Am I seeing this correctly in that aside from the PDO explanantion and a few other spots, the predominate color is yellow meaning that for most of the globe, there has been no sea level rise in 15 years?

NGW Steve,

I'm just going to keep moving up our discussion to every new thread.

I'm not an atmospheric scientist, so I can't authoritatively rebut anything you say. I do know that IR opaque gases are almost universally described as warming planetary atmospheres in the lower-level scientific literature that I regularly peruse. It is often claimed that the earth is significantly warmer that it should be given simple calculations based on irradiance. This is generally attributed to GHG's mainly H2O. Venus is also significantly warmer than it would otherwise, due to it's CO2 rich atmosphere.
So are you disputing that IR opaque gases change the thermodynamic situation of a planet?

Nice choice of colors in the map! The used "alarming yellow" to represent everything from -75mm to + 75mm. If they used blue for the same range, most people would go buy a fur coat to keep warm.

Dr. Hansen forecast that sea level will rise by as much as 25000mm the remainder of the century.
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/news_repository/will-oceans-surge-59-centimetres-this-century-or-25-metres

Zero mm or twenty five thousand mm - what's the difference among close friends?

Good article on differences in regional sea-level rise, however it didn't explain those bright red spots in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean.

Here's a link to a website tracking the average global sea-level rise:

Historical sea level Changes, Past 15 Years
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html

"High quality measurements of (near)-global sea level have been made since late 1992 by satellite altimeters, in particular, TOPEX/Poseidon (launched August, 1992) and Jason-1 (launched December, 2001). This data has shown a more-or-less steady increase in Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) of around 3.3 � 0.4 mm/year over that period. This is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century. Whether or not this represent a further increase in the rate of sea level rise is not yet certain."

Message I found in a bottle...
The report on my imminent death is premature. I have been sloshing around in the basins on the crust for more than four billion years. I now cover nearly 71 per cent of the planet. Since the last ice age I have lifted myself out of the basin by 120 metres and scared the tribes of Noah to the higher ground. During deep time, I became the universal solvent for the volcanoes and the clouds. I have taken up as much salt as required by local circumstances and sometimes give it back in hot shallows and desert areas of my world. I have given man the salt in his blood. Your CO2 output is infinitesimally small. I have absorbed as much gas as I need to maintain balance with the organic world within me and on land. The exchange is so peaceful that science calls it equilibrium. I can absorb more CO2, if the plants do not need it, and it does not give me acid imbalance. My pH will remain basic no matter what you say. The variations you measure have come and gone many uncountable times on the planet and your baseline is too small to know the truth. What you do not get is that warming of the oceans releases CO2 and other gasses from my water, while cooling my water allows me to take up CO2 in vast amounts to nestle with the other molecules in my coldest most remote realms. I can absorb all that man can produce because your impact is feeble compared to my capacity.
Please watch me with humility for you cannot change me. I am the ongoing sink for the planet, and I am huge and my heat content is beyond your estimation. Measure me here and there with your microscopes but know that I will never be that way in that place again. Open your mind to the infinite cycles of chemistry and physics and kneel on my beach. You can only hurt me by not respecting my infinite ability to change chemistry and temperature in all the corners of the seas. My CO2 feeds your plants and your plants provide all the oxygen you breathe. Your base line is infinitesimally small yet your mouth is wide open. Please stop sending me your plastic bottles.
Poseidon

...could be due to a decadal change in the average latitude or velocity of the Gulf Stream current.

Not a very insightful comment!

Sooo, would a slowing Gulf Stream result in a lower average sea level?

That would make sense as a slowing Gulf stream has been predicted by some due to the warming of the artic.

With the motive force for the Gulf Stream being the formation of ice in the N. Atlantic and there being a lot less ice lately, a slowing Gulf Stream would seem inevitable.

Hmmm...

It appears that over the last 1.5 decades, Japan, Indonesia, Eastern Australia, and New Orleans are melting.

I am intrigued by the redish hues around Greenland, and Antartica. Could this be the famed onslaught of NYC that Gore and Hansen have ranted about?

I wonder how this correlates with observed sea surface levels along the coasts of the continents. Otherwise, I don't see how this tidbit of info tells anyone anything about anything. Does look rather ominous though with all of the reds showing up.

Leads to another question, if the colors were reversed, higher ocean equals blue, would the appearance seem less concerning somehow?

The real thought though is that the changes are merely related to large scale pressure variations allowing water to "pile up" in certain areas over time. Bastardi often mentions such a thing in his long term discussions.

I wrote up an article on the science of global warming on my blog. Keep in mind before you read that the space program and government nuclear bomb tests must be causing more deadly "footprints" than anything else.

http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/they-blinded-us-with-pseudoscience-the-global-warming-con/

Alright... PDO and the decadal change in the Gulf Stream. No Global Warming, right?

HI D Caldwell,

Looking at the nice color picture of the globe has led you to believe that there is no sea level rise in the past 15 years. The actual compiled satellite sea level data shows that sea level has actually risen on average about 3.3 mm/year or about 49.5 mm (about 2 inches) worldwide over the last 15 years:
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html

As the attached article states, this is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century.

Just as I was getting ready to post this, I noticed that Ken Feldman already has attached the same reference link. Good job.

I don't see that the graphic is worth much since it has virtually no color change at the zero. As far as the red points in the Pacific, they are most certainly caused by current changes, what else could cause such a local bump? As far as the comments about the rise over the past 15 years, how do we know that is true when we are using different, more precise instruments these days? The fact is that prior to satellite measurements we don't know what the rate of sea level rise was.

Interesting, but so what??? I really just don't get all this hype about changes regarding nature. Has this never happened before? Do we know? It begs the question is a little bit of knowledge a dangerous thing?

I keep thinking about the wild assertions that those living on some coast will be forced to find higher ground as if that is something new. As a child, living in Jersey, I can remember one hurricane coming through that completely changed the Barnegate Light area as well as other towns on the Jersey coast. I mean one minute you have so much beachfront frontage and then the next your property got halved not including that your residence might be gone too. I use to stay in a house on the beach built by the editor of Field and Stream magazine. It was a HUGE mansion that had an interesting history. The one thing I remember well is that the beach in front of the home, actually off the back of the house, varied in size depending on the year. It got so bad one year that they had huge boulders brought in to help guard against high waves. I remember the cost. $30,000 big ones. That was a lot of money back in the early 70s. My point is that coastal living has been tricky and will continue to be so into the future because nature is not constant. I pay attention to water levels having lived on several bodies of water almost my entire life.

People will adapt. They are now.

cmbclean:The opacity of CO2. Scientists have always known about CO2 when it gets warm. Take a liter of water and a liter of soda water and measure the temperatue after one hour. The difference is significant. The warmer it is the greater the difference.
This is from the Boston Globe: Last year's temperatures from August to October over land in the western Arctic were also unusually warm, more than 4 degrees F above the average temperatures for 1978-2006, raising questions about the relationship between shrinking sea ice and warmer land temperatures.The scientists found that when sea ice melts rapidly, Arctic land warms three and a half times faster than the rate predicted in 21st century climate models. The warming is largest over the ocean but simulations indicate that it can extend as far as 900 miles inland.
In places where permafrost is already at risk, such as central Alaska, a quick sea ice melt could lead to a quick permafrost thaw.
The effects of melting are already evident in parts of Alaska, the scientists said: as pockets of soil collapse as the ice it contains melts, highways buckle, houses are destabilized and trees tilt crazily in a phenomenon known as "drunken forests" when the earth beneath them gives way.
Hansen, probably embarrased over his faulty computer models from the IPCC, is going to announce that he sees that the Arctic is warming
twice as fast as he predicted, and now will get credit for this.
KIPP

Very detailed, Bob Ross couldn't have painted this map any better, alot of yeller, with a little tiny little splash of red here, and a we'll place a dot of green here and here. But mostly yellow. Really yellow can go either way so it basically tells you make a guess, but look just off the coast near New York City, green/blue sea level has dropped. These mm's better start rising fast to meet the ctiteria set by the Gore/Hansen cult, or people might drop out, well probably not these people will follow them all the way to the next ice age.

Kipp, you need to filter things you read here a bit more. Remember that plenty of commenters are happy to just make things up and that Brett doesn't censor such things and seldom even makes any comment about them.

So, when you say "Hansen, probably embarrased over his faulty computer models from the IPCC, is going to announce that he sees that the Arctic is warming" there's a couple of things wrong.

First, Hansen isn't embarrassed about his computer modeling work, nor does he have a reason to be.

Second, the fact that the Arctic is warming fast doesn't need to be announced by Hansen or anyone since it's been widely known and studied for years.

