From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), home of Schnellenhuber.
Uncorking East Antarctica yields unstoppable sea-level rise
The melting of a rather small ice volume on East Antarctica’s shore could trigger a persistent ice discharge into the ocean, resulting in unstoppable sea-level rise for thousands of years to come. This is shown in a study now published in Nature Climate Change by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The findings are based on computer simulations of the Antarctic ice flow using improved data of the ground profile underneath the ice sheet.
“East Antarctica’s Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant,” says lead-author Matthias Mengel, “once uncorked, it empties out.” The basin is the largest region of marine ice on rocky ground in East Antarctica. Currently a rim of ice at the coast holds the ice behind in place: like a cork holding back the content of a bottle. While the air over Antarctica remains cold, warming oceans can cause ice loss on the coast. Ice melting could make this relatively small cork disappear – once lost, this would trigger a long term sea-level rise of 300-400 centimeters. “The full sea-level rise would ultimately be up to 80 times bigger than the initial melting of the ice cork,” says co-author Anders Levermann.
“Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its ten times bigger counterpart in the East might also be at risk,” says Levermann, who is head of PIK’s research area Global Adaptation Strategies and a lead-author of the sea-level change chapter of the most recent scientific assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. This report, published in late September, projects Antarctica’s total sea level contribution to be up to 16 centimeters within this century. “If half of that ice loss occurred in the ice-cork region, then the discharge would begin. We have probably overestimated the stability of East Antarctica so far,” says Levermann.
Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt
Melting would make the grounding line retreat – this is where the ice on the continent meets the sea and starts to float. The rocky ground beneath the ice forms a huge inland sloping valley below sea-level. When the grounding line retreats from its current position on a ridge into the valley, the rim of the ice facing the ocean becomes higher than before. More ice is then pushed into the sea, eventually breaking off and melting. And the warmer it gets, the faster this happens.
Complete ice discharge from the affected region in East Antarctica takes five thousand to ten thousand years in the simulations. However, once started, the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty, even if climate warming stopped. “This is the underlying issue here”, says Matthias Mengel. “By emitting more and more greenhouse gases we might trigger responses now that we may not be able to stop in the future.” Such extensive sea level rise would change the face of planet Earth – coastal cities such as Mumbai, Tokyo or New York are likely to be at risk.
Article: Mengel, M., Levermann, A. (2014): Ice plug prevents irreversible discharge from East Antarctica. Nature Climate Change (online) [DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2226]
Weblink to the article: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html
==============================================================
Meanwhile…back in reality
Antarctic Sea Ice Blows Away Records In April
By Paul Homewood
Antarctic sea ice continues to set new records, with extent in April at the highest since measurements began in 1979.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Ice extent has also been above last year’s already high levels for most of this year.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Meanwhile, both GISS surface and UAH satellite datasets show the Antarctic has been much colder than usual recently.
Full story:
Good juxtaposition. –AGF
This line has my vote for the most stupid statement made by a climate scientist in 2014…
—
Complete ice discharge from the affected region in East Antarctica takes five thousand to ten thousand years in the simulations. However, once started, the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty, even if climate warming stopped. “This is the underlying issue here”, says Matthias Mengel. “By emitting more and more greenhouse gases we might trigger responses now that we may not be able to stop in the future.” Such extensive sea level rise would change the face of planet Earth – coastal cities such as Mumbai, Tokyo or New York are likely to be at risk.
—
I marvel at the COMPLETE disconnect these people have with reality. [sigh]
…now we’re back to CO2 is going to continue to heat the planet until it catches on fire
Three to four metres of sea level rise over 5000 years. Thats a disaster!
Who would publish this in face of reality other than Nature?
And if an asteroid the size of Texas were to strike, we would have global ice melt as well! Before we froze over again.
So many conditional statements, all weak links in a paper chain like you made in grade school. It would get a failing grade in logic 101.
Very sad people are making money dreaming up such carp….
Meanwhile…back in reality
So the real danger is the piling up of ice causing Antarctica to tip over?
For the sake of humanity (and various critters) someone please alert the President!
I have read BAD science fiction that had better logic chains than this sleep aid.
Not really necessary to read after it’s clear he’s working at Schellnhuber’s PIK. They make Dana & Co. look like scientists.
‘Houston, we have another dumbass problem’
“By emitting more and more greenhouse gases we might trigger responses now that we may not be able to stop in the future”. I wish I had a nickel for every weasel word written in alarmist studies, I’d be rich….
Steve Oregon says:
May 5, 2014 at 9:25 am
For the sake of humanity (and various critters) someone please alert the President!
…and that would be so he could have it hauled into a conference room where he could talk it to death?
“East Antarctica’s Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant,” says lead-author Matthias Mengel, “once uncorked, it empties out.”
Excuse me, Matthias, may I inform you that there are lots and lots of bottles that don’t require corks. May I surmise that this research could be interpreted as the result of either having to much familiarity, or only having familiarity, with bottles that do require corks.
Wonder what Tokyo will be like 5,000 years from now? Or ten.
Or it may be silly speculation based on a model of facts not in evidence, as the area in question has actually been getting colder for 55 years.
Will the melting ice keep the ocean from boiling for a few years at least?
Ok, this may not be entirely appropriate, but every time I read one of these alarmist studies I can’t help but think that climate scientists are turning into cheesy salesman, like this guy in this clip from the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJZPaQtzOAI
Your update on Antarctica ice extent plus much more.
http://www.climatenerd.com/antarctic-sea-ice-stats.php
The fact that it is -60C in Antarctica seems to have been left out of this press release, someone forgot to mention it, clearly…
Published on the Journal of Hollywood Physics, where everything is computer simulated.
Touché, Anthony!
