Ocean levels are extremely difficult to measure. It also has to be pointed out that the oceans are never level firstly, because of tidal factors, secondly, ocean currents (such as el nino which piles up water on the east asian coastline), and thirdly, because of the contours of the sea bed - the oceans rise as they flow over mountain ridges and fall as they flow over ocean trenches. Nevertheless scientists believe the oceans are rising.

"At present global sea-level appears to be rising by about 1 to 2.5 mm per year."

The inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc) believes there will be a rise in the ocean of 29 centimetres by the end of the next century, or about 11 inches. Greenpeace point out that this prediction is based on a very optimistic scenario, "One study has shown that stabilizing CO2 at 450 ppmv would lead to a temperature increase of 1.7oC above pre-industrial levels and a sea-level rise of 29 cm by 2100."

If all the Earth’s ice was to melt this would raise ocean levels quite considerably.

"The total volume of glacier ice in Antarctica is 30,109,800 km3. For the calculation of sea level rise potential, only the grounded-ice volume of 29,377,800 km3 was used. The total grounded ice volume includes 25,921,700 km3 for East Antarctica, 3,222,700 km3 for West Antarctic, and 183,700 km3for the Antarctic Peninsula. The volume of ice rises on the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ronne-Filchner ice shelves are 5,100 km3 and 44,600 km3, respectively."

The west antarctic ice sheet rests on rocks below sea level so if it melted it would displace large volumes of water. It has been calculated it could raise global sea levels by between 3-6 metres, "If the West Antarctic ice sheet were to melt, global seas would rise by 15 to 20 feet."

The east antarctic ice sheet is far more extensive than the west antarctic ice sheet. According to gregg easterbrook, "If the eastern antarctic ice sheet thawed enough to fall into the ocean, sea levels might rise as much as 25 feet."

"If the East sheet were to melt as well (as the west sheet), seas would rise by as much as 200 feet, swamping many oceanic islands and redrawing the world's coastlines."

"The greenland (arctic) ice sheet is only an eighth the area of its southern counterpart."

A number of factors are responsible for raising ocean levels:

Water expands when warmed and so as oceanic temperatures rise, ocean levels rise. The oceans are warming.

Glaciers on land and ice sheets are also melting.

The huge weight of the ice sheets lying on land masses pushes the land into the Earth’s mantle. If the ice sheets melted then the continents would rise thereby displacing huge amounts of water and further boosting ocean levels, If the greenland ice sheet melted it .. "would eventually rebound some 2,000 feet." The same could also happen in the antarctic, "Antarctica's ice is so heavy that it compresses the land surface over much of the continent to below sea level."

The ice covering the polar seas reflects away up to 80% of solar radiation but as the ice melts more solar radiation is being absorbed which boosts the thermal expansion of the oceans. So, although the melting of sea ice doesn’t increase ocean levels it increases thermal expansion which leads to a rise in ocean levels.

Over the last century there has been only a small rise in oceanic levels - just as there has been only a small increase in global temperatures. There are two reasons why there hasn't been a more pronounced increase in sea levels. Firstly, humans are dramatically reducing the amount of water running off the land into the sea, "Today, worldwide, there are more than a hundred 'superdams', with a height of more than 150 metres, subduing some of the world's greatest rivers. Three quarters of the world's superdams have been built in the last 35 years; around 50 of them were completed in the 1980s. Their reservoirs have a total capacity of 6,000 cubic kilometres and they cover almost 600,000 square kilometres. That makes them, in aggregate, roughly the size of the North Sea. Their capacity is equal to 15% of the annual run-off of the world's rivers. Already those dams are holding back so much water that they artificially lower by a few millimetres the tides on every beach in the world."; "By about the year 2,000 about 2/3rds of the world's total flow of water to the ocean margins will be controlled by dams. In the past 30 years, the reduction in river discharges worldwide is equivalent to a drop in sea level of 0.7metres a year." Humans are retaining more and more water on land for industrial and domestic consumption. Vast amounts of water are locked up national water supply networks and sewer systems. Secondly, the rise in global temperatures is increasing the evaporation of water from the oceans thereby reducing ocean levels.

Many scientists trying to quantify the Earth’s Carbon spiral believe there is difference between the amount of Carbon known to have been released into the atmosphere, the increase in the quantity of Carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere, and estimates of the Carbon sequestered by the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity. This has given rise to the proposition that some Carbon is going missing: scientists do not know how a considerable proportion of atmospheric Carbon is being extracted from the atmosphere. The same is also true of the hydrological cycle: scientists cannot yet explain the cause of the increase in ocean levels, "Although both thermal expansion of the ocean and melting of small glaciers are accounted for in the estimates, the major source of water (25 per cent) for the current level rise is unknown. It is possible that part of this "missing water" comes from meltwater escaping unnoticed for years from the polar glaciers. On the basis of recent estimates of basal melting (melting from the bottom of floating ice shelves) Jacobs et.al. have suggested that "the Antarctic ice sheet is currently losing mass to the ocean.""; "Sea levels are likely to rise faster and higher than previous predictions suggested, say scientists who have finished the first accurate satellite study of the thickness of the antarctic ice sheet. A four year research project to measure the antarctic ice has found that it has contributed little to rising sea levels this century - but paradoxically this means that the loss of land to the sea in the next century is likely to be greater than forecast. The results of the study indicate that for the past 100 years, when sea levels have risen by a global average of 18cm (7in), factors such as the thermal expansion of the oceans have played a far greater role than the melting of the antarctic ice sheets. The researchers collected more than 4 million radar measurements of the antarctic ice between 1992 and 1996, which shows that the ice sheet’s thickness changed by an average of less than 1cm. Duncan wingham said, "These findings make the antarctic ice sheet look an unlikely source for the sea level rise we have observed this century. If this is the case we now have a problem explaining the rise. Other sources of rise must be underestimated. In particular it is possible that the effect of global warming on thermal expansion is larger than we thought.""

"Global warming and sea level rise have now all but erased two tiny south Pacific islands from the maps of Kiribati, according to the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme. Tropical cyclones used to be once-a-century events in Samoa: they have had three in the last four years."

The ipcc calculates not merely the rise in sea levels but the amount of land that will be indundated by the seas, "The rate of global warming and sea level rise will be higher than previous predictions during the next century. Estimated land losses range from 0.05% for Uruguay to about 80% for the Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. A 1m (3 feet) sea-level rise would affect 6 million people in Egypt, with 12% to 15% of agricultural land lost, 13 million in Bangladesh, with 16% of national rice production lost, and 72 million in China and "tens of thousands" of hectares (1 hectare =2.47 acres) of agricultural land. This is based on new information released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of about 2,000 scientists who advise the United Nations, revised estimates of the current forecast in sea levels after conducting new studies on the west Antarctic ice sheet."

"New research states that the glaciers of Greenland are likely to melt with dire consequences as Earth warms up. The findings are in the journal Nature April 6th 2000 by Shawn Marshall of the University of British Columbia and Kurt Cuffey of the University of California, Berkeley. "If nothing is done to stabilize our climate and sea levels rise as much as 6 meters (20 feet), you'll flood the southern half of Florida, the southern half of Louisiana. A 2-degree global warming doesn't sound like much, but you have to realize the consequences can be really quite disastrous,'' said Cuffey, said Kurt Cuffey, a geographer at the University of California, Berkeley."

Greenpeace believes the rise in sea-level may be more substantial that the ipcc’s estimate of 29 cm by 2100 and suspects the situation may be more serious, "In the very long term (i.e. several centuries) an equivalent doubling of CO2 is estimated to raise sea-level by over a metre and probably increase the global mean temperature by around 3.5oC (using the estimate for climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases adopted in this report)."

Some commentators have dismissed the idea of rising sea levels, "Much of the long term changes in sea level in history are just an illusion, physicists in canada report. They claim the mirage is caused by tiny shifts in the orientation of the Earth’s rotational axis which alters the distribution of water. The best records of how global sea level has changed over million of years were put together more than a decade ago by geologists working for the oil company exxon."

