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Gigantic Ozone Hole Widens – 7 Times Larger Than Antarctica’s – Ozone loss ‘has steadily accelerated since early 1980s despite 1987 Montreal Protocol’

https://notrickszone.com/2022/09/26/gigantic-ozone-hole-7-times-larger-than-antarcticas-widens-over-the-tropics/ By Kenneth Richard The increasing loss of ozone (O3) from 3o°N – 30°S has steadily accelerated since the early 1980s despite the 1987 Montreal Protocol’s ban on so-called “ozone depleting substances” like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Once again this suggests human activity does not drive ozone losses. Twenty years after the Montreal Protocol agreement limiting or banning CFC use scientists reported an order-of-magnitude-sized error in molecular chemistry measurements that threatened to severely undermine the commonly accepted anthropogenic explanation for how ozone depletion occurs. With the new measured evidence, a leading ozone researcher proclaimed the scientific “understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” as “we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.” Image Source: Schiermeier, 2007 But then, in the ensuing years after the measurement error had been exposed, there was . . . silence. The discovery of a molecular rate change “substantially [ten times] lower than previously thought” was not brought to the public’s attention again. Ostensibly due to a reluctance to admit they may be wrong, scientists just seemed to . . . move on. Now, a new study reports the O3 hole over the tropics is 700% larger (area) than the much more famous O3 hole over Antarctica (60°S – 90°S). Its size has continued widening after the 1987 governmental agreement to severely limit CFC use, which again seems to contradict claims that we humans can control O3 levels with our emissions. The authors suggest the same non-anthropogenic physical mechanism – cosmic ray-elicited electron reaction – driving O3 losses over Antarctica may also be driving the O3 losses for 3o°N – 30°S. Image Source: Lu et al., 2022 The ozone hole narrative and the presumption that governmental policies are what determine how small or large the hole gets would appear to be analogous to the current climate debate and its connection to the governmental push to dramatically limit CO2 emissions. # New study exposes the ozone hole hoax. So the Montreal Protocol treaty is a total farce. Bottom line: We are paying 30-50x more for refrigerants than necessary… and even higher prices coming.https://t.co/UNfmLLDCBM pic.twitter.com/crls3mTlK9 — Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) September 27, 2022

Physicist Dr. Steven Koonin: Don’t Believe the Hype About Antarctica’s Melting Glaciers

https://archive.ph/bU3fH By Steven Koonin Two studies carefully explore the factors at play, but the headlines are only meant to raise alarm. Alarming reports that the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking misrepresent the science under way to understand a very complex situation. Antarctica has been ice-covered for at least 30 million years. The ice sheet holds about 26.5 million gigatons of water (a gigaton is a billion metric tons, or about 2.2 trillion pounds). If it were to melt completely, sea levels would rise 190 feet. Such a change is many millennia in the future, if it comes at all. Much more modest ice loss is normal in Antarctica. Each year, some 2,200 gigatons (or 0.01%) of the ice is discharged in the form of melt and icebergs, while snowfall adds almost the same amount. The difference between the discharge and addition each year is the ice sheet’s annual loss. That figure has been increasing in recent decades, from 40 gigatons a year in the 1980s to 250 gigatons a year in the 2010s. But the increase is a small change in a complex and highly variable process. For example, Greenland’s annual loss has fluctuated significantly over the past century. And while the Antarctic losses seem stupendously large, the recent annual losses amount to 0.001% of the total ice and, if they continued at that rate, would raise sea level by only 3 inches over 100 years. Many fear that a warming globe could cause glaciers to retreat rapidly, increasing discharge and causing more rapid sea-level rise. To get beyond that simplistic picture, it is important to understand how glaciers have flowed in the past to predict better whether they might flow faster in the future. Two recent studies reported in the media focus on the terminus of glaciers—i.e., where the ice, the ocean and the ground come together. One study used an underwater drone to map the seabed at a depth of 2,000 feet, about 35 miles from the terminus of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Detailed sonar scans showed a washboard pattern of ridges, most less than 8 inches high. The ridges are caused by daily tides and serve as a record of where ice touched the seabed in the past. Researchers could read that record to infer that at some time in the past the glacier retreated for half a year at more than twice the fastest rate observed between 2011 and 2019. The cause of the specific event at the Thwaites Glacier remains unknown, in part because the time of the rapid retreat hasn’t yet been determined. It likely happened more than 70 years ago, if not several centuries ago. But the media goes with this angle: “A ‘doomsday glacier’ the size of Florida is disintegrating faster than thought.” A correct headline would read: “Thwaites Glacier retreating less than half as rapidly today as it did in the past.” A second study tested the idea that freshwater from the melting of one glacier could be carried by currents along the shore to accelerate the discharge of nearby glaciers. Because global climate models are insufficiently detailed to describe the ocean near the coast, researchers constructed a special model to prove out their idea. If ocean currents can connect the discharges of distant glaciers, that would add to the complexity and variability of changes in the Antarctic ice sheet. Under scenarios deemed likely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a connection between ocean currents and discharge would increase the overall discharge rate in one region of the continent by some 10% by the end of the century. But to emphasize the idea being tested, the modelers used human influences almost three times larger. Even though that fact is stated in the paper, reporters rarely catch such nuance, and the media goes with headlines such as “Antarctic Ice Melting Could Be 40 Percent Faster Than Thought” with the absurd statement that “a massive tsunami would swamp New York City and beyond, killing millions. London, Venice and Mumbai would also become aquariums.” A more accurate headline would read: “Ocean currents connecting antarctic glaciers might accelerate their melting.” These two studies illustrate the progress being made in understanding a dauntingly complex mix of ice, ocean, land and weather, with clever methods to infer past conditions and sophisticated computer modeling to show potential future scenarios. These papers describe the science with appropriate precision and caveats, but it is a shame that the media misrepresents the research to raise alarm. That denies the public the right to make informed decisions about “climate action,” as well as the opportunity to marvel at the science itself. Mr. Koonin is a professor at New York University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”

