Rising sea levels a calamity? Not if you analyse the stats
ON Thursday, August 8 the Gold Coast Bulletin published a letter from Dr Roger Burgess claiming data from Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour proved there has been “only miniscule changes in sea levels” since data collection began in 1911.
Then on Friday, August 16 a letter from Yvette Dempsey claimed her investigation of the data led her to believe that was completely untrue. As neither letter contained any figures I decided to see for myself which interpretation is correct, as this type of disagreement is at the heart of the climate change debate. Any reader can do the same for themselves at the Bureau of Meteorology’s official www.psmsl.org website.
A brass permanent sea-level marker was installed at Fort Denison Recording Station in 1911 and mean average tidal heights have been kept every year since. The main results show the following sea level heights:
1911, 7.011 metres; 1925, 6.909m; 1950, 6.989m; 1975, 7.010m; 1999, 7.006m and 2001, 7.070m (2000 is missing); 2018, 7.037m.
Now a trained statistician can use the above figures to prove whatever he wants to prove. But a more balanced reader would notice the following:
1. There was actually a fall of 22mm between 1911 and 1950 over the 39-year period that included two world wars. Surely, if manmade emissions were to blame for global warming there would have been an increase during this time.
2. There was in fact a fall of 1mm over the 64-year period from 1911 to 1975. Strange the 97 per cent of scientists who are supposed to support the IPCC’s findings don’t seem to have questioned that.
3. In the 107-year period from 1911 to 2018 there was an overall increase of only 26mm. That amounts to less than one inch in 100 years.
I conclude from this that Tuvalu has nothing to worry about for a few thousand years, and Dr Roger Burgess has beaten Yvette Dempsey “game, set and match” to use her own phrase.
No thinking person denies the world is gradually warming and has been doing so since the peak of the most recent Ice Age some 15,000 years ago. But there is little if any conclusive evidence to tie that change to the burning of fossil fuels. Remember, less than one inch in 100 years.