Three to four meters of sea-level rise over 5,000-10,000 years. So in the worst case, they’re predicting an extra 4 meters in 5,000 years — i.e. 3.1 inches per century. At the low end (3 meters in 10,000 years), they’re predicting an extra 1.2 inches per century. Clearly, these “impacts” will overwhelm the adaptive capabilities of civilizations far more advanced than we can imagine.
ve haf vays of being a dumbass, ‘dummkopf’
No need to bother with this paper (The Creature From The Potsdam Institute).
Thanks for the warning (and reality snapshots).
Ha ha
😉
Makes you wonder how such a delicate little flower could have formed in the first place. Not only that, but how it can have done it multiple times. And then you have to wonder why the feedbacks are not taking advantage of our CO2 largesse and causing the very melt this paper says “could” happen.
Unless they publish their data and level of certainty they need to be defunded and removed from consideration of future funding. That goes for any “they” that can’t explain why something that “could” happen isn’t.
when i emit a green house gas it leads to uncontrollable laughing.
I think they’re on to something. I can easily see an over abundance of southern icebergs rapidly headed north crashing into coral reefs, causing untold damage to litoral marine populations. Who cares about innundating coastal communities resulting from their melted remnants?
Okay. I’ll bite. For a study like this, one would need to know what the ground heat flux profile was under the glacier in question. I’ll assume they have drilled a few test cores to measure this, testing their assumptions.
“Now, if something isn’t done in the next couple thousand years ….”
These people are certainly making some preposterous assumptions about the greenhouse gas situation way beyond the next couple of decades.
Do they really believe we’ll be driving gasoline powered cars 1000 years from now? Or even 100 years from now? If so, why?
Why don’t we just build a REALLY big cork? Hey, I can be just as dumbass. Any day.
I can only hope that when the authors read the final draft of their paper – they laughed their collective asses off.
As far as I can see in the article the claim in the title to this thread was not made, despite the quotation marks:
Claim: ‘Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt’
Taking the extremes of this horrifying extinction event forecast, sea level (might) rise at a rate of 0.03 to 0.08 centimeters per year. Clearly, we (may) be doomed.
Melting would make the grounding line retreat – this is where the ice on the continent meets the sea and starts to float.
I wonder if he means like in the 19th century.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/Iceberg.htm
In 1893 (after arriving in Nelson in September 92), the iron sailing ship “Margaret Galbraith” was homeward bound around Cape Horn. Mr. N.H. Burgess the 2nd Officer reported that from three days north of the Falklands to about one weeks sailing north of the Falklands they were “among the ice,” which culminated with a days sailing past a single giant berg “40 to 50 miles long,” The account suggest the ship may have been only making 3 to 5 knots around this time, certainly at night one would expect them to throttle back. They had a close call on first encountering the ice north of the Falklands.
It may be partly by chance that the length of this iceberg was reported because the sailing people seemed more impressed by the height of ice encountered than the extent of any particular piece. The 40 to 50 mile long berg mentioned above was reported as being 1000 ft asl at the NE end.
The 1000 ton plus iron sailing ship “Himalaya”, on a 109 day voyage from Liverpool to Wellington, departed 9, November 1894 and arrived 25, February, 1895. The captain reported seeing several icebergs off the Cape (of Good Hope) and then, “.. that from the Cape to the Crozets was a most trying time as icebergs were in sight for a distance of two thousand miles.”
Another reference to icebergs further north than “normal” is found in Basil Lubbock’s book, The Log of the “Cutty Sark”.
Starting on page 282 after recounting episodes on a voyage around Cape Horn in February when Cutty Sark encountered a large ice field (including icebergs ~20 miles long) starting north of the Falkland Islands at 50 degrees north.
there are enough weasel words in this to allow skipping of at least one year of law school….
The cork to the Wilkes Basin is where Godzilla lay frozen. If that cork melts it would change the face of planet earth.
The press release is a bit dumbed down.
This is actually an old theory. The idea is that the mass balance of an ice sheet depends on the difference between the accumulation of snow on top, and the surface area of the melt surface at the edges. If the two are constant, then the ice will either expand or contract at a fixed rate without ever stopping. They’re not constant, of course. As the ice sheet expands, its surface area increases, and therefore so does the snow accumulation. At the same time, the perimeter of the sheet expands and the height of the melt surface varies with the depth of water it is flowing into. If the water is getting deeper as you go further out from the shore, then the melt front increases rapidly in surface area and eventually grows to match the snow accumulation. If the water gets shallower as you move out from the shore, and the perimeter doesn’t change fast enough to compensate (a lot of models assume a constant width), then the situation becomes unstable, and either increases without stopping or decreases without stopping, until the geography at the edge changes.
And since there is a ridge out to sea off the Antarctic coast, it means that if the ice grounding line passes it there is the potential for the mass balance to become unstable. It depends on a bunch of other stuff, though. It assumes the precipitation on top of the ice sheet stays constant, that the horizontal length of the ice front is fixed, that the flow is uniform both spatially and over time, and no doubt some other stuff.
All this study appears to have done is put a new survey of the sea bed into a model and estimate how far the retreat would go. 3-4 m over 5000 years is about 1 mm/year, so I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, on its own. (Actually, it rather supports the anti-alarmist case, so we arguably ought to be applauding it…) And I think if Tokyo, New York, and Mumbai are still there in 5,000 years time, we’ll be doing rather well.
This has all turned into competitive science. My apocalypse is worse than your apocalypse. Well, at least it won’t wash out my golf game, I still have another 5,000 years to work on my swing.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/modern_antarctic_bases3.htm
The South Pole suffers less ice accumulation (60-80mm / 3″ per annum) than many places in Antarctica, but nonetheless there is constant addition to the level and no melt so buildings become buried over time. Wind blown snow forms drifts and tails around buildings, so the build-up can be significantly greater than the accumulation alone would imply.
cont……
The legs also allow for the whole building to be raised up to two more stories to stay clear of the snow surface in the future
Steve from Rockwood
May 5, 2014 at 10:15 am
says;
‘The cork to the Wilkes Basin is where Godzilla lay frozen. If that cork melts it would change the face of planet earth.’
