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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I’m not suprised by this at all. Global warming is a multi-billion dollar industry so the people profiting from this (Gore?) will do whatever they can to keep the fear alive so they can continue to line their pockets. This is a great post and its too bad that info like this doesn’t end up in the main stream media for more eyes to view.
I’ve read, and encourage others to research this, that other planets in our solar system are heating up and are experiencing global warming yet Earth is the only planet with life on it so how do you explain that these other planets are going through it?
Again, great post!
My math is wrong? And the researchers at the NSIDC cannot compute a trend from a time series?
Here’s a nice example. Consider the following “carefully” selected three points out of a time series:
t X
—–
0 1
2 -0.4
15 -0.76
Is there any way you would be able to convince us that these three points are a “good mathematical” representation of the underlying process?
Because this is actually what you get from a cosinus function, where the trend is exactly 0.
Flanagan, the globe is cooling and has been for at least 5 years. Thanks to the oceanic oscillations it will continue to cool for at least another 20. If the sun gets involved it may cool for another century. The role of CO2 in climate has been exaggerated, and if we make policy based on that exaggeration, millions will die from the consequences of that policy.
Now, if you don’t want that on your head in a couple of decades, please reconsider your position.
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Hi kim!
I’m sure you must have tons of scientific publications supporting so evident claims, don’t you? I mean, published in scientific journals and such. Or do you base your certitudes on blog-science only?
CO2 is already regulated in Europe, and believe me or not it didn’t cause millions of deaths…
I think it is disingenuous to show these photos at different periods of the year and form ridiculous conclusions from it. Let’s see pictures taken at the same time each year. Only then we can judge properly.
Flanagan 09:52:30
That’s pretty amusing citing the CO2 regulations in Europe. Are you aware that the carbon credit market there has crashed disastrously twice and has confounded the action of capital markets and discouraged the progress of industry? But, nice try setting up a strawman.
If we are cooling long term, then the minimal effect carbon dioxide has on temperature and the moderate effect it has fertilizing crops will keep millions of the poorest of this earth, presently living on the margin, from freezing and starving to death. If we encumber carbon in an attempt to mitigate a global warming that isn’t happening instead of adapting to a global cooling that is happening, millions will die. Even a 5% die-off of the earth’s population from crop failures will be 350 million people.
If you think the Western elite can be protected from the consequences of such a holocaust you have another think coming. And if you think those pushing the false paradigm of CO2=AGW will avoid some, or even a lot, of the blame for that holocaust, then you have another think coming.
Why can you not observe the present falling temperatures, and not re-evaluate some of your beliefs and assumptions? It would be scientific, nay even profoundly ethical, to do so.
======================================
Carbon Cap and Trade or more direct taxation is regressive taxation in the extreme. Do you like that?
C’mon, I know many of the people with faith in the CO2=AGW paradigm are good-hearted people with the health of the earth and its people as among their strongest motivation. Stop believing this chimera and get real. This hoax about carbon is counterproductive to solving the real environmental problems we should be solving instead.
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It’s interesting how similar other stations in the area are. I wonder if the weather in antarctica is generally the same over wide areas, i.e. less regional difference than we get in the US?
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020080900310AR70089062000x70089063000x70089066000x
Hi flanagan!
Have they found a hotspot in the atmosphere yet?
Hi Ohio,
you mean a tropical hot spot just like this one:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/raobcore_v1.4_trop.jpg
So, yes I did find it. Note that troposphere has a +0.3 anomaly while upper atmosphere has negative anomalies – i.e. the troposphere is warming and strato cooling. Too bad that’s exactly what all the models predict, isn’t’ t?
Well you know that the liberal greenies say that they have to “recycle to save the planet”.
So they are “recycling” photos now too.
Phil. (08:02:13) :
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
Some due diligence before writing the piece would have revealed that the rash of media stories in early April was occasioned by the ESA report by Angelika Humbert. MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg all referenced it and several of us posted images from the ESA satellite on here so I’m surprised you missed it.
However unable to rebut the argument unfortunately you resorted to ad hominem! I would like to know why I am the only poster here who is expected to list his academic affiliation? For example where on this site can I find Steven Goddard’s academic affiliation, or is he an ‘academic coward’ too? For that matter what are the academic affiliations of Ohioholic, Kim, Bryant etc.?
kim (10:48:40) :
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.
The insight is that the northern section of the Wilkins icesheet is now irretrievably gone, not to be seen again in our lifetimes!
Contrary to the nonsense in the original post “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).”, what has been lost is perennial, 200m thick ice, its temporary replacement by seasonal, ~1m thick ice is not regrowth!
D. King (10:55:58) :
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?
I didn’t compare them, however here’s the animation of the SAR images over the last two weeks showing the final disintegration of the ice bridge between Charcot and Latady islands, are you suggesting that this hasn’t happened?
http://webservices.esa.int/wilkinsarctic/wilkins.php?type=full
Flanagan (13:32:46) :
Speaking of the Wilkins ice shelf when the subject is… the Wilkins ice shelf is cherry picking?
So what is speaking of 40% increase of antarcic sea ice when the real number is 4.7+-4.4%?
http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
REPLY: Your math is wrong
It’s not his math, it comes from the site you referenced in the original post.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AntarcticWilkinsIceShelf.htm
Ohioholic (13:02:47) :
Phil. (08:02:13) :
Your argument is the weakest form of rebuttal. The “But what about X” argument. You do not address the point at all. Seems Wilkins collapses all the time, and recovers.
Actually that’s just the point I was making the Wilkins has been progressively collapsing from season to season but it is not recovering at all!
Seems also that media outlets like to put up dramatic pictures of it and tell us that it’s another fearful portent of things to come from global warming. Unfortunately, this isn’t true, hence your reverting to the “But what about X” argument.
See the movie that I posted above, the northern part of the Wilkins has gone for good, a total collapse that took less than 2 weeks from the appearance of the first new cracks in early April.
John F. Hultquist (09:14:08) :
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.
Is that why you also remain ‘academically unaffiliated’ John? Personally I couldn’t care less what the ‘decreed position of my superiors’ might be, never have.
Phil.
How about all that ice growing in Antarctica and the Arctic?
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Hey Flanagan,
Why don’t you try your trend line math on the function y = e ^(-1/x^2) , say for the interval 0</=x</=1 .
It starts out at y = 0 and at zero velocity; also zero acceleration, in fact every one of its derivatives is zero at X = 0.
Yet somehow it manages to get somewhere. Try ‘splaining that trend !
George
kim (11:11:30) :
Phil.
How about all that ice growing in Antarctica and the Arctic?
====================================
What about it?
Yes, indeed; what about it?
=================
kim (20:53:15) :
Yes, indeed; what about it?
=================
Well it’s only growing in the Antarctic at present. After reaching a minimum about 2 months ago slightly below the 1979-2000 mean it’s currently about 1Mm^2 behind last year, perhaps we’ll have a second below average year?
Was that what you had in mind?
it seems media experiencing lack of knowledge management.
They should check and recheck with previous news, photos etc before they search new facts.
Thanks for internet users for double confirm action
Phil 21:17:25
Well, not exactly. I was speaking more of the Southern Sea Ice Area anomaly well above the 1979-2000 mean, and the Northern Sea Ice Area recovering toward the 1979-2000 mean, both according to Cryosphere Today. Additionally, the Arctic Sea Ice Extent, for this date is higher than for the last seven years. Yet more additionally, total ice is in Antarctica is higher than before. And you want to maximize the publicity value of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, in a known local hot spot. Why not let people know the ‘whole truth’, that what is happening at Wilkins has little relevance to the debate over global climate?
=======================================
The fact that the press recycles photos is well known. It is also known that sea ice forms in the Antarctic Ocean in the southern winter, and almost all of it melts out in the Antarctic summer. In aerial photographs, it is easy to confuse the sea ice, which is one year ice, with the ice shelf, which is multi year ice fed in part by glacial flows. It is pretty clear that many posters here have been confused about this.
In addition, the following sentence in the blog post is incorrect:
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:
The author is not looking at the picture very closely. I am not impressed.
Looking at the photo the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf has moved upward in the picture relative to the two islands. In the older picture the Wilkins ice shelf edge is a straight line connection the two islands.
In the new picture the edge if the ice shelf has moved upward and no longer touches the smaller island on the middle left of the picture. This would seem to be a substantial retreat. An that is before the breakup in 2009.
The pictures don’t show that the work of scientists, who conclude that the ice shelves in West Antarctica are breaking up, and have retreated rapidly, in recent years, is wrong.
Eric 09:52:27
Hey, glaciers calve, thus carving. And the Palmer Peninsula is a known hot spot. So what’s it all about, Alfie?
I was interested to note that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is estimated to be several hundred years old. Perhaps formed during the Little Ice Age. We have been recovering from the Little Ice Age. Perhaps that’s the meaning of this.
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