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Comments 64551 to 64600:

  1. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Ken: You cited Rob as stating:
    The [S]un[']s energy has already been absorbed by the oceans and takes about 18 months for them to warm up and exchange all this heat with the atmosphere [Emphasis mine], thereby affecting surface temperatures
    You then ask:
    If the sun's energy has already been absorbed by the oceans how is it expressed? It must be in temperature increase or phase change (evaporation or ice melt) right now
    Yet Rob's previous statement answers your question already: ocean warming is a temperature change right now (as you suggest is required).
  2. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    agwnonsense#27 Apparently the US Navy is concerned about sea level rise. In 2008, the National Intelligence Council judged that more than 30 U.S. military installations were already facing elevated levels of risk from rising sea levels. But maybe they should chuck that report over the side and go with your anecdotal evidence.
  3. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    In addition to my immediate preceding comment, I should like to highlight another part of the phrase: "Increased occurence of such extreme anomalies, as a result of global warming, by more than a factor of 10, implies that we can attribute [Emphasis mine] such extreme anomalies, including that in Texas and Oklahoma, to global warming." That is a much stronger statement of attribution than I am used to seeing, which, occuring as it does in the same sentence as the implies under discussion, IMO reinforces the implication-as-logical inference point (while the inference also reinforces the positive claim of attribution).
  4. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    apiratelooksat50: Dimly recalling logic classes in both math/comp sci and philosophy, a logical implication is an argument (and vice versa of course: an argument is a form of implication). As Tom Curtis indicated upthread, as a logical construct, A→B is "A, therefore B", which is much stronger than mere suggestion. As such, if I see 'implies' in a casual setting (newspaper, opinion piece, blog post) I am likely to interpret it in the suggestive sense. Seeing it in a more scientific context (such as the article by Hansen et al, I am likely to interpret it as an inference, and the context in which it appears:
    In the 1951-1980 period of climatology the area with temperature anomaly exceeding +3σ was only a few tenths of one percent. However, the area covered by such extreme anomalies has increased with global warming. +3σ anomalies covered 7% of the area with observations in Jun-Jul-Aug 2009, 13% in 2010, and 9% in 2011 (Hansen et al., 2012). Increased occurrence of such extreme anomalies as a result of global warming, by more than a factor of 10, implies that we can attribute such recent extreme anomalies, including that in Texas and Oklahoma, to global warming.
    very strongly indicates to me that inference is what is meant, not the suggestion.
  5. Major Study of Ocean Acidification Helps Scientists Evaluate Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Marine Life
    I think most buffering is done by the bicarbonate system (as in the human body), but if calcite and aragonite are what concern us most, then calcite and aragonite saturation should be measured. Note, however, that this saturation changes with pressure and temperature....
  6. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Daniel Bailey @4 Where does the data for your combined heat content graph come from. The land + atmosphere and ice heating looks close to 20*(10^21) joules. Your ocean heating would then be over 200*(10^21) joules. On the NOAA page for ocean heat content none of the graphs show an ocean heat content of this magnitude. Their scale is in (10^22) joules but none of the graphs make it to 20 (which would be 200 in your units). It is correct that the ocean is gaining heat content since the study began but is this a slight stretch of the actual amount? source of graphs.
    Response:

    [DB] "Where does the data for your combined heat content graph come from."

    The SkS graphic originates from Church et al 2011, and is derived from the original data used to make this graphic from the paper:

    Click to enlarge

    This depicts all the various components of our planet's energy budget. The dark purple is all the heat going into the upper ocean, the red is all the heat going into the deeper ocean and the green is all the heat going into land + atmosphere + ice. The other components are cooling due to volcanoes (light blue), cooling due to aerosols (grey), increased outgoing radiation due to a warmer earth (yellow).

    So to isolate all the heat accumulating in our climate, just take the purple, red and green. The data was provided to SkS directly from one of the co-authors of the paper. The authors were then sent the final graph for approval.

    So the SkS Total Heat Graph is based on peer-reviewed data and is an update of an earlier graph based on Murphy 2009, done by a different team but finding the same result.

