Good news, the global warming science facts and reality prevail - the scary, dangerous rising sea level predictions are essentially a myth
(click images to enlarge)
#1. The actual sea level rise has just been a fraction of the scary Hollywood movie disaster scenarios
#2. Climate doomsday scientists, such as James Hansen, Heidi Cullen and Stefan Rahmstorf, predicted mythically high ocean levels, not because of science reality, but instead to emulate what Hollywood was doing to attract greater public attention
#3. Per the advanced satellite technology and ocean science, the real empirical evidence points to a sea level increase by 2100 that will literally be chump change, not the envisioned Hollywood (or Hansen et al.) mega-disaster
Since late 1992, satellites have been monitoring ocean levels constantly. The chart on the left plots the actual sea level rise (using inches instead of millimeters) in contrast to the IPCC's predicted sea level rise by 2100 AD, and common predictions of doomsday experts. The dotted aqua line is where sea levels will be if the current trend continues until 2100.
When the current sea level trend (+0.12 inch/year) is put into the context of the mega-scary predicted levels, the hysterical concerns about coastal flooding disasters are rationally reduced, dramatically. But to keep those irrational concerns high, here's how government-funded scientists portray the same sea level increase since 1992.
The chart on the top right compares the IPCC and other alarmist predictions, from the end of 2006 to April 2012, the most recent satellite measurement available. The blue bar is the actual amount the sea levels have increased, versus what the IPCC predicted increase for sea levels by April 2012. IPCC predicted sea level. The chart's higher red bars show increases by April 2012 for the often made alarmist predictions that the mainstream press reports uncritically (as gospel).
[Note: Why 2006? The IPCC 2007 report based its sea level prediction on measurements prior to 2007. We used the December 2006 satellite measurement as the base month, then calculated the April 2012 sea level increase (actual and all predicted values) from that 2006 base month. We first converted all measurements to inches then calculated each month's average sea level from multiple monthly measurements - satellites measure ocean levels 2-4 times per month.]
Conclusions: The high technology of satellite measurements produces some very clear global warming science facts. Since 1992, rising sea levels are on a very modest upward trend. Since the IPCC report of 2007, actual sea level increases are significantly below all "expert" predictions. The empirical evidence clearly points to future sea level increases that are very moderate (less than 1 foot by 2100) and can easily be adapted to by every government.
Previous sea-level and failed-prediction postings. Other sea-level charts.