!
10
G/M and BD @8 & 13- too easy- try “sea levels are higher this decade than they have ever been before. This is the highest sea-level decade in history”. And if that isn’t good enough what about “sea levels may not be rising much here but the rest of the world is being very seriously affected”. Also, “this means global warming will be even worse than predicted because there is less sea than predicted to take up the extra carbon dioxide”.
Anyway, what would they know about sea level rises, they aren’t climate scientists.
Karl Popper was clearly wrong when he said “ïf it can’t be falsified it isn’t science it is religion”*. If it can’t be falsified it is climate science and is incapable of error. In religion this is known as infallibility, in science it is known as climate science.
*- I know, but you can look it up for yourself to get the historic wording.
10
It’s all thanks to the courageous effort from the families below…
>>>>>>>>
http://bunyipitude.blogspot.com/2011/07/gone-to-dogs.html
>>>>>>>>
there sacrifice has saved another beachfront property ( sarc )
Good Grief..
10
Gee Jo – you’re a bit late on this as yet again it’s been comprehensively exposed already! You really need to spread disinformation BEFORE real scientists have had a chance to correct The Australian for lying again.
“I refer to today’s article titled, Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records. Your article has misrepresented our Mr Phil Watson’s research paper by saying that “global warming is not affecting sea levels”. This is untrue and misleading and it is not what Mr Watson told your journalist. Mr Watson’s research looked only at measurements of historical data. It specifically did not consider predicted linkages between sea level rise and global warming predicted by climate models. Our organisation is committed to open scientific investigation. This important research will help us understand the different contributions of the El Nino-La Nina Southern Oscillation and of climate change to sea level change. The research and underlying data is entirely consistent with the rate of global average sea level rise for the 20th century advised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was of the order of 17 +/- 5 cm.
There is strong national and international evidence that sea levels will increase substantially in this century. The world is warming and this includes the ocean. When water warms, it expands and sea level rises. Sea level rise is a slow process but it has serious medium and long term impacts. The projections are for a rise of 40 cm by 2050 and 90 cm by 2100 in NSW, and this data is reflected in NSW policies. Our scientists are working with others to increase understanding of what and where the impacts may be, so that we can better plan for and help local communities adapt. If we are prudent now, we can substantially reduce future costs.”
Seriously you couldn’t make this stuff up!
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/the_australians_war_on_science_67.php
20
@Mattb
” It specifically did not consider predicted linkages between sea level rise and global warming predicted by climate models.”
That’s right. It didn’t because the models are nonsense.
The rest of the comment is just the scientists being politically correct in the current “political” climate, because it’s the only way to keep their funding. If they say they disagree with the consensus, their funding will be transferred to some other group.
Can you see how this works yet?
10
That MattB is a good man. He can be trusted to point out that the real world data do not conform with the models’ predictions (evidence!!) and should accordingly be disregarded.
Seeeriously, if you couldn’t make it up it would only be because you haven’t yet devised the models.
10
From the ABC this morning – another clean, green project apparently has issues
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/solar-umuwa-apy-lands-sun-farm/2808796
10
I urge interested readers to critically review the original paper. It seems there may have been subsidence affecting the data.
If you look at the graphs, the lower 2 curves suggest less than 20mm since mid to late 1950’s.
A change of 20mm over 40 years is 0.5mm per year, or 50mm per century.
The Netherlands has coped with more substantial sea land height differences for centuries.
10
MattB @ 29
Your “comment” in the Monckton blog thread linking the Norwegian massacre with those of us who challenge the warmist hegemony had to be the most despicable piece of abuse ever posted on a commentary site regarding this issue (and that is saying something). As usual your comment misses the point entirely. But what is the point of dicussing anything with an individual who tries to use an appalling massacre of innoocents as political point scoring. Beneath contempt and you have no credibility.
10
Mattb, I made no statement about “global sea levels” since this study is clearly about Australian ones. As for the study itself not comparing models and actual rises, you must be kidding, it doesn’t need to “actually compare” models and rises: What the public hears over and over is all about “the acceleration” and how it’s “worse than we thought”. All those lines come from models.
The CSIRO and Dept of Climate Change don’t tell the public the bleeding obvious (if you look at the graphs) — that there is nothing remotely unprecedented about the recent sea level rises around Australia. The slope of the recent rise is just like the one in the 1940’s, OR it’s even less.
Deltoid and Tamino cling to the Fremantle graph because he can pick the nicest of the four locations for his pet theory. [PS – Eyeballing the graphs we can see that Newcastle and Fort Denison clearly unambiguously show Deceleration. The other two graphs – Fremantle and Auckland show a cyclical trend where the rise in the 1940;s was a similar slope to the recent rise — take all four together and it’s obvious that there is no acceleration as CO2 increases from 1945 onwards.]
Matt, is there any serious evidence that sea levels around Australia are rising “worse than we thought” as our officials keep saying? This study blows that away, and as usual Deltoid finds irregularities in the CV of the commentators. The old flawed ad hom strikes again.
The wishy washy line “His department rebuked” is as usual, the official emergency response, read it deeply enough and it is puffery.
What evidence? What “National” evidence? Models?
This is the banal, and uninformative trite point of non-debate — we’re talking about acceleration or deceleration of a rising trend. This is the kindy kid denial that we are all talking about it expanding, the real question is how much and how fast. This is a standard alarmist trick to say the obvious and hope everyone reads it as if their opponents are denying the obvious.
Data? What Data? Those models are the crystal balls filled with tea leaves which ordain our future. I’m so very afraid.!@%!
It’s not enough for someone to yell, and scoff “it’s been debunked” — they actually need some content apart from one cherry picked graph. That’s why I don’t read Deltoid “for the science”. He could have showed his readers all the data eh?
The Abstract of the Watson paper sums it up: “The analysis reveals a consistent trend of weak deceleration at each of these gauge sites throughout Australasia over the period from 1940 to 2000. Short period trends of acceleration in mean sea level after 1990 are evident at each site, although these are not abnormal or higher than other short-term rates measured throughout the historical record.”
If you and Deltoid held the Australian to similar standards on it’s warmist articles there’d be more flaws on the warmist side than the skeptics (because there are more articles). It’s a newspaper — not a science journal — reporting on the public debate and public policy implications. How many times has the Australian not told people that models are not evidence, and that their output is not “data”?
Look at the graph — you don’t need statistics to see that our public officials are not telling the whole truth.
10
Why do papers published in 2011 use data that cuts off eleven years ago? How hard can it be to find up-to-date tidal gauge data?
10
Just another thought if we ever find the 50 million climate reffos that have gone missing we might find the missing water AND the missing brains from Can’tberra
10
Mattb is correct. The data shows that sea levels continue to rise, and that the rate of rise is increasing. Not models, data.
If you want to see how the data should have been analysed, see Tamino.
10
And the Watson paper lists why the Fremantle tide guage may be recording an artifact in the most recent period too.
Newcastle also suffers from subsidence:
10
John Brookes, that analysis by Tamino was sheer garbage. He carefully chose another baseline period and then folded, spindled and mutilated the data until he got what he wanted. Typical of the AGW fraudsters.
RealUniverse, please try emailing again. Internode’s spam filter is sometimes strange.
10
AH yes Mr Brookes, Grant Foster has it correct once again. Instead of taking a set of data points, graphing them as they are to show decreasing rate of rising values. Why not flog the crap out of them using a bizarre and convoluted set of statistical methods to process and re-process the data until it submits to your will?
10
This is interesting at The Australian:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll-delivers-a-slight-warming-to-carbon-tax-chill/story-fn59niix-1226101187792
The key quote:
What becomes abundantly clear is that Julia has no policy on “carbon pricing.” What the voting public, and polling public, has come to understand is that there is no “real Julia.” She is like a Seinfeldian politician… this is a PM about nothing…
10
Oh My F*&^%%^^$$g God,
I just read the MattB smack down in post 34. JB, hearing the rattling of sabres weighs in with “MattB is correct” and see Tamino.
Why would i want to see Tamino? Who is Tamino is he an expert on sea levels?, maybe an expert of the manufacture and operation of tide gauges?
No of course Tamino is a professional data manipulator, what has data manipulation got to do with tide gauge readings?
I am constantly amazed at the lengths people will go to to mount a defence of their beliefs.
I am reminded of the time i debated warmbots similar to Matt/JB regarding Axel Mornier and his work. The biggest problem they had with his studies was that “He is an idiot”.
10
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott both have a policy(the same policy) on tax and social control. Never forget that this is the central issue which must be fought.
10
Mike Borgelt and Waffle, I presume by your comments that you didn’t understand why Tamino did the analysis as he did. And yet I found his method very clearly explained and justified. It was like a good teacher showing a student how it should be done. If Phil Watson has read it, he’ll be thinking, “Yep, thats what I should have done”. If Howard Brady has read it, he’ll be thinking, “Damn, that was quick! Still every little bit of disinformation counts…”.
Jo, I don’t know if any corrections for subsidence were applied or were necessary. I suppose a comparison of satellite vs tide gauge data would sort that out, provided both were available for a long enough overlapping period.
20
JB,
I cant look at Tamino from here, could you please give me a detailed description of Taminos very clearly and justified method. Consider yourself the teacher and i a mere student.
TIA.
10
pat @ 24 – yes it appears Greenpeace Energy is a domestic supplier of renewable and now gas energy to German clients.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenpeace-energy.de%2F
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll-delivers-a-slight-warming-to-carbon-tax-chill/story-fn59niix-1226101187792
this woman is unbelievable!!
10
pat at comment 24
just a wry comment here.
The major problem with any of the renewable power processes is their inability to supply power for longer than 6/7 hours a day.
These renewable plants are already horrendously expensive, for those minimal amounts of power.
In an attempt to increase that power delivery closer to the required 24/7/365 basis, they then look for added processes, adding a much larger cost to the already huge cost.
It seems money is no object for these people.
These plants will only ever provide ’boutique’ levels of power for enormous cost.
Hmm!
Maybe some Quantitive Easing might help here.
Just print more money and give it all to them.
You just have to smile.
I mean, you can’t do anything else.
After all, they know best!!!
Tony.
