Sea level is not risingNils-Axel Mörner

Sea level is not risingProfessor Nils-Axel Mörner

Copyright © Nils-Axel MörnerMMXI

The author

Nils-Axel Mörner took his Ph.D. in 1969, becoming associate professor in Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University that year. He conducted his postdoctoral research in Canada and was then employed by the Swedish Research Council.

He was awarded a personal associate professorship at the Institute for Palaeogeophysics & Geodynamics, which from 1991 became a special research institute at Stockholm University. As head of the unit, he addressed a variety of geological and geophysical problems.

He organized two major international conferences: Earth Rheology, Isostasy and Eustasy in 1977, and Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis in 1983.

Professor Mörner has led several international field excursions throughout Sweden. Overseas, he was President of the INQUA Commission on Neotectonics (1981-1989) and President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999-2003). He headed the INTAS Project on Geomagnetism and Climate from 1997-2003.

In 2000, he launched an international research project on sea level in the Maldives. Among his numerous publications (this paper is his 547th in a 42-year career) are studies on the following –

the interaction between isostasy and eustasy;

the oscillating regional eustatic curve of NW Europe;

the changing concept of the geoid;

the redefinition of the concept of eustasy;

the dynamic-rotational redistribution of oceanic water masses;

the interchange of angular momentum between the Earth’s hydrosphere and lithosphere;

a new sea-level curve in the Maldives (showing no sea-level rise);

a new sea-level study in the Sundarban delta of Bangladesh.

In 2008, at an international meeting on sea level in Portugal, Professor Mörner was awarded the Golden Chondrite of Merit from the University of the Algarve “for his irreverence and his contribution to our understanding of sea-level change”.

Sea level is not risingProfessor Nils-Axel Mörner

Main points

At most, global average sea level is rising at a rate equivalent to 2-3 inches per century. It is probably not rising at all.

Sea level is measured both by tide gauges and, since 1992, by satellite altimetry. One of the keepers of the satellite record told Professor Mörner that the record had been interfered with to show sea level rising, because the raw data from the satellites showed no increase in global sea level at all.

The raw data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON sea-level satellites, which operated from 1993-2000, shows a slight uptrend in sea level. However, after exclusion of the distorting effects of the Great El Niño Southern Oscillation of 1997/1998, a naturally-occurring event, the sea-level trend is zero.

The GRACE gravitational-anomaly satellites are able to measure ocean mass, from which sea-level change can be directly calculated. The GRACE data show that sea level fell slightly from 2002-2007.

These two distinct satellite systems, using very different measurement methods, produced raw data reaching identical conclusions: sea level is barely rising, if at all.

Sea level is not rising at all in the Maldives, the Laccadives, Tuvalu, India, Bangladesh, French Guyana, Venice, Cuxhaven, Korsør, Saint Paul Island, Qatar, etc.

In the Maldives, a group of Australian environmental scientists uprooted a 50-year-old tree by the shoreline, aiming to conceal the fact that its location indicated that sea level had not been rising. This is a further indication of political tampering with scientific evidence about sea level.

Modelling is not a suitable method of determining global sea-level changes, since a proper evaluation depends upon detailed research in multiple locations with widely-differing characteristics. The true facts are to be found in nature itself.

Since sea level is not rising, the chief ground of concern at the potential effects of anthropogenic “global warming” – that millions of shore-dwellers the world over may be displaced as the oceans expand – is baseless.

We are facing a very grave, unethical “sea-level-gate”.

Foreword

By The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

T IS with particular pleasure that I commend to the reader this revised and updated version of Professor Niklas Mörner’s recent paper on sea level, originally published in 21st-Century Science and Technology. I

In the dialogue des sourds about the climate, there are two schools of thought. On the one hand lurk the computer modellers, who, relying upon their X-Box 360s and Playstations, luridly and profitably predict anthropogenic apocalypse. On the other stand the scientists old-fashioned enough and careful enough to observe, to measure and then to think. Most of these do not subscribe to the Doomsters’ Union. Professor Mörner is in the latter category.

On a recent visit to Bangladesh with others who called themselves experts, Professor Mörner alone took the trouble to climb up and down 100 feet to calibrate his GPS altimeter accurately. He found that sea level in Bangladesh had fallen somewhat. He has clambered over the glaciers that others merely model. He has caught out Australian environmentalists uprooting a tree on the Maldivian shoreline whose location had demonstrated no sea level rise for half a century.

Above all, as this revealing paper shows, the Professor has heard the keepers of the global satellite altimetry record of sea-level rise admitting – nay, proclaiming – that they had tilted the sea-level record for the entire satellite era to make it show a rate of increase, for the raw data from the satellites show no sea-level rise at all.

As Professor Mörner often points out in his lectures, if there is little or no sea-level rise there is little or nothing to worry about even if the world warms as fast as the profiteers of doom would have us believe. The sea-level scare is the big one: and, as the Professor demonstrates in this admirably clear, concise and yet comprehensive paper, it is just that – a big scare, and a baseless one.

The implications of this fabricated scare for the future of democracy are already evident in the hikes in taxes, fuel prices and energy bills that the European Union and its satraps in the Department of Climate Change are ruthlessly imposing. As King Charles I said on the scaffold, “Liberty and freedom consists in having of government those laws by which the people’s life and goods may be most their own.”

Predatory pricing mandated by the State, combined with confiscatory taxation, conspire to take away the people’s goods, and hence to diminish their economic democracy – their right to decide for themselves how to spend what is theirs.