WEATHER BOOKS REWRITTEN ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA AS ANTARCTIC BLAST INTENSIFIES; + AUSTRALIA SMASHED BY HEAVY SNOWS AND ALL-TIME RECORD

https://electroverse.net/weather-books-rewritten-across-south-america-australia-smashed-by-heavy-snows-and-all-time-lows/ JUNE 1, 2022 CAP ALLON WEATHER BOOKS REWRITTEN ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA AS ANTARCTIC BLAST INTENSIFIES South America’s freeze stepped-up a notch on Tuesday, May 31 with multiple nations breaking monthly cold records. Starting in Chile, thermometers bottomed-out at -2.1C (28.2F) in the Santiago — the capital’s coldest May reading since 1969; while an exceptional -5.9C (21.4F) was noted at Chillan Airport — an unprecedented record low for the month of May. In Argentina, Maquinchao was again hitting lows of -15C (5F); while -12.6C (9.3F) was registered in Chapelco — a monthly record. [SMN] Benchmarks have been busted in Uruguay, too: Mercedes, for example, logged -4.3C (24.3F), with Tacuarembó suffering -3.1C (26.4F) — both monthly records. While rare, low-lying frosts have persisted in Brazil, down to elevations of <300m (<985ft). I’ve picked out just a handful of low temperature records here. It is likely that hundreds have been toppled over the past few days. Record cold that will continue to reduce South American crops yields, particularly those of coffee and corn. AUSTRALIA SMASHED BY HEAVY SNOWS AND ALL-TIME RECORD-BREAKING LOWS A deep low pressure system is continuing to drag polar air over the Aussie continent, resulting in icy winds, heavy snows and record-breaking lows. Starting with the snow, Mount Buller’s Rhylla Morgan said the the flakes are just “piling up” on the Victorian ski fields: “It started on Monday afternoon and it really hasn’t stopped,” she told Sky News Australia. “The whole place is just transformed.” Perisher Ski Resort, located in NSW, is the same, announcing on Tuesday that it would open this Saturday (a week early) after the Snowy Mountains received a healthy dumping of snow Monday followed by half a meter overnight Tuesday: And likewise at Thredbo, the resort is opening its slopes a full 2 weeks ahead of schedule: Thredbo as of Wednesday morning. Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino points out that NSW ski resorts usually have to begin their seasons by making their own snow; but not this year, not in these days of ‘catastrophic anthropogenic global warming’: “The good thing about the chill is that it’s going to be a cracking ski season. The back-to-back weather systems,” which Domensino calls very rare, “mean it’ll be epic for those going in what’s normally a risky time to ski.” Perisher logs 70+cm (28+ inches) of snow in just two days. Is set to receive another 50cm in the coming week. With regards to the temperature, the nation’s lowest reading was observed at Thredbo, which fell to -7.4C (18.7F); while across north-western Australia and central Australia readings of up to 20C below the seasonal norm were registered. Pilbara, a large, dry region in the north of Western Australia, busted a number of all-time low temperature records Tuesday. As reported by @BOM_WA on Twitter, “Newman, Paraburdoo, Telfer, MarbleBar and Roebourne have all had their coldest ever day today.” Newman’s high, for example, climbed to just 9.6C (49.3F) yesterday — a reading some 17.5C (31F) below its May average. Returning to the southeast, the states of NSW, Victoria and ACT have also all been buffeted by record lows to go along with their early-season snows, with many NSW locales, particularly those in southern parts of the state, suffering their coldest May days on record. Wednesday, June 1 –first day of winter– has also held anomalously-cold in these parts: Melbourne Airport hit a low of 4.4C (39.9F) in the early hours, with Ferny Creek touching 1.8C (35.2F). The deep low pressure system dragging a fierce polar air mass into southern and southeastern Australia. Looking ahead, additional pockets of polar cold are forecast to pepper the Aussie continent all week; but the next powerful Antarctic front is currently predicted to arrive Thursday, June 9 — and it looks a biggie: GFS 2m Temperature Anomalies (C) June 9 – June 13 [tropicaltidbits.com]. The snow totals look equally impressive, not least for Tasmania: GFS Total Snowfall (cm) June 1 – June 12 [tropicaltidbits.com]. Click below for today’s other article: The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among many other forcings, including the impending release of the Beaufort Gyre). Prepare accordingly — learn the facts, relocate if need be, and grow your own. Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach: Twitter are purging followers, while Facebook are labeling posts as “false” and have slapped-on crippling page restrictions. And most recently, the CCDH has stripped the website of its advertising. So, be sure to subscribe to receive new post notifications by email. And also consider becoming a Patron or donating via Paypal (buttons located in the sidebar >>> or scroll down if on mobile). The site receives ZERO funding, and never has. Any way you can, help me spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

