Discussion on:

Interactive map of sea level rise

In case anybody thinks the sea level rise is all due to global warming, the fine print on the map says that it shows where "local sea level rise projections were combined with storm surge and tidal statistics to estimate the decade by when there is an at least 1 in 6 chance of different water levels occurring, at least once." (see http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/maps/about-surging-seas-map/ ). This is a pretty low bar, and storm surge will be much more of a factor than increases from global warming. Of course, nobody really knows how much global warming will cause the sea level to rise in the future, nor the strength of future storms. It's all a computer model somewhere.

Ms. Eveleth does the Smartplanet community a disservice by not pointing out these facts behind the study in her article.

According to the best estimates sea level is rising 2mm per year - that's less than 10 inches per century. Sea level may be rising, but really how good are those estimates? There is actually a huge credibility gap in our ability to measure 2 mm per year changes in sea level - when terrestrial tides can change the earths surface 55 mm in some places every 12 hours. Now consider that those changes are not necessarily predictable because of changes in earths crust rebound characteristics, magma flows beneath and magnetic field changes - which make the changes in the earths crust rather erratic on a 2 mm scale. You might also remember that our GPS satellite technology with this kind of precision is a relatively new ability - so scientist have next to no historic measurements with this kind of accuracy to compare their current measurements. Computers can only give answers as accurate as the information they receive.

Ahhh, the power of money in the form of big gov. and NGO grants to shape scientific "facts." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide