Extreme weather phenomena called atmospheric rivers were behind intense snowstorms recorded in 2009 and 2011 in East Antarctica. The resulting snow accumulation partly offset recent ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, report researchers from KU Leuven.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow water vapour plumes stretching thousands of kilometres across the sky over vast ocean areas. They are capable of rapidly transporting large amounts of moisture around the globe and can cause devastating precipitation when they hit coastal areas.
Although atmospheric rivers are notorious for their flood-inducing impact in Europe and the Americas, their importance for Earth’s polar climate – and for global sea levels – is only now coming to light.
In this study, an international team of researchers led by Irina Gorodetskaya of KU Leuven’s Regional Climate Studies research group used a combination of advanced modelling techniques and data collected at Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth polar research station in East Antarctica’s Dronning Maud Land to produce the first ever in-depth look at how atmospheric rivers affect precipitation in Antarctica.
The researchers studied two particular instances of heavy snowfall in the East Antarctic region in detail, one in May 2009 and another in February 2011, and found that both were caused by atmospheric rivers slamming into the East Antarctic coast.
The Princess Elisabeth polar research station recorded snow accumulation equivalent to up to 5 centimetres of water for each of these weather events, good for 22 per cent of the total annual snow accumulation in those years.
The findings point to atmospheric rivers’ impressive snow-producing power. “When we looked at all the extreme weather events that took place during 2009 and 2011, we found that the nine atmospheric rivers that hit East Antarctica in those years accounted for 80 per cent of the exceptional snow accumulation at Princess Elisabeth station,” says Irina Gorodetskaya.
And this can have important consequences for Antarctica’s diminishing ice sheet. “There is a need to understand how the flow of ice within Antarctica’s ice sheet responds to warming and gain insight in atmospheric processes, cloud formation and snowfall,” adds Nicole Van Lipzig, co-author of the study and professor of geography at KU Leuven.
A separate study found that the Antarctic ice sheet has lost substantial mass in the last two decades – at an average rate of about 68 gigatons per year during the period 1992-2011.
“The unusually high snow accumulation in Dronning Maud Land in 2009 that we attributed to atmospheric rivers added around 200 gigatons of mass to Antarctica, which alone offset 15 per cent of the recent 20-year ice sheet mass loss,” says Irina Gorodetskaya.
“This study represents a significant advance in our understanding of how the global water cycle is affected by atmospheric rivers. It is the first to look at the effect of atmospheric rivers on Antarctica and to explore their role in cryospheric processes of importance to the global sea level in a changing climate,” says Martin Ralph, contributor to the study and Director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego.
“Moving forward, we aim to explore the impact of atmospheric rivers on precipitation in all Antarctic coastal areas using data records covering the longest possible time period. We want to determine exactly how this phenomenon fits into climate models,” says Irina Gorodetskaya.
“Our results should not be misinterpreted as evidence that the impacts of global warming will be small or reversed due to compensating effects. On the contrary, they confirm the potential of the Earth’s warming climate to manifest itself in anomalous regional responses. Thus, our understanding of climate change and its worldwide impact will strongly depend on climate models’ ability to capture extreme weather events, such as atmospheric rivers and the resulting anomalies in precipitation and temperature,” she concludes.
###
The study, “The role of atmospheric rivers in anomalous snow accumulation in East Antarctica”, was published recently in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors are Nicole Van Lipzig (Regional Climate Studies research group, KU Leuven), Kim Claes (KU Leuven graduate student), Maria Tsukernik (Brown University), Martin Ralph (University of California San Diego) and William Neff (University of Colorado Boulder).
And speaking of atmospheric rivers: http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-atmospheric-rivers-20150119-story.html
And now for the “money shot”:
And this can have important consequences for Antarctica’s diminishing ice sheet. “There is a need to understand how the flow of ice within Antarctica’s ice sheet responds to warming and gain insight in atmospheric processes, cloud formation and snowfall,” adds Nicole Van Lipzig, co-author of the study and professor of geography at KU Leuven.
Seems like they haven’t forgotten the refrain from their university days: “Please send money.”
Maybe when they have 60 years or so worth of quality data they can make some good conclusions.
Until then, it’s just SWAGs based on incomplete data.
(shades of: “No mon, no fun, your Son.” [could be taxpayers reply]
“Too bad, so sad, your Dad.”)
Some things never change 🙂
Thanks for the Allan Sherman memory. I was just thinking of his liberties with ” Ce c’est bon” as” I see bones”, etc.
