Antarctica Has Sea Ice Rabbit Ears, a V for Victory or Maybe It's a Peace Sign?…

Looks like the mouth of a monster called Reality that is about to gobble up michael mann.

Antarctica could be sending another message aimed at Warmists. In the UK the two fingers does not mean peace or victory. It means F off. 🙂

You can’t really look at one, without looking at the other….
….and laugh
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicennowcast.gif

More likely that the Drake Passage will ice over completely in coming winters, than the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf melting, methinks.

Well, let’s see now … outside the temps are in the mid-20s with winds in the mid-20s, resulting in wind chill temps of ~10°F.
And it’s just a hint of the pending Polar Vortex II (don’t you just love the media hype).
So if for some reason I want to go outside, I need to bundle up and move quickly. Drive some where? Scrape the snow & ice off the car and wait about 10-15 minutes for the car to warm up a bit.
So, who cares about the ice … let it all melt … I’m all for a warmer world. It’s far simpler to cool off than to warm up.
Unfortunately, it ain’t gonna happen, no matter how many times Al Gore warns of gloom and doom.

From the BBC article. My comments in brackets.
The scientists compiled data from records kept at Byrd station, established by the US in the mid-1950s and located towards the centre of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS).
Previously scientists were unable to draw any conclusions from the Byrd data as the records were incomplete. [Probably meaning the existing data did not show a warming trend. We can fix that by…]
The new work used a computer model of the atmosphere and a numerical analysis method to fill in the missing observations. [And add the missing warming trend.]
The results indicate an increase of 2.4C in average annual temperature between 1958 and 2010.
“What we’re seeing is one of the strongest warming signals on Earth,” says Andrew Monaghan, a co-author and scientist at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. [Tada! Its worse than we thought!]
Unfortunately the Nature article is behind a paywall. I wouldn’t mind doing a reanalysis of their reanalysis, but I don’t care to spend the $32. Perhaps the raw Byrd data is available elsewhere.

An additional fact for justthefacts: sea ice extent doesn’t have a simple direct relationship with ocean current temperatures. It is unwise to draw conclusions about the health of an ice shelf based only on the extent of sea ice around it.
See Pine Island glacier for just one example of signs of warm ocean currents impacting the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25729750

The Wikipedia article on the “West Antarctic Ice Sheet” mostly talks about the significant and possibly catastrophic warming of the WAIS and how that would raise sea level. Most of this was around 2006-2007 but the article also adds:
That’s probably written by lieing B…………d Conneley.

I am stunned to find how many people still do not believe me when I tell them it is globally cooling. All the major global data sets are showing that earth had its maximum heat output around 1998 and that we have made the turn down since then. To be fair, I think that I made the prediction that it had started globally cooling, naturally, even before many others had become aware of it. One of the things I mentioned in my final report on what would happen, as a result, was:
“At the higher latitudes >[40] it will become progressively cooler and/or drier, from now onward, ultimately culminating in a big drought period similar to the Dust bowl drought 1932-1939. ”
So how are my predictions concerning this panning out? Well I have not yet started looking at rainfall patterns. I wish I had time for that. Paradoxically, I have noted that one may even expect to see some warming in the areas where it does get drier. What I have done now is to take a sample of ten weather stations in Alaska and look at the change in the average temperature there, over time. Here are my results:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ql5zq8&s=5#.UtwyvNL8LIV
Alaska is situated between latitudes 60 and 70 degrees. It has a number of good weather stations with reliable results. Note that 9 out of the 10 weather stations are showing a negative trend, i.e. a cooling trend. I took all the daily data from the stations indicated in the graph from 1998 until 2014, compressed to an average annual temperature. I submit that this sample of weather stations is representative for the whole of Alaska. You can also clearly see that each of the stations’ results correlate sharply with each other in term of rises and falls. I think it would be therefore be fair to take the average of the 10 slopes of the ten linear trends as representative for the whole of Alaska, and indeed, for the whole of earth’s [60-70] latitude (inland only). If we do that, I find that the temperature in Alaska and [60-70] has been dropping at an average rate of 0.55 degrees C per decade, since 1998.
This means that since 1998, average ambient temperatures in Alaska have already dropped by 0.9 degrees C. We are not even halfway through the cooling period which I predict will last until at least 2038 or 2039 (+ 5 years).
Anyone still interested in investing in the Arctic?

