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TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

You would have thought, would you not, that whether or not sea level has been rising the last 20 years ought to be a matter of public record - and determinable beyond doubt.
Like the temperature record, it's a small signal with a lot of noise -- and a lot of politics too.

The paper may be correct on the data, but what's worrying is that it makes quasi-political AGW arguments, some not even having anything to do with sea level.
The islands in the tropical oceans are some of the regions most vulnerable to sea-level rise and the associated impacts of climate change. These impacts include changes in weather patterns (temperature, winds, precipitation etc), sea-level rise, coastal erosion, changes in the frequency of extreme events including potential increases in the intensity of tropical cyclones/hurricanes, reduced resilience of coastal ecosystems (including bleaching and changed calcification rates of coral reefs) and saltwater intrusion into freshwater resources.
We heard lots of worrying about bleaching in Australian reefs which turned not to amount to anything serious. "Potential increases" leaves open the possibility of "potentially nothing" (or even "potentially decreased"). Finally, I have yet to see any evidence a 1-2mm/yr increase in sea level is particularly problematic, given that construction is usually given a couple meters extra clearance.

And again, there's a selection problem here. How often do we see studies of the impact of warming on, say, fuel costs and deaths from exposure in Siberia? An economic choice must consider positives as well as negatives.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The thing about simulations is that they don't give you much insight into what are the underlying relationships in the design.
Tom,

Every time you speak on a subject other than climate you undercut your climate position. I wonder who the believer is?

The IPCC/warmist faction starts with the assumption that all unaccounted for heating is caused by CO2. Now there is an interesting underlying assumption.
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

The IPCC/warmist faction starts with the assumption that all unaccounted for heating is caused by CO2. Now there is an interesting underlying assumption.
Who says this?

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Post by tomclarke »

TalDave -

I will stick with the data and leave politics to others!

Tom

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

tomclarke wrote:Simon -

Here is an open access version of the comment on Morner:
http://www.imedea.uib.es/goifis/OTROS/V ... e_2007.pdf

Also, Morner commented on the comment. Interesting but not very substantial and I can't find open access version yet.

At around the same time Morner wrote a paper claiming that sea level around Maldives used to be higher than now and is currently not increasing.

This also attracted a "we think you are very wrong" comment from a (different) group of people. Morner also wrote a comment on their comment.

I have these PDFs but can't find open copies.

You would have thought, would you not, that whether or not sea level has been rising the last 20 years ought to be a matter of public record - and determinable beyond doubt.

Best wishes, Tom
The paper has this to say about the Mormer paper:
Mörner gives no details for the source of the data or processing strategy he used to produce Fig. 2, other than to say it is based on “raw data”. Because the details of the analysis are not presented in his paper, we are left to speculate on how this result could have been obtained,
Now Tom,

The warmist faction does this all the time with nary a complaint from you. It would seem that there is a lot of bad science going on all around. The results may be robust one way or the other but with hidden "data massaging" methods the general public or even critics have no way to tell.

You should really spend some time at Climate Audit (the archives are excellent). They have one complaint after another about "data unavailable" and "methods unavailable". They have taken to reverse engineering (a slow process) in order to see if results are "robust". That is how they finally busted Mann et. al. on the hockey stick. Not quite Mann et. Al yet ;-) but they are getting there.

And then there is Surfacestations.org showing how crappy the best surface station network in the world (USA) is.

As you admit, what is going on is not science. It is a political fight.

Under those conditions I'm sticking with "do nothing" as the best reasonable position given the costs of "allowable" CO2 mitigation methods. And that is another point of serious contention. Using trees for CO2 sequestration is not allowable. Why? Only shutting down coal fired electrical generators in the US and Europe/UK is allowed. To be replaced by high cost/intermittent methods like PV solar and wind.

And of course you are familiar with the tragedies caused by the move to ethanol/biofuels. And why hasn't that been rescinded in the US? Well the alcohol guys are paying good money for results from Congress. And one sure way to tell that alcohol fuel is a scam is that the US Congress hasn't rescinded the high tariff on imported alcohol. Which tariff is the only thing making US alcohol profitable.

On top of all the above China and India are exempt from CO2 regulation meaning that if the USA went to zero fossil fuels it would only make a couple of tenths of a degree C difference even if the warmists are correct.

