Why Groundwater Use May Not Explain Half of Sea-Level Rise

New submitter Sir Realist writes "A recent Slashdot scoop pointed us at a scientific study that claimed 42% of global sea-level rises could be due to groundwater use. It was a good story. But as is often the way with science, there are folks who interpret the data differently. Scott Johnson at Ars Technica has a good writeup which includes two recent studies that came to remarkably different conclusions from mostly the same data, and an explanation of the assumptions the authors were making that led to those differences. Essentially, there is some reason to think that the groundwater estimates used in the first study were too high. However, that's still under debate, so it's worth reading the whole argument. Scientific review in action!"

Comments

Re:Scientific review

[Penguinisto]

How disingenuous...

Clue: No one was putting forth the theory that the Earth was warming due to mankind's actions 120 years ago, so unless you can post a paper stating otherwise, trot that troll elsewhere.

Furthermore, much proof has come forth since then showing that CO2 isn't even the biggest source of greenhouse gas (Try methane for starters, and there's a fuckton of that thawing out under the sea now, even after numerous downward estimate revisions. 'course, that alone would put a crimp in the ever-so-constant and "scientific consensus" of "itz ALL MANKINDZ FUALT!!!!!!11!!!BBQ!").

Hell, they can't even figure out yet what concentrations we actually have, what would be considered "normal", and what would cause this doom-laden runaway effect scenario that we were treated to not even 10 years ago.

The funny part is, the research itself is often rife with actions that reek of fraud (seriously, "hide the decline"? What the fuck kind of actual science does that fall under?) Then there's the niggling fact that almost every time someone brings up anything even remotely contrary, the interloper is immediately accused of being in the employ of "Big Oil", or is otherwise and unceremoniously blackballed from the community at large by all means deemed necessary.

Tell you what - when the pro-AGW types clean their act up, and actually present something that isn't slanted, in constant need of models more tailored to fit a hypothesis instead of testing it, or isn't rife with hysteria, then maybe they can get some credibility as real scientists.