Guest post by Steven Goddard
What is Wrong with this Picture?
http://www.ogleearth.com/wissm.jpg
The picture of the Wilkins Ice Shelf cracks is itself fine, and the news media loves it so much that they recycle it every year. The problem is with the interpretation which some people continue to insist on that the ice is “melting.”
A picture is worth a thousand words, so below are a few showing what melting ice actually looks like:
Melting Arctic Ice click for larger image
Polar Bears Showing Off Some Melting Ice in August
Astute WUWT readers may recall seeing the photo above flashed around the world with captions such as “polar bears stranded” on an ice cube at sea. In one case a story even went so far as to suggest they drowned, with no facts to back up the claim. It turns out the “credited” photographer to be a fabrication, and exploitation, please follow this link to the original photographer, Amanda Byrd. See the bottom right photo.
The image was copied from the ships computer (where Byrd had downloaded the camera flash memory stick to) by another member of the shipboard research crew ( Dan Crosbie) and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by many as an example of the fate that awaits the polar bears – including Al Gore, who used the picture as huge projected backdrop in one of his highly lucrative lectures, a conference of human resource executives on March 22, 2007 in Toronto, Canada.
Gore said:
“Their habitat is melting,” “beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.”
Audience: [gasp!]
Yes, it melts every summer.
Melting ice is dark, corroded, irregular, wet, thin and rough. Yet the Wilkins picture shows none of those features. The cracked Wilkins Ice is bright, smooth, dry – and has sharp, clean fractures at 90 degree angles to the surface. Nothing in that picture even remotely hints at melting. The interstitial sea water is very cold and is quickly refreezing in the cracks.
NSIDC’s Ted Scambos has proposed a mechanism for ice sheet breakup, where pooling water on the surface seeps down into small cracks in the ice and causes fracturing as the water refreezes.
However, there is no evidence of pooling water on the surface in the Wilkins image above, and it does not sound plausible as a mechanism for making a clean crack 200 metres thick and miles long.
A generally pro-AGW 2005 paper published by the University of Chicago may shed some light on what is really going on with the ice shelves. Ice shelf retreat is cyclical, normal, has little long-term effect, and may happen faster in the winter. What does that have to do with CO2?
Historical records show that large tabular bergs are produced sporadically with typical recurrence times of 50-100 years [Budd, 1966] and despite their large size, appear to have little effect on the long-term ice flow. Unlike the disintegration of parts of the peninsular ice shelves, the production of tabular bergs is part of a normal cycle in which the ice shelf advances beyond its confining embaymentor pinning points and subsequently retreats by calving.
….
Despite this prominent role we know very little about the mechanisms and controlling forces that lead to rift initiation and propagation. This ignorance hinders any attempt to assess accurately how ice sheets will respond to future climate change.
…..
However, two of the three bursts did occur within three days of periods of sustained winds (shaded part of Figure 2c), suggesting there might be some relationship with prolonged winds. If this were the case, we would expect the rift would propagate faster in the winter when the winds are strongest
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~jbassis/2004GL022048.pdf
Note the authors’ usage of “Unlike the disintegration of parts of the peninsular ice shelves” in the first paragraph. Why does ice on the Antarctic Peninsula behave differently? Perhaps it has become an AGW sacred cow. It is the only place on the continent behaving according to expectations.
The excess area of Antarctic ice is enough to contain more than five Floridas.
Note that the positive ice anomaly is greater now than it was any time prior to 1995. However, 1n 1980 the anomaly was nearly 3,000,000 km2 squared lower – i.e. there was enough ice loss in 1980 (relative to the present) to contain about one third of Europe. Sea ice and cold go hand in hand. Perhaps we need a new term for Antarctic cooling deniers? Something like “Ozone Holers.”
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It’s not a claim, Robert Bateman. Remember – the debate is over. We are now talking about a religion, and the things they are saying about ice, global sea ice, the Arctic, the Antarctic, etc. are doctrines to be enshrined forever in the holy book of some future IPCC report and/or computer model run and to be chanted in every media report as if they were the Rosary. It’s never been about science. It’s always been about control, and the fastest way to that is through religion. Anyone who has studied history knows that.
Alex,
The excess ice tends to be hundreds of miles away from the shoreline, particularly in the Weddell Sea. It doesn’t have much to do with glaciers or snow.
Actual physical mechanism: Add sand to the pile, it will surely spread according to it’s angle of repose.
Add ice from increased snowfall in Antarctica, it will surely spread outward from the deepest points according to the angle of repose. It does not need warmer temps to do this. Neither does sand, or any other material.
