Sea Level Not Rising

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SEA LEVEL IS NOT RISING

byProfessor Nils-Axel Mrner

SPPIREPRINT SERIES December 6, 2012


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Sea level is not risingProfessor Nils-Axel Mrner

Copyright Nils-Axel MrnerMMXI


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The author

Nils-Axel Mrner took his Ph.D. in 1969, becoming associate professor in

Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University that year. He conducted hispostdoctoral research in Canada and was then employed by the Swedish Research

Council.

He was awarded a personal associate professorship at the Institute for

Palaeogeophysics & Geodynamics, which from 1991 became a special research

institute at Stockholm University. As head of the unit, he addressed a variety of

geological and geophysical problems.

He organized two major international conferences: Earth Rheology, Isostasy and

Eustasyin 1977, and Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis in 1983.

Professor Mrner has led several international field excursions throughout

Sweden. Overseas, he was President of the INQUA Commission on Neotectonics

(1981-1989) and President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and

Coastal Evolution (1999-2003). He headed the INTAS Project on Geomagnetism

and Climate from 1997-2003.

In 2000, he launched an international research project on sea level in the Maldives.

Among his numerous publications (this paper is his 547th in a 42-year career) are

studies on the following

the interaction between isostasy and eustasy;

the oscillating regional eustatic curve of NW Europe;

the changing concept of the geoid;

the redefinition of the concept of eustasy;

the dynamic-rotational redistribution of oceanic water masses;

the interchange of angular momentum between the Earths hydrosphere

and lithosphere;

a new sea-level curve in the Maldives (showing no sea-level rise);

a new sea-level study in the Sundarban delta of Bangladesh.

In 2008, at an international meeting on sea level in Portugal, Professor Mrner

was awarded the Golden Chondrite of Merit from the University of the Algarve

for his irreverence and his contribution to our understanding of sea-level change.

Nils-Axel Mrner 3


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4 Sea level is not rising

Sea level is not risingProfessor Nils-Axel Mrner

Main points

At most, global average sea level is rising at a rate equivalent to 2-3 inches per century. It is probably

not rising at all.

Sea level is measured both by tide gauges and, since 1992, by satellite altimetry. One of the keepers

of the satellite record told Professor Mrner that the record had been interfered with to show sea level

rising, because the raw data from the satellites showed no increase in global sea level at all.The raw data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON sea-level satellites, which operated from 1993-2000,

shows a slight uptrend in sea level. However, after exclusion of the distorting effects of the Great El

Nio Southern Oscillation of 1997/1998, a naturally-occurring event, the sea-level trend is zero.

The GRACE gravitational-anomaly satellites are able to measure ocean mass, from which sea-level

change can be directly calculated. The GRACE data show that sea level fell slightly from 2002-2007.

These two distinct satellite systems, using very different measurement methods, produced raw data

reaching identical conclusions: sea level is barely rising, if at all.

Sea level is not rising at all in the Maldives, the Laccadives, Tuvalu, India, Bangladesh, French

Guyana, Venice, Cuxhaven, Korsr, Saint Paul Island, Qatar, etc.

In the Maldives, a group of Australian environmental scientists uprooted a 50-year-old tree by the

shoreline, aiming to conceal the fact that its location indicated that sea level had not been rising. This

is a further indication of political tampering with scientific evidence about sea level.

Modelling is not a suitable method of determining global sea-level changes, since a proper evaluation

depends upon detailed research in multiple locations with widely-differing characteristics. The true

facts are to be found in nature itself.

Since sea level is not rising, the chief ground of concern at the potential effects of anthropogenic

global warming that millions of shore-dwellers the world over may be displaced as the oceansexpand is baseless.

We are facing a very grave, unethical sea-level-gate.


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ForewordBy The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

IT IS with particular pleasure that I commend to the reader this revised and updated version of

Professor Niklas Mrners recent paper on sea level, originally published in 21st-Century Science and

Technology.

In the dialogue des sourds about the climate, there are two schools of thought. On the one hand lurk the

computer modellers, who, relying upon their X-Box 360s and Playstations, luridly and profitably predict

anthropogenic apocalypse. On the other stand the scientists old-fashioned enough and careful enough

to observe, to measure and then to think. Most of these do not subscribe to the Doomsters Union.Professor Mrner is in the latter category.

On a recent visit to Bangladesh with others who called themselves experts, Professor Mrner alone took

the trouble to climb up and down 100 feet to calibrate his GPS altimeter accurately. He found that sea

level in Bangladesh had fallen somewhat. He has clambered over the glaciers that others merely model.

He has caught out Australian environmentalists uprooting a tree on the Maldivian shoreline whose

location had demonstrated no sea level rise for half a century.

Above all, as this revealing paper shows, the Professor has heard the keepers of the global satellite

altimetry record of sea-level rise admitting nay, proclaiming that they had tilted the sea-level recordfor the entire satellite era to make it show a rate of increase, for the raw data from the satellites show no

sea-level rise at all.

As Professor Mrner often points out in his lectures, if there is little or no sea-level rise there is little or

nothing to worry about even if the world warms as fast as the profiteers of doom would have us believe.

The sea-level scare is the big one: and, as the Professor demonstrates in this admirably clear, concise and

yet comprehensive paper, it is just that a big scare, and a baseless one.

The implications of this fabricated scare for the future of democracy are already evident in the hikes in

taxes, fuel prices and energy bills that the European Union and its satraps in the Department of ClimateChange are ruthlessly imposing. As King Charles I said on the scaffold, Liberty and freedom consists

in having of government those laws by which the peoples life and goods may be most their own.