One of the most comprehensive denialists argues that, "Scientific support for the notion of a drastic rise in sea level has waned rapidly ... The ipcc report gives an ocean-rise ‘best guess’ of just 29 centimetres through the end of the next century, or about 11 inches. The highest observed actual sea-level rise in this century is four inches."

Like all other issues concerning global burning there are differences of opinion about whether there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of storms around the world.

If there was a list of storms around the world this might provide a chance of assessing whether there has been any change in the intensity and frequency of storms over the last few decades. Unfortunately no such list is available. The nearest there is to it is greenpeace’s ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ - for which see below. This sample is not merely a flavouring added to the work as a reminder of the devastation that can be caused by storms but an indication of the paucity of scientific understanding about global burning.

The october 15th 1987 storm, "It’s estimated that insurance claims for the night’s damage amounted to over £1 billion."; "The Braer oil disaster - the biggest spill in history - caused by freak storms in the Shetlands as barometric pressure fell to an all time low."

"Hurricane gilbert in 1988 devastated jamaica, the yucatan peninsula in central america and the gulf of mexico with a five out of five rating. It left 200 dead and eight hundred thousand homeless."

"Hurricane hugo in 1989 caused $8billion of damage when it struck southern carolina, and was rated four out of five."

"But recent hurricanes have been some of the strongest on record. Hurricane andrew in 1992 was rated five out of five on the international scale of storm intensity with winds of 200 mph and caused over $20 billion of damage."

Hurricane mitch obliterated vast stretches of honduras and also had a considerable impact on nicaragua.

Hurricane floyd was twice the size of britain.

.. "the 200km per hour winds that battered france .."

"Monsoon rains of unusual ferocity have killed more than 800 people, forced millions out of their homes and caused damage totalling hundreds of millions of pounds in northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh."

"Rescue efforts swung into action in india yesterday where up to 3,000 people are feared killed by a cyclone. Over a million people are homeless after 160mph winds battered the eastern state of orissa. Torrential rains have turned vast areas of farmland into lakes with human bodies floating in waterlogged paddy fields."; .. "the devastating storm which killed up to 20,000. Tidal waves swept 1,500 villages away, leaving two million homeless."; "In october, nearly 10,000 died as a supercyclone lashed the eastern state of orissa. A further 10 million were uprooted by the storm, which lasted over 36 hours and caused nearly 100,000 villages to disappear. The wind speed was 170mph when the storm landed."

"Four people were killed and 100 injured when two tornadoes ripped through a packed city centre. The twisters hit at rush hour, causing chaos in fort worth, texas. Two of those who died were hit by falling debris. The other two drowned when their car was swept away by flash flooding." It is believed it also damage the fbi building

"In september 1992 a fairly routine indus valley flood .. triggered by a cyclone, killed 1,034 people and caused $105 million in property damage. Hurricane andrew, a cyclone striking florida about the same time, killed 9 people and did $7.6 billion in damage."

.. "the catastrophic rains that swept as many as 20,000 to their deaths in venezuela .."; "The death toll from floods and mudslides in venezuela might reach 30,000. Towns have been swamped along the south american country’s storm-lashed caribbean coast. At least 150,000 people have been directly affected by the catastrophe, which has left around 100,000 homeless. The main disaster zone was a 60 mile stretch of coast in the state of vargas, home to about 350,000 people."

Greenpeace believes there has been a pronounced rise in the number and frequency of storms since the mid 1980s. It published ‘The Climate Time Bomb’ a diary of the world’s major climatic disasters between may 1990 and 1994. The evidence it uses to gauge the increase in storminess is the cost of the damage to the global insurance industry. Before 1987 there were no billion dollar insurance disasters caused by the climate. Up to 1996 there have been 15 - and more have followed over the last few years.

"The Caribbean has experienced more hurricanes in the past four years than ever before. And 1999 is expected to be another busy year. Climatologists blame the more intense atmospheric circulation created by global warming, plus the warmer oceans. Hurricanes form only when sea temperatures rise above 27 degrees Celsius."

