The sea ice around Antarctica is at a record high since satellites started recording, and snowfall is thumping down on the northern Antarctic Peninsula*, but alas — some glaciers on the same peninsula are continuing to melt, just like they have done for 300 years. Hence, a team of researchers-with-models conclude that this means these glaciers are especially, very, super-sensitive to air temperature changes and will “likely” melt fast, raise sea-levels, and disappear in 200 years time.[1]
Glaciers in northern Antarctic Peninsula melting faster than ever despite increased snowfall
Increased snowfall will not prevent the continued melting of glaciers in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, according to new research. Scientists have discovered that small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula are highly vulnerable to slight changes in air temperature and may be at risk of disappearing within 200 years. — Science Daily
“Faster than ever!” Blame Climate Change TM:
[Prof Glasser]: “This unprecedented glacier recession, in response to climate change, will result in significant contributions to sea level rise from this and similar Antarctic Peninsula mountain glaciers and ice caps.” –Wales.co
Hmm. I note that other warming parts of Antarctica are near a string of volcanoes and (surprize) so is this one. Though some red dots are inactive or dormant.
The red dots on the map are volcanoes (up to 11 million years old). That includes the living and the dead ones.
The proximity doesn’t mean that volcanic or geothermal energy is melting the glaciers. But does anyone know if they aren’t? Dr Davies sweeping publicity suggests they can measure the geothermal heat flux under the ice and water. Call me unconvinced — rather than adding up the kilojoules, I don’t think we can even add up the volcanoes. It’s hard to tell what is going on under a km of ice. We seem to keep discovering new volcanoes — for example: like an active volcano erupting last May, and before that a whole new Antarctic volcano last November. As one researcher puts it, things are going swimmingly if you are a volcano researcher in Antarctica.
Prof Smilley describes the situation:
“Antarctica is the largest glaciovolcanic province in the world. There are many volcanoes and they occur all the way from the sub-Antarctic South Sandwich Islands, through the Antarctic Peninsula and Marie Byrd Land, and into East Antarctica, a distance of about 5000 km.
“Studies of past ice sheets using glaciovolcanic outcrops are still in their infancy.””
Have we found the last volcano around Antarctica? Possibly not…
“This is really the golden age of discovery of the Antarctic continent,” said Richard Aster, a co-author of the study and a seismologist at Colorado State University. “I think there’s no question that there are more volcanic surprises beneath the ice.”
OK. But Dr Davies and co have plenty of time to discuss the implications of their “likely” calculations on glaciers 200 years from now, however they don’t mention any volcanoes in the press release.
“These small glaciers around the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula are likely to contribute most to rising sea levels over the coming decades, because they can respond quickly to climate change,” said Dr Davies, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. “This study is the first to show how glaciers in this vulnerable region are likely to respond to climate change in future. Our findings demonstrate that the melting will increase greatly even with a slight rise in temperature, offsetting any benefits from increased snowfall.”
Will any of the journalists who repeat the story ask them a question about volcanoes? Or will the coverage here be the same weak “half-truth” discussion of West Antarctic warming as the last time?
Note the big clue here about the glaciers starting to melt 300 years ago – – long before CO2 started rising.
Dr Davies added: “Geological evidence from previous studies suggests that the glacier grew by 10km within the last 5,000 years, before shrinking back to its current position. It was argued that this occurred during a warmer but wetter period, suggesting that increased precipitation in the future would offset the melting of the glaciers. However, our study shows that this growth occurred during the colder ‘Little Ice Age’, reaching its largest size just 300 years ago.”
Will any journalist ask about that either? Doesn’t fit the theory…
That West Antarctic melting couldn’t be caused by volcanoes could it?
As commenter icyduggie2 says on the ABC blog about record levels of sea ice:
Does this mean that it will eventually get so hot that all the oceans will freeze?
REFERENCE
[1^] Bethan J. Davies, Nicholas R. Golledge, Neil F. Glasser, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Stefan R. M. Ligtenberg, Nicholas E. Barrand, Michiel R. van den Broeke, Michael J. Hambrey, John L. Smellie. Modelled glacier response to centennial temperature and precipitation trends on the Antarctic Peninsula. Nature Climate Change, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2369
*You may be wondering where the northern Antarctic Peninsula is — since every Antarctic peninsula is on the “north”. It’s the north end of the West Antarctic Peninsula.
What you need is a map of surface temperatures.
Here are year-round temperatures on some places In Antarctica.
Rothera is on the tip of the Western Antarctic shelf. Orcadas is a short distance off the tip off that shelf.
Now consider the inconvenient fact that the melting point of ice is 0°C. You might have maybe 3 months of the year when you get minor melting at Rothera
292
Apologies for hijack – just thought readers would like to follow some of the amusing comments regarding the same article at Slashdot:
http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/09/15/1158253/extent-of-antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-record-levels
Such as:
Problem with this threading system is that people don’t tend to go to the bottom posts on threads anymore… hence the top-post hi-jacks … case in point >.>
70
So Bulldust, don’t laugh, although I really suppose that even I’m being a little sarcastic here.
90% of the population of the Planet lives in that Northern hemisphere, and if we take an average weight of 50 Kilos, (and that’s men, women and children, averaged) then just in people alone, that, umm, top of the World is 330 Million Tonnes heavier than we are in the South.
No wonder it’s tipping over. (/sarc)
Tony.
80
I seem to remember seeing somewhere (on TV) that all the dams created by man (again mostly in the northern hemisphere) may have sufficient mass of water in them to affect the earth’s spin ever so slightly. A quick Google:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/dams-for-water-supply-are-altering-earth-s-orbit-expert-says.html
20
There was some concern that China’s Three Gorges Dam would cause an orbital catastrophe :), here’s a none alarmist spiel on that:
“Raising 39 trillion kilograms of water 175 meters above sea level will increase the Earth’s moment of inertia and thus slow its rotation. However, the effect would extremely small. NASA scientists calculated that shift of such as mass would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch). Note that a shift in any object’s mass on the Earth relative to its axis of rotation will change its moment of inertia, although most shifts are too small to be measured (but they can be calculated).”http://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinas-three-gorges-dam-really-will-slow-the-earths-rotation-2010-6
10
Three Gorges Hydro
Big,Large, Huge. 20,300MW or the equivalent of 10 large scale coal fired power plants.If you think that’s big, then, if there’s a Weekend Unthreaded, I’ll hopefully have something new I’ve been working on.
