The results of ICEsat measurements are in for Antarctica, and it seems those claims of ice mass loss in Antarctica have melted now that a continent wide tally has been made. This was presented in the SCAR ISMASS Workshop in Portland, OR, July 14, 2012 and was added to NASA’s Technical Reports server on September 7th, 2012. H/T to WUWT reader “Brad”. What’s interesting (besides the result) is that the report was prepared by Jay Zwally, whose “ice free Arctic by the end of summer 2012” prediction is about to be tested in 12 days. It also puts the kibosh on GRACE studies that suggested a net loss in Antarctica. Note there’s the mention of the “climate warming, consistent with model predictions” at the end of the report. They’d say the same thing if ICEsat had measured loss instead of gain, because as we’ve seen before, almost everything is consistent with warming and models no matter which direction it goes.
Here’s the video presentation. The report abstract follows.
Mass Balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 1992-2008 from ERS and ICESat: Gains exceed losses – Presented by Jay Zwally, NASA Goddard, USA ISMASS 2012 is an activity of the renewed SCAR/IASC ISMASS expert group, which focuses on the mass balance of ice-sheets and their contribution to sea level changes. The workshop is sponsored by ICSU, SCAR, IASC, WCRP, IGS, and IACS with support from CliC and APECS. Video recording and editing provided by Kristin Poinar, Mai Winstrup, and Jenny Baeseman
Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses
Zwally, H. Jay; Li, Jun; Robbins, John; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui; Brenner, Anita; Bromwich, David
Abstract:
During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change. The net gain (86 Gt/yr) over the West Antarctic (WA) and East Antarctic ice sheets (WA and EA) is essentially unchanged from revised results for 1992 to 2001 from ERS radar altimetry.
Imbalances in individual drainage systems (DS) are large (-68% to +103% of input), as are temporal changes (-39% to +44%). The recent 90 Gt/yr loss from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier 61 Gt/yr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly, the recent 24 Gt/yr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases in the five other DS of WA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the increased losses.
Alternate interpretations of the mass changes driven by accumulation variations are given using results from atmospheric-model re-analysis and a parameterization based on 5% change in accumulation per degree of observed surface temperature change. A slow increase in snowfall with climate warming, consistent with model predictions, may be offsetting increased dynamic losses.
Click to View PDF File [PDF Size: 256 KB]
Looks like “Skeptical Science” will have to update their reliance on the “Cophagen Diagnosis” as well as their claim of “Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly.”:
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Figure 2: Estimates of Total Antarctic Land Ice Changes and approximate sea level contributions using many different measurement techniques. Adapted from The Copenhagen Diagnosis. (CH= Chen et al. 2006, WH= Wingham et al. 2006, R= Rignot et al. 2008b, CZ= Cazenave et al. 2009 and V=Velicogna 2009)
Estimates of recent changes in Antarctic land ice (Figure 2) range from losing 100 Gt/year to over 300 Gt/year. Because 360 Gt/year represents an annual sea level rise of 1 mm/year, recent estimates indicate a contribution of between 0.27 mm/year and 0.83 mm/year coming from Antarctica. There is of course uncertainty in the estimations methods but multiple different types of measurement techniques (explained here) all show the same thing, Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly.
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I’m glad that’s finally settled.
Related articles
- RC’s Dr. Eric Steig boreholes himself on Antarctica (wattsupwiththat.com)
- GRACE’s warts – new peer reviewed paper suggests errors and adjustments may be large
- West Antarctic ice sheet may not be losing ice as fast as once thought – GRACE readings overestimated
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Polar Amplification means the temperature in polar areas move faster during both cooling and warming period. This is attributed to the positive feedbacks from the retreat of ice and snow and other lesser reasons, but there are the extra factors currently not acounted for.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PA.htm
You see? Data shows there’s no reason for alarm.
What climate warming??
http://www.climate4you.com/images/70-90S%20MonthlyAnomaly%20Since1957.gif
Yikes! Global warming is moving ice from the North to the South Pole! If we don’t rein in emissions within 10 years, the planet will reach a tipping point, I mean it will literally tip over. Or maybe not, but with all that ice in Antarctica Earth could get too heavy and fall from orbit!
Please send me 25 gigadollars and I’ll provide a solution to the underlying problem.
Yet another inconvenient truth.
Hey Al – any comment?
As I said: by 2035 all the ice in arctic will also be back.
But……do we really want the cold? Why not add more CO2?
Every discussion of ice loss in the Arctic which references “global” warming or climate change is incomplete unless it includes at least a mention of the “global” ice balance. The current low ice levels in the Arctic seem to be balanced by the increases in the Antarctic. This strongly suggests that the Arctic changes reflect a global shift of heat energy from the northern hemisphere to the southern. Ocean currents suggest themselves as a unifying explanation.
Occam’s razor says one should look for the one explanation that explains all data. Sometimes Occam does not apply, but it should always be considered as a part of good science. To say that the Arctic ice loss is due to CO2-related AGW, but that the ice increase in the Antarctic is due to something else, defies this time-worn principle.
Mosher?
from article: It also puts the kibosh on GRACE studies that suggested a net loss in Antarctica. Note there’s the mention of the “climate warming, consistent with model predictions” at the end of the report. They’d say the same thing if ICEsat had measured loss instead of gain, because as we’ve seen before, almost everything is consistent with warming and models no matter which direction it goes.