I was in the artic between 1955 and 1978 and even at 31000 ft you could see bare strips of Victoria isle, it was always dark of course. The dark strips always ran west to east .I always though it was high winds from high altitude that caused this, not much snow on the ground at that latitude, but the dark strips were not always there, The trop was down to about 25000 ft.
“A separate study found that the Antarctic ice sheet has lost substantial mass in the last two decades – at an average rate of about 68 gigatons per year during the period 1992-2011.”
And, what does this number amount to as a % of the total ice sheet? How far right of the decimal place is it?
Those who are interested in learning (and not just wise-cracking) can read the full paper at
http://woodland.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/gorodetskaya_etal_grl2014.pdf
The original paper includes not a single mention of global warming or climate change.
The conclusion does include this: “This analysis, indicating the important role of ARs in the Antarctic ice sheet mass balance, suggests that climate models simulating Antarctic SMB require adequate representation of ARs.”
and this: “The relationship between ARs and high-accumulation events is of great importance for understanding interannual variability and trends of the total Antarctic ice sheet SMB, with implications for future SMB changes and also paleorecord interpretation.”
Note: SMB = Antarctic ice sheet surface mass balance AR = atmospheric river
The paper is damned by the press release.
Your citations from the study shows that it adds no new understanding. Oblivion for these types is the preferred end.
mpainter ==> The whole paper is only 8 pages, 1 1/2 of those are references. If you want to know anything about it, other than the tittle-tattle from most commenters here (none of whom seem to have taken the trouble to even glance at the paper), you’ll have to read it.
Don’t want to read it. Live by the press release, die by the press release.
I think that the snow accumulation in East Antarctica equated to 3cm so ±100% uncertainty. The press release says “The resulting snow accumulation partly offset recent ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, report researchers from KU Leuven.” probably to be used with any “the land ice in Antarctica is disappearing at an alarming rate due to climate change” press release in the near future.
Kip Hansen, if the paper contains no mention of Global Warming or Climate Change, why is it in the press release for the paper? Isn’t that like deceptive advertising for the paper?
The press release does a dis-service to the paper by including it as it is not in the original paper and many will dismiss the paper out of hand because of it.
Looking at the isobar plot that accompanies this article, I am struck by how large is that low pressure. The closed isobar circulation stretches from about 49S to 75S. That’s over 3,000 km. That fetch is lofting a huge amount of surface moisture into the jet stream loop headed for the Antarctic coast.
Joel ==> That’s why they call it an atmospheric river….
See the original paper.
Thanks Kip. That 4 leaf clover of isobars over the Antarctic looks very interesting.
Actually these “atmospheric rivers” (I agree it’s a silly name) do occur now and then. For example there was one in 1861-.62 that caused 45 straight days of rain (and extreme flooding) in California, sort of a Super-Pineapple Express.
Though since “they confirm the potential of the Earth’s warming climate to manifest itself in anomalous regional responses” I guess the official version now is that it never happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm
I’ve read that Global Warming will increase these AR’s and yet the strongest one recorded was just after the end of the LIA. As we have warmed into the Modern Warm Period, none have equaled the intensity of the 1861/1862 event, nor have they increased in frequency.
I guess this one falls into the bin of increased frequency and intensity of Hurricanes, Floods, Tornados, Droughts, etc.
“Our results should not be misinterpreted as evidence that the impacts of global warming will be small or reversed due to compensating effects.”
Of course not. You wouldn’t receive funding if they did!
“The findings point to atmospheric rivers’ impressive snow-producing power”. New findings???
These people are shameless.
It was all here: http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
Having read the paper, there isn’t much to object to in it. However I miss any reference to the fact that there is a major mountain range in Dronning Maud land and the probable orographic reinforcement of precipitation. I also very much miss any effort to determine the long-term variability in precipitation in East Antarctica, which would have been easy given the availability of the high-definition Law Dome core.
As a matter of fact a quick check of the accumulation rate at Law Dome (http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/10/4469/2014/cpd-10-4469-2014.pdf) shows that the accumulation rate quite regularly varies by a factor 2 between years, and that factor 4 variations occur a few times per century. Interestingly an eyeball estimation seems to indicate that variability was distinctly larger during the MWP and since c. 1750 than during the LIA.
However I tend to agree with mpainter – the paper is damned by the press release which follows a now well-established modus operandi of exaggeration and scare-mongering. This is of course quite safe since nobody in the MSM has the inclination (or probably, the ability) to read and understand the actual paper.