@crosspatch who said
“With less wind action on the surface, do we see less upwelling of deeper cold water ”
———————————–
In these areas , upwellings bring warmer waters to the surface (+4°C in the deep sea, zéro or less at surface ).due to density / temperature gradient of sea water
So you find a new tipping point : more Wind , more upwelling, more melt of sea ice , more efficiency of Wind , more upwelling etc ….
Don’t tell that to warmistas

Ok, believe it or not, I’m privy to some of those top secret NSA files that Snowden skipped town with; most of which concern the various sex … er, security breeches of the administration’s political opponents. I mean, the U.S.’s opponents.
Anyway, the most globally cataclysmic file was an NSA intercept from … ready? … Extraterrestrials. No, it wasn’t the file leaked out of Iran (you didn’t know Snowden had been there did you?) that claimed the U.S. had collaborated with Hitler and extraterrestrials way back in the days. I, alone, know that one is made up; designed to make Snowden look like an idiot at a less than circumstantial and very opportune time for Iran.
Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked (as if you didn’t notice). Anyway, the major, and most important file concerns the utter destruction of the entire planet Earth, its ecosystem, biosphere, atmosphere, everything, from … yes, Global Warming! Now, Obama did not fail to mention Climate Change on the campaign trail nor initiate work on it till after the 2012 elections for mere political purposes. No, I mean, the guy would face such a threat immediately; he just didn’t know about the seriousness till that NSA intercept came afterwards. And then, voila, Snowden skips out with that most important file in the history of humanity. So, the extraterrestrials are trying to communicate directly to all of us and our climate scientists. They were the ones that made that ‘V’ in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. It is a clear warning to Trenberth and, well, all of us that there still is heat and it’s hiding. What better place to plant that symbol than the growing ice of Antarctica? Think about that. And what does the ‘V’ tell us, you ask? It tells us where the heat is hiding. No, the heat didn’t do something stupid like breast stroke to the bottom of the ocean. Who’d believe that nonsense? No, the ‘V’ stands for Venus. Get it? The heat is hiding on the planet Venus. The extraterrestrials know this.
Phew, glad I got that off my chest. Now to relax and listen to some Ben Santer school videos.

Chad Wozniak says:
January 19, 2014 at 11:30 am
More likely that the Drake Passage will ice over completely in coming winters,….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And if that happens does the water get pushed up the coast of South America and we get more La Ninas?
It certainly looks like South American winters are getting worse or at least not getting milder. From the Weather is not Climate Department:
Winter weather (and volcanoes) for Chile from Ice Age Now
Argentina: Ice Age Now
Bolivia: Ice Age Now
Peru Ice Age Now
Brazil Ice Age Now
What was that about Children not knowing what snow was?

Leo Geiger says: @ January 19, 2014 at 12:22 pm
..Then spend a few minutes finding papers covering the research that is the source of the article.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You brought it up YOU waste your time.

Clay Marley says:
January 19, 2014 at 12:35 pm
…by building the biggest, baddest nuclear icebreaker the world has seen, capable of breaking through the ice year round.

You mean this one? GK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19576266

Does somebody know the etymology of Pine Island Antarctica ? Did pine trees grow on its beach before the glacier eroded it ?

That’s not an additional “fact”…

Keep is simple then. Is the grounding line of Pine Island glacier retreating? No computer models needed to answer that. Is it retreating while Antarctic sea ice extent has grown?
Perhaps, then, there isn’t a simple relationship between sea ice extent and what an ice shelf does.
I would be interested in knowing the source you are using to declare that sea ice extent tracks deeper ocean temperatures (not surface temperatures) along the margins of Antarctica.

Maybe Gaia isn’t as “nice” as the Greenies think…

It’s a white Rabbit. Now do a white Elephant. There looks like there’s ‘room’.

Maybe that was keeping it too simple…
Mass loss from ice shelves is primarily driven by basal melting from warm (relatively speaking) water, and to a lesser extent calving. That means basal melt rates (derived from changes in surface elevation) and calving rates would be better things to use to draw conclusions about the temperature of the deeper water (which is hard to measure directly) and the health of ice shelves.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130613.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6143/266
But apparently you believe simply looking at sea ice extent is all you need to do to declare “there are no apparent signs of the “warm ocean currents” “.
I don’t think that simple assertion has much factual support.

Latitude says:
January 19, 2014 at 11:21 am map of northern ice
The chart does not show the interior lakes of North America – the U.S. Navy isn’t going there, I suppose. Still, Lake Erie is mostly covered in ice and the other lakes catching up. It is going to be cold in the entire area for the next few days.
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/great_lakes.html

Leo Geiger says:
January 19, 2014 at 1:47 pm

That’s not an additional “fact”…

Keep is simple then. Is the grounding line of Pine Island glacier retreating? No computer models needed to answer that. Is it retreating while Antarctic sea ice extent has grown?…..

