Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The record busting growth of Antarctic ice is threatening the viability of Australia’s Mawson Antarctic research station.
According to The Australian;
Satellite observations show a new daily record being set for Antarctic sea ice every day for the past two weeks. Annual records have also been broken every year for the past three years.
Rob Wooding, general manager of the Australian Antarctic Division’s Operations Branch, said expanding sea ice was now causing serious problems.
Last year, fuel supplies were flown to Australia’s Mawson base by helicopter because the harbour had failed to clear. Dr Wooding said the situation was “unsustainable”.
He said it was possible for the Aurora Australis icebreaker to break through a certain amount of sea ice to enter the harbour, and the planned capability of a replacement icebreaker would increase the ability to do this.
But conditions experienced last year of thick sea ice, with snow cover, extending out 40 to 50km could not regularly be navigated by any Antarctic resupply vessel.
“If we were to face such a situation at Mawson for three or four successive seasons, it would be unlikely that we could continue to resupply the station under the current operating model,” he said. “Unless we could find an alternative resupply strategy, questions would arise as to the ongoing viability of the station.”
You might think the rapid increase in ice contradicts previous claims that Antarctica is warming. You might be worried that if global warming continues to force massive growth in Antarctic ice, other bases might also have to consider moving. Some bases might even have to close.
Thankfully, most climate models indicate Antarctic ice is melting – we just have to wait for the observations to agree with the theory.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy. That cold will stay there! The CO2 is protecting us.
The Australian Govt is planning to send copious amounts of dry ice to keep them warm and melt the ice via back radiation once released. Prof Turney is to organize the delivery. He is to be accompanied by The Guardian.
Nice one, Tony. Especially the back radiation.
Well, they shouldn’t need that heavy fuel in the resupply; they have windmills!!!!!
Give them all the solar panels and wind turbines they ask for.
Windmills mean they need less fuel. However they still need food.
I wonder how long the growing season is down there?
Heh.
Let them eat penguins!
I hear penguin tastes just like chicken.
It’s longer and longer. Antarctica is soon the only habitable continent, as Greenland is only an island.
feeling so bad for our friends down under – first they are ordered by the UN to stop mining coal and now they also may have to give up their South Pole base. Life is going to get tough for them.
Press reports claimed that the Arctic is melting because of “global warming”, while the ad hoc excuse de jour for record Antarctic sea ice is stronger katabatic winds.
If an allegedly warmer atmosphere is to blame for less Arctic sea ice, then how does it not also melt the Antarctic?
Antarctic sea ice has about five times as much effect on planetary albedo as Arctic.
In reality the wind is weaker.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/equirectangular
Any excuse will do, no matter how lame or counterfactual.
The missing heat is hiding in the katabatic winds.
@ren
There are no katabatic winds in your chart, which depicts winds at 70hPa, up in the stratosphere. Not much effect on weather from up that high.
Here’s the chart which properly depicts surface winds in the Antarctic:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-180,-90,250
Big difference. Your upper air winds are much faster and zonal (parallel to latitude lines), whereas surface winds are much slower and meridional (making large angles with latitude lines).
These winds may be katabatic (generated by dense air being pulled down a slope by gravity), but as such the temperature of these winds rises as the air descends due to lapse rate warming.
Even with this extra warming, the Antarctic is currently so cold that the ice is still expanding. The surface temperature anomaly chart (base 1981-2011) explains this better than words:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-180,-90,250
Are there any scale bars for these graphics?
@opluso
Click on the word ‘earth’ in the lower left corner to get a menu, then click on ‘grid’. This will draw a dot-grid with 1/2 degree spacings. Mouse on any point on the map will return coords for that point. Note that many map projections are available. I’m using ‘O’ (orthographic). Data comes from NOAA/NWS/NCEP GFS and RTG-SST.
Neither has much effect on albedo. There isn’t that much area, and there isn’t that much solar radiation to reflect.
Clouds provide most of earth’s albedo.
Also, ordinary grass has about the same reflectance as non new snow (>72 hours old).
Now, as for the local reflectance; particularly in the arctic, the coming and going of the sea ice, or land ice may have a perceptible local effect; but no big shakes globally.
I ce is way over rated, specially when it comes to radiative cooling.
Would not stronger katabatic winds actually tend to disperse the ice further out to sea? Like all the other excuses something does not seem to add up here.
Axelatoz
Antarctica is a continent some 14.0 million sq kilometers – The US and Canada together are only 18 Mkm^2 – only slightly larger.
The katabatic wind theory (climate makes stronger winds come off of the Antarctic highlands, the stronger winds blow sea ice away from the coast, the newly exposed open water near the coast freezes up … therefore, climate change (the rest of the world getting 0.1 degrees warmer causes a 43% increase in Antarctic sea ice between 1992 and 2015 ….
Yeah, right.
Katabatic winds do exist, and where they are strongest, they do blow from the interior out over the sea ice towards open water. But the open water is hundreds (and in places) thousand kilometers from the coast. And there are actually only a few places along the coast where such winds are common.
it is like blaming Boston’s pack up of sea ice off of Cape Cod in February on Seattle’s winds blowing down from Mt Rainier in January because the Gulf of Mexico was 1 degree hotter in July the year before. When the excess sea ice off of Boston is the size of Greenland.
What are they doing there ?
Measuring snow flakes.
Correct. They are measuring snowflakes and documenting what snow looks like because it won’t be long before snow will be a thing of the past.
They heard snowflakes are a good way for nerds to get hot chicks.
Tasting banana milkshakes. I’ve heard they are in vogue at those latitudes.
God help us all when it comes to the real question of whether a scientific research station is worth maintaining in the face of expanding polar ice.
Because the next question is what we do when the ice reaches someplace where we actually need to be.
Such as Cape Horn?
Probably few actually need to cruise past it in the winter. It was passable during LIA summers. It was named for a recently lost Dutch ship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Schouten
Bounty couldn’t make it in 1788 and despite becoming part of the clipper ship route, it remained deadly dangerous, as shown by this historic wreck in 1819:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Telmo_%28ship%29
Had San Telmo made it to Peru, the history of South America might have been changed.
Just how recently ??
I was on a Dutch ship named Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, in Feb/Mar 1961; its last voyage. When it got home to Holland, after dropping me off in Manhattan, it was sold to a Greek shipping line, and renamed the Lakonia. They took it to the Adriatic, and sailed it around the Greek islands.
It caught fire in a storm at night, and the Greek crew jumped off the ship in the lifeboats, and left the passengers to it.
The Lakonia sank with about 700-800 souls aboard.
g
George,
I’m at a loss as to understand what that tragedy has to do with the history of attempts to make it through Drake’s Passage during the Little Ice Age.
The “recently” above refers to the ship’s having been lost just before the Dutch expedition made the first voyage through the Passage, ie almost 400 years ago.
“””””…..
sturgishooper
May 12, 2015 at 2:33 pm
George,
I’m at a loss as to understand what that tragedy has to do with the history of attempts to make it through Drake’s Passage during the Little Ice Age…….”””””
And I’m at a loss to understand what Francis Drake , or the little ice age, has to do with “recently”.
To some people, “recently” means since they last saw President Obama speak on television.
That would make them the first UN climate refugees
My sides hurt.
Climate realists are funnier than Warmunistas, except when the latter are unintentionally so.
Lolling and trying not to. Not the first ones, but easily the ones most remembered.
Hilarious – wish I thought of that when I was writing the article 🙂
Nope, still nothing about it on the BBC! This is as close as they got:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31965454
By the way, to all Americans, lots of reports in our press here in Britain today that the BBC’s days (in its current form) are numbered. The new government here has appointed a Culture Secretary who is a little anti-BBC, and reports today also say that technology will make the licence fee redundant.
Good riddance. And a good way to help cut unneeded government spending.
It appears that the million public sector jobs cut by the first Cameron (coalition) government have not been particularly missed.