New Study: The 2016-2020 Antarctic Sea Ice Decline May Be Traced To Natural Processes

https://notrickszone.com/2022/05/30/new-study-the-2016-2020-antarctic-sea-ice-decline-may-be-traced-to-natural-processes/ By Kenneth Richard Defying climate models, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica steadily increased during the 37 years from 1979-2015. Even after many decades of studying climate processes and a supposed “consensus” that hemispheric-scale sea ice should decline in a rising CO2 concentration world, climate models cannot simulate the causative mechanisms for sea ice variability. “Over recent decades Antarctic sea-ice extent has increased, alongside widespread ice shelf thinning and freshening of waters along the Antarctic margin. In contrast, Earth system models generally simulate a decrease in sea ice.”  – Ashley et al., 2021 “Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) has slightly increased over the satellite observational period (1979 to the present) despite global warming. [F]ully coupled Earth system models run under historic and anthropogenic forcing generally fail to simulate positive SIE trends over this time period.”  – Blanchard-Wrigglesworth et al., 2021 Not just around Antarctica, but the sea ice in the entire Southern Hemisphere steadily increased from 1979-2015, in concert with the trends (cooling) in Southern Ocean sea surface temperature (Comiso et al., 2017). Image Source: Comiso et al., 2017 New Study: Ice-Breaker Ship Saved By Cyclones In contrast to the rising sea ice trends from 1979-2015, there were “record low” values of Antarctic sea ice recorded from 2016 to 2020. This short-term decline likely excited those who have a penchant for attributing any warming or decreasing sea ice trend to human activity (as they dismiss 37 years of cooling and sea ice increases). But as a new study (Jena et al., 2022) once again shows, natural processes dominate as the causal mechanism driving sea ice variability in the Southern Hemisphere. In April, 2019, a cargo ship was perilously stuck in sea ice in the Southern Ocean’s Lazarev Sea. The ice was so thick the ship’s ice-breakers could not forge a way out. A causal mechanism analysis affirms that an anomalous series of “explosive polar cyclones” led to about a 10°C sea surface temperature increase (17-25 April) in the region, melting the ice surrounding the ship sufficiently enough to free it from the ice trap. “We show that the anomalous sea ice variability was due to the occurrence of eastward-moving polar cyclones, including a quasistationary explosive development that impacted sea ice through extreme changes in ocean-atmospheric conditions. The cyclone-induced dynamic (poleward propagation of ocean waves and ice motion) and thermodynamic (heat and moisture plumes from midlatitudes, ocean mixed layer warming) processes coupled with high tides provided a conducive environment for an exceptional decline in sea ice over the region of ship movement.” Nowhere in the paper do the authors mention anthropogenic CO2 emissions as a factor determining sea ice trends. Image Source: Jena et al., 2022

Media hypes Antarctic ice shelf collapsing & alleged record warm temps – Reality Check: ‘Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses’