Nils-Axel Mrner 5


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Predatory pricing mandated by the State, combined with confiscatory taxation, conspire to take away the

peoples goods, and hence to diminish their economic democracy their right to decide for themselves

how to spend what is theirs.

I first met Professor Mrner at a debate on the climate at the St. Andrews University Union the oldestundergraduate debating union in Britain in the spring of 2009. The Professors witty, eclectic and

relentlessly charming speech captivated the House. It was not difficult to see why the citation for the

award to him of the Gold Chondrite of Merit the previous year at an international sea-level conference

at the University of the Algarve had spoken not only of his contribution to understanding of sea level

but also of his irreverence. The undergraduates loved it.

When a true-believer in the New Religion of global warming got up and sneeringly advised the

Professor to see if he could get his ideas about sea level published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal,

his answer won us the debate: Madame President, I do apologize that in a 40-year career I have only

published 530 papers [now 547] in the peer-reviewed literature, most of them about sea level, but in the

light of the Hon. Gentlemans strictures I will undertake to try harder in future.

The House collapsed in helpless laughter, and the St. Andrews University Union was the first student

audience in Britain to vote global warming down. Professor Mrner has been as good as his word: as

the extensive references in this paper show, his recent publication record would be envied by a younger

man.

Professor Mrner writes as charmingly and as accessibly and as he speaks. His paper demands no prior

scientific knowledge. It demonstrates the growing disparity between results obtained the old, hard way

by going out into the field and taking careful observations and measurements and the mere silly

computer games of the modellers, without which there would be no global warming panic pandemic.

When the climate scare is over and it is already well on its way out the Professor will be remembered

as one of a tiny handful of scientists who had the courage, integrity and independence of mind to stand

against the prevailing political tide and to demonstrate that the real tide is not rising dangerously, if at

all.

The true facts, the Professor concludes, are to be found in nature itself.

Monckton of Brenchley

Carie, Rannoch, Scotland

February 2011


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Introduction

IN an interview and paper published in 21stCentury Science and Technologyin 2007, I showed that global

sea level is not rising alarmingly. Yet a rapid and perhaps dangerous sea-level rise is the main threat inthe scenario offered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If sea level is not rising

at a high rate, there is no serious threat and no real problem.

In subsequent papers, I continued to present new data demonstrating that sea level is stable. In Mrner,

2007b, our field observational database from the Maldive Islands was described in detail. A new study

in Bangladesh was published in 2010 (Mrner, 2010a). New data with respect to general sea level changes

were published in a further paper (Mrner, 2010b). Also, my short sea-level booklet The Greatest Lie

Ever Told(Mrner, 2007c) was updated in new editions in 2009 and 2010.

Here I will investigate the rates of sea level changes projected by the IPCC and others.Fig. 1 illustrates the differences between the IPCC models and the observational facts. After 1965, the two

curves start to diverge significantly (the area marked with a question mark). This paper will highlight the

differences and examine the question what data we should trust and what we should discard.

Nils-Axel Mrner

Figure 1. Modelled and observed sea-level changes, 1840-2010. The curve marked Models represents the IPCCs

combination of selected tide-gauge records and corrected satellite altimetry data. The curve marked Observations

represents the observed eustatic sea level changes in the field up to 1960 according to Mrner (1973) and (in this paper)

thereafter. After 1965, the two curves start to diverge, presenting two totally different views, separated by the area with

the question mark. Which of these views is tenable?

Fig. 2 shows the spectrum of present-day sea level estimates. The projected rates of sea-level rise rangefrom 0.0 to 3.2 mm per year. Obviously, not all these rates are correct. I will try to straighten out the

question mark in Fig. 1 by undertaking a critical examination of the rates given in Fig. 2.

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From the coasts of French Guyana and Surinam there is a very excellent sea-level record covering multiple

18.6-year tidal cycles (Gratiot et al., 2008). It exhibits variations around a stable zero level over the last

50 years (Mrner, 2010b). For the same area, satellite altimetry gives a sea level rise of 3.0 mm/year. This

casts clear doubt on the satellite altimetry value, as discussed further below.

The sea-level record from Venice may be used as a test area for global eustasy. Subtracting the subsidence

factor, the Venetian record reveals no rise of eustatic origin, no acceleration whatsoever in the last

decades; instead, it shows a sea levelfallingaround 1970 (Mrner, 2007ac).

The north-west European coasts are interesting because here we have sites that are experiencing both

uplift and subsidence. The tide gauge at Korsr in the Great Belt (the strait between the main Danish

islands of Zeeland and Funen), for example, is located at the hinge between uplift and subsidence for the

last 8,000 years. This tide gauge shows no sea-level rise in the last 50-60 years.

Figure 3. Cuxhaven tide-gauge record (cm), 1843-2003. The gray area gives the actual tide-gauge reading for the

German North Sea port of Cuxhaven for 1843-2003that is, for 160 years. A polynomial curve was fitted by Jrn Herold

to this tide-gauge record. Adding the eustatic component of Mrner (1973) for the period 1840-1970, gives a straight line

of subsidence with a rate of 1.4 mm/year. The eustatic component (the difference between the polynomial curve and the

linear trend) can now be extended up to 2003, and it shows a halt in the sea-level rise at around 1960, followed by a

continuous fall until 2003; that is, a trend totally different from that proposed by the IPCC models but in full agreement

with the observational facts recorded in Fig. 1.

The tide gauge in Amsterdam, installed in 1682, is the oldest in the world. Superimposing the subsidence

record here on the uplift record from the Stockholm tide gauge, I was able to isolate a eustatic factor for

1680-1970 (Mrner, 1973), showing a centennial rise of 11 cm from 1830-1840 to 1930-1940. In that

100-year period, the Earths rate of rotation decelerated at a value which corresponds to a 10-cm sea-level

rise (see, e.g., Mrner, 1996). Consequently, there is a very good fit between sea-level rise and rotational

deceleration, which seems to provide a measure of a global sea-level factor (the polynomial curve with

respect to the linear trend-line in Fig. 3).