Floods have always caused the worst natural disasters, "Throughout history and to the present day, flood is by far the worst of all natural disasters. In fact, floods account for 40% of all deaths by acts of nature worldwide." The scale of flooding has occasionally been considerable. It is believed that global burning will cause an increase in the scale and frequency of flooding. This is due to a number of factors: the rise in ocean levels; the increase in oceanic temperatures; an increase in the number and ferocity of storms; etc.

"If the sea level rises 1m then 10-15% of Egypt’s productive land will be lost and up to 10 million people will lose their homes."

"Global warming, which could threaten large numbers of people with displacement by the middle of the next century, if not well before, will cause more problems. Preliminary estimates indicate that the total number of people at risk from sea-level rise in Bangladesh could be 26 million, in Egypt 12 million, in China 73 million, in India 20 million, and elsewhere, including small island states, 31 million - a total of 162 million."; "A one metre rise in sea-level .. would affect up to 5 million square kilometres, 3% of the total land area of the planet, including many of the world’s major cities such as New York, London, Bangkok. Crucially it would also affect as much as 30% of the total cropland in the world. Half of the population of the united states lives within 50 miles of a vulnerable coastline."

In 1990 the coastal impacts working party of the inter governmental panel on climate change reported that up to 300 million would be affected by a rise in sea level of 1 metre before the end of next century.

It has been argued that .. "the worst floods in recorded history have all struck china, and on such a catastrophic scale they are difficult to comprehend."

It was reported in july 1995 that, "A couple of weeks ago, headlines flashed the latest flood catastrophe in China, which displaced between one and three million people and affected another 4.3 million."

"China experienced devastating floods during 1996. In some locations, these were the worst in 50 years. The flooding caused more than 1000 deaths and around 20 million people were affected through injury or property damage. The Mekong Delta in Vietnam remained flooded for over a month as a result of heavy rainfall along the Mekong River."

"Earlier that year (1995), river flooding in the Netherlands caused the evacuation of over 200,000 people and almost half a million livestock. It was the worst flooding since the Dutch sea dikes failed in 1953."

"A year ago, more than a hundred died and thousands were left homeless when the river Oder flooded, devastating parts of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Damage was estimated at 65 billion pounds."

"The storms and floods which have killed about 50 people and caused at least $1 billion (£600 million) of property damage in the u.s. over the past two weeks reflect an increase in weather extremes to be expected from global warming according to a leading scientist. Tom karl, senior scientist at the national climate data centre in asheville, north carolina said that rivers which had always been prone to floods were flooding more often as overall rainfall had increased by 8% over the past century."

Paradoxically, many of the measures being proposed to reduce the risk of flooding could help to increase global burning and thus boost the risk of large scale flooding.

The reagan government did very little to provide emergency relief to the people who lost their homes because of hurricane andrew so it was hardly surprising it was unwilling to adopt policies to combat global burning .. "the tardy official response to 1992’s hurricane andrew, the most costly natural disaster in u.s. history, was said to have contributed to the election defeat of the republican government."

A vast area of the Earth’s land surface is composed of deserts, "A desert is officially classed as a region with less than 10 inches (254 millimetres) of rain each year. Drought this bad has made a third of the world intensely hostile for humans to live in." It is believed global burning will lead to an increase in the scale of deserts.

"For the period from 1968 to the present, rainfall has been below the historical mean recorded from 1931-60 during almost every year in each region of the western Sahel from central Chad to coastal Senegal and Mauritania."; "More recently, annual rainfall over the Sahel zone of northern Africa during nine of the years since 1970 has dropped more than 20% below the average prevailing during this century's first seven decades; those previous 70 years saw only one extreme of this magnitude."

"Much of the tropics have become hotter and drier - especially in the already arid region stretching from western africa to indonesia."

"Every region of the world experiences record-breaking climate extremes from time to time. In 1995, for example, summer heat-waves affected both the US Midwest and the Indian sub-continent. More than 700 people died from heat stress in the US; 500 died in northern India when June temperatures soared to 50 degrees Celsius. In the first decades of this century, a trend towards increased drought in the North American Midwest culminated in the "Dust Bowl" decade of the 1930s, after which conditions eased."