Leo, you might be interested in the following. Furthermore check out 2,200 year ago volcanic explosion spreading ash, got buried and is today causing much slip and slide.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fngeo106
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/21/new-research-sheds-light-on-antarcticas-melting-pine-island-glacier/
It must be global warming, hot, bubbling magma just cannot melt a damned thing.
http://www.livescience.com/2242-buried-volcano-discovered-antarctica.html

Do these “fingers of ice” break off and later melt or do they melt without breaking off? Would not a long ice sheet undergo stress (is that the correct word?) from tides and shoaling waves?

FWIW the Larsen B Ice Shelf appears to have regrown since it famously broke up in 2002. Of course the entire area is encased in fast ice, but there does appear to be a clear ridge where the shelf boundary is. A good image date is Dec 19, 2012.

Leo Geiger says:
January 19, 2014 at 3:01 pm
…It’s that simple, eh? But, at the same time, somehow not so simple that one would expect those warm ocean currents to impact observations of calving rates or basal melt (ice shelf elevations)…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WHAT warm ocean currents?
I think you are mixing up the Arctic that has warm water from the Gulf Stream head in its direction vs the Antarctic with its Antarctic Circumpolar Current or ‘West Wind Drift’ that completely isolates the Continent form waters from the equator.
The opening of Drake Passage at the tip of South America (Cape Horne) allowed this current that completely circles the continent to form plus the closing of the Isthmus of Panama is thought to be the geologic events that sent the earth into the present ice age.
…
From some of my recent searches:
The Cape Horn Current: “…The Cape Horn Current is a cold water current that flows west-to-east around Cape Horn. This current is caused by the intensification of the West Wind Drift as it rounds the cape….” WIKI

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the most important current in the Southern Ocean, and the only current that flows completely around the globe. The ACC, as it encircles the Antarctic continent, flows eastward through the southern portions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans…. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current’s eastward flow is driven by strong westerly winds. The average wind speed between 40°S and 60°S is 15 to 24 knots with strongest winds typically between 45°S and 55°S. Historically, the ACC has been referred to as the ‘West Wind Drift’ …
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/southern/antarctic-cp.html

From another source that I trust a heck of a lot more, Maritime Safety Information CHAPTER 31 OCEAN CURRENTS: TYPES AND CAUSES OF CURRENTS I start at the beginning of the passage which talks of the southern Atlantic. The chapter also has a map that shows that some of the cold water heads up along the west coast of South America. And it show the West Wind Drift as COLD water going round and round the continent of Antarctica.

…That branch of the South Equatorial Current which curves toward the south off the east coast of South America, follows the coast as the warm, highly-saline Brazil Current, which in some respects resembles a weak Gulf Stream. Off Uruguay it encounters the colder, less-salty Falkland or Malvinas Current forming a sharp meandering front in which eddies may form. The two currents curve toward the east to form the broad, slow-moving, South Atlantic Current in the general vicinity of the prevailing westerlies and the front dissipates somewhat. This current flows eastward to a point west of the Cape of Good Hope, where it curves northward to follow the west coast of Africa as the strong Benguela Current, augmented somewhat by part of the Agulhas Current flowing around the southern part of Africa from the Indian Ocean. As it continues northward, the current gradually widens and slows. At a point east of St. Helena Island it curves westward to continue as part of the South Equatorial Current, thus completing the counterclockwise circulation of the South Atlantic. The Benguela Current is also augmented somewhat by the West Wind Drift, a current which flows easterly around Antarctica. As the West Wind Drift flows past Cape Horn, that part in the immediate vicinity of the cape is called the Cape Horn Current. This current rounds the cape and flows in a northerly and northeasterly direction along the coast of South America as the Falkland or Malvinas Current….
During the northern hemisphere summer, a weak northern branch of the South Equatorial Current, known as the New Guinea Coastal Current, continues on toward the west and northwest along both the southern and northeastern coasts of New Guinea. The southern part flows through Torres Strait, between New Guinea and Australia, into the Arafura Sea. Here, it gradually loses its identity, part of it flowing on toward the west as part of the South Equatorial Current of the Indian Ocean, and part of it following the coast of Australia and finally joining the easterly flowing West Wind Drift. The northern part of New Guinea Coastal Current both curves in a clockwise direction to help form the Pacific Equatorial Countercurrent and off Mindanao turns southward to form a southward flowing boundary current called the Mindanao Current. During the northern hemisphere winter, the New Guinea Coastal Current may reverse direction for a few months….