Cuxhaven, on the German coast, has a tide gauge dating back to 1843, in an area that represents the

subsiding segment of the North Sea coasts. Fig. 3 shows the annual mean values for 160 years, with a long-term trend polynomial fitted to it (Herold, personal communication). This polynomial curve gives a

slightly sinusoidal rising trend that represents the mean relative sea level changes in the area. Adding to

Nils-Axel Mrner


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this the eustatic component of the northwestern European region (Mrner, 1973), we get partly the local

rate of subsidence (the straight line), and partly the eustatic component, extended up to the present and

double-checked for the pre-1970 section (the difference between the polynomial curve and the straight line).

The regional eustatic sea level change decelerates after 1930-1940, becomes flat around 1950-1970, andfalls from 1970 up to the present. This provides firm evidence that sea level is not rising at all rapidly

today: rather, there is the opposite trend: a slow decline. These data are combined in the Observations

curve in Fig. 1. Some further field observations that I have recently made are given later in this paper.

Tide gauges

Figure 4. Spectrum of rates of sea-level rise (mm/year) reported by NOAAs 159 tide-gauge stations. The values of NOAAs

159 tide gauge stations indicate that they range from uplifted areas (bottom left zone) to subsiding areas (top right zone).

If the uplifting and subsiding sites are excluded, we are left with 68 sites (central dark zone) where the rise in sea level ranges

between 0.0 and 2.0 mm/year. This is well below the rate estimated by the IPCC and satellite altimetry (as discussed below).

Tide gauges were installed at harbor constructions to measure changes in tidal level and long-term sea-

level changes. The Amsterdam tide gauge is the oldest, installed in 1682; the Stockholm tide gauge is the

second-oldest, installed in 1724/1774; and the Liverpool tide gauge is the third-oldest, installed in 1768.

Most tide gauges are installed on unstable harbor constructions or landing piers. Therefore, records from

tide gauges are bound to exaggerate sea-level rise. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) tide-gauge database has 159 stations (Fig. 4).

The IPCC authors take the liberty to select what they call representative records for their reconstruction

of the centennial sea level trend. This implies that their personal viewthat is, the IPCC story-line

prescribed from the beginning of the projectis imposed in the selection and identification of their

representative records.

With this selection methodology, Douglas (1991) chose 25 tide gauges and obtained a rate of sea level

rise of 1.8 mm/year; Church et al. (2006) selected 6 tide gauges and obtained a rate of 1.4 mm/ year; andHolgate (2007) selected 9 tide gauges and got a rate of 1.45 mm/year (Fig. 2). The mean of all the 159

NOAA sites is 0.5-0.6 mm/year (Burton 2010). A better approach, however, is to exclude those sites that


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represent uplifted and subsiding locations (the bottom left and top right zones in Fig. 4). This leaves 68

sites of reasonable stability (still with the possibility of an exaggeration of the rate of change, as discussed

above). These sites give a present rate of sea level rise of ~1.0 ( 1.0) mm/year. This is far below the rates

given by satellite altimetry.

Satellite altimetry

Satellite altimetry is a wonderful, new technique for reconstructing sea-level changes all over the ocean

surface. This is vital, for sea level not only changes vertically but also horizontally. The horizontal

redistribution of water masses was first observed for centennial-to-decadal sea-level changes in the late

Holocene (see e.g. Mrner, 1995, 1996). It is also clearly shown in the satellite record from 1992-2010 (see

e.g. Nicholls & Casenave, 2010; Casenave & Llovel, 2010). Problems remain with respect to the zero level

chosen and to the long-term trend, however (Mrner, 2004, 2007c, 2008).The TOPEX/POSEIDON mission, followed by the JASON mission, recorded variations in the altitude of

the ocean surface with high resolution. Having applied all technical correction needed, Menard (2000)

and also Aviso (2000) presented a first sea-level graph for 1992-2000 (Fig. 5).

The Fig. 5 trend of 1.0 mm/year is established by taking the linear trend, a method which overlooks the

fact that substantial high point in tidal cycles 175-200 was caused by an exceptional El Nio/La Nia-

Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally-occurring, quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the

tropical Pacific Ocean every few years. A much more realistic approach is to treat that ENSO signal as a

separate event superimposed on the long-term trend, as shown in Fig. 6 (Mrner, 2004). Fig, 6 shows a

variability (of 10 mm) around a stable zero level to end 1996 and a strong ENSO-driven peak in 1997.

The trend thereafter is less clear. This graph provides no indication of any rise in sea level over the time-

period covered (Mrner 2004, 2007ac).

Figure 5. Annual mean sea-level changes observed by TOPEX/POSEIDON in 2000, after technical corrections were

applied (from Menard, 2000). A slow, long-term rising trend of 1.0 mm/year was identified, but this linear trend may have

been largely an artefact of the naturally-occurring El Nio Southern Oscillation event in cycles 175-200.

When the satellite altimetry group realized that the 1997 rise was an ENSO signal, and they extended thetrend up to 2003, they faced a problem they had not expected: there was no discernible sea-level rise visible,

so that a reinterpretation of the raw data needed to be carried out in order to obtain the desired result.

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Figure 6. Sea-level changes from Fig. 5, allowing for the El Nio Southern Oscillation of 1997/1998. The sea-level

changes as recorded in Fig. 5 are presented here with a more realistic trend analysis that treats the 1997 ENSO peak as a

separate event superimposed on the long-term trend. This shows stability over the first 5 years (to end 1996) and possibly

over the whole time period covered. Source: Mrner 2004, 2007c.

