Climate Alarmists Reinterpret Data to Make Sea Level Rise Worse Than It Is

Climate-change activists parading as scientists are at it again: falsifying data in order to show an alarming rise in sea level in the Indian Ocean.

Australian scientists Dr. Albert Parker and Dr. Clifford Ollier detail the scientific skullduggery of the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) in their paper entitled “Is the Sea Level Stable at Aden, Yemen?”

Raw data from three key sea level recording sites in the Indian Ocean — Aden in Yemen, Karachi in Pakistan, and Mumbai in India — show a steady, gentle rise in sea level since monitoring began at the outset of the 20th century.

But the raw data has been “reinterpreted” by the PSMSL to show a dramatic increase in sea level.

Admittedly, the PSMSL has a big job to do. As the keeper of all sea level measurements globally, it is their job to collect data from disparate sources worldwide and come up with sea level trends.

In other words, the PSMSL is responsible for telling us if sea levels are rising, falling, or staying the same. This is a worthy endeavor.

But as Parker and Ollier show in their study, the PSMSL cherry-picks higher sea level readings from the raw data and eschews readings that show lower sea levels.

The effect is to show startling sea level increases instead of a gentle rise, a neutral sea level, or even a falling sea level.

From Parker and Ollier’s study: “Properly examined data from tide gauges and other sources such as coastal morphology, stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, archaeological remains, and historical documentation indicate a lack of any alarming sea level rise in recent decades for all the Indian Ocean.”

The full report can be read here.

In addition to the faulty analysis of the current trends in sea level rise, Parker’s and Ollier’s study shows that data collected for previous time periods (1879-1893 and 1916-1933) have been “corrected” in order to skew the data even more, further exaggerating the claims of a catastrophic sea level rise. Prior studies based on the same datasets come to a vastly different conclusion from PSMSL.

The Pirazzoli Study of 1986 showed that, during the years 1952-1962, the previous trend in sea level rise had actually been reversed so that sea level was basically stagnant.

And the Douglas Study of 1991 showed that sea level had actually fallen -0.3 mm per year from the years 1930-1980. Over those same time periods, the PSMSL’s “corrected” numbers show an increase of +0.52 mm per year.

The “corrected” data, also known as “revised local reference” (RLR) always shows higher sea levels. The PSMSL’s website explains the reason why: “The RLR datum at each station is defined to be approximately 7000mm below mean sea level.”

And PSMSL’s website says, “The RLR datum at each station is defined to be approximately 7000mm below mean sea level, with this arbitrary choice made many years ago in order to avoid negative numbers in the resulting RLR monthly and annual mean values.” (Emphasis added.)

So, PSMSL’s website admits that 1) the RLR data is arbitrary and 2) the choice of 7,000 mm below mean sea-level was made in order to avoid negative numbers. This is hardly the first example of climate alarmists cooking the books.

In February of this year, it was reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used flawed data in order to publish the Karl study, which refuted the phenomenon known as “climate change hiatus,” which states that no global warming had occurred from the years 1998-2013.

The Karl study was one of the key reasons that the Paris Climate Accord was agreed to in 2015. But former NOAA scientist and whistleblower Dr. John Bates claimed that the Karl study was based on misleading and unverified data.

President Trump announced in June that the United States was pulling out of the Paris Accord. This, of course, led to the mainstream media talking-heads predicting the apocalypse. (The United States has not yet withdrawn  from the Paris Accord.)

Climate-change alarmists tell us that a rise in sea level will lead to terrible problems, among them contaminated drinking water, interference with farming, and the threatening of wildlife habitats. Also, cities such as Miami and New Orleans will be flooded out of existence, they say.

And, of course, the only solutions to this quickly approaching ecological Armageddon involve giving up our personal freedoms and national sovereignty to all-knowing socialist governments who have our best interest at heart.

And if you believe that, I have some ocean-front property in Nevada to show you.

An in-depth article on sea level entitled “Sea Level Lies” is available from The New American.

Read more at New American