A comment from Jinlum Zhang at Harris-Mann Climatology

….On Saturday, September 28, the icepack reached 19.51 million square kilometers, according to data posted on the National Snow and Ice Data Center website. That figure topped the 19.48 million square kilometers set on September 23, 2012. Records on Antarctic sea ice began in October of 1978.
According to a new study in the Journal of Climate by a University of Washington scientist, Jinlum Zhang, “strengthening and converging winds around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the puzzling increase in Antarctic sea ice.”
Zhang adds, “the polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite observations were begun in the late 1970s, but it likewise has more ‘convergence,’ meaning it shoves the sea icepacks together causing ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice while exposing surrounding open waters and thin ice to blisteringly cold winds that result in additional ice growth.”
….scientists have likewise witnessed a similar growth of the continental land ice, particularly in the eastern half of Antarctica.
Antarctic cold fronts have been pushing much farther north than usual during the winter months, sometimes actually reaching areas of South America north of the Equator.
This past winter across much of South America was one of the coldest and snowiest winter seasons on record dating back, in some cases, more than 200 years. Parts of northern Argentina, Paraguay and southeastern Brazil saw their first measurable snowfalls in at least a century. A hard freeze last month in central Argentina killed at least 22 percent of the 2013 winter wheat crop.
Australia and New Zealand likewise had colder than normal winter temperatures as did parts of South Africa, where ‘rare’ snowfalls fell in Johannesburg. Some glaciers in extreme southern Argentina and Chile, as well as in New Zealand, are showing “definite signs” of advancing after an extended period of retreat….

The actual paper: Modeling the Impact of Wind Intensification on Antarctic Sea Ice Volume

justthefactswuwt says:

Why would surface ice measurements help “draw conclusions about the temperature of the deeper water.”?

Ice shelves float. 9/10 below water, 1/10 above water. If the surface elevations are observed to decrease with time, it means the ice shelf is getting thinner below, and vice versa. Ice shelf surface measurements tell you if the bottom is melting or growing, and at what rate, which indicates basal temperature.
It is more complicated than that, but that is the general idea. Pine Island has been thinning continuously for decades. Does that count as observational evidence of warm currents?
But the real point here is that it *is* complicated. Enough so that drawing conclusions about ice shelves based on sea ice extent is a very bad idea. Consider the paper you quoted:

The thermocline in the sea adjacent to the glacier calving front (where ice is discharged) lowered by 250 meters in the austral summer of 2012. This change exposed the bottom of the ice shelf to colder surface waters rather than to the warmer, deeper layer, thereby reducing heat transfer from the ocean to the overlying ice and decreasing basal melting of the ice by more than 50% compared to 2010.

Here is the press release:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=2452
“It is not so much the ocean variability, which is modest by comparison with many parts of the ocean, but the extreme sensitivity of the ice shelf to such modest changes in ocean properties that took us by surprise…”
Consider that. On top of the decadal thinning because of the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), a change in the depth of the thermocline, in two short years, lowered the temperature enough to decrease the basal melting rate by 50%. Would your plot of sea ice extent have told you either of those things?
The reason there are “no apparent signs” is because you are looking at sea ice extent. It’s the wrong tool for the job.
I’m sorry if the Pine Island glacier example is too far removed from Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea, but it is the area I’m most familiar with.

richardscourtney says:

The ice shelves are growing, and your links each says that warm ocean currents under the ice are the major cause of “ice shelf mass loss”. Thanks for providing such clear evidence that your assertions are rubbish.

The ice shelves are growing? You wouldn’t by chance be confusing sea ice and ice shelves, would you? Not the same thing.

“….A hard freeze last month in central Argentina killed at least 22 percent of the 2013 winter wheat crop…”
Good maybe wheat in Kansas City will stay above $7.00/bushel.

How about a “Rabbit Proof Fence” at the 47th parallel South to protect Australia from the ice?

