The latest issue of Science contains a paper claiming that glaciers along the periphery of Greenland are melting at a rapidly increasing rate. In fact – the report states – the extra water from glaciers along the periphery can contribute to a rise in sea water level with as much as an extra foot.

But hold your horses – don’t start selling your seafront property yet.

Last October the same magazine ran an article claiming that the Greenland glacier is growing taller. And this growth of the glacier may even be enough to make up for the melting at the periphery, or at the very least slow the process dramatically.

The Danish media reported the same basic story. Global Warming contributes to rising sea level and if all ice on Greenland melts sea levels will rise with more than 7 metres, all with dramatic pictures. Scientists from the Danish Niels Bohr Institute, however, said on Danish TV that Greenland’s glacier is growing taller but thinner. What this means for the sea level depends on the numbers, because how much slimmer and how much taller has a huge impact on the overall volume of Greenland’s glacier. It all has to do with basic math, and some very complicated satellite based estimates of the height of the glacier.

What this means in regards to global policies on the Global Warming is that once again it has become clear that we simply do not know enough about the impact of human activity on the global climate. The global eco-system constantly appears to a lot more stable than the Doomsday Sayers are predicting, but still European politicians at large are scrambling to follow policy advice to severely limit – or even reverse global economic growth – in order to accomplish … Well we really don’t know yet.

Again we see how Europe is haunted by the precautionary environmental policies that are one-sided and don't take the negative impact of those policies into consideration.