Since there has been no net "global warming" in a decade and since CO2 cannot ever have more than a slight effect on temperatures we can conclude that man is in no way responsible for any changes observed in Greenland. Furthermore, Greenland was in fact "green" when Vikings settled there long before the industrial revolution began. What caused Greenland to be so habitable then? Natural cycles, natural cycles, natural cycles. Anthropogenic global warming/climate change is a lie, a scam, a deception. The claim that a consensus exists on "climate change" is also a lie. The lame-stream media just conveniently ignores anyone that disagrees with Obama, Pelosi and Gore. At any rate, consensus isn't proof just as correlation doesn't imply causation.

"Without these moderating effects, post-1996 Greenland mass loss would have been double the amount of mass loss observed now."

I find that to be an absurd statement. Either the ice is gone or it is not. Nobody is interested in what it would have been.

"Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate"

They talk about climate modeling as part of their reason for coming to this conclusion. How does that have any relation to the subject matter? Im not sure where theya re going with that one. If you have said ice right in front of you and you can conduct measurements on that, why would you need climate modeling at that point?

ok, so is it the equivalent of 0.75 mm/yr or not? has global sea level risen by at least 2.25 mm since 2006? if not, then what are we talking about here?

More tree rings yeeaaayah!! I posted the names they don't look familiar from our last discussion after a quick scan. Of course please let me know if I am incorrect. You should all know that I requested the dataset from the author. Fat chance of getting it I am sure but the effort was made in all fairness. We shall see.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091116163206.htm

Footnotes

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: msalzer@ltrr.arizona.edu

Author contributions :

Matthew W. Salzer, Malcolm K. Hughes, Andrew G. Bunn, and Kurt F. Kipfmueller

M.W.S. and M.K.H. designed research
M.W.S., M.K.H., and A.G.B. performed research
M.W.S., M.K.H., A.G.B., and K.F.K. analyzed data
M.W.S., M.K.H., A.G.B., and K.F.K. wrote the paper

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

John | November 18, 2009 4:43 PM --- Alas, so much that is simply wrong, counter-factual, packed into just a few lines. I suggest that instead you read what climatologists have to say; one place to start is David Archer's "The Long Thaw". Another is a newer book co-authored by Gavin Schmidt.

John:

Couldn't have said it better myself!

This is all part of the If-we-keep-telling-them-alarming-sounding-stuff-about-melting-ice-and-high-temperature-readings-they'll-believe-the-BS-campaign. Whatever changes are occurring to the climate and to glaciers, sea ice, ad nauseum, it's not CO2 levels, much less man's contribution thereto, that are causing those changes, so why don't these people spend some time learning about the cycles (i.e., the NATURAL cycles that ACTUALLY DO drive the Earth's climate) so that they can determine what changes are actually in store (as opposed to their CO2-driven computer model fantasy BS?!)??

"This is equivalent to 0.75 mm of global sea level rise per year" ... but ave sea level has not risen since 2006 and we have not seen any global warming over the last 10 years. How many gigatons of ice has been added to Antarctica?

I think the University of Bristol should have a serious look at the quality of thier 'research' and the biased way they report thier 'findings'. Is this 'research' supported by nice fat research grants from the Brit Govwernment? ... you betcha!
Welcome to the age of Copenhagen folks.

genetic:
.. then what are we talking about here?

Copenhagen!

Simple as that.
They are getting absolutey desperate to sombody to believe in their myth.

In one respect, they are correct. Copenhagen is our last chance to bring Global Socialist Government (save the planet) to the world.

The Sheeple are waking up and it is clear that AGW will not survive another year no matter what they do.

So...... Its do or die time fof the cult.

Good luck with that.

Given the lack of global warming for more than a decade this study proves that other factors are at play.

This is what happens when you stop using altimeter data and instead use gravity data. Gravity data is still FAR too iffy and the accuracy too low to get meaningful data. It should be a clue when the data from the radar/laser altimeters comes out differently. Alas...alarmism is TRULY all about using ONLY the data that causes the most alarm and ignoring the rest.

OK, number 1, John, you need to read up on your early Medieval history. Greenland was never really "green" (implying lush and lovely and agriculturally hospitable) -- murderous Erik the Red got cast out of the Viking culture and by calling the place "Greenland" he conned a few hundred other Vikings, most of them from Iceland) to give living there a shot when conditions were just slightly on the plus side of habitable (and not much different than Iceland). When the conditions went back to the natural norm, which meant living there was virtually impossible (using 11th century technology), the meagre settlements were abandoned.

Second of all, genetic, global sea level is rising about 3 mm a year according to TOPEX, Poseidon, and the Jasons -- and most of that is due to thermal expansion of the oceans, a totally inconvenient fact unless you inhabit the fringes of reality (and sanity) like Nils Axel Morner. (http://sealevel.colorado.edu/)

Third of all, it's really dehabilitating when the Wall Street Journal Europe gives Steve McIntyre a heroic column in which this peasant turned windmill-slayer is cast as a giant among mere mortals. In the same column, a hint of natural variability in second-year ice is called "figures from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center that now show thickening Arctic ice" -- hmm, second-year-ice cover is up a WHOPPING 11% -- whilst meanwhile we read the article here in which the actual changing climate conditions are pushing the melt in the expected direction (partly due to the lack of lucky winds and waves and the more dominant power of ablative sunshine aided by a longer and warmer melt season, no matter what you might've heard about a putative "cooling trend".

Greenland augurs things to come. Unfortunately.