10
So Johnnie Brookes doesn’t “know if corrections for subsidence were applied or were necessary,” but he found Tamino’s cherrypicking “very clearly explained and justified.” Uh-huh. Don’t look too hard at the details, Johnnie, might notice some tad, itsy-bitsy bit of evidence that doesn’t conform to Ptolemaic climate orthodoxy. Gosh, wouldn’t that be a shocker?
Fact is, there’s a slim chance that humankind might not be the stationary center of the Earth’s climate with all forcing moving in epicyclic carbon orbits driven by concentric spheres of corporate greed.
So give it up, dude, Stop pretending you’re interested in a rational, evidence-based journey towards a better understanding of nature, where ever that may lead.
You’re really on a religious pilgrimage. The path may be fraught with uncertainty, but the destination always remains the same. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you understand that’s what you’re all about. My worry is that you and MattB don’t know who and what you really represent.
And that’s unhealthy. Just sayin…
10
At the same time the people of Brisbane who had always built their houses on stilts, were told not to bother with that because heavy rain was a thing of the past.
10
For those wondering why the graph stops at 2000 I would assume it is because of the 20 year running average. The data used for 2000 would be the average sea height of all years between 1991 and 2010.
10
Sorry Crakar24, but Tamino’s explanation was too long to easily summarise, at least not without some loss of clarity and detail. Have a look when you can.
Wes george: Tamino did not address subsidence, because the paper he was critiquing did not. All he did was take the data that they used, and show a substantially better way of analyzing it. If you have any information on how subsidence needs to be incorporated into tide gauge data, I’d be interested.
20
Good news for our Cate, I mean your Cate, THEIR Cate.
10
dlb@51, you are correct. The original paper did an analysis based on a 20 year running average, which Tamino identifies as being a data analysis no-no. That is, there is nothing wrong with using a 20 year running average to show a smoothed version of the data – but you should not then use that running average in preference to the original data, as it leads to wrong results.
20
Is that graph correct because the acceleration seems to occur before the “Hottest Days on record” in 1998.
How can this be correct unless there is no correlation to Global average temperatures.
Can we trust any of this stuff?
Say YES to election now !!
10
my post @55
Sorry guys substitue “acceration” with “deceleration”
10
Willis Eschenbach, quite the regular on Whats Up With That, often covers sea level changes in his destruction of IPCC models on the topic. Two specific cases so far this year can be found:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/08/putting-the-brakes-on-acceleration/
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/03/the-ups-and-downs-of-sea-level/
Combined with data (not models) from Argos Bouys deployed since 2003 that haven’t indicated extra heat in the oceans, well what can I say?
10
So we’re Still Waiting For Greenhouse?
http://john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm
At Port Arthur the mean sea level mark of 1841 is above today’s high tide mark.
Yeah.
On a minor point, I believe John Daly was mistaken when he said:
“The last image for 1846 is particularly interesting as it shows a large 3-masted sailing ship moored where the Lawn (fig.14) now sits.”
I’ve been unable to find images dating from 1846. There are only two images I can find of a 3-masted ship and they are both dated 1878.
Pic1 http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?q=Port+Arthur&format=Images&era=19th+century&i=31&id=682049
Pic2 http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?q=Port+Arthur&format=Images&era=19th+century&i=20&id=675844
They are clearly moored at the long edge of the bay and are not in front of the penitentiary where the open lawn is located. Daly must have got his directions and buildings mixed up.
This next picture shows the “lawn” area was solid land even in 1860.
http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?q=Port+Arthur&format=Images&era=1851-1901&i=39&id=693154
But aside from that, I think Daly’s criticism of the official sea level story still stands. Hard to argue with a mark carved in rock.
10
MattB and John Brookes;
The other thing you could do would be to check some tide height data for yourselves- it’s freely available on BOM’s website at . (Select the port you want, click on Table, then select Text File and load into excel or whatever). I’ve checked a few in Queensland. Mackay since 1967 has increased at less than 1.4mm per year (based on monthly average); Townsville 1.2mm; Brisbane and Bundaberg less than 5 mm increase in 45 years- so there’s very little danger of Brisbane airport going underwater in the next 900 years at this rate. 9000 years maybe, but definitely not 90. No need to cancel your flights just yet. And there’s no sign of any acceleration at all.
Don’t believe anything you read until you check it for yourself.
Ken
10
Sorry about that, I stuffed up the link, but it should still work.
Ken
10
The other interesting point Ken is the lack of data input. Some ports have missed the data for two years – what quality control do they have??
10
JB in 45,
You claimed Tamino’s presentation was quite good by stating
But when i asked you to expand a little you then claimed in post 52 “its complicated” by stating
I would like to provide you a link to an interview by the worlds leading sea level expert, in the interview he explains that a majority of the worlds coastlines are not suffering from sea level. He comes to this conclusion by measuring the sea level using tide gauges unlike your blogosphere demigod.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/eirv34n25-20070622/33-37_725.pdf
Can you tell me why Morner is wrong and Tamino is right?
10
Time for a bit of fun,
From Tim Blair blog something to rival Speedy’s posts http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/aromatic_energy_future/
Australia’s Prime Minister is currently wearing out her shoe leather in a frantic nationwide search for someone who likes her carbon tax.
We join her now at a press conference already underway in beautiful Byron Bay, where Ms Gillard is inspecting an aromatherapy candle outlet run by Evaan and his life partner Lilly.
PRIME MINISTER: … and this thriving candle company, shining so brightly with so many points of sustainable illumination, shows why Mr Abbott is wrong to reject the price on carbon pollution, wrong to reject the science, and wrong to turn his back on Australia’s clean energy future. Ouch!
REPORTER: Her back’s on fire! Put her out!
[The broadcast is briefly halted. We rejoin Prime Minister Gillard’s press conference a few minutes later.]
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you everybody for your very speedy assistance. No harm done. Thank you to the ladies from the Country Women’s Association who were so quick with the fire extinguisher and to Lilly for, er, casting the Runes.
LILLY: The energy force has returned to the elders.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. Lovely. They can enjoy what’s left of my Ginger & Smart jacket. I’ll now take questions from the assembled media.
REPORTER: Ms Gillard, you mentioned earlier that under your carbon pricing plan, renewable energy would gradually take the place of existing energy sources. How realistic is that, and over what time frame?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, I think it’s very realistic. We see right here that an entire business can be run on solar energy to melt and shape several scented candles every day, so there’s no reason to think that in the near future all of Australia’s major manufacturing industries won’t be switching to clean energy alternatives.
REPORTER: What major manufacturing industries are you thinking of?
PRIME MINISTER: All the ones that will still be open in a couple of years. Kite making, wind chimes, healing crystals, reiki classes, whalesong CDs, papier-mache protest puppet construction …
REPORTER: I meant all over Australia, not just in Byron.
PRIME MINISTER: So did I. Next.
REPORTER: Ms Gillard, a nationwide poll in the Daily Telegraph today reported that your total support had fallen below the margin for error. Any response?
PRIME MINISTER: All I want to say about that is, and I’m not jumping to any conclusions here or trying to muddy the waters or casting blame or smearing anyone, but the Daily Telegraph is a News Ltd paper and Australians want to ask News Ltd questions about phone hacking. Hard questions. And News Ltd in Australia has a responsibility to answer those hard questions about journalists in London hacking phones of brave British soldiers and 9/11 victims. People here have seen individuals grieving overseas, and the answers they seek are from News Ltd and the Daily Telegraph.
REPORTER: Actually, my mistake. The poll was in the Sydney Morning Herald.
PRIME MINISTER: Politics is an unpredictable business and polls will naturally rise and fall over time. Next.
REPORTER: Ms Gillard, what do you say to claims that Greens senator Bob Brown is the real leader of your government?
BOB BROWN: I’ll field this one, Julia. The Greens and Labor work together on important issues of environment and climate change. Sometimes, as you will appreciate, there are compromises over exactly when we should close down the entire coal industry and become a hut-dwelling subsistence culture, but overall ours is a creative and hardworking partnership. By the way, the smart money for the shutdown is March 14, 2012. You heard it here first, hate media!
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Bob. By the way, people, please don’t read too much into Bob’s words there. He was probably just indulging in some playful parliamentary hyperbole.
[An aide whispers in the Prime Minister’s ear]
PRIME MINISTER: Oh! Oh, my. Apparently I’ve been mis-saying that word. It isn’t pronounced “hyper-bowl” after all, it’s pronounced … how does it go?
REPORTER: Hi-per-bol-ee.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you Mega [giggles]. I hope nobody got any footage of that. The opposition will be in such a state of high dungeon that I’ll be run out of town like a common Taliband.
[The same aide again approaches the Prime Minister but then just gives up and looks at the floor]
REPORTER: Ms Gillard, taxpayers recently shelled out $66,000 to install a new hot water system at The Lodge. Given that your government is encouraging other Australians to seek alternative energy sources, how come the new system isn’t solar?
PRIME MINISTER: That was part of an overall renovation for The Lodge that also included fire extinguishers, fire hose reels, fire-retardant blankets, fire alarms and fire doors. It wasn’t just for hot water.
REPORTER: Why so many new fire protection measures?
PRIME MINISTER: I’d been advised that the previous tenants had engaged a local tradesman, who also sells genuine Molex watches, to install insulation. You can’t be too careful. The place could go up at any second. Last question, please.
REPORTER: Ms Gillard, will you be taking any of these fine aromatic candles back home with you? They’re very romantic. They’d be just the thing in Tim’s shed!
PRIME MINISTER: Now, now, Michelle! I know exactly where you’re going with this [giggles]. And as you know, I’m not alouda in the shed because of girl germs. It’s strictly a place for men.
REPORTER: What does he do in there, anyway?
PRIME MINISTER: Blokey stuff. His mates watch sport, cricket, the Bulldogs, V8s, everything. Back in February, a bunch of his mates came over to watch that big American football game, the … er … you know the one … the … let’s see if I get this right: the su-per-bol-ee.
[An aide collapses backwards into a shelf of lit balsamic vinegar and cous cous candles. Transmission abruptly ends. Normal programming is resumed.]
10
–Matt Ridley, talking about the Green cure for so-called “climate change.”
* * *
The primal fear of the Deluge is being manipulated for political reason. Rising sea-levels are used to deceive.
1. Correlation isn’t causation. The true believers project their own faith upon the data when they assume rising sea-levels must be due to “carbon pollution” that must be “tackled” by applying a tax tourniquet to our necks.