Thanks for that tip Ghost. Here’s a link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-paves-way-for-shakeup-of-the-bbc-as-licence-fee-critic-john-whittingdale-joins-alltory-cabinet-10242779.html
Maybe they can have a mass clear-out of their science reporters while they’re at it. Rebooting would probably be the most efficient way to clean up the mess.
When austerity measures hit climate research groups and some are let go, I predict at least one of them will write a tell-all book about the backroom deals, scams, and deception of the CAGWers. It will be very interesting to see who did what, why, and how.
Yay!
‘and the planned capability of a replacement icebreaker ‘, given their past claims about melting ice I would have thought a row boat would have all the capability needed not something which can break through ‘thicker ice’ that the current boats .
What if the ice reaches a tipping point?
Like, last winter’s ice not having time to melt before
this winter’s ice arrives?
The Warmists will have conniptions. The icebreaker
will have bigger problems.
You do know, of course, they will do a complete 180 as soon as they can’t hide the truth abou the cooling planet. Then all blame for the cooling will be blamed on? CO2 of course! It will always be the hook into a global dictatorship. Nothing else matters.
Don’t suppose they could just use a long hose….
Most of the Allied fuel in W.W.II was delivered by a 4 inch hose pipe from the UK to France…. it was a major strategic win and great secret… For one little base I would expect a 2 cm hose would be enough…
Well the Pluto pump station was disguised as an ice cream factory so there’d be a degree of continuity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pluto#/media/File:Originally_Brown%27s_Ice_Cream_this_PLUTO_pumping_station_is_now_a_Family_Golf_venue.jpg
The bigger problem might be -60°C
It just gets better and better folks. Prediction – reality bust, prediction – reality bust etc.
The latest out of Oz, annoubced in the same news bulletins as the “Deadly Antarctic Ice Threatens Oz Base” story is the “Deadly El Nino Threatens Oz Farmers”. The ‘models’ show a 4 fold increase in the rate of sea surface temperature increase from May to about July than in the months preceding, just when they make the announcement. Its snowing down to 300 m in Tasmania and to 6 or 900 in the Alps, earlier than usual and for the second time in the past few weeks but the dams will dry up and it will be warmer than usual etc… apparently.
I called this sort of modelling results “Deus ex Machina” recently. Actually “LUPUS!! ex Machina is more appropriate.
I always wondered about that, what are they researching down there?
The research program is secondary to maintaining a presence on the slice of Antarctica claimed by Australia. Same goes for other nations with land claims. Argentina went to the length of bringing in a pregnant woman to give birth there to strengthen its claim.
But here’s what they’re up to while squatting there:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/living-and-working/stations/mawson/science
“Thankfully, most climate models indicate Antarctic ice is melting – we just have to wait for the observations to agree with the theory.”
The ice is melting from the bottom up so you just can’t see it. Or is the melting causing fresh water that is causing the freezing? I just can’t keep up.
rbabcock
I chose the same quote:
“Thankfully, most climate models indicate Antarctic ice is melting ”
All they need then is to build a model fuel supply and model food deliveries so they can maintain model people and model trucks. My grandson thinks model trucks are cute. It’s a small world after all!
This post is so out of date – please keep up if you want to be taken seriously.
[??? .mod]
Looks like a drive bye of an idiot, so I can’t take this comment seriously either.
It’s from the May 11, 2015 Australian, mate.
May 12 here!
Auto
The story however was from the 11th in Australia:
http://news.yahoo.com/record-antarctic-sea-ice-logistic-problem-scientists-071717226.html;_ylt=A0SO80AVclJV3_EASIdXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByMXM3OWtoBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwM4BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–
24 hours? That’s hopelessly out of date.
I think Mike Hamblet is confused with the of the ship of fools. Or maybe he was on it.
You enjoy the analogy in my letter in the Australian newspaper today.
“The world’s leading Antarctic supply teams and scientists who are meeting in Hobart this week should prepare for the current trends in Antarctic sea ice to continue for some decades as the current solar grand minimum deepens (“Antarctic bases battle record ice”, 12/5).
