The UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw is set to wind up tomorrow, probably without establishing any real prospect of human carbon emissions being seriously reduced in the foreseeable future. Many are worried that this could mean disastrous rises in sea level this century, with associated human misery on a grand scale.

In particular, concern often focuses on the Greenland ice sheet in this context. The Antarctic ice sheet, the other major landbased ice mass that might conceivably slide into the sea and melt, is so huge and thick that scientists believe it will resist the effects of any possible level of warming for thousands of years. And the mountain glaciers of central Asia, which the UN once erroneously foretold would all be gone by 2035, are actually looking good.

But there’s reassurance even here. An article just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences outlines the work of a team of researchers from Britain and Australia. These scientists investigated the effects on ice flow into the sea of meltwater increases, particularly the massive summer melt last year that caused so much concern.

In short, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about:

Our findings suggest that annual motion of land-terminating margins of the ice sheet, and thus the projected dynamic contribution of these margins to sea level rise, is insensitive to melt volumes commensurate with temperature projections for 2100 … despite record summer melting, subsequent reduced winter ice motion resulted in 6{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} less net annual ice motion in 2012 than in 2009 … surface melt–induced acceleration of land-terminating regions of the ice sheet will remain insignificant even under extreme melting scenarios. [Our emphasis].

Read more at: theregister.co.uk