Does that mean Godzilla really does exist? And, to counter that mythical creature, we should then go to an unelected, unaccountable, ravenous bureaucracy? And let that genie out of the bottle?
I don’t see the connection between the two parts of this post. In the first, they are not saying that warming in the Antarctic will trigger the flow of ice. Just as well as there is little evidence of warming. They say the trigger will be sea level rise, of which there is ample evidence for hundreds of years, though at a very slow rate.
Now back to the reality based world of observations.
Plus this
Another fact-filled article from the Journal of Geofantasy! The catastrophic demise of the East Antarctic ice sheet is not going to happen for a host of reasons, but two important ones should be enough.
1. The Antarctic ice sheet has not undergone this kind of demise since it first appeared in the Miocene, 15 million years ago. Throughout most of the Antarctic ice sheet history, global CO2 levels were 1000-2000 ppm (compared to present 400 ppm), so the miniscule rise of CO2 from ~300 to 400 ppm is an increase of only 0.010 % (peanuts compared to what it has been). So even doubling, tripling, quadrupling, or quintupling of CO2 would still be below the levels of most of the ice sheets history and the ice sheet survived those quite nicely.
2. An important reason why the Antarctic ice sheet isn’t melting (it’s actually growing!), is that Antarctica is encircled by clockwise atmospheric circulation around the entire continent that isolates it from the rest of the world. Take a look at http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-131.98,49.74,378
to see this circulation going on today.
So all the models in the world aren’t going to change the reality of the situation and are nothing but fantasy nonsense!
Back again to reality, just today we have report in that Antarctica sea ice hits a new record for this time of the year. It’s getting worse all the time as the evidence floods in. We will soon be submerged I tells ya. The end is nigh.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/antarctic-sea-ice-blows-away-records-in-april/
Der Speigel
http://notrickszone.com/2014/05/02/spiegel-on-antaractic-sea-ice-never-before-has-there-been-so-much-ice-at-this-time-of-year-since-meaurements-began/
I absolutely don;t understand why we publish any crap from Schellenhuber.
He get’s bonuses paid for all every article published on WUWT.
Just think how many forests we will have to grow and cut down to make a giant cork to solve this in the next 5,000 years! Worldwide employment and we can institute a global “cork tax”!
What could have caused this?
[Advanced apologies if I have made any typing errors as it is from an image.]
That’ll be another big steaming crock of the old ‘man-made global warming’ hooey, then.
I wish these chiefs would wind their neck in, it’s gotten really old and annoying.
Mind you, it’s not as annoying as the crapola about the 86% fall in snowpack in CA supposedly being the result of AGW.
These charlatans should be brought to book.
}:o(
” could start”
The entire alarm stands or falls on those two words. Even under the high emissions scenario, they are not sure that the ice “cork” would melt or that, once melted, the “bottle” would empty. And not just empty, but “start” to empty.
So much social and economic upheaval that is being justified on the basis of two simple words that are unprovable to be wrong or right. Amazing state the world is in: there is more actual threat deserving immediate action in an afternoon soap opera than in CAGW.
The effects of blocking the polar vortex in the vicinity of the magnetic pole are already visible in circulation over the southern polar circle.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_sh/500gz_anomalies_sh.gif
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=123.63,-56.05,418
More snow, more ice, more melt, it’s getting crazy.
Meanwhile…back in reality
What this and other studies of ice shelves and ocean terminating glaciers continue to demonstrate is that subsurface ocean temperatures and currents are important, as are the details of the geometry of the sea floor and the bedrock the ice sheet is resting on. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the dynamics of ice sheets and oceans are complex, involving things below the surface.
Referring to air temperature and sea ice extent as “reality” and using them like some kind of simple proxy when the subject of ice shelves comes up indicates this is not well understood here.
5,000 years in the future? 5,000 years ago in 3000 BC how was NYC City looking? Do these ‘scientists’ understand technology continues to advance and in 7014 AD we might have cities on Earth the Moon and Mars?
Peer Review isn’t working. We need to add Sneer Review…
Doug Proctor: there are other words: “may,” “possibly,” “might,” “if,” “perhaps,” etc.
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geophysics/science-antarctica-channels-beneath-ice-shelf-01440.html
“These channels are 250 meter high. They are almost as tall as the Eiffel tower and stretch hundreds of kilometers along the ice shelf.
The channels are likely to influence the stability of the ice shelf”
Now if i could only bottle it and sell it as”Pure Antarctica Water” i would make a fortune.
my advertising campaign would be ” buy it before the ice melts.”
“drink it before the ice melts”
If you have the time check out Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) links with big insurance. It really does explain their simulated garbage.
Steve Oregon says:
May 5, 2014 at 9:25 am
…For the sake of humanity (and various critters) someone please alert the President!
———————————-
Now that’s funny.
This is where a Like button would come in handy.
cn
I wonder how the ice-plug survived the Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO).
There are remains of HCO era seal rookeries in Antarctica located some 10km inland from the ocean. Further, the local HCO temperatures allowed continuous use of the sites nine months per year, as contrasted to three months per year at current ocean-side sites.
Cold in Wisconsin says:
May 5, 2014 at 9:40 am
Will the melting ice keep the ocean from boiling for a few years at least?
—————
We can only pray.
cn
If this could happen it would have happened during the Medieval Warm Period. Once again they have proven you can’t write a computer simulation to simulate something you don’t understand.
