The 1830 Problem

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Global warming is real. It’s easy to measure it in terms of sea levels over time; when the Earth warms, more ice melts and the seas rise. When the Earth cools, water gets bound up as ice and the sea levels drop. The seas have been rising lately. OK, easy enough.

So, then the question is what is the human impact on global warming? Reinhard Flick has measured the sea levels through geological records off the California coast. He’s found something really interesting – around 1830 the seas started to rise at an increased rate that continues through today. Here’s a barely readable screengrab of one of his slides from a video of a talk he gave called Sea Level Rise and Its Impact on Southern California Beaches:

So, the problem is that current models of the human influence on global warming don’t expect for this sudden increase at that time. Hence we have ‘The 1830 Problem’. Theories are good, but when the data contradicts the theory, it’s time to get a new theory.