12/2/11, "Climate change science being stifled by NSW Labor bureaucrats," Australia Daily Telegraph, Malcolm Holland
"Senior bureaucrats in the state government's environment department have routinely stopped publishing scientific papers which challenge the federal government's claims of sea level rises threatening Australia's coastline,
- a former senior public servant said yesterday.
Doug Lord helped prepare six scientific papers which examined 120 years of tidal data from a gauge at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour.
The tide data revealed sea levels were rising at a rate of about 1mm a year or less - and the rise was not accelerating but was constant.
"The tidal data we found would mean sea levels would rise by about 100mm by the end of the century," Mr Lord said yesterday.
"However the (federal) government benchmark which drives their climate change policy is that sea levels are expected to rise by 900mm by the end of the century and the rate of rise is accelerating."
Mr Lord, who has 35 years experience in coastal engineering, said senior bureaucrats within the then Department of Environment Climate Change and Water had rejected or stopped publication of five papers between late 2009 and September this year.
"This was very thorough research, peer reviewed and getting the highest ranking from various people, and one of the papers got a nine out of 10 for the quality of the work," he said.
"You have to ask yourself why they were rejected, considering they had been peer reviewed, and the Fort Denison tide data is among the longest continuous data of its type available in the world.
"There's never been a sensible explanation of why they have stopped these papers."
Mr Lord left government work in 2010 but continued to co-author the tidal data papers with experts still working for the state government.
The latest incident came in September when organisers of the Coasts and Ports 2011 Conference in Perth accepted one of the studies, only to have senior OEH bureaucrats tell them it had to be withdrawn.
"They were able to do this because my co-author of this study, and the co-authors of the other rejected studies done after I left government work, still work for the government," Mr Lord said.
"As far as I am aware the minister has not been made aware by her department
- that this has been happening.""
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12/1/11, From Anthony Watts, updates to information in above article citing study on Australian sea levels and charts showing sea level rise in Australia ranges from 1 to 1.1mm per year, and .54 in Sydney. Scientific paper linked notes variations are so great that a minimum of 2 decades is needed before attaching 'greenhouse' or other conclusions. Citation, page 9, 2nd to last paragraph, 1990 study:
- "Sea Level Change and Greenhouse: Implications for Wetlands," E.A. Dept. of Geography, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2500
"Within Australia it is generally accepted that sea level can fluctuate at a weekly to monthly level by 0.2-0.3m, and at a decadal level by 0.1-0.15m. With this degree of variation and the historical evidence for rates of rise as great as 6-7.5mm yr. (1), it will be extremely difficult within Australia to discern a Greenhouse induced sea level rise with certainty
- for at least two decades."
Update 1 [above paragraph is from this]: "An Australian science paper I located from 1990 says that century scale sea level trends are 1-1.1 mm per year, and Sydney was 0.54 mm/ year." Chart posted at Watts up with That.
Update 2: "A graph of the current SLR for Sydney is now available." (graph at WUWT link)
via WUWT, via Tom Nelson
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