Editor, Gazette-Journal:

A recent letter to the editor (“What is sea level rise all about?,” July 31 Readers Write) provides arguments that sea level, while continuing to rise, is not rising at the accelerating rates reported by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 and, in fact, accuses the IPCC of fraud.

To support these arguments, the author cites recent NOAA data from its Global Network Stations that purport to show a constant linear trend in sea level rise. It is stated that the “tidal station at Sewells Point has shown constant sea level rise of 0.17 inch per year for many years.” A recent paper from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (John D. Boon, Journal of Coastal Research, November 2012) provides evidence that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating at Sewells Point as well as many other mid- and north-Atlantic tidal stations, based on NOAA tidal station data. To quote Boon’s paper, “The observat...