From the Australian
Ice shelves stable over six years
ANTARCTIC ice shelves are showing no sign of climate change, six years of unique research have shown.
Previously on WUWT we discussed the media’s fascination with “melt” when it comes to ice shelves cracking off. Then there’s also this picture that keeps getting recycled. Now there’s the “ice listeners” that hear no change. (see my note at the end)
http://www.ogleearth.com/wissm.jpg
Here’s the article in the Australian
Scientists from Western Australia’s Curtin University of Technology are using acoustic sensors developed to support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to listen for the sound of icebergs breaking away from the giant ice sheets of the south pole.
“More than six years of observation has not revealed any significant climatic trends,” CUT associate professor Alexander Gavrilov said yesterday.
Professor Gavrilov and PhD student Binghui Li are investigating whether it is possible to detect and monitor significant changes in the disintegration rate of the Antarctic ice shelf by monitoring the noise of ice breaking.
The pair are using two acoustic stations, one 150km off Cape Leeuwin, the southwest tip of WA, and another off the gigantic US military base on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean.
“They are part of a network of underwater acoustic receivers, or hydrophones,” Dr Gavrilov told The Australian yesterday.
The stations have been used to locate nuclear explosions detonated by India.
More than 100 signals from Antarctica are detected weekly by the Cape Leeuwin station. They are then transmitted to Geoscience Australia in Canberra.
“Six years of results is not long in the scheme of things, so we will keep watching,” Dr Gavrilov said.
The pair will present their research at a conference in Europe later this month.
NOTE: While the science on this is questionable at this point, one should note that if the results went the other way, our valiant media would no doubt trumpet the news worldwide. No doubt we’d see catchy headlines like “Ice whisperers hear climate change in the Antarctic” – Anthony
Not completely on-topic, but not, I hope, completely off either.
The masters of Newspeak have apparently decided that ‘climate change’ is to be substituted for ‘global warming’, such a substitution having, for propaganda purposes, the distinct advantage of not being falsifiable. But surely there is a problem in basic logic involved here. The proposition ‘Global warming is causing typical weather patterns (i.e. ‘climate) to change’ is at least a formally legitimate causal statement. ‘Climate change is causing the climate to change’ is a tautology.
In other words, ‘global warming’ could be a causal term; ‘climate change’ is purely a descriptive one.
Re; Jersey hailstorm.
Thirty miles north of me, unfortunately. By the time that micro-event reached this far south, all that was left was a dismal, breeze-chilled quarter inch of rain. It was the chilliest 60 degree reading I can remember, especially since no more than an hour previous I had been comfortably basking in the sun in a t-shirt. This June, 70 degrees for an hour passes for a heat-wave around here.
Please note, by the way, that for me, as a rabid weather-weenie, the word ‘dismal’ has a perversely positive meaning.
The USA is doomed
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5inRFaXp8ixkgLSc-zVGV8FwGGDSQD98S1JU80
New US climate report dire, but offers hope
By SETH BORENSTEIN – 52 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rising sea levels, sweltering temperatures, deeper droughts, and heavier downpours — global warming’s serious effects are already here and getting worse, the Obama administration warned on Tuesday in the grimmest, most urgent language on climate change ever to come out of any White House.
The “major disruptions” already taking place will only increase as warming continues, the authors wrote. The world’s average temperature may rise by as much as 11.5 degrees by the end of the century, the report said. And the U.S. average temperature could go even higher than that, Karl said.
Glug (09:16:38) :
Not sure you can expect a meaningful or significant trend from 6 years of data, but that’s never stopped you before.
Glug (09:16:38) :
Not sure you can expect a meaningful or significant trend from 6 years of data, but that’s never stopped you before.
The breaking up of an ice shelf is a very short term event but that hasn’t stopped the AGW crowd from claiming it as a significant indication of AGW before.
If no trend is observed over 6 years that proves that any trend that does exist is not strong enough to overcome natural variation/weather/noise over a 6 year period.
The stronger the trend the shorter the time period it can be detected on. The longer the time period with no trend observed, the lower the limit on the strongest possible trend becomes.
Also I would guess that if the ice sheets are gradually shrinking or growing, then no trend in the noise levels would be detected if the shrinking or growth rate stays the same.
This looks like a good way to remotely monitor what’s going on in the most inhospitable place on our planet.
It will be interesting to see how much publicity this neutral report gets, as it failed to mention AGW.
It seems to me that the phrase “settled science” is the most obvious example of an oxymoron out there. In fact it should probably be referred to as a carbomoron.
I’ve had my ear to the ground for a couple of years and it sounds colder to me.
Of course as always I could be wrong.
Mike
Arthur Glass,
AGW it was, AGW it is, and we should not let the AGW community slip out for a name change just because of the inconvenience of their being wrong about the warming.
I urge all skeptics to continue to call this social movement for what it is – Anthropogenic Global *Warming* (AGW). We should not permit them a name change just to keep it unfair.
At the south pole, no one can hear ice melt.
(Apologies to Ridley Scott).