The fact of this reinterpretation, which turned a near-zero trend in sea-level rise to a trend of 2.3

mm/year (later 3.2), was orally confirmed by a member of the satellite altimetry team in 2005 when I

attended a meeting on global warming held by the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Exactly what

was done remains unclear, as the satellite altimetry groups do not specify the corrections they carry out.

In 2003, the satellite altimetry record (Aviso, 2003) suddenly took a new tilt. Instead of the near-horizontal

trend of 1992-2000, seen in Figs. 5-6, suddenly there was an uptrend of 2.3 (0.1) mm/year (Fig. 7).

From where does the new tilt come? The data that lie flat in Fig. 5 of 2000 are tilted sharply upward in

Fig. 7 of Aviso (2003): see also Aviso (2000). Obviously, some sort of correction has been made, but thecorrection has not been disclosed so as to permit independent verification (see Mrner 2007c, 2008).

In most reproductions of the graph representing the satellite-altimetry sea-level record, on the Internet

and in journal papers, it is not even stated that the graphs do not represent trends taken from the raw

data as read by the satellites, but trends only after corrections.

Figure 7. Sea-level changes after calibration in 2003. The satellite altimetry record from the TOPEX/POSEIDON

satellites, followed by the JASON satellites. As presented by Aviso (2003), the record suddenly has a new trend representing

an inferred sea-level rise of 2.3 0.1 mm/year. This means that the original records presented in Figs. 5-6, which showed

little or no sea-level rise, must have been tilted to show a rise of as much as 2.3 mm/year. We must now ask: what is the

justification for this tilting of the record?


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Originally, it seemed that this extra, unspecified correction referred to the global isostatic adjustment,

given as 2.4 mm/year (see, for example, Peltier 1998) or 1.8 mm/year (IPCC 2001) The isostatic

adjustment is intended to allow for the deformation of the Earths crust by tectonic influences. According

to Peltier (1998), the zero isobase, which is the reference point for calculating the global isostatic adjustment,

passed through Hong Kong, where a single tide gauge gives a sea level rise of 2.3 mm/year relative to the

isobase. This is exactly the same as the apparent trend in sea-level rise over the decade 1992-2003 in Fig. 7

. However, this single tide gauge record is an outlier: it is contradicted by the four other records existing

in Hong Kong, and obviously represents a site-specific subsidence, a fact well known to local geologists.

Nevertheless, Fig. 7 shows that the keepers of the satellite altimetry record have introduced a new

calibration factor an upward tilt compared with the raw data, which show no real uptrend in sea level.

At the Moscow global warming meeting in 2005, in answer to my criticisms about this correction, one

of the persons in the British IPCC delegation said, We had to adjust the record, otherwise there would

not be any trend. In other words, the actual data did not show sea level rising at all. I replied: Did you

hear what you were saying? This is just what I am accusing you of doing. Therefore, in my 2007 booklet

(Mrner 2007c), the graph reproduced here as Fig. 7 was tilted back to its original position as indicated

by the unaltered data from the satellites (Fig. 5).

The calibrations applied to the satellite altimetry readings were discussed in Mitchum (2000; and see

Casenave and Nerem 2004; Leuliette and Scharroo 2010). The tide-gauge records play a central role in

this calibration, implying some sort of circular reasoning. Other important factors are the global isostatic

adjustment and vertical movements of the tide-gauge sites. Mitchum (2000) states that, in part, we

adopted the rate given by Douglas (1991, 1995) of 1.8 0.1 mm/yr, and that, in part, the tide gauges

were assumed to be vertically stable.Both of these assumptions are wrong. The 1.8 mm/yr rate is not well established, since it is based on a

probably unrepresentative subset of the tide-gauge stations (see Fig. 2). The tide-gauge records, especially

those selected, are far from vertically stable, but rather the opposite (this applies for the 6 sites used by

Church et al. as well as the 25 sites used by Douglas). Mitchum (2000) provided the following relations,

as expressed in the boxed equation below:

Each of the three boxes (A, B, C) encompasses multiple variables that need painstaking and skillful

handling, which certainly has not been done by the groups dealing with the satellite altimetry records and

the IPCC community.

The global sea level factor (box A) is never clear and trustworthy; rather, it is a matter of personal

opinion, as seen in the wide range of global sea-level change estimates set out in Figs. 2 & 4. The rate of

1.8 mm/yr is surely an overestimate that is strongly affected by subsidence at the tide gauges selected

(Fig. 2). In my opinion, a better value would be at or a little above 0.0 mm/yr little, if any, sea-level rise.To establish a local tide-gauge trend (box B) is far from straightforward. Cyclical trends, event signals,

and segments must be identified and subtracted. Numerous different variables affect and interfere with

Nils-Axel Mrner 13


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the long-term trend. Very often there is no long-term trend, just segments that need individual treatment

(as in the case of the Bombay tide-gauge record, discussed by Mrner, 2010a). El Nio Southern

Oscillation events (and especially super-ENSO events such as that of 1997-8) must be subtracted, as

illustrated in Fig. 6 and shown for the Tuvalu record by Mrner (2007c, 2010b).

The local land motion at the tide-gauge sites (box C) is another intricate issue that calls for geological

understanding of the specific site in question. Local sedimentary ground changes (such as compaction,

water withdrawal, and so on) are a prime factor in the assessment (Mrner 2004, 2010b). Satellite

measurements cannot help here. Site-specific knowledge is key. For instance, many tide gauges are

installed on harbor constructions and landing piers that are far from stable. Crustal movements and

seismotectonics are other factors. In the harbor in the Maldives capital of Mal, the island is so heavily

overloaded by building that the harbor constructions fracture, causing distortions that invalidate any

tide-gauge reading there.

