Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sea levels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

But the big question is how much of this can be pinned to global warming.

In its landmark 2007 report, the UN's Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ascribed 1.1mm (0.04 inches) per year to thermal expansion of the oceans -- water expands when it is heated -- and to meltwater from glaciers, icecaps and the Greenland and Antarctica icecaps.
That left 0.7mm (0.03 inches) per year unaccounted for, a mystery that left many scientists wondering if the data were correct or if there were some source that had eluded everyone.

In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Yadu Pokhrel of the University of Tokyo say the answer lies in water that is extracted from underground aquifers, rivers and lakes for human development but is never replenished.
The water eventually makes it to the ocean through rivers and evaporation in the soil, they note.

In its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC said the oceans would rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (seven to 23 inches) by the century's end.....snip~

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-scient...172928909.html
AFP – 7 hrs ago<<<<<

5 years later and they are now considering this is the missing data for all the discrepancies with Sea levels Rising. Which none of this counts what is melted off from the Artic glacial areas.