"A new first-of-its-kind study by Dutch researchers finds no evidence of a global acceleration in sea level rise because of climate change.
"The peer-reviewed paper, 'A Global Perspective on Local Sea Level Changes,' published in the 'Journal of Marine Science and Engineering' last month is the first study to be based on local data taken from coastal sites around the world, rather than on models based on extrapolations.
"The study, which was conducted as an analysis of more than 200 tide-gauge stations worldwide, cuts against the long-standing belief among climate scientists that climate change is leading to rapidly accelerating sea level rise.
"The research, conducted by Dutch researchers Hessel Voortman and Rob de Vos, found that the average rate of sea level rise in 2020 is only around 1.5 millimeters per year, or 15 centimeters per century.
"'This is significantly lower than the 3 to 4 mm/year often reported by climate scientists in scientific literature and the media,' Voortman told independent journalist Michael Shellenberger."~ from the article 'First-of-Its-Kind Study Finds Sea Level Rise Has Not Accelerated Because of Climate Change'"Voortman was shocked that no researcher before had performed an analysis of real-world local data.
“'It is crazy that it had not been done. I started doing this research in 2021 by doing the literature review. Who has done the comparison of the projections with the observations?’"~ from the article 'Blockbuster sea level study may turn climate change orthodoxy on its head'
3 comments:
Their methodology is *highly* flawed; see e.g. https://essopenarchive.org/users/17368/articles/1333505-faulty-science-and-faulty-statistics-can-t-stop-sea-level-acceleration-an-expression-of-concern-regarding-voortman-h-g-de-vos-r-2025-a-global-perspective-on-local-sea-level-changes-journal-of-marine-science-and-engineering-13-9-1641
in particular, they simply ignore a much better source of data - satellite altimetry. It was those data that caused me to change my opinion on climate change - because (for the first time!) there was solid empirical evidence.
That's not to discount a lot of criticism of the mainstream political response to climate change - in general, the response has been anti-capitalist, anti-growth, anti-*human*, and emotionally hysterical.
But this research isn't anything *like* of the caliber that you'd need to overturn the actual satellite measurements taken in the past three decades, which show a statistically significant, accelerating, rise.
@Duncan: Yes, I've read the various objections to the study. Which are criticising it for something it doesn't claim.
It's a study of local data taken from coastal sites around the world, rather than from models—the first time this kind of review has been done, of one of the many ways by which to measure and assess sea-level rise. And it critiques erroneous reports made from that cohort of overhyped data.
So, not flawed at all, simply not trying to do what the critics say it's doing.
@Peter but it's a very bad way of doing what they say they're doing!
I suspect they're right that model-based estimates overstate the near-term risk - and I agree that it'd be much better to base planning on actual measurements.
But! Theirs are not the measurements to use instead. You'd want to incorporate the the other 85% of the coastal data, and *especially* integrate satellite altimetry results. Those really are the gold standard for sea level measurements.
The thing is, we're already doing this, as part of efforts to isolate the influence of vertical land movement on sea level, allowing us to distinguish geological from melting / thermal expansion causes *at a small-scale local level* which is exactly what infrastructure designers should be using. E.g.:
https://os.copernicus.org/articles/17/35/2021/
Perhaps I'm being uncharitable, but I don't think the authors of the original paper are even playing in the same *league* as Oelsmann et al, and I think their approach is like doing astronomy while quietly ignoring the invention of the telescope ;)
Post a Comment