I first met Professor Mörner at a debate on the climate at the St. Andrews University Union – the oldest undergraduate debating union in Britain – in the spring of 2009. The Professor’s witty, eclectic and relentlessly charming speech captivated the House. It was not difficult to see why the citation for the award to him of the Gold Chondrite of Merit the previous year at an international sea-level conference at the University of the Algarve had spoken not only of his “contribution to understanding of sea level” but also of his “irreverence”. The undergraduates loved it.

When a true-believer in the New Religion of “global warming” got up and sneeringly advised the Professor to see if he could get his ideas about sea level published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, his answer won us the debate: “Madame President, I do apologize that in a 40-year career I have only published 530 papers [now 547] in the peer-reviewed literature, most of them about sea level, but in the light of the Hon. Gentleman’s strictures I will undertake to try harder in future.”

The House collapsed in helpless laughter, and the St. Andrews University Union was the first student audience in Britain to vote “global warming” down. Professor Mörner has been as good as his word: as the extensive references in this paper show, his recent publication record would be envied by a younger man.

Professor Mörner writes as charmingly and as accessibly as he speaks. His paper demands no prior scientific knowledge. It demonstrates the growing disparity between results obtained the old, hard way – by going out into the field and taking careful observations and measurements – and the mere silly computer games of the modellers, without which there would be no “global warming” panic pandemic.

When the climate scare is over – and it is already well on its way out – the Professor will be remembered as one of a tiny handful of scientists who had the courage, integrity and independence of mind to stand against the prevailing political tide and to demonstrate that the real tide is not rising dangerously, if at all.

“The true facts”, the Professor concludes, “are to be found in nature itself.”

Carie, Rannoch, Scotland

February 2011

Introduction

N an interview and paper published in 21st Century Science and Technology in 2007, I showed that global sea level is not rising alarmingly. Yet a rapid and perhaps dangerous sea-level rise is the main threat in the scenario offered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If sea level is not

rising at a high rate, there is no serious threat and no real problem. IIn subsequent papers, I continued to present new data demonstrating that sea level is stable. In Mörner, 2007b, our field observational database from the Maldive Islands was described in detail. A new study in Bangladesh was published in 2010 (Mörner, 2010a). New data with respect to general sea level changes were published in a further paper (Mörner, 2010b). Also, my short sea-level booklet The Greatest Lie Ever Told (Mörner, 2007c) was updated in new editions in 2009 and 2010.

Here I will investigate the rates of sea level changes projected by the IPCC and others.

Fig. 1 illustrates the differences between the IPCC models and the observational facts. After 1965, the two curves start to diverge significantly (the area marked with a question mark). This paper will highlight the differences and examine the question what data we should trust and what we should discard.

Figure 1. Modelled and observed sea-level changes, 1840-2010. The curve marked “Models” represents the IPCC’s combination of selected tide-gauge records and corrected satellite altimetry data. The curve marked “Observations” represents the observed eustatic sea level changes in the field up to 1960 according to Mörner (1973) and (in this paper) thereafter. After 1965, the two curves start to diverge, presenting two totally different views, separated by the area with the question mark. Which of these views is tenable?

Fig. 2 shows the spectrum of present-day sea level estimates. The projected rates of sea-level rise range from 0.0 to 3.2 mm per year. Obviously, not all these rates are correct. I will try to straighten out the question mark in Fig. 1 by undertaking a critical examination of the rates given in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: Projected and observed rates of sea-level change (mm yr–1). The spectrum of proposed rates of present-day sea level changes ranges from 0.0 mm yr–1, according to observational facts from a number of key sites all over the world, to 3.2 mm yr–1, according to calibrated satellite altimetry.

Observation and measurement in the field

Clear observational measurements in the field indicate that sea level is not rising in the Maldives, Bangladesh, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and French Guyana (Mörner, 2007abc, 2010ab). All these are key sites in the sea level debate, where the IPCC and its ideological associates have predicted terrible flooding. The reality is different from what the IPCC claims, however.

The IPCC group and the Presidents of the Maldives and Tuvalu continue to claim that the flooding is in progress, and will soon swamp these island nations and wipe them off the surface of the globe (or rather ocean). In an open letter to the President of the Maldives (Mörner, 2009), I addressed the divergence between his claim and our field observations. No reply has come.

Bangladesh is a nation cursed by disasters—heavy precipitation in the Himalayas andcoastal cyclones. As if this were not bad enough, it has been claimed that sea level is rapidly rising. This claim has been discredited by my study in the Sundarban area, where sea level has remained stable for the last 40-50 years (Mörner 2010a).

The erroneously-inferred sea-level rise is the basis for wild claims that tens to hundreds of thousands of people may be drowned and “millions of individuals will be displaced from their homes over the course of the century due to sea-level rise”

(Byravana and Raja 2010). This is a serious exaggeration: yet the journal that published it, Ethics and International Affairs, refuses to print a comment from me “that focuses on empirical data.” With surprise, we must ask: What is the meaning of raising moral concerns, if the entire empirical basis for those concerns is absent?

The President of Tuvalu continues to claim that his islands are being flooded. Yet the tide-gauge data provide clear indications of stability over the last 30 years (Mörner, 2007ac, 2010b; Murphy, 2007). In Vanuatu, the tide gauge indicates a stable sea level over the last 14 years (Mörner, 2007c).

From the coasts of French Guyana and Surinam there is a very excellent sea-level record covering multiple 18.6-year tidal cycles (Gratiot et al., 2008). It exhibits variations around a stable zero level over the last 50 years (Mörner, 2010b). For the same area, satellite altimetry gives a sea level rise of 3.0 mm/year. This casts clear doubt on the satellite altimetry value, as discussed further below.

The sea-level record from Venice may be used as a test area for global eustasy. Subtracting the subsidence factor, the Venetian record reveals no rise of eustatic origin, no acceleration whatsoever in the last decades; instead, it shows a sea level falling around 1970 (Mörner, 2007ac).

The north-west European coasts are interesting because here we have sites that are experiencing both uplift and subsidence. The tide gauge at Korsør in the Great Belt (the strait between the main Danish islands of Zeeland and Funen), for example, is located at the hinge between uplift and subsidence for the last 8,000 years. This tide gauge shows no sea-level rise in the last 50-60 years.

Figure 3. Cuxhaven tide-gauge record (cm), 1843-2003. The gray area gives the actual tide-gauge reading for the German North Sea port of Cuxhaven for 1843-2003—that is, for 160 years. A polynomial curve was fitted by Jörn Herold to this tide-gauge record. Adding the eustatic component of Mörner (1973) for the period 1840-1970, gives a straight line of subsidence with a rate of 1.4 mm/year. The eustatic component (the difference between the polynomial curve and the linear trend) can now be extended up to 2003, and it shows a halt in the sea-level rise at around 1960, followed by a continuous fall until 2003; that is, a trend totally different from that proposed by the IPCC models but in full agreement with the observational facts recorded in Fig. 1.

The tide gauge in Amsterdam, installed in 1682, is the oldest in the world. Superimposing the subsidence record here on the uplift record from the Stockholm tide gauge, I was able to isolate a eustatic factor for 1680-1970 (Mörner, 1973), showing a centennial rise of 11 cm from 1830-1840 to 1930-1940. In that 100-year period, the Earth’s rate of rotation decelerated at a value which corresponds to a 10-cm sea-level rise (see, e.g., Mörner, 1996). Consequently, there is a very good fit between sea-level rise and rotational deceleration, which seems to provide a measure of a global sea-level factor (the polynomial curve with respect to the linear trend-line in Fig. 3).

Cuxhaven, on the German coast, has a tide gauge dating back to 1843, in an area that represents the subsiding segment of the North Sea coasts. Fig. 3 shows the annual mean values for 160 years, with a long-term trend polynomial fitted to it (Herold, personal communication). This polynomial curve gives a slightly sinusoidal rising trend that represents the mean relative sea level changes in the area. Adding to this the eustatic component of the northwestern European region (Mörner, 1973), we get partly the local rate of subsidence (the straight line), and partly the eustatic component, extended up to the present and double-checked for the pre-1970 section (the difference between the polynomial curve and the straight line).

The regional eustatic sea level change decelerates after 1930-1940, becomes flat around 1950-1970, and falls from 1970 up to the present. This provides firm evidence that sea level is not rising at all rapidly today: rather, there is the opposite trend: a slow decline. These data are combined in the “Observations” curve in Fig. 1. Some further field observations that I have recently made are given later in this paper.

Tide gauges

Figure 4. Spectrum of rates of sea-level rise (mm/year) reported by NOAA’s 159 tide-gauge stations. The values of NOAA’s 159 tide gauge stations indicate that they range from uplifted areas (bottom left zone) to subsiding areas (top right zone). If the uplifting and subsiding sites are excluded, we are left with 68 sites (central dark zone) where the rise in sea level ranges between 0.0 and 2.0 mm/year. This is well below the rate estimated by the IPCC and satellite altimetry (as discussed below).

Tide gauges were installed at harbor constructions to measure changes in tidal level and long-term sea-level changes. The Amsterdam tide gauge is the oldest, installed in 1682; the Stockholm tide gauge is the second-oldest, installed in 1724/1774; and the Liverpool tide gauge is the third-oldest, installed in 1768. Most tide gauges are installed on unstable harbor constructions or landing piers. Therefore, records from tide gauges are bound to exaggerate sea-level rise. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tide-gauge database has 159 stations (Fig. 4).

The IPCC authors take the liberty to select what they call “representative” records for their reconstruction of the centennial sea level trend. This implies that their personal view—that is, the IPCC story-line prescribed from the beginning of the project—is imposed in the selection and identification of their “representative” records.

With this selection methodology, Douglas (1991) chose 25 tide gauges and obtained a rate of sea level rise of 1.8 mm/year; Church et al. (2006) selected 6 tide gauges and obtained a rate of 1.4 mm/ year; and Holgate (2007) selected 9 tide gauges and got a rate of 1.45 mm/year (Fig. 2). The mean of all the 159 NOAA sites is 0.5-0.6 mm/year (Burton 2010). A better approach, however, is to exclude those sites that represent uplifted and subsiding locations (the bottom left and top right zones in Fig. 4). This leaves 68 sites of reasonable stability (still with the possibility of an exaggeration of the rate of change, as discussed above). These sites give a present rate of sea level rise of ~1.0 (± 1.0) mm/year. This is far below the rates given by satellite altimetry.

