Steven Goddard looks at trends in Antarctica and compares to NASA’s recent article.
A January 12, 2010 Earth Observatory article warns that Antarctica
“has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002” and that “if all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet).“
If sea level rose 60 meters, that would wipe out most of the world’s population – which would no doubt make some environmentalists happy. Sadly for them though, Antarctica contains 30 × 10^6 km3 of ice which means that it will take 300,000 years for all the ice to melt at NASA’s claimed current rate of 100 km3 per year. (Chances are that we will run out of fossil fuels long before then.) The surface area of Antarctica is 14.2 million km2 which would indicate an average melt of less than 7 millimeters per year across the continent. (Is NASA claiming that they can measure changes in Antarctic ice thickness within 7 millimeters?) But even more problematic is that UAH satellite data shows no increase in temperatures in Antarctica, rather a small decline.
NASA themselves appear very confused about Antarctic temperature trends. As you can see in the two images below, sometimes they think Antarctica is warming and other times they think it is cooling.
According to NSIDC, sea ice extent has been increasing over time around Antarctica – this is consistent with the idea that temperatures are cooling.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
The University of Illinois Cryosphere Lab shows that Antarctic sea ice area has also been increasing over time.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
One of the key features of Hansen’s global warming theory is that the polar regions are supposed to warm much faster than the rest of the planet. The image below is from his classic 1984 paper, and shows that Antarctica is supposed to warm up 6C after a doubling of CO2. If the cooling trend which UAH shows continues, it will take Antarctica a very long time to warm up six degrees.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/downloads/Challenge_chapter2.pdf
Hansen also predicted that sea ice would diminish around Antarctica and significantly decrease albedo. Clearly that prediction was wrong as well.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/downloads/Challenge_chapter2.pdf
Some are quick to come to Hansen’s defense by saying that “climate science has improved since that paper was written, we now know that Antarctic shouldn’t warm as fast as the Arctic.” That is indeed a fine explanation, but the problem is that most of Antarctica is not warming at all.
According to the University of Colorado Sea Level Lab, sea level is rising at about 32cm/century. At that rate it will take 18,750 years for sea level to rise 60 meters (per the NASA article.)
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg
Temperatures in Vostok, Antarctica average -85F in the winter, and warm all the way up to -25F in the summer. If global warming raises the temperature there by a mere fifty-seven degrees, we may seem some melting occurring in the summer.
Difficult to see what NASA is worried about.
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So, is it still just one thermometer data for the whole of Antarctica (By the airfield) that is fed into the NCDC database?
NASA: Newsspreat Alike Some Amateurs
It’s time to defund NASA, or at least the propaganda arm of it… They are following Pachauri, CRU and East Anglia into laughingstock territory.
Nasa, it’s not too late to save your reputation, but it’s almost too late.
Maybe what NASA is worried about, is loosing funding?
I don’t get how anyone can take this seriously?
I’m stunned……..
The word Farce has been bandied about quite a bit lately….even from MSM sources…
I think it’s a pretty good word to describe what this whole thing is becoming….
So I think I’ll just leave it at that…
FARCE
I think it’s catching on….:)
It will take some time for NASA to turn off its propaganda machine.
It has been operating full time since the Apollo landing on the Moon in 1969.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Did those Penguins wipe their feet before traipsing all over Antarctica?
On topic, I’ve identified a few ways of melting the Antarctic ice.
1) The Sun goes into it’s red giant phase.
2) A large mass passes through the solar system and drags us into a closer orbit.
3) A large body smashes into the earth knocking us off our axis and pointing Antarctica towards the Sun.
4) Antartica drifts northwards into the Mid latitudes or tropics.
Using an SUV doesn’t really cut it against these potential disasters.
With 300,000 years one would expect most persons to have time to step back from the rising waters. I don’t know if anybody has done any calculations but it seems likely that the population that could be fed on the slightly reduced land area would, bearing in mind increased temperature & rainfall, let alone increased CO2 & Antarctica being, in Sir David King’s words, a “habitable continent” would be likely to be significantly greater.