If the problem was really as serious as the warmists say they would be screaming for nukes and removing impediments to quick construction. However, the political costs (possibility of nuclear weapons) are reconed to be too high. So there you have it. The possibility of nuclear war is more dangerous than the possibility of climate change. Well I do agree there.



I ain't buying it. Any of it.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Something else occurs to me. When you are concerned with the sea level rise on coasts why is a "glacial isostatic adjustment" necessary for that number? How is the "glacial isostatic adjustment" number adjusted for the variation between continental centers and the coasts? It ought to be significantly different - coasts vs. continental centers. i.e. from beam theory (a pretty good theory - we use it for bridge design) we know that at the center of a beam the deflection varies according to the fourth power of the forces involved. Of course continents are "floating" so that will have an affect as well.

I'd like to see some papers (or a mention in a sea level paper) on how the adjustment is done.

As to islands in trouble. So far there is no evidence of that. And even if there was it would be cheaper to move the people as opposed to shutting down civilization. I saw a paper a while back on sea level changes since 1850 and there was a picture of a mark chiseled in stone on an island around that time and the sea level in relation to that mark was unchanged with the picture taken in this century. Of course there is variable tidal variation depending on solar and lunar positions. But those variations swamp any near term (in the next 90 years) expected change. Not to mention wave height.

Agenda driven science sucks. Just ask Galileo. Or Giordano Bruno. Or rafts of others.
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Simon -

Was it SBS2 or SBS3? selective quoting?

That comment, as you well know having read it, was an absolutely typical academic response to what the authors think is someone doing something silly.

They present very precisely their own analysis of the same data, and how they get it. Seems fair to me. They then work out how Morner, using raw data, will make mistakes, say what tese mistakes are.

You may not like what they do with the data (though it seems this is what most people think is right). You or anyone else is welcome to probe the matter further.

The difference is that this is a specific quantitative issue, and they explain in detail how they get their results. No-one is complaining of data unavailable, or that others are not releasing data. They are not trying to slur Morner, simpler disagreeing with him on a specific point.

Now, whether they are right or wrong, that is the way it should be done. If they are wrong it can be corrected. And the debate is about the science, as it should be, not about the characters & honesty of the participants.

Personally I really don't like factions. I have noticed however that there are a lot of "coldist" web sites around. I could character assasinate most of these easily if required but it should not be. We are here debating science not character.

About all the politics - I would say because politicians like things that sound good and do not think properly about the science. And green pressure groups tend to reflect the people who support them, and be equally unthinking about science. (Some, though not all, are positively anti-science in their outlook).

Re the hockey stick, as I understand it:
Al Gore popularised the whole issue with a polemical and innacurate film.

Mann et al published the hockey stik graph with some methodological errors. (These abound, on both "sides").

They accepted these, corrected their work. The hockey stick BTW is still there - though I can't see why everyone gets so worked up about the shape of a graph. It is easy to get graphs that look impressive by selecting axes correctly!

No, I am not impressed by these errors, but I am equally not surprised that they were discovered and corrected. that is what science does. And since I am judging science not character I will not dismiss mann's work because he makes one mistake. Furthermore Mann is but one scientist...

Best wishes, Tom

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Post by tomclarke »

Something else occurs to me. When you are concerned with the sea level rise on coasts why is a "glacial isostatic adjustment" necessary for that number? How is the "glacial isostatic adjustment" number adjusted for the variation between continental centers and the coasts? It ought to be significantly different - coasts vs. continental centers. i.e. from beam theory (a pretty good theory - we use it for bridge design) we know that at the center of a beam the deflection varies according to the fourth power of the forces involved. Of course continents are "floating" so that will have an affect as well.
I was not sure, something about weight of glaciers pressing on crust I think. Anyway I saw the magnitude of this (<10% of typical warming) & decided it did not matter for my purposes.

However if you expect conspiracy you need to check it out unless it is (not very competnt) evidence!

Tom

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

As to islands in trouble. So far there is no evidence of that. And even if there was it would be cheaper to move the people as opposed to shutting down civilization. I saw a paper a while back on sea level changes since 1850 and there was a picture of a mark chiseled in stone on an island around that time and the sea level in relation to that mark was unchanged with the picture taken in this century. Of course there is variable tidal variation depending on solar and lunar positions. But those variations swamp any near term (in the next 90 years) expected change. Not to mention wave height.