I appreciate the argument made by those protesting against the myriad weasel words. But those are not even the dumbest things quoted. This is the dumbest thing in the abstract “…region of marine ice on rocky ground…”
This reminds me of the epic brain fart from Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson regarding Guam capsizing:
We’re witnessing the death of logic and reason in our generation…..
I can’t can’t find the old reference to those inland rookeries. Worse, I may have mixed-up with GREENLAND. In either case, I apologize,.
Antarctica is dozens of degrees below the melting point of ice so in a mere degree or two warmer world the extra humidity will make it a more effective sea level sink, not a positive contributor, obscure models be damned.
5 to 10 thousand years. Meanwhile if I can get people to believe this alarmist rubbish my importance , salary , career and credibility ” might ” last until I no longer need them.
“The findings are based on computer simulations of the Antarctic ice flow using improved data of the ground profile underneath the ice sheet.”
Well I suppose it is a step up from the old days of chopping the head of a chicken and examining th entrails to predict the future.
But not by much.
Another “Cultist” screams in fear and rage. I wonder if he worries about how much p*ss 6 billion people add to the oceans every year? It might add up to a 3 inches a century. Scary.
“Complete ice discharge from the affected region in East Antarctica takes five thousand to ten thousand years in the simulations. However, once started, the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty, even if climate warming stopped. “”
Seriously – do the High Priests of Climate science think the no one will ask the simple question –
1) Why did the out of control warming occur beginning with any prior warming period such as the Holcene period
2) If all the methane and other green house gases escaped during prior warming periods, how did in get put back in the ground
3) Do those greenhouse gases have some internal mechanism that tells them to only release into the atmosphere if the warming is caused by Mann (oops ) Man
Some people are called experts and scholars without even having had time to learn basic ground school knowledge…. and they are stupid enough to prove their ignorance of facts. Incredible stupidity shown by the so called experts behind the claim.
Wow, this has me worried.
When was the last time that this cat’s trophy happened? How many times did it happen in the 20th Century ?
Oh! nobody has actually observed it happening yet. How tall will the tsunami wave get, when it all slides off ?
Well with any luck, the floating sea ice, will stop it from sliding off. I wonder if it will slide East or West, when it goes; probably depends on which way the tide is flowing between Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans.
Mickey Reno says:
May 5, 2014 at 11:30 am
I appreciate the argument made by those protesting against the myriad weasel words. But those are not even the dumbest things quoted. This is the dumbest thing in the abstract “…region of marine ice on rocky ground…”
Where exactly do you find that, I’ve read the abstract carefully and don’t see the passage you ‘quote’?
Caution: reading this “report” could start uncontrollable laughter, leading to asphyxia and possible death on a mass scale.
I think I saw that movie already. They need need to get a more creative script if they are going to sell tickets to their latest horror movie..
I guess that when the climate change finally dies it’s natural death there will be no shortage of new authors of horror fiction and fairy tales as warmist climate ‘scientists’ seek other employment where their talents for invention and fiction can be redeployed.
Meanwhile…back in reality
please try to understand that we are cooling from the top (latitudes) down
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
It has been cooling significantly in Alaska, at a rate of -0.55K per decade since 1998 and -1.05K per decade since 2000 (Average of ten weather stations there).
Lets pretend for a moment that the article was spot on.. pretend that sometime within the future a change will occur on Earth effecting the Antarctic that will take 5000 to 10,000 years to complete. Knowing that Antarctica was not always under ice should we not consider the fact that Antarctica will not always stay under ice? Lets not quibble about cause but point out the stupidity of the thought process that claims the Earth should remain a static unchanging place and that any evolution is dire or disastrous. Adapt or die. If you cannot adapt, you go extinct. I should hope in 10k yrs we will be a smarter race and not accept sky is falling sheeple r us thinking.
Im so sick of the agw movement. They are raping the earth in the name of the greater good, their bottom line and their deep pockets. Every solar farm that completely kills the acreage it occupies, Every wind farm that clear cuts the land and has to employ caretakers to just pick up the corpses. Every child who starves because we put food in our fuel tanks is an affront to people who really wish to be good caretakers of this Earth. ENOUGH!
Or in 5000 years sea levels could be 100 metres lower because of glaciation. Whatever happens I’m sure our descendants 5000 years from now will cope with it just fine.
Where an earth do they get their inspiration?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/mawson_irony.jpg
pkatt says:
May 5, 2014 at 12:29 pm
Every wind farm that clear cuts the land and has to employ caretakers to just pick up the corpses.
————————————————–
Germany plans to build 60,000 new wind turbines — in forests, in the foothills ……….
60,000 turbines x 45 cement mixer lorries per turbine x 20 tons of cement per lorry.
= 54,000,000 tons of cement in pristine countryside.
every wind farm is a city of concrete.
Very smart concoction, if, if, if it gets colder, you simply run the perpetual alarm model in reverse, appeal for more funds to prevent the unpreventable, Pots – damn genius!! The oceans will recede so far, commerce will fail, The great Barrier reef will become cliff tops, 50,000 polar bears will have to be relocated, the sky might fall, whatever, and the best part I wont be around to be held to account IF it doesn’t happen.
There is a cyclic pattern of climate obsessed people circulating between focal points of climate apocalypse. When focal point of fear “A” becomes thoroughly debunked, the obsessed move on to “B”, and so forth until enough time elapses for obsessive focal point “A” to have dropped out of popular memory, and then the climate obsesed will revisit “A” again, in an apparently endless cycle.
The number one cause of alarmism is publication requirements for retention and promotion. This counts.
(*¿*)
Oh the pain!
The models have taken over peoples brains again.
The rest of this comment will sum up the accuracy of virtually all model output.