When it reaches the sea, and it starts shoving on the sea ice, the sea ice must give way to the greater mass, ergo it cracks.
The behavior of the sea ice does not influence the depth of inland ice beyond making room for the irresitable force to vent itself.
Now then, how’s about some real numbers?
Tell us the mass of the sea ice, and the mass of the ice sheet.
Who’s the boss and by what magnitude?
Steven: You would think from the AGW agenda that models cause ice to crack 8,000 miles distant. Or that speeches in Congress decree rifts in ice.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Adam from Kansas (10:05:09) :
The undoctored photo of the polar bears may at first look the same but the origional had one of the polar bears milling about like it wasn’t asking for help or was scared of being on that piece of ice,
The “doctored” photo shows part of the ice “sculpture” that the “undoctored” photo crops out. One cannot be just a photoshop of the other. Maybe there’s a larger, common source. Maybe the original source had multiple images.
Following the “Alaska Stock” link below the “undoctored” photo, yields both images. (Search on “bears.”)
There was much hysteria to the fracture in the Wilkins iceshelf. It would be interesting to track the movement of the affected ice mass over the next few months. My guess… It gets trapped by rapidly freezing sea ice and remains close to it’s original point of fracture.
Steven, it might be interesting to check it periodically if it can be tracked.
I don’t get it… Why then is this precise shelf breaking down, as was predicted more than 30 years ago as a consequence of global warming? Same holds for LarsenB, etc. All the shelves that were supposed to disappear first have done it – Wilkins is the last one standing.
I agree shelf formation and disappearance must follow some cycle. But isn’t the conincidence a bit.. surprising?
Flanagan (14:35:50) – Do you have a source for those predictions and the arguments on which they were based? Do you have any longer historical perspective on those ice sheets size and whether or not they have receded and grown in the past?
Flanagan, This shelf (and others)have broken down and reformed since ice began to form at the pole. How is this all of a sudden a coincidence? Site your 30 year old reference. Do you really the believe the stuff you are typing? Any more crap like this and I will stop reading your posts altogether. Your arguments are getting more and more irrational. I have yet to see you successfully defend any of your postings. Most everyone here has ripped you a new one, yet you still don’t get it. Are you a masochist? I know you are not stupid as you write very well. Why can you not accept that AGW has failed miserably? It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. Do you have the stones?
The BBC had an article about the discovery of massive, slow-motion “ice quakes” trembling twice a day through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It was apparently caused by ice scraping over a ridge. Cannot find the article now.
In addition here is a YouTube clip of a C17 landing on ice in the Antarctic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exR0-NSsM44
Add tidal movement repeatedly flexing the ice and the ice shelves as a structure are likely to develop fatigue fractures. Is this an unreasonable assumption?
You touched on a point that I think is very important but often ignored – the Wilkins Ice Shelf is up to 200 metres thick! When you look at those pictures you have to remember that only about 15% is above water. As you say, it’s clear that the ice shelf is cracking, not melting.
Arn Riewe (13:44:31) :
There was much hysteria to the fracture in the Wilkins iceshelf. It would be interesting to track the movement of the affected ice mass over the next few months. My guess… It gets trapped by rapidly freezing sea ice and remains close to it’s original point of fracture.
It’s much more than a simple fracture, over a few days the ‘pinning point’ of Charcot island was lost and now the ‘pinning point’ for the ice shelf is about 30 miles further S at Latady island. Your guess is not much of a prediction since winter is approaching, however with the exception of the very large bergs the rest of the debris will move away (and melt) quickly in the spring and summer (as at the Larsen B).
The importance of pinning points is discussed here:
“A Simple Law for Ice-Shelf Calving”
Richard B. Alley, Huw J. Horgan, Ian Joughin, Kurt M. Cuffey, Todd K. Dupont, Byron R. Parizek, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Jeremy Bassis
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/322/5906/1344.pdf
The Wilkins Ice Shelf ice appears to be broken by wind. It is not likely the result of melting, as it would be rounded, honeycombed, and floating in water like the Arctic ice picture. Much more likely it was the result of winds pushing the ice around.
As a fan of Tesla, I know that his boundary layer turbine was capable of immense power in a small size. This same boundary layer theory, super sized, would have the wind creating immense forces on the ice. As oscillations like the AMO and PDO change, the wind currents will change and break the ice. In the case of the Arctic, it is flushing it out to the east and into warmer water. Apparently in the case of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, it is cracking it and pushing it inland.
Isn’t it obvious a chain is only as strong as its weakest link?
