Sea Level Projections vs. Tide Gauge Data

Carbon dioxide, climate change, disaster, SEA LEVELS WILL RISE!

You can see all kinds of sea level rise predictions for the 21st century, with over-wrought images of houses and buildings under water.  One of the favorite predictions of the hand wringers is “1.8 meters” of sea level rise for the 21st century.  A major purveyor of this lurid climate-porn prediction is Stefan Rahmstorf (see here, here, and here).

Consider the following points

• 75% of atmospheric anthropogenic CO2 arrived after 1950.
• There has been no obvious acceleration in sea level rise rates since 1950 as seen from tide gauges.
• Extrapolating tide gauge time series to 2100 would give about 15cm of sea level rise between 200o and 2100.
• Projections of 1, 1.8 or 2 meters of sea level rise between 2000 and 2100 would require extraordinary rise rate accelerations.

Let’s compare the sea level data of the 20th century with these wild prediction for the 21st century.  The movie below will show all the tide gauge data sets available from NOAA that extend over at least 75 years.  In each case the trend is extrapolated to 2100.  Additionally, the likely local relative sea levels corresponding to 1 meter and 1.8 meter global sea level rises for the 21st century are shown.

Music is by Mechett and licensed under Creative Commons

The likely local relative sea levels are calculated by by assuming that the global anthropogenic sea level rise would be distributed evenly over the planet.  This assumption may not be entirely accurate but it is a good first approximation. Here is how the calculation is done.

Let

• GSLR (20th century) be the 2oth century global sea level rise
• LSLR (20th century) be a local 20th century sea level rise
• GSLR(21st century) be the projected 21st global sea level rise
• LSLR(21st century) be the projected local 21st century sea level rise

Then
LSLR(21st century) = LSLR (20th century) – GSLR (20th century) + GSLR(21st century)

Say the 2oth century global sea level rise was 18cm and the projected 21st century global sea level rise is 100cm.   And say the local 20th century sea level rise was 18cm at location A, 30cm at location B, and -10cm at location C.  Then the local projected 21st century sea level rises would be

Location A
Projected rise = 100cm = 18cm – 18cm + 100cm

Location B
Projected rise = 112cm = 30cm – 18cm + 100cm

Location C
Projected rise = 72cm = -10cm – 18cm + 100cm

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