They’re desperate. It’s all collapsing.
richard says:
= 54,000,000 tons of cement
= Roughly the same tonnage of planet-anihilating CO2, from production of the cement alone. By my hiroshomometer, that is the equivalent of at least 97.3 million hiroshima bombs going off, which is a travesty.
hunter says: May 5, 2014 at 12:55 pm
Thermophobia has spread so wide that no wonder the leading actors have been awarded with Nobel price and Oscar.
The UN, the World Bank, the Multilateral Development Banks and managers of the Climate Investment Funds need these kinds of doomsday scenarios wrapped up in scientific papers to justify the current and proposed enormous investment in the global ‘green economy’.
In 2012 global investment in ‘climate change’ was USD $359 billion. Of this, $135 billion, 38% was public finance and $224 billion, 62% was private finance. A similar sum was invested in 2011. Yet this is considered too little:
“The International Energy Agency projects that an additional investment of USD 5 trillion is required by 2020 for clean energy alone, to limit warming to two degrees Celsius.
“The World Bank projects we are on a path to four degree Celsius warming…”
http://climatepolicyinitiative.org/press-release/climate-change-investment-totals-usd-359-billion-worldwide/
Col Mosby says on May 5, 2014 at 10:05 am
“Why don’t we just build a REALLY big cork? Hey, I can be just as dumbass. Any day.”
= = = = = = = =
I have put in for the funding as I have a big enough basement to build/construct a “suitable” cork. (Top secret: I’ll be using 4 inch thick ply-wood) – You “wanna” come in at the start of this venture – and thus make $ £ millions? Just send a “fiver” to Santa’s grotto @ the North Pole, – Oh, I forgot, that is the opposite end to Antarctica. (But the “people” are stupid so no one will notice)
Or alternately if you want to become very – very rich; then fleece the taxpayers. Just like somebody called Al did. His full name is Ali Baba, of course.
Don Easterbrook says:
May 5, 2014 at 10:53 am
” so the miniscule rise of CO2 from ~300 to 400 ppm is an increase of only 0.010 % ”
..
Don, going from 300 to 400 is an increase of 100 ppm.
100/300 = 33%, not 0.010%
Here is what thyat irresponsible agency known as the IPCC which is prone to gross exaggeration says about Antarctic ice melt:-
“The Antarctic Ice Sheet is projected to remain too cold for widespread surface melting, and to receive increased snowfall, leading to a gain of ice. Loss of ice from the ice sheet could occur through increased ice discharge into the ocean following weakening of ice shelves by melting at the base or on the surface. In current models, the net projected contribution to sea level rise is negative for coming centuries, but it is possible that acceleration of ice discharge could become dominant, causing a net positive contribution. Owing to limited understanding of the relevant ice flow processes, there is presently no consensus on the long-term future of the ice sheet or its contribution to sea level rise.”
(Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis AR4)
As a bonus I include this question and answer:-
There is no doubt that should the Greenland ice cap melt completely there will be up to approx. 6 meters of sea level rise. What is the time period given by the IPCC in which the Greenland icecap is expected to completely melt?
The period ascribed to this event in AR4 is “millennia”, (Being the plural of “millennium”) which means at least two thousand years. (Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report)
“Except for remnant glaciers in the mountains, the Greenland Ice Sheet would largely be eliminated, raising sea level by about 7 m, if a sufficiently warm climate were maintained for millennia” (Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis AR4)
In AR5 I see they have quietly changed this to “over a millennium or more “ (AR5 Summary for policy makers P 27)
Interesting that they have almost knocked a thousand years off the melting time with some clever wording although they do not appear to be forecasting any increased rate as a result of any recent “scientific” research.
In fact the whole thing is fallacious BS. If the IPCC had anything to hang melting ice in Antarctica on its pretty obvious they would have used it. The fact they don’t means that the increasing of the Antarctic ice is too irrefutable even for them!
Of course I believe that the whole AGW thing is BS and more and more people are seeing this. But however the seed has been laid for Agenda 21 and while we are running around refuting the IPCC and their exaggerating cronies and “do gooders”, Agenda 21 is infiltrating our education, local government and legislation.
Check my blog and give me your opinion by leaving a message.
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Thanks, PIK, for the warning. /sarc
You find so many catastrophic tipping points that would make our existence so improbable it is impossible. We know we are not in the Garden of Eden, but this escalating horror show is way over the top.
“Meanwhile…back in reality”, I have some extra ice for sale, with delivery from the north or the south, at your convenience.
blueice2hotsea says:
May 5, 2014 at 11:33 am
I can’t can’t find the old reference to those inland rookeries. Worse, I may have mixed-up with GREENLAND. In either case, I apologize,.
—————————
No need to apologize! There were e.g. big sea elephant rookeries during the Holocene Climate optimum on coast regions in Antarctica where today it is much to cold and icy for rookeries. See here:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/08/04/2645375.htm
This means, Antarctica was for thousands of years much warmer than today but nothing dangerous did happen…
So just enjoy this funny and hilarious joke paper from the “Masters of Geo-Fantasy” in Potsdam… 🙂
A bit off topic, but not entirely…..
I was watching an episode of Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey last night, with Neil Tyson narrating. The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth, Episode 9, I believe. During the show Mr. Tyson was discussing the current Holocene interglacial and stated (to my best recollection) “… and this (Holocene) interglacial has another 50,000 years to run.” That gave me pause…… Did others watch this episode and perhaps note this assertion also?
My understanding is that interglacial warming periods average about 11,000 years in length, with minimum at about 7,000 years and maximum at about 17,000 length, to the best of our current knowledge. Our current Holocene interglacial is estimated to be 11,700 years in duration now, providing an estimated starting date for glaciation onset from ‘any day now’ to ‘somewhere in the next 5300 years’.
