UK Sea Level Data For 2016
By Paul Homewood
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-climate-change-risk-assessment-2017
According to the Government’s latest UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, sea levels around the UK are rising by around 3mm a year.
This is an outright lie.
The Committee on Climate Change also tell us in their Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report, used as the basis for the Government report:
Thus implying that the rate of sea level rise has been accelerating recently.
Tide gauges however tell a totally different story.
Long running sea level data is available at two sites in the UK, North Shields in the North East, and Newlyn in the South West. There is consequently a good geographic distribution, with the former on the North Sea coast, and Newlyn facing the Atlantic.
Data kept by PSMSL shows the following:
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/202.php
Long term trends are around 1.9mm/yr, and it is immediately evident that there has been no acceleration in recent years.
But we can double check this by looking at the rate of rise. Below are charts showing the amount of sea level rise measured over 120-month intervals. The red line is the mean.
It is clear that there is no apparent trend, simply large variations throughout both records.
NOAA also publish graphs giving longer term 50-year trends. These both show that sea levels were rising faster around the mid 20thC.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/global_50yr.htm?stnid=170-053
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/global_50yr.htm?stnid=170-161
There is one other long running tidal gauge record. This is at Aberdeen, although data for 2016 has not yet been entered by PSMSL.
However, NOAA show that sea levels are only rising by 0.72mm there, due to the fact that the land is rising.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.htm?stnid=170-011
Although the land is rising in Scotland, most of England is sinking. Both are as a result of glacial isostatic adjustment, the ongoing movement of land once burdened by ice-age glaciers.
Consequently, part of the sea level rise seen at North Shields and Newlyn is due to this, rather than absolute sea level rise.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/uk-climate-change-risk-assessment-2017/
Threats of ever rising sea levels are stock in trade for the climate mafia, yet when we look at actual tidal gauge records, we see nothing other than a gradual rise, going back to the 19thC.
However, for such fake claims to be made in an official government report is simply unacceptable.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Not a religion…no, no…..
“…a religion…”
It will be over eventually.
I always remember a film noir of the 1940s.
A gangster was shot and his accomplice has kidnapped a doctor to patch him up.
The doctor says: “Now , stay still for 48 hours!” But the shot gangster struggles to his feet and starts to walk out. The accomplice says “Tell him again, doc!” who merely replies:
“He hasn’t noticed yet – he’s a corpse.”
More like a dooms day cult really.
I can’t especially blame government ministers, it is the people who advise them that are clearly lying. I would also be interested in seeing just what the trend looks like for “hotter” summers. I like the word usage as well. I would say we have warm summers here, not hot ones, so they should really say “trend towards warmer summers” Of course that sounds pleasant, not alarming like saying “hotter” does.
“I can’t especially blame government ministers, it is the people who advise them that are clearly lying.”
Must disagree.
Who appoints the advisors?
And the qualifications needed to be a Government Advisor?
(a) The ability to make your mouth say absolutely anything (without laughing).
(b) Being a True Believer, nay – an Evangelist, of the Glowbull Warming Religion.
All part of the policy-based, evidence-making cabal.
A less tolerant and phlegmatic Society would be displaying heads (both Ministers and Advisors) on pikestaffs by now.
Ministers are supremely ignorant and stupid. They exist in a talk bubble where everything has to be done verbally which severely limits the information transfer. They don’t read anything and hence, like their media chums, know and understand little. Writing to them is a waste of effort, and even going to see them would be too as you have no prestige so why take any notice beyond politeness and the need to been seen ‘listening’ to the public.
I would have to say, “how could you NOT blame them?” If they are worthy of being leaders, they would become knowledgeable about what they do. If they ARE knowledgeable about what they do, then one has to question their reasoning for doing exactly the opposite of what is in the best interest of those that they have sworn to serve – the people of their own nation. Government is not a philosophical entity. If it was, wars wouldn’t happen, would they? People wouldn’t die at the hands of the police unless they were overt criminals. And the list of actions goes on. This only leads back to WHY. What is the reasoning behind the actions of government since they clearly are not acting in the best interest of their citizens. Destroying your own civilization for the sake of Gaia is not what government is about, nor is it really what AGW is about. The real unanswered question will remain what is the ultimate purpose of the actions being taken, and evidence points to an end world where there is a small cadre of elite forming the world governance, a larger cadre of “managers” to insure the unarmed serfs that are the bottom layer of the caste system maintains those above them with the level of luxurious civility that they demand.
This!
I am getting really pissed off with the gullibility of our so called government with regard to everything climate related.
Why do they believe their advisors, when they spout bo££ocks all the time.