  7. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Rob #34 "Some is being misleading here Ken, and it's not me. The suns energy has already been absorbed by the oceans and takes about 18 months for them to warm up and exchange all this heat with the atmosphere, thereby affecting surface temperatures." If the sun's energy has already been absorbed by the oceans how is it expressed? It must be in temperature increase or phase change (evaporation or ice melt) right now. It might take 18 months (or much longer if going deep) for increased temperatures to be distributed elsewhere, however if it warms somewhere else by convection or conduction, then the temperature cools at the initial entry area unless this is a globally steady state system with a steady temperature gradient. It is not - ENSO and other circulations move heat about so that a warming gradient might raise surface temperatures in one part of the system and cool it other parts.
  8. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    agwnonsense: You need to support those bald assertions ("zero rise"? "incidental variations"? Please!) with evidence. Your reference to "panic" is IMO violating the spirit of the comments policy here. At present the best evidence shows your claims regarding empirical phenomena are simply incorrect. If you have any evidence to present to support your assertions, any on sea level can be presented in this thread. Any others can be directed to the appropriate threads so as not to be on-topic.
  9. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    I am expecting the same as global warming a ZERO rise not panic over incidental variations that have no relevance on a global scale.
    Moderator Response: [Rob P] - please note that nonsensical assertions do not constitute earnest discussion. Either contribute to the discussion, supported by peer-reviewed literature or find an alternative blog suitable for the airing of unsubstantiated non-expert opinion.

