THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

New Study Finds Greenland Ice Melt
'not changing' or 'dropping' - NYT 
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1 Jul 08 - One of the most vivid symbols of (supposed) global warming is photos of gushing rivers of meltwater plunging from Greenland’s ice sheet. Recent studies have shown these natural drainpipes, called moulins, can speed up the slow seaward march of the grinding ice by lubricating the interface with bedrock below. The faster that ice flows, the faster seas rise.

Now, though, A new Dutch study of 17 years of satellite measurements of ice movement in western Greenland concludes that the speedup of the ice is a transient summertime phenomenon, with the overall yearly movement of the grinding glaciers not changing, and actually dropping slightly in some places, when measured over longer time spans.

               Actually dropping in some places!

The study, published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, throws into question the notion that abrupt ice losses in Greenland are nigh. “The positive-feedback mechanism between melt rate and ice velocity appears to be a seasonal process that may have only a limited effect on the response of the ice sheet to climate warming over the next decades,” said the paper. The study was led by Roderik S.W. van de Wal of the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research of the University of Utrecht.   

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/a-tempered-view-of-greenlands-gushing-drainpi pes/?ex=1215748800&en=8f674850110be7cb&ei=5070&emc=eta1