Facts are facts and lies are lies, they are all culpable, and will be accountable before long. The sooner the better.
Unfortunately our politicians all seem locked in in some sort of carbon bubble of sheer stupidity. I do not understand how party’s can select such morons as candidates.
I suggest you contact your MP with a copy of this article and also copy it to the relevant ministers. No doubt Christopher Booker will expose these lies in the Telegraph. The fraudsters on the so-called “independent” CCC and the authors of the Government report should be serving time.
Both Christopher and myself have the same MP – a lost cause despite my effort to explain the facts on weather and climate.
Perhaps a dose of reality on UK weather/cliamte can be found on my new blog here – https://weatherblog.uk
Almost certainly a waste of time. Only events will reach through their wall of ignorance.
Nice piece, well written and clear. You might want to take a look at the data here, which also gives the acceleration.
w.
“sea levels around our coast are rising by around 3mm a year”
Where else would they be rising, but around our coasts?
My guess is that the figure is rounded up, otherwise why say “around 3mm”.
I would have expected a more precise figure.
Do they quote a source for this claim?
The blame for all of the AGW hype and nonsense should be parsed out in equal amounts to 1: Liberal politicians who have made this a political issue only for the sake of gaining more money and power. 2. The media who cover the AGW story from a liberal/liberal arts perspective. 3. Phony scientists who, honestly know better but enjoy feathering their own beds and the prestige and money which comes from the AGW enthusiasts. 4. The people themselves for failing to do any real research on an issue which is this important.
The more people understand about this, they will vote less often based on their ignorant fears that the sky will fall if they do not support some liberal AGW joker for office. Kill the politics in this issue and the whole AGW myth will quickly vaporize.
Try Scotland, e.g. Aberdeen gives 0.72mm per year.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.htm?stnid=170-011
The 1.9 mm/year is also the global average of some 2700 tide gauges, as shown by Jevrejeva 2014. She reported that the average was showing an acceleration of 0.002 mm/year/year, and I verified that number–except that the uncertainty was more than half the value and thus not significantly different from zero. See the Excel file in Dropbox public file.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Jevrejeva%20sea%20level%20change.xlsx
So the HM Government says 3 mm/year, instead of 2 mm/year. Big deal. Interestingly enough, the error is always on an alarmist side – undoubtedly a heritage of Dunkirk.
So if you subtract the 5 mm drop in the land then the actual rise in sea-level is 1.4mm/yr or 1 mm per year if you round properly.
There was, when school was school, a section in UK ‘O’ level geography which described a line from the mouth of the river Tees to that of the river Exe as the divide between rising land to the west of it and falling land to the east. North Sheilds and Newlyn both lie close to that line: perhaps why they were chosen?
OTT:
July 20th and still snowing in much of Greenland. Really must change that name!
http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
The Committee on Climate Change (2016) UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 Synthesis Report, referred to in the Risk Assessment, includes the following statement on sea level:
“Sea levels: Average UK sea levels have risen at a rate of around 1.4 +/- 0.2 mm per year since 1901
(Kendon et al., 2015, Wadey et al., 2014), close to the global average rate of change. The rate of change has accelerated since 1990 (Jenkins et al., 2008), which globally now averages more than 3 mm per year (IPCC, 2014). The UK is also influenced by vertical movements in the land mass due to isostatic rebound, with a general pattern of sinking in the south and lifting in the north.”
So they seem to have translated a recent GLOBAL rate of rise of 3mm per year, into “sea levels around our coast ”.
This is either deliberately misleading or sheer incompetence.
I am thinking of having a sail around Osea Island, in Essex, tomorrow.
The tide table informs me that the sea will rise 4740 mm while I do this.
And. – assuming I am not too decrepit in ten years time to have given up sailing – I am supposed to give a toss about a general rise of a few more mm, which MIGHT be caused by coal stations in that time?
And, if Iwe DO give a toss, are the Chinese and Indians going to do anything different?
The trend at Newlyn since 1992 has been about 3.75 mm/year but to assume that this is due to “climate change” and the report does, is wrong.
In fact the 25 year trend appears to be cyclical and was around 3mm/year in the 1990’s, 1960’s and 1940’s before each time it fell back to around 1mm/year.
There may be a slight rise in the trend over time, but that is likely to be caused by isostatic rebound.
Yes. If we look at just the last ten years, the rate is back down to 1.39mm/yr
http://www.sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=newlyn&co2=0&lin_ci=0&g_date=2006/1-2019/12&c_date=2006/1-2015/12&s_date=2006/1-2019/12
(Dave Burton’s website, but only data up to 2015 so far.)
