Michael Tobis, a climate scientist with a dry sense of humor and a wide-ranging thoughtfulness, succinctly discusses the crucial issue of sea-level rise on the globalchange Google group discussion list. (Look a few posts down, if you want the context.)
He’s talking about Al Gore’s discussion of sea-level rise in "An Inconvenient Truth." Worth a look:
There is little doubt that the WAIS [West Antarctic Ice Sheet]and Greenland will melt eventually unless CO2 concentrations are actually made to retreat. The only question is the time scale. Since Gore did not specify the time scale, he is strictly speaking correct.
On the other hand, the viewer of AIT [An Inconvenient Truth] was left with the impression that such rises were imminent. This is fair grounds for criticism of the presentation, and indeed it was the first thing that left my lips on leaving the movie. That is not generally considered likely. There are outliers though, notably James Hansen who believes several meters in the current century under business-as-usual is to be expected.
If you listen to what Gore says in detail, he merely says it is plausible. That is a defensible position. However, people respond to symbols rather than words. It may be argued that the constraints on what Gore says are distinct from those on what a scientist should say.
See
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag/41/i21/html/110107viewp…
A decade ago we believed that ice sheets retreat mostly by melting. This turns out to be false; land ice can simply fall into the ocean by mechanical processes with weakened ice. So recently the trend among informed opinion has been to greatly increased concern about this.
The likely mechanism for retreat of the WAIS in particular is not well-constrained as to time scale. Several meters in the present century is outside the consensus expectation but within the realm of plausibility.
Kit Stolz 
Sea level has little link with either temperature or CO2 levels. Al Gores claims in his falsified film are scare stories and designed to shock (and mislead) the viewer into believing there’s a climate ‘crisis’ which there is not. Our sea level have risen consistently 1mm per year for no less than 8,000 years – through temperature increase AND decrease – which breaks the link with man changing anything. Research shows sea level rise is linked most with teutonic plate activity which is how Artic seas appear to be dropping while global levels rise.
The IPCC have been accused of falsifying sea level data and some scientists claim sea level is actually falling and others that if the globe warms it could lead to sea level aflling, not rising.
In short there’s a lot more to understand so claims by warming-alarmists that people and poor will be ‘displaced’ is at best false and at worst a fraud. Al Gore and his supporters have a lot to learn wouldn’t you agree?
LikeLike
As temperatures rise and glaciers and ice sheets on land melt, water will return to the ocean and the sea level will rise. One doesn’t need to be a Nobel Prize winner to see that. Surely you’re not claiming otherwise…
LikeLike