Satellite altimetry

Satellite altimetry is a wonderful, new technique for reconstructing sea-level changes all over the ocean surface. This is vital, for sea level not only changes vertically but also horizontally. The horizontal redistribution of water masses was first observed for centennial-to-decadal sea-level changes in the late Holocene (see e.g. Mörner, 1995, 1996). It is also clearly shown in the satellite record from 1992-2010 (see e.g. Nicholls & Casenave, 2010; Casenave & Llovel, 2010). Problems remain with respect to the zero level chosen and to the long-term trend, however (Mörner, 2004, 2007c, 2008).

The TOPEX/POSEIDON mission, followed by the JASON mission, recorded variations in the altitude of the ocean surface with high resolution. Having applied all technical correction needed, Menard (2000) and also Aviso (2000) presented a first sea-level graph for 1992-2000 (Fig. 5).

The Fig. 5 trend of 1.0 mm/year is established by taking the linear trend, a method which overlooks the fact that substantial high point in tidal cycles 175-200 was caused by an exceptional El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally-occurring, quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean every few years. A much more realistic approach is to treat that ENSO signal as a separate event superimposed on the long-term trend, as shown in Fig. 6 (Mörner, 2004). Fig, 6 shows a variability (of ±10 mm) around a stable zero level to end 1996 and a strong ENSO-driven peak in 1997. The trend thereafter is less clear. This graph

provides no indication of any rise in sea level over the time-period covered (Mörner 2004, 2007ac).

Figure 5. Annual mean sea-level changes observed by TOPEX/POSEIDON in 2000, after technical “corrections” were applied (from Menard, 2000). A slow, long-term rising trend of 1.0 mm/year was identified, but this linear trend may have been largely an artefact of the naturally-occurring El Niño Southern Oscillation event in cycles 175-200.

When the satellite altimetry group realized that the 1997 rise was an ENSO signal, and they extended the trend up to 2003, they faced a problem they had not expected: there was no discernible sea-level rise visible, so that a “reinterpretation” of the raw data needed to be carried out in order to obtain the desired result.

Figure 6. Sea-level changes from Fig. 5, allowing for the El Niño Southern Oscillation of 1997/1998. The sea-level changes as recorded in Fig. 5 are presented here with a more realistic trend analysis that treats the 1997 ENSO peak as a separate event superimposed on the long-term trend. This shows stability over the first 5 years (to end 1996) and possibly over the whole time period covered. Source: Mörner 2004, 2007c.

The fact of this “reinterpretation”, which turned a near-zero trend in sea-level rise to a trend of 2.3 mm/year (later 3.2), was orally confirmed by a member of the satellite altimetry team in 2005 when I attended a meeting on global warming held by the

Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Exactly what was done remains unclear, as the satellite altimetry groups do not specify the “corrections” they carry out.

In 2003, the satellite altimetry record (Aviso, 2003) suddenly took a new tilt. Instead of the near-horizontal trend of 1992-2000, seen in Figs. 5-6, suddenly there was an uptrend of 2.3 (±0.1) mm/year (Fig. 7).

From where does the new tilt come? The data that lie flat in Fig. 5 of 2000 are tilted sharply upward in Fig. 7 of Aviso (2003): see also Aviso (2000). Obviously, some sort of “correction” has been made, but the “correction” has not been disclosed so as to permit independent verification (see Mörner 2007c, 2008). In most reproductions of the graph representing the satellite-altimetry sea-level record, on the Internet and in journal papers, it is not even stated that the graphs do not represent trends taken from the raw data as read by the satellites, but trends only after “corrections.”

Figure 7. Sea-level changes after “calibration” in 2003. The satellite altimetry record from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellites, followed by the JASON satellites. As presented by Aviso (2003), the record suddenly has a new trend representing an inferred sea-level rise of 2.3 ±0.1 mm/year. This means that the original records presented in Figs. 5-6, which showed little or no sea-level rise, must have been tilted to show a rise of as much as 2.3 mm/year. We must now ask: what is the justification for this tilting of the record?

Originally, it seemed that this extra, unspecified “correction” referred to the global isostatic adjustment, given as 2.4 mm/year (see, for example, Peltier 1998) or 1.8 mm/year (IPCC 2001) The isostatic adjustment is intended to allow for the deformation of the Earth’s crust by tectonic influences. According to Peltier (1998), the zero isobase, which is the reference point for calculating the global isostatic adjustment, passed through Hong Kong, where a single tide gauge gives a sea level rise of 2.3 mm/year relative to the isobase. This is exactly the same as the apparent trend in sea-level rise over the decade 1992-2003 in Fig. 7 . However, this single tide gauge record is an outlier: it is contradicted by the four other records existing in Hong Kong, and obviously represents a site-specific subsidence, a fact well known to local geologists.

Nevertheless, Fig. 7 shows that the keepers of the satellite altimetry record have introduced a new calibration factor – an upward tilt compared with the raw data, which show no real uptrend in sea level. At the Moscow global warming meeting in

2005, in answer to my criticisms about this “correction,” one of the persons in the British IPCC delegation said, “We had to adjust the record, otherwise there would not be any trend.” In other words, the actual data did not show sea level rising at all. I replied: “Did you hear what you were saying? This is just what I am accusing you of doing.” Therefore, in my 2007 booklet (Mörner 2007c), the graph reproduced here as Fig. 7 was tilted back to its original position as indicated by the unaltered data from the satellites (Fig. 5).