Perhaps I mis-heard what Tyson said ( but I don’t think so). Or I am mistaken about the estimated 11,000 year average length of interglacials? Is there any basis for a prediction that the Holocene has another 50,000 years of duration, before we slide back into a 90,000 year long average glaciation period?
Mac
Thanks, Mac the Knife, I thought I might have dozed off for a second and a nightmare replaced the end of the show in my mind. Maybe I just had switched to “The Horror Channel”?
Maybe, in that empty chamber in “The Hall of Extinctions” will be the cultures that believe in the CO2 scare.
The weight of all that ice compresses the landmass. The area around the Great Lakes is still decompressing (rising) thousands of year after the glaciers from the last ice age melted. My question for Antarctica is — Suppose the ice is melting, how much will the land rise and how fast will it rise? Fast enough for the rim to rise above sea level and reduce the danger?
My question is entirely academic, of course, as the doomsday scenario above just ain’t happening.
I saw this earlier, but decided a well-referenced comment would take too much time away from my current research project. In the process of that research over the last few hours, I was re-reading a paper I had already made highlights in. Interestingly enough, it just happened to contain the information I was going to have to dig up for a properly offered comment here. The paper is here:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/40693968_Probabilistic_assessment_of_sea_level_during_the_last_interglacial_stage/file/e0b4951753e120f4c7.pdf
PROBABILISTIC ASSESSMENT OF SEA LEVEL DURING THE LAST INTERGLACIAL STAGE, Robert E. Kopp, Frederik J. Simons, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Adam C. Maloof & Michael Oppenheimer, Vol 462| 17 December 2009| doi:10.1038/nature08686.
From the Discussion (Conclusions) section:
“The results of our analysis support the common hypothesis that LIG (Last InterGlacial) GSL (Global Sea Level) was above the current value, but contrary to previous estimates, we conclude that peak GSL was very likely to have exceeded 6.6m and was likely to have been above 8.0 m, though it is unlikely to have exceeded 9.4 m. The LIG was only slightly warmer than present, with polar temperatures similar to those expected under a low-end ~2C warming scenario. Nonetheless, it appears to have been associated with substantially smaller ice sheets than exist at present. Achieving GSL in excess of 6.6m higher than present is likely to have required major melting of both the Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets, an inference supported by our finding that both Northern and Southern hemisphere ice volumes are very likely to have shrunk by at least 2.5 me.s.l. (meters equivalent sea level) relative to today.”
You’d have to be a caveman not to get all of that. Not only were sea levels much higher than present during the Eemian, polar ice volumes would have been much lower, and the WAIS was indeed indicated as an agent provocateur.
It’s happened before. In fact the vast majority of evidence indicates it most recently happened at the end of the last interglacial. Not to mention throughout most of MIS-11 (details here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/the-end-holocene-or-how-to-make-out-like-a-madoff-climate-change-insurer/).
A Dead Heat to the end of the present interglacial. “We” are, in fact, competing with events that have occurred at least two documented times before. “Our” IPCC AR4 “worst case, business as usual” +0.59 M amsl sea level rise by 2099 is only 9% or the low end estimate of +6.6M amslfor the end-Eemian in this paper! Just over 6% if we use the +9.4M amsl, “we” score just over 6%.
That’s a huge anthropogenic “signal” to natural end extreme interglacial climate “noise”!!!
And what about speed of sea level rise. Kopp et al 3009 provide this:
“Our results suggest that during the interval of the LIG when sea level was above 210 m, the rate of sea level rise, averaged over 1 kyr, was very likely to have reached values of at least about 5.6m kyr but was unlikely to have exceeded 9.2m kyr. Our data do not permit us to resolve confidently rates of sea level change over shorter periods of time.”
Nature wins again. That’s +0.56m/century on the low end and +0.92m/century on the high end. And “we” are betting the farm on +0.59m/century.
The only known substitute for intelligence is stupidity.
Consider the following proof:
“Recent research has focused on MIS 11 as a possible analog for the present interglacial [e.g., Loutre and Berger, 2003; EPICA community members, 2004] because both occur during times of low eccentricity. The LR04 age model establishes that MIS 11 spans two precession cycles, with 18O values below 3.6 o/oo for 20 kyr, from 398-418 ka. In comparison, stages 9 and 5 remained below 3.6 o/oo for 13 and 12 kyr, respectively, and the Holocene interglacial has lasted 11 kyr so far. In the LR04 age model, the average LSR of 29 sites is the same from 398-418 ka as from 250-650 ka; consequently, stage 11 is unlikely to be artificially stretched. However, the June 21 insolation minimum at 65N during MIS 11 is only 489 W/m2, much less pronounced than the present minimum of 474 W/m2. In addition, current insolation values are not predicted to return to the high values of late MIS 11 for another 65 kyr. We propose that this effectively precludes a ‘double precession-cycle’ interglacial [e.g., Raymo, 1997] in the Holocene without human influence.”
Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005, A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic D18O records, Paleoceanography, Vol. 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071. http://www.350.me.uk/TR/Hansen/LisieckiRaymo_preprint.pdf
Without human influence…….. You mean like CO2? As in we would now be in glacial inception were it not for CO2? And you want to remove it, right?
Did you bump your head?
“That’s a huge anthropogenic “signal” to natural end extreme interglacial climate “noise”!!!”
Meant to say “That’s a huge anthropogenic “signal” to natural end extreme interglacial climate “noise”ratio problem!!!
====================================================================
Of course the myth is that our paltry “trigger pull” now could trigger anything that needs to be stopped. Or that we even could even if we had a time machine. (If we could erase the Industrial Revolution, what do we have other than theories that the weather or climate today would be much different?)
“Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt” – as opposed to the controllable sort we’ve had for the last 5 -10 thousand years.
