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!

Is this a "death train", a la James Hansen, or just an ordinary train? What steps have been taken to mitigate its carbon emissions? Is some poor old granny in India using a hand sewing machine instead of an electric one so the train company can boast about being 'carbon neutral'? Are the first class passengers on the train going to suffer one tiny shred of personal inconvenience as they debate merrily about limiting personal freedoms and slashing their constituents' wealth by thousands of dollars every year? In these days of the Internet, can they really find no better way to communicate than to fly thousands of people halfway around the world?

No, of course not. Silly me! Sorry I asked.

Unfortunately the following are real developments:

1. The drying Murray-Darling
2. The drought-stricken southwest and southeast Australia and related bushfires.
3. The warming acidifying Great Barrier reef
4. Intensification of tropical hurricanes
5. The increase in biodiversity loss
6. The fast melting ice sheets, now including East Antarctica, as below:

East Antarctic sheet shedding 57bn tonnes of ice a year and contributing to sea level rises, according to Nasa aerial survey
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-nasa

The world's largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected.

The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters of the continent's 14,000 sq km, is losing around 57bn tonnes of ice a year into surrounding waters, according to a satellite survey of the region.

Scientists had thought the ice sheet was reasonably stable, but measurements taken from Nasa's gravity recovery and climate experiment (Grace) show that it started to lose ice steadily from 2006.

The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises.

Satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the region is now losing around 190bn tonnes of ice a year. Uncertainties in the measurements mean the true ice loss could be between 113bn and 267bn tonnes.

"If the current trend continues or gets worse, Antarctica could become the largest contributor to sea level rises in the world. It could start to lose more ice than Greenland within a few years," said Jianli Chen, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Chen's team used data from the Nasa mission to see how Earth's gravitational pull varied month to month between April 2002 and January 2009. Measurements taken over the south pole reflect changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets.

The survey confirmed the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting rapidly with the loss of around 132bn tonnes of ice a year, but revealed unexpected melting in the larger East Antarctic ice sheet.

Andy1, before you get your knickers in too much of a knot over the East Antarctic ice sheet, you might also mention the part of that report where the authors cautioned that the margin of error was %90, which meant that the figures could well mean nothing.

And tropical hurricanes are not intensifying, no matter what Al Gore says.

The drying Murray-Darling has more to do with mismanagement of water resources than the big, scary climate change monster.

A nice cup of tea and a good lie down is in order, I think.

Runner I wholly agree with your summation.

Reducing emission of any kind, whilst possible (yet arguably) desirable for health reasons,

are not guaranteed to arrest or slow or influence any other postulated “global change”

what these “environmentalists” want to do is enslave us to their model of human activity, without knowing if any benefit will be forthcoming.

It is all just

Socialism by Stealth

The left wing, having lost the economic argument and the cold war, are simply harnessing the emotions and fears of global warming aided and abetted by scientists chasing soft research grants, to bring everyone into line with their previously failed political ideology

“We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet”, Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact, and chief climate science advisor of the German Government.

“The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering previous predictions”, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

“The time for hesitation is over”, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

“The clock is ticking for the planet”, Kevin Rudd.

"The sky is falling in", Chicken Little

I added the last quote as this appears to be a contest to see who can say the silliest thing.

The ozone hole scam and the Y2K scam made a few people very rich and now? What was it is it again Kevin? Global warming, AGW and now climate change.
Mr. Glikson has a very vested interest in getting money for whatever he does. Good luck matey I do not believe a word of this fluff and will vote against it all.

The fact that the ice caps are melting at such an alarming rate would beg the question what about the gas trapped in the ice. That as a temperature decreases the solubility of a gas increases ‘, i.e. the direct opposite of a 'normal' solvent solute reaction. This means that the trapped co2 / methane, that already exists in the ice is being released at a rate I have yet to see any figures on.
This added to what our normal pollution levels as far a carbon emission is concerned, lead me to wonder what is being realistically done in the world to curb this effect.
Next the ‘Normal’ effect of pollutants in the atmosphere due to active volcanoes does appear to be allowed for in this so-called study on greenhouse emission.
Next the methane production seems to be out of control especially in Kyoto a well Copenhagen.
Next the carbon foot prints levels seem to underestimate the fact that here are 4 carbon atoms in every molecule in methane compared to 1 in co2.
No wonder he worlds in trouble!

Andrew Glikson’s article seems interesting and has lots of information. I’m not a scientist so I don’t really understand any of it, perhaps he could investigate the case FOR AGW then send it to Hadley or the IPCC for review?

Perhaps JonJay or Andy1 could explain all this since they seem to be scientists.

Desmond, you say <<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>> really! That shouldn’t take long at all. Any idea’s how this might be achieved?

You really do need to take reality out of the box now and then, even if you just, you know, look at it.

Is it my imagination or are figures 3 & 4 the wrong way around?