A group of researchers believe that global burning will lead to more areas of land suffering periodic droughts, "Global warming will cause a massive "dying-off" of tropical vegetation after 2050, warns a new study. The devastation will mean that the 2 billion tonnes of Carbon that are currently soaked up by rainforest every year will remain in the atmosphere, further accelerating global warming. (Models predict). At first, the news will be good. As emissions from industry continue to rise, the extra CO2 in the atmosphere will fertilize vegetation and speed growth. Hence the amount of CO2 pollution absorbed by the world’s land vegetation will initially rise from the current 2 billion tonnes a year to around 2.6 billion tonnes by 2050. But after that, warming of up to 8C in parts of the tropics will lead to higher evaporation rates, lower rainfall and eventually the collapse of tropical ecosystems with a "major loss of biodiversity", say the researchers. "Tropical grasslands will shrink from 8% to 1% of the global land area .. tropical forests will change to savannah, grassland or even desert.""

Some Photosynthesizers have evolved over time to cope with periodic fires. They release seeds only after fires. But other Photosynthesizers are damaged by fires. The rainforests for example are continually drenched in clouds and can be damaged by fires. In recent years there have been a series of major natural fires around the Earth.

"Forest fires as large as those that have been burning in indonesia or brazil over the past 18 months are raging out of control in the far east of russia. Since april, fire has consumed two million hectares in the khabarovsk district on the pacific coast and on the island of sakhalin, and is still spreading."; "Siberia’s forests are also being depleted by fires .. While most forest fires are now caused by humans, they may well be overtaken by wildfires as global warming starts to bite - the Forests could gradually dry out and become vulnerable to fires. Much more drastic will be the full force of global warming. Climatologists estimate that a full 40% of boreal forests, perhaps more, could disappear within the foreseeable future. This would release 1.5-3 billion tons of carbon per year or as much as is being emitted from tropical deforestation today and 20-40% of all current emissions of CO2."

"Forest fires are nothing new to indonesia. During 1982-83, fires swept through 3.6 million hectares of kalimantan. Smoke shrouded the area for more than four weeks, and the cost in lost timber stocks was estimated at more than $5 billion."

"As a result of an unusually long drought, over 72,000 hectares of Forests and woodlands burnt in indonesia in fall 1991.."

In the summer of 1997 Forest fires in indonesia cast a blanket of smog over vast areas of south east asia.

"In september 1988, hurricane gilbert swept across over 1 million hectares of tropical Forest in mexico’s yucatan peninsula. .. the volume of combustible fuel created by the debris increased the risk of wildfire. During the following year, over 120,000 ha of mexico’s largest area of tropical Forest burned."

"As el nino enters its second year of climate disruption, countries in the far east are bracing themselves for the return of last year’s massive bush fires and choking smog. In recent weeks, remote sensing satellites have spotted more than 200 fires in sumatra and a similar number in east kalimantan."

"Five-county disaster declared in California (October 1993) after brushfires. President Clinton declares a major disaster as 15 wildfires burn out of control across 88,000 acres from the mexican border to the northern suburbs of Los Angeles. At least 30,000 people are forced to flee their homes, including the entire 24,000 population of Laguna beach, the worst hit area, where a seven mile wall of fire marches towards the sea. At least 600 homes go up in flames, including Malibu millionaires’ mansions ..."; "Two weeks of fire in California cost one billion dollars. Fires on 3 November add to the damage done on 27 October. All told, 26 firestorms rage over two weeks. Police suspect arson in 19 of the fires. With some 1,241 structures destroyed in total, and 197,225 acres burned from the Mexican border to Los Angeles, the Office of Emergency Services .. estimate the total damage at around a billion dollars. The insurance industry’s Property claims Service gives a preliminary estimate of $950 million." Fires have helped to trigger off property damage, "The first of the season’s rainstorms, little more than showers, arrive two weeks after the fires. The earth literally flows off the barren (deforested) hillsides, causing still further disasters for residents .. The mudslides block roads, damage houses and turn rivers muddy and black. "Fire is the major trigger device of mud flows in Southern California," says a Los Angeles County flood control expert. "You can get major mudslides with only one or two inches of rain."."; "In the fifth year of the Californian drought, a major bushfire sweeps through the Oakland Hills. The insurance price tag exceeds $1.7 billion, and the economic losses are around twice that. It is the third biggest fire in US history ..."