Agenda driven science sucks. Just ask Galileo. Or Giordano Bruno. Or rafts of others.
Right. Science needs to be done looking for truth, not with a preconceived idea. The AGW debate has people on both sides with an adenda. Clearly the case for most of the anti-AGW people. Less clearly but possibly the case for the pro-AGW cpeople. However in between there are still lots of people doing science, interested in the answers. They tend to publish peer-reviewed papers, rather than blogs.

Realclimate. Is campaigning and therefore liable to bias, I agree. However I have waded through the comments on realclimate articles. Most of them are scientific - interested in the arguments and truth - not on proving or disproving some prejudice. reading them you get the scientific argument from all sides of the issue (though also some propaganda from both sides). If I find the same knowledgable breadth of opinion anywhere else I will read it.

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Post by MSimon »

tomclarke wrote:On the morner issue:

Here is an (open access copy) of paper on sea-level rise. It does seem that the sea is rising! And these people also disagree with Morner's conclusions.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/times_to ... cument.pdf

You can find blogs claiming that because antarctic precipitation is higher when the atmosphere is warmer this will be more important than melting and therefore mean a sea-level fall by 2200! But I have not found serious analysis of this hypothesis.

Best wishes, Tom
I agree with the opening statement of the paper.
Historical and projected sea levels for islands in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans are a subject of considerable interest and some controversy. The large variability (e.g. El Niño) signals and the shortness of many of the individual tide-gauge records contribute to uncertainty of historical rates of sea-level rise.
The satellite methods are of course subject to manipulation (or error if you prefer) depending on the adjustments used for signal propagation, wave height etc. We haven't been measuring long enough to get a good handle on all that.
From orbit 1,330 kilometers above Earth, TOPEX/Poseidon provided measurements of the surface height of 95 percent of the ice-free ocean to an accuracy of 3.3 centimeters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPEX/Poseidon

What does that tell us? The satellite is up since 1992. That would be 17 years. At 3.3mm (if you accept the continental ice melt adjustment) the sea rise has been measured to be 5.6 cm +/- 3.3 cm. That is a lot of noise in the signal. In metrology your test instrument accuracy must be 3X better (10X preferred) than the quantity difference measured for the measurement to be considered robust. By the numbers given the measurement is only 1.7X the instrument error.

We see this all the time in climate "science". Measurements that are not robust are given reliability indexes that are UNBELIEVABLE.

Really Tom. When it comes to electronics you seem to be a sound engineer. How can you buy this load?
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

As you admit, what is going on is not science. It is a political fight.

Under those conditions I'm sticking with "do nothing" as the best reasonable position given the costs of "allowable" CO2 mitigation methods. And that is another point of serious contention. Using trees for CO2 sequestration is not allowable. Why? Only shutting down coal fired electrical generators in the US and Europe/UK is allowed. To be replaced by high cost/intermittent methods like PV solar and wind.

And of course you are familiar with the tragedies caused by the move to ethanol/biofuels. And why hasn't that been rescinded in the US? Well the alcohol guys are paying good money for results from Congress. And one sure way to tell that alcohol fuel is a scam is that the US Congress hasn't rescinded the high tariff on imported alcohol. Which tariff is the only thing making US alcohol profitable.

On top of all the above China and India are exempt from CO2 regulation meaning that if the USA went to zero fossil fuels it would only make a couple of tenths of a degree C difference even if the warmists are correct.

If the problem was really as serious as the warmists say they would be screaming for nukes and removing impediments to quick construction. However, the political costs (possibility of nuclear weapons) are reconed to be too high. So there you have it. The possibility of nuclear war is more dangerous than the possibility of climate change. Well I do agree there.
OK, the politics etc. I mostly agree with you:
Biodiesel disaster
trees for CO2 sensible idea though difficult to quantify and if done proerly may be too expensive
China, India - disasters in the making must be soehow included - politically very difficult
Action from one country alone useless unless it can effect international agreements
Nukes clearly the only short-term solution

I don't think nuclear war is reason for not having nukes. Greens (and others) worry about the long-term cleanup costs though as you know there are possinle new technologies with much less waste and anyways we have mountains of waste already - probably need not add much to it with new designs (not sure about this however?).

