Climate talks fail

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Quite the opposite. Cyberdad has been making the claim that south sea islands are flooding due to rising ocean levels. Data taken at various locations around the islands (shown in the graphs) shows that sea levels have actually been dropping since sometime in 2007.

According to my interpretation of the graphs, they say they are showing a decline in height of the land mass, measured in meters above sea level. According to what I am reading it means either some serious erosion is going on or sea level has risen for the height of the land mass to be going down.

The results below provide the ellipsoidal height of the tide gauge sensor benchmark (black squares) on the dates that levelling surveys were undertaken. Superimposed is the GNSS time series (grey). This has been done to show that in the majority of cases the change in height of the tide gauge is directly correlated to the movement of the GNSS station (implying the land mass under both the GNSS site and tide gauges are moving at almost the same rate). This is not true for all sites (e.g. Tonga), where they are not aligned. In these cases, localised movement at the tide gauge site may be the cause (e.g. the Tonga tide gauge has been hit by boats and its position has moved). NOTE: The vertical scale of the plots have been altered to show variability of the ellipsoidal height from the mean tide gauge sensor benchmark ellipsoidal height.

So, are you saying it is measuring tide height and not landmass height?

Measuring absolute sea level variation

In most cases, three types of measurement are necessary to assess whether absolute sea level is changing at a given point: tide gauge data, GNSS data and levelling observations.

Tide gauges measure relative sea level variation, i.e. how sea level changes relative to a tide gauge attached to a rock wall or wharf. It is important to note a tide gauge cannot differentiate between changes in the sea level and movement of the tide gauge if the land it is attached to moves.
GNSS can be used to measure the vertical crustal motion of the Earth with respect to the centre of the Earth. It is a useful technique to distinguish relative sea level rise from absolute sea level rise. For example, in the case of the tide gauge subsiding, if the land subsidence has been observed by GNSS on the tide gauge, this trend can be removed from the relative sea level variation and an estimate of absolute sea level change can be derived.
In situations where a GNSS station is not attached directly to the tide gauge, in order to distinguish sea level variation from vertical crustal movement, it is necessary to regularly measure the height difference between the GNSS station and the tide gauge.

Absolute movement of the tide gauge

As part of the PSLGM Project, the difference in height between the GNSS station and tide gauge sensor benchmark is measured by levelling between them every 18 months (Figure 2). by staff from the Pacific Community (previously the Secretariat of the Pacific Community). The difference in height is added to the GNSS ellipsoidal height at the time of the levelling survey to compute the ellipsoidal height of the tide gauge sensor benchmark.

According to my interpretation of the graphs, they say they are showing a decline in height of the land mass, measured in meters above sea level. According to what I am reading it means either some serious erosion is going on or sea level has risen for the height of the land mass to be going down.

How about subsidence? It is quite common in some places as a result of pumping out the ground water.

There is also an issue with glacial rebound in some places that can make sea level appear to fall on one portion of a plate while appearing to rise on another.

How about subsidence? It is quite common in some places as a result of pumping out the ground water.
There is also an issue with glacial rebound in some places that can make sea level appear to fall on one portion of a plate while appearing to rise on another.

..denialists were complaining...with denialists saying.. among denialists..

Just something to keep in mind:
The constant use of 'denialist' as a means of dismissing those who don't agree with you is far more likely to be viewed as desperately defending a cherished belief as opposed to genuinely seeking rational inquiry.

Just something to keep in mind:
The constant use of 'denialist' as a means of dismissing those who don't agree with you is far more likely to be viewed as desperately defending a cherished belief as opposed to genuinely seeking rational inquiry.

I do not understand this type of approach which I see going around the internet, from those whom I assume want to win others over to help save the planet. Even if they feel they are not going to convince whoever they are talking too, they still have an audience.

There has been much discussion of temperature adjustment of late in both climate blogs and in the media, but not much background on what specific adjustments are being made, why they are being made, and what effects they have. Adjustments have a big effect on temperature trends in the U.S., and a modest effect on global land trends. The large contribution of adjustments to century-scale U.S. temperature trends lends itself to an unfortunate narrative that “government bureaucrats are cooking the books”.

Having worked with many of the scientists in question, I can say with certainty that there is no grand conspiracy to artificially warm the earth; rather, scientists are doing their best to interpret large datasets with numerous biases such as station moves, instrument changes, time of observation changes, urban heat island biases, and other so-called inhomogenities that have occurred over the last 150 years. Their methods may not be perfect, and are certainly not immune from critical analysis, but that critical analysis should start out from a position of assuming good faith and with an understanding of what exactly has been done.

It's an appeal to emotion.
The goal is to preemptively discredit anyone who might present an opposing argument.
(As well as invoking an us vs them mentality.)

More on this here:

The Appeal to Emotion: Persuasion Through Feelings Rather than Facts

That's not conducive towards a discussion about science, and why it tends to take on religious overtones. There are times when I feel like Christopher Hitchens talking to religious fundamentalists.