The calibrations applied to the satellite altimetry readings were discussed in Mitchum (2000; and see Casenave and Nerem 2004; Leuliette and Scharroo 2010). The tide-gauge records play a central role in this calibration, implying some sort of circular reasoning. Other important factors are the global isostatic adjustment and vertical movements of the tide-gauge sites. Mitchum (2000) states that, in part, “we adopted the rate given by Douglas (1991, 1995) of 1.8 ± 0.1 mm/yr,” and that, in part, “the tide gauges were assumed to be vertically stable”.

Both of these assumptions are wrong. The 1.8 mm/yr rate is not well established, since it is based on a probably unrepresentative subset of the tide-gauge stations (see Fig. 2). The tide-gauge records, especially those selected, are far from vertically stable, but rather the opposite (this applies for the 6 sites used by Church et al. as well as the 25 sites used by Douglas). Mitchum (2000) provided the following relations, as expressed in the boxed equation below:

Each of the three boxes (A, B, C) encompasses multiple variables that need painstaking and skillful handling, which certainly has not been done by the groups dealing with the satellite altimetry records and the IPCC community.

The “global sea level factor” (box A) is never clear and trustworthy; rather, it is a matter of personal opinion, as seen in the wide range of global sea-level change estimates set out in Figs. 2 & 4. The rate of 1.8 mm/yr is surely an overestimate that is strongly affected by subsidence at the tide gauges selected (Fig. 2). In my opinion, a better value would be at or a little above 0.0 mm/yr – little, if any, sea-level rise.

To establish a local tide-gauge trend (box B) is far from straightforward. Cyclical trends, event signals, and segments must be identified and subtracted. Numerous different variables affect and interfere with the long-term trend. Very often there is no long-term trend, just segments that need individual treatment (as in the case of the Bombay tide-gauge record, discussed by Mörner, 2010a). El Niño Southern Oscillation events (and especially super-ENSO events such as that of 1997-8) must be subtracted, as illustrated in Fig. 6 and shown for the Tuvalu record by Mörner (2007c, 2010b).

The local land motion at the tide-gauge sites (box C) is another intricate issue that calls for geological understanding of the specific site in question. Local sedimentary ground changes (such as compaction, water withdrawal, and so on) are a prime

factor in the assessment (Mörner 2004, 2010b). Satellite measurements cannot help here. Site-specific knowledge is key. For instance, many tide gauges are installed on harbor constructions and landing piers that are far from stable. Crustal movements and seismotectonics are other factors. In the harbor in the Maldives capital of Malé, the island is so heavily overloaded by building that the harbor constructions fracture, causing distortions that invalidate any tide-gauge reading there.

One thing is for sure. Satellite altimetry is not providing what is often claimed: a measure of sea level changes truly independent of tide gauges and global isostatic adjustments. Instead, it is profoundly dependent on those variables.

With the space gravimetry observations from the GRACE satellites it has become possible to record changes in the ocean water mass (Casenave et al. 2009), which given an approximation of changes in mean global sea level (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Ocean mass changes obtained from GRACE satellite data, 2003-2007. The space gravimetry readings from the GRACE satellites record changes in ocean mass which are approximately equal to changes in mean global sea level (Casenave et al., 2009). The raw data show a slight fall in sea level over the period by –0.12 (±0.06) mm/year (lower curve). Inferring a global isostatic adjustment correction, which is to be questioned, Casenave et al. (2009) presented a corrected rate of 1.9 (±0.9) mm/year (upper curve). The difference is significant. The question is whether or not this “correction” is justifiable.

The concept of the global isostatic adjustment is a model supported by some data (see e.g. Peltier, 1998) but contradicted by other data (e.g. Mörner, 2005). Global isostatic adjustment corrections have been applied to tide gauges, to sea level records, to satellite altimetry data, and now to ocean mass changes. It appears that without these corrections there is little or no room for any global sea level rise.

Correcting tide gauges for global isostatic adjustment or regional crustal movement is not the correct way of treating records of this type. Instead, each site must be evaluated individually with respect to stability, wind, waves, sedimentation, compaction, loading, and tectonics. A blind global isostatic adjustment model correction may provide quite wrong results; it is a dangerous shortcut applied by scientists who are not sea-level specialists by training and hence lack the skill to undertake careful site-specific stability analyses themselves.

Fig. 9 shows the satellite altimetry records as presented by NOAA (2008), which suggest a sea-level rise of 3.2 (±0.4) mm/year.

Figure 9. Satellite altimetry as given by NOAA. The TOPEX-JASON satellite data provide a record suggesting a mean sea-level rise of 3.2 mm/year over the period 1993-2007. The (GRACE) GIA-corrected trend (Fig. 8) for 2003-2007 (arrowed line) agrees with the JASON data. This suggests that the satellite record is strongly affected by “corrections.” Consequently, this satellite altimetry graph has a long-term trend which is significantly greater than that which actual instrumental measurements provide: it is created by inferred “corrections.”

In Fig. 10, the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimetry record of Fig. 9 is back-tilted to fit the original trend in Figs. 5-6 for 1992-2000 and the raw data from the GRACE satellites in Fig. 8 for 2003-2007.

This gives an un”corrected” satellite altimetry graph, from two independent sources of actual, unaltered data, showing no signs of any sea-level rise. The original record

for 1992-2000 is restored (cf. Figs. 5, 6) and the GRACE raw data fit the record perfectly well:

Figure 10. The “calibrated” satellite altimetry record tilted back to match the original, un“corrected” data. The original TOPEX/POSEIDON raw data for 1992-2000 showed variability around a stable horizontal zero line (Figs. 5, 6). The GRACE raw data (Fig. 8) show a gently falling trend for 2002-2007. Together, these two untampered datasets indicate that global mean sea level trend has remained stable over the entire period 1992-2007, altogether eliminating the apparent 3.2 mm/year rate of sea-level rise arising from the “adjusted” data (Fig. 9).

