One Foot Or More Sea Level Change

What Goes Up And Down At the Same Time?

I. Academic Ups And Downs

Let's take a look at global average sea level change of one foot rise and one foot fall at tide gauge stations and seaports.

The main idea in this post is to criticize the common error known as "the bathtub model" of the ocean.

That is derived by taking the average sea level rise from, for example, satellite measurements which indicate that "the ocean sea level rose 3.4 millimeters this year".

Professor Mitrovica, in the video below, says that "understanding" and that technique is flawed: 

"By taking the average you're assuming something. And you're assuming it implicitly. You're assuming what we call the bathtub model. If an ice sheet melts ... you're assuming that sea level will rise uniformly if an ice sheets melts. That isn't even close to being true."

(see video below). Regular readers  know that the "Bathtub model" and the "Thermal expansion causes most sea level rise" myths have been criticized for years here on Dredd Blog (The Bathtub Model Doesn't Hold Water, 2, 3, 4, 5, The Warming Science Commentariat, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

The oil industry started these and other myths to cover up the reality and seriousness of both sea level rise and sea level fall (Proof of Concept - 3). 

II. The Concept of Evidence

Today's sea level change appendices contain the following data in HTML tables:

Station Link Country (Zone)

Begin Year

End Year

Begin RLR

End RLR

Change (feet)

Change (mmYr)

High (mmYr)

The first column "Station Link" is an URL to the PSMSL tide gauge station data, the second column "Begin Year" indicates the year that station began recording sea level changes, the third column "End Year" indicates the year that station last sent sea level change numbers to PSMSL, the fourth column "Begin RLR" is the sea level reading for the first year that station began sending data to PSMSL, the fifth column "End RLR" is the sea level reading for the last year that station sent PSMSL their latest sea level reading, the sixth column ""Change (feet) is the number of feet the RLR millimeter value equates to, the seventh column "Change (mmYr)" indicates the average number of millimeters of sea level change which has taken place at that station, and the final column "High (mmYr)" indicates the highest RLR change that took place at that station during a one-year period.

The impact noted at evidence recording stations and at sea ports is instructive.

Furthermore, realizing that a foot of sea level change not only can take place, and that it already has taken place, counsels our subconscious denial that it is still taking place.

III. Closing Comment

Thus, that evidence is contained in today's appendices (Ports 1+, SLF 1+, SLR 1+).

---

---