The World According To Measurements - 5

Fig. 1 SLC is giving new meaning to "high tide"

It seems that the discipline Physics should contain less myth than some of the other disciplines in science.

Perhaps that is because it is based on arithmetic, mathematics, algebra, trigonometry, geometry, quantum mechanics, and related hard sciences.

But, when it comes to the physics of sea level science that is not always the case--if we consider the case of Woodward 1888, a case somewhat similar to Semmelweis 1865 (in the sense or nonsense of ignoring published scientific papers).

Woodward is evidently the first scientist to add robust concepts of physics a la Newton to sea level change science:

To our knowledge, Woodward (1888) was the first to demonstrate that the rapid melting of an ice sheet would lead to a geographically variable sea level change. Woodward (1888) assumed a rigid, non-rotating Earth, and therefore self-gravitation of the surface load was the only contributor to the predicted departure from a geographically uniform (i.e. eustatic) sea level rise. This departure was large and counter-intuitive. Specifically, sea level was predicted to fall within ∼2000 km of a melting ice sheet, and to rise with progressively higher amplitude at greater distances. The physics governing this redistribution is straightforward.

(The Warming Science Commentariat). At least Woodward was not committed to an insane asylum like Semmelweis was (for challenging conventional, but erroneous, dogmatic "science").

But, Woodward was ignored, at least until Mitrovica et al. (see video below) closely studied his work.

Not only did Mitrovica not ignore Woodward, he improved immensely upon Woodward's work, while at the same time giving Woodward credit for his work.

These three recent papers  (Revisiting the Earth's sea-level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008, Church, et al., 2011; Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century, Church; and Understanding sea-level rise and variability, Church JA, Woodworth PL, Aarup T, Wilson SW (eds), 2010) ignored Woodward.

In those papers the word "gravity" is not mentioned as an agent of sea level change, which was a central issue in Woodward 1888.

Gravity is mentioned, if at all, only as it has an impact on GRACE satellite sensing of gravity changes over Greenland and/or Antarctica, in terms of that being an indication of an ice sheet melting.

Thus, they are left to thrash around trying to fill the missing Woodward Mitrovica gap with hot air hypotheses about thermal expansion on steroids.

Meanwhile, the ghost of physics haunts them (The Ghost-Water Constant - 4) and the thermal expansion rabbit hole fools them (Questionable "Scientific" Papers - 13), even though the case is clear (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19).

One paper did consider "gravitational changes resulting from dam storage," but the sea level change ghost in plain sight was not observed or considered (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Things may be changing.

Regular reader Mark posted a link recently that is another indicator that research may be breaking loose from the myth (NASA discovers a new mode of ice loss in Greenland – “Intense melting such as we saw in 2010 and 2012 is without precedent”,  "Our mass transport wave measurement is the first of its kind, on any of the major outlet glaciers of either Greenland or Antarctica"; AGU, same paper).

Less intense, but more "Earth shaking" was a study that simply looked at old WWII photos and more recent satellite photos to discover that the dogma "East Antarctica is stable and won't melt" is falsified (Antarctica 2.0, 2).

Enjoy the video below if you want to not only see the ghost, but also learn of the fingerprints it leaves.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Dr. Mitrovica I presume:

08:00 The use of global mean average has led us astray for 100 years.
15:20 Taking the average assumes the imaginary bathtub model.
16:30 It is completely wrong.
21:00 100m of SLF @ Greenland's coast when all ice sheet is gone.
26:40 The Dutch government did not understand the scenario.
28:40 When the ice sheet melts, all the water is distributed in 2 weeks.
29:30 It is error to say that SLF is due only to the land rising.

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