[Link: WSJ.com]
The IPCC report predicts sea levels will rise by between one to two feet over the next 100 years. Mr. Delworth said there remains "much more uncertainty" over how much accelerated melting of glaciers might add to that.
A second area of continuing uncertainty has to do with the impact of clouds on climate change. Warming the ocean sends more water vapor into the air, and the resulting clouds accelerate global warming by trapping more of the sun's heat in the atmosphere and further warm the ocean. Jim Butler, deputy director of NOAA's global monitoring division, called this "a very scary feedback mechanism."
I must admit that I am surprised by what I am reading in this article. I have always thought that the rising water level was mostly the effect of adding melted ice and increased rainfall into the oceans. Increases due to the expansion of the water at higher temperatures seemed like it ought to be a secondary effect. Well...it seems that the reality of the situation is just the opposite. The UN report only considered expansion due to heating in the 1 to 2 foot increase in sea levels from Global Warming. The melting ice and effects of increased cloud cover weren't included because of the uncertainty.
I guess you do learn something every day. Today I learned to not trust your intuition when the phenomena you are considering is as complex as planetary physics. Tomorrow, I suspect we will learn that the seas are going to rise a lot more than we have been told so far.
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