Study: Sea level rise accelerating more than once thought
By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON — The world’s oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new study says.
The study found that for much of the 20th century — until about 1990 — sea level was about 30 percent less than earlier research had figured. But that’s not good news, scientists say, because about 25 years ago the seas started rising faster and the acceleration in 1990 turns out to be more dramatic than previously calculated.
The current sea level rise rate — which started in 1990 — is 2.5 times faster than it was from 1900 to 1990, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists say that faster pace of sea level rise is from melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica and shrinking glaciers, triggered by man-made global warming.
“We’re seeing a significant acceleration in the past few decades,” said study lead author Carling Hay, a geophysical researcher at Harvard University. “It’s concerning for cities along the U.S. East Coast” where water levels are rising even faster than the world average.
“It’s definitely something that can’t be ignored,” Hay said.
This is utter nonsense. Tide gauges along the East Coast (or anywhere else) don’t show an uptick 25 years ago. In fact, they show the fastest rise before 1950.
Tide gauges on the west coast don’t show any sea level rise over the past 25 years
What changed is that they added satellite data to the mix in 1992, which shows big bulges in the middle of the ocean in regions where the error is almost as large as the trend. A signal/noise ratio of 0.
A recent study of tide gauges showed a slight decrease in sea level rise rates since 1970
The new reconstruction suggests a linear trend of 1.9 ± 0.3 mm·yr−1 during the 20th century, with 1.8 ± 0.5 mm·yr−1 since 1970.
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/504181/1/1-s2.0-S0921818113002750-main.pdf
The claims of an acceleration in sea level rise are mindless nonsense. It is equivalent to switching to an uncalibrated scale, and claiming that you lost weight as soon as you switched scales.