Links tagged “antarctica”

Dr. Pat Michaels: "This week’s good news is that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), by far the world’s biggest ice mass, was largely intact during the entire Pliocene epoch.  The Pliocene was slightly less than three million years in length and preceded the Pleistocene, the epoch of the ice ages. The implications for human-caused warming from enhanced carbon dioxide are enormous. (Study published in the journal Nature) ...

We can now confidently say that human-induced climate change cannot make it happen... The Pliocene heat load was 1,200 times what humans could possibly exert on the EAIS, and it still remained largely intact.  Because of that, fears about the ultimate climate catastrophe can no longer even be entertained."

Scientists tend to agree ice loss has increased in western Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula has increased. Measurements of the eastern ice sheet, however, are subject to high levels of uncertainty. That’s where disagreements are. “In our study East Antarctic remains the least certain part of Antarctica for sure,” Andrew Shepherd, the study’s lead author and professor at the University of Leeds, told TheDCNF. “Although there is relatively large variability over shorter periods, we don’t detect any significant long-term trend over 25 years,” Shepherd said. However, Zwally’s working on a paper that will show the eastern ice sheet is expanding at a rate that’s enough to at least offset increased losses the west. The ice sheets are “very close to balance right now,” Zwally said. He added that balance could change to net melting in the future with more warming.

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Zwally’s 2015 study said an isostatic adjustment of 1.6 millimeters was needed to bring satellite “gravimetry and altimetry” measurements into agreement with one another. Shepherd’s paper cites Zwally’s 2015 study several times, but only estimates eastern Antarctic mass gains to be 5 gigatons a year — yet this estimate comes with a margin of error of 46 gigatons. Zwally, on the other hand, claims ice sheet growth is anywhere from 50 gigatons to 200 gigatons a year. 

Morano on Fox - Varney & Co. - June 15, 2018

Morano: In my new book, 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change', I go back and show that in 1901, 1922, 1979 and 2014, 2018 that they've come up with Antarctic melt scenarios over and over. I also point out that in 2015, a NASA study showed Antarctica was gaining it and actually contributing to a sea level lowering. This new study which, by the way, it used observational data but to enhance that they used models, climate models --  not even actual data -- they simulated what they thought the actual ice conditions were and it gives them a huge fudge factor.

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Question about: Berkeley declares 'climate emergency' worse than World War II, demands 'humane' population control

Morano: In my book, I go back to the 1960s and I show no matter the environmental scare, famines, scares, all sorts of calamities, they always had same solutions no matter the scare. They always wanted central power, redistribution of wealth and global governance. Now the Berkeley city council is following that same line -- even though the new projections of population show a decline in population as we go forward into the 21st century. More importantly, their own governor -- Jerry Brown --  has said global warming will kill 3 billion people. (See: OVERPOPULATION SOLVED! Gov. Jerry Brown Claims in 2018: 3 Billion+ Will Die from ‘Global Warming’) Now here's the problem. The Berkeley California city council is worried that overpopulation will lead to global warming -- but their own governor is saying that global warming is going to kill 3 billion people. Problem solved Stuart! Global warming will kill the excess population. 

Varney: (laughing) Ohhh. Oh, we gotcha. 

Morano: There you go! We just solved it!

Varney: (Laughing) Alright Marc, we did hear you. Marc Morano everybody. Thanks for joining us, sir. We will see you again soon.

Despite the apocalyptic headline, ice loss has only been contributing about 0.3mm a year to sea level rise, about an inch per century. Given that sea levels have been rising at around 8 inches a century since the 19thC, there is no evidence that this is not a long-term phenomenon we are seeing...Indeed as Shephard himself is forced to admit, we did not start collecting data until 1992. This sort of melting could have been going on for centuries or longer. In fact, another paper published this month by Kingslake et al finds that there has been extensive retreat and re-advance of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Holocene...Then there is the question of the accuracy of measurements. A major study by NASA in 2015 discovered that Antarctic ice mass has actually been increasing since 1992, basically because of greater snowfall, and not decreasing as this new study claims. In reality, measurements of ice mass are not exact and are subject to huge margins of error.

Climate Depot Note: Here is another clue this new Antarctica study is screwy. It used models to simulate current ice status instead of actual data. In other the words, they had huge fudge factor.  Excerpt: "The researchers pulled their data from sources including satellite observations and computer modeling."

Quick — tax the magma: It’s another round of Antarctic Doom about next to nothing. In April Antarctica’s ice was melting five times faster than usual. Now it’s losing ice three times faster in the last five years than the 15 before that! What you won’t hear is how the Antarctic ice cap has 29 million cubic kilometers of ice and has been there for 30 million, mostly warmer, years. You also won’t hear how Antarctica was warmer in Roman Times, or that the  Antarctic Peninsula has cooled by almost 1 degree. You also won’t hear a word about any volcanoes...

From the abstract we find tiny fractions are written up as big numbers of small units with no real context. Then they extrapolate a 6 year trend on an ice mass that’s been around for millions of years.  Adding up the losses, in this “worst of the worst” scenarios Antarctica might be losing 187 billion tonnes of ice per year (give or take a lot). That’s 187 cubic kilometers of ice, which sounds like a lot until we look at the size of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (29 million kilometers cubed). At this new “accelerated” rate the total loss is one 155,00oth of the total mass. Expressed another way, it’s 0.0006%. At this rate Antarctica will be entirely melted 155,000 years from now.