I have to confess to some errors in the numbers on my post, due to my getting the slope formula the wrong way round in excel.
The above post should read:
The trend at Newlyn since 1992 has been about 4.2 mm/year but to assume that this is due to “climate change” and the report does, is wrong.
In fact the 25 year trend appears to be cyclical and was around 2.0 mm/year in the 1990’s, 3.0 mm/year in the 1960’s and 1940’s before each time it fell back to around 0 to 1mm/year.
Just to give you an idea of how the absurd claims over sea level rises actually result in stupid actions – Shoreham-by-sea (Sussex) is wasting a fortune on a Tide Wall flood defence system assuming a 1/2M rise in sea level in 50 years – whereas reality is nearer 9cm. There are a couple of points that have ALWAYS been prone to tide surges, one of these is just outside the scheme! £25Million (I think) and 2 years of works.
I don’t know very much in detail about the local geography of the coastal area around Shoreham.
As one travels and interestedly observes, much of the southern shoreline of the UK is remarkable by its vast banks of deposited cobbles and shingles. Along the coast to Brighton, as it slopes down towards Hove, there ain’t much sea wall there, neither do they seem much fussed.
I think on, the architects and engineers who had to plan the Nuclear facility built on Dungeness, these were pretty thorough people, they would have had surveys done and I’m pretty sure SL estimates [rises?] would have been evaluated and ‘deeply’ considered. Hazards evaluated, other than, half of Gran Canaria shearing off, they were all happy at the prospect of jobs and power! Thus, the Nuclear plant was constructed and delivered.
A more recent prospect, whether to build a new facility at Dungeness was shelved and SL threat was advertized as a factor in not considering the Dungeness site for approval. Clearly something in the risk/hazard averse thinking in HMG has changed and not for the benefit of ‘the people of kent and beyond’ – I might posit.
My nephew is an electrical engineer at Dungeness. He isn’t bothered that they won’t get a new reactor. They just keep deciding… might as well keep the existing unit going for another few years.
Actually, it is a bit clapped out. The day he quits the area will be the day I wlll start worrying!
The problem at Dungeness is not sea level rise but the coastal currents washing the shingle further along the coast. They have an excavator working all day taking it back.
You are missing something, the 3mm quoted is CORRECT, in actual fact it should be 3.2mm.
That is of course if you believe the NASA Satellite declared data over stupid simple Tide level gauges that they can’t be manipulated anywhere near as easily because there are copies of the raw data.
I am suprised Paul didn’t mention the changes to the Satellite data that has taken place over the past few years, turning 1.8mm in to 3.2mm
“You are missing something, the 3mm quoted is CORRECT, in actual fact it should be 3.2mm.”
Is that globally, or “around our coasts”, as stated in the report?
Did I need the Sarcasm tags?
If it is global, it also has to be around our coasts doesn’t it?
That is what Global means, so our stupid Gov can quote it and say they are using NOAA data.
The reality is far different as we know, in fact the seas seem to act a bit like water sloshing about in a bowl, ie sea level rising on one side while dropping on the other and add to that land rise and subsisidence and isostatic rebound.
How anyone can believe that satellites can measure in mms when the water is continually moving in Metres is beyond me.
“If it is global, it also has to be around our coasts doesn’t it?”
Not really, due to isostatic rebound.
I doubt if the UK average is the same as the global average.
Sounds like you should all just move to Scotland, or at least start wearing kilts so your pants don’t get wet. That was easy.
If we did that the country would tip over and we a would all drown LOL.
We’ll get just as wet. But from the head down rather than feet up!
i.e. falling rain as opposed to rising sea 🙂
And if you are wearing your kilt properly, your pants definitely won’t get wet.
Your tackle might though. 🙂
As indicated in the article, sea level rise hysteria from climate change is nonsensical. At any location in the world, the local sea level is dominated by land movements, not climate change. This is proven by actual satellite observations, which reveal that coastal land areas worldwide over the past 30 years have actually increased (e.g. from river silting and land uplift) more than they have decreased (e.g. from subsistence). If climate change had a significant impact on sea levels, coastal land areas worldwide would be decreasing, not increasing.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n9/full/nclimate3111.html
https://www.deltares.nl/en/news/how-the-earth-has-changed-over-the-past-30-years/
An “interesting” post on the “Open Mind” blog about sea level rise.
He seems to be saying that “global warming” is causing sea level to FALL and the slowing down of sea level rise in some locations due to melting glaciers. Not sure how much effect the gravitational pull from glaciers has on tides, compared to that from the moon and sun.
Aha!
It’s due to more isostatic rebound, not gravity.