Teaser – Yarlung Sangpo Gorge. The Yarlung Sangpo becomes the Bhramaputra in India.
The gorge in question is in Tibet, and the proposal is for a 50GW Nameplate Hydro, and that’s two and half times the size of Three Gorges Hydro.
I’m still working on it, but there seems to be plans for around 150 to 160 new Hydro schemes planned for India’s North East, in conjunction with its partner China.
Sorta adds some perspective as to why China is so insistent about its involvement with Tibet.
Sorry to be OT here.
Tony.
10
And a coal mine in the Hunter Valley is a problem for the Greens?
10
Now you have me thinking … WA by itself ships over a half a billion tonnes of iron ore to the northern hemisphere per year (and growing). We’re going to topple the earth!
Statistics Digest (tonnages) from DMP, WA:
http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/documents/statistics_release/qtyandvalue2013.xlsx
30
The surface temperature data can be quite misleading Griss, or at least distracting. I have been along large stretches of the Antarctic Peninsula in Summer and have bathed in waters which are heated from the local volcanic presence. This has to have an impact on melting both sea ice and making it easier for glaciers to slide into the ocean rather than meeting a dam of sea ice.
Even if all the volcanoes to be discovered have been discovered that doesn’t account for uncharted vents and fissures and the warming from volcanic heating below the surface.
The map of the main glaciers and their flow speed at the coast shows that speeds really don’t differ in the ‘warm’ west versus the ‘cols’ East. It just ‘looks’ more impressive the bigger the ice shelf because of the colouring, and West Antarctica have the two biggest ice shelf, Ross and Larsen, simply because they form in the massive natural bays. All the smaller ice shelves in the East show their feeding glaciers are travelling just as fast as those in the West.
With regards to the speed of glaciers, surely they can actually speed up when the pressure coming from their source increases. The ice in some parts of Antarctica is 2,300m below sea level, but up to 4.7km thick. The weight of the ice having compressed the land. As more snow piles up that has to put additional pressure on pushing the glaciers down to the coast where they can spectacularly calve as anyone who has been down there observes.
While the media interpret this natural process in images they show as ‘evidence’ of melting ice and global warming. It can be the exact opposite which sees this speed up.
We should also keep the peninsula and West Antarctica in perspective even though the alarmists love to focus on it. The total surface area of Antarctica is about 14.2 million sq km (about 5.5 million sq mls) in summer and that doubles in winter. The Antarctic peninsula depending on how and when you measure it makes up as little as 4% of the coastline and the entire area considered as West Antarctica from the Ross Ice Shelf to the Larsen B Ice Shelf about 20% or so. Whenever you read about melting or warming in Antarctica, it always focuses on this area!
The claims by the Australian Antarctic Division do not pass the ‘sniff test’ and are probably as reliable as the BOM temperature data. They claim:
“While ice loss has been greatest along coastal sectors of the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, ice thickening (gain) further inland and over much of East Antarctica (from increased snowfall) may have partially offset this loss. All of the available estimates, however, show that the loss of mass in West Antarctica (due to acceleration in ice flow) is greater than any added mass in East Antarctica.”
This is arrived at with their calculations and modelling, but it is hard to see how melting in the minority of Antarctica would exceed increased ice in the majority of Antarctica, and even harder to see that it has anything to do with man-made GLOBAL warming.
20
It should be noted that al the temperature charts on alarmista site use “anomalies” without actually giving the real temperature.
This is the best chart I could find at short notice that give real temperature values.
If anywhere in Antarctica is melting.. Its melting from underneath.
And if anyone says “warm” currents, then you have to explain how it sneaks past all the current sea ice without melting it first.
352
It would perhaps be well worthwhile incorporating the Griss’ two charts into the body of the article.
50
Nobody knows what the real temperature is – it would be impossibly difficult, and probably meaningless, to add up every patch of cold and hot, and try to create a global average.
But climate scientists claim that thermometers which are geographically close to each other tend to correlate, so they make the assumption, that the movements of the thermometers are a reasonable guide to the huge area which isn’t being actively monitored by a thermometer. So a movement – an anomaly – can in theory be accurately determined, even though the actual temperature probably cannot.
Of course, given all the fun and games which are emerging of dodgy temperature homogenisation, its possible this claim is a little more threadbare than it appears.
80
How to explain how it sneaks past all the current sea ice without melting it first?
Alarmista’s global warming is like spawning salmon.
The equatorial heat migrates to the Antarctic, thence upstream under grounded ice-shelf to the ice-sheet where it spawns freshwater, waits until spring when it travels downstream to a mass calving on the seashore.
20
Good grief, I’m surprised. Ice melts if it gets above freezing. It also sublimes away even if still below freezing.
I wonder which one is really responsible for the problem of melting glaciers.
Funny thing, that ice. It always seems to be a moving target. You just can’t pin it down to suite the climate change
theoryindustry.Or is it a farce? Sometimes I think so. But it’s a very unfunny farce at best. 🙁
223
It is a farce. And we got to pound home the point about the Antarctic, as they are trying to use record ice as proof of record heat. Or cold as proof heat. Insane. Next thing you know they will claiming that the drop in extreme weather proves that the weather is more extreme. Yeah, insane.
An excerpt from a comment at this article:
20
As the CAGW closet cult is outed the real denial will prompt many desperate claims with one more outrageous than the next, the only climate CO2 has effected is the climate of hysteria surrounding the cult.
We can actually show a lag effect of CO2 claims vs the opposite occurring, just like Vostok except a much smaller time frame with less predictable and stable elements involved.
