Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Sea-level rise

No chaos in the satellite-data record

Nature volume 549, page 334 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

The use of the slang term snafu (indicating a confused or chaotic state) in your headline 'Satellite snafu masked true sea-level rise for decades' undermines the satellite record's crucial contribution to the precise measurement of indicators of Earth's changing climate (Nature 547, 265–266; 2017).

The correction you report represents less than 1 centimetre of the total sea-level increase of 8 cm or more that has been observed since 1993. Removing this small correction helped to reveal that the globally averaged rise in sea levels is accelerating. We used solid analysis and detective work to refine the accuracy of the satellite-data record to within less than 1 cm — not to fix a snafu.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

    R. Steven Nerem

  2. Laboratory of Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS), Toulouse, France

    Anny Cazenave

  3. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    John Church

Authors
  1. R. Steven Nerem
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anny Cazenave
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. John Church
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Steven Nerem.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nerem, R., Cazenave, A. & Church, J. No chaos in the satellite-data record. Nature 549, 334 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/549334d

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/549334d

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene