UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama challenged world leaders Wednesday to shoulder more of the globe’s critical burdens, promising a newly cooperative partner in America but sternly warning they can no longer castigate the U.S. as a go-it-alone bully while still demanding it cure all ills.

[snip]

U.S. presidents — Bush included — have come to the United Nations year after year with a wish list of action items and preaching the gospel of working together. The U.S. is rich and powerful, but cannot solve problems without help, they say, whether Democrat or Republican.

[snip]

“In the year 2009 — more than at any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared,” Obama said.

Following a president pilloried for arrogance, Obama talked more modestly about the United States.

[snip]

Even while offering new cooperation from Washington, Obama was blunt that others must step up or face dire consequences: “extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world, protracted conflicts that grind on and on, genocide, mass atrocities, more nations with nuclear weapons, melting ice caps and ravaged populations, persistent poverty and pandemic disease.”

[snip]

“The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise,” Obama said.

I’m not a very big fan of the UN. OK, I am not only not a fan, I tend to assign all sorts of of miscellaneous pejorative terms to the United Nations when either speaking or writing about the organization as a whole.

The UN is a classic example of a good idea, backed up with the best of intentions, going horribly wrong.

I wouldn’t bet money that President Obama’s words and points made any impression whatsoever. Countries will continue to blame everything on the US, find fault with the US [and there is fault], and the moment that any action is required… look to the US to perform that action…and bear the cost of that action as well.

I don’t expect any changes, either in perception or demands, but at least they are now officially acknowledged by this new administration.

OSLO (Reuters) – Scientists are surprised at how extensively coastal ice in Antarctica and Greenland is thinning, according to a study Wednesday that could help predict rising sea levels linked to climate change.

Analysis of millions of NASA satellite laser images showed the biggest loss of ice was caused by glaciers speeding up when they flowed into the sea, according to scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Bristol University.

“We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline — it’s widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometers inland,” said Hamish Pritchard of BAS who led the study.

“We think that warm ocean currents reaching the coast and melting the glacier front is the most likely cause of faster glacier flow,” he said in a statement.

“This kind of ice loss is so poorly understood that it remains the most unpredictable part of future sea level rise,” he added. BAS said the study gave the “most comprehensive picture” of the thinning glaciers so far.

Rising seas caused by a thaw of vast stores of ice on Antarctica and Greenland could threaten Pacific islands, coasts from China to the United States and cities from London to Buenos Aires.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this month global warming, blamed mainly on burning fossil fuels, could raise sea levels by 50 cm to 2 meters (20 inches to 6 ft 6 in) this century — higher than most experts have predicted.

Among findings, Wednesday’s study said 81 of 111 fast-moving glaciers in Greenland were thinning at twice the rate of slow-flowing ice at the same altitude.

“Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized,” they wrote. “Dynamic thinning” means loss of ice due to a faster flow.

They said it was too early to determine whether the thinning was a sign that sea level rise would accelerate from a current rate of about 3 mm (0.12 inches) a year.

“Working that out is the next task,” David Vaughan, a BAS glaciologist among the authors, told Reuters. Thinning in some areas could be caused by changes in snowfall, for instance, not the slide of ice toward the ocean, he said.

Emphasis added.

I acknowledge that in many instances we are reduced to assumptions and guesses, and the issue of Global Warming, and its sibling Climate Change, all the more so, we need to clearly understand that we are assuming and guessing.