152
UAH shows a slight downward temperature trend over the Antarctic
172
I like the University of Alabama, Huntsville RSS charts. They seem to be quite accurate and repeatable. Does anyone at UAH have any possible idea of what they are measuring? I thought not!!
10
WUWT makes some comments on the issue. 🙂
122
Really it is quite simple. The ice sheet is subliming due to the strong winds. The water vapour is then blown onto the ice shelf where it concentrates in the polynyas and re-freezes into thick ice; which is then blown away keeping the polynyas open for more vapour.
It is as simple (and believable) an explanation of an Inconvenient Truth as you will meet in ” Climate Science” and hardly requires a sarc/ tag.
Questions as to the rate of sublimation at minus 30 degrees, or why it has suddenly started to do so, nor why the winds have changed their behaviour of the last 15 million years are minor quibbles that can be ignored. Also ignored will be anybody asking about value for money from the Antarctic Division.
172
Quote:
“Dr Davies added: “Geological evidence from previous studies suggests that the glacier grew by 10km within the last 5,000 years, before shrinking back to its current position. It was argued that this occurred during a warmer but wetter period, suggesting that increased precipitation in the future would offset the melting of the glaciers.”
Evidence?
Australian floods of 2010 and 2011 caused global sea level to drop
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/23/australian-floods-global-sea-level
102
Would the reader who ‘red thumbed’ that link care to defend it?
Or would you like to trash it?
I’ll help you trash it, because it was a pathetic 97% consensus science ‘goalpost moving’ response to a failed prediction:
David Jones, the head of the bureau’s National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011.
“We are in the build-up to the next El Nino and already the drought is as bad as it has ever been — in terms of the drought, this may be as good as things get,” Dr Jones said.
“And the repeated, severe bushfire seasons we have been seeing are a direct result of this very severe, protracted drought.”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drought-and-fire-here-to-stay-with-el-ninos-return-20090216-899u.html#ixzz1nrZUq1ik
. . .
Q. How many times is the word flood mentioned?
The red thumb won’t answer, so … Answer: zero, zilch, nada.
142
Hey, have you ever tried typing with just your thumbs !! 🙂
41
Particularly when they have one in their mouth and the other up their ****.
52
Interesting method Griss, let’s hope they don’t get confused and swap hands.
Just joking let’s hope they do! 🙂
30
Someone should inform glaciologists that more snow equals less ice. I think they might be surprised.
122
More inconvenient facts for the climate catastrophist industry to deflect.
Australia’s ABC continues to latch unquestioningly onto any academic or environmental activist’s story of climate change alarmism. Today’s homily relates to threat to biodiversity. Biological evolution and patterns of extinction over past millennia when humans were not present seem irrelevant to the deba….. whoops, I almost said debate when none is promoted by ABC.
It is easy to infer that “climate change” in ABC parlance for its news reports now appears to have no contributory component due to natural forces.
203
Antarctic temperature trends have been generally flat since the records began in the mid-late 50s.
204
So no hockey stick in that graph then?
This summer the ice in the arctic actually got THICKER rather than the usual thinning trend. See the link, it’s been slowly getting thicker before July even ended:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png
So the ice regrowth began much earlier than what’s become ‘normal’ in more recent years, so is probably going to put on some extra area and thickness this winter as a result of doing it for longer.
This appears to have occurred because almost the entire area has been covered by a persistent cold anomaly for the Summer, which is still covering the area now, but it’s slowly become less distinct as Summer fades into general cold area expansion.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-121.27,77.65,536
So summer 2014 to winter 2015 is probably going to be the point from where the Arctic sea ice starts to reflect what’s been occurring in the South polar region already – rapid sea ice expansion.
(and another grand repudiation of the hockey stick BS)
130
Sorry ManAlive! Accidental thumbsdown click … can’t seem to cancel it.
30
Not only on the land is there volcanoes, but under the Antarctic are hot water
vents that have lots of life.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/antarctic-deep-sea-vent-creatures-010312.htm
Life also eats it’s way through rocks at Vostoc.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/rock-eating-microbes-found-in-sub-glacial-lake-140820.htm
Given that there are microbes and fugi growing in the ice at the Antarctic, how much of this biological detritus contaminates the ice records of past CO2 records in the ice cores?
110
You can think of glaciers like a bank account, with money both coming in and going out; with the balance being mediated by both deposits and withdrawals. In the same way a glacier builds at the top end and depletes at the other. A change at the face of a glacier can be caused by 1) Increased melting relative to formation, 2) Normal melting relative to decreased formation, 3) Decreased formation relative to increased, normal or decreased melting etc. etc. A glaciers advance or retreat taken alone is not evidence for anything.
150
Slightly OT, but Gavin Schmidt at NASA is really stretching the bounds of reality !!
BOM,eat your heart out, you got niffin’ compared to NASA and GISS !!
They have GOT to get these rabid activists away from the temperature data !
120
If this is put to warmists, their standard reply is that the ice is thin.
Yeah, that makes sense…not!
60
Strangely new ice formation generally is thin. But I guess they didn’t think it through even that far.
80
The sea ice was not thin in December (Summer) as evidenced by the Ship of Fools.
40
That was compacted by wind, and not new ice, look up the photos, they couldn’t even walk across it.
01
Wow, that wind is amazing! They were walking on it, in fact a helicopter landed on it to evacuate the fools.
22
Did you read the comments at the time by the Russian crew and captain about preexisting ice being blown in and blocking them so that the ship could not get out? It’s why the Chinese ship also got stuck. It was primarily older ice that had not melted during the early summer but was blown in and welded together by new ice that formed in the blizzard. They were not able to walk cross it to get to the Chinese ship, hence the use of the helicopter.
21
I am not going to comment on Jo’s article, beyond the fact that she has made her case characteristically well (I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to express any helpful opinion on Antarctic science), but I do notice that two people have been through almost all of the comments here, systematically giving a “thumbs-down”, without ever explaining a contrary position.
Odd.
231
… proof positive that John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli are reading Jo Nova
40
Great timing. Something quickly in the press to counter those uncomfortable widely read reports of record Antarctic sea ice levels, also due to Global Warming apparently. Global Warming also produces a long pause in warming, properly explained by scientists with the concepts of hidden heat. In fact the recent warming of Australia has probably stopped the world average from recording a period of cooling, due to Global Warming of course.
However I have never read that sea ice when melted cannot and does not contribute to sea rises. Obvious enough to a scientist, it would have made a lot more people comfortable about the annual melting of the Northern Ice Pack. I have also yet to read an explanation for why the vast masses of deep snow and ice on land across Siberia, Europe and North America do not contribute to a massive sea rise every year. In fact I have never read an explanation for why the poles, which are 40km lower than the equator, are not under 40km of water. Still, it’s nice to know that every physical event is explicable in hindsight by Global Warming. Is it possible that the GFC was a byproduct? Now there was a global event which was so obvious to economists, in hindsight. Like meteorologists they use infallible computer models to predict the future and have perfectly good and plausible explanations for the past. I wonder if those models can be used for horse races? It was amusing though to have two Popes competing for the world cup final. Almost as amusing as to hear scientists tell us that they are scientists and as scientists, are infallible. Usually.
182
I would expect that it is a result of centrifugal force generated by the earths rotation being greatest at the equator. This would cause the oceans to concentrate in the equatorial regions. Does this sound plausible? Mmm, I wonder how this affects ocean rise measurements.
71
In fact centrifugal force is the reason the poles ARE 40 km lower than the equator.
Gomes et al (Mitrovica student) says that the gravitation shift of melting all ice at the poles would actually lower the sea level further in the polar regions, with water pooling further at the equator.
Evolution of a coupled marine ice sheet–sea level model. 14 February 2012.
Natalya Gomez, David Pollard, Jerry X. Mitrovica,1 Peter Huybers, and Peter U. Clark3
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~phuybers/Doc/evolution_ice_sealevel.pdf
60
Graeme, Markx, agreed. You would expect the largely molten rock planet to be flatter at the top and that the water would flow towards the equator. It seems obvious. This in turn would mean excess water from the winter melt sea rises would not necessarily be experienced where the melt water was produced, in the melting ice areas. The flow out of the Baltic may be massive in summer, keeping the salt levels far below those in the North Sea.
There would be a whole science investigation here tracking ice melt, tagging water somehow, plotting currents. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Why are the sea ice extents at the North and South Poles so clearly anticyclic, even across the years as is so obvious at the moment. What mechanism connects them? It cannot all just be Global Warming as the instant and universal answer to all events on the planet. Besides, if anyone can ask such simple questions, why doesn’t anyone have answers or is Global Warming the only funded area? Perhaps.
50
That’s the endlessly annoying misconception that almost everyone except a geologist doesn’t understand even after 150 years of detailed publication about the earth. Due to pressure increase with depth the rocks in the mantle are almost 100% crystalline solid minerals. The planet above the outer core is in fact much more that 99% solid. The amount of magma at any given time is a minute fraction of the planets upper most interior layer just below the crust, and also a small component within the crust.
00
99% leaves 1%, far more than the mantle. A fluid behaves as a fluid. It does not all have to be fluid. Maybe 1% is enough.
00
I said much less than 99% above the outer core. The fluid is contained within solid crystalline containment rocks squeezed in between micro cavities between solid crystal facets, measured in widths of molecules, so the ability to move is highly restricted and at incredible static confining pressure. It’s also highly heterogeneous in distribution. The result is earth responds as a solid, not a fluid.
It only responds and deforms like a fluid when a shock wave passes through it. And Earth quake is a true shock wave. It has the same effect of a shock wave deforming metal in a tank if you hit it hard enough with a projectile so that it flows out the way of a projectile’s path. That’s how earth relieves the stress that accrues between all bent lattice bonds present in the area via the a-seismic creep process of adjustment.
20
Thanks for the insight. I have read little about modern views on material under the mantle.
However fluid can be a much broader concept and the idea still works. Under such pressures, solids can flow if far slower than fluids. I have seen marble sag greatly over a hundred years and you can see the flow. The idea was only that the globe can be deformed over geologic time scales, not that it sloshes around. The other interesting point is whether this model of how it works is well understood with the huge pressures involved, as we cannot easily duplicate these pressures on this scale, so the macro behaviour can only be inferred from the micro. It may not be right but I doubt we can ever measure such things, only guess by matching earthquake shock behavior to models of the structures, as a sort of seismic radar.
00
Yes, it’s called tomography. Resolution is of course limited, the earth is very noisy and reflections from every acoustic impedance (of which there are many) degrades signal, partially reflects, and increases noise (true acoustic echos and reverberations off sound wave reflective structures), but melted rock has a different seismic velocity, so it’s presence or absence can be detected, so we know the earth above the outer is solid state. Crystals under bending stress always release electrons proportionate to the bending and volume involved so measuring the flux offers other remote sensing and detection options as does gravity mapping and thermal mapping.
We can recreate upper mantle pressures in the lab with diamond anvil apparatus as the containment, but these are used to develop and recreate mineral polymorphic temp and pressure mineral lattice growth or transition stability fields so that we can tell what minerals will be or won’t be present at any given depth, down to say 800 km deep, for a typical mantle bulk atomic composition. But I know what you mean, and the static pressure is so high that adjustments are quick, and in that sense it does approximate a viscous fluid adjustment, even though it is totally solid state. When the strain or stress becomes to high to deform plastically then cavitation occurs (like a fault surface letting go), and the collapse of the micros cavity space with such high confining pressure is what creates the acoustic shock waves that force the local area to behave instantaneously like a true fluid as it passes, as the chemical bonds and are no match for the concentrated local impulse, so the stress and strain is released until the flow speed again exceeds the plastic deformation capacity of the minerals present at that pressure and temp. As you saw with the marble, rocks are very dynamic if you add time.
00
I would imagine also that our planet in its formative years (pun intended) was shaped by said centrifugal force before it had fully solidified.