One thing is for sure. Satellite altimetry is not providing what is often claimed: a measure of sea levelchanges truly independent of tide gauges and global isostatic adjustments. Instead, it is profoundly

dependent on those variables.

With the space gravimetry observations from the GRACE satellites it has become possible to record

changes in the ocean water mass (Casenave et al. 2009), which given an approximation of changes in

mean global sea level (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Ocean mass changes obtained from GRACE satellite data, 2003-2007. The space gravimetry readings from

the GRACE satellites record changes in ocean mass which are approximately equal to changes in mean global sea level

(Casenave et al., 2009). The raw data show a slight fall in sea level over the period by 0.12 (0.06) mm/year (lower

curve). Inferring a global isostatic adjustment correction, which is to be questioned, Casenave et al. (2009) presented a

corrected rate of 1.9 (0.9) mm/year (upper curve). The difference is significant. The question is whether or not this

correction is justifiable.

The concept of the global isostatic adjustment is a model supported by some data (see e.g. Peltier, 1998)

but contradicted by other data (e.g. Mrner, 2005). Global isostatic adjustment corrections have been


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applied to tide gauges, to sea level records, to satellite altimetry data, and now to ocean mass changes. It

appears that without these corrections there is little or no room for any global sea level rise.

Correcting tide gauges for global isostatic adjustment or regional crustal movement is not the correct way

of treating records of this type. Instead, each site must be evaluated individually with respect to stability,wind, waves, sedimentation, compaction, loading, and tectonics. A blind global isostatic adjustment

model correction may provide quite wrong results; it is a dangerous shortcut applied by scientists who

are not sea-level specialists by training and hence lack the skill to undertake careful site-specific stability

analyses themselves.

Fig. 9 shows the satellite altimetry records as presented by NOAA (2008), which suggest a sea-level rise

of 3.2 (0.4) mm/year.

Figure 9. Satellite altimetry as given by NOAA. The TOPEX-JASON satellite data provide a record suggesting a mean

sea-level rise of 3.2 mm/year over the period 1993-2007. The (GRACE) GIA-corrected trend (Fig. 8) for 2003-2007

(arrowed line) agrees with the JASON data. This suggests that the satellite record is strongly affected by corrections.

Consequently, this satellite altimetry graph has a long-term trend which is significantly greater than that which actual

instrumental measurements provide: it is created by inferred corrections.

In Fig. 10, the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimetry record of Fig. 9 is back-tilted to fit the original trend

in Figs. 5-6 for 1992-2000 and the raw data from the GRACE satellites in Fig. 8 for 2003-2007.

This gives an uncorrected satellite altimetry graph,from two independent sources of actual, unaltereddata, showing no signs of any sea-level rise. The original record for 1992-2000 is restored (cf. Figs. 5, 6)

and the GRACE raw data fit the record perfectly well:

Nils-Axel Mrner 15


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Figure 10. The calibrated satellite altimetry record tilted back to match the original, uncorrected data. The

original TOPEX/POSEIDON raw data for 1992-2000 showed variability around a stable horizontal zero line (Figs. 5, 6).

The GRACE raw data (Fig. 8) show a gently falling trend for 2002-2007. Together, these two untampered datasets indicate

that global mean sea level trend has remained stable over the entire period 1992-2007, altogether eliminating the apparent

3.2 mm/year rate of sea-level rise arising from the adjusted data (Fig. 9).

This implies that the Fig. 9 satellite altimetry record is significantly altered by non-technical corrections

(whatever they may be). The corrections applied are not specified by the responsible groups at NOAA

and the Centre National des Etudes Spatiales, Frances space agency. Various types of corrections may be

applied, provide that they are clearly declared and described. This is not the case with the presently-

circulated trends in sea-level rise from satellite altimetry (see e.g. Aviso, 2003; NOAA, 2008).

If the corrections applied are not clearly specified (and discussed and argued for), then the resulting

corrected data cannot be objectively evaluated. It may be mere disinformation, perhaps disseminated

with the intention of supporting the IPCCs wild claims about sea-level rise.

I have previously asserted (Mrner, 2008) that the satellite altimetry recording consists of three steps:

first, the raw data read by the satellites; secondly, the instrumental record after appropriate technical

correction; and thirdly, the interpretational record after the application of what I have called personal

calibrations. Fig. 11 illustrates the difference between the instrumental record (in this case from theTOPEX/POSEIDON and GRACE satellites: Figs. 5-6, 8) and the interpretationalrecord from the University

of Colorado (Fig. 9):


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Figure 11. How corrections change sea level rise of ~0 mm/year to ~3 mm/year. Stage 1 is the collection of readings

from the satellite by altimetry. In Stage 2, appropriate technical adjustments are applied to the satellite instrument readings,

to yield the correct sea-level rise, which is actually little more than zero. These corrections were applied to the original

altimetry graph (Figs. 5-6: Menard, 2000; Aviso, 2000). The instrumental record gives a sea level trend on the order of

0.0 mm/year (Figs. 2, 6, 10). However, in Stage 3, after additional subjective personal calibrations, interpretational graphs

were produced (see e.g. Aviso, 2003; NOAA, 2008) that imply sea-level rise in the order of 3 mm/year (Fig. 9). Therefore,

the interpretational record represents disinformation, and is not a true instrumental record (Mrner, 2008).

