cover an extremely wide range of reading ....from emerging technologies via the net to tv specials on climate and reading books on history.... so that i cannot just pull a reference out of the air... but i already surmised that someone would challenge that 1 degree is equal to a ten foot rise in ocean height as i wrote it and will endeavor to locate the people who first made that estimation..... i was watching a program yesterday about these ice drillers that are taking core samples that are 150,000 years old and can be read (very similar to tree rings) on climate changes.
as far as fresh water...i read that it tends to stay on top of the ocean as a layer because of the reduced salinity and is therefore subject to increased evaporation and adds to the earths rain....system.
people think of deforestation of the planet as being the biggest threat to our ecology(gases) when in reality its the plankton in the earths oceans covering 3/4's of the planet that provide the majority of the oxygen.
satelite imagery is changing the way we look and measure
whats actually happening in the earths Oceans and how productive they are.... for example here's an interesting article on ( optical backscattering
http://wwwnl.technologyreview.com/t?ctl=BA2E68:2ED7E87