Those masters of disaster are at it again, and it appears our friendly scientists at that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) help this story along each year.
Thanks to WUWT reader Ron de Haan who spotted this on:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AntarcticWilkinsIceShelf.htm
Note the dates for these two stories are a year apart, but use the same photo.
It seems that not only is the photography recycled, so is the storyline. It seems to happen every year, about this time. Note the photos show shear failure and cracks, not melted ice. Shear failure is mostly mechanical-stress related, though ice does tend to be more brittle at colder temperatures.
National Geographic reported this story headline last year, March 25th 2008
PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Giant Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses
Don’t let the date in the upper right fool you, thats just an automatic “today’s date” javascript element found in many webpages.
From the Nat Geo story:
“[It’s] an event we don’t get to see very often,” Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said in a press statement.
Now, how is it that an ice shelf breaks up in the spring of 2008 and again in the spring of 2009 and it’s “not very often”? Hmmm.
It seems NSIDC’s Ted Scambos gets around. Doing a Google search for
Wilkins ice shelf + “Ted Scambos”
yields about 4,930 results. Yep, he sure gets the word out every year.
Ted Scambos said something similar in 1999:
“On the southwest side of the peninsula, the Wilkins ice shelf retreated nearly 1,100 square kilometers in early March of last year [1998], said Scambos. … Within a few years, much of the Wilkins ice shelf will likely be gone” [http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=3209&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=Antarctic%20Ice%20Shelf%20Break-Up%20Accelerates&Cache=False].
But, as can be seen from the following January 1996 and March 2008 images, there has been hardly any change in a decade. Look at the photos below from the appinsys web site:
But wait, there’s more examples of that “not very often” Wilkins ice shelf breakup, again from the appinsys web site:
As the following historical satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf show, the disintegration / re-growth is an annual event (winter ice re-growth season; summer melt season).
But we just know warming is involved, NSIDC says so:
The MSNBC 2008 article reports on a NSIDC article which states:
“NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos, who first spotted the disintegration in March, said, “We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up.”
The closest station to the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the NOAA Global Historical Climate Network database is Rothera Point. The following figure shows the historical data for Rothera Point, with monthly temperatures in blue and the annual January temperature in red. Summer (Dec – Mar) temperatures have not increased – the 2000s January temperatures are similar to the 1940s (the oldest data available). So why does NSIDC’s Scambos blame it on air temperatures?
The appinsys article goes on to talk about ocean currents and sea surface temperatures being a contributor, and it is worth the read. See it here.
The real question is, how often are we going to see the Wilkins Ice Shelf be a lead news story as poster child for “global warming” to illustrate ice loss in Antarctica that is actually growing.
I guess as long as we have NSIDC’s Ted Scambos to help the media, it will be “something we get to see fairly often”.
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The headline could equally be WUWT recycles old photos but avoids showing that the 200m thick ice, which for as long as the Wilkins ice sheet has been observed has joined Charcot island to the mainland, is now disconnected rubble! Refreezing between the floes will replace 200m thick ice with 2m thick ice, hardly a fair exchange.
Here’s the image that WUWT avoided using:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/wilkinsarctic/pub/images/ASA_WSM_1PNPDE20090418_051350_000002382078_00162_37290_9429_100m_img.jpg
REPLY: Phil you are pathetic, I didn’t “avoid” this image, I didn’t know of its existence. Thank you for pointing it out. Since you brought up the subject of “avoidance”, why do you avoid giving your name and university affiliation. Why the academic cowardice?
– Anthony
But, nothing of any whatsoever reasons will ever convince any of those converted to the new creed, instead any reason will make them more furious.
We must find a way not to convince them but appease them. We must ask a psychiatrist how they deal with mad men in crisis.
Phil. (08:02:13) :
“Here’s the image that WUWT avoided using:”
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/wilkinsarctic/pub/images/ASA_WSM_1PNPDE20090418_051350_000002382078_00162_37290_9429_100m_img.jpg
Still looks like cracked ice to me. Does this picture make any difference to the overall story? Abnormal or not?
“Since you brought up the subject of “avoidance”, why do you avoid giving your name and university affiliation. Why the academic cowardice?”
Phil., that’s a good question. Are you afraid you may be on a sinking ship?
Mike
Thanks Phil for posting. We here are now going to start checking you guys to see how accurate your work is. Isn’t peer review wonderful. It kind of keeps everyone, uh honest. Thanks for posting.
I know this has been pointed out before, but it seems that the ice, Arctic and Antarctic, seem to be have a dampening effect on higher temperatures. It is almost as if the Earth is putting away the ice in colder times to cool the oceans and atmosphere for those times when the sun or the earth’s own core release more heat. The Beaufort Gyre in the Arctic and the currents around the Antarctic seem to create and distribute icecubes quite efficiently. This cold water/ice must have an effect.
The most recent warming started in the seventies, a few years later the 1979 became the year of greatest sea ice extent in the arctic since 1972 til the present time. As the Earth warmed, the arctic sea ice extent has been on a downward trend. 1998 was the warmest year Earth-wide, and then nine years later, we had the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice. Since then the Earth’s temperature has declined and the sea ice extent appears to be making a comeback.
I’m sure this will be torn to pieces, but it sure seems to fit the facts.
You are sooo correct Phil B.! The Antarctic has its cycles (in decades not years) with ice breaking off as does the Article with it’s ice expanding and contracting. Alarmist’s will use ANYTHING at Nature’s disposal to scare you! They are insulting YOUR intelligence!!
Hi Phil.
Do you claim that the Wilkins shelf was present during the Holocene Optimum?
Was the Holocene Optimum caused by manmade co2?
Just where are you going with your arguments?
I, for one, am willing to be your friend when you admit how hilariously wrong you were!
Your future friend,
Harold
Mike Bryant (08:50:38) :
Are you trying to suggest that climate is cyclical rather than a straight line path to destruction! My, you are a denier and heretic.
It may be that Phil “the mysteriously unaffiliated” academic isn’t comfortable with the science, or perhaps, not sure of the decreed position of his superiors. Standing on a fence is good for muscle tone though.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6206672.stm:
“Sediments extracted from the Antarctic seafloor show the world’s largest ice shelf has disintegrated and reappeared many times in the past.”
While the study focused on the Ross ice shelf, the results certainly apply to the smaller Wilkins ice shelf. The ice shelves disintegrate and reappear in natural cycles.
Interestingly, the authors pay obligatory homage to CO2-induced global warming near the end of the article. The implication is that even though the periodic disintegration of ice shelves follows a natural cycle, increasing CO2 concentrations will make it worse.
From the Arctic North Pole to the Antarctic South Pole an Iron Curtain/Berlin Wall is descending.
The reason: To keep you in the dark/to keep you away from the ice caps.
The Red-Green agenda advances.
Canada’s Lieberal leader STOPIGGY* is part/parcel of the unhidden conspiracy; a conspiracy in the open.
…-
“Nations set new tourism limits for Antarctica
By MATTHEW LEE – Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Countries with interests in Antarctica have endorsed U.S.-proposed mandatory limits on Antarctic tourism that aim to protect the continent’s fragile environment, officials said Friday.
At the conclusion of a two-week meeting in Baltimore, Md., the parties to the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty agreed to impose binding restrictions on the size of cruise ships that land passengers there and the number of people they can bring ashore at any one time, the officials said. The move mandates, under international law, current voluntary limits.
The changes will become legally binding once each of the 28 nations that have signed the treaty ratify them. The revisions were adopted by consensus with no opposition and no hurdles to ratification are expected, said Evan Bloom, the head of the U.S. delegation.”
http://www.thesunnews.com/253/story/865077.html
…-
*STOPIGGY.
“Ignatieff wants North Pole to be international park
7 Apr 2009 … Canada should push for the creation of an international park that would protect the area around the North Pole, Liberal Leader Michael …
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/04/07/tech-090407-north-pole-park.html
Why doesn’t anybody talk about the bigger picture? The total area of Antarctic ice shelves is about 1.2 million sq.km. An annual loss of one thousand sq.km at Wilkins would be 0,08 % of the total. Meanwhile, many (most?) all the other shelves may be growing, so what are we actually talking about here? Seasonal variation, dare I say?
This may or may not be pertinent.
I contacted the NSIDC after pondering the idea of an underwater earthquake causing a tsunami. What would happen to the ice sheet as it approaches the shallow coast.
I then checked and found an April 2nd earthquake of 4.5 mag. on the Pacific – Antarctic faultline. This is a small earthquake, which I do recognize. So I zipped off an email to NSIDC…
I was impressed with such a quick response:
Hello Mr. Garrett;
Living in California, I’m sure you know that a 4.5 M earthquake is rather
small; also, strike-slip quakes don’t usually form tsunamis, because that
requires some large component of vertical motion.
But the notion in general is a good one, and we looked carefully for
evidence of an effect from the massive 2004 Sumatra tsunami (Dec 26,
2004), orders of magnitude larger than the event you’ve found; very little
if any effect could be detected on the Amery Ice Shelf or other shelves
along the Indian Ocean coast of Antarctica.
Still, long-period waves, from winds, may have an effect on pushing an ice
shelf that is already unstable ‘over the edge’. The current model is that
ice shelves begin to accumulate more and more surface melt, until free
water (melt lakes or soaked snow) cover the surface in late summer; then,
some event, perhaps a train of long-period waves, triggers a break-up.
