How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Volume 3 Number 27:  18 October 2000

Editorial
Let's Get Serious?  Let's Get Real!: The false threat of an exponentially rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is being used to leverage the acceptance of onerous energy policies that would result in the mother-of-all bureaucracies and global enforcement of its edicts.  Already, however, the foundation of the movement is beginning to crumble.

Subject Index Summaries
Sugars

Journal Reviews
The Need for Long-Term Glacier Mass Balance Data: An analysis of the relationship between long-term and interannual variability of glacier mass balance suggests that many decades of observations will be required to determine whether the Greenland ice sheet is in a state of approximate balance or is shrinking or growing.  For the world's longest-studied glacier, however, we know the answer now: it is growing.

Philosophizing About Paleohydrology: Words of wisdom - or something else, depending upon your point of view - from a man who loves real-world data more than theoretical models should give everyone pause to reflect upon the state of global change science.  Do you agree or disagree?

The Observational Sea Level Record of Mumbai, India: Is It Influenced More by Monsoon or Global Warming?: Sea level observations from Mumbai (Bombay), India are shown to be related to rainfall over the Indian subcontinent in a way the authors say "differs from those usually invoked in constructing scenarios of long-term changes in sea level," one of which phenomena they identify as "the warming of the globe due to anthropogenic effects."

Six Thousand Years of Sea Level Change in the Southern Hemisphere: A review of data from several regions of the Southern Hemisphere suggests that sea-level may have declined by a meter or more from approximately 6,000 to 600 years ago.  Statistical analyses suggest there are equal probabilities the decline was smooth or oscillatory.  If oscillatory, the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content may well have nothing to do with the ongoing rise in global sea level, which has important implications about how we approach the future.