Year 2024 NOAA Measured Sea level Rise Data Show Climate Alarmists CO2 Driven Sea Level Rise Acceleration Claims Have Spectacularly Failed

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

NOAA year 2024 measured U.S. Station Sea Level rise data outcomes establish that alarmists 4 decades long hyped claims of high rates of accelerating sea level rise due to increasing man-made CO2 emissions have clearly failed.

In 1988 Senate hearings Democrat politicians claimed that climate model derived accelerating sea level rise future outcomes will occur because of man-made CO2 emissions as presented in their Senate testimony by “experts” as addressed in detail here in the WUWT article shown below.

At the time of these hearings in 1988 global CO2 emissions stood at about 20.85 billion metric tons and since then have climbed to about 35.13 billion metric tons by year end 2023 as documented here.

The entire increase in global CO2 emissions from 1988 to 2023 is accounted for solely by the world’s developing countries (24.02 billion metric tons in 2023 versus 9.27 billion metric tons in 1988) lead by coal fuel dominate China and India with the developed countries, including the U.S. and Europe, having CO2 emissions lower (11.11 billion metric tons in 2023 versus 11.59 billion metric tons in 1988) than year 1988 levels.

The developed countries globally irrelevant emissions outcome during this period occurred while they were wasting trillions of dollars on hugely unreliable and non-dispatchable renewable energy along with absurd net-zero pipedreams resulting in  massive energy cost increases, failing and decaying reliability of their energy systems with major economically important businesses and industry suffering decline and stagnation while damaging GDP growth in the largest of these nations.       

At the Democrats Senate 1988 hearing so called “experts” were paraded forward and provided testimony claiming that rising global CO2 emissions experienced to date (1988) would result in increasing sea level rise acceleration rates of 2.5 inches over the next decade (0.25 inches per year) as noted below from the hearing record as follows:

“Global mean temperature will likely rise at about 0.6 degrees F per decade and sea level at about 2.5 inches per decade.”

“These rates are about six times recent history.”

“Furthermore, as long as greenhouse gases continue to grow in the atmosphere, there is no known natural limit to the warming short of catastrophic change.”

“Because the oceans are slow to heat, there is a lag between emissions and full manifestation of corresponding warming, a lag which some estimate at 40 years.”

“The world is now 1 degree F warmer than century ago and may become another 1 degree warmer even if conditions are curtailed today.”

“Every decade of delay and implementation of greenhouse gas abatement policies ultimately adds perhaps a degree F of warming, and no policy can be fully implemented immediately in any event.”

As noted above global CO2 emissions have climbed from 20.85 billion metric tons to 35.13 billion metric tons from 1988 to 2023 driven exclusively by the developing nations.

Over this 4 decades interval of climbing CO2 emissions that, according to the 1988 Senate hearing “expert” testimony, should have resulted in huge increases in sea level rise acceleration far above the 2.5 inches per decade (0.25 inches per year) outcome hyped in the 1988 hearing.

NOAA has just released its year 2024 Relative Sea Level Rise data for its U. S. Stations. The data for the longest U.S. Station time period measurement location is at the Battery, New York (1856 to 2024) and is shown below.

The 2024 sea level trend outcome is the same as in 2023 at 2.92 +/- 0.09 mm/yr despite the usual contrived alarmists “Hottest Year on Record” claims debunked here.

Shown below is NOAA’s Battery Station relative sea level rise measured data from their report issued a decade ago for year 2014 and covering the period from 1856 to year 2014.

Note that NOAA’s 2014 report states the following regarding these mean sea level trend data measurements:

“Although the mean trend may change from year to year, there is no statistically significant difference between the calculated trends if their 95% confidence intervals overlap. Therefore, the most recent calculated trend is not necessarily more accurate than the previous trend; it is merely a little more precise.”

Therefore, since the NOAA Battery Station year 2024 relative sea level rise trend measured 95% confidence interval is from 3.01 to 2.83 mm/yr and thus overlaps the prior decade ago report year 2014 95% confidence intervals there is no statistically significant difference between the year 2014 and 2024 mean relative sea level trend measurement values.

Nor is there any statistically significant difference between the Battery Station 2014 mean sea level trend versus the 2007 or any other mean sea level year shown including the trend from 1856 to 2006.

