This paper is from May, 2003. Are you telling me they are repudiating what they published 2 months ago?

Carr, Michael H.; Head, James W.
Oceans on Mars: An assessment of the observational evidence and possible fate
J. Geophys. Res. Vol. 108 No. E5
10.1029/2002JE001963
20 May 2003
http://www.planetary.brown.edu/planetary/documents/2757.pdf
"7. Summary and Conclusions
[60] Large bodies of water must have episodically been
left in the northern plains of Mars if the large outflow
channels were cut by water, as appears likely. Pioneering
work by Parker et al. [1989, 1993] identified several
possible shorelines around the northern plains. However,
large ranges in elevations and geologic relations along some
of the proposed shorelines, cast doubt upon the interpretation
of some of these features as shorelines. Further doubt is
raised by the large volumes of water that would have been
enclosed by the higher ‘‘shorelines,’’ volumes that, when
normalized to unit area, approach values for the present
Earth oceans (Table 1)."

Bob Clark