Leading Authority on Sea Levels Disputes Study Asserting Sea Level Rise Is Fastest in 27 Centuries

A newly released study led by Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University and nine colleagues from several U.S. and global universities claims: “The 20th century rise [in sea levels] was extremely likely faster than during any of the 27 previous centuries.”

 

However, the findings of the study were immediately challenged by Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the paleogeophysics and geodynamics department at Stockholm University and a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion.

 

“The PNAS paper is another sad contribution to the demagogic anti-science campaign for AGW. It is at odds with observational facts and ethical principles,” Morner wrote to the Climate Depot news service. “The paper is full of very bad violations of observational facts,” Morner continued. For instance, the Kopp paper says that the tide gauges at Christmas Island, Kiribati, show increases, yet as Morner notes, while showing the tide gauge record from that island for the past 40 years, “How can anyone find a rapidly rising trend in this tide gauge record? It is flat or rather slowly falling — but in no way rising.” He added that nowhere are there records of true “acceleration.”

 

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