Glaciers can speed up, but can't put out

Meanwhile, an Arctic, polar bear, and Greenland ice alarmist movie is coming to theaters near you. Oh well, let the show and the hype go on. Don’t let some NSF-funded study get in the way.

I have some experience with glaciers.
Global warming can effect glacial flow three ways: 1) increased water flow to the base, increasing lubrication, 2) increased plasticity due to increased temperatures, and 3) increased throughput by removing terminus back-pressure.
Only a portion of water reaches the base, the majority seque-ing into inter-ice channels. These are the channels that leave eskers after the ice leaves (including those on Mars, of which there are several spectacular ones near the south pole). The ability to speed up the flow of glaciers through basal lubrication is limited and self-limiting: once the limit is reached, the rest goes into internal ice channels. This redistribution into channels actually reduces the amount available for basal lubrication. Internal channels are natural, normal and to be expected in any melting scenario, including those in which melting is only a summer event.
Increased plasticity requires a temperature movement down through the ice mass. It is considered by the IPCC that after about 80 years the summer-winter, day-to-day pulses of air pressure and, therefore, temperature, do not touch the ice. This is the reason that ice measurements of isotopes, CO2 etc. have about an 80 year accuracy. Temperatures at the base of the Greenland and Antarctic glacial masses are somewhere in the -19C, except, of course, where volcanoes exist to raise the temperatures (as at Lake Vostok). Plasticity increases are not significant when you realise that thermal conductivities are such that a) temperatures at the surface take a long time to make their presence felt and 2) even when such temperature changes do reach the bottom, the change in plasticity is minimal. Beyond that, if the ice thickness is <100m or so, the ice is no longer plastic but brittle, and is pushed along from behind.
Increased throughput by reduced terminus back-pressure is considered significant when the ice-shelves break off in Antarctica. In Greenland, however, valley glaciers are the poster-child of global warming. The terminus problem went a long time ago. The glaciers have been moving back up the glacial valleys since the 1880s or earlier. In fact, the claims of the warmists is that the meltwater from glaciers is in danger of stopping, i.e. there is less than before. That says that melting volumes are decreasing, not increasing.
You cannot have an increased sea-level rise due to glacial melt unless more ice melts than before. Ice masses are measured from space, looking down at the surface, They take account of isostatic rebound, but the mass loss is determined by their calculation of the increased distance from satellite to surface, a value beset by many complications that require assumptions, error bars and other, error-constrained values (like ice area). If large mass losses are occurring, yet glacial tongues are not increasing, then the only way temperature increases can be significant is if meltwater outflow increased.
Where, I ask, are the new Mississippis? Where are the increases in meltwater outflow? Where are the glacial meltwater valleys being eroded and expanded, the muddy outflow waters spilling into the oceans and driving away clean-water, saline-loving fish?
There is, however, a different, non-temperature rise way of losing glacial ice mass: sublimation. How much sublimation is lost by a temperature increase from an average of -10 to -8, or summer average from -2 to -1 C (being generous here). Not much. How much is lost from a decrease in cloud cover with its resultant increase in cloudless, sunny sky? A lot.
You only have to hike above the summer snow line to see what happens on a sunny day versus a cloudy day. Even if the terminus doesn't show a meltwater rate change, the snow thickness decreases. Hike up, hike down, look at the snow that was on or near rocks, and it is gone.
I fail to see the huge meltwater increases CAGW claims results from global warming. The numbers I see look like a lot of the mass loss is both mathematical, not necessarily real, and sublimation related. Which is sunshine related.
Show me where the new Mississippi rivers are, and I'll be moving to your side. Tell me that the glacial meltwater streams are decreasing, that valley glaciers are moving upstream and exposing new lands, and I suggest you are more on my, skeptical, side than you realise.

Philip Bradley says:
May 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm
… in a number of places south facing glaciers are retreating while north facing glaciers are advancing. Mt Ranier, for example. Volcanoes are nicely symetrical so its easy to see this phenomena.
This is brilliant! and the reason internet discussions are so valuable. A testable idea of sublimation based on insolation (and relative humidity?), using disproportionally shadowed glaciers (ice caps?) showing mass loss.
My overall question about warming acceleration of ice loss is that glacial calving loss, the way that valley glaciers that reach the sea, shows up as increased iceberg volume, which is not reported. Valley glacier loss is reported as “movement” up valley of the glacier terminus, especially if it has moved onto ground, exposing fresh surfaces. The only way an increase in loss from global warming can then be seen is through increased outflow. If anything, the warnings are of icemelt volumes going down. So melt rates cannot be going up.
Sublimation loss occurs through either increased insolation or through reduced relative humidity, or a combination of both. Decreased cloudiness is not allowed under CAGW, and an INCREASE in relative humidity is required under CAGW (to make more rain or snow). So the sublimation loss is not acceptable under CAGW. CAGW now has a bind. All glacial mass loss increases must result in more icebergs and more meltwater reaching the oceans. Which we don’t see.
The volumes to achieve larger sea-level rises are enormous. The number of significant drainage points on Greenland and the Antarctic are few. Both Greenland and the Antarctic have only 4 or 5 months in which melting can occur. All the meltwater must be concentrated in just a few spots during a few months, focused on perhaps two months out of the 4 or 5. The volume that must come out during that peak time would be noticeable if it were of the amount the CAGW say is going on.

For E.M.Smith, You are going contra to National Geographic, I think. In the September 2004 Global Warming edition, they note that 1. The buckskin Glacier in Denali national Park is losing 23 cubic miles of water a year and is the largest glacial contribution to sea-level rise on Earth. Is this a feasible claim? . This is box-captioned “It’s not a belief system; it’s an observable scientic fact”.
If you disobey Nat Geo, you might be like Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove when, to get some coins to phone the President, he asks the marine with the gun if he can break into a Coca Cola machine. The answer was along the lines, “If this turns out a fake, you’ll have to answer to the President of the Coca Cola Corporation” an undoubted authority figure.