[stylin19a]

I'm not a science guy, so could someone please 'splain to me this statement ?

The U.N.'s most recent world environment confab occurred last fall in Marrakech. Days before that one, we learned that the poor islanders of Tuvalu were being drowned by sea-level rises caused by global warming. Within days, an article appeared in Science magazine showing that sea level around Tuvalu has been falling, not rising, for most of the last 50 years.

Wouldn't a global warming (no, I don't believe global warming junk science) cause sea levels to fall, not rise?

[kidd]

Your question is a good one. The level of the sea is primarily based on observations made on prehistoric times; periodic warm eras resulted in seashores that were further inland than today. It is presumed that the higher sea levels were a result of the melting of polar ice. However there are conflicting studies that suggest that the salinity of the North Atlantic may have played a greater role in sea levels, which was significantly affected by the joining and unjoining of North and South America and the intermixing of Pacific and Atlantic ocean waters. In other words, nobody really knows.

The best modern day study of sea level change involves the examination of Australian sea port levels. The conclusion of that study was that we will not definetively know whether sea levels are changing or not for another 30 years.

[gubamyster]

Wouldn't a global warming (no, I don't believe global warming junk science) cause sea levels to fall, not rise?

In short, the junk science theory goes that due to the global warming, the polar ice caps are melting, and thus the sea level is rising.