00
Makes no difference as a-seismic creep occurs which is bond by bond braking and rejoining of mineral lattices, which serves to constantly alter and reshape and move all crystals in rocks. It’s why we end up with isostatic equilibrium responses to unequal distributions of a ice sheets and young mountains like the Himalayas with deep thick crustal roots, and the ocean basin sits lower down than the continents due to the oceanic crust and the mantle under it being at higher density than the continents, so the ocean fills and covers it instead of the land, etc. The earth’s surface is constantly adjusting to all factors so there’s no remnant bulging from solidification, just a constant very slow atom by atom dynamic creep of all mineral bonds in a predominantly solid phase planet above the outer core. Its how the earth became a globe in the first place. Basically any solid rock in space with more than ~450 km diameter possesses just enough self-gravitation to approximate a sphere over geological time scales of the solar system. Smaller bodies can’t break the lattice bonds fast enough via creep so stay potato shaped.
Here’s what happens when a small solid rock moon gets smashed to bits then self gravitates and gather back back into a sphere once again:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_%28moon%29
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Miranda.jpg
Earth adjusts to isostatic excision of its shape comparatively very quickly.
00
I’m a geologist. Most of the detail in the above thread (#17) is BS, or a misinterpretation of current knowledge. However there’s some truth in there, hidden by some amusing home-made terminology. It made my head hurt. I feel like a big man now that I’ve sorted that out! There’s a good 300 years of science jammed into that package so it’s not too bad of an effort.
00
The alternative is to let the molten interior meme go unchecked, which does my head in every time I see it. Putting the interior of earth in plainer terms is a tradeoff of detail and accuracy in a brief comment. Almost no one will read a link about the dry detail.
00
Professor Glasser says “This unprecedented glacier recession, in response to climate change, will result in significant contributions to sea level rise from this and similar Antarctic Peninsula mountain glaciers and ice caps.” –Wales.co
How do professors get to be professors? This statement is not the statement of a learned person. How does he know it is “unprecedented” when records are very scarce and are limited to the last thirty years. The statement is what one would expect from an advocate rather than a learned professor. He gives other professors a very bad name because we can no longer have confidence in their statements. Climate scientists have trashed science and it will take many years for genuine scientists to restore public confidence.
250
I’ll let you in on a little secret – they tell lies.
90
Good points and here is another.
What makes these glaciers SUPER sensitive?
He doesn’t say
50
They have FEELINGS. Gaia says so.
20
professor
(1) A teacher who has been awarded the title Professor, in an institute of learning, such as a university or college.
(2) A person who has taken the vows of a religious order, through which to profess their moral and religious beliefs.
(3) A person who claims proficiency in a set of skills, sufficient to instruct others.
I will leave it to others, to decide which of these definitions applies.
71
Next the AGW alarmists crackpots will claim that no change in ice is proof of climate change. Makes just as much sense.
PS: Still waiting for certain leading AGW alarmists to be charged and placed behind bars for conducting the biggest financial scam in history.
130
Regular commentator & guest poster @jonova, TonyfromOz, often dares the government that if global warming is so dangerous, why don’t they shut down coal fired power plants now.
In Brisbane, Australia today, because of the upcoming G-20, we have garbage bins in the city being shut as potential terrorist threats.
Yet, our current government subscribes to IPCC climate science as preached by John Kerry, Kevin Rudd et all, that Apocalyptic Global Warming is a BIGGER threat than terrorism, requiring direct action worth billion$ of tax-payer dollars.
The greatest moral challenge of our generation.
If they think a garbage bin is worth shutting down, and, as government climate science advisers Tim Flannery and Fiona Stanley said: We must kill dirty coal before it kills us
… Priorities?
91
I see that Tony Abbott will not be attending the UN Climate Summit, next week. Julie Bishop will be representing Australia at this waste of time.
We had the pleasure of lunching with Julie, last year. Julie rolls her eyes at the mention of global warming. Oh well…an opportunity to catch up on her paperwork I suppose.
170
“….Julie rolls her eyes at the mention of global warming.”
Well, let’s hope she drills them with her ‘death stare’! Might frighten them into submission.
130
That death stare wins for me every time. Unknown to many people outside the Canberra place, she did as much as Abbott and Pyne to psyche out Labor people at the last election.
I would be happy to have her as PM, but Tony is OK so far.
30
The 2013 Pages 2k study shows that Antarctica was warmer than today from 141 AD to 1250AD, or about 1109 year.
This also shows a Med WP as well , i.e. up to 1250.
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~sjphipps/publications/pages_2k_consortium2013.pdf
80
Here are the contributions to SLR over the next 300 years from Antarctica and Greenland according to all the models. So who is Bsing who?
This is from the Royal Society and shows all the models as used by the IPCC.
Antarctica is negative for SLR for the next 300 years. Click for larger graphs.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1709/F4.expansion.html
61
And when the ice melts (but not from volcanoes)…
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140513-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-in-perspective/
It’s Climate Groundhog Day @theconversation:
Sydney’s waters could be tropical in decades, here’s the bad news…
It’s “Panic! Sharks in the Streets” all over again:
” [With the ice sheets at the poles and Greenland melting] the sea levels will be 100 meters (330 feet) higher than they are today.
Forget Venice.
I mean we’re talking about sharks in the middle of (downtown) Sydney” said Michael Archer, the dean of the science faculty at Sydney’s University of New South Wales.
But then … Climate change could leave sharks unable to hunt:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-could-leave-sharks-unable-to-hunt-20140911-10f8he.html
Phew!
Saved by the climate?
60
Maybe the Global Warming Polar Vortex that caused all the freezing cold weather in Northern America jumped over the equator, burrowed down through the deep ocean, turned off all the volcanoes in Antarctica and then did a fancy trick over a few polynyas and grew some sea ice.
Crikey! Why am I not doing a post-doc on this? I feel a paper in “Nature” coming on./sarc.
70
Remember this folks: “A polynya a day keeps the Aurora away”.