We know that the Earth was naturally warming for the last hundred years coming out of the Maunder Minimum. Rising sea-levels, now decelerating is what one would expect anyway. No tourniquet required.
2. More than one new study concludes that rising sea-levels are slowing. This doesn’t fit the CAGW hypothesis which predicts rising seas should be accelerating so rapidly that it would be indisputably obvious on every coastline on the planet. It’s just not happening…Alarmists like to pretend that we were all born yesterday. But for gawd’s sake, the CAGW apocalypse was first outlined in the early 1980’s. We’re all suppose to be living in Waterworld by now fighting tooth and nail for survival in a hostile post-apocalyptic world. (Is it just me, or does Johnnie looks a bit like Kevin Costner gargling piss?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46lSslZe6Pk
What do you call a hypothesis that makes a boldly useless prediction?….
But slowly rising or slightly decelerating sea levels does fit with the hypothesis that most of the 20th rise in sea levels was a natural climate rebound from the 19th century climate minimum.
Even if sea-level rises aren’t decelerating much, there is no credible evidence they are accelerating. = CAGW fail.
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1
3. Soooo, the only “evidence” for dangerous rises in sea levels 50 to 70 years from now is climate Game Boy prophecy. Yet we know that meteorologists can’t model regional weather accurately more than a week in advance, still we are asked to believe the almost infinitely more complex task of modelling the Earth’s climate a century into the future is fact rather than fantasy…. And we also understand confirmation bias is a serious issue whenever numerical modelling cannot be tested against empirical observation. This would account for model “scenarios” that reflect like a B-grade Hollywood sci-fi the wild-eyed assumptions of their creators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4eZ7Z5yk8
4. The same Alarmist culture which fitted up t-record reconstructions to create the Hockey Stick is panel beating the sea-level data to fit their favourite hypothesis, rather than the other way around. Their credibility is shot. You wouldn’t buy a used car from these fools much less let them appropriate the world’s economy to “tackle” the Earth’s climate.
Our culture has imbued within us from an early age an unconscious understanding of apocalyptic deluge. Popular culture has long exploited this meme to create powerful imagery from Turner’s Evening of the Deluge to The Day After Tomorrow. And now a new brand of hucksters want to sell us fear of the Deluge, this time their purpose isn’t to entertain but to divide and conquer.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=14787&tabview=image
10
Messrs Brokks and Mb resort to the old stand-bys to bad news on AGW theory; Lambert for ad homs and tammy for statistical flim-flam.
The less said about Deltoid the better; tammy has pretensions and is quoted as an authority by those witless supporters of AGW who obviously need such mentors.
First the obvious; tammy criticises Watson for amongst other things, using a 20 year moving average which reveals, according to tammy, an obviously defective early part the Newcastle data. Tammy’s alternative is an anomaly graph based on 1960-1990 [no reasons for this base period are given other than a saintly pronouncement] which shows Newcastle’s early data is divergent from the others; Watson’s graph had shown Newcastle’s LATTER data divergent from the others. Tammy says this would not be a regional effect, justifying Watson’s work, because Newcastle and Fort Denison in Sydney are too close together for such a pronounced divergence; actually it’s only 2 cms at its maximum, and Newcastle is the convergent point of major currents which may explain a regional effect.
But, tammy’s alternative with the baseline not only shows Newcastle’s EARLY data divergent but Fort Denison’s as well, in the opposite direction from Newcastle! How is that an improvement?
The issues here are why did tammy use his base period? And why does tammy ignore Watson’s justification for using his 20 year average explained thus:
“This has been achieved though the application of a 20-
year ‘‘rolling’’ or ‘‘moving’’ average (10 y either side of the data
point in question) to the monthly average data set. The fixed
averaging window of 20 years is sufficiently wide to dampen the
dynamic influences to reveal a transformed time series from
which signals of comparatively low-amplitude sea level rise (or
fall) can be more readily isolated.
The width of the averaging window means that the moving
average time series will start and end 10 years inside the
extremity of the data record considered.”
Watson doesn’t use the 20 year averages as data but he does normalise them to January 1940, in effect a baseline, a date he uses for good statistical reasons which tammy again ignores? This error by tammy is compounded when he refers to Rahmstorf who has been shown to do the very thing tammy falsely accuses Watson of doing, namely end point fiddling, ignoring, or, in Rhahmstorf’s case, padding or adding to those data which show end of data acceleration.
It is essential for people like tammy and the AGW theory that sea level rise be accelerating because that is the only way sea level rise can get near the projected levels. By showing that the rate of increase is recently accelerating the predictions can be validated. Watson has shown the opposite, although he obviously hates himself for doing so. The end of the world is again not nigh.
10
John Brooks; Blogger William Briggs, a statistician, had an interesting post some months back where he stated that if a hypothesis relies on statistics it has nothing to do with science. All you need is the right starting point, finishing point, a ruler and by selective manipulation you can prove anything. Science is about data not statistical tricks. The data does not support sea level rises of the magnitude projected by the models, end of story.
10
John and Matt
World sea level has been falling quite rapidly the last 12-18 months because SST’s have been low. Here are 6 ESA datasets. Except around Australia where all the heat from the carbon tax fight seems to have warmed the ocean for 1000 km in every direction. If you don’t believe me see this graphic from NOAA. Its not only our PM who’s ranga, its the whole country.
10
Short question: I assumed Tamino’s blog is peer reviewed?
Funny how peer-review only matters when it supports the CAGW case…
10
All these failed predictions from ‘experts’ and ‘scientists’, many speaking on behalf of their various institutions, must have had a negative effect on a large number of individuals. Surely there are farmers whose property was undervalued because of the drought that was going to last forever? Or the snowfields that would never see snow again. Did any business there get knocked back for a loan because the banks assumed their business would fail in a year or two? Property owners on the water-front must have had their values affected, and their abilty to access loans diminished.
All it takes is a few people who have the paper-trail of evidence to show that a dud prediction has adversely affected their plans, and a canny lawyer could hold these snake-oil salesmen to account.
It is time someone, or some institution was made responsible for the (unintended) damage caused by issuing predictions from authority that time has proven to be false.
10
Whos cares..you think thats big..12000 years ago you could probably walk from Australia to Asia, Alaska to Russia, England to Norway…next
10
Nearly fell off my chair when I saw the Watson paper highlighted at the science section of the ABC’s website.
Of course they also had to get a comment from the consensus at CSIRO with quote “There is a much bigger body of evidence supporting the IPCC projections than there is from single papers in the scientific literature. You have to be very careful when a single paper is cited as though this is the state of the science.”
10
cohenite @65 Thanks that’s the long version of what I said.
Tamino makes big deal out of first removing an annual signal. Big deal as a 20 year moving average will heavily damp that. I lost interest at that point at it was obviously just smoke and mirrors designed to obfuscate and mislead.
10
Hopefully not doubling up on a previous post by anyone here – an article from Spiegel on the sea level change debate
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,774706,00.html
10
Groundwater extraction is indeed a serious cause of land subsidence – for there is a double whammy in the system, land subsidence and increasing ocean volume. Subsidence in California is quite significant.
10
Thanks Ross # 25 for the Axel Morner article, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at the issues in it but revisiting them in the light of what I’ve learned since makes it all the more relevant.
The TOPEX/Jason satellite data also has a deceleration, it’s very easy to pull down the data and fit a 3rd order polynomial to show it. The problem is the difference in linear trends between globally averaged tide guage data and the satellite trend of TOPEX/Jason (Envisat is less). The “adjustments” to satellite data documented by Axel Morner are incriminating, without which the satellite era data would show no rise. Axel Morner explains:-
Re Tamino. A curve fitting exercise like his will show both recent acceleration and deceleration in individual tide guage data but they are very small and so what? It’s the global aggregate that matters. The required rates of global acceleration for any levels above normal (18mm/decade tide guage, 31mm/decade satellite) are just not evident recently. Houston and Dean refute Rahmsdorf and Vermmeer saying they “are curve fitting, not modeling physics, so the approach cannot be used to predict future sea level”. Even the IPCC has discounted the R & V proposition for the lack of physical relationships.
The other problem I see is that once a model has been fitted e.g. Tamino’s, the apparently “better” correlation is then projected into the future with alarming connotations e.g. Tamino. This ignores the bigger picture (OHC stalled since 2003/04, clouds, grand solar minimum prediction etc) where there isn’t the drivers to continue the projection.
The important point I think is the H & D conclusion:-
Reply to: Rahmstorf, S. and Vermeer, M., 2011. Discussion of: Houston, J.R. and Dean, R.G., 2011.
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11A-00008.1
Re the Auckland tide guage series. Folks here may be interested in this paper:-
Auckland: A Case Study in the Regional Assessment of Long-Term Sea
Level Change
John HANNAH, Rob BELL and Ryan PAULIK, 2011
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/docs/an-updated-analysis-of-long-term-sea-level-change-in-nz-jhannah-2003.pdf
It puts Auckland in broad perspective including millennial and global, also cites Watson 2011.
10
I haven’t checked every response, but another paper published last August in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans stated a similar conclusion – ‘no acceleration of sea level rise for the past 100+ years’.
Last year, a wind “farm” environmental (now there’s an oxymoron, if ever there was one)’officer’informed me, after I told him there was no ‘global warming’ for many years (“it’s a travesty” – Trenberth) that the heat had gone into the oceans (clever old heat) instead. It was an excellent chance to lead him on so I suggested that was why the sea levels were rising (very bad of me). Of course, he seized upon it and then I gave him the latest research. He did not know what to say or do. I suggested to this Uriah Heap character that wind farm companies do not exactly employ top shelf staff and he was out of his depth (paradoxically)); he whined of course and sulked off.
However, compared with the lying “manager” prat at this utter farce of a ‘consultation day’, Uriah was probably one of their better employees.
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“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; Albert Einstein.
Again with the post modern science from the csiro.
10
It just gets worse, more real world data to die for (as a coolist)
Oh and that dam graph too. Doesn’t surprise me the two hemis are quite different. Land mass to ocean ratio must account for allot of it. Warmal Globing just isnt ‘global’. Also NZ is now getting a freezing winter. THe next LIA again!