In a related note, a massive drought has been plaguing the whole world lately as all of the water has slowly been running off the continents by way of streams and rivers into the oceans. This catastrophe has been masked by rainfall. Without this moderating effect everything would be even drier than it is!

So what this is saying is that the supposed ice loss will result in less than .03 inches rise per year. So, in a hundred years sea levels will rise almost three inches. Oh my gosh, head for the life boats!

It seems that I have recently read of another study that concluded the Greenland ice sheet was losing little or no mass due to heavier precipitation causing the mass to grow in thickness despite losses along the edge. What is person to believe?

Supposing there is some merit to the report above, I will still not be building an ark anytime soon! I am a little disappointed, though, as I was hoping all of this ice melt would make it a shorter drive to the ocean from where I am in Tennessee.

And their margin of error for their calcs is what?

John,
How many falsehoods can you jam in one paragraph?
No global warming in the last decade? Then how come 9 of the ten hottest years have been in the last decade.

The effect of CO2 on warming is a physical fact. It is like saying gravity doesn't work.

The vikings called it Greenland as a public relations piece. It has been frozen for 100's of thousands of years.

The world's scientific community overwhelmingly thinks that CO2 induced global warming is very real. Nothing like this has happened in at least 600,000 years.
Prove it is a conspiracy!
And don't let scientific facts change your uninformed opinions.

It's strange that this 0.75mm/yr acceleration hasn't appeared as a 0.75mm/yr increase in the rate of sea level rise since 2006.

See http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html for a good plot of the last 15 years of sea level measurements.

See http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/images/fig_start.jpg to see the last 140 years of sea level rise.

I saw this bit of advertising irony on the Jay Leno Show earlier this week:
http://blogs.chron.com/newswatchenergy/archives/2009/11/a_bit_of_advert_1.html

GettingWarm;

WOW.... Batting nearly 1000.

The only thing you wrote that is correct is that CO2 does have a warming effect.
A neglegable one, but an effect none the less.

The rest of it was pure nonsnese.

And it has never been up to sceptic to prove anything. Merely showing the holes in the AGW hypothysis is sufficient.
The burden of proof is entirely on you.
So far....
After 30 years of trying and 79 Billion dollars
you have nothing.

Try again.

So what this is saying is that the supposed ice loss will result in less than .03 inches rise per year. So, in a hundred years sea levels will rise almost three inches. Oh my gosh, head for the life boats!

Abstract of Christoffersen and Hambrey, Geology Today, 2006:

"The Greenland Ice Sheet is thinning at an accelerating pace and the ice sheet's contribution to sea-level rise has doubled in less than a decade. New data show rapid and widespread changes in the behaviour of the ice sheet, particularly along the coastal margin. These changes coincide with a decade of sustained Arctic warming of up to 3 [degrees] C. Decay of the Greenland Ice Sheet in response to global warming will not only be governed by increased surface melting during longer and warmer summers but also by a speed-up of coastal glaciers that drain the interior ice sheet. A precise estimate of sea-level rise in the twenty-first century relies on improved theoretical treatment of these glaciers in computer models."

I.e., if it keeps getting warmer, more ice could be lost at a faster rate, accelerating sea level rise. It's even possible that at some point the ice sheet could start falling apart, which would make it melt even faster than by current mechanisms.

Gary

"And it has never been up to sceptic to prove anything. Merely showing the holes in the AGW hypothysis is sufficient.
The burden of proof is entirely on you."

I agree with you to a point on this. It is not up to a skeptic to prove Global Warming. I don't agree with your conclusion but thats beside the point. However, you have a seperate theory that it IS a conspiracy. It IS up to you to prove THAT theory.

Good luck to both of you :)

Gary:??

"However, you have a seperate theory that it IS a conspiracy. It IS up to you to prove THAT theory.
"

Actually No. Not until the debate shifts from AGW to "So what is the Answer"
They claim they have settled science that warrents a wholesale change in world life styles.
They need to prove that.
We simple need to show that they are wrong.
That is how scientific debate works.

For now it is merely about the one critical question: Is man made CO2 causing dangerous Global Warming?

Once we get past that we can debate real issues.

And as for conspiricy, I think that now speaks for itself in light of the CRU revelations.

Is your name really Gary Too?

During the period from 2006 to 2008, the ice sheet experienced an accelerated mass loss to 273 Gt per year (1 Gt is the mass of 1 cubic kilometer of water). This is equivalent to 0.75 mm of global sea level rise per year, according to the EurekAlert article.

The combination between increased iceberg production, driven by acceleration of Greenland's fast-flowing outlet glaciers, and increased meltwater production at the ice sheet surface led to this mass loss.

According to the report, the surface melting started to increase around 1996, but an increase in snowfall at the same rate on the ice sheet for a decade masked the surface mass losses for nearly a decade. Without this moderating effect, the mass loss would have been double than what is observed now.

Lets see - except for the normal processes that occur we could have had a loss of ice mass. Who are these people? Except for the fact that I was 20 feet under water, my lighting my cigarette could have caused an explosion.....

No that was me man sorry about that.

Gary- You have proved nothing. Empty words are not proof. Also what is the 'problem' if anthropogenic global warming is true (it is!)? Do you and your co-horts (john etc.) think that man has NO effect on this planet, think again! Your abject lack of responsibility(go drive your bike) in regards to usage is arrogant and unwise. Many humans have never even been in a car, or have all the advances you have in your life. Wealth is not the only game in town, there is something called humanity.