This implies that the Fig. 9 satellite altimetry record is significantly altered by non-technical “corrections” (whatever they may be). The “corrections” applied are not specified by the responsible groups at NOAA and the Centre National des Etudes Spatiales, France’s space agency. Various types of corrections may be applied, provide that they are clearly declared and described. This is not the case with the presently-circulated trends in sea-level rise from satellite altimetry (see e.g. Aviso, 2003; NOAA, 2008).

If the “corrections” applied are not clearly specified (and discussed and argued for), then the resulting corrected data cannot be objectively evaluated. It may be mere disinformation, perhaps disseminated with the intention of supporting the IPCC’s wild claims about sea-level rise.

I have previously asserted (Mörner, 2008) that the satellite altimetry recording consists of three steps: first, the raw data read by the satellites; secondly, the “instrumental record” after appropriate technical correction; and thirdly, the “interpretational record” after the application of what I have called “personal calibrations”. Fig. 11 illustrates the difference between the instrumental record (in this case from the TOPEX/POSEIDON and GRACE satellites: Figs. 5-6, 8) and the interpretational record from the University of Colorado (Fig. 9):

Figure 11. How “corrections” change sea level rise of ~0 mm/year to ~3 mm/year. Stage 1 is the collection of readings from the satellite by altimetry. In Stage 2, appropriate technical adjustments are applied to the satellite instrument readings, to yield the correct sea-level rise, which is actually little more than zero. These corrections were applied to the original altimetry graph (Figs. 5-6: Menard, 2000; Aviso, 2000). The “instrumental record” gives a sea level trend on the order of 0.0 mm/year (Figs. 2, 6, 10). However, in Stage 3, after additional subjective “personal calibrations”, interpretational graphs were produced (see e.g. Aviso, 2003; NOAA, 2008) that imply sea-level rise in the order of 3 mm/year (Fig. 9). Therefore, the “interpretational record” represents disinformation, and is not a true “instrumental record” (Mörner, 2008).

As reported above, an IPCC member discussing subjective adjustments to the instrumental record told me: “We had to do so, otherwise there would not be any trend.” No trend means no sea-level rise. Our examination of the satellite data seems to confirm that this is indeed the case. If so, we are facing a very grave, unethical, “sea-level-gate”. For the actual, un“corrected” instrumental satellite-altimetry record (Fig. 10) gives a true sea-level rise of around 0.0 mm/year. This fits the observational

facts much better, providing a coherent picture of no sea-level rise (or at most a harmless ~0.5 mm/yr, equivalent to 2 inches per century) over the last 50 years.

Personal observations in the field

The IPCC bases all its argumentation on computer models and scenarios. As a geologist, by contrast, I find it natural to turn to observational facts in nature itself, and to form interpretations and theories based on those facts.

Here, I will give a brief summary of some of my recent fieldwork on sea-level changes, together with an indication of what my observations mean for the IPCC’s projected future changes in climate.

The Maldives

The IPCC and its supporters have frequently claimed that the Maldives are doomed to become submerged well before 2100. In recent years President Nasheed has taken the lead in maintaining that his own nation has no future and will soon rest beneath the waves.

All this talk is sheer nonsense, however. As president of INQUA, the International Commission on Sea-Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, a decade ago I launched a special sea level research project in the Maldives. A group of sea-level experts was formed and the work commenced in 2000 with a month-long expedition in the field. Several additional field expeditions were to follow. We visited several islands.

The facts found in site after site and in all types of coastal environment were quite straightforward: in the Maldives, sea level is not rising. It has been stable for the last 30-40 years. In the 1970s sea level even fell by some 20 cm. This is illustrated in Figs. 12a and 12b, and further discussed in a number of papers (Mörner et al., 2004; Mörner, 2007bc, 2009, 2011a).

Figure 12a. Shoreline profile of most islands in the Maldives (from Mörner et al., 2004). The present sea level is recorded as mean sea level, high-tide level and storm level. “B.R.” indicates a beach rock-platform. Some 20-30 cm above storm level, there is an older beach with storm level, now abandoned and overgrown.

Figure 12b. An actual field section from the Guidhoo Atoll, Maldives, demonstrating the shoreline zonation illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 12a. The lowering of sea level occurred in the 1970s, according to local fishermen. It is recorded all over the Maldives and in different shoreline environments.

The Laccadives

Just north of the Maldives lie the Laccadive Islands, an archipelago belonging to India. Minicoy is the southernmost island. The locals are quite aware the sea level is not at all rising. They say they are amused to hear what President Nasheed of the Maldives has been saying. They also say they understand that it is “all a matter of money”. They took a scientific colleague to the shore and presented the clear observational fact that sea level is not rising. On the contrary, it recently fell, so that new land was formed. The new land is now starting to become overgrown and has been settled by terrestrial snails (Mörner, 2011a).

Bangladesh

There are no limits to the terrible scenarios that have been proposed for the future of Bangladesh as a consequence of an imagined global sea level rise. The ultimate nonsense was a recent claim that 25 million to 1 billion people will have to be relocated by 2050.