10
Don’t forget the 200km3 of water added each year by groundwater extraction. This adds about 0.6mm to the oceans each year.
10
Cohers, if you are so sure you are right, go onto Tamino’s blog and explain to him his errors. I’d be interested to see what you and he would agree/disagree on.
10
He banned me a couple of years ago.
10
Just realised its Nils-Axel not Axel-Morner (#75). Apologies to Mr Morner.
10
More relevant for the last thread but worth sharing.
Bob Carter takes aim at Turnbull.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/07/bob-carter-on-malcolm-turnbull
“His rusted on belief that dangerous global warming is being caused by human-related carbon dioxide emissions probably dates back to his days as Minister for Environment under Mr Howard. Then, like all new recruits to that portfolio, his views on iconic environmental issues will have been captured by the usual “”Yes, Minister” clique of bureaucrats and official science advisers – doubtless wielding the snazzy computer simulations that are so loved by science junketeers”.
and
“If a wealthy western country such as Australia has $100 billion to burn – which is the rough cost of a carbon dioxide tax of $23/tonne cumulated to 2020 – then that money should be used for the direct alleviation of poverty starting now, and to help provide cheap (including coal-fired) power to developing countries, rather than being squandered in a vain attempt to “stop global warming” in expiation of the consciences of latte-sipping environmentalists in leafy metropolitan suburbs”.
10
I live at sea level beside Tuggerah Lakes and as a result of pronouncements from on high, we have had large reductions in land valuations throughout. I have lived in this place for over 25 years, all of that time being anxious about claimed sea level rises. I have come to the conclusion that the only real threat to our properties is from the mouths of warmist politicians and bureaucrats.
10
Mark Twain put it succinctly
“The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.”
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
10
I’m curious as to the validity of Tamino’s 2nd derivative (compelling on the face of it to a novice) which as I understand from my perfunctory grasp of mathematics is the instantaneous rate of change. Does the 2nd derivative still retain the influence of the total series length?
What I’m getting at is brought up in the H & D reply to R & V:-
What length of record does the 2nd derivative draw on (and describe) if its an instantaneous measure?
Wont see any responses tonight because its late now in NZ. Anomalously cold I might add. Winter has been kind here up till now thanks to La Nina but global cooling is back with a vengeance and snow is certainly not “a thing of the past”.
10
@Sanjeev Sabhlok:
Nice article. From my investigation into CAGW I have become astonished to find how the entire theory is based essentially on computer-models. They have computerised simulations of the TOA radiative-imbalance, simulations of CO2’s radiative-forcing properties (such as HITRAN and MODTRAN), simulations of paleoclimate-data and simulations of CO2 fluxes. Empirical evidence be damned! Of course that doesn’t deter the True Believers like MattB however who will no doubt continue to push CAGW until their last breath.
10
Jo,
One area of science NEVER contemplated or looked into is the loss of water vapor on this planet. It takes thousands of years to loose a mm of water to space depending on the activity smashing into the atmosphere.
Evidence NEVER looked into includes the age of current volcanoes(not in billions of years), salt deposits(oldest 1 billion years old), planetary rotational speed of the past(changes pressure and other factors), planetary distance changes from the sun, etc.
The evidence in many cases suggests this planet had a great deal more salt water. Volcanic activity would have been under water which would then prevent ashes and toxic gases from being in the atmosphere by the compression weight of water.
Our driest desert has no precipitation ever recorded. It is full of salt deposits with living microbes still trapped in the salt rock when broken open. It is speculated that the water vapor in the air was still keeping these microbes alive. These rocks are only calculated in the millions of years.
What happened to the other billions of years if water did NOT cover the areas? Where is the oldest volcanic activity in billions of years? Weather erosion? How about glaciers moving rocks? Snow falls but does not travel over huge tracts of land like an army.
Movements of large material(by massive floating ice) and massive erosion can occur in an ocean world drying up.
10
CHIP #87
Yep.
As demonstrated perfectly by this joker.
“People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful…Our approach is not entirely empirical.”
UKMet Principle Research Scientist, John Mitchell:
There used to be a saying:
Question: What’s the difference between simulation and masturbation.
Answer: None. Do either long enough and you begin to believe it’s the real thing!
10
A 2nd derivative can calculate the velocity or rate of change of the change at any point on the data length; the term instantaneous is a misnomer to the extent that previous rates of change as well as present ones can be calculated.
What I don’t get is where tammy says Watson’s use of the 2nd derivative is based on an assumption of constant acceleration of sea level increase through the observed time span; I can’t see that Watson has done that.
I’m also bemused as to why tammy has gone to such lengths to remove what he calls the annual cycle if it had no bearing on trend; he says if Watson had removed the annual cycle it “would have improved whatever trend analysis follows.” That is contradictory and given that the fourier analysis tammy does to isolate the annual trend also shows some intra-annual cycles and a possible 2 year cycle maybe that data is the difference between tammy’s finding of an accelerating sea rise and Watson’s opposite finding.
10
90 cohenite, Just numbers my dear Watson!!
Check out latest Icecap.us nice graphs there, most are flatliners meaning ‘business as usual’ NO trends, global drought frequency DOWN global flood frequency DOWN so much for the catastrophists. Joes nice explation of the reason for the hot air over Minasota is great all about thermodynamic heat transfer (of course).”Well Friday, that air mass came east. Not only was it warm to begin with but the convection to the west added latent heat to the air as the rising air condensed into clouds and precipitation. When that super warm air aloft got carried east on strong west to northwest winds and subsided downslope from the mountains it warmed even more by compression – about 10F”
F! cant those USians get real and convert to C!) Normal atmospheric physics no CO2 involved.
A fault of some researchers I have noted is that they find some data hers an example this ” Ruhl et al contend that instead, what happened, was that the small amount of atmospheric heating that occurred due to the exhaust from the volcanoes” then they go on “After extensive calculations, Ruhl and his team came to the conclusion that some 12,000 gigatons of methane would have had to have been pumped into the atmosphere.. ” implying that this methane heated the planet so we got dinasaurs! (The other is that the excess CH4 just poisoned everything, possibly the article has been misinterpreted from the original paper anyway which seems to be par for the course) source http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/mass-release-of-methane-in-oceans-tilted-earth-towards-past-extinction/ (strange but intersting site)
They have made conclusions but of course that just THIER oppinion the data should be left to others to make conclusions but of course what media do is put their conclusions as fact when is is very far from that it would be better if these guys would just collect the data and lets science take it course but would would give up such a chance to get more grant money pushing doggy theories. Not saying these guys have but this is how it seems to go.
10
gee,cohenite,the annual cycle is…the annual cycle.Therefore it is irrelevant to a long term trend. You have to get rid of all the short term fluctuations brought about by tides and seasonality to get at any underlying trend. These bits of signal do not contribute to the trend.
10
cohenite: If you have data that is basically quadratic, then you can fit a quadratic to it and all is well. You will have successfully found the rate of acceleration of sea level rise. This rate is constant, because the model assumes it is.
But if the data is not quadratic, then the acceleration will be changing with time. If you want to see this change, you’ll need to fit a different function to the data. So Tamino fits a quartic. That way, if the rate of acceleration is changing, you can see it. And he shows that the rate of acceleration of sea level rise is getting bigger.
Mind you, while Tamino is critical of Watson’s model, he does not take his own quartic model that seriously, and says that he would explore different models.
So its apparent that Tamino has simply found flaws in Watson’s paper, and suggested how to fix them. I can’t see why this worries you so much.
20
Er, isn’t this “We’re All Gonna Drown!” crap having a depressant effect upon real estate prices in the coastal areas?
If it is, then those diminished prices should push down property valuations, reducing folks’ tax gouge, and isn’t that a good thing?
And if tax rip-offs aren’t going down along with the “We’re All Gonna Drown!” real estate prices, shouldn’t the residents and business operators in those communities be marching on their local governments with pitchforks and torches and lengths of rope tied in those canonically suitable hangman’s knots depicted so faithfully in American westerns?
10
Tanimo sure get a lot of suck up posts. He originally had some residual plots up that clearly had problems that are now missing, but whatever. He also thinks for moving averages that the last data point should be given more “votes” than the others. That’s just moronic
10
One of the first things you learn in econometrics, and I assume any serious branch of statistics, is to have a theory first (and theoretical model) and then see if the data fits your hypothetecial model. Arbitrarily fitting a straight line, quadratic, quartic or any other function to data without a hypothesis is completely meaningless. Consequently any rates of change, or changing rates of change etc that Tamino wishes to associate with the data are complteley meaningless. It is probably less useful than simply eyeballing the data and looking for patterns because he is superimposing a, dare I say cherry-picked, assumed function of his choice.
Data are like inkblots… different people will look at them and see different patterns. Your pattern is no more meaningful than mine, and I am certainly not betting the house on your ink blot analysis, let alone Tamino’s … a guy with a proven axe to grind in CAGW.
10
At 6:10 AM on 26 July, Bulldust had written: “One of the first things you learn in econometrics, and I assume any serious branch of statistics, is to have a theory first (and theoretical model) and then see if the data fits your hypothetical model.”
If that’s so, then we’ve nailed down one of the many reasons why “econometrics” is pure crap.
In all reasoned analysis of phenomena, the progress from conjecture to hypothesis to theory to law (if you can push it that far) begins first and foremost with observation.
Those of us in the development of explanations for how things happen split pretty much into experimentalists and theoreticians, and the term “experimentalist” subsumes those of us who observe and record findings outside the scope of structured experimentation.
To the theoretician (or theoretician-wannabee) it seems as if you “have to have a theory first (and theoretical model).”
This, of course, purest batpuckey. Might work fine for mathematicians and other purely abstract philosophers, but it is not how science operates.
Heck, for both experimentalists and genuine theoreticians, the big moment of discovery almost always boils down to picking up something – in the lab or outside it – which causes you to think: “Damn! That’s funny….”
It’s how almost all discoveries have always been made.
Observational data are emphatically not “like inkblots,” random and susceptible only to subjectie interpretation. Anybody who conceives such to be so is not a scientist of either kind, but most assuredly not an experimentalist.
To those of us on the experimentalist side, the quality of data is of paramount importance. How was it collected and recorded? What conditions might have imposed confounding factors on the phenomena giving rise to the observations and to the observations themselves? Will repetition of the data collection method produce information of sufficiently similar character as to validate the original data?