"Antarctic ice shelf nearly the size of Los Angeles collapsed as temperatures soared to 40 above normal"https://t.co/dGiqpe9FfH — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) March 28, 2022   #     Tony Heller of Real Climate Science: “Climate alarm is based on ambulance-chasing commonplace events, making up fake statistics about them, and never permitting an honest scientist to weigh in on the discussion.”   https://realclimatescience.com/2022/03/climate-experts-believe-history-began-after-2014/ Climate Experts Believe History Began After 2014 by Tony Heller Climate experts say glacial ice in East Antarctica has been stable throughout human history until a heatwave last week. “An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said. The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse.” Glenzer Conger ice shelf collapses in previously stable East Antarctica – NZ Herald Eight years ago, climate experts got trapped by icebergs calving off of ice shelves in East Antarctica.   Why did Antarctic expedition ship get stranded in ice? – BBC News During last week’s “heatwave” temperatures warmed up to -12C. “East Antarctica saw unusually high temperatures last week, with Concordia station hitting a record temperature of -11.8C on 18 March Peter Neff, a glaciologist and assistant research professor at the University of Minnesota, said that to see even a small ice shelf collapse in East Antarctica was a surprise. “We still treat East Antarctica like this massive, high, dry, cold and immovable ice cube,” he said. “Current understanding largely suggests you can’t get the same rapid rates of ice loss [as in West Antarctica] due to the geometry of the ice and bedrock there.” “This collapse, especially if tied to the extreme heat brought by the mid-March atmospheric river event, will drive additional research into these processes in the region.” Satellite data shows entire Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica | Antarctica | The Guardian So according to climate experts, history began after the year 2014 and the melting point of ice is now -12C. Icebergs break off East Antarctica regularly. ““The calving will not directly affect sea level, because the ice shelf was already floating, much like an ice cube in a glass of water,” Dr Galton-Fenzi said.” Gigantic iceberg breaks off East Antarctica – Australian Antarctic Program (News 2019) In 2009, CNN reported on a giant iceberg approaching Australia. “The iceberg, measuring 140 square km cleaved off an ice shelf nearly 10 years ago In November this year a flotilla of icebergs was spotted drifting towards New Zealand’s coast” Giant iceberg heading toward Australia – CNN.com # A ‘heat wave’ and snowfall: Why researchers are puzzled by Antarctica’s recent weather – The alarmist Guardian’s ‘climate disaster’ turns out to be ‘climate mitigation’, due to the massive snowfall. A so-called heatwave where temperatures reached a chilly 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12 Celsius), seems to have fooled a lot of people. The Guardian speculates that ‘climate breakdown could be accelerating’, but seeing what you wanted to see doesn’t always work. – – – While researchers say it’s too early to know what role, if any, climate change plays here, the event has their attention because it’s so extreme, says NBC News. # TEMPERATURES IN ANTARCTICA TUMBLE BACK BELOW MULTIDECADAL AVERAGE, AS SATELLITE DATA REVEALS 40 YEARS OF COOLING AND ICE EXPANSION Excerpt: The Conger ice shelf had an approximate surface area of 1,200 sq km, meaning it took up just 0.0086% of Antarctica’s 14 million sq km ice sheet. Even NASA earth and planetary scientist Dr Catherine Colello Walker says this is no big deal, admitting that the Conger ice shelf was relatively small: “It won’t have huge effects,” she said. Our planet’s ice should be permitted to move, shift and melt without it being painted as an unmitigated disaster, and every minuscule finger nail that happens to snap off of an ice sheet shouldn’t be regarded as the EOTW or a “sign of things to come”. Official data reveals that East Antarctica, which covers two thirds of the South Pole, has cooled 2.8C over the past 4 decades, with West Antarctica cooling 1.6C. It stands that only a tiny slither of Antarctica (the Antarctic Peninsula) has seen any warming –statistically insignificant warming, at that– but there are no prizes for guessing which region the MSM focuses on.

Meteorologist Watts: Claims of ‘unprecedented’ high temps in Arctic & Antarctic are NOT based on actual temperature reading but ‘a model simulation’ from ‘a single day weather event’

