Well, maybe so. But the point is that it wasn't much warmer when much of Greenland's ice melted than it is now. Will I live long enough to see Greenland melt off? It's hard to say. But it's a fair bet that some of you, or some of your kids, will. So maybe don't buy on the coast ;)

... or just make sure to buy somewhere like Dover [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover

You probably still want to be a couple of kilometres inland.

> The cliff face continues to weather at an average rate of 1 centimetre (0.4 in) per year, although occasionally large pieces will fall. This occurred in 2001, when a large chunk of the edge, as large as a football pitch, fell into the Channel.

Yes you probably want to build on a cliff made from something more resistant to coastal erosion than chalk.

The time proximity is not the point of the article, though. It's about large parts of Greenland melting at times where temperatures were not very high and ice cover was so far supposed to have stayed stable.

My reaction as well. Additionally, I'm not in agreement that the other point the OP posted in discrediting the article -- that it would fail A/B testing -- is a cause for great concern. If you look at the method of statistical sampling used in the article, and not to mention this research was published in Nature, such an expedient reason to discredit their research seems inappropriate.

My comment is only about one word ("recent") in the title of this "news" article on gizmodo.com, not about the title or content of the actual research. Sorry it wasn't clear.

The Nature commentary has the title: "Greenland once lost nearly all its ice — and could again"

http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-once-lost-nearly-all-it...

The actual paper title is: "Greenland was nearly ice-free for extended periods during the Pleistocene"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature2...

I'd say the actual paper title wins by a mile.

I agree the scholarly article's title is better.

Your comment did mention another point which appeared to discredit the article/research:

>probably failed A/B testing

That is also a reference to the title of the "news" article on gizmodo.com. Sorry that this wasn't clear.

In particular, I was imagining that gizmodo A/B tested "Most of Greenland Melted about a Million Years Ago" vs "Most of Greenland Melted in the Recent Past".

The latter (to a non-geologist) is quite a bit more sensational.

Oh I gotchya, sorry about that.

And this entire thread could be detached and marked OT.