From a University of Leeds press release, comes this scary headline that seems to be picked up by the MSM. A Google search yields 16,400 hits on the title below.
Melting icebergs causing sea level rise
(Note: Be sure to see the reality punch line at the end of the article)
Scientists have discovered that changes in the amount of ice floating in the polar oceans are causing sea levels to rise.
The research, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, is the first assessment of how quickly floating ice is being lost today.
According to Archimedes’ principle, any floating object displaces its own weight of fluid. For example, an ice cube in a glass of water does not cause the glass to overflow as it melts.
But because sea water is warmer and more salty than floating ice, changes in the amount of this ice are having an effect on global sea levels.
The loss of floating ice is equivalent to 1.5 million Titanic-sized icebergs each year. However, the study shows that spread across the global oceans, recent losses of floating ice amount to a sea level rise of just 49 micrometers per year – about a hair’s breadth.
According to lead author Professor Andrew Shepherd, of the University of Leeds, it would be unwise to discount this signal. “Over recent decades there have been dramatic reductions in the quantity of Earth’s floating ice, including collapses of Antarctic ice shelves and the retreat of Arctic sea ice,” said Prof Shepherd.
“These changes have had major impacts on regional climate and, because oceans are expected to warm considerably over the course of the 21st century, the melting of floating ice should be considered in future assessments of sea level rise.”
Professor Shepherd and his team used a combination of satellite observations and a computer model to make their assessment. They looked at changes in the area and thickness of sea ice and ice shelves, and found that the overall signal amounts to a 742 cubic kilometres per year reduction in the volume of floating.
Because of differences in the density and temperature of ice and sea water, the net effect is to increase sea level by 2.6% of this volume, equivalent to 49 micrometers per year spread across the global oceans.
The greatest losses were due to the rapid retreat of Arctic Sea ice and to the collapse and thinning of ice shelves at the Antarctic Peninsula and in the Amundsen Sea.
For more information
To arrange an interview with Prof Andy Shepherd, contact Hannah Isom in the University of Leeds press office on 0113 343 4031 or email h.isom@leeds.ac.uk
Notes to editors
“Recent loss of floating ice and the consequent sea level contribution” by Andrew Shepherd, Duncan Wingham, David Wallis, Katharine Giles, Seymour Laxon, and Aud Venke Sundal is published this week in Geophysical Research Letters (doi:10.1029/2010GL042496).
ICE SHELVES are thick, floating platforms of ice that form where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are found mainly in Antarctica , and range from about 100 to 1000 metres in thickness.
SEA ICE is formed on the surface of sea water as the ocean freezes, and is typically less than 3 metres in thickness. It is found extensively in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and it’s extent varies considerably over the seasons.
This study was funded by the UK National Centre for Earth Observation and the Philip Leverhulme Trust.
==========================================
OK here’s the reality punch line:
Assuming their theory of 49 micrometers per year rise (this conversion equals 0.0019 inch or 0.00016 feet ) due to the differences is salty and fresh water holds true, then we can assess the threat level.
At this rate, to see an inch of sea level rise from melting icebergs we’d need:
1 inch/0.0019 inch/yr = 526 years
Yeah, I’m worried about that.
Anthony,
I have been looking at this for a few days because some paper said if all the sea ice melted the Oceans would rise by four inches or so. Sea ice is formed by freezing the ocean water. The salts are removed from the water by a process of brine rejection, thereby increasing the density of the adjacent water, which sinks. To say that when that same ice melts it raises the level of the Oceans is absolutely ludicrous.
As to melting ice bergs raising the Oceans, some one would have to prove that the net Greenland and/or Antarctic ice shelves were shrinking of which I have seen no proof.
In my physics class, one of the lessons dealt with “Trivial Considerations” such as applying E=MC2 to chemical reactions, or using General Relativity in calculations of travel times for a car or plane from one point to another. The point was to show that while you could calculate an effect, the effects were utterly trivial and down in the tenth decimal place and included a statement from the lecturer that if you wanted to show this in a exam answer, fine, but no marks.
The “Floating sea ice” paper is thus a worthy candidate for utterly trivial considerations.
Stephan says:
So Nature sees its credibility on the line and decides to jump neutral.
Better late than never.
Not so certain politicians, who will not get the memo until thoroughly rejected as voters dump them.
Survival of the fittest I suppose.
I wonder how much water is taken out for desalinization world wide.
Sean Peake – That is very thorough research. I look forward to your book(s)! Great idea to do that. Needed to be done.
In the meantime, I am in the midst of a discussion with some people and I am wondering if you recall if he actually saw any bears that he identified as grizzly bears in any of them? I have Belyea’s book of his Rockies travels so I know those journals (and his journal to the Manda villages) but I am wondering about out on the plains. Or any bears on the plains that might have been grizzlies?
