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Post by steve on Feb 22, 2010 16:07:37 GMT
I've seen this interview many times before, and I don't believe he's ever put his claims to the test in a scientific article of any shape or form.
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Post by woodstove on Feb 22, 2010 17:07:08 GMT
I've seen this interview many times before, and I don't believe he's ever put his claims to the test in a scientific article of any shape or form. This just in from our correspondent in Devon: Morner has never published.
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Post by steve on Feb 22, 2010 17:49:36 GMT
Sceptic comprehension failure Mörner has published lots of papers. I was not aware of any that validate the claims *expressed in his interview*. In the past, I've asked and got silence. I was particularly interested in his earth rotation argument. As it happens, I looked again and found one where most of his citations were for himself, and none were for papers that disagreed with his view. That's not real science. Global and Planetary Change Volume 40, Issues 1-2, January 2004, Pages 49-54 Global Climate Changes during the Late Quaternary doi:10.1016/S0921-8181(03)00097-3 Estimating future sea level changes from past records Nils-Axel Mörner His "earth rotation" argument in this paper is for a sea level rise of no more than 1.1mm per year between 1850 and 1930, which is about twice the value in the 4th AR (Figure 5.13). So not much to his case there. It would also seem that the people in charge of the satellite altimetry projects weren't too impressed with his analysis of the satellite data, not least because he didn't say how he'd sourced the data. He ignored a number of papers that disagreed with his plot, including a number that pointed out some errors in the version of the graph that he appeared to have used: doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2006.08.002 Comment on “Estimating future sea level change from past records” by Nils-Axel Mörner R.S. Nerem et al
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Post by woodstove on Feb 22, 2010 18:05:44 GMT
Hi Steve,
Just going by your words here.
I think we've established that you are not impressed with Mörner's scientific output. I would like to get a baseline, nonetheless, on just how shoddy you view his work to be. Do you accept his measurements of sea level in and around the Maldives? Do you reject his statement that sea level has not risen there in 30-plus years?
Harold
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Post by steve on Feb 22, 2010 18:27:09 GMT
I'm not knowledgeable about the Maldives. Do you accept that many of his former co-workers on the sea level project do not support his views?
With regard to general sea level rise, the recent posts above show that the Argo and GRACE data are beginning to provide additional confirmation to the satellite altimetry data, which suggests that the longer term satellite trend of 3.1mm per year is real. It sounds unlikely that the Maldives would be different given their position in the open ocean.
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Post by woodstove on Feb 22, 2010 18:49:10 GMT
I'm not knowledgeable about the Maldives. Do you accept that many of his former co-workers on the sea level project do not support his views? With regard to general sea level rise, the recent posts above show that the Argo and GRACE data are beginning to provide additional confirmation to the satellite altimetry data, which suggests that the longer term satellite trend of 3.1mm per year is real. It sounds unlikely that the Maldives would be different given their position in the open ocean. I've spoken to a couple of scientists about him. Like you, they launched ad-hominem attacks on the man. Not one has said he mis-measured sea level in the Maldives, though. Do you agree that if the globe were warming due to natural causes that sea level would rise in the same fashion that TOPEX says it is? Also, just so you're aware, coral atolls have existed for a very long time, surviving several glaciations and interglacial periods. They lift themselves up with the rising waters without problem (even when the waters are rising at a very impressive clip such as at the end of the Younger Dryas). The current sea level rise is, within the Holocene and past interglacials, unremarkable. Finally, there is no observed acceleration in the rate of rise during our (extremely brief) instrumental record.
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Post by steve on Feb 22, 2010 20:51:57 GMT
I'm not knowledgeable about the Maldives. Do you accept that many of his former co-workers on the sea level project do not support his views? With regard to general sea level rise, the recent posts above show that the Argo and GRACE data are beginning to provide additional confirmation to the satellite altimetry data, which suggests that the longer term satellite trend of 3.1mm per year is real. It sounds unlikely that the Maldives would be different given their position in the open ocean. I've spoken to a couple of scientists about him. Like you, they launched ad-hominem attacks on the man. Not one has said he mis-measured sea level in the Maldives, though. Like many sceptics you don't understand what ad hominem means. I might not think much of his critical thinking skills based on his belief in water dowsing, but all my comments above are substantiated comments about his work. Do you think it is good science to make a claim in a paper that satellites show no sea level rise without citing all the many papers that say satellites do show sea level rise? Including those papers that show the analysis you intend to use may be faulty? It is a curious fact that even the open ocean is not flat, and can fall in some places while rising in others, even when measured over long periods. This analysis though suggests that trends are likely positive at the Maldives. staff.acecrc.org.au/~johunter/Church_et_al_2006_published.pdfIndeed. And since the Eemian saw a number of periods where sea levels rose 1 metre within less than 100 years, a sea level rise like that happening now might also be regarded as "unremarkable". Unfortunate for some though.
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Post by woodstove on Feb 22, 2010 22:04:38 GMT
Steve writes: "Indeed. And since the Eemian saw a number of periods where sea levels rose 1 metre within less than 100 years, a sea level rise like that happening now might also be regarded as 'unremarkable'. Unfortunate for some though."
And such a rise at present would be distinguishable from natural variation how?
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Post by woodstove on Feb 22, 2010 23:59:29 GMT
Mörner's response is in Global and Planetary Change, Volume 62, Issues 3-4, June 2008.