The theoretician tends – unfortunately – to treat “the data” as if he knows to some degree of certainty the reliability of the information without ever getting hands-on in collection and verification.
Experimentalists know better.
This is why we say that it is a fatal error to conjecture – much less hypothesize – before nailing down the data.
===
“One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.”
— Robert A. Heinlein (1939)
10
Tukey was a good man.
Seems to me the analysis is pointless since we know that sea level is not rising. Therefore it cannot have a an upward trend, let alone an acceleration. One is led to conclude that the coherent continuously increasing rate of rise from the ’70s shown in fig 5 is spurious since the lying warmists claim global warming commenced a great deal earlier in 1955 or some such date. Coincidence or conspiracy.
And let me anticipate the claim that more recent data is more pertinent to our present day by simply saying, “bulldust”.
10
how productive!
26 July: Gold Coast Bulletin: Lucy Arden: Interest soars for Bond (University’s) carbon course
The three-month, post-graduate course costs $14,000 and covers legal, economic, accounting and development issues.
Course graduates are likely to become carbon auditors, brokers and managers.
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/07/26/335625_gold-coast-news.html
10
Warren # 52
What makes you so sure that the annual cycle has no bearing on the underlying trend?
If you look at total column water vapour (the key metric NOT performing as per the AGW hypothesis) the plots of Northern and Southern Hemisphere data are quite different due to the annual cycles and the greater land mass in the NH so that the annual peak in atmospheric water vapour content occurs usually around August-September, when NH vegetation is at maximum transpiration (i.e. TPW influenced more by land than ocean). If you remove the TPW annual cycle, you remove the component that is the result of the major cause of TPW levels in the first place.
By removing the annual SSL cycle you may be inadvertently removing the signal from an influential cause. Having said that, I do see the reasoning behind the removal. You say:-
Is not the dip in the Fremantle series 1960 – 2000, a “short term fluctuation”? Yet it is that dip that provides Tamino with a short-term acceleration, see #86 and #75 for comments on the problem of considering series of less than 60 yrs length.
cohenite #90, John Brookes #93 and Bulldust #95.
It seems to me that Tamino is looking at short-term fluctuations (with some merit), Watson is looking at century scale fluctuation (also with some merit) but neither has tried to identify a departure from a previous long-term trend which is what the IPCC projections certainly are. Obviously this is difficult with such short series but Hannah, Bell and Paulik (see #75) show a plot of global mean sea level 1870 – 2006 that illustrates the longer-term trend in SSL. Watson’s aim was:-
I think Watson comes closer to this aim than Tamino. Using Tamino’s rationale, he should be analyzing even shorter fluctuations to ascertain a trend. Comparing Auckland to Fremantle to global 2000 – 2010, Auckland levels have decreased significantly, Fremantle levels have increased significantly and global levels have risen but at a decelerating rate.
We need to establish the trend pre-anthropogenic influence (if any) and any recent departure from that with a hypothesis as the starting point as Bulldust points out. I don’t see any departure that is fulfilling IPCC projections at present, regional or global.
10
Tucci78:
Forgetting for the minute the ridiculously tragic web site your moniker links to…
What I am talking about which you completely misinterpret, whether it be benignly or disingenuously, is that when it comes to statistical techniques applying random functions to obtain a good fit to the data is meaningless. You need a theoretical model to justify the selection of the functional form you seek to verify in the observed data.
I never suggested that one start with a model and then try to warp the data to fit that model. In fact, the statistical approach is that if the data do not appear to lend credence to the hypothesised model, then discard/modify the model. Unless there is reason to suspect the validity of the data you do not tamper with it.
Where’s the scientific problem in that approach?
FYI there are plenty of examples in hard science in which models came first and verification only came later through experimental data. One has to look no further than the Standard Model and the pursuit of the Higg’s boson right now.
I fail to see how your rant was relevent.
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Richard C:
My point is that trend analysis is fairly pointless, unless all you are interested in is saying “look a trend!” It explains nothing about the system, nor the variables that drive it exogenously or endogenously.
It is like the folks who look for patterns in stock market data… they have all kinds of weird and wonderful technical methods to spot patterns in the chicken entrails, ooops I mean share prices. At the end of the day all such analysis is meaningless. Their guess is as good as any other random guess, and it makes us none the wiser.
Hence my argument… it is pointless to fit a functional form to data unless you have a hypothetical model which makes some sense of the system a priori. Otherwise you are merely looking for correlation, not causation.
I am not sure why some people are struggling with this very basic concept.
10
Bulldust, starting with “look a trend”, the trend I think is Figure 6, Hannah, Bell and Paulik, that shows global mean sea level 1870 – 2006.
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/docs/an-updated-analysis-of-long-term-sea-level-change-in-nz-jhannah-2003.pdf
You are asking for “a hypothetical model which makes some sense of the system [Figure 6 above?] a priori. Would that be a complete set of drivers specific to each tide guage (and global drivers)?
I’m asking for evidence of departure from what we see in Figure 6.
10
This is pertinent:-
10
Bulldust in 101,
If the IPCC models were correct there would be no reason for Tammy to statistically manipulate the data to “show a trend”, as the IPCC models continually get it wrong…………….
10
But the right honourable prime minister, Ms Julia Gillard, has peer reviewed the global warming science and declared it all to be accurate and true. After all she is the prime minister, and as such, her intelligence and opinion must be worth more than all the “climate change skeptics” put together.
Democracy is just a blind mob led by the blind.
10
Aw, Bulldust doesn’t like Chris Muir’s Web comic Day By Day. Dunno how he conjures it to be “ridiculously tragic,” but he seems to be aesthetically as well as logically crippled, so what the hell….
Bulldust wants to push the notion that “You need a theoretical model to justify the selection of the functional form you seek to verify in the observed data” when, in fact, there is really nothing even to suggest “a theoretical model” prior to the gathering of observational information.
Not even “the Standard Model and the pursuit of the Higg’s boson right now” had been devised in the sort of airy-fairy fantasyland to which Bulldust is trying to peddle tickets.
And that’s the point of my earlier post, which is being missed by Bulldust for what appears to be pure obtuseness. Only the willfully obtuse use a word like “rant” to characterize a discussant’s argument.
This being the Internet, I can’t whack Bulldust between the eyes with a shovel to drive that point home as Bulldust appears to require, but let’s consider the spirit if not the physical instantiation of such a gesture as given.
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[…] bit of supplementary information, a beautiful slide show to summarise the big picture and some data from Jo Nova to show that the rising of the seas is levelling off after rising in the vicinity of 20 to 30 […]
10
That statement, while idealistically possible, is uncomfortable close in spirit to the statement below, which is common misconception about science:
–Sanjeev @ 16
The role of hypothesis formation in the scientific method isn’t primarily about developing a conjecture into a law of nature. A hypothesis can never be “proven correct.” The best a hypothesis can hope to achieve is to be a useful description of observed data AND to present “implications” that would not have otherwise been cognitively framed to allow exploration by researchers, therefore advancing our understanding to levels impossible before said hypothesis. It is important to note that even a falsified hypothesis can often aid research in this manner. All hypotheses (or natural “law” for that matter) are totally tenuous, contingent upon the very next new observation. Most live short, nasty and brutal lives.
There is no dogma in science. The hypothesis formation cycle doesn’t proceed from conjecture to immutable law of nature. Rather each useful hypothesis leads to avenues of research which eventually reveal new phenomena which require new hypotheses to explain. So we should never think of our theories in terms of being right or wrong, although that’s the natural human impulse, but rather how useful the hypothesis proves to be in advancing our understanding of nature. Hypotheses are disposable tools. The goal isn’t to find absolute truth, but to always remain curious and to humbly accept the limitations of human understanding before the awesome depth and breadth of the universe.
I go didactic on this point because most informed Alarmists admit the CAGW hypothesis has failed to pass at least a few tests, yet they quite naively assert the hypothesis in general is still “right.” But this isn’t how the method of science gave rise to the computer you’re reading these words upon.
If your hypothesis is that sea-levels should be rising rapidly (about 10mm a year since the 1980’s) accelerating in a rough correlation with rising atmospheric CO2 but the data unambiguously shows otherwise then the whole hypothesis with all its implications has been falsified and you must develop a new hypothesis that more usefully describes what is being observed in nature.
And this is where the whole climate debate long ago departed the world of science and entered the realm of human politics and passionate faith. When you refuse to alter your hypothesis to better reflect observation but instead seek to fit the data to the hypothesis then we’re talking about creed, faith and dogma. The AGW hypothesis decays into climate change orthodoxy based upon consensus and passionate “moral urgency,” while evidence to the contrary becomes heresy.
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http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/07/25/3277197.htm
Monckton at Mt Gambier. Anyone know if a video is available?
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Wes George @ 107
Would the term “Doublethink” match the “CAGW hypothesis”.
“To know and not to know,to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies,to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out,knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
10
Grats on resorting to gestures of physical violence. I think I can rest my case now as it is clear that you refuse to debate with any sound reasoning. Feel free to keep marking down my posts if that makes you happy. Having perused your contributions in the last half dozen threads (nil in some cases) it becomes apparent that you are probably here to diminish the worth of this web site, but then folks like yourself are all too frequent on blogs.
How about you put forward an argument vaguely representing a logical position and we have a discussion about it.
Feel free to put the shovel back in your shed where it belongs.
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Flaws in the global warming climate change argument are becoming more obvious. I wonder if this article gets a mention on the ABC.
10
Ruchard C:
Agreed in the sense that the climate system, much like the economic systems of countries and the world, are hideously complex beasts. While many of the relationships between variables are understood, the system as a whole is very complex. It is quite clear that the CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) modelling used by economists, much like the GCM modelling used by climatologists, struggles to simulate reality, let alone provide robust forecasts of the future. At least they are trying to understand the systems they are attempting to simulate.
My problem with Tamino’s approach, at least what I gather from a casual perusal of his blog linked above, is that he is simply assuming functional forms to model the data. That’s as useful as looking at half a sine curve cycle and assuming it looks like a qudratic and then using the latter to describe the system. If you have no understanding of the underlying system, then any model based upon it is a pure stab in the dark. That was the entire extent of my argument, I have said it three different ways now.
BTW where is this Figure 6 you refer to?
