“Oh noes! Sea level rising three times faster than expected (again)“. (May 2, 2011) Anthony Watts tells us that a Danish newspaper article about sea-level rise is another crazy warmist exaggeration. How can expected sea-level rise suddenly be three times higher than earlier predictions? Also, the article photo has a funny-looking foreigner wearing a beret in it. Chuckle with superiority and don’t think about it too much I guess.

The Danish newspaper article (Anthony apparently follows Azerbaijan news closely, as that’s what he links to) says:

Sea levels were estimated to rise between 0.9 and 1.6 metres by the year 2100 according to the findings by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), cited by Danish daily Politiken, DPA reported.

These are not new numbers. When a newspaper covers this topic these estimates will be present as even Anthony’s 2009 Google search screen capture shows. The IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) estimate of 0.3m to 0.9m has long been considered too cautious. Perhaps Anthony thinks that newspapers should only write about something once? He’s free to repeat his misinformation ad nauseam though I guess, because he digs straight in and sticks to a favorite theme.

Anthony’s rebuttal is to talk about the rate of current sea-level rise (what, it’s rising? Oops) while pretending to disprove predicted sea-level rise by 2100. Just one of the many dull-witted misdirections he’s been performing for years. Unfortunately it only works for heads already bouncing up and down in agreement.

Anthony turns to his sea-level citizen-scientist, Willis Eschenbach, for what passes for confirmation (yes, my eyes roll too when I see that name). OMG it’s true, sea-level rise probably isn’t accelerating at the moment! In fact if you cross your eyes and decide that two years is a meaningful period of time, you can even pretend it’s sort of slowing down. Global warming, which wasn’t happening, is over! Stock up on blankets and woolly socks!

A plot of sea-level rise anomaly, not sea-level.

Of course sea-level is still, you know, rising.