In this post I'm getting back to looking at Dave 'NC-20' Burton's narrative. We've been having a bit of a debate over at the comments section of WUNC's article by Dave Dewitt titled, "The Changing Carolina Coast: Managing the Threat of Rising Water." Dave jumps around a lot so I'm focusing on specific quotes. In this case I want to answer some of his responses to my previous post.
In that write up I included many links to sources indicating observed accelerating sea level rise, but NC-20 keeps trying to drag attention back to the last century and what he fancies "insignificant" sea level rise. He also makes much of "no coastal Sea Level acceleration," but he leaves out all the details since they would undermine his claims. I chose to look at those details and learn. In this post along with my commentary I'll be sharing authoritative sources so the interested can learn and decide for themselves.
Consider our Earth as a real physical entity, it's cryosphere (glaciers, sea ice) have been in a stable condition for the past few thousands of years, since the end of the last ice age. The documented warming of the past century acted to soften up and fracture that ice mass, like a block of ice left on a warm sidewalk. Of course melting (and water contribution) is slow during these initial phases of warming! That's no cause for ignoring what is happening this century.
Perhaps his biggest deception is making an issue of the stately rate of sea level rise during the last century, then pretending it's a guide to this century. Such deliberate misperceptions needs to be confronted.
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NC-20 Burton writes: Thank you, CC for the links, and for verifying what I told you, even if you apparently didn't read it.
NC-20 Burton writes: Thank you, CC for the links, and for verifying what I told you, even if you apparently didn't read it.
I wrote, "DavidAppell, do you now agree that that graph (of sea-level at Brest, France) shows "no apparent acceleration" since the turn of the 20th century? However, if you use the data all the way back to 1807, there is acceleration, because the rate of sea-level rise accelerated slightly in the late 19th century. Here's the spreadsheet ... Here's the chart …"
For comparison, here's a quote from the Wöppelmann et al paper that you cited:
"Both instrumental records show a roughly coincident increase in the rate of relative sea-level rise around the end of the 19th century."
As you can see, we agree.
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"accelerated slightly" - slightly???
Also, please notice, it was no up-tick followed by a drop. It's been relentlessly uphill ever since. Thus NC-20 is left with nit-picking the "acceleration rate" during the previous century with all his might. All the while doing his best to ignore the observed acceleration in our 21st century.
26:00 min. - GRAPH - Global Trend Sea Level, (Reconstruction from EMD residuals)
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