Tom J 1:01pm
You need to move to a liberal state and get into their politics — even the presidency is not beyond you. Raygun control could be your wedge issue.
You obviously had a lot of fun writing it and I had a lot of fun reading it. What more can you ask?
Eugene WR Gallun

“People think computers will keep them from making mistakes. They’re wrong. With computers you make mistakes faster.” – Adam Osborne

@jtom,
I thank you very much , I found this link which détails the mission of the USS Pine Island to Antarctica
http://www.south-pole.com/pine.htm

Richard — try to keep it civil. In the full text of the paper it says:
Surveyed ice-shelf mass loss of 287 ± 89 Gt/year in 2003–2008 (∂H/∂t) is 28 ± 9% higher than that required to maintain the ice shelves in steady state for 2003–2008.
so perhaps you can help me out and explain where you are getting “The ice shelves are growing” from.

To clarify here, would you expect to see large positive Sea Ice Extent and Area anomalies around ice shelves that were being rapidly melted from below by “warm ocean currents”?

I would expect to see *no simple relationship* between sea ice extent and melting ice shelves. Surface conditions could make a good year for sea ice while subsurface changes could weaken ice shelves in the same area, or the other way around too. Sea ice extent is a lousy proxy for ice shelf dynamics.
You have an interesting approach to deciding what papers are using valid methods:

No, but according to this…there doesn’t seem to be much loss from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf
“This” is a paper that used a climate model. In fact, it is the same author using the same general approach that in an earlier comment on a similar paper you dismissively referred to it as “another complex model and some deduction” when I used it.
At this point it sounds like you will reject any information derived from direct ice shelf measurements if it implies mass loss (but not if it doesn’t!), and won’t even accept there is such thing as warmer Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) unless I start providing links, so I’m not sure what else I can say.

Richard

I pointed out that your linked items each says the ice is reduced by “warm ocean currents”.

Ice shelves reduced by warm ocean currents. Not sea ice. The whole idea here is that what happens on the surface (sea ice) is a poor proxy for what happens at the basal melt zone of an ice shelf. I gather you think “ice is ice” so ice shelves must growing since sea ice is growing, and what happens at the ocean surface is a good proxy for everything beneath. In a world that simple, I guess you are absolutely right.

Unmentionable says: @ January 19, 2014 at 11:37 pm
“People think computers will keep them from making mistakes. They’re wrong. With computers you make mistakes faster.” – Adam Osborne
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To err is human, it take a computer to really foul things up.
NOTE:Comment cleaned-up for a family viewing audience

HenryP says: @ January 20, 2014 at 9:25 am
China, who does not believe the CAGW B. S. is doing exactly as you suggest. They are aggressively developing agriculture in Africa and South America …the case since the Mao era, self-sufficiency in staple foods is a primary objective of the Chinese Communist Party. China’s National Medium-Term Priority Framework promotes 95 percent self-sufficiency in grain (corn, wheat, and rice, specifically) in the coming decade.
Mean while idiots like Clinton and Al Gore continue to pursue their dreams of Global Governance and INTERDEPENDENCE completely blind to the fact the Chinese are laughing up their sleeves and pursuing INDEPENDENCE using the technology Clinton gave them on a gold platter.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/copeland.htm
http://www.artistmarket.com/writers/piraino/clintonchina.htm

We are living in a crazy time indeed.

Monday – 20 January 2014
New paper says climate models ‘robustly’ predicted Antarctic sea ice to decrease, but Antarctic sea ice now near record highs
A paper published today in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society notes that climate models “robustly” predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease in response to increased greenhouse gases and the ozone hole, but that the exact opposite has occurred with current Antarctic sea ice at near historical highs.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-paper-says-climate-models-robustly.html

Warmists are obsessed with the not-melting Antarctica. It’s as if they are willing it with every fibre of their being to melt catastrophically. Why can’t they just give up until something really out of the ordinary shows up – like record extents…….ah, forget that last bit. 😉

Pamela Gray says: @ January 20, 2014 at 5:05 pm
So let me get this straight….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You’ve got it correct Pam. He was completely impervious to any and all data. It was quite amazing.
I wonder if he is a graduate of Al Gore’s Climate Reality brainwashing training.

Homo-Misanthropithecus-Robustus
A lower intellectual branch of Homo Sapiens Sapiens that disappeared up a blind-alley when they missed the forest for the trees. This most withered of a branches is believed to still persist in the wild due to numerous recordings of their distinctive characteristic vocalisations which are considered to verge on incomprehensible gibberish. Although once extraordinarily abundant and widely-ranging, on all continents, except Antarctica, where they were unable to secure a foothold, they’re now formally listed as endangered, and great efforts have been undertaken to provide copious UN protection programs. Send money! Help save and protect our precious global heritage.