Scottish parliament debates free swimming lessons as its answer to global warming

Six steps to a smaller carbon footprint......how about we kick out labour........go for independence.........boot out trident.........extract ourselves from any obligation to the EU...........and with the huge amount of money saved..........invest in Scotland and its people and buy back our utility companies :)

Head for the hills!

Nice wee house here. Just waiting for some neighbours.

When there's El Nino conditions in the Pacific and they follow near-El Nino conditions since 2002, where do you think the Pacififc heat might go? Via the Hadley and Ferrel cell circulation patterns, it moves to the Arctic.

Trenberth and Caron in "Estimates of meridional atmosphere and ocean heat transports", J. Climate, 14, (2001), pp3433-344 estimated that transport at 5 petawatts (1 PW = 10 to the power15 W) of energy.

Why should anyone be surprised that the Arctic is warming?

5. John M, Melbourne, Australia

I believe that puts the Atlantic Conveyor at risk then the warming will stop big time right!

Good point John M (No. 5).

People seem to have forgotten about the El Niño effect. It's cyclical, we know that, but we don't know exactly how frequent or how long the cycles are.

Anyone have any data on sea levels during the Medieval "warm period", when average temperatures were higher than now, and when Greenland gained it's name?

Yes it was called 'Greenland' for a reason. Harlech Castle had boats moored up alongside it in Medieval times yet now it is a long way from the sea. We have ugly caravan sites along our coast, one foot of sea level rise would get rid of that lot! Mother Earth isn't a static vision of beauty, it has cycles.

I learned at Primary School (many moons ago) that we were heading for another Ice Age. Will it be a product of Global Warming or the Earth's Epochal Cycles?

If Greenland has 630,000 cubic miles of ice but is losing 80 square miles a year, this represents a 0.012% loss. Cause for concern I agree but hardly panic.

Also the fact that the amount of ice in Antarctica (where 90% of the world's ice is) is actually increasing doesn't get reported at all.

The thickening of the eastern ice sheet (Antarctica) should not be seen as a long-term protection against a rise in sea level, warns Vaughan. Glaciers in West Antarctica are accelerating, releasing more and more icebergs into the sea. And the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches towards South America, now regularly hits temperatures above 0 °C in the summer, leading to direct melting of the ice there.

What's more, snowfall over East Antarctica will not continue to increase indefinitely in a warming world, Vaughan adds. Conversely, every extra degree of temperature rise will continue to accelerate glaciers and cause more melting on the western side of Antarctica, swelling the world's oceans further. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-10.html

Large ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula disintegrated in 1995 and 2002, as a result of climate warming. Almost immediately after the 2002 Larsen B ice shelf collapse (it only took 35 days), researchers observed nearby glaciers flowing up to eight times faster than prior to the breakup. The speed-up also caused glacier elevations to drop, lowering them by as much as 38 meters (124 feet) in six months. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/09...

Ellesmere Island Ice Break Animations - http://heartspring.net/global_warming_greenhouse.html

Heartspring your quotes rely heavily on predicting that the ice growth will stop because of global warming - if you are trying to prove the existence of catastrophic warming you are biting your own tail. I could equally "prove" that melting in Greenland will not cause sea level rise by predicting that it will stop.

Why they called it "Greenland" instead of Iceland. Meaning it was once " a Jungle" before it covered by ice?

This is no joke !

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland
"Icelandic settlers found the land uninhabited when they arrived c. 982. In c. 984 they established the Eastern and Western settlements in deep fjords near the very southwestern tip of the island, where they thrived for the next few centuries, and then disappeared after over 450 years of habitation.
The fjords of the southern part of the island were lush and had a warmer climate at that time, possibly due to what was called the Medieval Warm Period.
After almost five hundred years, the Scandinavian settlements simply vanished, possibly due to famine during the fifteenth century in the Little Ice Age, when climatic conditions deteriorated, and contact with Europe was lost. Bones from this late period were found to be in a condition consistent with malnutrition."

"I could equally "prove" that melting in Greenland will not cause sea level rise by predicting that it will stop."

That's a straw man argument. Predictions don't "prove" anything. Predictions based on facts are how intelligent people make intelligent decisions. Antarctica is increasing it's ice in some places and losing ice it's ice in other areas. The question remains. Is Antarctica losing more ice than it's gaining?

"Predictions don't "prove" anything."

That was my point. You rely on a prediction that future warming will stop ice growth to "prove" itself true & as you point out that is ridiculous.

As regards your question whether Antarctica is losing more more ice than it is gaining - I refer you to my previous post 11
"Also the fact that the amount of ice in Antarctica (where 90% of the world's ice is) is actually increasing doesn't get reported at all."
which is what "increasing" means.