Scientists were caught 'adjusting' sea level data to create false impression of rising oceans
The study, which did not appear to have been copy edited, asserted that scientists had been arbitrarily adjusting historical tide gauge data to inflate estimates of sea level rise. As evidence, the study focused on the routine corrections scientists applied to a single record in Aden, Yemen. [...] Yet, all the methods scientist use to adjust the data generally agree on the same thing, according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment: that it is "very likely" that the sea level has been rising by about 1.7 mm per year globally from 1900-2010 -- a rate that is now accelerating. [...] The authors’ main proof that this is the case? Their description of the raw data at Aden, Yemen (which doesn’t show dramatic rise in sea level) and that of the corrected data (which does show a rise in sea level) in a tone suggesting: "we caught you!" They then conclude that the adjustments to the Aden record were arbitrarily "composed to produce a high trend, high acceleration record." (The data they describe are freely available on the PSMSL web site).