00
Yeah I posted my amusement at the AUS yesterday for reporting this story in the “Social Affairs” column. Interesting choice.
Also I have to declare a potential conflict of interest going forward. My Sister just got a job with the BOM in Melbourne as legal council/assistance (this is not a joke). I sent my niece a birthday present to Sis’s work today and addressed it “The Wizards Guild”. I have already been told if she gets in trouble I will have to put them up when she’s unemployed lol.
50
Most of Antarctica is so cold that if it warmed there would be more snow, more ice and larger glaciers. The peer reviewed literature shows very little change one way or the other in overall ice mass. The exception would be the small portion of Antarctica that extends beyond the Antarctic Circle.
Big deal. So what?
The fact is that the rate of sea level rise has actually decreased in the last few years and has been remarkably steady shortly after we exited the little ice age.
These warmists clowns can do the chicken little cha cha all they want but various other countries are following Australia’s lead and are starting to tighten the financial noose on global warming . Soon this taxpayer funded gravy train will run out of steam.
No money, no global warming!
Why? Because it is always about the money, of course! 😉
202
Global warming is not science. It is an agenda.
You would think it was happening, when even the IPCC admit is is not. Even so, the thing which is not happening is the explanation for everything which is happening, like Antartic ice extent being a record high and Arctic ice extent being low and every non calm weather event which is by definition an extreme event, even bushfires and floods. How does that work? Of course the only explanation for Global Warming which is not happening is that CO2 levels are steadily smoothly increasing which is not a consequence of global warming or even ocean warming, but the cause of both, one of which is not actually happening. It make Alice in Wonderland seem like modern science. Soon we will have another Mad Hatter’s IPCC/Agenda 21 Tea Party, this time in New York. Are we sending 130 public servants this time? Are our local councils sending people, at our expense?
40
The Northern Antarctic Peninsula would appear to be the tip of a pin upon which can dance numerous angels, unicorns, fairies and other figments of the warmist imagination. How many square kms is this region? What percentage of the continent is it?
50
Jo, a rather interesting link in this comment which the commenter points out is not being covered in either US or Australian media as yet (so wont reflect in policy circles and discussions until then).
Comment:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/15/nasa-giss-tweaks-the-short-term-global-temperature-trend-upwards/#comment-1737445
Their link:
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=02e1f5a684&e=cdaa309e6c
80
apologies for O/T but…i thought with all the major no-shows at the Climate Summit, ABC etc would have trouble mocking Abbott, but no. bringing HEDEGAARD into it is laughable:
16 Sept: ABC AM: Tony Abbott to skip UN climate summit of more than 120 world leaders
JAKE STURMER: The US president and the UK prime minister are among the 125 global heavyweights who’ll be at the meeting next week to lay the groundwork for a global climate change agreement.
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott will be in New York next week too, but he’ll arrive one day after those other world leaders.
He’s going for a Security Council meeting about foreign terrorist fighters.
CONNIE HEDEGAARD: Well, what a coincidence, isn’t it?
JAKE STURMER: The EU’s climate commissioner is Connie Hedegaard.
CONNIE HEDEGAARD: It’s of course a pity that not everyone is going, but what I’m looking into is that, as far as I understand there are now more than 125 confirmed heads of state.
So I think that at least 125 heads of state have sent a strong signal to the rest of the world…
JAKE STURMER: Do you feel the Australian Prime Minister is out of step with the rest of the world by not attending this summit?
CONNIE HEDEGAARD: That is for the Australian citizens to judge what does it mean. I do not know what the reasons would be behind it.
But of course the world will interpret who is showing up and who will not be showing up, so that’s for your Prime Minister and your Government to decide what kind of profile do they want to have in this.
JAKE STURMER: Major polluters China and India aren’t sending their presidents or prime ministers either…
CONNIE HEDEGAARD: I believe that more and more heads of state around the plant realise that although a lot of good things are going on, the sad fact is that climate change is worsening almost by the day.
JAKE STURMER: The nation of Kiribati is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4088317.htm
from what i’ve seen on Q&A FB page, Q&A last nite was a CAGW-fest.
Q&A: Question: CLIMATE CHANGE…
https://www.facebook.com/abcqanda/posts/10152249837371831
ABC has documented the Hedegaard exchange in a separate report & News Ltd has picked it up as well.
50
btw Modi will be in New York for the UN Security Council meeting before heading to DC but, somehow, i can’t see Hedegaard having a swipe at the Indian PM:
15 Sept: EconomicTimesIndia: PM Modi’s US Visit: Red carpet welcome awaits Narendra Modi in US
The Obama Administration is leaving no stone unturned to woo Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his maiden visit to the US which is expected to take the strategic bilateral relationship to the next level and unleash the potential of economic and trade ties.
The administration here is gearing up to give a red carpet welcome to Prime Minister Modi when he arrives in Washington on September 29 from New York where he would attend the annual General Assembly session of the United Nations…
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-15/news/53942968_1_prime-minister-narendra-modi-pm-modi-obama-administration
a warning from India:
16 Sept: EconomicTimesIndia: Urmi Goswami: India won’t give new deal in UN Climate Summit
New Delhi is clear that the summit cannot become a forum to take decisions or make announcements as that would impact the ongoing negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). …
Officials said Modi’s decision not to participate reflects the environment ministry’s advice to the Prime Minister’s Office on the desirability of an Indian participation at the highest levels of government. A senior official told ET on the conditions of anonymity that while several factors contributed to the prime minister’s decision, the environment ministry had in its input stressed that UN Secretary General’s initiative was not “important” as it was not part of the negotiations and that the Prime Minister “should not attend the meet.”…
The Indian stance on UN Climate Summit is in line with that of China — President Xi Jinping will not be attending the Summit either.
India and China’s approach to the summit is reflective of the position taken by the Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group in climate negotiations. The LMDC is a group of developing countries which besides India and China includes Venezuela, Philippines, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia.