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wes george takes issue with my statement regarding the progress of a scientific concept from conjecture to hypothesis to theory to law, writing:
…claiming that there is something in the way of a “common misconception about science” in it.
Let me draw upon Dr. Jeff Glassman, a retired rocket scientist (literally*) whose closely reasoned skepticism with regard to the anthropogenic global climate change bogosity has been both effective and sustained for many years.
In a 2007 article** intended for a lay audience, Dr. Glassman briefly outlined the distinguishing characteristics of conjecture, hypothesis, theory, and law in science. He wrote:
…whereupon I further abstract:
(1) “A conjecture is an incomplete model, or an analogy to another domain.”
(2) “A hypothesis is a model based on all data in its specified domain, with no counterexample,and incorporating a novel prediction yet to be validated by facts.”
(3) “A theory is a hypothesis with at least one nontrivial validating datum.”
(4) “A law is a theory that has received validation in all possible ramifications, and to known levels of accuracy.”
This distinction now having been made clear, it is certainly worthwhile – and pertinent to the concerns of most visiting Ms. Nova’s forum – to recapitulate some several of the closing paragraphs from that same article of Dr. Glassman’s:
It is not models per se – whether conjecture, hypothesis, theory, or law – that are inducements to error, but models which are devised in the absence of adequate consideration of observational evidence, or even in contravention of evidence readily available and appreciable.
First, you look, then you come up with your SWAG to explain what you’ve seen. After that, you devise a way to test the guess, and go Popper-ing on as long as necessary.
Didactic enough for you?
===
* http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/
** http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/64_07_Conjecture_to_Law.pdf
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The law of economics is:- Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.
The law of climate change is:- Buy carbon credits in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.
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Kevin @ 109
Possibly more than Doublethink, I suspect that Effort Justification plays a not-insignificant role in many areas of human endeavour too
“People’s tendency to attribute a greater value (greater than the objective value) to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving.”
Which then has the potential to ultimately generate a pragmatically and morally “too big to fail” scenario through multi-party confluences of both interest and effort? Scientific debate aside, I think I see a wee bit of this in the overall AGW context.
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Bulldust,
Figure 6 is in this paper:-
Auckland: A Case Study in the Regional Assessment of Long-Term Sea
Level Change
John HANNAH, Rob BELL and Ryan PAULIK, 2011
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/docs/an-updated-analysis-of-long-term-sea-level-change-in-nz-jhannah-2003.pdf
Auckland is one of the tide guages that Watson uses and Hannah et al cites Watson 2011 but the purpose of the Hannah paper is to put Auckland in context with all other SSL metrics extending to millennial timeframes and global scope.
I intend to read Watson in detail later today but my first impression is that he finds that rather than the departure from the long-term trend being an acceleration as prescribed by the IPCC and at a magnitude that Wes George states, it is in fact a departure in the opposite direction even though there may be recent short-term acceleration in some tide guage datasets (though he probably does not say that explicitly).
I’ll be interested to see what Watson says about the “underlying system” in each site analysis.
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O/T again, sorry, but I have to respond to the cultists after last nights witch hunt on Q and A
Act I, Scene II:
“Villa Boganii”, residence of Caesar, just a discus throw from the main Senate building, the “Theatrum Absurdum”.
Fanfare to announce arrival of the Soothsayers, accompanied by Artemidorus.
All: Ave, Caesar.
Soothsayer 1 (Flannery): We bring you grave news, Caesar. We have received word from Brittania, confirmed by our own rigorous and robust investigation of lamb entrail proxies showing the tell-tale black traces of “Carbonis”, which clearly demonstrate that our skies are contaminated with this noxious spirit, my liege. So vile and insidious is this invisible spirit looming about us in the very air we breathe, that a series of calamities are certain to befall us lest we take immediate and drastic action!
Caesar: (stunned) How could this be so, soothsayer! We are a noble and just Empire, we routinely make sacrifices to the Gods. Why, only last week I had several Vestal Virgins put to death to honour the Gods, surely this should have appeased them.
Soothsayer 1 (Flannery): Alas, clearly not enough Caesar, for the Gods are angry at the profligacy of the plebeians and their undue wealth. I hear some even eat more than once a week, while others are enjoying the warmth of the hearth during our cold winters. Such luxury is clearly unsustainable, Caesar. No wonder the Gods are displeased.
Caesar: (eating grapes, ensconced on a divan) Well, I know that if I must endure such privations as these meagre surroundings (waves her hand wanly to indicate the paved portico, the fountain and pond in the centre, with assorted hand maidens and eunuchs surrounding her with fans), then so too should the peasantry! What sort of calamities do you refer to, noble advisor?
Soothsayer 2 (Steffen): The air we breathe, Caesar, will become so overheated as to cause terrifying tempests which will reap destruction to houses and villages. The extreme heat will also lead to a great pestilence with plagues of locusts and rats. A famine will almost certainly ensue by the killing of our livestock and the failure of our crops. Finally, the seas will rise to swamp the Tiber and inundate Rome itself. In other words, other than the complete destruction of the Empire and all you hold dear, not much!*
*Please note that the standard disclaimer applies- While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy, completeness and reliability of this advice, we accept no liability for the accuracy of or inferences from this prediction, or any action as a result of any person’s or group’s interpretation, deduction, conclusion or actions in relying on said prediction.
Caesar: (aghast) So what is your suggestion for appeasing the Gods, soothsayers.
Soothsayer 3 (Garnaut): It’s clear from the signs that we have seen and demonstrated clearly to all that the Gods are displeased at our modern lifestyle. The plebeians have a new found wealth and luxury that is an affront to the dignity of every noble person in our Empire. I can only suggest measures of the harshest and most draconian nature to redress this “imbalance”. I suggest a Carbonis tax on the plebeians, which should address this most egregious threat to civil order. Starting at a small level so as not to arouse panic or dissent among the masses, the tax can rise yearly, slowly throttling the little bourgeois aspirants in their tracks. Sweeten the pot a little in the beginning Caesar, and they won’t know what hit them! At first , they will believe they are being compensated for the impost being thrust upon them. Then, by surreptitiously withdrawing these inducements as time goes by, we will expose them to the full brunt of this marvellous tax’s power, which will slowly strangle the life blood out of these upstarts. Hoorah!! The Gods are then appeased, the Empire will be saved and the insidious spirit infecting our air will no longer assail us, my liege.
Artemidorus: If I may be so bold, Caesar, I suggest we must embark first and foremost on a concerted campaign to win the hearts and minds of these naive, yet ever so troublesome plebeians. We shall ask our friends, the Tribunes Flavius and Marcellus, to disseminate as much disinformation as possible through persuasive debates with like minded patriots, in order to disarm the populace. Persuade them of the certainty of the science of the Soothsayers, frighten the masses with exaggerated tales of the catastrophes about to befall us, vilify this “Carbonis” in it’s every form no matter how innocuous it may be! If any are so bold as to contradict our assertions, vilify and attack them without mercy, for they are traitors to the Empire and must be silenced. Perhaps tattooing them with their vile conceit will suffice, to mark forever their treachery for all to see. Those who are employed must be marginalised in their place of work, depriving them of their livelihoods will cut them down to size more swiftly than any sword, Caesar. Also, we must spread the creed through all the places of learning, persuading those teachers of similar mind to present these facts to their students without question, discouraging wherever we can any abominations such as “analytic thought” or “inquiring minds”. Such thoughts and expressions of liberty are dangerous in the hands of these denizens of the lower depths! Without these measures, sire, we cannot succeed in appeasing the wrath of the Gods. Exitus acta probat (The end justifies the means)!
Caesar: Then let it be done!
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Richard C:
For some reaosn that link is pure text for me.
10
Bulldust, sorry wrong link.
Auckland: A Case Study in the Regional Assessment of Long-Term Sea Level Change
John HANNAH, Rob BELL and Ryan PAULIK, 2011 here:-
http://77.243.131.160/pub/fig2011/papers/ts07i/ts07i_hannah_bell_et_al_4854.pdf
Incorrect link at #75
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BTW Bulldust, Prof John Hannah rebuffed Hansen’s alarmism with a more realistic opinion when Hansen was touring NZ recently. Here’s how it was reported (credit to The Press reporter David Williams for getting a second opinion):-
10
Watching Vaclav Klaus Press clib broadcast now. It is great to see the press nose being rubbed in it twice in rapid succession.
10
Last year I sent a letter via my State MP to the then Minister for climate in the ALP run government. He replied and sent me a graph of sea level rises. I have find that letter not an easy task in my filing system (?) But it stated either from the CSIRO or BOM that sea levels were rising at 1.7mm per year and that by 2100 sea levels will have risen by 177mm! I replied that we shouldn’t be panicking should we as 177mm is barely 7 inches. I received another reply that the Minister was taking action over my letter. No more of course.
America is no longer contributing to foreign climate funding to assist poor countries survive climate change
devastation to their environment caused by developed countries. Tuvula is sinking and one of the reasons is the sea is encroaching on land that the Americans have been removing the sand or soil for building from the foreshores. Those countries that have previously said
like in the Torres Straits that king tides are washing away foreshores and one elder last year said that the Aust
government had promised 150 million to build better sea walls. Now its because of climate change.
And Al Gore bought a home in the area of San Fransisco (I think) where he said the foreshores and water fronts would be inundated. Obviously didn’t believe his own forecasting eh?
10
Sliggy,
But, but, but he has funny eyes……he calls himself a Lord……no thats not it……hang on….its here somewhere……hes a communist, yeah thats its a communist.
10
With his remark that “the economic systems of countries and the world, are hideously complex beasts,” I am given to consider the possibility that Bulldust is himself an economeretrician, and therefore inclined to have been somewhat irked by my earlier characterization of econometrics as pure crap.
Oh, well. Not ever once having been put into a situation where I had to suck up and regurgitate to the satisfaction of a tenured university Department of Economics faculty member, and having approached the subject of political economics on the basis of whether or not the ideas expressed by my sources were congruent with reality, I tend to go along with Dr. Ludwig von Mises’ opinions of econometrics, which include:
There’s also Guy Orcutt’s more pithy remark:
Econometrics may be characterized as an extremely behavioralistic (perhaps better to say “mechanistic”) approach to the study of purposeful human action which has tended to be one of the most unreliable means of forecasting outcomes in an economy, econometric modeling having failed to result in accurate predictions about price movements, preferences and – especially – business cycles.
