one under god, your references are not up to date, there are a number of references from this year that indicate that Greenland glaciers have become destabilised. A glacier that is moving fast is 16ks wide and 800 ms high...jakobshavn glacier.

In the past I have indicated that it is somewhat unclear what is happening in the Antarctic, the ice sheet is probably becoming larger through land ice dispersing into the ocean.
Here is a recent reference

http://www.dw.de/antarctic-glaciers-retreat-unstoppable/a-17363380

Tell NASA they are wrong
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

Tell the US Navy they are wrong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3dcc0mV-n4&feature=youtu.be

Tell New Scientist they are wrong
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html#.U1Bgr_mSw1K

Tell NSIDC they are wrong
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/glacier_balance.html

Monsignor Saltpetre,

Everything I’ve said is `ex cathedra’, that is to say, everything I’ve stated is true and I can substantiate every claim I’ve made. Space doesn't permit me to go into depth here.

Suffice to say, in the overall scheme of things, the following influence climate far more than mankind. There are many drivers climate change, but a range of variables which are dynamic and constantly changing. Climate change factors include:

I - Heliosphere (sun spot activity); Cosmic winds, (biggest factor)
2- Magnetosphere. GMF GeoMagnetic Field.
3- Deviation of Earth’s rotational axis to the vertical.
Earth’s orbital variations (The Earth’s tilt ranges from 22 to 24.5. Currently it’s 23.3).
Our seasons are controlled by the angle of deviation of our rotational axis to the vertical. The angle changes over time and varies between 22.1 and 25.5 deg to the vertical. We are currently travelling with a deviation angle of about 23.4 deg.
This variation causes drastic changes to our climate, from ice ages to raging heatwaves. This change is cyclical and occurs over a period of about 41,000 years so, yes, we have been there many times before over time since the planet’s existence.

Get used to it. It’s likely to get worse over the next 20,000 years before we see any improvement.

4 Variation of Earth’s orbit (variation in distance from the Sun; (more elongated. `Milankovic effect’).
5 Proximity to equator,
6 Influence of moon on tides, fluctuating ocean levels,
7 Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) The El Nino (dry, warmer weather) or La Nina (cooler, wetter weather) phenomena
9 Volcanic activity on land AND on sea bed floor (changing acidity levels),
10 Level and intensity of cloud cover, (water vapour concentrations),
11 Ice-reflectivity feedback,
12 Direction of prevailing winds,
13 Location, including proximity to the ocean, mountains, rainforest etc.
14 Land use changes, clear felling of native forests, cropping etc. This is far influential on climate than 15 below.
15 Industrial and commercial activity (includes CO2 emissions).
If you require further enlightenment, please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Red Baron

The science of climate change
First thing raised against sceptics – “Not a climate scientist – not even a scientist.
Was Al Gore, Lord Stern, Ross Garnaut, Peter Shergold? On the Climate Commission out of 6 there are only 2 scientists who have some expertise in climate, Prof Tim Flannery kangaroo evolution) palaeontologist, environmentalist and Will Stefan a climate scientist.

Previously climate scientists trained in a specific branch of science (Climatology, Meteorology, Atmospheric physics, Oceanography, Geophysics, etc) and to analyse data, is such training adequate to make predictions about future temperature trends over the next 100 years. A scientist would need training in a branch of mathematics including, Applied mathematics, Mathematical modelling, Numerical modelling, Bayesian inference, Mathematical statistics and Time series analysis.
Universities such as ANU now offer courses in Bachelor of Computational Science (B.Comptl.Sci) which include modules on Differential equations ,Mathematical Methods,Numerical and Computational, techniques, Simulation and Modelling,Large Scale Matrix Computations, Programming and so on. One can also specialise in a major which include, physics , environmental modelling, genetics , mathematics (fundamental and applied) and computer science.
Science is a journey - it is never `settled' what crap!
In 1977 Time magazine carried as its lead story – How to survive the coming ice age.
However in 2006 Time magazine carried as its lead story – Be worried, Be very worried. Global warming is upon us.
That’s a very quick turn around. So what generation of scientists got it wrong? The ones who claimed a cooling in 1977 or the ones claiming global warming in 2006?
The Met Office in London and the Royal Society have distanced themselves from the claim that increased carbon emissions is driving increased extreme weather events. Infact extreme weather events have declined by 30 percent over the past two decades, this is well documented in Indur Goklany's book, `The Improving state of the World. (2007)
The idea that a 2c rise in temperature is to be feared or that the 1c rise over the past 150 odd years, is much ado about nothing. The underlying mechanisms of the change remain uncertain and largely unknown.

Red Barron the matters you raised have been acknowledged by climate scientists; scientists from all sorts of disciplines are involved in studying whats going on.
We should be going into an ice age at present on two accounts, lack of sun spot activity up till very recently, and you mentioned the cycle of ice ages and then warming periods.

We are due for an el nino event and in the last week or so there was mention of sun spot activity; but these events are subsidiary. It is interesting that with the el nino effect that there has been a trend line going upwards since the beginning of the 1900s.

There have been constant papers stating that glaciers are retreating except for a few where there has been an increase. The glaciers that count though are retreating.
There has been a reduction in the Arctic ice sheet extending over decades. There are some seasonal variations, but temperatures are on the way up around the globe; especially in Polar and sub Polar areas, the trends overall show global warming.
A huge myth is that temperatures stopped increasing after the major el nino event in 1998.

RB, which of your items 1-13 hold the same relationship with temperature for the last 800,000 years (at least) that CO2 concentration does?

Why can't items 14 & 15 possibly explain the unprecedented rate of rise in temperature over the last century?

Aren't you really just saying it's "natural variation" and obfuscating this with the addition of items 14 & 15?

Been there, done that.

Ant
Sorry bno they haven't beem. The IPCC deliberately hones in on anthropogenic activity and virtually sidelines natural causes.

The latest research - among them Prof Ivan Frolov, have found there is NO uniform ice melts as demanded by IPCC modelling. Also ice cover in both Artic and Anartic has increased and not decreased.

What planet are you living on? It's a huge FACT that temperatures stopped increasing after the major el nino event in 1998. Don't get me started on the junk science used to ascertain the `average temperature'. It's notoriously hard to work out the average temp of say one place, i.e. Melbourne, let along a state, not to mention a country - its almost darn near impossible to work out an average temperature for the planet. It's impossible impossible to work out a temperature trend - given that the way we have measured temp has changed and also the expansion of sea based temp readings over the past century. There are - even now - only 8 monitoring stations in a huge place like Antarica whereas America literally has thousands, so this bias alone renders any `average' temp redundant.