Grace data on Greenland Ice Sheet mass can be found here http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/mass/Grace_curve_La_EN_20170100.png

This clearly shows a reduction in mass since 2002 of about 3,600 Gt of ice.

There really shouldn't be an argument about this. The Greenland Ice Sheet has since 2002 been, on average, melting. There was a small increase in 2017 due to a snowier winter and less melting, but expect melting to start again in 2018.

//I'm sort of hoping that your little beaver story was a rather cryptic attempt at humour...otherwise I've badly misjudged you, and not in a good way.//

Well, humour is perhaps too strong of a word. Personally, I'd plump for 'whimsy'.

But with a point nonetheless: I see far too much use of SEP fields when it comes to greenhouse emissions. And as I'm sure you'll recall from your Hitch-Hiker's Guide, SEP fields only make things invisible, they don't actually make them go away.

Establishing an SEP field around Australia's greenhouse emissions - because they're so minuscule, it would only take a tiny SEP field - seems tempting. 'Emissions? Our problem? Don't be silly, it's Somebody Else's Problem. You must be thinking of the Chinese.'

And establishing an SEP field around the whole world's emissions for an indefinite period - until we've decided we've good enough technology and sufficient wealth, whenever that may happen to be - seems very tempting indeed. 'Emissions? Our problem? Don't be silly, it's Somebody Else's Problem. You must be thinking of the people who'll be alive after I'm dead.'

But - I hear you cry triumphantly - how can you be completely certain that emissions are actually a problem at all?

I can't. Science isn't about complete certainty. In my childish naivety, I used to believe it was. I used to draw some comfort from my belief that science offered certainty in our understanding of the world. And then I learnt a bit more, and discovered that no scientific knowledge is certain, that the history of science is just a long litany of people getting things wrong... and that it doesn't matter because the scientific method still remains the best method we've yet devised of understanding our universe; precisely because it does not hold truths to be sacred and absolute, and says that getting things wrong is fine if you learn from your mistakes.

So no, I can't be certain that greenhouse emissions are a problem. I can't be absolutely certain about the laws of chemistry that say if we produce CO2 faster than it can....

Tony, you've just hit a nerve. If this is the same APRA that is supposed to to be the Bank watchdogs, then you have just lost me and any chance of me further discussing this or any topic that APRA is mentioned in. You really have no idea who these guys are? Just look up, 'Bail-in'. And then YOU tell me about credible entities. We have been pushing for years, to get Glass-Steagall re-instated in our banking system since that Rothschild puppet, Clinton, the bastard repealed it in the US. You check it out. It is not on topic but gives you an insight into why I am a skeptic. I will add, do not imply or try to blame natural events such as coastal erosion on the alleged CC. This has been going on since creation. And what is this load of rubbish 'the ice is melting, oh but it increased for a while and then it went back to melting'. If you want actuals and not theories, I can tell you as a younger man having been born in Perth, we all experienced 'heat waves', which if you are old enough meant that we had weeks of hot days and nights when the temp stayed above 100F as it was in those days. So I can give you actuals when the so called science community can't, and only give us theories. BTW it appears you are in the East. I am in the West, so no go with 4 Corners. Anyway I've heard it all before, remember this is where most of the farming goes on. Tony I don't know who's making money out of this but it is just another Macro-Scam, in which the govt is a party to.

... be absorbed, it builds up in the atmosphere. But since my training is in chemistry and to a lesser extent physics, I have a strong faith in chemistry and physics. I can't even be certain about the measured concentration of 408ppm, although I have an almost absolute faith in metrology (you're lost without metrology). I can't be certain that there are more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere than there have been in a quite a while, even on a geological timescale. I can't be certain that the concentration of those gases is increasing rapidly. I can't be certain that the rate of increase of said gaseous concentrations is increasing. But I take all those things on faith.

I really can't be certain that all these greenhouse gases are going to be a problem. Or not a problem. I don't think anybody can, and that is what most concerns me: we're flying blind. The pessimists who say 'it will all end in tears' are just as dubious as the optimists who say 'nah, it'll all be fine mate'. They don't know, and neither does anybody else. The knowledge that I take on faith says that we are currently conducting, on a global scale, an experiment with our own damn atmosphere, with little theoretical understanding of that the results might be and no way to make meaningful predictions.

I'm all in favour of experiments, but they're best employed in order to test specific predictions. Open-ended experiments that don't examine a testable hypothesis seem pointless. And when you're carrying out global open-ended experiments... potentially dangerous. What happens if it all goes pear-shaped? Hope that Elon Musk already has three Ark Ships waiting in orbit, and that we don't get selected for Ark Ship B?

Too much of a risk. The Reptilian insurance firms have washed their claws of this one; they won't bail us out if we f&*k it all up. We're on our own. Maybe time to put the brakes on this particular line of research until we've found a suitable uninhabited Earth-like planet to play with to our hearts content.

Sorry guys, I just realised there are two, well, lets put it this way, there is a Tony and a Toni. I am certain I have answered the wrong Ton? so my comments will have to be taken as response to the appropriate Ton?

//I am certain I have answered the wrong Ton? so my comments will have to be taken as response to the appropriate Ton?//

I had no idea spelling was such a chore. One can only wonder at how you fare with homophones.