    Please make yourself familiar with the comments policy. Any further breaches will result in the deletion of offending comments.
  10. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case @ 17 - Hansen (2011) - Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implications, looks at the observations in the last few decades - that is what I'm referring to. They claim that the rate of ocean heat uptake has declined recently. It is absorbing heat at a slower rate than earlier in the satellite altimetry record. Isn't that what you keep waffling on about? For my part, I think it's interesting to look at the observations and see if they match prior expectations. If not, why not? We don't know what role (if any) the rapid industrialization of China in the last decade has had on the concentration of reflective particles of pollution (aerosols) in the atmosphere, but it's possible they contributed to a slower rate of ocean heat uptake. We won't get to find out for a few years yet, when the next state-of-the-art aerosol measuring satellite is launched. Hopefully that one won't crash into the sea. Anyway, I'll cover all this when I get around to writing up the Hansen paper.
  11. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    Jose_X: The character falling into the abyss is Uncle Sam. Toles is critiquing the "middle of the road" position taken by the American people and its government.
  12. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    First the Hockeystick, now a very robust Escalator - enough to send the WUWT commentariat into a paroxism of doubt, if not anguish. Well done Dana!
  13. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    KR @16 and the la ninas correlate closely to following peak temp years ... 1998, 2005, 2003?, 2010.....
  14. Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
    How true, Ken. They should be able to. And yet there are so many who so confidently repeat the most awful, frequently disproved, rhetorical arguments that, if they were not actually designed to mislead, must have been generated by those incapable of fully understanding "the essentials". Furthermore they appear to be also incapable of understanding their errors when they are pointed out - judging by the fact that they keep on endlessly repeating and embellishing them.
  15. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Tom Curtis @24: I agree - the categories I mention do overlap as do so many matters in which judgement (arbitration) is required. I agree that 1951 -1980 and 1981 to present are statistically quite different periods. However, is the statistical difference between the two periods unprecedented? Do we have have data (albeit somewhat truncated because less data may have been recorded) from earlier periods to suggest that 1981 to present is vastly different (eg, early 20 century data or 19 or 18 century data)? If available, it ought to be highlighted because it would be compelling. CC
  16. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    @18 agwnonsense I would not expect to notice much change in reefs and rocks, but beaches are another matter. All up and down the east coast of Australia, from Wilson's Prom and up to the Sunshine coast, there is severe beach erosion. My "home" beach, Old Bar (east of Taree), will likely loose it's surf club in the next few years. Less dramatic is the sand just offshore - over the Christmas break we bodysurfed at beaches from Coffs Harbour down to Lorne. We found that at most of these beaches the bottom shelved more quickly and deeply than I remember, and waves were "dumping" far more: sand had been removed over the years. Look not at rocks and reefs as a layman's visible sign of rising sea levels - look at the beaches.
  17. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Just to clarify: The 30" minimum sea level rise by 2100, mentioned above in @22, is based on "Year 0" being 1990, not present day. See Fig.3 in Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated. Thus, this rise is based on being over a 110 span.
  18. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    @18 agwnonsense 1) Sea level has gone up ~3" in the last 30years (since 1980); it is unlikely you could discern this unless taking careful measurements. 2) It has gone up ~8.5" since 1870 (Sea level rise: the broader picture). 3) When including melting from Greenland ice-sheets & antartica, sea level is projected to rise a minimum of 30" by 2100 (Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated). This 30" rise assumes curbing CO2 emissions per IPCC's 'B1' scenario, which doesn't seem very likely anytime soon. .. For me, this is very concerning!
  19. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Sea level rise is not quite like filling a bath. Even if enough of Greenland's ice melted to increase sea level by 1 meter, it would still take many years or a couple of decades for it to distribute by gravity and be noticed on far-off shores.
  20. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    @18 agwnonsense - The current rise is 3.18mm/year. That is very hard to visually see, especially with waves coming in and out, along with tides as well. Question is, what are you expecting to see?
  21. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    Jose... I think you're overanalyzing. I believe the intent of the cartoon is to say that by ignoring the science and trying to find the middle ground between these "two sides" politically is a perilous thing. This is not a matter of do we fund more highways or more transmission lines. We can vote on what we believe the right path is. We have a serious problem when one side of a debate is saying we should vote against science (i.e, "knowledge"). Science is telling us we have a serious problem. Let's vote on how we address that problem rather than trying to vote on whether or not to believe the science.
  22. The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
    In my comment upthread noting characteristics of science denialism I forgot a component: (Psychological) Projection I'm not sure if the WSJ letter by Lindzen et al includes this component. It would not surprise me if it did.
  23. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Ken Lambert @ 29 - "Well Rob, when I started commenting on SKS, Solar was a lot smaller. When the warming imbalance was 0.9W/sq.m - Solar was only 0.13 +/-0.13 W/sq.m." Is that right Ken? Sounds like 0.13 might be referring to the anomaly from a baseline which would yield about 0.26 W/m2. But then I don't know which SkS blog post you are referencing. "How can it be a contributor to global warming if it is a predictable cyclical variation which has always been there?" This is in the introduction to this blog post: "This is not a new phenomenon, but simply a reflection of natural variability, cool (La Niña) and warm (El Niño) phases which still exert a temporary cooling/warming influence on global surface temperatures even in the presence of a persistent global warming trend" I don't know why you are confused on this point, I've made it very explicit. The same deal applies to the solar cycle - at times it reinforces the global warming signal, and at other times it acts as a brake. "Further this 'warming already committed but not yet manifest in surface temperatures' is somewhat misleading. The energy is already stored somewhere - expressed as increased ocean temperatures or phase change right now. All the temperature expression we have now is a reflection of cumulative past global energy gain or loss." Some is being misleading here Ken, and it's not me. The suns energy has already been absorbed by the oceans and takes about 18 months for them to warm up and exchange all this heat with the atmosphere, thereby affecting surface temperatures. If you wish to contradict these NASA scientists, some supporting literature would be handy. Otherwise it's just an uninformed opinion.
  24. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - Rob Painting explicitly said Hansen et al 2011, with a link to "Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implications". That illustration does not appear in the linked paper Hansen et al 2011, "Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change", shows that image simply to demonstrate that "the fundamental issue is linearity versus non-linearity", and showing the differences in projections - an illustration of growth rate curves, not a prediction, which is clear upon reading the paper.
  25. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    With respect to the cartoon, yes, it is funny, but it's rather extreme to consider the middle position to be unacceptable, no questions asked. Consensus comes from a position somewhere in the middle. The IPCC didn't pick climate sensitivity to be 10. It took something of an average (which necessarily would fall in that "abyss" section). We don't pick a most extreme value as the representative of a group. People know this lesson, that the middle ground is likely where it is most likely to be correct or to lead to some sort of peace among the feuding parties. If the message intended by the cartoon is a different one (eg, about professionals in near consensus vs the full population), then that point should be a little clearer. Plus, the cartoon makes it look as if picking an extreme side is healthier than trying out the middle. How is someone supposed to move from say the right side to the left side in a responsible fashion? Should we blindly accept what "central power" dictates? You know that view doesn't fly at the polls.. and for good reason (and popular polls do count in a "democracy"). If I value democracy, I find it valuable to be convinced personally (convinced to some extent), and this means I need a path if I currently happen to be on what might be the wrong side. Suggesting an extreme position might be the right one looks (eg) elitist from the outside since that is a position saying that you aren't fallible. People who take extreme positions have a history of not being able to argue on merits (eg, because they don't really understand or have a dishonest agenda).. that's what extremism suggests to many people in the middle (falling into the abyss) who you probably want over on your side.
  26. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    I work at sea and live by the sea and I am having a little trouble finding any sea level rise.The rocks that I fished off 30 years ago are still there,the reefs I surfed 30 years ago are still being surfed by a new generation of surfers so please explain,I really would like to know.
  27. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Rob Painting
    ...If ice melt has accelerated, and it has, then perhaps thermal expansion might have slowed in the last decade? Hansen (2011) has an interesting look at the thermal expansion aspect and his team's calculations show a rapid acceleration in sea level rise is likely this decade.

