Moreover, upon warming I see a reason for the EAST Antarctic basins to melt. They front the sea at the polar circle (i.e., way far from the pole).

I will put all this together in a post on patriceayme.wordpress.com... But I can't believe the sun... Will not save us, because if the CO2 keeps on going up, the oceans will turn into diluted lemon juice...
PA

Patrice Ayme Patriceayme.com Patriceayme.wordpress.com http://tyranosopher.blogspot.com/

but on what is this pessimism based?

I fear current models assume that the ice sheets will melt in place and perhaps the rate of calving of icebergs into the ocean will increase at about the rate of increase we have recently observed.  Were you able to inform me otherwise I would be relieved.  I am concerned that recent reports of melt water toward the center of these ice sheets creating channels to bedrock will increase and will increase the rate of motion in second order or higher ways.

I think it is more likely that we will document accelerating  processes at work within a decade or so than that we will confirm existing models.  I have no way of knowing how fast melting will occur, but a one meter rise seems much more likely to me than a 10cm rise by mid-century.  I am also concerned that responsible and competent authorities are not creating models that are based on accelerating melt rates and ice movement and using them to evaluate which model best fits observation.  If they are and if they have published results, I have missed the report.

We have all deplored the extent to which Bush era science was subjected to political censorship.  But I do not think that this problem has vanished with the change of one administration in one country.  Nor do I think that current estimates err on the side of pessimism.  To me the question is how much less optimistic should we be.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

A lot of the climate models seem to have modelled the ice sheets as ice cubes when they behave more like a drop of honey. Ice cubes are very poor heat conductors, insulate their own interior, and only melt on the surface. A drop of honey gets less viscous and flows more easily as it warms up. But I am not an expert on climate modelling.

Lately I have been reading articles in Science News and elsewhere about glacial lakes melting holes through very thick glaciers and disappearing through said holes. It appears that this additional water further lubricates the interface between the ice and the rock below, increasing the rate of glacier flow.

Then I have seen footage of how meltwater pours into deep crevasses in the Antarctiva ice sheet, going directly to the bedrock where it lubricates the interface between the ice and the rock. I am not convinced large chunks of the Antactica ice cap couldn't simply slide into the sea as a result of this lubrication.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler