I think I've just had a comment deleted for the first time!

I have a policy of always being polite when visiting other people's blogs, particularly if I'm disagreeing with somebody. Todays deletions were not one of those occasions though. What is odd is that I didn't even think that I was being particularly probing or contrary.

The culprit was (and it will probably surprise few of my readers to learn this) Real Climate, a site with a certain reputation for deleting inconvenient comments. My comments were in response to a posting by Gavin Schmidt about ice (or lack of it) at the North Pole in which he said that the situation being observed at present was different to previous instances.

What is being discussed here is large expanses of almost completely ice-free water. That would indeed be unprecedented since we've been tracking it.

My comment merely asked what he meant by "large". The comment sat in moderation for twelve hours or so, and is now gone completely. I can only assume that it has been deleted.

Another commenter posted a comment about "denialists" arguing that volcanic activity might have contributed to Arctic ice melt. He said:

The mean global sunlight absorbed by the climate system is about 237 watts per square meter.
The mean global geothermal flux is about 0.087 watts per square meter.
Divide A by B. Discuss.

To which I pointed out that the mean geothermal flux couldn't be a relevant measure.  That comment has gone too though.

It's a strange feeling of pride one gets when a scientific bigwig reckons that your arguments are probing enough to warrant summary deletion. A feather in my cap, I would say.

Update: I'm wrong. It has now appeared. Why it should appear to be in moderation and then disappear completely before reappearing again is beyond me.