In the case of the Wilkins bridge, my colleagues and I currently think
that stresses from the large shelf area to the south of the bridge
gradually pushed the bridge until it cracked; water in the snow layers
beneath the surface accentruated fracturing, and the bridge disintegrated.
We know that the shelf had thinned by several 10s of meters in the past
few decades, as well.
best regards,
Ted Scambos.
See on the web:
Scambos et al., 2009, Earth and Planetary Science Letters;
Braun et al., 2008, The Cryosphere Discussions and The Cryosphere
MacAyeal et al., 2003, Journal of Glaciology
see also http://www.lajollasurf.org/gblpac.html
remember, shelves and icebergs survive normal waves, even storm waves, all
the time: a warming climte is required to make them susceptible.
Antarctica is 14,000,000 km2.
Wilkins Sound, where the sea ice cube known as Wilkins Ice Shelf resides, is 16,500 km2.
One tenth of one percent.
Much ado about nuttin, dont’cha think?
Flanagan (06:21:17) :
“Remember Mercer’s prediction in 1978?
“One warning sign that a dangerous warming is beginning in Antarctica, will be a breakup of ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula just south of the January 0C isotherm; the ice shelf in the Prince Gustav Channel, and the Wordie Ice Shelf; the ice shelf in George VI Sound, and the ice shelf in Wilkins Sound.”
Mercer, Nature, 1978, v271 pp.321-325
Of course, the fact that all these shelves have disappeared (Wilkins being the last survivor) cannot be anything else but a pure coincidence, no? A very big superposition of coincidences? These shelves broke up in the fastest warming region of Antarctica, but surely warming has nothing to do with that?
Bah…
REPLY: Meanwhile “Flanagan” while you cherry pick a tiny point on the peninsula which isn’t even in the same climatic regime (Maritime polar) as the main continent (Polar Icecap), the rest of Antarctica grows sea ice:
Antarctic Sea Ice for March
Extent………………….Concentration
2009 5.0 million sq km 2.9 million sq km
1997 3.8 million sq km 2.2 million sq km
1980 3.5 million sq km 2.0 million sq km
This is an increase of 45% for ice concentration since 1980. Statistically significant, no?
But you’d rather believe Steig et al and his Mannomatic mathematics, now disproven.
Bah…”
Anthony,
Think about your blood pressure.
The Dutch have installed an IQ meter at the border between Holland and Belgium.
One day Flanagan passed the border after a visit in Amsterdam and what do you think happened?
The average IQ levels in both countries went up?
“WASHINGTON — Countries with interests in Antarctica have endorsed U.S.-proposed mandatory limits on Antarctic tourism that aim to protect the continent’s fragile environment, officials said Friday.”-from AP article.
“98% of the continent is covered with a thick, ancient sheet of
ice. The average thickness of this ice is 7,000 feet with a maximum depth
of nearly 3 miles (15,000 feet).”-from Antarctic Ice Instructional Module #4
Man, if people walk on that ice just imagine the devastation!
The McBride Smeargate scandal in the UK seems to be on the verge of making political hacks a little more honest. Let’s hope that the Scambos Wilkin ice sheet lies will finally reach a similar tipping point with the Monbiots of this world.
Given that human stupidity apparently knows no bounds I won’t hold my breath.
Well if you look at that top Picture that says Wilkins Ice shelf on it; the one with the inset of Antarctica; directly above the blue piece that broke up you see a much larger piece with a couple of curved walls on the lower right sides.
Svend Hendriksen; a Nobel Peace Price winning Danish Glaciologist, sent me a picture of that last year pointing out that big piece. Based on the height of the walls they can determine that that whole piece collapsed about 50 years ago and is growing back. The walls are just 50 years of precipitation on the longer lived sections.
Svend lives in Greenland; and sometimes posts here. He keeps track of this Stuff for the Danish Government. Since the satellites come by his place every day, he can get photos downloaded from either end of the earth any time he wants them.
I figured most people recognized that old photo that has the big shear fracture in it. I’ve got some other old photos that the local newspapers keep rehashing showing the waterfalls going down holes on Greenland; even have the very same people standing alongside them looking at this very common occurrence.
Talk about journalistic fraud; hey newspapers; ever wonder why we don’t buy your rubbish on dead tree anymore ?
George
Mike Bryant (09:51:46) :
“WASHINGTON — Countries with interests in Antarctica have endorsed U.S.-proposed mandatory limits on Antarctic tourism that aim to protect the continent’s fragile environment, officials said Friday.”-from AP article.