Here’s the thing(s) 1. Will New York etc still be around in its current state 5 – 10 thousand years from now? and 2. When’s the end of the current interglacial scheduled?
Soooooo…he’s paid to “find” these problems and write about them…..and then we’re supposed to be surprised when he finds one that COULD be a problem IF certain unlikely things occur.
Heck, that’s a sweet job.
Phil’s Dad says:
May 5, 2014 at 5:02 pm
“When’s the end of the current interglacial scheduled?”
Pretty much right about now. Go a couple of posts up.
Cheers
And the MAIN POINT of publishing that junk science now is:
PROPAGANDA.
Arctic ice melt is underway. The Enviroprofiteer-controlled media will ignore (they’ve done it before…) that it is the Antarctic being discussed and just RUN with this:
“…. warming oceans can cause ice loss on the coast. … this would trigger a long term sea-level rise of 300-400 centimeters. ‘The full sea-level rise would ultimately be up to 80 times bigger than the initial melting of the ice cork,’ says co-author Anders Levermann.”
Okay. That’s the bad news. More propaganda.
GOOD NEWS: Nobody cares!
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
#(:))
This is almost as bad as the Cosmos series remake. Anybody else watching it? I have lost what little respect I had for Neil Degrasse Tyson.
chuck says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:16 pm
By the way, chuck, Don Easterrbrook is correct. The clue is “ppm”.
Yet again the models have correctly predicted that p will occur, where p is something alarming and requiring more funding for the models.
“…..the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty.”
I am amazed at such a stupid statement.
I refer to a link by Prof Cliff Ollier: http://ff.org/images/stories/sciencecenter/greenland_and_antarctic_in_danger_of_collapse.pdf
Andres Valencia says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Thanks, Mac the Knife, I thought I might have dozed off for a second and a nightmare replaced the end of the show in my mind. Maybe I just had switched to “The Horror Channel”?
Maybe, in that empty chamber in “The Hall of Extinctions” will be the cultures that believe in the CO2 scare.
Andres,
It did seem to be ‘long on opinionated propaganda’ and ‘short on science’, didn’t it?
Just a bit earlier in the Cosmos show, Tyson referred to a massive volcanic event in the area of Siberia, that may have contributed to the mass extinction at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods 250 million years ago. He also asserted that these massive lava outflows over ran and burned huge deposits of coal, releasing …… huge amounts of CO2 gas and radioactive elements, the pollution from coal.” (again, quoted to the best of my memory of last nights Cosmos show.) I had a vague recollection of reading of ‘flood basalt plateaus’ created by this type of vulcanism but I had never heard it related to burning massive coal deposits simultaneously…… or the assertion that it was this “coal pollution” that was the real cause of the great extinction!
I did a rather quick search and found several references on the ancient Siberian vulcanism but did not turn up anything relating it to burning huge coal deposits or the ‘radioactive coal pollution’ killing off the dinosaurs! Wonder what Hall of Extinction Mr. Tyson found that that gem in????
Mac
Okay. A few hippies in their 80’s care. Whoo, hoo.
MOST people say essentially, “{SHRUG} Meh. What — EVER. Melt happens. I feel fine. What’s for dinner?
Take heart from this NON-Fantasy-Science-Cult-mentality song!
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine)” — R.E.M.
THIS is what most people under 30 are interested in:
CARS
AND
VIDEO GAMES
by Jonathan Mann
This scare-story is too slow, and bores me. I far prefer the story that was around colleges in 1971, (and seemed a good reason to avoid getting a good job that involved working 30 years for a pension.) That story said a huge block of Antarctic Ice would slide off all at once, creating an enormous tsunami that would be world-wide.
Kids nowadays just don’t have the imagination they used to.
(The students who ignored the scare-stories and went to work retired in 2001 and have now been playing golf for over a decade.)
First check this out: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/235946467951285308/
From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research website:
The research domain “Transdisciplinary Concepts and Methods” develops climate impact research in those areas where concepts and methods are found wanting. It does so guided by stakeholder dialogues and using mathematics as a tool to meet conceptual challenges.
Our research domain focusses on the following lines of research:
The study of flows of energy and raw materials that support human societies (social metabolism) using complex and adaptive network analysis and micro-simulation modeling.
The study of structure formation in complex networks as a novel approach to model heterogeneous climate impacts and interacting social systems.
The Development of methods of nonlinear time series analysis and visualization techniques and their application to observations of the system Earth and of socio-economic data.
I thought Global Warming was causing us to freeze our asses off?
But let me see. I reckon even IF I was working alone, I COULD PROBABLY, build a 4 meter high, wall the whole way around Japan in less than 5000 years. Maybe IF I start next week, I could finish early.
Eamon.
Meanwhile I am still skiing. Guess its “Regional” 😏
For Sunshine Ski Resort at Banff
OVERNIGHT 24 HOURS 7 DAYS SETTLED BASE CUMULATIVE
3cm 5cm 42cm 220cm 861cm
OR OR OR OR OR
1½in 2in 1ft5in 7ft3in 28ft3in
For Lake Louise Ski Resort
Mountain Conditions
Mountain Conditions
Updated: 6:00 AM, Monday May 5th, 2014
3 days
59cm
Going to take my fat skis out for a run in the Pow. Enjoy the debate ….
“””””…..Eamon Butler says:
May 5, 2014 at 7:01 pm
I thought Global Warming was causing us to freeze our asses off?
But let me see. I reckon even IF I was working alone, I COULD PROBABLY, build a 4 meter high, wall the whole way around Japan in less than 5000 years. ……”””””
This is known as “The New Orleans Solution.”.
And in regard to this “solution”, New Orleans is the solute !
The height of the wall; 4 meters, in the case of your Japan plan, determines how deeply underwater the place will be, after you complete the swimming pool.
