Q&A - all that for nothing. GRACE does not prove a global warming connection. They've just discovered that ice in Greenland melted faster in two years than the previous 1.5. Unless it's not obvious on their site they are measuring changes, not providing explanatory mechanisms.

It's typical of science deniers to deny a citation for everything in an argument as though facts don't exist independently of academic publication. I put the suggestion of precipitation forward as a hypothesis. Might be that I'm the first to have suggested it. That's no big deal. It's based on the fact that Mt Kilmanjaro's glacier is shrinking because of decreased precipitation. Seems like a reasonable possibility that this might also apply to Greenland.

Another would be that there's been a change of ocean currents or wind circulation making that part of Greenland locally warmer. As there has been no global warming for a decade it would appear logical that it must be something local.

Or it could be just because of more precise measurement.

It's possible that earlier measurements of ice loss were wrong. There is a problem splicing different series together in that they are not directly comparable. So it is possible that the change between series can make it appear that something has changed when in fact it hasn't.

And we've already had articles on Bali, and undoubtedly there will be more, although Bali was about politics, not science.

This site is getting to be a bit like a re-run of John Laws/Alan Jones radio shows.

What a great one-liner! Thanks Colinsett, I needed a laugh.

The first rule of the marketing-Global-warming Club is "You don't talk about wastewater Emissions".

The REALITY is: "The biggest cause of climate change .IS. coastal Wastewater emissions."

Wastewaters do not diffuse into the oceans as people expect. Because we continually emit solid/liquid wastes, wastewater PLUMES(Ricci flows) are continuous and because outflow rates exceed diffusion rates, there is a pemanent presence of wastewater pollutants off ALL populated coastal areas. These permanent flows show up as high/low entropy areas (high low gravipotential) as depicted by high and low sea height anomalies(red/blue splotches) on SHA maps.
When intense anomalies are very close to coastal areas it probably means the NSW government is saving money by turning off deep ocean outfalls. Inland summer heat evaporates water and it is attracted to coastal high entropy zones where it creates rainfall uselessly out at sea, thus sustaining drought. Turn on the outfalls and hey presto the inland moisture still gets dragged to the coast but does not have the momentum to reach the highest entropy part of the plume now further out at sea. Rains then fall over mountain ranges and put an end to drought. Note, this analysis is a relatively simple application of the 2LT (Second Law of Thermodynamics).

Let's look at current NSW and Sydney SHA maps:

Ricci flow of wastewaters from the Australian east coast for this year and last year:

17-Dec-2007: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1197910946.gif

17-Dec-2006: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1197910980.gif

Notice how this December has been rainy AND there is no intense Sea Height anomaly (pollution plume) proximal to the NSW coast.

Last year we were heavily in drought with ramped up water restrictions. There is clearly a huge Sea Height anomaly directly off Sydney.

I conjecture(subject to further experiments) that the difference, this year to last was the fact that authorities(at least Sydney water) have become aware of RECCE theory (Regional Ectopic Climate Catastrophe theory), tested it, found it works and kept mum to go along with a politically advantageous Global warming theory.

Cont..

Cont..

Why have authorities kept silent and why is GW(global warming) politically advantageous? Because GW keeps populations helplessly WORRIED and willing to pay more taxes and privatise more hard-won public assets in the HOPE that problems will go away. They won't go away until wastewater pollution is dealt with.

The beauty of RECCE theory is that controlling wastewaters and thus climate change can be done over a periond of 2-7 days at minimal cost. Compare that to GW solutions that will cost us our prosperity and take 50-100 years to implement (if we survive PEAKOIL).

How do I know this? I have observed that the US is already using RECCE theory (since 2006) to control wastewaters in hurricane season. If I am correct, over the next 2-5 years we will see a steady decline in storm damage along all US coastal areas. Already 2006/2007 have been extremely successful hurricane seasons in terms of low $damages.

Let's look at current US Ricci Flow of wastewaters on the US SHA map:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod/work/trinanes/INTERFACE/index.html

Note the large area of blue/red SHA plumes(multi-holed topological torus) centered on Cape Hatteras and extending well into the Nth Atlantic. This is the most impressive real life example of a multi-holed torus Ricci Flow topology on a 3-manifold any mathematician could desire.

Also note the discrete Gulf of Mexico (blue)plumes that next hurricane season will turn off within a few days of INCOMING hurricanes in order to divert those hurricanes AWAY from populated areas.

Additionally, as the 2008 Tornado season begins in February, a little experiment will unfold to see if tornado-forming squall-lines can be minimised by the same process of switching off Gulf of Mexico wastewater plumes at appropriate times. I will report back on this experiment after the US tornado season ends in May 2008.

ITS ALL THERMODYNAMICS.

"As there has been no global warming for a decade,..."

Graham, from any other poster I would just sigh and ignore such a comment, but given your role here as moderator I expect a bit more responsibility. This claim is simply untrue - the global temperature has been on consistently upward trend since the end of 1998. 1998 itself was an unusually warm year, so it's true that temperatures have yet to exceed that particular maximum, but to claim there has been no warming for a decade on this basis is as sensible as claiming that there has been extreme and dramatic warming over the last 9 years.

Furthermore, given the context of Greenland, the mean temperature around Greenland has most definitely risen considerably since 1998 itself. Here's just one station in Greenland:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431043900003&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
You're free to plot charts for stations all over the Arctic, and virtually all show the same very strong upward trend since 1998 (indeed, since about 1980).

Lastly, even if it were true that the temperature had held more or less steady for the last 10 years, those temperatures have still been well above the long term average seen over the last 100 or so years. 10 years of steady but well above-average temperatures would be more than enough to induce increased glacial retreat. I don't believe any scientist worth his salt is questioning whether it is high temperatures causing the glacial retreats in Greenland, despite what may be happening on Mt Kilimanjaro, which is near the equator - the area least affected by global warming. What is under serious dispute is the speed and degree to which glacial retreats and ice-sheet melts are likely to contribute towards sea-level rise. At this point it's looking increasingly like the IPCC reports have significantly underestimated this.