https://climaterealism.com/2022/03/media-scares-themselves-confuse-unprecedented-weather-model-temperature-spikes-with-actual-temperatures/ Media Scares Themselves, Confuse “Unprecedented” Weather Model Temperature Spikes with Actual Temperatures By Meteorologist Anthony Watts This past week two left-leaning media outlets, MSN (via The Washington Post aka WaPo), and the always alarmed UK based The Guardian ran stories saying the Arctic and Antarctic, had experienced “unprecedented” high temperatures. These claims can’t be verified since they were the results from a set of weather model simulations, indicating variations of above normal temperatures for the regions, not actual surface temperatures measured by ground-based weather stations. The Guardian headline was full of worry courtesy of author Fiona Harvey: Heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists She writes: Startling heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles are causing alarm among climate scientists, who have warned the “unprecedented” events could signal faster and abrupt climate breakdown. At the same time, weather stations near the north pole also showed signs of melting, with some temperatures 30C above normal, hitting levels normally attained far later in the year. At this time of year, the Antarctic should be rapidly cooling after its summer, and the Arctic only slowly emerging from its winter, as days lengthen. For both poles to show such heating at once is unprecedented. The key phrase here is: “weather stations near the north pole.” The northernmost weather station is Alert, Nunavut and it is 817 km (508 mi) from the North Pole. That’s like trying to gauge the temperature in Indianapolis from a  warmer temperature reading in Atlanta. MSN/WaPo authors Jason Samenow and Kasha Patel had this flabbergasting headline: It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted. The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists. “This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system,” said Jonathan Wille, a researcher studying polar meteorology at Université Grenoble Alpes in France, in an email. “Antarctic climatology has been rewritten,” tweeted Stefano Di Battista, a researcher who has published studies on Antarctic temperatures. He added that such temperature anomalies would have been considered “impossible” and “unthinkable” before they actually occurred. Both articles mentioned “climate” in the context of blame or contribution to these weather events. To the uninitiated reading about these “events,” it must surely seem like evidence the planet is on its way to being wrecked from global warming aka “climate change,” and that the polar icecaps are in danger of melting away to nothing. The reality is entirely different. The MSN article includes this graphic: Figure 1 – the image that has scientists “flabbergasted.” It always pays to read the fine print, and in this case the MSN caption for that Figure 1 image (when you click on it at MSN to enlarge it) is telling: Simulation of temperature differences from normal centered over Antarctica from the American (GFS) model. That’s right, it isn’t temperature that actually measured at the surface of that forlorn icecap, it’s a model simulation of temperature from a single climate model, the GFS model. If we look at that same “model simulation” today, from the same source, all of the sudden that “flabbergasting” image is gone, and temperatures are frigid again as seen in Figure 2 below. Figure 2 – The same model simulation, just 4 days later. Once again, the media proves itself incapable of differentiating between short-term model simulations of a weather event from long-term evidence climate change. Indeed, the “flabbergasting” spike in temperature may very well have been nothing but a glitch of mathematics in the model, and not actual weather. Verifying actual weather is difficult. There are very few actual surface weather stations on the eastern Antarctic icecap, and none at all at the North Pole. See more at this map. In the Arctic, it is a similar story after last week’s alarming model simulated “heat wave,” temperatures are back to their frigid normal as seen in Figure 3 below: Figure 3 – North pole temperatures on Tuesday March 22nd are at -30 to -40°C Surface weather stations in both the Arctic and the Antarctic are relatively recent developments in meteorology. In the Arctic, the ice floats on the ocean. It is unstable, moves, and breaks up in the spring making it nearly impossible to keep a weather station in one place, much less operational. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started deploying floating weather stations and web cams in 2002 at the North Pole, but gave up due to “funding constraints” in 2015. In Antarctica, due to the extremely harsh conditions of temperature, blowing snow, and lack of sunlight to power solar cells, Automated Weather Stations (AWS) are few and far between. Plus, such weather stations have only been present in Antarctica since 1978. The harsh environment often buries these weather stations in snow, leaving them with faulty temperature data, or completely inoperable due to solar panels being covered. The AWS’s have to be dug out of the snow each year. This is why meteorologists often rely on mathematical simulations of the atmosphere to “guess” the temperatures of the air at the north and south poles – they can’t always trust the actual data to be there or be accurate. So, in summary we have these points to consider about Arctic and Antarctic weather data: We don’t have actual weather data in many places at the North and South poles. The weather data we do have may be compromised or intermittent due to harsh weather conditions affecting ground based weather stations. Compared to larger 100+ years of climate data for the globe, we have maybe 40 years of data for the poles at best. Since we have at best 40 years of data and observations from the poles, is science capable of determining if weather events like the one modeled in Antarctica are “unprecedented” or not? We simply don’t know if they are, because we haven’t been looking that long. Indeed, science can’t say for sure if the brief spikes in temperature at the poles last week were real or simply a product of one flawed model’s simulation, a glitch in the numerical model output. Even if it were real, one brief spike in temperature is not the same as a long-term climate change, which is defined as a trend of 30 or more years of data. Yet, somehow, climate scientists are “alarmed” and “flabbergasted” at a single day weather event simulated from a computer model. Scientists (and journalists) that use those terms might be better off keeping a lid on their opinions until they have real data to confirm their “unprecedented” claims. Carl Sagan rightly opined, paraphrasing Laplace’s principle, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” These researchers, and the corporate media outlets which uncritically parroted their claims, have presented no extraordinary evidence that either Antarctica or the Arctic experienced an unusual spike in warming. Model simulations simply aren’t evidence. Anthony Watts Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com. # Cherry Picking Antarctica by Tony Heller In a few hours the sun will set at the South Pole for six months and Penguins will struggle to keep their eggs alive through the winter. But climate scientists and journalists say Antarctica is burning up due to global warming. Cherry Picking Antarctica   CNN: Antarctica’s last 6 months were the coldest on record –  October 9, 2021 – By Allison Chinchar, CNN Meteorologist – (CNN)In a year of extreme heat, Antarctica’s last six months were the coldest on record. “For the polar darkness period, from April through September, the average temperature was -60.9 degrees Celsius (-77.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a record for those months,” the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said. The last six months is also the darkest period at the South Pole, which is where the name polar darkness (also called polar night) comes from. Here, the sun sets for the last time around the spring equinox, and does not rise again until near the autumn equinox six months later. For the entire Antarctic continent, the winter of 2021 was the second-coldest on record, with the “temperature for June, July, and August 3.4 degrees Celsius (6.1 degrees Fahrenheit) lower than the 1981 to 2010 average at -62.9 degrees Celsius (-81.2 degrees Fahrenheit),” according to a new report from the NSIDC. “This is the second-coldest winter (June-July-August months) on record, behind only 2004 in the 60-year weather record at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station,” the NSIDC said.

