What The Science Says:
The claim sea level isn’t rising is based on blatantly doctored graphs contradicted by observations.
Climate Myth: Sea level is not rising
"Together, these two unaltered [sea level] datasets indicate that global mean sea level trend has remained stable over the entire period 1992-2007, altogether eliminating the apparent 3.2 mm/year rate of sea-level rise arising from the “adjusted” data." (Christopher Monckton)
We have a new entry in the contest for most bizarre "skeptic" argument. The "Science" and Public Policy Institute ("S"PPI) Monthly CO2 Report for January 2011, edited by Christopher Monckton, claims on page 29: "Sea level is not rising."
This is of course false. In fact, sea level is not only rising, but the rise is accelerating. Immediately below this false claim, the document contains the following figure:
Notice that the caption claims the blue curve is observational sea level data "up to 1960 according to Professor Morner." Of course, after 1960 (when the "observations" are apparently just made up) is not only when the "observations" supposedly diverge from the models, but also when they diverge from reality! Ah, but it gets even worse from here. On page 33, the document presents what may be my favorite figure of all time:
Monckton and "S"PPI have taken the sea level graph from the University of Colorado at Boulder which shows a 3.2 milimeter per year sea level rise trend (as is still visible in the bottom right of the graph), rotated it to make the trend look flat, and claimed that this is what the "unaltered" and "uncorrected" data looks like.
It boggles the mind that Monckton and the "S"PPI think they can convince people that sea level has dropped since 1950 based on nothing more than their own unsubstantiated claims and blatantly doctored graphs which are completely contradicted by the actual observational data.
Basic rebuttal written by dana1981
Update July 2015:
Here is a related lecture-video from Denial101x - Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
This rebuttal was updated by Judith Matz on September 13, 2021 to replace broken links. The updates are a result of our call for help published in May 2021.
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