This is the advanced rebuttal to "Tuvalu sea level isn't rising."

First para: "Scientific studies to support these claims has been" - "have been"

"Although the satellite altimetry is a vast improvement in that it covers the entire oceans, and not just the coastal regions, it is therefore able to provide a more detailed picture of sea level variations from region to region." - starting with although makes it sound like something bad at the end, but not the case so reads a little weird

Like the link to the "sea level fell in 2010" rebuttal. Interlinking good on many levels.

According to the Debunking Handbook :-) when you debunk a myth, you create a gap and you need to fill that gap with an alternative explanation. In this case, the explanation you need to provide is how Nils Axel Morner is able to say there's no sea level rise at Tuvalu.

Just curious, with such a noisy signal, if the trend is significant. Don't need to know for the rebuttal. Just thinking out aloud.

Nice job Rob.  Your 'sea level fell in 2010' link is broken though.

If you need a source for the myth, here's Watts and a number of similar links.  Mostly to the Maldives, but Tuvalu is mentioned a few times too.

This misses one thing, I think. It's largely based on just one study. In science you generally need many studies to show same thing in order to establish something at some level of certainty. I suggest at least adding a paragraph noting some studies that give support to this one study.

Ari - I have linked to a couple of other studies Timmerman, Merrifield & Qiu & Chen (2011) which shows the wind-driven water mass accumulating in the tropical western Pacific, due to a strengthening of the easterly winds and ocean circulation. This explains the huge rise in sea level there since the early 1990's as observed by the satellite altimetry - which is independent of this study.

The only other studies I know on sea level at Tuvalu are Church (2006) and Eschenbach (2004), and we know Eschenbach is an absolute arsehead. I've therefore linked to Church & the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project (at the Australian BOM) in the summary points. 

Dana - broken link fixed, thanks.

JC - Fixed issues identified. Re- the debunking handbook, I think Morner is more associated with the Maldives. Maybe it's the Eschenbach myth that need replacing?  

Speaking of Axel-Morner I couldn't believe this written memorandum to British Parliament. It's got that tilted sea level graph!!!!!! The guy is just batshit crazy.

It's ok Rob. I think also more generally it would be good idea if advanced rebuttals would do at least some kind of literature review. I haven't yet checked how good we are on this, though.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/resources.php?a=links&arg=523

This includes both peer reviewed papers and skeptic blog posts (useful for a quote to use as an example).

Rob, apologies for getting my deniers mixed up. I knew Morner pontificated about some sinking island, but got them confused.

JC, Morner seems to mention Tuvalu only in passing, based on what I can stomach reading his drivel. I think he's more connected to the Maldives because he accused Australian sea level researchers of removing a coastal tree there, which he claimed proved sea level had not changed! Guess that (Maldives sea level) needs to be debunked too, at some point in the future.

As for statistical significance of Becker (2011) - missed that in my earlier response. The paper says that 70% of the sea level time series in the global reconstruction reach statistical significance.  

Replacing the myth according to the Debunking handbook - would a sentence or two in the summary suffice? I was thinking of Eschenbach failing to account for a number of factors which cause temporary sea level fluctuations and also ending his analysis(?) on an El Nino (low Tuvalu sea level). Or should there be a mention in the main text?

Can you make this a blog post too, Rob?

Righto. Get on it tonight. 5 hrs from now.

Rob: You may find this recent FOGT post to be of interest. It was put together by a (Kiwi) geologist based in Canada who I know. It's adressed to the "Friends of Science"  a zombie-like denialist crew of retired oil geologists and engineers. FOGT allows its posters  a more expressive vocabulary than SkS, as you'll see in the last line.

From all of this, a number of conclusions seem evident:

• There are islets and islets; pinned and unpinned.
• Any study of the morphologic evolution of islets should distinguish between the two types.
• The present elevation of atoll islets is due to a drop in sea-level after the mid-Holocene highstand, not to coral growth during rising sea-level.
• The larger, populated, pinned islets are underlain by an erosion-resistant core of paleoreef limestone created by coral growth before the post mid-Holocene sea-level drop.
• Pinned islets will become unpinned in coming decades as rising sea-level overtops their paleoreef cores; then they will behave like unpinned islets.
• Current data indicate both increases and decreases in areas of unpinned islets with increasing sea-level and background natural changes, but the number of observations is small and their timescale is short; and in some cases, small net area changes belie significant morphological changes due to large-scale sediment reworking.
• There is nothing in recent or earlier studies to indicate that extant atoll islets will grow vertically to keep pace with rising sea-levels after their paleoreef cores are overtopped.
• As usual, the Friends of Science are full of shit.

Andy, most of that (and more) is covered in my coral atoll rebuttals. Thanks.

Dana, blog post is here.

Dana, you might want to publish the Arctic sea ice hockey stick post before this one. JC was anxious about being scooped, and it's topical given the 2 yr old turkey deniers have served up.

Yep, John posted the hockey stick one.  I might do the hacker memo post next, and then this one after that.

Dana, can you publish the advanced rebuttal linked to at the bottom of this post? Ta.

Oh yeah, I didn't realize it wasn't published.  It is now.