I read ScienceDaily and Science New sites daily, and I’ve noticed for years the use of the statement and its ilk as cited above for climate articles [but not limited to that direct subject] as they satisfy or pander or prostitute for funding.
Jurav V Its incredibly stable (The temperature variation), quite a surprise. I would not be surprised that this applies to the whole globe once you take away all the “adjustments”
I think a closer read is needed: from the abstract I note “Imbalances in individual drainage systems (DS) are large (-68% to +103% of input), as are temporal changes (-39% to +44%). The recent 90 Gt/yr loss from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier 61 Gt/yr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning.”
What this says to me is that changes are going on in the dynamics … its not only a simple matter of net mass loss or gain … it as important to consider the changing dynamics of the system.
This result in consistent with the Jason GMSL data which if graphed as a rate of changle in GMSL and plotted as 12 month average reveals that the rate has dropped from 4 mm/yr to almost zero now since 1998.
This plot is on the climate for you site under the oceans section. http://www.climate4you.com/index.htm
Interestingly the graph can not be found on any of the sea level sites. With SST roughly flat over this period (thermal expansion component small) mass must be being gained somewhere and Antarctica with record cold temps and record cold southern ocean SST must be the place). July temps in Antarctica were as much as 10 degrees below normal. http://www.climate4you.com/images/ANTARCTIC%20Temp%20201207%20versus%201998-2006%201200km.gif
So, problem solved. All we need is a huge pump and a pipeline connecting the two poles, and then we redistribute the white stuff.
Geoengineering 101.
hmmm. So snow increase is due to AGW. Who would have thought land ice mass increases with anthropogenic global warming? Such a sad thing. Tsk, tsk. Wonder what caused mass to grow before? Since the article seems to imply that AGW snow (something children are not supposed to know about?) is causing it now sooooo something else must have caused it back then, do you suppose it was the Ice Queen whut dun it?
Seriously, snow is a weather event. The only way snow occurs is if the weather sets it up to snow. Weather caused it back then, and weather is causing it now. Weather, within climate boundaries has both short term and long term pattern variations. And sometimes, these weather pattern variations kill and sometimes they allow life to bloom. My hunch is that both sides of the coin are necessary to sustain planetary life. Drought and rain, cold and warm, ice and melt.
The problem is that humans tend to only believe what they themselves wish to learn. We hardly consider the learning of those that have come before, believing their knowledge to be quaint and outdated. In other words, we do not learn from the past and we do not increase in wisdom because of it. We only go round in circles.
Jay Zwally’s favorite:
http://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/threecrows.htm
Bet this news will not adorn the front cover of Nature (a la Steig), neither will it feature on MSM or, indeed, AR5.
Am I reading this right ?..” Because 360 Gt/year represents an annual sea level rise of 1 mm/year, recent estimates indicate a contribution of between 0.27 mm/year and 0.83 mm/year coming from Antarctica.” So that means Antarctica may contribute as little as about an inch per century to sea level rise?
Another negative feedback mechanism. As ice moves to the southpole, it will tip toward the sun and increase albedo when earth is closest to the sun.
I think I’ve got it now. When the ice is melting, it’s catastrophic global warming. When we’re gaining ice mass, it’s consistent with global warming. At first it didn’t make sense, but if you repeat it often enough, it just rolls off the tongue.
Birdieshooter says:
September 10, 2012 at 8:39 am
LOL – Yeah, but it is only a small area, the Arctic is the BIG worry…….all that FLOATING ice…..
/sarc
Like Guam with too many military personnel, Antarctica faces the prospect of tipping over on account of its unbalanced ice fields. Just as predicted by all the models.
One has to appreciate they’re honest. If they find the ice is decreasing, they report the ice is decreasing. If they find the ice is increasing, they report the ice is increasing. If they can’t match the data from different sources, they report they can’t match the data. That’s ok by me, that’s how science is done.
Both ICEsat and ERS measure the surface altitude and subsequently the volume, not really the mass. GRACE measures total mass. They only contradict each other based on a number of assumptions, such as that the ice density doesn’t change. One of possible mechanisms for Antarctica to gain ice and to lose mass at the same time would be that there may be numerous caverns filled with water all over the Antarctis and they are now freezing over, increasing the total volume without adding to mass … accompanied by overall loss of mass all around the edge. But I’m no scientist to place such hypotheses.
And of course, there’s no wonder they find models that agree with observations. It’s long known fact that a guaranteed way how to get a successful forecast is to generate sufficient number of different forecasts. Our climate modellers have been very active in that direction in recent years.
It’s that time of year. Spring and Fall as the Northern and Southern hemispheres prepare to switch seasons, contradictory predictions are made by the CAGWers about what will happen at the poles due to Man’s CO2 emissions. At the end of winter/summer the prediction that most closely matches what is actually observed will be trotted out as proof we need to shut down more power plants and spend more money to research the “crisis”. (Sometimes “actually observed” is on a computer screen rather than actually measured.) Whichever end is melting usually gets the most press. Bogus predictions are forgotten (except for places like WUWT) or explained away.
This benchmark means GRACE will have to re-tune itself. When that happens, what other measurements will have to be readjusted? Someone should keep after them about this.
Birdieshooter says:
September 10, 2012 at 8:39 am
Am I reading this right ? … So that means Antarctica may contribute as little as about an inch per century to sea level rise?
Yes, but think of the children: how will they cope with a disaster of such extreme seriousness?