As reported above, an IPCC member discussing subjective adjustments to the instrumental record toldme: We had to do so, otherwise there would not be any trend. No trend means no sea-level rise. Our

examination of the satellite data seems to confirm that this is indeed the case. If so, we are facing a very

grave, unethical, sea-level-gate. For the actual, uncorrected instrumental satellite-altimetry record

(Fig. 10) gives a true sea-level rise of around 0.0 mm/year. This fits the observational facts much better,

providing a coherent picture of no sea-level rise (or at most a harmless ~0.5 mm/yr, equivalent to 2

inchesper century) over the last 50 years.

Personal observations in the field

The IPCC bases all its argumentation on computer models and scenarios. As a geologist, by contrast, I

find it natural to turn to observational facts in nature itself, and to form interpretations and theories

based on those facts.

Here, I will give a brief summary of some of my recent fieldwork on sea-level changes, together with an

indication of what my observations mean for the IPCCs projected future changes in climate.

The Maldives

The IPCC and its supporters have frequently claimed that the Maldives are doomed to becomesubmerged well before 2100. In recent years President Nasheed has taken the lead in maintaining that

his own nation has no future and will soon rest beneath the waves.

Nils-Axel Mrner 17


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All this talk is sheer nonsense, however. As president of INQUA, the International Commission on Sea-

Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, a decade ago I launched a special sea level research project in the

Maldives. A group of sea-level experts was formed and the work commenced in 2000 with a month-long

expedition in the field. Several additional field expeditions were to follow. We visited several islands.

The facts found in site after site and in all types of coastal environment were quite straightforward: in the

Maldives, sea level is not rising. It has been stable for the last 30-40 years. In the 1970s sea level even fell

by some 20 cm. This is illustrated in Figs. 12a and 12b, and further discussed in a number of papers

(Mrner et al., 2004; Mrner, 2007bc, 2009, 2011a).

Figure 12a. Shoreline profile of most islands in the Maldives (from Mrner et al., 2004). The present sea level is recorded

as mean sea level, high-tide level and storm level. B.R. indicates a beach rock-platform. Some 20-30 cm above storm level,

there is an older beach with storm level, now abandoned and overgrown.

Figure 12b. An actual field section from the Guidhoo Atoll, Maldives, demonstrating the shoreline zonation illustrated

diagrammatically in Fig. 12a. The lowering of sea level occurred in the 1970s, according to local fishermen. It is recorded

all over the Maldives and in different shoreline environments.


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The Laccadives

Just north of the Maldives lie the Laccadive Islands, an archipelago belonging to India. Minicoy is the

southernmost island. The locals are quite aware the sea level is not at all rising. They say they are amusedto hear what President Nasheed of the Maldives has been saying. They also say they understand that it

is all a matter of money. They took a scientific colleague to the shore and presented the clear

observational fact that sea level is not rising. On the contrary, it recently fell, so that new land was formed.

The new land is now starting to become overgrown and has been settled by terrestrial snails (Mrner, 2011a).

Bangladesh

There are no limits to the terrible scenarios that have been proposed for the future of Bangladesh as a

consequence of an imagined global sea level rise. The ultimate nonsense was a recent claim that 25

million to 1 billion people will have to be relocated by 2050.

The reality is totally different, however. Again we are facing observational facts revealing no rise at all

in sea level despite severe coastal erosion attributable to cyclones (Fig. 13; Mrner, 2010a). The people

of Bangladesh are not about to be flooded by rising sea level. The cyclones and flooding caused by heavy

rain in the mountains are another factor that we cannot do anything about, however, for they are,

unfortunately, natural phenomena.

Figure 13. Erosion is not sea-level rise: The outermost edge of the Sundarban delta in Bangladesh was severely eroded

by the 2007 cyclone (left above). Some people take tree-trunks on the exposed beach as evidence of a sea-level rise. There

is no basis for this suggestion, however. The horizontal roots reveal that the trunks are from mangrove trees, which spread

their roots just below the mud-flats (right above). This implies the same level of mud-flats as the delta surface behind.

Accordingly, there has been no change in sea level (Mrner, 2010a).

Nils-Axel Mrner 19


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Tuvalu and Vanuatu

A continuing sea-level rise is said to threaten to flood both Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The map of satellite-

altimetry changes from 1992-2009 give a general rise over the whole region in the order of 3 mm/year

or even more. However, the tide gauges in both regions show no rise at all. Instead, the tide gauges

indicate stability for 14 years in Vanuatu and 32 years in Tuvalu (Mrner, 2007c, 2010b; Murphy, 2007).

On the internet and in the news media, we often see pictures of partially-flooded areas in Tuvalu.

Additional information indicates, however, that the photographs were taken at extreme high tide, and do

not indicate rising sea level.

French Guyana and Surinam

From this region, there is a very good tide-gauge record covering three 18.6-year tidal cycles (Fig. 14).The cycles vary symmetrically around a stable, horizontal zero-level. Satellite altimetry gives a rise of 3

mm/year in the same area. Facts and fiction seem to clash.

Figure 14. Changes in mean high-water level (cm: left axis) measured by tide gauges at the coast of French Guyana and

Surinam (Gratiot et al., 2008; Mrner, 2010b). The record is dominated by the 18.6-year tidal cycle, which swings up and

down around a long-term zero trend (the arrowed line), indicating that sea level has been quite stable over the last 50 years.

However, satellite altimetry in the same region gives a rise of 3.0 mm/year another revealing example of the difference

between recorded facts and reprocessed satellite data.

Venice

The sea-level record from the tide gauges in Venice shows that there has been no acceleration in the rate

of sea-level rise in recent decades (Mrner, 2007c).

North-western Europe

The north-west European region, with uplift over Fennoscandia and subsidence over the North Sea

coasts, offers another test region where the global sea-level component can be isolated and identified. Sealevel rose 11 cm from 1850-1950, when it stopped rising. It even seems to have fallen somewhat in recent

decades, as illustrated by the sea-level record from Cuxhaven (Fig. 3).


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Discussion

Tide gauges vs. satellite altimetry

Most tide-gauge records are far too short to provide meaningful information about real trends. In the

short term, they are often dominated by segments of cyclic variations (e.g. the main 18.6-year tidal cycle)

or large spikes caused by the naturally-occurring El Nio Southern Oscillations every four years or so.

However, the tide-gauge records we have mentioned above are all long-term records and are, therefore,

useful indications of the trend in sea level.

The map of sea level changes inferred from satellite altimetry in the period 1992-2009, both before and

after the data have been reprocessed or distorted to take account of purely subjective adjustments as

discussed earlier, gives a large high over most of the western Pacific and a low over the equatorial region

west of the Americas. This picture fits very badly with available tide-gauge records in both areas. This

suggests that there is much still to do in calibrating the satellite altimeters to ensure that they monitor

sea-level changes correctly.

Ice melt

For large bodies of ice to melt, time and a substantial input of energy are required. The Last Ice Age

ended with an extensive melting of the continental ice caps under extreme climatic forcing, yet sea level

rose by little more than 1 cm per year or 1 m per century. The process of melting took 10,000-12,000

years, during which time sea level rose 130 m.

A sea-level rise of 1 cm per year is, in effect, above the maximum rate that can arise today from melting

ice and other causes combined (Mrner, 2011b). Today, sea-level rise caused by ice-melt must be

significantly below 1 cm a year. It is very useful, however, to have an upper bound on sea-level rise as a

yardstick allowing us to discriminate between realistic estimates and much-publicized extreme values that

can be discarded as physically impossible.

All claims of a sea-level rise by year 2100 exceeding 1 m (and there are several, including the IPCCs

current maximum of 2 m per century) must be dismissed as impossible.

Thermosteric expansion of seawater

The water column will expand when heated. Only the upper part of the ocean may be heated, however,

owing to the strict stratification of the oceanic water masses. The amount of expansion is in the order of

centimetres up to a decimetre per century, hardly more (Mrner, 1996, 2011b). A fact often ignored is

that as the water depth becomes shallower towards a coast, there is less and less water to expand. At the

shore, the effect is zero.

The last interglacial

During the mid-Holocene, 6000-8000 years ago, mean global surface temperature was about 2.5 Cwarmer than today. During the last interglacial, ~125,000 years ago, mean surface temperature was 4 C

warmer than today and sea level was generally higher than today.

Nils-Axel Mrner 21


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Figure 15. Rock-cut platform from the Last Interglacial in Hong Kong. The elevation is only 1.5-2 m above the present

sea level. Hidden in the adjacent forest is the foot of a steep fossil sea cliff. Therefore, this rock-cut platform is likely to

mark the maximum sea level of the last interglacial.

It has sometimes been suggested that if temperature were to rise as the IPCC has projected the Earth

might return to the climatic conditions of the last interglacial period, ~125,000 years ago. This has raised

new interest in the actual sea level of the last interglacial. It was once generally believed that sea level was

some 2-4 m higher than today. There have even been claims that sea level was 7-10 m higher.

The western Mediterranean is widely taken as a reference point for changes in sea level during the last

interglacial. In 2010 an international excursion was therefore devoted to field evidence from Sardinia

(Carboni & Lecca, 2010; Mrner, 2011c). Two peaks in sea level are well recorded, varying in elevation

between +2 and +4 m. No catastrophic sea level rise at the end of the last interglacial can be substantiated.

Consequently, there is no reason to hypothesize that any similar event would be likely to occur in our near

future.

The same result is evident from the passive continental margins of east South America and Tanzania,

where we have worked extensively. Early in 2011 I visited Hong Kong. Here, there is a quite clear rock-

cut platform (Fig. 15) from the last interglacial. Its elevation is only ~2 m above todays sea level, however.

It is a serious mistake to look for horror scenarios in the behaviour of sea level during the last interglacial.

When Hansen & Sato (2011) propose a 4 m sea-level rise between 2080 and 2100, they violate the laws

of physics, empirical geology and scientific ethics (Mrner, 2011b).

The next solar minimum

The next solar minimum is due in 2040-2050. At all the previous solar minima (e.g. 1440-1460, 1687-

1703, 1809-1821), the climatic conditions generated little Ice Ages (Mrner, 2010c). Whatever the nextSolar Minimum will bring, it will be likely to invalidate all the linear and exponential extrapolations of

temperature change in the IPCCs models.


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Figure 16. Reliability of different proposed rates of sea-level rise. The validity of the spectrum of rates of sea-level rise

shown in Fig. 2 can now be assessed. Observational facts suggest 0.0 mm/year to at most 0.7 mm/year (1.3 to 3.4 mm/year are untenable overestimates. Values close to 1 mm/year represent minor centennial rises and

falls. This result agrees with estimates of a possible sea level rise of 5 15 cm by 2100 (Mrner, 2004) and 10 10 cm

(INQUA, 2000), but is well below the 37 19 cm projected by IPCC (2007).

If sea level is not rising fast, and is not going to rise fast, then the greatest threat imagined by the IPCC

disappears. The idea of an ever-rising sea drowning tens of thousands of people and forcing hundredsof thousands or even millions of people to become sea-level refugees is simply a grave error, hereby

revealed as an illusion.

Nils-Axel Mrner 23

Conclusions

Observational facts indicate that sea level is by no means rapidly rising. It is quite stable. This is the case

in key sites like the Maldives, Bangladesh, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Saint Paul Island, Qatar, French Guyana,

Venice, and northwest Europe. Tide gauges tend to exaggerate rising trends because of subsidence and

compaction. Full stability over the last 30-50 years is indicated in sites like Tuvalu, India, the Maldives

(and also the Laccadives to the north of the Maldives), Venice (after subtracting the subsidence factor),

Cuxhaven (after subtracting the subsidence factor), and Korsr (a stable hinge for the last 8 ,000 years).