The LMDC maintains that the UN Climate Summit is not the forum to make any announcements on efforts to tackle climate change as it would prejudice ongoing climate change negotiations. There is a widespread feeling that the developed countries would like the UN Secretary General’s initiative to be used to address and unlock contentious issues that have resulted in a logjam in the climate negotiations.
“There are many meetings on climate change, and this initiative by the UN Secretary General is one such effort. But it cannot be seen as a forum for negotiating a climate pact,” a senior official said. While industrialised countries are keen that countries, particularly large developing countries, announce measures that they will take to tackle climate change at the UN Climate Summit, India and other developing countries see this as yet another attempt to dilute the differentiation between developed and developing countries.
Decisions and announcements outside of the UNFCCC are not bound by the principles enshrined in the Convention, which makes a distinction between the levels of efforts that developing and developed countries must make to tackle climate change…
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-wont-give-new-deal-in-un-climate-summit/articleshow/42573237.cms
30
At the height of the last big freeze 25,000 years ago the northern hemisphere was literally deep in ice.
Not so much the Southern but still cold.
For example the area where New York Central Park is located was covered by an ice field 1500 metres deep.
All of this ice has melted , probably so that The United Nations building could be erected nearby.
For the last 10,000 years the ice fluctuations have been not much either side of where we are now but it will freeze up again possibly withing a few thousand years.
KK
50
Then, as in the 1970’s, increasing CO2 dramatically will be our only hope. However if it works to heat the planet, we will not need it. Perverse really.
30
Look, I know that this is Fiction, but it was quite interesting.
When our children got to the age where they could afford to buy Mum and Dad Christmas and birthday presents with their own money, they asked what I would like for Christmas for that first year, 1987. I asked for a gift voucher from Angus and Robertson. One Son, our youngest, asked for a list of books, thinking a gift voucher was akin to just giving money, and he wanted to do the actual shopping. I gave him a list of five books and he got me three of them, Bonfire Of The Vanities, Lonesome Dove and a SF novel by Bob Heinlein. I got the gift vouchers from my wife and daughter, and ended up with a stack of books really, thinking this would tap me out as I had never read on a scale like this prior to this. As it turned out, this only got me started, and I read avidly from then on, and still do.
For my next birthday, our youngest Son just got me a book out of the blue, The Clan Of The Cave Bear, by Jean M Auel. I thanked him, but really didn’t think this was going to be my cup of tea.
How wrong I was.
It was a wonderful story, unique in a way, a subject I had never even considered before.
I ended up getting hold of the next 2 novels, already published, and then the fourth in ’90, and the fifth in 2002. (Titles at this link)
She researched the novels in some depth really.
They dealt with the interaction between Ayla, and eventually Jondalar, but besides being a continuing love story, it dealt with the end of that Ice Age, the time around the huge melt and what followed.
It was so interesting because prior to that, even though I knew of that Ice Age, I didn’t know that the ice came as far South as the northern shores of The Mediterranean, so all of Europe was under ice.
Now, while it is still Fiction, she really had done an awful lot of what was pretty accurate research, both on her subject, and also that Ice Age.
Great novels which I would recommend to anyone.
Tony.
70
Antarctic ice (sea or land) is going to confound climate scientists, because they like to think in a linear way, and it doesn’t behave that way.
Plimer gives an interesting discussion on Antarctica in his book Heaven and Earth- its always behaved a little different to the way the rest of the world behaves, and climate scientists should already know this, it’s been well-known for decades that Antarctica displays unusual responses to various climate changes.
All that extra ice will have an extra albedo effect as well, more sunlight will be reflected meaning less heat absorbed, meaning self-perpetuating cooling. Maybe that is why it’s expanding???
First signs of a cooler sun, or, as the alarmists like to say, wind-driven by extra warming to the north?
Interesting to watch anyway.
20
I know Ive linked to it quite often, but it’s always worth looking at, this link to Antarctic Weather.
There are a number of further links at the site, but the information right at the top probably best summarises it, where it says this:
Look right at the top where it lists the average mean temperatures and even in Summer, that range is Minus 15C to Minus 35C.
The warmest was in 1974, so not much recent warming there I’m afraid.
As the temperatures on the land mass themselves barely get above Zero Degrees C even at the height of Summer down there, then that land bound Ice will never melt.
Tony.
60
EU “carbon” price actually dropped to under 6 euros today:
15 Sept: Guardian: Arthur Neslen: EU polluters to land 5bn Euro windfall
under ‘carbon leakage’ proposal
European commission report assumes an unrealistically high carbon price, in
move expected to cost governments billions
The EU calculated the risk of such companies relocating to regions with
laxer emissions limits – known as ‘carbon leakage’ – by assuming carbon
allowances will be at 30 Euro a tonne up to 2020. But carbon allowances have
not touched that price since 2008, when the ETS was set up, and currently
languish at around 6 Euro a tonne, due to economic crisis and a market
glut…
But even factoring in 2030 targets and the proposed allowance reserve,
market analysts Thomson Reuters Point Carbon told the Guardian they expected
a carbon price of 10 Euro a tonne by 2020…
Indeed, an alliance of energy intensive industries sent a letter to EU
governments and institutions last week urging a rapid commitment to continue
the policy of free allowances for heavy industry beyond 2020. “Energy
intensive industries are all at risk of carbon and investment leakage and
therefore must be safeguarded,” their missive said, calling for the
guaranteed 100% free allocation of pollution permits with more
business-friendly criteria in the decade ahead…
“The biggest opponents to energy efficiency are the people in the commission
who support an ETS-only policy for 2030,” said Brook Riley, a spokesman for
Friends of the Earth. “They want to block ambitious 2030 targets for energy
efficiency and renewables to protect their ailing brainchild [the ETS].”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/15/eu-polluters-to-land-5bn-windfall-under-carbon-leakage-proposal
Carbon Disclosure Project, which claims, according to Wikipedia, that their “effort is imagined as taken seriously
because of the size of the shareholdings backing CDP – 655 institutional investors with $78 trillion under management”
…and which obtained backing from blue chip investors including HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, American International Group, etc., have their Climate Summit report out. just look at the spread of those “carbon” prices!
