The Facts and Antarctic Ice
Timothy Birdnow
David Whitehouse dishes on Antarctica. http://www.thegwpf.org/the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse/
According to Whitehouse:
"Despite having local unstable regions Antarctica has more sea ice surrounding it than for many years, with more ice being added than is being lost by glaciers in the West Antarctic.
The media have been saying that the collapse of the West Antarctic glaciers is unstoppable; nothing can halt their retreat, say the headlines. They add that man-made climate change is one of the driving factors that will result in sea-level rises that will alter the coastlines of the world.
The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.
[...]
"The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.
It’s clear that this region is currently the most changeable part of Antarctica, but it’s not clear why, or how long it will go on for. Not every change seen in the past few decades (when we started obtaining reliable satellite data for the first time) is down to mankind.
The most famous and most studied glacier in the region is Pine Island. It has seen significant changes in the last few decades. Its velocity has increased by 40% between 1996 and 2007 and its grounding line retreated by about 1 km/yr between 1992 -2011. It seems that the grounding line – the boundary where a glacier touches the sea floor – is retreating allowing warm water to melt the glacier from below. This was seen for the first time in the 1990s. Since 2009 however there is some evidence that the glacier has been receding at a steady pace.
Because this region of glaciers rests on land below sea level, and there is no land formation to hold it back it is postulated that a runaway process will eventually cause the entire glacier to discharge out to sea, if things continue as they are. Timescales are important. The “collapse” of this particular ice sheet could happen in 200 years, or more likely in 500 or a thousand or more. One should be careful extrapolating hundreds of years into the future from just 20 years of data. The experience from the glaciers in Greenland is that you have to monitor them for much longer to see how variable is their output. “Rignot said, “It happened many times before when the Earth was as warm as it is about to be.” So the collapse needs the current conditions to last hundreds of years. Is that likely?"
End excerpts.
And yet the two decommissioned Icesat satellite data http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/ has been analyzed and shows East Antarctic ice is growing http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/09/01/antarctic-ice-sheet-growing-study-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/, even while West Antarctic ice is declining.
http://iceagenow.com/Antarctic_Ice_sheet_Growing_Sea_Levels_Falling.htm (See here http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-ice-sheet/ for information on the geography of East Antarctica.)
Ignored by alarmists is that fact that active volcanoes lie buried under the ice in West Antarctica, a situation causing the underside of the glaciers to melt and act as lubricant. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/
Also ignored is the ice growth in East Antarctica, a situation that leads to extended pressure on the lubed-up West sheet, forcing it to flow into the sea, or as some put it, the EAIS is sliding sideways. http://phys.org/news/2013-12-east-antarctica-sideways-ice-loss.html
And West Antarctica's sheet extends out into the sea. It is analagous to a woman's long fingernail, and like a fingernail which is too long breaks occasionally.
As I have pointed out before, if we had a truly volatile situation we would see an increase in the number of smaller ice bergs. We do not see that in the Southern Ocean. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00083/19444/17050.pdf
Read more of my work on this here. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/59709 and here http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html
We similarly do not see an accelleration of the rate of sea level rise, and in fact sea levels dropped in 2010. IF we truly have ice melt in Antarctica (the source of most of the planet's ice) we should see a subsequent acceleration of sea level rise, yet we do not.
But Antarctica is the key to winning hearts and minds, because Antarctica is an Ultima thule, a lost land, a place of myth and legend. People know of it but cannot really fathom it, and so it acts as a blank slate, a canvas that can be painted upon in any fashion the manipulators of popular opinion would like. They know that few people have been there, so there are few people who will contradict the claims made by the Gang Green. And the melting of Greenland just isn't in the apocalyptic category of a melting ice cap in Antarctica, which would mean worldwide flooding. So they continue to peck away at the Antarctic despite little evidence.
In point of fact sea ice is at a record high this winter. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/12/antarctic-sea-ice-at-record-levels/
But the Obama Administration - calling this a planetary emergency - has allowed all of our data collection systems to degrade. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/global_warming_dont_confuse_us_with_the_facts.html
Make no mistake; Antarctica is catestrophic for the Gang Green and they know it. Without a media blackout of the facts the continent at the bottom of the world would be the death of the alarmist position. Sadly, the media will not report the facts.