Additionally, the difference between mean sea level rise trend values for the decade long period 2014 to 2024 (2.92 mm/yr – 2.84 mm/yr) is a mere +0.08 mm/yr (or +0.0031 inches/year or +0.031 inches/decade) versus the climate alarmists hyped 0.25 inches/yr rate from 1988 with that rate   claimed to grow even higher if emissions growth weren’t immediately curtailed.

What ever happened to the “experts” 2.5 inches per decade increase in sea level rise acceleration that was claimed in the 1988 Senate Hearings based on CO2 emissions that had occurred to that time and the even further escalation in sea level rise acceleration that would clearly occur if emissions weren’t immediately curtailed (which never happened as addressed above) in the coming decades?

Provided below are NOAA’s year 2024 sea level rise trends for  

a few other U.S. NOAA coastal locations all of which show the same huge disconnect between measured mean sea level rise trend rates versus the hyped claims of accelerating sea level rise from the 1988 Senate Hearings that contributed to the climate alarmists energy and economically damaging global wide emissions reduction campaign launched from those hearings.

Shown below are NOAA’s sea level rise data for Honolulu, Hawaii the birthplace of President Obama who claimed in his Democratic Party nomination speech on June 3, 2008, that we would be able to look back upon his nomination and tell our children that “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”.

The year 2024 NOAA Honolulu relative sea level rise data show a sea level rise of 1.56 +/- 0.20 mm/yr versus 1.54 +/-0.20 mm/yr in 2023.

Provided below is NOAA’s Honolulu Station relative sea level rise measured data from their year 2014 report again covering the period from 1856 to year 2014 a decade ago.

The NOAA Honolulu Station year 2024 relative sea level rise outcome 95% confidence interval is from 1.76 to 1.36 mm/yr thus overlapping the prior year 2014 95% confidence intervals. So there is no statistically significant difference between the decade ago year 2014 value (or any other year shown) and year 2024 mean relative sea level trend measurement value.

Additionally, the difference between mean sea level rise trend values for the decade long period 2014 to 2024 (1.56 – 1.41) is a mere +0.15 mm/yr (or +0.0059 inches/year or +0.071 inches/decade) versus the climate alarmists hyped 0.25 inches per year in 1988 with that value sure to grow even higher if emissions growth weren’t immediately curtailed – which, of course, totally failed.

Looking at NOAA’s year 2024 data for the San Diego Station location we see the 2024 mean sea level trend rate of 2.23 +/- 0.17 mm/yr which is the same as in year 2023.

Shown below is NOAA’s San Diego Station relative sea level rise measured data from their year 2014 report again covering the period from 1856 to year 2014 a decade ago.

The NOAA San Diego Station year 2024 relative sea level rise 95% confidence interval is from 2.4 to 2.06 mm/yr thus overlapping the prior year 2014 95% confidence intervals so there is no statistically significant difference between the decade ago year 2014 (or any other year shown) and year 2024 mean relative sea level trend measurement values.

Additionally, the difference between mean sea level rise trend values for the decade long period 2014 to 2024 (2.23 – 2.08) is a mere +0.15 mm/yr (or +0.0059 inches/year or +0.071 inches/decade) versus the climate alarmists hyped 0.25 inches per year in 1988 with that value sure to grow even higher if emissions growth weren’t immediately curtailed.

Looking more broadly at NOAA’s year 2024 updated data we see in the U.S. Sea Level Trend Map (shown below) that areas experiencing little-to-no change in relative sea level are illustrated in green, including stations consistent with the average global sea level rise rate of just 1.7-1.8 mm/yr (about 7 inches per century) with these “green” stations predominantly present across the coastal regions of the U.S. and Hawaii.

Areas with yellow-to-red colors are experiencing both global sea level rise and lowering and sinking of local land causing an exaggerated rate of relative sea level rise.

Areas with blue-to-purple are experiencing global sea level rise and greater vertical rise causing an apparent decrease is relative sea level rise.

NOAA’s year 2024 updated Relative Sea Level Trend data measurements continue to demonstrate that climate alarmists claim of hugely growing rates of sea level rise acceleration are completely out of touch with NOAA’s overwhelming data reflecting measured rates of relative sea level rise.

Its time to stop using 4 decades long spectacularly failed climate model hyped sea level rise schemes to mandate absurd energy policy schemes that are destroying our necessary and beneficial need for future economic growth.