15 Sept: Guardian: Jo Confino: Big corporates leading the way on climate
change with carbon pricing
New CDP report shows 150 major companies already use an internal price on
carbon and many more are calling for clear pricing to help regulate
emissions
The progressive corporate sector plans to make a major push at next week’s
climate change summit in New York for the introduction of a meaningful
global price for carbon, believing it to be one of the most effective
measures to keep temperature rises within 2C.
The World Bank is also taking a lead on carbon pricing and will unveil a
long list of states, regions and businesses announcing plans to factor in
the costs of burning fossil fuels…
The report also shows that uncertainty about the future means companies are
pricing carbon at very different levels. While Microsoft prices it at $6-$7
a tonne of carbon, UK utilities company Pennon Group gives a spread of
$84.24- $324.00. Pennon says it uses the UK government’s carbon shadow
pricing to monetise carbon emissions over the whole life of proposed
projects.
There is also a wide divergence between energy companies with the UK’s BG
Group using a figure of $19.90, while BP uses $40 and Exxon at the top end
with $60-$80.
***Nigel Topping, CDP’s executive director, says the reason for the broad
spectrum of prices is that policy uncertainty means companies are having to
use scenario planning and guesswork…
CDP found the greatest surprise from its study was how little policy makers
were aware of the carbon pricing already taking place within corporations,
and the relatively high price being used by oil companies such as Exxon
Mobil…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/15/businesses-ahead-governments-climate-change-carbon-pricing
20
What it all says to me Pat is no one really has a clue. It is indicative of a false market. Making it worse is the commodity itself which can not be accurately quantified. Added to the mix is the move by some manufacturers to China and India with a subsequent loss of jobs and reduction in local inputs both of which adversely effect economic activity. There is non doubt that decarbonising or attempting to do so, is effectively economic suicide. We still haven’t heeded the obvious and so far are wedded to the RET. How many jobs must be lost before politicians wake up?
00
China plans cut in wind-power subsidies -business newspaper
BEIJING, Sept 15 (Reuters) – China’s top economic planning agency has
proposed a 3-8 percent cut in subsidies to wind-power generators, but the
plan faces opposition from the country’s big state-owned power companies,
newspaper China Business News (CBN) said on Monday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.6767925?&ref=searchlist
20
This was released in June 2014 and up until now the effect of geo thermal was not known.
East Antarctica has been gaining ice and i believe the surface of the West has been gaining ice.
Note they say “eroded” by the sea, this is not melting! erosion happens all the time.
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/06/10/antarctic-glacier-melting/
AUSTIN, Texas — Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The geothermal heat contributed significantly to melting of the underside of the glacier, and it might be a key factor in allowing the ice sheet to slide, affecting the ice sheet’s stability and its contribution to future sea level rise.
Until now, scientists had been unable to measure the strength or location of heat flow under the glacier. Current ice sheet models have assumed that heat flow under the glacier is uniform like a pancake griddle with even heat distribution across the bottom of the ice.
20
“Scientists have discovered that small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula are highly vulnerable to slight changes in air temperature and may be at risk of disappearing within 200 years”
Now this is news, because while glaciers that calve in the sea can be vulnerable to a fast drawdown if sea-level or water temperatures change (and/or the depth to bedrock increases quickly up-glacier), glaciers that end on land have always been considered much more stable since they can only melt in place, which is slow process even with large temperature increases. It would be interesting to know what new revolutionary theories in glaciology has upset this historically well-established fact.
10
http://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/a-case-to-prove-a-point-the-claims-of-major-ongoing-antarctic-peninsula-warming/
00
Less ‘precipitation’/snow means less glacier.
The longitudinal onset of the current Solar Induced series of ‘Dry’ cycles (started circa 110 degrees East of prime [Beijing] in mid February,) means less precipitation as the vanguard travels East to West around the globe (with the Solar orbit of the Earth’s Magnetic Field.) This is manifest simultaneously in the Arctic and Antarctica – and is now affecting the longitudes including the United States. It will reach Australia in early January 2015 – and last for a Five Year Period.
Lack of precipitation means temperatures will increase as these ‘Dry’ Cycles take hold (as they have done many times in the past) – but it has little or nothing to do with AGW – and says nothing about overall temperature. No doubt the Karolys and Steffens etc will leave their air conditioned, taxpayer funded bunkers to gleefully inform us (via the MSM) that they were ‘right all along’, and we are in for another ‘record heat’ Australian summer. How will they explain the mild temperatures until early January? ENSO of course!
These ‘Dry’ Cycles were identified and predicted by Alex S. Gaddes in his work ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (1990) An updated version of this work (including ‘Dry’ Cycle forecasts to 2055,) is available as a free pdf from [email protected]
00
http://news.agu.org/press-release/elephant-seals-help-uncover-slower-than-expected-antarctic-melting/
“From the “seal data”, the scientists accumulated enough knowledge concerning the area’s water circulation and how it changes over the seasons to construct the most complete picture of what and how the Fimbul Ice Shelf is melting from the bottom up.
It turns out that past studies, which were based on computer models without any direct data for comparison or guidance, overestimate the water temperatures and extent of melting beneath the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This has led to the misconception, Hattermann said, that the ice shelf is losing mass at a faster rate than it is gaining mass, leading to an overall loss of mass. The model results were in contrast to the available data from satellite observations, which are supported by the new measurements.
The team’s results show that water temperatures are far lower than computer models predicted, which means that the Fimbul Ice Shelf is melting at a slower rate. Perhaps indicating that the shelf is neither losing nor gaining mass at the moment because ice buildup from snowfall has kept up with the rate of mass loss, Hattermann said.”
00
Did I read this correctly? –
“Scientists have discovered that small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula are highly vulnerable to slight changes in air temperature and may be at risk of disappearing within 200 years.”
That sounds like an ice shelf, not a glacier. Did I misunderstand something? I thought glaciers were completely on land with perhaps a tail going into the water.
00