Sudden Changes in Ocean Currents Warmed Arctic, Cooled Antarctic in Past

https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2021/12/27/sudden-changes-in-ocean-currents-warmed-arctic-cooled-antarctic-in-past-93 By Physicist Dr. Ralph Alexander Abrupt changes in ocean currents – and not greenhouse gases – were responsible for sudden warming of the Arctic and for sudden cooling in the Antarctic at different times in the past, according to two recent research studies. The Antarctic cooling marked the genesis of the now massive Antarctic ice sheet. The first study, by a team of European scientists, discovered that the expansion of warm Atlantic Ocean water flowing into the Arctic caused sea surface temperatures in the Fram Strait east of Greenland to rise by about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) as early as 1900. The phenomenon, known as “Atlantification” of the Arctic, is important because it precedes instrumental measurements of the effect by several decades and is not simulated by computer climate models. The conclusion is based on an 800-year reconstruction of Atlantification along the Fram Strait, which separates Atlantic waters from the Arctic Ocean. The researchers used marine sediment cores as what they call a “natural archive” of past climate variability, deriving the chronological record from radionuclide dating. Shown in the figure below is the sea surface temperature and Arctic sea ice extent from 1200 to 2000. The blue curve represents the reconstructed mean summer temperature (in degrees Celsius) of Atlantic waters in the eastern Fram strait, while the red curve indicates the April retreat (in kilometers) of the sea ice edge toward the Arctic. You can see clearly that the seawater temperature increased abruptly around 1900, after centuries of remaining constant, and that sea ice began to retreat at the same time, after at least a century of extending about 200 kilometers farther into the strait. Along with temperature, the salinity of Atlantic waters in the strait suddenly increased also. The researchers suggest that this Atlantification phenomenon could have been due to weakening of two ocean currents – the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) and the SPG (Subpolar Gyre), a circular current south of Greenland – at the end of the Little Ice Age. The AMOC forms part of the ocean conveyor belt that redistributes seawater and heat around the globe. This abrupt change in ocean currents is thought to have redistributed nutrients, heat and salt in the northeast Atlantic, say the study authors, but is unlikely to be associated with greenhouse gases. The change caused subtropical Atlantic waters to flow northward through the Fram Strait, as illustrated schematically in the figure below; the halocline is the subsurface layer in which salinity changes sharply from low (at the surface) to high. The WSC (West Spitsbergen Current) carries heat and salt to the Arctic and keeps the eastern Fram Strait ice-free. Sudden cooling occurred in the Antarctic but millions of years earlier, a second study has found. Approximately 34 million years ago, a major reorganization of ocean currents in the Southern Ocean resulted in Antarctic seawater temperatures abruptly falling by as much as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature drop initiated growth of the Antarctic ice sheet, at the same time that the earth underwent a drastic transition from warm Greenhouse to cold Icehouse conditions. This dramatic cooling was caused by tectonic events that opened up two underwater gateways around Antarctica, the international team of researchers says. The gateways are the Tasmanian Gateway, formerly a land bridge between Antarctica and Tasmania, and Drake Passage, once a land bridge from Antarctica to South America. The scientists studied the effect of tectonics using a high-resolution ocean model that includes details such as ocean eddies and small-scale seafloor roughness. After tectonic forces caused the two land bridges to submerge, the present-day ACC (Antarctic Circumpolar Current) began to flow. This circumpolar current, although initially less strong than today, acted to weaken the flow of warm waters to the Antarctic coast. As the two gateways slowly deepened, the warm-water flow weakened even further, causing the relatively sudden cooling event. Little cooling occurred before one or both gateways subsided to a depth of more than 300 meters (1,000 feet). After the second gateway had subsided from 300 meters (1,000 feet) to 600 meters (2,000 feet), surface waters along the entire Antarctic coast cooled by 2 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit). And once the second gateway had subsided below 600 meters (2,000 feet), the temperature of Antarctic coastal waters decreased another 0.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (0.9 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The next figure depicts the gradual opening of the two gateways. Although declining CO2 levels in the atmosphere may have played a minor role, the study authors conclude that undersea tectonic changes were the key factor in altering Southern Ocean currents and in creating our modern-day Icehouse world.