If economeretricians – who comprise the whole of the “mainstream” of economics in business, in academe, and particularly in government – were worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit, howcumizzit their complex statistical flumdummery failed utterly to anticipate or mitigate (forget about forestalling) the catastrophic decompensation that began to wrack the world’s economies circa 2008, and which are continuing to wreak havoc thereupon?
In response to Bulldust‘s “complex beast” noise, it might be observed that human physiology is also one helluva “complex beast” and yet physicians work with far higher levels of reliability (and without “the CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) modelling)” used by the economeretricians) to diagnose and treat.
Let us consider a translation of French economist Frédéric Bastiat, who in 1850 wrote:
The economeretricians are – as our current world-wide Great Recession is demonstrating – damnably bad economists.
With this in mind, and with the indications that Bulldust is himself such an one, let us by all means let us continue hitting Bulldust squarely between the eyes with that shovel.
Looks to be the only way to get through to him.
10
PS. A friend of mine has a son who lives in Cairns and he told me when the king tides arrive, the sea water flows along
the gutters in the main street facing the ocean front. They evacuated during a cyclone warning and of course the threat of a tsunami. Beach erosion happens, all over the world.
In Britain, cliff collapses do happen over the years endangering the security of the cliffs on which homes have been built. Atolls are renown for disappearing via storms
and heavy seas. This is a fact of nature. I remember flying over Fiji in 1965 and was told that some of their off shore islands were in danger of disappearing into the sea. I don’t know if they have but … it was common knowledge that atolls were vulnerable to sea invasion.
10
I find it impossible, or at least very difficult, to accept comments purporting millimetre changes in sea level given the following; tidal variations, wave variations due to weather, the ability to control a satellite orbit at, say, 705km and I don’t know what orbital speed to the millimetre, the shape of the earth and the fact that any land mass might be rising, falling or generally moving in any direction. I have similar doubts regarding the accuracy of comments regarding fractions of a degree trends in global temperature change.
10
Tucci78,
Why are you posting? Seriously why? If your intention is to make Bulldust look like a fool then you sir are failing. If you have a comment about SLR then fire away as i would be more than interested in hearing what you have to say on the matter.
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Dave @ 125
With you 100%.
I live right on the foreshore on Bribie Island, QLD. There is a sea wall at the shore, and depending on the tide, the water level can be well below the base of the wall creating something of a beach, to lapping about 30cm from the top of the wall in a king tide.
However, on a high tide a strong, prevailing on-shore wind will push the level up enough for the water to lap over the top of the wall – that is, raise the tidal mark 30cm.
Presumably when we have an strong off-shore wind the same thing is happening, and water is being pushed up on the other side of Moreton Bay by a similar amount.
So, for a satellite reading of water level in Moreton Bay at any given moment to have an accuracy greater than about +/- 30cm, the satellite would have to simultaneously be measuring, and correcting for, both wind speed and and direction. Which I doubt very much is being done – for one thing, I can’t even imagine how it COULD be done.
Given that the possible error range of 60cm on any windy day is more than the entire claimed rise for the rest of the century, I too tend to have a “credibility lapse” when I read of claimed readings accurate to a tenth of a millimetre.
10
I must congratulate your ability to look increasingly foolish at every turn Tucci. Had you followed this web site for more than a couple days you might have learned my real name, my degrees (Minerals Engineering and Mineral Economics), and a few other useful things about my background.
Yes, I did a lot of econometric forecasting and modelling courses, largely because they appealled to me at the time, but I am the first to rubbish complex models of this nature. I am not sure what you are trying to say to be honest… Econometrics like any other study of statistics is GIGO. You should note however, that there is a big difference betweem ex-post analysis and forecasting.
Econometrics can be very useful to try and explain the past, assuming your models have a sound theoretical basis and the data is robust. Forecasting, on the other hand, is a very precarious activity. I went through the exercise in university of modelling a single data series with a number of functional forms (some purely trend, some with a economic basis).
Each fit with an R^2 (after correction for statistical issues such as autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity etc) of greater than 0.90. In fact most had a fit in the R^2 = 0.95-0.99 range. Fantastic statistical fits, and yet the 20-30 year forecasts out of those models varied by orders of magnitude. Garbage In – Garbage Out. It was a useful exercise, and had I done that course first off, I might not have done as many modelling classes as I did.
Because of my experience with econometrics I am also extremely sceptical of the forecasts (or projections, as the IPCC prefers to call them) made by the GCM models. I am painfully aware, from first hand experience, how sensitive models are to slight variation in the parameters and functional form. To paraphrase the old saying:
There’s lies, damned lies, statistics and then there’s econometrics.
A seasoned econometrician can prove just about anything he or she wants if they torture the data correctly. Of course that has nothing to do with a quest for truth… usually it has a lot more to do with obtaining funding from some source or other.
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Crakar24 wants me to post on sea level rise (SLR). No problem. We’d had our own dose of this blather in recent months as the result of los warmistas noising about Kemp et alia, “Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia,” in which fossil foraminifera and plant microfossils were employed as sea level proxies. In the paper’s conclusion could be read:
Of course, the acceleration in sea level rise began to occur between 1865 and 1892, before the start of the 20th Century. During that 27-year interval, it increased from a rate of less than 0.1 mm/year to 2.1 mm/year. This means that the acceleration in sea level rise estimated by the methods used in this study had started long before atmospheric carbon dioxide levels climbed much above 300 ppm by volume, and anthropogenic carbon dioxide (aCO2) was very much a minor component of that content.
There’s also the fact that the investigators (including “Hockey Stick” Michael Mann) did not consider recent data collected, or proxy recreation of recent sea levels, emphatically NOT looking at the past decade.
During that decade, of course, the Earth’s temperatures have been lower than “predicted” by the baseless AGW assumptions built into the alarmist charlatans’ global climate models.
Cherry-picking as usual.
Despite yet another dollop of “We’re All Gonna Die!” fraudster pseudoscience, instrumental data – by way of Envisat satellite observations** in particular – demonstrate that there has been essentially no sea level rise for the last seven years.
There was noise like this in August 2010,*** this time about South Pacific sea levels, and it turned out to be similarly useless in supporting the “CO2-is-Evil!” man-made planet-wide climate change bogosity. Since 2000, global positioning satellite information has resulted in increased accuracy in the siting of SEAFRAME gauges on the South Pacific islands where the “catastrophic” ocean rises were supposedly occurring, and this – in part at the very least, it seems – has resulted in evidence demonstrating little (if any) sea level change around any of the twelve islands under scrutiny.****
AGW alarmist bogosity busted yet again.
Insofar as I’ve been able to determine with regard to the subject of Ms. Nova’ post above, the SLR yelping being used to “keep up the skeer” in aid of the Australian government’s efforts to pillage the Australian people and destroy the Australian economy are just part and parcel of the longstanding alarmist falsus in omnibus.
In all of these warmista simulacra of scientific inquiry on sea level rise based upon interpretations of instrumental readings and/or proxy indicators (such as the plant and foraminifera fossils tracked in Kemp et alia), I have yet to see proper regard for the limits of accuracy necessarily implicit in the gathering of observational evidence upon which the investigators in such studies base their analyses, conclusions, and recommendations.
Do you recall my earlier remark about how experimentalists have to be ever conscious of the quality of the data they gather? Unless you know how much “wiggle room” you’re dealing with, and how errors can (and do) compound, you’re not really prepared even to estimate how reliable your analyses and conclusions might be.
I suppose that experimentalists tend to take a well-justified jaundiced view of the theoreticians for much the same reason that real economists look upon the economeretricians as having stunk up the joint.
However, I would hope that this note provides a sufficiently lucid statement of my opinion anent SLR and why I consider the whole “We’re All Gonna Drown!” chicken-little-ing hysteria – here in these United States as well as in Australia – to be hilariously contemptible.
===
* http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/pnas_kemp-etal_2011_sea_level_rise.pdf
** http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/hiding-the-decline-in-sea-level/#more-32692
*** http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/10-of-sea-level-rise-is-due-to-land-rising-too-got-that/
**** http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/southpacific.pdf
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Tucci,
Thanks for your opinions on SLR, it would appear as though you are well versed on the subject. If so can i ask a question, i have read some where that we now use GRACE sats in an effort to compensate for land movement but a problem with this is that GRACE measures magnetic fields? Which can be contaminated by magma movement below the surface. Have i got this right if not could you shed some more light on it for me.
TIA
Crakar24
10
On economy..Obama announces that the US will run out of money in a week! WOW even put that on dweeb news like 7. Great coming from the mouth of a criminal ursurper that his bankster criminals in the street started and he caused. More doom on the US here http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/.
10
Crakar24
Grace measures the gravitatioanal field.
10
As MaryFJohnston @ #4 has pointed out, about a centimeter per year of sea level rise per year is the average. As usual the lie is the context. By the way the warmenists seem to have control of wikipedia again with perhaps the greatest scientific fraud in history, one M. Mann featuring rather prominently here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period.
10
Rrrr. The data should not be normalized at 1940! Just look at the graphs – 1960 to present, there is agreement, with the various measures tracking each other. The Newcastle data (where there was quite a bit of subsidence) diverges strongly around 1960, the others diverge a bit earlier, which limits how far back you can take this data. These are also port measures, used for harbor navigation, and quite frankly there isn’t a lot of care taken to reference relative local measures (hull depth) to any global measures.
The data does appear to show some slow-down; but to quote the paper “These records have not been corrected for any movement in the ground surface housing the gauge due to influences including tectonics, glacial isostatic adjustment, or land subsidence.”
Uncorrected? Unconvincing, IMO.
10
In reference to my previous post, the Newcastle data diverges ~1960, the others take multiple directions ~1930.
Watson also attempted to just fit a quadratic to the data – but given the mid-20th century cooling (40’s to 70’s) a simple curve fit to both ice melt and thermal expansion of the oceans isn’t going to work.
10
LH in 135,
Thats right, but dont they use grace to try and measure land movement up or down?
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KR #138
What are you analyzing – short-term fluctuations or long-term trend?
