From Watts Up With That?

By Willis Eschenbach

I see that the NASA folks are busily putting the hype back into hyperventilate. Over at The Cool Down, the news is headlined:

NASA issues warning after sudden change in the ocean surprises scientists: ‘Getting faster and faster’

From the underlying NASA article:

Global sea level rose faster than expected in 2024, mostly because of ocean water expanding as it warms, or thermal expansion. According to a NASA-led analysis, last year’s rate of rise was 0.23 inches (0.59 centimeters) per year, compared to the expected rate of 0.17 inches (0.43 centimeters) per year.

“The rise we saw in 2024 was higher than we expected,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “Every year is a little bit different, but what’s clear is that the ocean continues to rise, and the rate of rise is getting faster and faster.”

YIKES! Be very scared!

Here’s the image of the satellite-based sea level measurements that Josh Willis used to illustrate the change.

Here’s the first oddity. Take a look at this closeup of the above graphic.

My problem is, I can’t really tell what they are calling the “2024 RISE”. First, from the vertical black line it seems like they are measuring the annual swing … but why? Next, the vertical black line (presumably the 5.9 mm rise) covers less vertical distance than the vertical extent of the slanted green line showing the 4.3 mm rise. ??

And how is the annual swing at all comparable to the actual rate of sea rise? Overall sea level rise has nothing to do with annual swings. What am I missing here?

Setting that conundrum aside for the moment, the NASA JPL’s data is different from the NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry data below.

The JPL data is also different from the University of Colorado Sea Level Research Group data. However, other than ending slightly before the end of the NOAA data, the Colorado data agrees with the NOAA data above.

Now, both the NASA graph and the Colorado graph above claim that the satellites show an acceleration of 0.083 mm/yr^2. However, back in 2021, I showed that the acceleration was nothing more than an artifact of improperly spliced satellites. Here’s the money graph from that post.

Note that there are two pairs of satellites, the early and the late pairs. The early pair shows ~ 2.6 mm/year sea level rise. The late pair shows ~ 3.9 mm/year rise. They have been improperly spliced together

With the new claims by Josh Willis, I thought I’d update that graph. Here’s the 2025 version hot of the presses, using the updated version of the spreadsheet linked to just above. The bogus splice has just become more obvious.

Since 2021 they’ve added another satellite, Sentinel 6MF. Both Jason 3 and Sentinel 6MF are active up until the present, so we have two overlapping records since 2021. You can see the overlap of the Jason 3 and the Sentinel data at the top right of the graph.

Obviously, the two earlier records in Figure 6 above are radically different from the succeeding three. I have no clue why. But it gets stranger. Remember that Josh Willis said that they expected a 4.3 mm/year trend for 2024, but they found a 2024 trend of 5.9 mm/year?

To begin with, they only expected  a 2024 trend of 4.3 mm per year because Josh Willis, as well as the Colorado researchers, think there’s acceleration in the record. But the “acceleration” is an artifact of improper splicing. The actual individual satellite records in Figure 6 show no acceleration in either the earlier half or the later half of the time period.

But the curious part is their claim that in 2024 the trend was 5.9 mm/year, a very high rate of sea level rise … but when I investigated that, here’s what I found.

I’m sure you can see the oddity. Far from the sea level rise in 2024 being unusually large, according to both of the two satellites, the sea level fell in 2024 …

So I have no clue what Josh Willis was talking about when he was claiming that “the ocean continues to rise, and the rate of rise is getting faster and faster”. Overall, the actual tide gauges continue to show that there’s no increase in the rate of rise. Absent the bogus splice, the two halves of the satellite record each say no increase in the rate of rise. And the NOAA and University of Colorado data both say sea levels fell in 2024.

Over time, the disparity between the satellite record and the tide gauges continues to grow. The tide gauges still say the rise is around 1.8 mm per year or so. For the first two decades of the satellite records, they claimed about 2.6 mm per year, which was not too much more than tide gauges show, perhaps credible, but likely not.

Since then, if we ignore the bogus splice, the last three satellites have claimed an instantaneous rise to a trend of ~ 4.0 mm per year … a rise that is totally discredited by the actual tide gauges. If the rise were that large, it would be seen in every tide gauge around the planet … but it’s not seen in any of them. Here’s an example:

My theory is that for decades, they’d predicted a catastrophic sea level rise as an inevitable and very damaging result of “global warming”. Here’s a partial list:

• A 2004 Pentagon analysis warned that major European cities would be underwater by 2020 due to climate change, and that Britain would experience a “Siberian” climate due to the failure of the Gulf Stream

• In 1988 James Hansen said that by 2028 the West Side Highway in New York would be underwater. In 2008, ABC News aired a special suggesting that New York City could be underwater by 2015 due to rising sea levels. Neither one came true.

• In 1988, Maldives environmental officials warned that their island nation would be completely underwater within 30 years (by 2018). The Maldives remain above water, and are building resort hotels.

• Media reports and some scientists warned that Pacific coral atolls would be underwater before now due to sea level rise. However, the scientists forgot that Charles Darwin showed that coral atolls are created by sea level rise, not destroyed by it. And studies (e.g., Webb & Kench, 2010) have shown that ~ 80% of the atolls have experienced either a gain or no loss of land area since the 1940s despite rising sea levels.

The problem for the sea level alarmists is that, having made so many predictions of oceanic thermageddon from rising sea levels only to see them crash and burn, and now watching the climate grift slowly collapse, they have no choice other than to put their thumb on the scales. As Bill Shakescene remarked, “There is a tide in the affairs of men”, and although these good prognosticators thought the rising sea levels would “lead them on to destiny”, back here in the real world, they are now feeling the tide ebbing out from under their feet and getting very nervous.

There’s an old lawyer’s maxim that says:

“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell”.

I fear this is just Josh Willis pounding the table and yelling …

TLDR Version? The claim of acceleration in the satellite sea level data is a false conclusion from an unjustifiable splicing process, and the claims of Josh Willis and the NASA JPL of a large sea level rise in 2024 are contradicted by a drop in the actual sea level data.

Best to everyone on a sunny evening,

w.

Yeah, you’ve heard it before: When you comment, please quote the words you’re discussing. It avoids heaps of confusion.

Also: I’m tired of the name-calling. I’ll snip it without remorse.