I support transparency, not obfuscation, Pericles. My claim was based on a comment by a scientist at realclimate:

"http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/wilkins-ice-shelf-collapse/"

"As for Wilkins, the estimates are that there has been an ice shelf there for about 10,000 years. I think that’s pretty significant, but YMMV. - gavin"

You might contrast this with a comment from Nasa:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/

"The Wilkins Ice Shelf is somewhat unusual in that only the southern end of the shelf appears to be fed by land-based ice; the rest of the shelf may have formed from accumulation of sea ice that held fast to the coastline through many seasons, as well as snow cover. Glaciologists estimate that the part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf that formed from sea ice may be 300 to 400 years old, and the part that is fed by glacier flow is older, perhaps up to 1,500 years old."

Given the dynamics of ice sheets, the statements may not be conflicting. As the following article shows, the retreat of ice shelves has been accelerating in recent years:

http://nsidc.org/sotc/iceshelves.html

Some variation even here, Fester.

Gavin Schmidt estimates 10,000 sq kms.

NASA estimates 13,680.

It would appear that ice-shelf measurements are neither exact nor consistent.

Quoting the statistic that best suits your argument, without admitting that "YMMV" might, to the cynic, appear somewhat expedient.

You also omitted to cite the source that supports your contention that it measured "about 17,000 square kilometres in the early 1990s"

I'm sure you will quickly put that right.

None of this matters, of course, if you accept man-made global warming as a proven fact. We are simply measuring its effects.

But there still appear to be some unresolved arguments to address before we reach that point, would you not agree?

Pericles

That is 10,000 years, not 10,000 km. The area calculation is from satellite images, and accurate.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20090408_Wilkins.html

"The Wilkins Ice Shelf is located on the southwestern Antarctic Peninsula, the fastest-warming region of the Earth. In the past 50 years, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit). In the early 1990s, the Wilkins Ice Shelf had a total area of 17,400 square kilometers (6,700 square miles). Events in 1998 and the early years of this decade reduced that to roughly 13,680 square kilometers (5,280 square miles). In 2008, a series of disintegrations (rapid repeated calvings in which the ice shelf pieces are small enough to topple over) and break-up events (rifting of large sections of the shelf, leading to large tabular iceberg calvings) shrunk the area of stable shelf to roughly 10,300 square kilometers (4,000 square miles), a net loss within a year of approximately 3,600 square kilometers (1,400 square miles)."

Sea level change is the most worrying and uncertain aspect of AGW for me.

The Southern Hemisphere sea-ice extent anomolies 1979 - Mar 2009 from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) show increasing ice extent (see this graph):
http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png

The alleged temperature rise in the Antarctic may have something to do with where sensors are situated:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/04/snow-job-in-antarctica-digging-out-the-data-source/

Quote from the above link: "Why is the snow burying important? Well, as anyone skilled in cold weather survival can tell you, snow makes an excellent insulator and an excellent reflector. Snow’s trapped air insulative properties is why building a snow cave to survive in is a good idea. So is it any wonder then that a snowdrift buried temperature sensor, or a temperature sensor being lowered to near the surface by rising snow, would not read the temperature of the free near surface atmosphere accurately?"

Now I get it Ratty.

You are a so called 'troll of the denialosphere'. What's next ... Cato Institute, Marohassy, Evans, Lavoisier Group, Bellamy, Tech Central Station, Carter, ... ?

Meanwhile - government leaders (from different ideologies), business leaders (from different 'isms'), intelligent and smart people (from different cultures and age groups) around the globe, are focussed on adapting to the challenges of climate-change, and are trying to develop in a more sustainable way.

While I was prepared to engage with you on another thread, now I find you are just a simple distraction.

Here's the thing, Fester.

When even the experts disagree, there is no real point in your insisting that one side or the other is "right".

Have a quick look through this, and give me the benefit of your views.

http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/judge-2/

"An opportunity to judge for yourself the adequacy of today’s climate science"

The article makes some observations on the level of information that these scientists, whom you hold in such high esteem, are prepared to share with us all.

"I have always intended to provide all the material on line; I wasn’t allowed to do this before the paper was published..."

was quickly followed by

"All of the data used in the temperature reconstructions are from publically available data sources..."

and then...

"Dr. Steig has said that he is willing to provide the data to legitimate researchers."

The shifting ground is nicely documented here, with all sources detailed and specific.

While on the topic, here's yet another dissenting view.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/28/steigs-antarctic-heartburn/

You can, I hope, start to understand why I would rather wait until I meet information that is a) consistent, b) agreed upon by the relevant "scientists" and c) based upon information that is available to the general public, gathered from independent sources and whose methodology is sound.

So far, I don't see a great deal of this.

Just a bunch of guys looking for data that agrees with their theories.