The reality is totally different, however. Again we are facing observational facts revealing no rise at all in sea level despite severe coastal erosion attributable to cyclones (Fig. 13; Mörner, 2010a). The people of Bangladesh are not about to be flooded by rising sea level. The cyclones and flooding caused by heavy rain in the mountains are another factor that we cannot do anything about, however, for they are, unfortunately, natural phenomena.

Figure 13. Erosion is not sea-level rise: The outermost edge of the Sundarban delta in Bangladesh was severely eroded by the 2007 cyclone (left above). Some people take tree-trunks on the exposed beach as evidence of a sea-level rise. There is no basis for this suggestion, however. The horizontal roots reveal that the trunks are from mangrove trees, which spread their roots just below the mud-flats (right above). This implies the same level of mud-flats as the delta surface behind. Accordingly, there has been no change in sea level (Mörner, 2010a).

Tuvalu and Vanuatu

A continuing sea-level rise is said to threaten to flood both Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The map of satellite-altimetry changes from 1992-2009 give a general rise over the whole region in the order of 3 mm/year or even more. However, the tide gauges in both regions show no rise at all. Instead, the tide gauges indicate stability for 14 years in Vanuatu and 32 years in Tuvalu (Mörner, 2007c, 2010b; Murphy, 2007).

On the internet and in the news media, we often see pictures of partially-flooded areas in Tuvalu. Additional information indicates, however, that the photographs were taken at extreme high tide, and do not indicate rising sea level.

French Guyana and Surinam

From this region, there is a very good tide-gauge record covering three 18.6-year tidal cycles (Fig. 14). The cycles vary symmetrically around a stable, horizontal zero-level. Satellite altimetry gives a rise of 3 mm/year in the same area. Facts and fiction seem to clash.

Figure 14. Changes in mean high-water level (cm: left axis) measured by tide gauges at the coast of French Guyana and Surinam (Gratiot et al., 2008; Mörner, 2010b). The record is dominated by the 18.6-year tidal cycle, which swings up and down around a long-term zero trend (the arrowed line), indicating that sea level has been quite stable over the last 50 years. However, satellite altimetry in the same region gives a rise of 3.0 mm/year – another revealing example of the difference between recorded facts and “reprocessed” satellite data.

Venice

The sea-level record from the tide gauges in Venice shows that there has been no acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise in recent decades (Mörner, 2007c).

North-western Europe

The north-west European region, with uplift over Fennoscandia and subsidence over the North Sea coasts, offers another test region where the global sea-level component can be isolated and identified. Sea level rose 11 cm from 1850-1950, when it stopped rising. It even seems to have fallen somewhat in recent decades, as illustrated by the sea-level record from Cuxhaven (Fig. 3).

Discussion

Tide gauges vs. satellite altimetry

Most tide-gauge records are far too short to provide meaningful information about real trends. In the short term, they are often dominated by segments of cyclic variations (e.g. the main 18.6-year tidal cycle) or large spikes caused by the naturally-occurring El Niño Southern Oscillations every four years or so. However, the tide-gauge records we have mentioned above are all long-term records and are, therefore, useful indications of the trend in sea level.

The map of sea level changes inferred from satellite altimetry in the period 1992-2009, both before and after the data have been “reprocessed” or distorted to take account of purely subjective adjustments as discussed earlier, gives a large high over most of the western Pacific and a low over the equatorial region west of the Americas. This picture fits very badly with available tide-gauge records in both areas. This suggests that there is much still to do in calibrating the satellite altimeters to ensure that they monitor sea-level changes correctly.

Ice melt

For large bodies of ice to melt, time and a substantial input of energy are required. The Last Ice Age ended with an extensive melting of the continental ice caps under extreme climatic forcing, yet sea level rose by little more than 1 cm per year or 1 m per century. The process of melting took 10,000-12,000 years, during which time sea level rose 130 m.

A sea-level rise of 1 cm per year is, in effect, above the maximum rate that can arise today from melting ice and other causes combined (Mörner, 2011b). Today, sea-level rise caused by ice-melt must be significantly below 1 cm a year. It is very useful, however, to have an upper bound on sea-level rise as a yardstick allowing us to discriminate between realistic estimates and much-publicized extreme values that can be discarded as physically impossible.

All claims of a sea-level rise by year 2100 exceeding 1 m (and there are several, including the IPCC’s current maximum of 2 m per century) must be dismissed as impossible.

Thermosteric expansion of seawater

The water column will expand when heated. Only the upper part of the ocean may be heated, however, owing to the strict stratification of the oceanic water masses. The amount of expansion is in the order of centimetres up to a decimetre per century, hardly more (Mörner, 1996, 2011b). A fact often ignored is that as the water depth becomes shallower towards a coast, there is less and less water to expand. At the shore, the effect is zero.

The last interglacial

During the mid-Holocene, 6000-8000 years ago, mean global surface temperature was about 2.5 C° warmer than today. During the last interglacial, ~125,000 years ago, mean surface temperature was 4 C° warmer than today and sea level was generally higher than today.

Figure 15. Rock-cut platform from the Last Interglacial in Hong Kong. The elevation is only 1.5-2 m above the present sea level. Hidden in the adjacent forest is the foot of a steep fossil sea cliff. Therefore, this rock-cut platform is likely to mark the maximum sea level of the last interglacial.

It has sometimes been suggested that if temperature were to rise as the IPCC has projected the Earth might return to the climatic conditions of the last interglacial period, ~125,000 years ago. This has raised new interest in the actual sea level of the last interglacial. It was once generally believed that sea level was some 2-4 m higher than today. There have even been claims that sea level was 7-10 m higher.

