New research shows projected changes in the winds circling the Antarctic may accelerate global sea level rise significantly more than previously estimated.
Changes to Antarctic winds have already been linked to southern Australia’s drying climate but now it appears they may also have a profound impact on warming ocean temperatures under the ice shelves along the coastline of West and East Antarctic.
“When we included projected Antarctic wind shifts in a detailed global ocean model, we found water up to 4°C warmer than current temperatures rose up to meet the base of the Antarctic ice shelves,” said lead author Dr Paul Spence from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS).
“The sub-surface warming revealed in this research is on average twice as large as previously estimated with almost all of coastal Antarctica affected. This relatively warm water provides a huge reservoir of melt potential right near the grounding lines of ice shelves around Antarctica. It could lead to a massive increase in the rate of ice sheet melt, with direct consequences for global sea level rise.”
Prior to this research by Dr Spence and colleagues from Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, most sea level rise studies focused on the rate of ice shelf melting due to the general warming of the ocean over large areas.
Using super computers at Australia’s National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility the researchers were able to examine the impacts of changing winds on currents down to 700m around the coastline in greater detail than ever before.
Previous global models did not adequately capture these currents and the structure of water temperatures at these depths. Unexpectedly, this more detailed approach suggests changes in Antarctic coastal winds due to climate change and their impact on coastal currents could be even more important on melting of the ice shelves than the broader warming of the ocean.
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.
“But the processes at play are quite simple, and well-resolved by the ocean model, so this has important implications for climate and sea-level projections. What is particularly concerning is how easy it is for climate change to increase the water temperatures beside Antarctic ice sheets.”
The research may help to explain a number of sudden and unexplained increases in global sea levels that occurred in the geological past.
“It is very plausible that the mechanism revealed by this research will push parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet beyond a point of no return,” said Dr Axel Timmerman, Prof of Oceanography at University of Hawaii and an IPCC lead author who has seen the paper.
“This work suggests the Antarctic ice sheets may be less stable to future climate change than previously assumed.”
Recent estimates suggest the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone could contribute 3.3 metres to long-term global sea level rise.
With both West and East Antarctica affected by the change in currents, in the future abrupt rises in sea level become more likely.
According to another of the paper’s authors, Dr Nicolas Jourdain from ARCCSS, the mechanism that leads to rapid melting may be having an impact on the Western Antarctic right now. Dr Jourdain said it may help explain why the melt rate of some of the glaciers in that region are accelerating more than scientists expected.
“Our research indicates that as global warming continues, parts of East Antarctica will also be affected by these wind-induced changes in ocean currents and temperatures,” Dr Jourdain said.
“Dramatic rises in sea level are almost inevitable if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate.”
Abstract
The southern hemisphere westerly winds have been strengthening and shifting poleward since the 1950s. This wind trend is projected to persist under continued anthropogenic forcing, but the impact of the changing winds on Antarctic coastal heat distribution remains poorly understood. Here we show that a poleward wind shift at the latitudes of the Antarctic Peninsula can produce an intense warming of subsurface coastal waters that exceeds 2 °C at 200-700 m depth. The model simulated warming results from a rapid advective heat flux induced by weakened near-shore Ekman pumping, and is associated with weakened coastal currents. This analysis shows that anthropogenically induced wind changes can dramatically increase the temperature of ocean water at ice sheet grounding lines and at the base of floating ice shelves around Antarctica, with potentially significant ramifications for global sea level rise.
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It’s a damned shame these ‘scientists’ have screwed up the science with their believe systems to the point where no one with even a shred of common sense can accept anything they say. In a normal world (read that as before ‘Global Warming’) a paper like this might at least provide food for thought and have maybe a 10% chance of being at least partially correct. But these idiots have totally destroyed their own reputations and partially that of science in general. I won’t even mention the effect they have had on (trust in) statistics and modeling.
complete Bull Shite http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/bad-news-about-rising-sea-levels-as-quickening-antarctic-winds-lead-to-faster-ice-melt-20140707-zsz3o.html
“This work suggests the Antarctic ice sheets may be less stable to future climate change than previously assumed.”
“Dramatic rises in sea level are almost inevitable if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate.”
A dead give away phrase for an alarmist standard paper
It is worse than we thought
We must reduce greenhouse gases
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.
When it comes to climate science and model projections, it would be more of a shock to me if the “science” proved itself accurate when the time arose to verify it.