No Evidence That Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica Is about to Collapse

https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2022/1/10/no-evidence-that-thwaites-glacier-in-antarctica-is-about-to-collapse-94 By Physicist Dr. Ralph Alexander Contrary to recent widespread media reports and dire predictions by a team of earth scientists, Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – the second fastest melting glacier on the continent – is not on the brink of collapse. The notion that catastrophe is imminent stems from a basic misunderstanding of ice sheet dynamics in West Antarctica. The hoopla began with publication of a research study in November 2021 and a subsequent invited presentation to the AGU (American Geophysical Union). Both postulated that giant cracks recently observed in the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf (pictured to the left) may cause the whole ice shelf to shatter within as little as five years. The cracks result from detachment of the ice shelf’s seaward edge from an underwater mountain about 40 kilometers (25 miles) offshore that pins the shelf in place like a cork in a bottle. Because the ice shelf already floats on the ocean, collapse of the shelf itself and release of a flotilla of icebergs wouldn’t cause global sea levels to rise. But the researchers argue that loss of the ice shelf would speed up glacier flow, increasing the contribution to sea level rise of the Thwaites Glacier – often dubbed the “doomsday glacier” – from 4% to 25%. A sudden increase of this magnitude would have a devastating impact on coastal communities worldwide. The glacier’s location is indicated by the lower red dot in the figure below. But such a drastic scenario is highly unlikely, says geologist and UN IPCC expert reviewer Don Easterbrook. The misconception is about the submarine “grounding” of the glacier terminus, the boundary between the glacier and its ice shelf extending out over the surrounding ocean, as illustrated in the next figure. The grounding line of the Thwaites Glacier, shown in red in the left figure below, has been retreating since 2000. According to the study authors, this spells future disaster: the retreat, they say, will lead to dynamic instability and greatly accelerated discharge of glacier ice into the ocean, by as much as three times. As evidence, the researchers point to propagating rifts on the top of the ice shelf and basal crevasses beneath it, both of which are visible in the satellite image above, the rifts as diagonal lines and the crevasses as nearly vertical ones. The crevasses arise from basal melting produced by active volcanoes underneath West Antarctica combined with so-called circumpolar deep water warmed by climate change. However, as Easterbrook explained in response to a 2014 scare about the adjacent Pine Island glacier, this reasoning is badly flawed since a glacier is not restrained by ice at its terminus. Rather, the terminus is established by a balance between ice gains from snow accumulation and losses from melting and iceberg calving. The removal of ice beyond the terminus will not cause unstoppable collapse of either the glacier or the ice sheet behind it. Other factors are important too, one of which is the source area of Antarctic glaciers. Ice draining into the Thwaites Glacier is shown in the right figure above in dark green, while ice draining into the Pine Island glacier is shown in light green; light and dark blue represent ice draining into the Ross Sea to the south of the two glaciers. The two glaciers between them drain only a relatively small portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the total width of the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers constitutes only about 170 kilometers (100 miles) of the 4,000 kilometers (2,500) miles of West Antarctic coastline. Of more importance are possible grounding lines for the glacier terminus. The retreat of the present grounding line doesn’t mean an impending calamity because, as Easterbrook points out, multiple other grounding lines exist. Although the base of much of the West Antarctic ice sheet, including the Thwaites glacier, lies below sea level, there are at least six potential grounding lines above sea level, as depicted in the following figure showing the ice sheet profile. A receding glacier could stabilize at any of these lines, contrary to the claims of the recent research study. As can be seen, the deepest parts of the subglacial basin lie beneath the central portion of the ice sheet where the ice is thickest. What is significant is the ice thickness relative to its depth below sea level. While the subglacial floor at its deepest is 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) below sea level, almost all the subglacial floor in the above profile is less than 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the sea. Since the ice is mostly more than 2,500 meters (8,200 ft) thick, it couldn’t float in 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) of water anyway.