    This paper?
    Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change I thought it showed modest acceleration in sea level rise this decade and doubled per decade until by 2100 it was going up hundreds of millimeters per year. See figure 7 on page 14

    Fig. 7. Five-meter sea level change in 21st century under assumption of linear change (Alley, 2010) and exponential change (Hansen, 2007), the latter with a 10-year doubling time.

  28. Major Study of Ocean Acidification Helps Scientists Evaluate Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Marine Life
    I haven't yet seen anyone deal with alkalinity rather than pH. In contrast to what one would think at first glance, alkalinity is not the opposite of pH. Alkalinity is the ability of a buffered solution, such as sea water, to absorb an acid without much change in pH. If it is a muli-buffered solution, as I assume sea water is, when the first chemical buffering ion is used up, a little more acid should send the pH levels plunging until the next ion begins to operate. A simple titration dropwise with very dilute HCl with number of drops in the X axis should show a step like diagram. If this is so, one wonders how close we are to the first precipice and if at the next plateau, it will be calcite and aragonite that are doing the buffering. by by oysters etc. I suspect that measuring alkalinity might be much more useful that the much easier measure of pH.
  29. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Paul Magnus - You are quite correct about the leveling off periods. Comparing those to a list of ENSO cycles shows that every one of them is during a La Nina phase, when rainfall over the continents is higher.
  30. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Interesting pattern is the levelling off of the SL rise when ever we get a peak in Global temp. And of course the connection with the El Nina.... but it could be more direct also.
  31. More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
    "I guess you are referring to Canada or Australia during the Carboniferous period" No, actually I was thinking of Eocene-Miocene coals in NZ. Australian coals are Permian to Jurassic. I associate Carboniferous coals with North America and Europe mostly.
  32. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    The Hansen 2011 paper also repeats the "smoking gun" analogy Hansen used starting around 2005. "The strong positive energy imbalance during the solar minimum, and the consistency of the planet’s energy imbalance with expectations based on estimated human-made climate forcing, together constitute a smoking gun, a fundamental verification that human-made climate forcing is the dominant forcing driving global climate change. Positive net forcing even during solar minimum assures that global warming will be continuing on decadal time scales."
  33. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Alden Griffith - Agreed, it's easy to get into overfitting. Without further examination, such as calculating the Akaike information criterion (AIC) to look at the tradeoff between bias and variance, at whether the data supports the extra parameters of the higher-order fit, it's easy to get caught up in the close fit of an overly complicated model. Regardless, in terms of predictive power: Physics - excellent predictive power Good statistics - fair predictive power if nothing's changing Bad statistics - better off with a wishing well Short term high order fits without evaluation are really just bad statistics.
  34. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Can't help but feel that the current lull is a Silence before the Storm phenomenon - the next couple of years should be very eventful, and even more unequivocal.
  35. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Miscellaneous notes: The Hansen 2011 "Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implications" paper lists von Schuckmann as a co-author which indicates how much Hansen is relying on her estimate of ocean heat storage. She and Le Traon analysed ARGO 2005-2010 data that Hansen says he emphasizes "because of its potential for accurate analysis" compared to the pre-ARGO data which he says in his talks is "very noisy". Loeb used various datasets from 2001 to 2010. Hansen states that although the "measured energy imbalance" found by his paper was 0.58 W/m2, because that period was "a deep solar minimum", "we estimate the energy imbalance averaged over a solar cycle as 0.75 W/m2". I found that a Youtube video of Hansen discussing the ideas presented in his 2011 paper was a valuable aid as I studied the paper. Regarding the apparently warm year of 1998: It wasn't just an El Nino of the century but that El Nino had perfect timing. The Hansen 2012 paper says this: "Hansen et al. (2010) showed that the correlation of 12-month running-mean global temperature and Niño 3.4 index is maximum with global temperature lagging the Niño index by 4 months. Thus the 1997-1998 "El Niño of the century" had a timing that maximized 1998 global temperature" Hansen's New Climate Dice paper, which is referenced by Hansen 2012, discusses the issue of increased likelihood of extreme events using an analogy Hansen has used for decades. Its an easily understood point of view. Any casino that detected that the dice in use were loaded in favor of the players would act immediately to end the threat. No one running the casino would say that loaded dice couldn't be said to be responsible for any individual win - they wouldn't waste their time thinking that way. They would immediately understand that loaded dice would quickly lead to the bankruptcy of the casino.
  36. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Andylee - excess energy has gone into the ocean, but how did the current rate of energy flow compare to the early part of the satellite altimetry record, the early 1990's? We don't really know for sure because ocean heat measurements were sparsely sampled in space and time prior to 2003. And most XBT measurements only went to 700 metres, whereas the present ARGO float network can go to 2000 metres - which gives a better indication of how much heat is absorbed by the oceans. Hansen (2011) suggest ocean heating has slowed in recent times for several reasons, but expects it's going to build up quickly this decade.