Hurricanes are known to extend thousands of meters above mean sea level, so as was demonstrated in the case of Katrina, they are more than capable of going right over the top of any wall, you want to build, and fill up the swimming pool.
So nyet on encapsulating whole countries inside bathtubs of doom !
Alarmists stupidity has been uncorked.
It’s too easy to be a dumbass.
Is Greenland jealous of Antarctica?
When I melt, you melt, we melt.
Melt not yet ye be melted.
If Antarctica melts and no one hears it, did it really melt?
Bad little melt. Wait till your ice age gets home.
If our polar caps were tropical and the equator an ice belt would there still be an Al Gore?
Why can’t the great lakes count as sea ice extent?
See. Anyone can do it.
I like to bring history into such cases.
20,000 years ago humans could walk into the Japanese islands from the Asian mainland. The sea level was that low. It was low enough so that all 4 main islands were connected by land and even into Sakhalin a dry connection existed. It allowed for the settlement of the Japanese islands by humans. Imagine how low that sea level must have been then.
And that wasn’t the first time this happened. Animals most likely came earlier, around 500,000 years ago, when the sea level was so low again, including a bridge into Korea.
And then the sea level rose. Over several thousand years, until it looked we know it today. Those cavemen really managed make quite some impressive “global warming”.
OMG! IN A COUPLE OF THOUSAND YEARS WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!! It’s time to panic!
Wait, what do you mean I won’t live 5,000 to 10,000 years?!
Someone with more time and cred than I do needs to write an alarmist piece about the *cooling* of the Antarctic. The press LOVES alarmist pieces — and cute penguin chicks. I suspect that the penguin chicks are going to be suffering greatly because of the larger ice shelf this year, perhaps decimating the penguin flocks. The liberal/green press would eat up an article about how “climate change” is hurting the penguins, and then suddenly say, “Hey — wait a second… this is because a polar ice cap is too BIG????” Their heads would explode. See data here: http://www.climatenerd.com/antarctic-sea-ice-stats.php
David Ball says:
May 5, 2014 at 5:44 pm
You are wrong.
The “ppm” is irrelevant.
If you start out with 300 staples, and end up with 400 staples, you have increased the quantity by 33%
Some German’s never learn from their history. Schnellenhuber and his freaking Institute PIK is one of them.Maybe w deal with him at the next Neurenrnberg trial.
An unimpressive announcement, certainly. But, as usual, I was puzzled by the recurring term “alarmist” employed in responding posts.
It would seem that some here consider “alarm” and “climate skeptic” to be mutually exclusive terms. This strikes me as particularly illogical, as well as ironic. While I perceive the predominant tone of postings here as smugly cynical, there is also a strong undercurrent of alarm that our economy is being damaged, perhaps irrevocably, by climate predictions based on bad science.
How is such alarm any different from that of the climate change zealots? Surely no one here is seriously suggesting that there should be no alarms, or that everyone who sounds an alarm should be derided as an “alarmist”? How then is this use of the term “alarmist” anything but a tool for ad hominem attacks on those who offer an opposing viewpoint?
It functions just like the perennial establishment favourite – “conspiracy theorist” , which governments, industry, and sundry other entrenched groupings of society employ frequently to ridicule critics or perceived enemies. It is only when the upholders of the status quo themselves perceive conspiracies that these are not considered risible.
Surely neither expression has any place in a forum that pretends to exist for scientific discussion. And that the term “alarmist” should find a happy home here is thus doubly ironic, since this is surely not a forum for supporters of the established order.
chuck says: May 6, 2014 at 4:59 am
Similarly, if you throw a needle in a haystack 10000 times heavier, how much has the composition of the haystack changed?
more soylent green
If the Antarctic ice cap melts, it appears almost certain that the land will rise some as well as you correctly state.
However the land will only rise in the vicinity of Antarctica where presumably the ocean will get shallower. Unfortunately it appears to me that the rising of the land will also contribute to an overall sea level rise from the point of view of the rest of the planet. That is there will be a double wammy.
But you bring up a valid point in that we are aware that continents and land masses have been rising since the last ice age.
One thing I have not seen is the effect of the rising of these land masses, which are well documented, being factored into calculations of predicted and past sea level rise.
Maybe this phenomena could more than explain the miniscule rises already documented?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
Here’s a quite interesting paper from Hearty (1999):
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/Coastal_Conf/PDF/COAST.PDF#page=77
Sea level has nothing to do with temperatures.
It has everything to do with geothermal, plastic crust distortion, lunar and other gravimetric/geomagnetic forces.
It is no more a measurable phenomena than are temperatures on this dynamically variable planet.
This is a NON subject for discussion and is more about justifying employment status.
George e smith says:
“So nyet on encapsulating whole countries inside bathtubs of doom !”
Go tell the hollanders that. They’ve been living in that bathtub for 400 years. And as for New Orleans, it couldn’t possibly be that the engineers in the Netherlands are more competent and/or the politicians less corrupt than in Louisiana, could it?
Only around Antarctica do the continental shelves slope upward out to sea. –AGF
William,
Yes I think the last sentence is the key one
“It is not certain when, or even if nature will play her “Wild Card”, but evidence of abrupt environmental changes during
past warm interglaciations is compelling, and merits further investigation. The possibility of ice sheet melting, collapse, and
drawdown should be seriously considered in future global warming scenarios.”
So we prepare for something that may or may not happen without even a glimmer of a date?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Hey,
Have you seen that nice stuff already? I think it may be helpful to you, check it out
gerjaison
Hey,
Have you seen that nice stuff already? I think it may be helpful to you, check it out
gerjaison
Hey,
Have you seen that nice stuff already? I think it may be helpful to you, check it out
gerjaison