The western Mediterranean is widely taken as a reference point for changes in sea level during the last interglacial. In 2010 an international excursion was therefore devoted to field evidence from Sardinia (Carboni & Lecca, 2010; Mörner, 2011c). Two peaks in sea level are well recorded, varying in elevation between +2 and +4 m. No catastrophic sea level rise at the end of the last interglacial can be substantiated. Consequently, there is no reason to hypothesize that any similar event would be likely to occur in our near future.

The same result is evident from the passive continental margins of east South America and Tanzania, where we have worked extensively. Early in 2011 I visited Hong Kong. Here, there is a quite clear rock-cut platform (Fig. 15) from the last interglacial. Its elevation is only ~2 m above today’s sea level, however.

It is a serious mistake to look for horror scenarios in the behaviour of sea level during the last interglacial. When Hansen & Sato (2011) propose a 4 m sea-level rise between 2080 and 2100, they violate the laws of physics, empirical geology and scientific ethics (Mörner, 2011b).

The next solar minimum

The next solar minimum is due in 2040-2050. At all the previous solar minima (e.g. 1440-1460, 1687-1703, 1809-1821), the climatic conditions generated “little Ice Ages” (Mörner, 2010c). Whatever the next Solar Minimum will bring, it will be likely to invalidate all the linear and exponential extrapolations of temperature change in the IPCC’s models.

Conclusions

Observational facts indicate that sea level is by no means rapidly rising. It is quite stable. This is the case in key sites like the Maldives, Bangladesh, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Saint Paul Island, Qatar, French Guyana, Venice, and northwest Europe. Tide gauges tend to exaggerate rising trends because of subsidence and compaction. Full stability over the last 30-50 years is indicated in sites like Tuvalu, India, the Maldives (and also the Laccadives to the north of the Maldives), Venice (after subtracting the subsidence factor), Cuxhaven (after subtracting the subsidence factor), and Korsør (a stable hinge for the last 8 ,000 years).

Satellite altimetry is shown to record variations around a stable zero level for the entire period 1992-2010. Reported trends in the order of 3 mm/year represent “interpretational records,” after the application of subjective “personal calibrations” which cannot be substantiated by observational facts.

Therefore, we can now return to Fig. 1 and claim that the “models” (upper curve) provide an illusory picture of a strong sea-level rise and that the “observations” (lower curve) provide a good reconstruction of the actual changes in sea level over the last 170 years, with stability over the last 40 years.

We can now return to the spectrum of present-day sea level rates (Fig. 2) and evaluate the various values proposed. This is illustrated in Fig. 16. Only rates in the order of 0.0 mm/year to maximum 0.7 mm/year seem realistic. This fits well with the values proposed for year 2100 by INQUA (2000) and Mörner (2004), but differs significantly from the values proposed by the IPCC (2001, 2007).

Figure 16. Reliability of different proposed rates of sea-level rise. The validity of the spectrum of rates of sea-level rise shown in Fig. 2 can now be assessed. Observational facts suggest 0.0 mm/year to at most 0.7 mm/year (<3 in./century). Values >1.3 to 3.4 mm/year are untenable overestimates. Values close to 1 mm/year represent minor centennial rises and falls. This result agrees with estimates of a possible sea level rise of 5 ±15 cm by 2100 (Mörner, 2004) and 10 ±10 cm (INQUA, 2000), but is well below the 37 ±19 cm projected by IPCC (2007).

If sea level is not rising fast, and is not going to rise fast, then the greatest threat imagined by the IPCC disappears. The idea of an ever-rising sea drowning tens of thousands of people and forcing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to become sea-level refugees is simply a grave error, hereby revealed as an illusion.

The true facts are to be found in nature itself. They are certainly not to be found at the modelling consoles. Some data depend heavily on interpretation. Other evidence, however, is clear and straightforward. Consider trees. I have often said that “trees don’t lie”: see e.g. Mörner, 2007c. In that paper, I described the significance of the lonely tree by the shore in the Maldives which indicated that sea level had been stable for 50-60 years. A group of Australian environmental “scientists”, realizing that the location of the tree was fatal to their notion of ever-rising sea level, uprooted it and left it, still in leaf, lying on the strand. There are also the trees on the beach in Sundarban, indicating significant coastal erosion (caused in part by the clearance of mangroves to make way for shrimp-farms) but no sea level rise at all (Mörner, 2007c, 2010a).

I hope that by this research we can free the world from the artificial crisis to which the IPCC has condemned it. There will be no extensive or disastrous global sea-level rise in the near future. That was the main threat in the IPCC’s arsenal of bugaboos, and now it is gone.

Acknowledgements

With deep gratitude, I acknowledge the skilful input into this paper of Christopher Monckton as editor-in-charge. Its origin lay in a paper published in 21st Century Science & Technology (winter 2010/2011, pp. 12-22). Christopher Monckton sensitively extracted the introductory main points, redrew several graphs and asked for additional observational material. Out of this work the present paper emerged. Without the vision and input of my friend Christopher Monckton, the paper would never have appeared, and especially not in this elegant and expressive form. For me, this paper stands out as a Mörner & Monckton contribution. My sincere thanks.

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HE CENTRE for Democracy and Independence conducts research, publishes papers and educates the public and students in schools, youth organizations and institutions of higher learning, providing a non-partisan forum for informed discussion on questions of policy in the United Kingdom and worldwide which may

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