FWIW – I think the high temp trends shown on the ice shelf edges is a result of the changes of reflectivity due to calving. Otherwise is it quite an interesting phenomenon.
From the linked article:-
“Michael Schodlok, a JPL scientist who models the way ice shelves and the ocean interact…”
And:-
“Glaciologist Robert Bindschadler of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center…”
Sorry, I may be obtuse, but WTF is NASA doing employing people to model ice shelves at the Jet Propulsion Lab and glaciologists at the Space Flight Center?
No wonder there isn’t a viable replacement for the space shuttle. Nobody’s doing any space stuff.
If I did the math correctly, Antarctica has a volume of 30X106 KM3. The world oceans have a surface area of 351419000 KM2.
That calculates out to 0.008 meters of rise in the ocean height to absorb all of the ice that would melt!
What information am I missing? Help I am confused!
At what point does NASA become responsible for their ongoing baseless alarmism?
Just another example of how a once proud government agency has been hijacked by activists with an agenda. Can we believe ANYTHING published by NASA?
Obviously, they haven’t got the memo that the climate change house of cards is in a state of collapse.
If sea level rose 60 meters, that would wipe out most of the world’s population – which would no doubt make some environmentalists happy.
Do you have any names of the environmentalists who you assert would be happy to see this?
NASA themselves appear very confused about Antarctic temperature trends. As you can see in the two images below, sometimes they think Antarctica is warming and other times they think it is cooling.
No confusion: part of Antarctica is warming, particularly the West Antartic ice sheet. While this is going on, other parts are cooling. This has been observed by other independent lines of research.
Some are quick to come to Hansen’s defense by saying that “climate science has improved since that paper was written, we now know that Antarctic shouldn’t warm as fast as the Arctic.” That is indeed a fine explanation, but the problem is that most of Antarctica is not warming at all.
Not so the trends in the Arctic. Can we expect a post on the Arctic just like this one on the Antarctic?
And more worries from the BBC. If it’s not too little snow, it’s too much ice. All due to climate change:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8494000/8494397.stm
30 x 10^6 not 30 x 106
I understand why Obama dont want to spend more money on Nasa.
Oliver K. Manuel (04:28:26) :
“It has been operating full time since the Apollo landing on the Moon in 1969.”
——————————————————————-
Um, I assume you are not questioning the moon landings themselves, but rather that you are refering to other aspects of research on the material that was brought back…. Yes?
It’s a scam.
When it’s summer in Antarctica, as it is now, NASA publishes press releases saying Antarctica ice is melting.
When it’s summer in the Arctic, NASA publishes press releases saying the Arctic ice is melting.
As someone above me mentioned, NASA doesn’t do a lot of space stuff any more. They get funding by publishing press releases that scare people
Oh my. Some here don’t read much here. By the way, I would like to know the name of the peer-reviewed paper NASA used to state this terrifying 300,000 years from now prediction that the Antarctic is falling. Don’t tell me its Dr. Seuss. I’ve only enough popcorn for today!
It would help if these people would do the math.
You need to melt 97,000 cubic miles of ice to raise sea level just 1 meter.
For 60 meters you need in the region of 5,820,000 cubic miles of ice.
Then factor in the energy needed to melt that ice.
Antarctica is not going to melt any time soon.
Herman L (04:54:48) :
Do you have any names of the environmentalists who you assert would be happy to see this?
“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
Find more, similarly crazy stuff at http://www.infowars.com/enviroment-eugenics-quotes/
Not so the trends in the Arctic. Can we expect a post on the Arctic just like this one on the Antarctic?
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_70-90N_na.png
Yeas I think Anthony can easily make a post on the Arctic. It has unprecedentedly warmed to the level observed in 40ties and begun to cool down since.
Randy (04:45:20) :
“If I did the math correctly, Antarctica has a volume of 30X106 KM3. The world oceans have a surface area of 351419000 KM2.
That calculates out to 0.008 meters of rise in the ocean height to absorb all of the ice that would melt!”
I think the number for ice should be 30 x 10^6 or 30,000,000 km3 rather then 30×106.