  37. Alden Griffith at 06:04 AM on 7 February 2012
    Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    @Steve Case and KR A quadratic model is always going to have a better fit than a linear one. Adding more parameters to a model makes a better fit, but tells you nothing about whether the model is correct. Often one runs into trouble and starts modeling noise instead of signal (i.e. overfitting). KR makes a very good point about the short time frame, but some additional relevant questions are: 1) Is there a compelling reason to reject the simple model for the more complex model? There are statistical ways to deal with this, but just looking at it makes me think probably not. 2) As is the entire point of the post - what is driving sea level rise? We have good mechanistic explanations for the recent dip in sea level rise, which means much more than any statistical polynomial model.
  38. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    andylee - Take a look at the first 'Pothole' thread. There's a significant evidence from the GRACE mass detection satellites that indicate the current La Nina conditions (and high accompanying rainfall) have led to greater water concentrations on the continents, especially Brazil and Australia. And hence a short term decrease in the rate of rise. That short term variation, of course, will likely reverse over the next El Nino pattern.
  39. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - If ice melt has accelerated, and it has, then perhaps thermal expansion might have slowed in the last decade? Hansen (2011) has an interesting look at the thermal expansion aspect and his team's calculations show a rapid acceleration in sea level rise is likely this decade.
  40. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    If most of the excess energy has gone into heating the oceans over the last few years then one would expect to see a little more sign of this in the graph. The only thing I can think of that would mask the heating of the oceans is if cold water was being heated from 0C to 4C, where its density would increase and volume contract. Once above water's anomalous density transfer function, a temperature vs sea-level correlation would be more apparent.
  41. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Composer99 - those metaphors were chosen by NASA JPL - Josh Willis I think. They're well-established now and I happen to like them, so won't be changing.
  42. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Sorry, KR, my comment above should have been more directed to readership in general than to you. Apologies. "I find it quite useful when someone comes along and (once again) provides a demonstration." Agreed.
  43. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Daniel Bailey - I'm aware of the repetition of this particular cherry-pick, having been in some of those discussions. However, when discussing why cherry-picking short term noisy data is statistically a bad idea in science, I find it quite useful when someone comes along and (once again) provides a demonstration.
  44. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    KR, Steve has been prosecuting this very tiny cherry-red agenda for some time, on multiple threads. Each time he has been given correction such as yours, to no avail. It is yet another iteration of this: Or this:
  45. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    I second Sapient Fridge's ideas in his/her first paragraph.
  46. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - Two points: * What is the quality of the polynomial fit versus a linear fit for this (fairly short) time period? You have not shown whether the polynomial is a better (more justified) fit. * Looking at longer term data indicates a clear acceleration of sea level rise: [Source - IPCC 2007, projections are for the SRES A1B scenario] As this thread points out - you have to look at the broader picture, and include all of the relevant data. As opposed to, say, the short term noise.
  47. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Paul D@25, Exactly - I didn't want to patronize with long explanations! dawn and dusk was just a short way of describing the ring around the Earth where the sun is below the horizon, but the atmosphere is still illuminated, and indirectly heating the surface. Thus the fraction of the Earth receiving energy from the Sun would be slightly more than 50%. (I'm pretty sure we can discount earthshine from the moon from having any statistical relevance)
  48. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Whatever the case may be, global sea level rise will continue over the long-term because of the accelerating melt of land-based ice and continued warming of the oceans.

    So far that accelerating melt and warming hasn't caused sea level rise to accelerate. Here's Colorado University's data from their 2011 rel 4 plotted out with an Excel 2nd order polynomial trend line which shows slight deceleration:

  49. Dikran Marsupial at 04:38 AM on 7 February 2012
    Global Warming: Trend and Variation
    Fred Staples while sea level data are not my forte, I do know there are very good reasons why you can't get a good estimate of global sea levels from measurements from just one site. So perhaps you would like to explain what is so interesting about Tasmania, and why this is not just yet another example of cherry picking station data, whilst ignoring the bigger picture?
  50. Global Warming: Trend and Variation
    If you want an idea of the increase in sea-level over the past 170 years, Google "John Daly Sea-Level" and look at the following: The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead', Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004. Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre. © John L. Daly. If the benchmark is difficult to see, try these.

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