CLIMATE CHANGE made sea levels FALL in 2010 and 2011( Australia got the Flood )

The Register ^ | 20th August 2013 | Lewis Page

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Global warming and climate change are usually thought to mean that world sea levels will rise, perhaps disastrously. But according to US government boffins, in recent times (2010 and 2011, to be precise) phenomena driven by human carbon emissions have actually caused world sea levels to fall.

The seas have, of course, been rising steadily as the climate has changed for thousands of years, ever since the end of the last ice age. During the 20th century, according to estimates mostly from erratic tide gauges, sea levels rose by around 1.7mm a year. Since the early 1990s, satellites have also been used to measure sea levels, and by contrast have suggested a steady unchanging rise of about 3mm annually - that is, until 2010.

According to a statement issued yesterday by the US National Science Foundation:

For an 18-month period beginning in 2010, the oceans mysteriously dropped by about seven millimeters.

This is pretty wacky, as warming ocean temperatures ought to mean that the oceans expand. Furthermore, there's no disagreement about the fact that the world's ice sheets and glaciers have been steadily melting for a long time - otherwise Europe would still be covered in ice. And there's no reason they'd suddenly stop melting. So how could sea levels actually go down?

In short, it's probably human-caused climate change that did it: specifically the Australian flooding of 2010 and 2011, which is generally thought by climate scientists to be at least partly attributable to rising atmospheric carbon levels caused by human fossil-fuel burning.

"It's a beautiful illustration of how complicated our climate system is," says John Fasullo of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"The smallest continent in the world can affect sea level worldwide."

Australia's dry Outback interior, being ringed to a large extent by coastal mountains, doesn't tend to let go of any rain once it's got some: and in 2010 and 2011, huge amounts of rain fell there. Essentially, an awful lot of the world's oceans turned into clouds and then fell on Australia - and stayed there.

The NSF boffins explain how this came about:

Using a combination of satellite instruments and other tools, the new study finds that the picture in 2010-11 was uniquely complex.

In addition to La Nina, a rare combination of two other semi-cyclic climate modes came together. They drove such large amounts of rain over Australia that the continent received almost one foot (300 millimeters) of rain more than average.

The initial effects of La Niña were to cool surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and push moisture to the west.

A climate pattern known as the Southern Annular Mode then coaxed the moisture into Australia's interior, causing widespread flooding across the continent.

Later in the event, high levels of moisture from the Indian Ocean driven by what's known as the Indian Ocean Dipole collided with La Niña-borne moisture in the Pacific, pushing even more moisture into the continent's interior.

These influences spurred one of the wettest periods in Australia's recorded history.

As for what could have caused such a unique and powerful combination of events, most climatologists - while stressing that unusual things do happen - indicated at the time that the devastating Aussie floods were at least in part down to humanity's carbon emissions, and that it is important to reduce these emissions in order to prevent such happenings. As Australian government Climate Commissioner Will Steffen said after the floods:

The quintessential Australian climatic pattern of intense droughts and flooding rains will still be with us in the future. But the added risks associated with climate change make it even more important that we plan and act on a careful analysis of the risks that climate variability and climate change together bring.

The magnitude of these risks ultimately depends on the effectiveness of global emission reduction efforts, including by Australia. The transition to a clean energy economy, which is gathering speed in many parts of the world, gives us great hope that we can minimise these potential risks.

Obviously Australians won't care to find themselves under water just so that the rest of the world won't be. But for other countries, who are constantly warned of the danger from rising sea levels, it would seem that the 2010-11 climate events were actually a good thing, holding back the waters for them (if only temporarily).

That said, it appears that the world's oceans jumping into the sky and coming down on the Lucky Country may just be one of those things that happens from time to time. Fasullo thinks that a similar set of phenomena may have been seen back in 1973-74, but as today's elaborate climate satellites were not then in space then he can't be sure.

Fasullo and his colleagues' research is due to be published next month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. ®

[Vaquero]

The smell of ripe horse$h!t permeates the lefts climate models. What a crock.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

They get paid well to pump it out!

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Climatologists also note that Antartic ice is forming at a previously unknown fast pace .

[spawn44]

That wasn’t the sea level falling, it was just Chris Christie getting out of the ocean.

[Starstruck]

Go to an ocean front property, erect a house on stilts, pretty soon you will have a yard and beach front property.

[Marine_Uncle]

Now we got oceans jumping into the sky. Sigh...

[TigersEye]

Nice Post! This article can be added to my formula 'sea level rising debunked' post. :-)

-----------------------------------------------------

Claim That Sea Level Is Rising Is a Total Fraud

Sea levels began to rise 18k years ago at the end of the last glacial period. They have risen about 135 meters since then which is an average of 7.5 millimeters per year. That is an average of 750 mm per century (29.5 inches) which is far more than the average over the last century.

From 1880 to 2000 sea level rose about 20 cm or just under 8 inches. Far far less than the nearly 30 inches per century average over the last 18,000 years.

[TigersEye]

On second thought (after reading it) I might add it only as an example of extreme Enviro-Wacko BS. lol

The dipstick that wrote this didn't even get the historical averages right.
Not even close.

[The Great RJ]

The global warming cultists must resort to sophistry and pseudo science to explain why the reality doesn’t match their dogma.

[SunkenCiv]

And, surprise on neither side. The left knows it’s lying.

Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach.

[Berosus]

I take it there’s a big lake where the Australian Outback used to be?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Add "Australian flooding" to the giant list of things caused by global warming . . .

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[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[ApplegateRanch]

30-35 cm in The Outback translates to 7 mm worldwide?!?

And there's no evaporation & wind currents there?

Australia's dry Outback interior, being ringed to a large extent by coastal mountains, doesn't tend to let go of any rain once it's got some: and in 2010 and 2011, huge amounts of rain fell there. Essentially, an awful lot of the world's oceans turned into clouds and then fell on Australia - and stayed there.

So, where's all the accumulated water that has fallen there in times past, let alone this new deluge?

[Fred Nerks]

...While some of the water evaporated in the desert sun, much of it sank into the dry, granular soil of the Western Plateau or filled the Lake Eyre basin in the east...

AUSTRALIA SUCKS UP OCEAN WATERS

Pardon me while I laugh myself silly...those two shallow puddles?

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gallery-e6frg6n6-1225854623381?page=1

Lake Ayre slideshow link

[ApplegateRanch]

Thanks for the link; I’m enjoying the photos.

It reminds me of the range-and-basin country of parts of Nevada & Oregon. sagebrush desert with steep N-S ridges; the basins between collect ephemeral lakes in wet seasons. Sometimes annually, on the western periphery; but usually it’s several years in between wet seasons farther east. It’s in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada & Cascade ranges.