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Criticisms Convince State To Back Off Projections of Dramatic Sea Level RiseState officials still pushing coastal counties to prepare for a one-meter rise By Sara Burrows Feb. 20th, 2012 RALEIGH — State officials are pressuring local governments to plan for a one-meter sea-level rise by 2100, even though many independent scientists have argued the rise is highly unlikely if not impossible. Even though a state advisory panel no longer recommends regulations based on the one-meter projection, local government officials worry that state regulators will try to implement those rules. Such a policy, they say, would have a devastating impact on...

The red line in this image shows the long-term increase in global sea level since satellite altimeters began measuring it in the early 1990s. Since then, sea level has risen by a little more than an inch each decade, or about 3 millimeters per year. While most years have recorded a rise in global sea level, the recent drop of nearly a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter, is attributable to the switch from El Niño to La Niña conditions in the Pacific. The insets show sea level changes in the Pacific Ocean caused by the recent...

Contradictory Studies UN Climate Body Struggling to Pinpoint Rising Sea Levels By Axel Bojanowski Photo Gallery: How High Will Sea Levels Climb? The United Nations' forecast of how quickly global sea levels will rise this century is vital in determining how much money might be needed to combat the phenomenon. But predictions by researchers vary wildly, and the attempt to find consensus has become fractious. Info It is a number which will ultimately establish how billions in taxpayer money will be spent -- and it is one which is the subject of heated debate, both among politicians and scientists. When...

The paper is currently in press at the Journal of Coastal Research and is provided with open access to the full publication. The results are stunning for their contradiction to AGW theories which suggest global warming would accelerate sea level rise during the last century. -edit- Conclusion: Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records. The decelerations that we obtain are opposite in sign and one...

*** Ice sheet structure far different than thought — complicating rising-sea scenarios *** Knowing how the massive ice sheets atop Antarctica and Greenland work is key to predicting how global warming could raise sea levels and flood coastal cities. But a new study upends what scientists thought they knew. It turns out it’s not just ancient snow that makes up the ice sheets, but water deep under the sheets also thaws and refreezes over time. To put it in non-scientific terms, lead scientist Robin Bell told msnbc.com, the study redefines "how squishy" the base of ice sheets can be. "This...

Based on the most current data it appears that 2010 is going to show the largest drop in global sea level ever recorded in the modern era. Since many followers of global warming believe that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, a significant drop in the global sea level highlights serious flaws in the IPCC projections. The oceans are truly the best indicator of climate. The oceans drive the world’s weather patterns. A drop in the ocean levels in a year that is being cited as proof that the global warming has arrived shows that there is still...

California: While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worries about rising seas, his state sinks below the waves. Don't mess with Texas, they say. But California and the nation could follow its lead. Last Wednesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger released a new report based on research compiled by the California Energy Commission claiming that by 2100 San Francisco Bay would be more bay than San Francisco, with Fisherman's Wharf and Treasure Island under the rising waters of climate change. His show-and-tell, which included a new Google Earth application the commission spent $150,000 to help develop, goes a long way toward explaining the once-Golden State's slide...

One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend".

New figures have revealed that sea levels along the coast of Western Australia are rising at a rate double that of the world average. Statistics from Australia's National Tidal Centre show levels have increased by 8.6mm a year off the coast of the state capital Perth. That compares to a global average of just over 3mm. Scientists have said that man-made climate change has played a significant role in the rise. Climatologists have said that a combination of natural variability and man-made pollution have caused sea levels to rise around the world. Double trouble For much of the past century...

JUNEAU, Alaska — Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat. Morgan DeBoer, a property owner, opened a nine-hole golf course at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998, on land that was underwater when his family first settled here 50 years ago. “The highest tides of the year would come into what is now my driving range area,” Mr. DeBoer said. Now, with the high-tide...

The 2007 melt extent on the Greenland ice sheet broke the 2005 summer melt record by 10 percent, making it the largest ever recorded there since satellite measurements began in 1979, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder climate scientist. The melting increased by about 30 percent for the western part of Greenland from 1979 to 2006, with record melt years in 1987, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2005 and 2007, said CU-Boulder Professor Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Air temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet have increased by about 7 degrees Fahrenheit since...