Don't you think that since Hansen is the head of NASA and Goddard in New York that he should resign. He does not speak for anyone except himself. As an AGWer he is an embarrassment to the cause. His reactions to other peoples work, is irrelevant. What about T.C.Chamberlin, J.Tyndell, S.Arrhenius, J. Fourier, G.S.Callender and the Russian Budyko. These Scientists spent there whole lives on Climate Change discoveries over 150 years. What did Hansen do. Well, he just made an email interview that he is going to make a press conference, and denounce IPCC models.The ones he supported.

Reply: Kipp, you know there is no name calling, that's why it was removed.

KIPP

upsss... that anonymous was me. Sorry!

Good job it's not rising off San Francisco or Al Gore's waterfront condo could be submerged. Maybe, just maybe, he doesn't believe his own hype.

Steve Bloom - Hansen should be terribly embarrassed about his computer modelling work. It has been consistently wrong for the last 20 years, even with keeping his code as close to his chest as possible and revising history as necessary.

Steve Bloom:
First, Hansen's models which portray the same models that the IPCC refers too, are greatly underestimated, and yesterday in an E mail interview, Hansen said that he was going to make a press statement to these facts, and also warn us that the Arctic is melting twice as fast as his models had predicted. Also didn't J. Fourier, Tyndall, G.S.Callander, Arrhenius, and T.C.Chamberlin discover the rudimentary principles that global warming is based on. Not Hansen.
Thanks, KIPP

First, Hansen isn't embarrassed about his computer modeling work, nor does he have a reason to be.

That would be because he, like the honorable algore, actually believe that they are right. He's spent years spewing forth his "gospel" and therefore, it is so ingrained into his psyche that he, indeed, thinks it is true. It doesn't matter to him whether or not if he is correct, or if he has to "fudge" the numbers so they match his predictions.

That is why he is not embarrassed about his computer modeling work or anything else he does or says.

/did I say that out loud?

Thanks Brett,I'll get a grip on it!
KIPP

Steve Bloom:
Here is the standard argument about the irrelevance of CO2. Could you tell me what you think about this issue. "There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming
Proof one: Laboratory measurements show that carbon dioxide absorbs to extinction at its main peak in 10 meters under atmospheric conditions.* This means there is no radiation left at those frequencies after 10 meters. If then humans double their 3% input of CO2 into the atmosphere, the distance of absorption reduces to 9.7m. A reduction in distance is not an increase in temperature. Convectional currents stir the heat around removing any relevance for distance.
Scientists who promote the global warming hype try to work around this fact by claiming something different happens higher in the atmosphere, which they claim involves unsaturation. The difference due to height is that the absorption peaks get smaller and sharper, so they separate from each other. Near the earth's surface, the absorption peaks for water vapor partially overlap the absorption peaks for CO2. Supposedly, in some obfuscated way, separating the peaks creates global warming. There is no real logic to that claim".
I think this oversimplifies the effect of GHGs and radiative behavior,and feed backs. Since I am new at this could you tell me what you think?
Thanks, KIPP

Dennis wrote:
"Looking at the nice color picture of the globe has led you to believe that there is no sea level rise in the past 15 years."

Dennis, thanks for the response to my comment, but that's not exactly what I was getting at. A more sensitive person might conclude that your post was condescending, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was not your intent.

I am aware of the average global sea level rise indicated by satellite data. I would have expected to see a more uniform increase globally rather than the more localized "humps" indicated by the dark red areas on the graphic. What I was trying to articulate was my surprise at the predominance of the color yellow that I believe indicates no sea level rise in 15 years for a surprisingly large portion of the globe. Or am I mistaken that the color yellow indicates no change?

Further, while I find that measuring a constantly undulating sea surface to a precision of half a mm from orbit to be an astonishing feat, I'm not in a position to dispute the data. I am, however, skeptical that the 20th century sea level record is accurate enough to provide a credible basis for the statement that a 49.5 mm increase over the last 15 years is 50% higher than the 20th century average. Really??? Do you believe that we can know with confidence that average global sea level rose 165 mm from 1899 to 1999? I ask this because, according to the graphic above, observed sea level at different locations can differ by more than 225 mm at any given time.

Or am I just being confused by all the pretty colors?

Dennis Hlinka:
What do you think is the reason for the disparity between the twenty first century computer models, and the Arctic land warming three and one half times faster. Are we getting to that tipping point faster then had first been thought. This scares me!
Thanks, KIPP

"James Hansen is a person ...................

Brett, this sort of thing is rather worse than name-calling, both in substance and legally.

Reply: After second thought, that statement was removed.