(Have his Narrative (Glover) but, well, its just a narrative, though post-1789 mostly reliable).
I would like to contact you directly on this but I am a little paranoid about publishing my email address on websites…
P.S. Anthony or moderator – Sorry for being so far off topic!!!
You got the date wrong – it is the 1st of May today*, not the first of April, surely?
[*At least it is here, where we get days nice and fresh, not like the tired old used-up days we leave for the rest of the world ;-]
This article provides endless amusement!
I take it “titanic sized” is a variant on “humungous sized”. What exactly is 1.5 million of those? But the winning bit of scientific illiteracy in the article, for me, is this piece of dimensional confusion:
Come again? A LINEAR measurement is increased by 2.6% of a VOLUME???
Finally, considering that, each year the global area of sea ice varies by over 25% from maximum to minimum, even if ALL sea ice vanished completely it would affect sea level by less than 4 times what is experienced EVERY YEAR because of seasonal variations.
Sea level has been 100 meters higher and 100 meters lower. A small amout of perspective may be in order. And who is it that deems everything that is, will always be, as is, are going to be in for some huge surprises.
Change is how the universe has worked for billions of years.
And then a volcano goes off, or a meteor comes crashing the party.
Just to reinforce my point about sea ice extent, if we reached your 526 years at the current rate of melting we would have some centuries worth of NEGATIVE sea ice extent. I would sincerely like to see someone draw that for me on a globe.
*spitting my breakfast cuppa’tea all over the screen* 49 microns? How on Earth did they measure that!
Election years do tend to produce oddities.
Micron… it’s the new meter.
And if the ice is made *from* sea water, it would then offset any trivial increase by a similar amount.
And since floating sea ice worldwide is actually slightly higher than average’ they are actually showing a mechanism for decreasing rates of sea level increases.
And oh, by the way: The writers of this paper are jerks.
John Maddox, publisher emeritus of ‘Nature’ magazine, would have tossed this sort of trash right into the round file where it belongs.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/doomsday_pr.html
His most excellent book, ‘The Doomsday Syndrome’ is easily available on line:
http://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Syndrome-John-Royden-Maddox/dp/0070394288
I think it should be returned to publication. It is long past time for grownups to take science back from the loonies.
John Galt says: April 30, 2010 at 1:06 pm
“I’d say they are happening in the Arctic. Otherwise known as springtime in the northern hemisphere.”
🙂 That’s very alarming…
Actually, Arctic Sea Ice hasn’t done much melting in the last couple days;
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
and Earth’s Sea Ice Area is currently catastrophically average:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
What’s alarming is this many MSM media outlets don’t do basic research to verify the truthfulness of the content that they publish. As a result many MSM outlets are no longer trustworthy sources of the facts…
*yawns loudly*
… someone wake me up when some real science hits the floor running…
You guys have lost it!!
Prof. Shepherd has written a spoof trivializing the AGW bugga boos, melting ice and rising sea, and you have all been sucked into his joke, along with some news editors who had problems in converting metric to english measurements.
We should take this very seriously, but NOT in the way it was intended.
I refer back to the comment about the Australian ABC Catalyst TV program on much the same topic.
It took up the whole half hour which is most unusual for them.
They sent 2 reporters to the opposite ends of Anarticia to do the program.
That requires money and real planning, and for the Bureaucratic ABC, quite some elapsed time.
This is just the latest of a well orchestrated series of global scare campaigns, trying to claw back their dwindling number of true believers.
It smells of big money, and a very competent PR machine.
These types of coincident alarmist reports from opposite ends of the globe do not just happen.
Al Gored says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:44 pm
P.S. Anthony or moderator – Sorry for being so far off topic!!!
Anthony or Mods. you have my permission to release my email address to Al Gored
Sean Peake
At this rate, to see an inch of sea level rise from melting icebergs we’d need:
1 inch/0.0019 inch/yr = 526 years
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Ya, but what if you lived on the coastline? One day you’ll be walking too close to the water, and bam! You get your shoes wet!
DocWat,
I think Prof Shepherd is at least pretending to be serious. From the article:
If those august bodies see fit to pay for climate alarmism, who is Prof Shepherd to turn down their generous funding?
Who pays the piper calls the tune, and the tune is CAGW. Whether Shepherd believes it or not, he is saying what he is being paid to say, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
We really have to start building another ark. BTW, how did Noah figure out that time that there was going to be a big flood?
When do the microns of enhanced sea level encounter the next ice age if the CO2 doesn’t prevent the big freeze?
They should have put a smiley at the end of the title 🙂
Hey Sean – Thanks! Didn’t know you could do that or I would have said the same thing. Problem is, I still don’t know what that means. What I am supposed to do now?
May have been posted before, but well worth posting again:
http://www.blip.tv/file/3539174
Please, someone find out how much grant money was spent on this study.