Satellite altimetry is shown to record variations around a stable zero level for the entire period 1992-

2010. Reported trends in the order of 3 mm/year represent interpretational records, after the application

of subjective personal calibrations which cannot be substantiated by observational facts.

Therefore, we can now return to Fig. 1 and claim that the models (upper curve) provide an illusorypicture of a strong sea-level rise and that the observations (lower curve) provide a good reconstruction

of the actual changes in sea level over the last 170 years, with stability over the last 40 years.

We can now return to the spectrum of present-day sea level rates (Fig. 2) and evaluate the various values

proposed. This is illustrated in Fig. 16. Only rates in the order of 0.0 mm/year to maximum 0.7 mm/year

seem realistic. This fits well with the values proposed for year 2100 by INQUA (2000) and Mrner (2004),

but differs significantly from the values proposed by the IPCC (2001, 2007).


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The true facts are to be found in nature itself. They are certainly not to be found at the modelling consoles.

Some data depend heavily on interpretation. Other evidence, however, is clear and straightforward.

Consider trees. I have often said that trees dont lie: see e.g. Mrner, 2007c. In that paper, I described

the significance of the lonely tree by the shore in the Maldives which indicated that sea level had been

stable for 50-60 years. A group of Australian environmental scientists, realizing that the location of the

tree was fatal to their notion of ever-rising sea level, uprooted it and left it, still in leaf, lying on the strand.

There are also the trees on the beach in Sundarban, indicating significant coastal erosion (caused in part

by the clearance of mangroves to make way for shrimp-farms) but no sea level rise at all (Mrner, 2007c,

2010a).

I hope that by this research we can free the world from the artificial crisis to which the IPCC has

condemned it. There will be no extensive or disastrous global sea-level rise in the near future. That was

the main threat in the IPCCs arsenal of bugaboos, and now it is gone.

AcknowledgementsWith deep gratitude, I acknowledge the skilful input into this paper of Christopher Monckton as editor-

in-charge. Its origin lay in a paper published in 21st Century Science & Technology(winter 2010/2011,

pp. 12-22). Christopher Monckton sensitively extracted the introductory main points, redrew several

graphs and asked for additional observational material. Out of this work the present paper emerged.

Without the vision and input of my friend Christopher Monckton, the paper would never have appeared,

and especially not in this elegant and expressive form. For me, this paper stands out as a Mrner &

Monckton contribution. My sincere thanks.

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Aviso, 2003, Observing the oceans by altimetry, www.aviso.cis.cnes.fr

Aviso, 2008, Mean Sea Level as seen by altimeters, www.aviso.oceanobs.com

Burton, D.A., 2010, Analysis of global linear mean sea level (MSL)-trends, including distance-weighted averaging,

www.burtonsys.com/global_msl_trend_analysis.html

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Affairs 24:3, 239-260.

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INQUA Project 0911CMP Commission, ETS, Madrid, 48 pp.

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Casenave, A., & R.S. Nerem, 2004, Present-day sea level changes: Observations and causes, Rev. Geophysics 42, 1-20.

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Change 53, 155-168.

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Douglas, B.C., 1995, Global sea level changes: determination and interpretation, Rev. Geophys. 33, 1425-1432.

Gratiot, N., E.J. Anthony, A. Gardel, C. Gaucherel, C. Proisy, and J.T. Wells, 2008, Significant contribution of the 18.6 year tidal


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25Nils-Axel Mrner


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Why the Centre for Democracy and Independence?

THE CENTRE for Democracy and Independence conducts research, publishes papers and educates the

public and students in schools, youth organizations and institutions of higher learning, providing a non-

partisan forum for informed discussion on questions of policy in the United Kingdom and worldwide

which may affect for good or ill the rights of the people openly and freely to debate, and secretly by ballot to

decide, who shall govern them, what laws they shall live by and what imposts they shall endure.

Governance, formerly confined to the territorial jurisdictions of city-states and then of nations, became regionally

supranational by the swords of the great empires of the Chinese, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Moghuls, the Medes and

Persians, the Romans, the Moors, the Spaniards and the Austro-Hungarians, and by the directives of centralizing

bureaucracies from the Delian League via the later Ottoman Empire to the European Union.With the British Empire, governance became truly global for the first time. The world, said the philosopher

Santayana, never had sweeter masters. Today, notwithstanding the sunset of that first global Empire, the tendency

towards global governance is gathering both momentum and permanence through entities such as the United

Nations, the Law of the Sea Conference, the World Trade Organization, the Organization on Economic

Cooperation and Development and the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Yet not one of the multiplying and expanding institutions of supranational and now global governance is truly a

democracy. Only at the level of the nation-state and even then by no means universally is government of the

people, by the people and for the people the custom. Therefore, however necessary it be that nations should

collaborate and cooperate in matters of common concern, every cession of sovereignty from a nation to asupranational or global entity at present entails a real transfer of legislative and increasingly of fiscal power from

elected to unelected hands both legislation and taxation without representation.

Has the nation had its day? Is the globalization of governance a public good? Can democracy survive it? Should

it? Should the use of the ballot-box be extended? Should supranational and global institutions of governance be

elected? Should the people have the right not only to make and unmake their lawmakers, but also, at will, to make

and unmake their laws? The Centre for Democracy and Independence exists to ask and to illuminate questions

such as these.

Abhijit P.G. Pandya

Director

Centre for Democracy and Independence


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Sea Level Not Rising