Interview with Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner.June 22, 2007 EIR Economics 33Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden. He is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, and leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project. Dr. Mörner has been studying the sea level and its effects on coastal areas for some 35 years. He was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on June 6 for EIR.EIR: I would like to start with a little bit about your background, and some of the commissions and research groups you've...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - More than 1 billion people live in low-lying areas where a sudden surge in sea level could prove as disastrous as the 2004 Asian tsunami, according to new research presented on Thursday. New mapping techniques show how much land would be lost and how many people affected by rapid sea level rises that are often triggered by storms and earthquakes, a U.S. Geological Survey-led team determined. E. Lynn Usery, who led the team, said nearly one-quarter of the world's population lives below 100 feet above sea level -- the size of the biggest surge during the...

LAWRENCE, Kan. - In a cramped laboratory, graduate student Nazia Ahmed tinkers with a radar system that will soon withstand some of the harshest conditions on Earth. Across campus, Richard Hale is putting the final touches on a model of an unmanned aerial vehicle that will eventually carry Ahmed's contraption over the polar ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Together, the University of Kansas researchers are part of a team at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, where they are developing new technology and computer models to measure and predict sea level changes resulting from the melting of...

OSLO (Reuters) - The world's oceans may rise up to 140 cms (4 ft 7 in) by 2100 due to global warming, a faster than expected increase that could threaten low-lying coasts from Florida to Bangladesh, a researcher said on Thursday. "The possibility of a faster sea level rise needs to be considered when planning adaptation measures such as coastal defenses," Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research wrote in the journal Science. His study, based on air temperatures and past sea level changes rather than computer models, suggested seas could rise by 50-140 cms by 2100,...

The Greenland ice sheet is melting three times faster today than it was five years ago, according to a new study. The finding adds to evidence of increased global warming in recent years and indicates that melting polar ice sheets are pushing sea levels higher, the authors report. According to the study, Greenland ice loss now amounts to more than 48 cubic miles (200 cubic kilometers) each year. "Significant melting has a significant impact on sea level rise," said Jianli Chen, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin who led the study. The finding, reported today by...

Published online: 23 March 2006 | doi:10.1038/news060320-8 Warnings rise over rising seas Fresh predictions about climate change prompt news@nature.com to ask what we know about the future of our oceans. Michael Hopkin Greenland is melting: water streams from glaciers in the south. © Science/Courtesy of Richard B. Alley The polar ice caps may melt far faster under the pressure of global warming than experts previously thought. New predictions suggest that, without efforts to curb the rise of greenhouse gases, the world's ice sheets could retreat farther by the year 2100 than they have in the past 130,000 years, leading to...

Time for some common sense when rebuilding after Katrina. We have just witnessed an extreme case of incompetence from bottom to top in the Katrina rescue operations in New Orleans. We must insist these bureaucracies require any property that is to be re-built, it must be raised to above sea level. Those destroyed need the ground level raised above sea level far enough that it will not settle below sea level during the life expectancy of the building. The properties not flooded this time can be restored. In California, every time a building needs to be rebuilt or property redeveloped...

Ancient Rome's fish pens confirm sea-level fears 09:30 16 August 04 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. Coastal fish pens built by the Romans have unexpectedly provided the most accurate record so far of changes in sea level over the past 2000 years. It appears that nearly all the rise in sea level since Roman times has happened in the past 100 years, and is most likely the result of human activity. Sea-level change is a measure of the relative movement between land and sea surfaces. Tide-gauge records show that the sea level has...

Ancient plumbing warns that all is not well with rising sea levels FEARS that global warming is causing sea levels to rise are one of the main concerns about climate change. But prior to the 19th century, when measurements began, little was known about trends in sea level. Now Dorit Sivan, of the University of Haifa in Israel, and his colleagues may have changed all that with their study of ancient plumbing. In a paper soon to be published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters the team describe evidence from abandoned wells in the ancient Mediterranean town of...