For the benefit of Mr. Spence and all the other so-called climate scientists who do not know the difference:
science
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
computer model
A computer model is a computer program that is designed to simulate what might or what did happen in a situation.
Computer models are not observations and they are not experiments. While they incorporate some structure and behavior of the physical and natural world, they do not contain all or even most of it. Since are knowledge of climate is far from complete, these models must be built with massive assumptions.
Computer models are designed. The outcome is predetermined by the assumptions of the designer. This is completely different from experimentation, where the outcome occurs independent of the expectations and assumptions of the experimenter. The outcome of an actual experiment is a physical reality. The outcome of a computer model is a fiction.
Models are not science.
““When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.”
Dr. Spence – don’t you mean, “lets hope this another case where the models ARE wrong.” .???
“…may accelerate global sea level rise significantly more than previously estimated.” (in actuality it appears to be decelerating)
“…… in a detailed global ocean model, we found water up to 4°C warmer than current temperatures …..base of the Antarctic ice shelves,” said lead author(from) Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.” (Guess where: Aust Nat Uni and UNSW – I guess the Ship of Fools did do a report)
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock.”
This shows how deep they are into fantasy. “I was quite in shock when I saw Alice fall down the rabbit hole”
Once again, I am offering these scientists an opportunity to cash in on their academic expertise. After all of this research, surely they must consider themselves to be experts in their field, having knowledge and a level of understanding that transcends anything a simple-minded GED diploma sporting fool such as I could achieve. And so, based upon this gauge, http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ I am offering a $10,000 annual prize to any and all takers. In any one year period, if the gauge rises by >5mm, I will pay $10,000 and if it fails to rise by >5mm then you pay me $10,000. If the acceleration in sea level rise is real then surely I will be inundated with professional experts who want to take my money. Funny though, I’ve been making this offer for over a month and have had no takers at all.
“…the mechanism that leads to rapid melting may be having an impact on the Western Antarctic right now.”
—
How can that be when there hasn’t been any warming? I guess these scientists were so focused on their models that they missed the recent news that the melting in Western Antarctic is due to geothermal heat warming from below, not from winds, currents, or any other effects of climate change.
“But the processes at play are quite simple, and well-resolved by the ocean model”
—
Why does that statement lead me to believe that they over-simplified the “processes at play” in programming their model? The model is only as good as the theory it is based on, the programmer that designs it, and the data fed into it. Models don’t write themselves.
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock.”
—
They programmed the model to produce the results they wanted, and we’re supposed to believe they were shocked to see the results? There is nothing in this models-based study that passes the smell test. Nothing.
Looking at the Supplemental Materials it would appear that the entire intellectual edifice of this particular piece of “scientific” wonderment is premised on the foundational assumption that circumpolar winds will both shift 4 degrees South and increase in velocity by 15%. Since the paper is paywalled I wasn’t willing to pursue what logical justification they may have offered for these assumptions, but judging by the tenor of the rest of their output I am inclined to speculate that the numbers were smoothly extracted from their anal orifices.
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.
In other words, there were fist bumps all round, and the dancing of jigs.
“Dramatic rises in sea level are almost inevitable if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate.”
If antarctica was losing, instead of growing ice, I might be a bit more concerned. Bullshit always looks the same, ho hum.
“Dramatic rises in sea level are almost inevitable if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate.”
Nothing like ignoring the past. Why one would believe that gradual warming (even if that should occur), would result in “dramatic sea level rises,” is an oxymoron. Global temps have been warming for more than a century and sea level rises (which have happened at a far greater rate in the previous thousands of years) are now actually slowing down. The only thing dramatic around here is the grossly exggerated fear mongering. Now THAT’S dramatic.
Model projections based on model projections. How many more before we find one that was in a movie with Kevin Bacon? Seriously, non-scientists like me always need some editorial help; is any real science in there?
The hardest part in climate models is conservation of energy. They haven’t invented double bookkeeping yet. It’s easy to get the desired warming by having a little bit accumulate out of thin air from step to step.
““When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.”
Guy sounds like a scripted reality show actor. Government science needs better impostors.
Tom O says:
July 8, 2014 at 5:52 am
“When we first saw the results it was quite a shock. It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said. ”
This gets my vote for the most stupid words to emanate from the mouth of a scientist, evah, evah.
