Questionable Scientific Papers - 4

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Fig. 1 Dredd Blog Model Zones

I had a difficult time deciding which series to put this post into.

Should it be in "The Evolution of Models" or in "Questionable 'Scientific' Papers" I wondered.

I finally made the decision to post it in this series, because scientific professionals just keep filing papers based on an old error about thermal expansion that causes sea level rise (SLR).

"The thermal expansion trance has got to go," I thought, so suppressing my intimidation at

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Fig. 2  Typical Tide Gauge sea level rise data

having to slap the face or throw cold water on some folks in the scientific community, I worked up some courage, so, here we go.

To get right to it, first notice Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 for the purpose of grasping the gist of the story.

The zone those graphs focus on (AH.SE.NW see Fig. 1) has the following tide gauge

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Fig. 3  Proportions of SLC

stations: #1295 (CAMBRIDGE II), #360 (WASHINGTON DC), #412 (SOLOMON'S ISLAND BIOL. LAB.), #311 (ANNAPOLIS NAVAL ACADEMY), #148 (BALTIMORE), #224 (LEWES BREAKWATER HARBOR), #135 (PHILADELPHIA PIER 9N), and #786 (REEDY POINT).


Basically, thermal expansion cannot account for  the PSMSL data we see a lot here on Dredd Blog.

The overuse of thermal expansion is akin to other old "problems" some in the scientific community toiled with for years, such as "the tide gauge station problem" and "the European problem," neither of which were the problem.

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Fig. 4

The problem was with the researchers of that time, whom Dr. Mitrovica indicated "didn't have a clue."

The graph in Fig. 3 shows three contributors: "displacement, ghost-water, and thermal expansion."

Their percentage of contribution now in the model, is 80.95% for "displacement," 13.95 percent for "ghost-water," and 5.1% for "thermal expansion."

Displacement is what happens when melt water flows from the land into the ocean, or ice bergs calve off glaciers and then fall into the ocean.

The ghost-water phenomenon was explained recently in the Dredd Blog post The Ghost-Water Constant.

Thermal expansion, the current fettish driving a lot of error, is talked and written about all the time, such as:

"we note that a warming of 1°C over the central 200 m of the Atlantic layer [in the Arctic Ocean] would result in a local rise of steric sea level of 10 to 20 mm

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Fig. 5

[1-2 cm]" - IPCC

"For the period 1985–2025 the estimate of greenhouse-gas-induced warming is 0.6–1.0° C. The concomitant oceanic thermal expansion would raise sea level by 4–8 cm [40-80 mm]." - Thermal expansion of sea water associated with global warming

"The amount of sea level rise that comes from the oceans warming and expanding has been underestimated, and could be about twice as much as previously calculated, German researchers have said." - Sea level rise from ocean warming underestimated

These are all competent scientists who are laboring without first considering all of the relevant evidence available, and thus improperly attributing quantities of SLC to thermal expansion.


The link to the IPCC page, in Section II above, also says "... thermal expansion ... is one of the major contributors to sea level changes during the 20th and 21st centuries" (notice that Fig. 3 lists it as the least of three factors).

"Water is essentially incompressible, especially under normal conditions" (USGS), and its expansion is not sufficient to account for the degree of SLR being observed (Engineering Toolbox).

There is indisputable sea level fall (SLF) that thermal expansion cannot explain, because that SLF is not thermal, or any other type of compression for that matter.

The reason for the various areas of SLF, which has been going on for over a century, was discussed at length in Questionable "Scientific" Papers - 3, Proof of Concept - 3, 5, and Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 54.

Those posts show that sea level began to fall in the late 1700's because of the two main factors in SLC: displacement and ghost-water.

That dynamic is still ongoing now.


The lack of familiarity with the ice sheet gravity dynamics, which Dr. Mitrovica (video below) lectures about, is an obvious source of this ongoing inaccuracy.

Another source is that some scientists ever so often "detect" more SLR than the historical thermal expansion values would account for.

Their recent and naive doubling of those values, without sufficient evidence IMO, is a case in point (Sea level rise from ocean warming underestimated).

That said, I also may have to adjust "the ghost-water constant" (13.95%), if more accurate lengths of the coastlines of Antarctica and/or Greenland are found (The Ghost-Water Constant).

And perhaps the 5.1% for thermal expansion could be adjusted a bit.

Yet, I am fine with the principles involved in this hypothesis.


Let me know your opinions on this.

The graphs in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are from zone AH.SE.SW, which means that today's examples are from the U.S. East Coast and N.W. Florida.

Zone AH.SE.SW contains stations: #1156 (DAUPHIN ISLAND), #246 (PENSACOLA), #1641 (PANAMA CITY @ ST.ANDREWS BAY @ FL), #112 (FERNANDINA BEACH), #395 (FORT PULASKI), #234 (CHARLESTON I), #1444 (SPRINGMAID PIER), #396 (WILMINGTON SC), #1636 (DUCK PIER OUTSIDE), #1635 (CHESAPEAKE BAY BR. TUN.), #299 (SEWELLS POINT @ HAMPTON ROADS), and #636 (KIPTOPEKE BEACH).

Those zones are on the map above.

The previous post in this series is here.

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Dr. Mitrovica: A discussion of, among other things, SLC as impacted by ice sheet mass and gravity:

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