It can be summarized as follows:
1. It was unusual, and rude, for the Nerem comment on his earlier work to have been made without the chance for written response. "This comment was never presented to me for responding comments. I never saw the comment until in print."
2. Satellite-derived sea-level readings are an interpretive dance, at best: "Satellite altimetry instrumental readings (P/T-A, P/T-B, Jason) are in need of technical adjustments in order to provide an 'instrumental record'. This record gives no rise in sea level (Mörner, 2004, Fig. 2;MEDIAS, 2000; Aviso, 2000), or at the most a very slight rise of <0.5 mm/yr (Mörner, 2007, Fig. 5; cf. Aviso, 2003, 2008). The group commenting (Nerem et al., 2007) on my paper (Mörner, 2004), argue for additional 'calibrations'. All those 'calibrations' are of quite subjective nature and very strongly debated. What they are driving for is therefore, in fact, an 'interpretational record' — not a measured record. That is exactly the difference in our graphs. And I argue that my graph fits the geological data base much better that their 'interpretative record' does."
So, Steve, your claim that Mörner hasn't defended his position in a peer-reviewed publication has been falsified.
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Post by poitsplace on Feb 23, 2010 6:57:23 GMT
Also, just so you're aware, coral atolls have existed for a very long time, surviving several glaciations and interglacial periods. They lift themselves up with the rising waters without problem (even when the waters are rising at a very impressive clip such as at the end of the Younger Dryas). The current sea level rise is, within the Holocene and past interglacials, unremarkable. Finally, there is no observed acceleration in the rate of rise during our (extremely brief) instrumental record. Indeed, the increased rate of sea level rise is likely just like the other times it has risen a bit faster...because it occurred during a naturally warming period. Now that we haven't warmed significantly in a while, the rate of rise has decreased again...and this is likely to continue. As you pointed out about corals, they are capable of surviving far greater sea level rises than we've seen and certainly far greater than any projected (including Al Gore's idiotic thawed greenland projections). Corals already grow at rates significantly higher than the observed rates of sea level rise and if they don't they're already under water and just a few centimeters deeper (per century). Also, no species suffers significant ill effects from "acidification" at any reasonable projected levels. Harmful (to some) "acidification" would require that we burn more fossil fuels than we think exist in the first place.
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Post by steve on Feb 23, 2010 10:30:41 GMT
Mörner's response is in Global and Planetary Change, Volume 62, Issues 3-4, June 2008. It can be summarized as follows: 1. It was unusual, and rude, for the Nerem comment on his earlier work to have been made without the chance for written response. "This comment was never presented to me for responding comments. I never saw the comment until in print." 2. Satellite-derived sea-level readings are an interpretive dance, at best: "Satellite altimetry instrumental readings (P/T-A, P/T-B, Jason) are in need of technical adjustments in order to provide an 'instrumental record'. This record gives no rise in sea level (Mörner, 2004, Fig. 2;MEDIAS, 2000; Aviso, 2000), or at the most a very slight rise of <0.5 mm/yr (Mörner, 2007, Fig. 5; cf. Aviso, 2003, 2008). The group commenting (Nerem et al., 2007) on my paper (Mörner, 2004), argue for additional 'calibrations'. All those 'calibrations' are of quite subjective nature and very strongly debated. What they are driving for is therefore, in fact, an 'interpretational record' — not a measured record. That is exactly the difference in our graphs. And I argue that my graph fits the geological data base much better that their 'interpretative record' does." So, Steve, your claim that Mörner hasn't defended his position in a peer-reviewed publication has been falsified. You are always interested in winning tactical debating points. I've already said that I've now found the papers *by myself*. It seems that most sceptics just assume that his interview claims must be based on solid science, so I have to do my own digging. He actually says he didn't get chance to respond to the comment because he'd changed address. That implies that they did contact him. *You* are the one interpreting them to have been rude. It doesn't matter if he doesn't think the expert analysis of the altimetry data is correct or not. He should at the very least cite opposing views in his papers, particularly when it comes from the teams that set up and run the satellites. That's normal science. The adjustments are not "strongly debated" by Axel-Mörner, because he just puts forward his own view and attempts to shut out the opposition.
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Post by steve on Feb 23, 2010 10:37:40 GMT
Steve writes: "Indeed. And since the Eemian saw a number of periods where sea levels rose 1 metre within less than 100 years, a sea level rise like that happening now might also be regarded as 'unremarkable'. Unfortunate for some though." And such a rise at present would be distinguishable from natural variation how? Since ice melts when it warms, the risk of such an incident may rise if temperatures rise. We do not really know how stable the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets really are.
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Post by northsphinx on Feb 23, 2010 15:58:38 GMT
Another forgotten study that show a rather unexpected state in ocean dynamics and heat content: www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/story07_11_02.html"El Niño has always been associated with warming of tropical Pacific surface waters and global temperatures. However, new research publishing in the journal Science shows that conditions resembling El Niño were the norm during the last ice age, 18,000 plus years ago, when global temperatures were dramatically cooler than they are today"
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Post by jurinko on Feb 23, 2010 22:28:56 GMT
You gotta love the KNMI site. Sea level Atlantic Sea level Pacific Sea level Indian And global
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Post by Ratty on Feb 24, 2010 2:11:22 GMT
Is there any reliable research done on the effects of tectonics on sea levels?
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