Dr Glickson rightly draws our attention to the problem of AGW, its effects on the melting of land based ice and remedial measures needed to at least slow that process. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that those measures will be taken, or that we shall avoid the dire consequences of doing too little too late. After all, protecting jobs and our economy are so much more important aren’t they?

In my view most climate scientists have been too conservative, too reticent in expressing their estimates of the rate at which land based ice is melting or the fact that this rate is and will continue to escalate as temperatures continue to rise. The public need this information and they need it expressed in everyday language which, as far as possible, is free of scientific jargon.

Until very recently, they have said little about the extent or speed with which ice is melting and even less about the effects this will have. For example, until this month, almost nothing has been said about the melting of the East Antarctic Ice Cap other than, if it is melting (?) ice loss is more than compensated for by precipitation and ice growth - a claim which is clearly wrong. A widely held view that the Greenland Ice Cap would take thousands of years to melt is silently accepted even though some believe that it could largely disappear within a few hundred years.

We are not even provided with reliable data on the extent to which melting of land based ice will increase sea levels. Until very recently we have only been able to guess what the effects of rising sea level might be on Australia and then only courtesy of the findings of an inquiry by Parliament which let the public know in blunt, comprehensible language the threat posed by a 1 metre rise by 2100. Only if the women or man-in-the-street clearly understands the threat posed by climate change will they put irresistible pressure on government to deal with the problem realistically

Comment continued:

The fact that it is likely we shall confront a 1 metre sea rise by 2050 or that by 2100 sea level rise may exceed 4 metres is not given credence or voiced by our all too conservative climate scientists, let alone the effects this would have on the jobs and economy which our myopic political leaders claim they are protecting. The governments of China and India have been repeatedly warned of the effects of glacier meltdown in the Himalaya and Hindu-Kush mountains and years ago should have been alarmed by the prognosis.

Only now do we hear of their “disquiet” but the people of those countries have not been told the basis for it. They have not been told in clearly understood language that those effects will be increasing water shortages as the flows of their greatest rivers decrease, or the consequential failure of crops, the food shortages, starvation or lack of drinking water which or how many people will be affected. If politicians wont tell their own people the truth about these matters, scientists should. But do they?

I like a scholarly paper such as Dr Glicksons valuable contribution and I agree with the conclusion reached but I also ask: “is it going to make much difference to action taken by government”? In my view, no. Why? Because it does not provide clearly understood information, not only about the importance of abating temperature rise but also about the consequences of not doing so, expressed in terms which are clearly understood by the average person.

Until Mr Average understands the reason for your conclusion and realises the consequences of not acting on them, pressure is not going to be placed on government to do more than offer a stupid, irresponsible and meaningless 5% reduction of CO2-e emissions by 2020.

Whats got to happen first is every habbitable piece of land in the world must all strive for the same cause. It's no good if some do and some don't.
Once you get that underway, reduction will go ahead in leaps and bounds.

Thank you for your comments JonJay.

A number of scientists, mainly James Hansen and his group, Broecker, Wasdell, Lovelock and others, have repeatedly warned the consequences of climate change may be more serious and occur faster than even the more severe IPCC projections.

This "experiment" by Homo "Sapiens" is without precedence, namely, while lessons can be drawn from the glacial-interglacial ice core and sediment records, major differences between the glacial terminations and current climate change trajectories occur in terms of the nature of the triggers and forcings, i.e. solar triggers during the ice ages, anthropogenic CO2 at present.

We are in uncharted territory regarding projections of the scale and pace of climate change. Whereas there could still be "quiet" lulls ahead, the timing of tipping points can hardly be defined, except to say that the higher the atmospheric energy state the sooner they are likely to occur. We are looking at worrying trends, but do not have a "looking glass" to tell precise future dates.

Not least, a total CO2-equivalent forcing at 460 ppm is only about 40 ppm below the upper stability limit of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is now melting at an increasing rate.

In the meantime carbon emissions are only growing, some 41% since 1990. The implications in terms of heat waves, droughts, cyclons, flooding and sea level rise are all there - occurring in the present.

The massive disinformation campaign on the pages of mainstream media speaks for itself.

What more can scientists say before people get it?

Andy writes
'What more can scientists say before people get it?'
Simply tell the truth and stop trying to scare the gullible public into believing a pack of lies. With emissions growing and temperatures dropping you have some questions to answer. Also stop blaming every earthquake, frost, heatwave, drought, flood, cyclone, fire on man made climate change. Mr Gore and Mr Flannery already look very silly to any thinking person. Another suggestion is not to be so closed minded to so many scientist who know that even if their is the slightest evidence of man made gw (which their isn't) Australia's contribution is minute compared with China. Do away with your silly little computer models and get in the real world.

They can't do that runner, they'd be out of a job before they knew it!
We all know this isn't about the planet but about money and lots of it, but for a select few!