I repeat the Houston & Dean reply to Rahmsdorf & Vermeer:-
We’re looking for a sustained anthro-driven departure from a long-term trend. Recent fluctuations go either way in different tide guage sites.
10
One thing that stands out is that Sea Levels CHANGE naturally just like the climate changes naturally.You probably wont see any significant change in your lifetime and arguing about a natural variation in sea level or climate doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.The largest change in sea level I could find was 300 feet so a change of a few inches isn’t something to worry about,wake up there are more important things to consider CO2 is life
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Richard C (NZ) @ 140
It’s always worth looking at the data. Temperature trends have varied up and down over the 20th century, thermal sea level trends should have responded accordingly within that time frame. A simple quadratic will give a poor fit as a result.
As to the fluctuations on shorter time scales – that’s a good reason to use lots of tide gauges, not just 3-4, with corrections for known subsidence, glacial isostatic adjustment, etc. If you have poor data, get some more, and account for any problems you can! This paper did not do that.
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KR #142
You’ll have to settle for the Watson sample because that’s all there is for Australia in the time frames required. Otherwise you’ll have to go to Houston and Dean but that’s not relevant to Australia. Or you’ll have to go to the global record but then quadratic, 3rd order poly or rate-of-change shows deceleration because the regional fluctuations have been averaged out.
When longer term large sample studies are looked at there’s no evidence of the sustained anthro-driven accelerating departure from a long-term trend.
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KR @ 142:
Surely you mean as in tree rings right?
And explain how sea levels aren’t “level” across “3-4” locations at such a small scale as across AU?
Me thinks you are the same KR as was here a while ago with a special knack for indoctrination.
Prove me wrong.
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Richard C (NZ) @ 143
If those are the only long term data sets, then that’s that. It’s still inappropriate to normalize at 1940 or to fit a simple quadratic, though.
Found a reference or two on the data:
Aubrey 1986, Austrailia – An Unstable Platform for Tide-Gauge Measurements of Changing Sea Levels (a bit old, unfortunately)
Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring Project – “The ultimate goal is to identify long period sea level changes, with particular emphasis on the enhanced greenhouse effect on sea level.” Looks like a well handled data set, still hunting for longer term info from there if it exists.
Csiro Sea Level Rise page – Referenced from ABSLMP, global estimates back to ~1880.
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Mark D. @ 144
See the first reference above – lots of variation around the coast of Australia.
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Found some additional data using the same stations, along with about 20-30 others from Australia and some Pacific islands/coasts – Mitchell et al 2000. This looks at average levels at multiple Pacific stations, no isostatic adjustments, just from observed data. They found an observed average sea level rise at those stations of 0.8-1.07 mm/year over 25 years, on the low side of the IPCC estimates, although they note that this may be due to the non-global coverage.
One interesting bit of this paper is looking at how long a record is needed to get a reasonable estimate – they figure 240-300 months, or 20-25 years for rate estimates to stabilize (Pg. 15).
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KR 145,146
Some interesting studies but I haven’t got the time to look at them this morning, maybe this afternoon.
There’s an equivalent Pacific Islands study to the ABLSLMP. The relevant trend plots are on Figure 13. Once the trends settle down, all 16 stations show a close to flat trend (i.e. not 0.8-1.07 mm/year) from about 2006 onwards. The same can be seen in the Pacific Islands except that the IPCC icons, Kiribati and Tuvalu, show falling trends.
For the purposes of finding any departure from a long term trend, 25-30 years is inadequate and the longer the series (>60 years) the more relevant a quadratic becomes to represent the data (Scafetta does it with the underlying temperature trend of HadCRUT3 which LEADS CO2 BTW).
I’ve only just started reading Watson in detail so can’t really discuss it in full yet but it seems more exhaustive than my first impression.
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Richard C (NZ) @ 147
The Mitchell 2000 paper has some interesting island data. If I have time (always a problem) I may try grouping the data sets by trend and seeing if they properly map to distinct geographic regions, and perhaps relate to isostatic adjustments.
My major problem with a simple quadratic fit is that the temperature records all show ups and downs on 30-50 year ranges over the 20th century – given ocean thermal inertia, I wouldn’t expect a quick response, but there should still be some variation from a quadratic just from thermal/steric expansion factors.
And yes, I would absolutely agree, the more time the better when looking at this data. Proper glacial isostatic adjustments would help, but going from the raw local level data you need a lot of years before it’s meaningful.
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Those graphs show sea levels still rising! We already know from the previous thread that there are decadal variations in sea level.
Sea level rise is a few cm over the last century, need the tide gauges to see the levels inexorably rising. Storm surges will be worse and will get worse as sea levels keep on rising faster than ever.
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Maxine @149
I agree that, as I said early on, the rates of rise are positive and increasing in the graphs. I finally finished an analysis of a number of long running Northern Hemisphere gauges. I get an acceleration over the last 50 years at most, but not all, locations. The mean acceleration over 20th century appears to be a ball park figure of .1 mm/yr/yr from which is itself possibly increasing. This would give 0.5m by 2100. The acceleration shows even in gauges showing local declines in sea level.
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Coastal engineer Doug Lord, former coast manager of the NSW environment department.
Amid exaggerated predictions that sea levels would rise by 75m (Jim Hanson of NOAA), Lord made the career-ending mistake of actually measuring the sea level and trying to publish the results.
This caused him to be “let go” from his government job and have peer-reviewed scientific papers pulled at the last minute from a conference in Shanghai last year, from a conference in Perth in September and from a journal where they were to be published this year.
Not only that, but he was banned by his bosses at the NSW environment department from representing Engineers Australia, whose national coastal committee he chaired, at a 2009 parliamentary inquiry into managing climate change. The irony is that he is not even a sceptic.
“I’m not a climate change sceptic. I believe in the climate change science but I see the need for the real data to be out there,” he said.
A Revolutionary Concept.
With colleague Phil Watson, Lord examined 110-year tide gauge records from Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour, and other sites. They found the sea level was rising at less than 1mm a year, contrary to previous estimates of 6mm a year.
In 2009 Watson published the results, putting the lie to Penny Wong’s claims sea level rises would wipe out beaches and hundreds of metres of coastline. “The analysis reveals a consistent trend of weak deceleration at each of these gauge sites throughout Australasia over the period from 1940 to 2000,” he wrote in the Journal of Coastal Research.
The NSW environment department responded to media reports by claiming Watson had been “misrepresented”.
But Lord and Watson weren’t trying to make trouble. Quite the opposite. They kept looking at the data, “trying to see if there was acceleration”, says Lord. “We looked at it over a range of time frames and the whole record. But we could find no discernible acceleration.”
This was an inconvenient truth to governments who were busy beefing up climate risk assessments at the time. The federal government predicted a sea level rise of 1.1m by 2100. NSW came up with 0.9m.
But Lord’s data showed they had exaggerated the rise by 1000 per cent. His measurement of 1mm a year gives you a sea level rise of no more than 90mm, (0.09m) by 2100.
“It was a competition [at the time] to come up with the higher predictions,” he said. “A number of researchers have put these outlandishly high estimates – seven metres has been quoted. If you say it’s less you are a climate change denier.”
Last year, Lord and Watson were banned from presenting three papers they had prepared for the International Conference on Coastal Engineering in Shanghai.
“(At the time) the government was finalising its sea level rise policy,” he said. “I was told [the department] wouldn’t support the three papers because they weren’t consistent with the policy that was being developed.”
By this stage, Lord had lost his job, after a departmental “restructure”.
Nevertheless, he and Watson wrote another paper, which was peer-reviewed and approved for publication in the journal of Australian Civil Engineering Transactions. In September, just before publication, the department refused Watson, still an employee, permission to publish.
Then a conference paper the two men were to present at a Coasts and Ports conference in Perth was pulled.
In a press release last week, the department claims it “withdrew” the papers because an internal review had identified “concerns” with the statistical analysis.
A master of understatement, Lord says he is “disappointed”. You put out your best assessments and if people see you did something wrong they tell you. That’s how we learn. If people don’t allow you to put it out there you learn nothing.”
Attempts to censor science, and silence an honest expert like Doug Lord, just reinforce our suspicions that the climate change industry is a big scam.
Satellite data clearly supports the tide gauges decelleration on eustatic global sea level rise. (ENVISAT, Jason 1 & 2, TOPEX, Posiden, GFO) Colorado University collates the data and projects it to 2100; they project no more than 15cm of rise.(Nerem, Leuilette; 2004)And this projection is dropping.
TIROS-N satellite info from NASA.
The Global Sea Surface Temperature in no higher than it was in 1980. So in effect it hasn’t gone up in 32 years. The sea level contribution from ice caps is negative, with the ice caps showing a net growth over the last 30 years.
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This is unattributed. Where’s it from?
There’s a fair bit of disconnect in here; and some very loose editing.
I doubt anyone ever predicted 75m of SLR although in this paper Hansen does point out/claim the cenozoic era was ice free and lea level was 75m higher than today.
The assertion that Lord was “let go” specifically because of one paper, is dubious, especially so when you consider the NSW government is cutting into environmental programs right round.
The Watson paper was flawed, he was unfortunate that the paper was seized upon for political purposes. The flaw itself shows remarkably clearly in the graphs where the last thirty years of data all deviate sharply upward from the quadratic curve he fitted showing that the mean 20th century deceleration he computed did not apply. Tamino’s analysis was correct.
Lastly, this is one of many sites which show that off Australia SLR over the last 30 years is much greater than this piece claims.
Seriously – why would an anti AGW leaning government sack someone for claiming the sea was not rising? Even if he was in error? As always, think screw up, not conspiracy.
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Sorry, forgot to give the source of most of my post, its The Australian, 22-7-11. You will note the date; there was a Labor govt in NSW who supported AGW. The last two paragraphs are supporting evidence from Colorado Uni and NASA about the decelleration in the sea level rise that we have seen in recent decades. Unbiassed projections of eustatic sea level by 2100 show that we should expect -10cm to +15cm of change. CSIRO is way out in the “rediculous extreeme” category with its (computer model) projection of 90cm.
Jim Hansen whom you quote, is predicting up to 7,500cm, saying that “100 cities” will be underwater by 2100; and that soon after that “The oceans will boil away” with our planet ending up like Venus..
Hope the friendly men in clean white coats get to him very soon and provide nice comfy (long-term) accommodation.
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