I suspect this paper was written to try and tie the hyped, West Antarctic melting to AGW induced winds. However, the UT/IG study came out and stole their thunder. We now know the melting is geothermal based. Of course, they couldn’t pull this paper on short notice so they are trying to BS their way around the issue in the press release. I wonder how stupid they actually feel? Given the chance I will mock these jokers any chance I get.
bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,……….. next subject please.
‘Changes to Antarctic winds have already been linked to southern Australia’s drying climate ….’
As Mike in Tassie says, what drying?
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=saus&season=0112&ave_yr=14
A little drop in the past few years but nothing like the period of drying prior to 1950. Only SW Aust shows drying – everywhere else in Aussie, rainfall has increased.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=14
Who will tell these morons to stop digging? They’re in a hole so deep already if they get any deeper they could find geothermal heat.
Antarctica is cooling. It is what it is.
Heh. Some quite careful press release writing going on there. Here’s what the write up in our green-as-grass ABC national broadcaster said yesterday.
Why, that’s just amazing. I have heard of the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW before. Not so long ago. Now where did I hear about them? Ah I remember I heard about them here at WUWT.
So much sea ice in Antarctica that a research vessel gets stuck, in summer!
Wow! Isn’t that funny. Its the very same group whose models were predicting Antarctic sea ice melting and went to Antarctica last summer, got stuck for a month, ran out of booze and had to be rescued by icebreakers.
Yes, the ‘Ship of Fools’. No wonder the press release avoids any mention of the CCRC.
Someone needs to tell these clowns that computer games do not constitute science.
Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science –now there’s an oxymoron for you.
Above all folks, particularly Australian folks, we are being forced to pay for this crap without having any input into whether we want to pay or not.
In normal life we can wander into a premises and look the potential purchase over and decide if it is of a quality and price we like. Or the counter, that it is crap and no way we would touch it.
But here, with this absolutely abysmal quality and an apparent significant deficit any discernible intellectual capabilities we are being forced to pay for science if it can be called that, that is nothing more than a total waste of whole giga gross of electrons and a whole bunch of trees.
Compounded by the gross insult to the ordinary street level citizen tax payer where if he / she wants to look at the science he / she has already paid for, they have to pay all over again to see the results of their enforced expenditure on an item, an expenditure over which they have no say or control and which is totally controlled by those same scientific insider’s Good Old Boys network.
Somewhere there has to be a radical overhaul of science funding so that the pseudo scientists who push this sort of crap out as science never get funded again.
As well it should be mandated that any science already funded from tax payer’s pockets should never be allowed to be pay walled and MUST be available in it’s totality along with ALL the supporting data and processes to anybody who wants to examine the science and who can do so without expending a red cent of his own to do so.
In short, from being a supporter of science all my life [ I was a member of a five person trustee board for some 28 years for our local large agricultural research organisation with it’s over two hundred scientists and support staff ] I have had an absolute gutsfull of the sheer fraud that is perpetuated as some sort of science today and which is turning into nothing more than a gigantic rip off of the trusting tax payers by a small groups of conmen who have managed to get themselves some letters after their name and who now try to pass themselves off a some sort of intellectual giants intent on saving the planet. All the while collecting and garnering large and munificent funds that will keep them in comfort for the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile the policies these pseudo scientific con men continuously and heavily and openly promote are all directed towards the deprivation of living standards and life styles of the ordinary citizen, never their own of course, to supposedly to “save the planet”, a deprivation directed at the very street level tax paying citizens who are forced to pay without having any say, the munificent incomes of these same pseudo science conmen.
“The research may help to explain a number of sudden and unexplained increases in global sea levels that occurred in the geological past.
“It is very plausible that the mechanism revealed by this research will push parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet beyond a point of no return,” said Dr Axel Timmerman”
Isn’t this a contradiction? It returned in the past.
“”It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong,” Dr Spence said.”
Er…science or modelling? This statement is also very cryptic – its meaning is not obvious. I’m sure he hoped nothing of the sort. These guys should write the screenplays for disaster movies.
“What is particularly concerning is how easy it is for climate change to increase the water temperatures beside Antarctic ice sheets.” Dead easy. All we need is some climate change. All we need for that is some temperature rise. I don’t know what we need for that – CO2 isn’t doing it. What else can we try to heat the world so these guys can bask in glory, and collect more grant monies.