France has nukes. China has nukes. Uk abandoned nukes a while back, has to have nukes now since otherwise lights go out but as usual government has left it too late.

I think lack of decent funds for better nuke options is tragedy. Polywell would be better, if it works, but nukes are still good.

Tom

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Post by tomclarke »

Simon -

You have a decent mind, clearly. (You can hold your own in argument with me). And you are not afraid to use it. Even better (and less common). Have you however considered that you are a little bit inclined to conspiracy theories?

I enjoy these too, but reckon things tend to go wrong mostly from cock-ups not conspiracies. And the whole satellite altimeter establishment being engaged in a pro-AGW masaging exercise is quite something! :)

Tom

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Post by tomclarke »

What does that tell us? The satellite is up since 1992. That would be 17 years. At 3.3mm (if you accept the continental ice melt adjustment) the sea rise has been measured to be 5.6 cm +/- 3.3 cm. That is a lot of noise in the signal. In metrology your test instrument accuracy must be 3X better (10X preferred) than the quantity difference measured for the measurement to be considered robust. By the numbers given the measurement is only 1.7X the instrument error.

We see this all the time in climate "science". Measurements that are not robust are given reliability indexes that are UNBELIEVABLE.
It all depends on the sources of the errors (which no doubt can be estimated). MOST of these will disappear when averaged out over many measurements at different times and of different heights (so you get the equivalent of dither if you look at the total average). So I don't find the results at all unbelieveable but agre you have to be careful with the data and errors etc. You will get pernicious drift type errors, and must deal with these by calibration relative to some known height. Effectively it is the relative height of the sea which can be measured.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

tomclarke wrote:
The IPCC/warmist faction starts with the assumption that all unaccounted for heating is caused by CO2. Now there is an interesting underlying assumption.
Who says this?
For one the IPCC. They are only looking in to man made contributions (i.e. CO2 - leaving out land use etc.). This is evident from the fact that the PDO oscillation was known since 1997 and was only recently included in calculations when the IPCC et al were embarrassed by the recent flat (cooling) trend.

Given this have they gone back and announced a new CO2 (lower) sensitivity based on current understanding? Not that I'm aware of. Perhaps you have run across something. What they do tell us is that in 2015 or 2020 warming will come back with a vengeance. Well duh. given how the PDO and other ocean currents work that is exactly what I would expect (although I believe 2030 is a more realistic estimate). If the sun doesn't confound the predictions. And by 2060 or so cooling will come back with a vengeance. Viola. I'm a climate scientist.

Not bad for a guy weak in statistics (I get the very basics) and who hasn't solved a calculus problem in 45 years.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

It all depends on the sources of the errors (which no doubt can be estimated). MOST of these will disappear when averaged out over many measurements at different times and of different heights (so you get the equivalent of dither if you look at the total average).
No. No. No. Tom. Your understanding of statistics is even worse than mine. You only decrease the error with multiple measurements if you are measuring the SAME thing with the exact SAME instrument. Different times and places in fact confounds such averaging. Is the ionosphere the same over the sunspot cycle for instance. Or from day to day? Or day to night (traversed at roughly every 90 minutes for a LEO satellite)? Or from place to place? You are an electronics guy. You know better. I hope. Of course your weakness in RF might account for your missing that. I started out in RF with my first ham license (Technician/Novice - with the Tech test being the same as the General - I was lousy at code) at age 13. Which means my study had begun well before that. My first serious dabblings having begun at age 10. That would be about 53 or 54 years ago. I got my Radiotelephone First Class License at age 17 1/2. The earliest you could take the test. And that was back when the test meant something.

Dithering (noise) only works if the measurement conditions are identical (or as nearly identical as can be managed). A moving satellite, a moving ionosphere, varying sea states, etc. etc. etc. confounds that.

If you were up on the latest in statistical QC you would know such things. And most statistical QC is basic statistics.

May I suggest a subscription to:

http://www.qualitymag.com/

and read it from cover to cover for a couple of years. A relatively painless way to get up to speed.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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