David Whitehouse dishes on Antarctica. http://www.thegwpf.org/the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse/
According to Whitehouse:
"Despite having local unstable regions Antarctica has more sea ice surrounding it than for many years, with more ice being added than is being lost by glaciers in the West Antarctic.
The media have been saying that the collapse of the West Antarctic glaciers is unstoppable; nothing can halt their retreat, say the headlines. They add that man-made climate change is one of the driving factors that will result in sea-level rises that will alter the coastlines of the world.
The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.
[...]
"The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.
It’s clear that this region is currently the most changeable part of Antarctica, but it’s not clear why, or how long it will go on for. Not every change seen in the past few decades (when we started obtaining reliable satellite data for the first time) is down to mankind.
The most famous and most studied glacier in the region is Pine Island. It has seen significant changes in the last few decades. Its velocity has increased by 40% between 1996 and 2007 and its grounding line retreated by about 1 km/yr between 1992 -2011. It seems that the grounding line – the boundary where a glacier touches the sea floor – is retreating allowing warm water to melt the glacier from below. This was seen for the first time in the 1990s. Since 2009 however there is some evidence that the glacier has been receding at a steady pace.
Because this region of glaciers rests on land below sea level, and there is no land formation to hold it back it is postulated that a runaway process will eventually cause the entire glacier to discharge out to sea, if things continue as they are. Timescales are important. The “collapse” of this particular ice sheet could happen in 200 years, or more likely in 500 or a thousand or more. One should be careful extrapolating hundreds of years into the future from just 20 years of data. The experience from the glaciers in Greenland is that you have to monitor them for much longer to see how variable is their output. “Rignot said, “It happened many times before when the Earth was as warm as it is about to be.” So the collapse needs the current conditions to last hundreds of years. Is that likely?"
End excerpts.
And yet the two decommissioned Icesat satellite data http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/ has been analyzed and shows East Antarctic ice is growing http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/09/01/antarctic-ice-sheet-growing-study-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/, even while West Antarctic ice is declining.
http://iceagenow.com/Antarctic_Ice_sheet_Growing_Sea_Levels_Falling.htm (See here http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-ice-sheet/ for information on the geography of East Antarctica.)
Ignored by alarmists is that fact that active volcanoes lie buried under the ice in West Antarctica, a situation causing the underside of the glaciers to melt and act as lubricant. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/
Also ignored is the ice growth in East Antarctica, a situation that leads to extended pressure on the lubed-up West sheet, forcing it to flow into the sea, or as some put it, the EAIS is sliding sideways. http://phys.org/news/2013-12-east-antarctica-sideways-ice-loss.html
And West Antarctica's sheet extends out into the sea. It is analagous to a woman's long fingernail, and like a fingernail which is too long breaks occasionally.
As I have pointed out before, if we had a truly volatile situation we would see an increase in the number of smaller ice bergs. We do not see that in the Southern Ocean. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00083/19444/17050.pdf
Read more of my work on this here. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/59709 and here http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html
We similarly do not see an accelleration of the rate of sea level rise, and in fact sea levels dropped in 2010. IF we truly have ice melt in Antarctica (the source of most of the planet's ice) we should see a subsequent acceleration of sea level rise, yet we do not.
But Antarctica is the key to winning hearts and minds, because Antarctica is an Ultima thule, a lost land, a place of myth and legend. People know of it but cannot really fathom it, and so it acts as a blank slate, a canvas that can be painted upon in any fashion the manipulators of popular opinion would like. They know that few people have been there, so there are few people who will contradict the claims made by the Gang Green. And the melting of Greenland just isn't in the apocalyptic category of a melting ice cap in Antarctica, which would mean worldwide flooding. So they continue to peck away at the Antarctic despite little evidence.
In point of fact sea ice is at a record high this winter. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/12/antarctic-sea-ice-at-record-levels/
But the Obama Administration - calling this a planetary emergency - has allowed all of our data collection systems to degrade. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/global_warming_dont_confuse_us_with_the_facts.html
Make no mistake; Antarctica is catestrophic for the Gang Green and they know it. Without a media blackout of the facts the continent at the bottom of the world would be the death of the alarmist position. Sadly, the media will not report the facts.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:16 AM
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