Did anyone see this article about global warming?

Question

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

basically, it's saying that the ocean level is rising, but they don't know why. but the ocean temperature is not rising, meaning the whole global warming thing isn't as rapid as they thought.

does it make sense to anyone else, or is it just me... if the ice caps are melting in antartica and greenland, that's going to 1. make the water level rise. and 2. the cold water from the ice is going to mix with the warmer water and make the water that should be "getting warmer" stay roughly the same temperature. why then do they say it's an unexplained phenomanon? am i smarter than the scientists? maybe i'm just in the wrong business... ok, well, it made sense to me, so thanks for listening to me babble for a while.

Answer 1

Nope, you're the only one that saw it.

Answer 2

yes i saw it

Answer 3

Your speculation is probably fairly close to the truth.  The land-based ice (Greenland, Antarctica, etc.) may be melting faster than expected.  Or there could be instrumentation problems, the warming may be going deeper into the ocean, or some other phenomena may be causing it.

The difference between you and the scientist, is that the scientist needs to wait for clear data before speculating too much.  So he's simply withholding his judgment until more information is available.

Answer 4

This story seems to be entirely based on

*two guys* (mostly "Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory")

I think your conjecture is reasonable and likely, and theirs got them national exposure through NPR.

Answer 5

You said "meaning the whole global warming thing isn't as rapid as they thought." I didn't see this implied anywhere. Every year is not going to be a record breaking year from here to eternity, and nobody suspects that GW theory relies on each year outdoing the next. At least nobody who knows what the h**l they are talking about.

Answer 6

what does..pheno---manon mean? lol, but i think its wrong information. try cheaking who typed up the artical and try to find further imformation about them. because like even though the ice caps are melting. it could be melting slower than they thought like you/artical said.if they are melting slowly, then maby the ice caps are not melting fast enough to cause a large impact on the oceans tempature. ya jus need common sense to figure that out. and maby an experinet or two :3

Answer 7

You read that on Yahoo.  But, it is not all so mysterious as that.  A recent paper by a couple of Swiss scientists pointed out that most of the level increase of the oceans in past times has been due to volcanic activity at the bottom which displaces the bottom of the oceans upwards.  That effect has often completely eclipsed any effect of melting ice.

You see, contrary to what a lot of people seem to assume the ocean is not in  a measuring cup.  It is in an ever changing elastic vessel which can increase or decrease in size depending on geothermal activity in the earth's crust.

Also, you may not have noticed that while there are reports that the northern polar icecap is melting, the southern one is increasing in size.  Maybe the South Pole is not on on the globe?

If your global warming scientists can't even explain what is happening right now, do you really believe their forecasts for 50 years from now?  No problem for them as long as the research money keeps rolling in.