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A conservative news and views blog.

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Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Monday, June 20, 2011

Data Fudging on Sea Level Rise at Colorado

Timothy Birdnow

The University of Colorado's Sea Level Research Group has been systematically "correcting" sea level measurements to suggest higher sea level rise than measurements show.

From the Fox News article:

"The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

"Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute.

Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that his group added the 0.3 millimeters per year to the actual sea level measurements because land masses, still rebounding from the ice age, are rising and increasing the amount of water that oceans can hold.

"We have to account for the fact that the ocean basins are actually getting slightly bigger... water volume is expanding," he said, a phenomenon they call glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA)."

End excerpt.

Once again, we are retrofitting data to match theoretical models. Because the land is rising it must mean the oceans are getting increased volume, and so we simply snatch .3 millimeters out of thin air to make up the difference. Oh, and make a point of not telling the public what we are doing.

But do we understand all the variables here? Islands have been found to actually grow, something that just twenty years ago we did not know. While the continents may be rising (do we have a true understanding of this process even?) perhaps the ocean basin is shrinking in other places to compensate.

One suspects that this machination is just another attempt to justify spending billions of dollars on Global Warming research, and to keep the issue on the front burner.

Hat tip: Second Hand Smoke
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/06/19/global-warming-hysteria-more-credibility-problems-for-“the-consensus”/

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