Thursday, January 24, 2013

Another Contrarian Wrong About Sea Level

Here's another instance, from Willis Eschenbach, where a contrarian was oh-so-sure that sea level really was plummeting and that NASA's explanation had to be wrong:
The sea level was going up at about 3 mm per year. In the last year it fell about 6 mm. So that’s a change of about a centimetre of water that NASA says has fallen on land and been absorbed rather than returned to the ocean. But of course, the land is much smaller than the ocean … so for the ocean to change by a centimetre, the land has to change about 2.3 cm.

To do that, the above map would have to average a medium blue well up the scale … and it’s obvious from the map that there’s no way that’s happening. So I hate to say this, but their explanation doesn’t ... hold water ...
As far as I can tell, no correction (let alone rethinking) has come forth.

1 comment:

Dano said...

Is there anything in reality, on the ground, that poor hapless (but confident) Willis has been right about?

Best,

D