Hope that chunk of ice comes here, pulled along by the Humboldt´s current it´s a still too hot an autumm 🙂
The other interesting thing to notice is that the media is totally ignorant of how the recent ice bergs/slabs calving off the ice shelf rank in comparison to historical events.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762511425/iceberg.html
The largest iceberg ever sighted was 335 km (208 mi) long and 97 km (60 mi) wide, (32495 km^2) about the size of Belgium. It was sighted in November 1956 by the crew of a United States Coast Guard icebreaker in the Ross Sea, off Antarctica.
Iceberg B-9 (1987) 154 km by 35 km (5390 km ^2) calved away from Antarctica
Iceberg B-15 (March 2000), The Ross ice shelf calved off iceberg B-15 which broke up into several pieces in 2000, 2002 and 2003, the largest of which, B-15A, was the world’s largest free floating object at 27 x 122 km (17 x 76 mi) with an area of 3,100 km^2V (1,200 mi², approximately the size of Luxembourg). In November 2003, after the separation from B-15J iceberg, B-15A drifted away from Ross Island on the open waters of the Ross Sea.
Iceberg C-19 (May 2002) C-19 is an iceberg that calved from the Ross Ice Shelf on May 2002 on a fissure scientists had been watching since the 1980s. After that the Ross Ice Shelf returned to the size it was in 1911, when it was mapped by Robert F. Scott’s party.
Note the biggest “observed” on record dates from 53 years ago!
This berg was an order of magnitude larger in surface extent than B15 in March 2000, and it calved off during an acknowledged cooling period.
When viewed in context of the Nov 1956 berg recent events are pretty ho-hum all things considered. Even more important is that the 1956 berg is simply the largest ever observed (prior to satellite data) we have no clue how often these large events occur in a historical sense, given the lack of travel and observation into this area prior to modern times.
Larry
RayB (17:42:19) :
The Wilkins Ice Shelf ice appears to be broken by wind. It is not likely the result of melting, as it would be rounded, honeycombed, and floating in water like the Arctic ice picture. Much more likely it was the result of winds pushing the ice around.
There’s more than one way to melt, melting from below thins the ice thus making it more prone to fracture, especially if it detaches from subsurface pinning points.
Phildot
“melting from below thins the ice”
Compare the thickness of the ice with that in the Arctic and then wonder why even some first-year ice survives summer–otherwise where would second-year ice come from.
I think Antarctic shelf ice is simply too big to not fail.
Thanks Steven
One can only conclude that the growing sea ice extent in Antartica is seen as a great threat to AGW philosophy by it’s deciples !
First, we have the manipulated temperature anomoly data presented in an attempt to hide the real cooling trend. Now we have pictures of ice shelf cracking to distract the public from the rapidly growing sea ice extent.
As to the root cause of the Wilkins ice shelf crack…? It’s obviously not melting. A more plausible theory is that Al Gore visited there recently and tried walking on the shelf !
Oh, yes I can give a reference to what I mentioned:
“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
They’re all gone now… These ones, and not other ones… Why? Coincidences?
Maybe you will keep reading my posts then :0)
Flanagan,
“dangerous warming is beginning in Antarctica”
Yes we see that at Vostok. Averaging -97F this week
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/89606/2009/4/27/WeeklyHistory.html
Steve: are you actually suggesting taking temperatures dutring one week disproves the breakup of 10000 years old ice shelves over a few decades?
Moreover, the max temperature today has been -50 centigrades (from weatherunderground) while the average for April is -60.3 centigrades
http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/vostok.temps.html
So we’re actually 10 degrees above average… Any comment?
Flanagan (05:26:47)
There are new ones every year, and there will always be, provided there is a continuos production of ice behind(kind of an automatic ice cube’s machine, as somebody said here). The antarctica peninsula temperatures (being closer to the equator), during summer, are currently above zero at noon (up to 2°C), as the temperatures in the Florida peninsula (in the USA,and, also, being closer to the equator) are by far higher than in the rest of the USA.
Check also the currents of the pacific sea: warm waters go south to “refresh” there, and then go up along the southamerican coasts, already refreshed, as the cold humboldt’s current . Did you get it?
Yes, the media IS addicted to melt. Apparently in the clearly mistaken belief that aside from their handlers’ insistence, this is a path to increased revenue. Unfortunately, the shrieking fear-monger industry is stumbling like a drunken sailor. e.g. Gannett:
http://tinyurl.com/cm63lb
With ad revenues plunging and subscribers leaving in droves – you would think these businessmen would consider it might be their content no one’s interested in. Funny how WUWT has soaring hits, and the MSM is tanking faster than glacial calving. Now, experimentally, what if NBC or (!) CNN, ran a daily segment on AGW skepticism? What would the numbers tell us after 120 days?