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Discussion of Boretti, A., 'Is there any support in the long term tide gauge data to the claims that parts of Sydney will be swamped by rising sea levels?'
Citation
Hunter, JR and Brown, M, Discussion of Boretti, A., 'Is there any support in the long term tide gauge data to the claims that parts of Sydney will be swamped by rising sea levels?', Coastal Engineering: An International Journal for Coastal, Harbour, and Offshore Engineers, 75 pp. 1-3. ISSN 0378-3839 (2013) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V.
DOI: doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2012.12.003
Abstract
Boretti (2012) claims that sea-level records show insufficient acceleration to support the projections of sea-level rise that are used worldwide for planning and policy-making. Unfortunately, his claim is based more on flawed qualitative reasoning than on quantitative analysis.
We replicate Boretti's methodology of fitting quadratic functions to tide-gauge observations from Fremantle and Sydney, in order to estimate the sea-level acceleration. However, we also evaluate the uncertainty in these estimates (a crucial step, omitted by Boretti), and thereby show that the observed accelerations are statistically consistent with the projections of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Our finding is the same when we repeat this analysis using two data sets which have smaller uncertainties, one from satellite altimeters and the other from a sea-level reconstruction.
We therefore conclude that Boretti's claim is without foundation.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
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Keywords: | sea level, tide gauge data, Sydney |
Research Division: | Earth Sciences |
Research Group: | Oceanography |
Research Field: | Physical oceanography |
Objective Division: | Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards |
Objective Group: | Understanding climate change |
Objective Field: | Effects of climate change on Australia (excl. social impacts) |
UTAS Author: | Hunter, JR (Dr John Hunter) |
ID Code: | 84347 |
Year Published: | 2013 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 7 |
Deposited By: | CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems |
Deposited On: | 2013-05-08 |
Last Modified: | 2017-12-07 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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