News Flash: Scientists Admit Ignorance

Study: sea level rise acceleration still uncertain, we won’t have statistical certainty until 2020-2030

From Watts Up With That, of course.

The international team of researchers, led by the University of Southampton and including scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, the University of Western Australia, the University of South Florida, the Australian National University and the University of Seigen in Germany, analysed data from 10 long-term sea level monitoring stations located around the world. They looked into the future to identify the timing at which sea level accelerations might first be recognised in a significant manner.

Lead author Dr Ivan Haigh, Lecturer in Coastal Oceanography at the University of Southampton, says:

“Our results show that by 2020 to 2030, we could have some statistical certainty of what the sea level rise situation will look like for the end of the century. That means we’ll know what to expect and have 70 years to plan. In a subject that has so much uncertainty, this gives us the gift of long-term planning.
“As cities, including London, continue to plan for long-term solutions to sea level rise, we will be in a position to better predict the long-term situation for the UK capital and other coastal areas across the planet. Scientists should continue to update the analysis every 5 to 10 years, creating more certainty in long-term planning — and helping develop solutions for a changing planet.”

The study found that the most important approach to the earliest possible detection of a significant sea level acceleration lies in improved understanding (and subsequent removal) of interannual (occurring between years, or from one year to the next) to multidecadal (involving multiple decades) variability in sea level records.

Those pushing the idea of global cooling, global warming, global climate change global climate disruption have long pushed the notion that sea level rise is increasing.  Partly, this plays on the ignorance of the public, who, in general, aren't really cognizant of the fact that sea levels have been rising since the end of the last ice age glacial maximum (much to the chagrin of the former inhabitants of Berengia, Doggerland, and the bottom of the Black Sea), and are prepared to view any rise in  sea level as a new and scary proof that the scientist are on the right track.

Of course, the truth is that sea level has been rising rather consistently since we started keeping tide records, and to a first look at the data, the variability in sea level due to weather and climate overwhelms any signal of increase from recent thermal expansion, or glacial melt:

There are some longer term signals embedded in the data, probably related to longer term climate factors such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation:

I read this abstract as a bow to the fact that the variation of the record, and the foggy nature of the low frequency contribution will make it very difficult to discern a new anthropogenic signature in the record.  Good for the scientists to admit the limits of their science, but it can't be good for their funding prospects.