Evidence That Antarctica Is Cooling, Not Warming

https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2021/10/18/ice-sheet-update-1-evidence-that-antarctica-is-cooling-not-warming-88 By Physicist Dr. Ralph Alexander Melting due to climate change of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has led to widespread panic about the future impact of global warming. But, as we’ll see in this and a subsequent post, Antarctica may not be warming overall, while the rate of ice loss in Greenland has slowed recently. The kilometers-thick Antarctic ice sheet contains about 90% of the world’s freshwater ice and would raise global sea levels by about 60 meters (200 feet) were it to melt completely. The Sixth Assessment Report of the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) maintains with high confidence that, between 2006 and 2018, melting of the Antarctic ice sheet was causing sea levels to rise by 0.37 mm (15 thousandths of an inch) per year, contributing about 10% of the global total. By far the largest region is East Antarctica, which covers two thirds of the continent as seen in the figure below and holds nine times as much ice by volume as West Antarctica. The hype about imminent collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet is based on rapid melting of the glaciers in West Antarctica; the glaciers contribute an estimated 63% (see here) to 73% (here) of the annual Antarctic ice loss. East Antarctica, on the other hand, may not have shed any mass at all – and may even have gained slightly – over the last three decades, due to the formation of new ice resulting from enhanced snowfall. The influence of global warming on Antarctica is uncertain. In an earlier post, I reported the results of a 2014 research study that concluded West Antarctica and the small Antarctic Peninsula, which points toward Argentina, had warmed appreciably from 1958 to 2012, but East Antarctica had barely heated up at all over the same period. The warming rates were 0.22 degrees Celsius (0.40 degrees Fahrenheit) and 0.33 degrees Celsius (0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, for West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula respectively – both faster than the global average. But a 2021 study reaches very different conclusions, namely that both West Antarctica and East Antarctica cooled between 1979 and 2018, while the Antarctic Peninsula warmed but at a much lower rate than found in the 2014 study. Both studies are based on reanalyses of limited Antarctic temperature data from mostly coastal meteorological stations, in an attempt to interpolate temperatures in the more inaccessible interior regions of the continent. This later study appears to carry more weight as it incorporates data from 41 stations, whereas the 2014 study includes only 15 stations. The 2021 study concludes that East Antarctica and West Antarctica have cooled since 1979 at rates of 0.70 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade and 0.42 degrees Celsius (0.76 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, respectively, with the Antarctic Peninsula having warmed at 0.18 degrees Celsius (0.32 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. It’s the possible cooling of West Antarctica that’s most significant, because of ice loss from thinning glaciers. Ice loss and gain rates from Antarctica since 2003, measured by NASA’s ICESat satellite, are illustrated in the next figure, in which dark reds and purples show ice loss and blues show gain. The high loss rates along the coast of West Antarctica have been linked to thinning of the floating ice shelves that terminate glaciers, by so-called circumpolar deep water warmed by climate change. Although disintegration of an ice shelf already floating on the ocean doesn’t raise sea levels, a retreating ice shelf can accelerate the downhill flow of glaciers that feed the shelf. It’s thought this can destabilize the glaciers and the ice sheets behind them. However, not all the melting of West Antarctic glaciers is due to global warming and the erosion of ice shelves by circumpolar deep water. As I’ve discussed in a previous post, active volcanoes underneath West Antarctica are melting the ice sheet from below. One of these volcanoes is making a major contribution to melting of the Pine Island Glacier, which is adjacent to the Thwaites Glacier in the first figure above and is responsible for about 25% of the continent’s ice loss. If the Antarctic Peninsula were to cool along with East Antarctica and West Antarctica, the naturally occurring SAM (Southern Annular Mode) – the north-south movement of a belt of strong southern westerly winds surrounding Antarctica – could switch from its present positive phase to negative. A negative SAM would result in less upwelling of circumpolar deep water, thus reducing ice shelf thinning and the associated melting of glaciers. As seen in the following figure, the 2021 study’s reanalysis of Antarctic temperatures shows an essentially flat trend for the Antarctic Peninsula since the late 1990s (red curve); warming occurred only before that time. The same behavior is even evident in the earlier 2014 study, which goes back to 1958. So future cooling of the Antarctic Peninsula is not out of the question. The South Pole in East Antarctica this year experienced its coldest winter on record.

Temperature Bottom Falling Out: Antarctica’s Coldest Half-Year Since Measurements Began 60 Years Ago

https://notrickszone.com/2021/11/09/temperature-bottom-falling-out-antarcticas-coldest-half-year-since-measurements-began-60-years-ago/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=temperature-bottom-falling-out-antarcticas-coldest-half-year-since-measurements-began-60-years-ago By P Gosselin Antarctica sets a record cold six month period…Neumayer station sets new winter record low, sees rapid cooling since 2000! German Die kalte Sonne here features Antarctica’s record cold winter – the coldest since temperature measurements began some 60 years ago. Coldest April-September period The Amundsen Scott station at the South Pole recorded a mean temperature of -60.9°C for the April 1 to September 30 period, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). For the June-July-August period, the mean was minus 62.9°C  — the second coldest recorded. Image: Die kalte Sonne. Apparently the 140 or so ppm added CO2 couldn’t trap enough heat to prevent a record cold from being set. The previous record for June-July-August was set in 2004. Neumayer sets record cold, sees 3°C of cooling since 1985 Die kalte Sonne reports that a record was also set at the German Neumayer Antarctic station, located on the Antarctic coast, which saw a mean June-July-August temperature of -28.6°C. Recording at the Neumayer station began in 1985, and the linear trend over the past 35 years has fallen by almost 3°C! It’s been cooling even faster since 2000: Rapidly cooling Antarctic. Chart: Stephan Kämpfe. Data: DWD. The German Neumayer Antarctic station has seen a distinct cooling trend since 1985, according to data from the German DWD national weather service. This is not getting reported by the media in Germany in any way, shape or form. We can just imagine the blaring headlines if the trend instead had shown 3°C of warming. You’d have a thousand German journalists descending on the South Pole by now. Record warm reading gets discarded Last February, for example, the German Berliner Morgenpost reported how for the first time the temperature had climbed over 20°C at the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula – Seymour Island. “At the South Pole, climate change is very clear,” declared the Morgenpost. However a subsequent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) investigation found the reading had in fact nothing to do with climate change, Die kalte Sonne reports: Image: Die kalte Sonne. The 20.75°C “record” reading resulted from a faulty instrument, and thus was nullified last July. Yet, activist groups like Germany’s DUH don’t want to hear any of it. They continue to cite the nullified record even today for gathering petition signatures.

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