Glaciers do make noise as they move. Incorporated in the ice are rocks of all sizes and they scrape and gouge and polish the underlying bedrock at the interface. Cracking ice makes noise. If the signals being recorded can be separated and identified then the sensors may be able to alert researchers that something has happened or is happening. That might be helpful. As to CAGW, they might just as well stick their thumb in a cherry pie and hope for a eureka moment.
Waiting and listening for ice to crack – gives new meaning to the phrase “Doing Time…”
“Ice whisperers hear climate change in the Antarctic” – Anthony
Seems like that if this cooling continues there will be more ice which will make for more calving. They will be hearing more cracking and seeing more icebergs.
Of course then they’ll tell us it is temporary and global warming will be with us for decades and centuries. But who will be listening to them at that point?
David L. Hagen (13:43:04) :
David, thanks for the interesting links.
With respect to jeez’ post, both long-range acoustic tomography and propagation of sound through the stratified ocean are still active areas of research. 😉
I never said it wasn’t continuing, but there was a temporary glitch in funding for some USSR military research programs around 1989 or so for mysterious and hard to elucidate reasons.
George E. Smith (10:58:02) :
Terrabytes? Don’t you mean hydrobytes? Or Terabytes? 🙂
Your typo about “cosmetic rays” was cute too, but I tend to pounce on Terrabytes. Sorry. Even people who aren’t talking about Earth Sciences come up with that.
If warming is causing the mass balance of the glaciers on Antarctica and Greenland to melt or speed up, then there should be an increase in the size and number of icebergs.
The pro-AGW crowd thinks an ice-shelf never calved an iceberg before now or that glaciers didn’t actually flow into the ocean until the great global warming of the 1980s.
I don’t think there is any data showing an increase in the number of icebergs or ice-shelf calving events (and the Titanic did sink after hitting a perfectly normal iceberg well before the great global warming occurred).
OT (moderators please delete as needed)
I just read an interesting piece by James Buchal at the First Annual Northwest Water Law Symposium, Lewis & Clark Law School, January 31, 2009. His presentation on the politics of science within the realm of water and fish management is amazingly akin to much of what we see published about global climate change under the guise of “science”.
Thought it might interest some.
http://bainbridgeshorelinehomeowners.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/how-government-destroyed-science/
OT – but you have to laugh (it’s too cold to cry).
Here in New Zealand the capital city, Wellington, has a front page article in their leading daily newspaper (The Dominion-Post) titled, “Polar Fleece,” featuring a photo of a heavily wooled sheep covered in snow.
The second paragraph states, “Snow and ice closed roads, schools and airports as an ARCTIC (my emphasis) blast swept up the country yesterday – and MetService says there is more to come this weekend.”
I suspect, looking at my atlas, that this Arctic blast would have had to have spread down over Europe & Africa before passing over the the South Pole to have turned up as a southerly in our neck of the woods. Boy this climate stuff is real confusing!
“William (13:20:58) :
What is the sound of no ice cracking?
or
If an iceberg doesn’t break off, will Al Gore still hear a splash?”
It certainly won’t be ice he’ll hear breaking off for the splashdown.
“Ian Cooper (17:54:53) :
OT – but you have to laugh (it’s too cold to cry).
Here in New Zealand the capital city, Wellington, has a front page article in their leading daily newspaper (The Dominion-Post) titled, “Polar Fleece,” featuring a photo of a heavily wooled sheep covered in snow.
The second paragraph states, “Snow and ice closed roads, schools and airports as an ARCTIC (my emphasis) blast swept up the country yesterday – and MetService says there is more to come this weekend.”
I suspect, looking at my atlas, that this Arctic blast would have had to have spread down over Europe & Africa before passing over the the South Pole to have turned up as a southerly in our neck of the woods. Boy this climate stuff is real confusing!”
For this *arctic* (LOL) blast to have swept up New Zealand it would have had to flow south over Alaska/Russia/China/Fiji etc to get to little old Nuh Zilund.
arc·tic (ärktk, ärtk), adj.: Extremely cold; frigid. See Synonyms at cold.
“”” Ric Werme (17:28:32) :
George E. Smith (10:58:02) :
Just think how many gigabytes/terrabytes of totally useless data on random depth ocean water temperature measurements, ….
Terrabytes? Don’t you mean hydrobytes? Or Terabytes? 🙂
Your typo about “cosmetic rays” was cute too, but I tend to pounce on Terrabytes. Sorry. Even people who aren’t talking about Earth Sciences come up with that. “””
Trouble with you Ric, is you are just too Eagle eye.
I put those little grains of salt in to keep Charles the Moderator happy; we sometimes annoy him accidently so he needs some cheering up.
Besides you know what white knuckle fliers say; “The further I get from the firma, the more the terra ! ”
George
Reply: Terrable. ~ charles the (moderne spelling always use lower case) moderator
As Murray Walker used to say “What am I saying?”.
Open mouth, change foot, d’oh! 15 years living downunder, I still get confused about certain things.
“”” jeez (17:27:26) :
I never said it wasn’t continuing, but there was a temporary glitch in funding for some USSR military research programs around 1989 or so for mysterious and hard to elucidate reasons. “””
Something to do with Humpty Dumpty and a wall as I recall; anyway, at least a wall.