3 ms·
Look at your data. The last time it trended down significantly there was a major weather event (hint: 1997-1998)... The same major weather event is upon us ri
by Mikeb85 11y ago
Look at your data. The last time it trended down significantly there was a major weather event (hint: 1997-1998)... The same major weather event is upon us right now.
Anyhow, fit a regression line, and the trend is upward for most parts of the world. Maybe someday we'll return to an ice age, I mean, we were there in some parts of the world 10000 years ago. Right now the data shows we're in a warming cycle. It may be human-caused, it may be forces beyond our understanding (after all, the planet has gone through several heating-cooling cycles), but either way it's happening.
- WillPostForFood 11y agoExcept NASA says El Nino warming can cause up to an inch of sea level rise due to thermal expansion, so if you see a downtrend in 1097-8 and this year, it is in spite of weather events, not because of it.
- Mikeb85 11y agoComplex systems can have strange behaviour. I'm just looking at data.
- kaybe 11y agoEl Nino has changing wind patterns. Wind pushes the ocean water around: It leads to the Eastern Pacific (America) being lower than the West (Asia) normally (surface wind goes west), normally about ~50cm above mean before Asia and about 20cm below mean before America. This changes during El Nino events, when the surface wind changes direction and the water is pushed the other way (~20cm below mean before Asia and 20cm above mean before America). Those values include thermal expansion and stuff. The Marshall islands are more to the Asia side of the Pacific. There is a ~20cm dip in 1998. [1] It fits. [1] http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/interactive-sea-level-time-series-wizard?dlat=7&dlon=171&fit=n&smooth=g&days=100 http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/interactive-sea-level-t...