So let me get this straight:

- sea level is formally referred to as Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)

- its change is segmented into two subcategories in literature(?), mass-driven (e.g. ice melting?, freshwater runoff?, freshwater water cycle stuff?) and non-mass-driven (e.g. thermal expansion?)

- freshwater loss from land was found to be at present the lead driver of the mass-driven change as per the paper (over what timeframe?)

- title says it's the primary driver for GMSL change overall, which this alone doesn't support (i.e. the title is a lie)

- @ornel (the person posting) points to another study that claims mass-driven change is the leading change, hence the title [0, this doesn't pass my smell test but i see the logic]

- you point out that that's glossing over that that other study is counting from 1900, but if one shrunk the evaluation window, the non-mass-driven causes would be the drivers now [1, this doesn't pass my smell test either, but i see the logic here as well]

The latter point then begs the question though, what is the time window in this case then, and how stable that result is? What would be an "appropriate" time window to choose, and how would one derive that?

Regarding my non-passing smell tests, imagine the following scenario for some event:

- category A: 51% of the total

- cause A1: 26% of the total

- cause A2: 25% of the total

- category B: 49% of the total

- cause B1: 27% of the total

- cause B2: 22% of the total

In this case, category A will be the lead contributor, but individually none of its contributing causes will be, addressing [0]. The causes will be ordered like so instead: B1 > A1 > A2 > B2. More elaborate variations are possible of course. For [1], you can imagine the same scenario just in reverse.

Did I get all this right?

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garrettdreyfus 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Hi,

I appreciate the effort in your comment. I think upon further reflection my simpler objection is calling freshwater loss the main driver of sea level rise when the journal article and news article don’t. Also I would note this is only one study.

	▲	perching_aix 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I appreciate the effort in your comment. Thanks for that! I do wish it wasn't necessary though, but I guess that's just how real life problems go. > I think upon further reflection my simpler objection is (...) Right, that's perfectly fine; just got curious and you seemed informed. Editorializing the titles in general is against the guidelines here anyhow to be fair, I'm expecting it will be updated by the mods eventually: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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garrettdreyfus 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I very much like your categories point here by the way!