"The forest fires of late 1997 emitted about a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, more than is produced by automobiles and power stations in western Europe over a year."

Greenpeace has drawn up a list of all the major Forest fires which have occurred from 1984 to 1994.

Ever since humans emerged on Earth they have been slaughtering all rival species. Against all the odds, however, Wildlife are fighting back against oomano-imperialism. Global burning is giving a huge boost to Wildlife enabling them to attack oomans.

"Budworm caterpillars are munching their way through the forests of alaska. In the past five years they have scoffed 40,000 hectares of sitka spruce. Ecologits are now blaming higher temperatures - and after a warm start to the summer are preparing themselves for the most destructive yet."

"Britain is under threat from an invincible army of termites poised to eat its way across the country. The inch long, ant-like creatures - which arrived here 14 years ago in pot plants - are capable of astonishing destruction. (Sic! and this from an ooman!!). In america they cause more damage than fire, flood, and tornadoes put together. The first british colony was discovered four years ago munching through a conservatory in devon. The insects can eat through buildings and in africa they burrow through concrete. Scientists say the insects are thriving because of global warming. The spruce bark beetle .. killed a staggering 30 million trees in alaska during 1996, creating one of the state’s worst ecological disasters."

"To most people global warming means more time on the beach. But one English resort is battling a nasty side effect of higher temperatures - man-eating sharks. Warmer waters are luring the killer beasts into the sea off Brighton. A giant mako shark weighing 378lb has been caught a few miles off the pier. The biggest fish landed in British waters for 25 years, it was caught by Gary Brownrigg on his small catamaran Catherine Anne as he fished for cod. It took the crew more than half an hour to drag it on board. It is believed that it followed a shoal of cod into the net and died as it struggled to free itself. Mako sharks - unheard of in British waters - have a reputation for ferocity matched only by the great white shark. They can grow to 15ft long and weigh 1,000lb and have been blamed for attacks on boats and swimmers."

Since the 1970s in the Philippines humans have started indulging in a huge craze for eating Snakes. Snakes were predators of Rats and thus kept down the numbers of Rats. Once the Rats’ natural predator began disappearing Rat numbers soared. When el nino created even more favourable conditions in which Rats could thrive they began attacking crops, "A Rat infestation unleashed by an el nino induced drought is ravaging rice crops in the northern philippines." Let’s hope that the bipeds eating Snakes were amongst the first to starve.

In september 1999 most of new york was sprayed with pesticides to combat the spread of mosquitoes which caused the deaths of three people in the city. A few days after the spraying the dying embers of a hurricane which hit the southern united states drenched the area probably washing away most of the pesticide, "Leading experts on climate change warned last night that global warming is making cities in the northern hemisphere more vulnerable to outbreaks of potentially lethal strains of tropical diseases. The warning came as the major of new york, rudolph giuliani, ordered the spraying of the entire city with insecticide from helicopters in an attempt to eradicate mosquitoes which are spreading the brain disease encephalitis. By yesterday there had been three deaths and nine confirmed cases. Recent weather related disasters like hurricane mitch have spawned clusters of water, rodent and mosquito-borne infections. They were spreading diseases further north than previously seen."

"Pesticides continue to lose their effectiveness against crop-destroying pests as a result of genetic selection. At least 520 insects and mites, 150 plant diseases, and 113 weeds have developed resistance to one or more pesticides meant to control them. In addition, at least 17 insect species are resistant to all major classes of insecticide, and several plant diseases are immune to most fungicides used against them. Herbicides now account for 46% of world pesticide use."