Breaking news!

Tuvalu is not sinking!

Since all the drama in years gone by about Tuvalu disappearing beneath the waves and displacing all of those “climate refugees”, what has happened to the poor sinking Island?  Nothing apparently.  Sea levels have not been increasing around the Island in spite of the best efforts to change sea level gauge locations and tacking on satellite data onto the record.  In recent years the level has actually been falling. Fancy that!

But, according to the last report from the Australian Government, the sea is rising rapidly.

This taken from: Tuvalu chapter, Climate Change in the Pacific: Volume 2: Country Reports. Australia Government: Pacific Climate Change Science Program. 2011.

“15.6.6 Sea Level

Monthly averages of the historical
tide gauge, satellite (since 1993) and
gridded sea-level (since 1950) data
agree well after 1993 and indicate
inter-annual variability in sea levels of
about 26 cm (estimated 5–95% range)
after removal of the seasonal cycle
(Figure 15.10). The sea-level rise near
Tuvalu measured by satellite altimeters
(Figure 15.6) since 1993 is about
5 mm per year, larger than the global
average of 3.2 ± 0.4 mmper year. This
rise is partly linked to a pattern related
to climate variability from year to year
and decade to decade (Figure 15.10)”

5mm per year?  Where on this planet do they get that figure from?  Below is the tide gauge data at Tuvalu from late 1993 to 2012.  You see for yourself how the level has changed (or not).  Looks pretty flat to me.

Tuvalu Sea level data

Statistically, there has been a bit of a rise, due to the start point of this data and because of the effect of the massive 1998 El Niño which is on the left side of the graph.

Since mid 1999 though, there has been absolutely no increase in sea level. Dead flat!

Sea level around Tuvalu has actually been falling since 2001. Ten years plus of sea level fall while C02 has been increasing year on year.

Here is the data from earlier years.  Very difficult to see any trend in either direction really.

sea levels at Tuvalu prior to 2000

Further reading

History of sea level recording at Tuvalu.

Is Tuvalu sinking because of Sea Level Rise

JTF