Environmental Issues

Global Warming Could Lower Sea Level

Environmental activists have been predicting that sea levels are about to rise and inundate low-lying areas as global warming causes polar ice caps to melt. Mainstream scientists, however, are voicing profound doubts about the activists' theories.

They point out that:

  • Initial estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency projected that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would cause sea levels to rise between 80 and 120 inches -- figures which they had to slash by 75 percent in 1990.

  • By 1996, a United Nation's science advisory panel predicted a rise of only 15 to 22 inches by 2100 -- still based, critics say, on shaky assumptions.

  • Sea levels are notoriously difficult to measure -- reliable information is hard to come by, and estimates require adjustments for waves, storm surges and tidal variations over the long term.

  • Land surfaces may also be rising or falling.

Climate specialists now believe that sea levels have been rising at the rate of about seven inches per century, largely due to slow tectonic changes in the shape of ocean basins, rather than climatic factors -- and, obviously, beyond human control.

A relatively rapid global warming occurred between about 1900 and 1940, which many scientists attribute to subtle changes in the sun's radiation. Data show that during the warming, sea levels dropped; but they rose during a subsequent cooler period.

Scientists are coming to the view that, contrary to activists' claims, global warming -- if it takes place -- would slow any rise in sea levels.

Source: S. Fred Singer (Science & Environmental Policy Project), "The Sky Isn't Falling, and the Ocean Isn't Rising," Wall Street Journal, November 10, 1997.

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