“98% of the continent is covered with a thick, ancient sheet of
ice. The average thickness of this ice is 7,000 feet with a maximum depth
of nearly 3 miles (15,000 feet).”-from Antarctic Ice Instructional Module #4
Man, if people walk on that ice just imagine the devastation!”
Yes Mike, if there are places on earth where even a blind horse can’t inflict any damage, it is at the Poles.
The ice shelf is such a tiny little picture of a much larger one, that says ice is growing in the Antartic. The only reason we probably even talk about it is because it is touted by AWG as the poster child for melting on Antartica. However compare our interest with the author of said novel. He probably specializes in that specific area of expertise. Which means it is his livelyhood. Now considering that funding is needed to keep him eating, of course he is going to make what he is doing as interesting as possible. How much money would he get if he said, hey this ice shelf pushes out over the ocean and breaks off all of the time. It melts too:P
Jack Green (08:45:05) : Thanks Phil for posting. We here are now going to start checking you guys to see how accurate your work is. Isn’t peer review wonderful. It kind of keeps everyone, uh honest. Thanks for posting.
I dont know who Phil is but it sort of bothers me to see folks threatining to go after him personally. Thats an AWG tactic and we are above that. The beauty of this site has always been that we can come here to discuss with others who may or may not share our views. I have seen quite a few people turned from devoute AWGism by such discussions. I myself was turned by such discussions. I have learned a lot from you guys but it was because both sides got to display and I got to become aware and make my own decisions. I like it when folks like Walt ect.. stops by and share. We get to see into their reasoning and they get to hear ours. We may give them a spark, and maybe they give us one. Please do not let that stop with petty threats that drive folks away or we are no better than the others.
Phil. 08:02:13 and kim 00:00:13
Are you beginning to understand the quality of the science and the rhetoric of the fellows you are defending? You should re-examine assumptions in the light of dropping temperatures worldwide and increasing ice at both poles. I know you have the scientific sensibility to do so. So let’s see some insight. Please. It’s important.
======================================
Phil. (08:02:13) :
The headline could equally be WUWT recycles old photos but avoids showing that the 200m thick ice, which for as long as the Wilkins ice sheet has been observed has joined Charcot island to the mainland, is now disconnected rubble! Refreezing between the floes will replace 200m thick ice with 2m thick ice, hardly a fair exchange.
Here’s the image that WUWT avoided using:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/wilkinsarctic/pub/images/ASA_WSM_1PNPDE20090418_051350_000002382078_00162_37290_9429_100m_img.jpg
Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery is a great tool
for 24 / 7, rain or shine, surface data collection. However, to
try and compare optical or passive microwave imagery to
SAR is very misleading. Anyone who has worked with SAR
know this! It has, depending on frequency, pulse output
power, receiver sensitivity, antenna gain, AGC settings,
ect. , an ability to penetrate that other sensors do not! You
cannot compare them. Get it?
Ric Werme (06:06:23) :
“Ron de Haan (03:54:10) :
> OT, Huge CME produced by the sun http://www.spaceweather.com/
They say merely:
EXPLOSION ON THE SUN: A billion-ton cloud of hot magnetized gas has just left the sun. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the explosion at the end of the day on April 17th
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection says “The average mass based on coronagraph images is 1.6 × 10^15 g.”
A tonne is 10^6 g, a billion is 10^9, so the size of this this CME is only 60% of an average CME. Please don’t exaggerate, especially not on a topic that is about exaggeration!”
Ric,
Exaggeration was not the objective.
The visual simply looked spectacular.
I get your point though and I agree.
Phil you posted an image dated today, in rebuttal to a story dated yesterday, about photos recycled from a year ago.
Does anyone else see the humor in this exchange?
I simply say, it is ice, it breaks up and reforms and this fascination around multi-year float ice at one location everyone agrees has anomalous climate patterns, simply deflects from the the story which is the MSM addressing these claims without any research or effort to collaborate them, re-using stock images without explanation, etc. This is not even a climate issue it goes straight to the heart of why Journalism is dead, politics drives all the news cycle and newspapers are nothing more than a collection of “endorsed”: blogs.
Listen some people will never be convinced that Nature is the most humbling force on the planet and Climate always Changes, and Ice Melts and re-freezes and birds change their migratory routes and Oceans have phases, cooling was not predicted, etc.
It does not matter right now, we have 60 Days to prevent a economic and social disaster in the USA at the hands of a radical left who are a single issue body…
Stop Cap and Trade
Stop the EPA GHG Listing Proposal
Spending trillions in new taxation now does not fix any of our real problems and 7.2B to the EPA is not “Stimulus”, and average people are the only ones who can stop it, our elected leaders do not care about anything but their jobs, so even if you have a Dem as a representative, they are still YOUR REPRESENTATIVE.