Kevin Trenbeth on the 2011 sea level bump and Australia's wettest 2 year period
Submitted by takver on Mon, 01/04/2013 - 4:28amDid you know that during 2011 sea level rise went into reverse and lost 5mm from the global oceans? No? How about that since then, much to the chagrin of climate deniers, sea level rise has accelerated from 3.18mm per year - the rate from 1993 to 2010 - to increase to 10mm per year over the last two years. This acceleration more than makes up for the pothole. The primary cause of this sea level 'speed bump' was the back to back La Nina which moved a phenomenal amount of water from the global oceans to the land. The water has since been making its way back into the world's oceans.
The question arises, does this explain the 10mm per year increase in sea level rise over the last 2 years? Is ocean thermal expansion or ice sheet melting perhaps contributing more? This may also be the start to an exponential sea level rise which NASA climatologist James Hansen has argued is a possibility. Rob Painting on Skeptical Science says that there is no evidence yet to suggest that ice loss from Greenland or Antarctica has added to the speed bump in any significant manner. We will have to wait and see what the impact of future El Nino or La Nina (ENSO) will be on sea level rise, and keep watching the rate of mass loss from the ice sheets.