They also should ignore the modelling of climate scientists as interpreted by the Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre. Current climate change modelling is about as helpful for understanding what is happening in the Antarctic as a colonoscopy would be for understanding what is happening in our brains.”
Don’t write off the colonoscopy for brain research, Brent. Most Warmists suffer from advanced cases of proctocraniosis.
LoL
Remember also that serotonin which makes you fall in – and out – of love, is made in the gut.
Jorge wins the thread! 😀
I do have to admit that it IS rather novel that the planned new icebreaker – presumably planned by the previous administration – was intended to break through thicker ice then the current one. Of course, it is possible that they were anticipating that the US would decommission its expected to be unnecessary icebreaker – global warming, Antarctica melting, ice free Arctic, you know the story – and turn it into hand shovels and people drawn plows to replace the earth moving and farming equipment that would be melted down to prevent carbon emissions. Fascinating world we live in. too bad the only sane people in it seem to be the ones in the mental health wards.
There is some noticeable cooling going on in the Arctic at the moment.
The jet stream looks to be setting up NE Canada and the northern Atlantic for a outbreak of this cold air over the next few days. The signs that there has been a switch to cooling seem to be growing.
This was reported in the Guardian two days ago.
Apparently, the record high in Antarctic Sea Ice is a sign of climate change.
It’s caused by man’s emissions of CO2, apparently.
Not truly the same post when you read it – you did read both, right?
Yes, I did. The principle is the same.
There is a the record high in Antarctic Sea Ice.
The record high in Antarctic Sea Ice is a sign of climate change caused by man’s emissions, apparently.
The CO2 and the Ozone hole, both man’s fault, altered the winds creating the record ice around Antarctica
Wow, Guardian, nice job explaining that problematic record ice away. And people wonder why so many have entered the ‘denial’ camp.
Dose any body know what the climate models say is the cause of the cooling of the 5th biggest Continent on our planet to the point of it having to be evacuated? Well that’s what climate models are for????????
Ozone layer hole – winds – shifting the ice – all due to CO2 Apparently! That’s what they’re claiming in the UK Guardian.
More Antarctic sea ice is global warming.
Less Arctic sea ice is global warming.
More or less sea ice – wherever it is doing, is due to global warming.
**Sigh**
As everyone that has followed the “research,” there is nothing that isn’t caused by global warming, be it less sex, more sex, no sex, or whatever you can think of, someone has written a paper that conclusively shows that it is caused by only manmade carbon dioxide – not the stuff that comes out of volcanoes or rolls up off forest fires, just fossil fuel based carbon dioxide. No, no, don’t hold your breath, that carbon dioxide apparently still is okay since the politicians and “consensus climate scientists” spew tons of that.
Tom O,
Ref sex.
Honestly NOT taking the mickey here but I am sure I read that AGW/CAGW/GW and BAR etc causes more prostitution…
I really am not making that up….
Sadly, they have so many oars in the water that the boat sank from the weight. Their theories contradict each other and that elusive silver bullet remains lodged in their dreams. Good blog as always.
YOU’VE REACHED A SUBSCRIBER-ONLY ARTICLE.
Google = division-battles-record-ice-considers-moving
https://www.google.ca/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=antarctic+division-battles-record-ice-considers-moving
Should they put up more wind thingies or take the ones they have down?
Either way, if they have to move it was caused by “The Change”.
Fear not Antarctic researchers, for this morning, with much delight, our Bureau of Meteorology has announced a major El Niño event. Board shorts and cold beer for the troops at Mawson.
yeah, full on hype an ABC..however I see on the ENSO widget the levels DROPPED back again from the slightly over 1 to now dead ON the 1 marker
curiously the first el nino the Bom waffled over also occurred as the meter dropped below the .5 at that time:-0 and it had been a shade over prior.
its all in the timing
Bom poor timing.LoL
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssa&inv=0&t=cur
See the sea surface temperatures. I predict Antarctic Sea Ice will exceed all previous expansions this season.
AGW theory a joke.
[snip – policy violation -mod]