That is obvious when the school press releases are in far exaggeration of what is in the paper re: Climate Change, with references to Climate Change by the non-science media offices at these universities.
What comes to mind is that these PR offices are dominated by liberal educated (read: indoctrinated in Climate Change lies) such that they paint a picture that will be picked-up by the MSM, a storyline fabrication that is NOT actually in the author’s science paper.
When you consider that the Antarctica ice sheet contains about 27 Million cubic km of ice, a loss of 68 Billion tons of ice per year (68 cubic km) would take 390,000 years to melt. This is a loss of 6,800 cubic km per 100 years, which would cause the worlds oceans to raise a total 0.8 inches in the full 100 years. How this is even an issue is beyond me. Throwing big numbers around is misleading unless the full story is told.
Can we compare Apples with Apples please? If Antarctica is losing a ‘substantial’ 68 gigatons a year what percentage is that of the total 27 million billion (27 peta) tons? It’s better we compare mass with mass and not mass with volume?
So, about these asteroids.
One cubic km is 1E9 cubic meters. That volume weighs 1 gigatonne.
68 divided by 27000000 is 2.5E-6 or 2.5 ppm.
The claimed loss of 68 gigatons is bogus. The net annual Antarctic ice mass is very likely increasing. The exact amount can’t be measured accurately.
+1
So, these are unprecedented in the last 60 years and only happened a few times since the mid 1800’s based on model output and core record interpretation?
What in the end is the ultimate major contributor to mass balance of the ice sheet itself?
I like the term “substantial mass.” 68 gigatons per year sounds scary, giga something and all that. But it is only roughly 68 cubic kilometres, which doesn’t quite sound as bad. But when you then note that Antarctica contains 26,500,000 cubic km of ice, it pales into insignificance. 0.0003 percent. Or it would take 389,000 years to melt at that rate.
Like all ‘climate science’ the figures are far too accurate, are they really measuring this mass gain / loss. Again, what are the error ranges.
I just read the paper and I find it to be interesting and a good scientific contribution. However I also understand why skeptics are annoyed by the press release’s final statement “Our results should not be misinterpreted as evidence that the impacts of global warming will be small or reversed due to compensating effects. On the contrary, they confirm the potential of the Earth’s warming climate to manifest itself in anomalous regional responses. ”
First much of Antarctica is a polar desert because the extreme cold air wrings out most of the moisture before delivering snow to the interior. So the delivery of lots of moisture due to an AR helps us understand how Antarctica accumulates snow. Natural oscillations create periods of more frequent blocking Highs which could direct ARs to deliver more snow, which may indeed offset any loss of glacier ice from upwelled waters in the Amundsen Sea.
Their final press release statement looks like they feel the need to acknowledge the dominant paradigm of global warming for whatever reason and felt the requirement (their own or the editors) to prevent skeptics from using their research to argue against CO2 warming. Nonetheless their research offers absolutely no reason to believe the opposite: that any decreased SMB has been due to CO2 warming, or that the planet is warming or that AR snow fall will not reverse recent trends. Future observations will be telling and I suspect AR’s will indeed be an integral part of the mechanism that increases Antarctica’s SMB.
Jim, I also read the paper. Decided not to comment at all. Paper was interesting, and helps explain some of Antarctic ice loss contradictions noted in essay Tipping Points. Had not realized there could be this much snow this quickly in a ‘dry’ region. ‘Science by press release’ has been sufficiently debunked previously. Uninteresting, known MSM bias, and complainingnhere won’t change MSM. Several egregious examples in the new ebook. And we have the 2014 warmest ever debacle serving as this week’s example of the PR point.
BTW, can you persuade your publisher to bring out an ebook version of Landscapes. I ran out of room some years ago for more paper books. Plenty of memory on all machines, though. TY.
“The unusually high snow accumulation in Dronning Maud Land in 2009 that we attributed to atmospheric rivers added around 200 gigatons of mass to Antarctica, which alone offset 15 per cent of the recent 20-year ice sheet mass loss,” says Irina Gorodetskaya.
15% in one year.. extrapolate over the 20 year time frame.These people are being coy so they can publish.
Think nice of them and look at the numbers again.
What really going on down there?
wow, they did a study about water vapor being carried to Antarctica and dumped snow. Gosh, who’d a thought this happens… how did all the snow get there before the advent of AR’s? Must have been penguins splashing a lot …. honestly extreme weather events, like snow in Antarctica…. they have no shame…..
Bingo.
Exactly what I gleaned from the press release.
Antarctica was an ice free desert until these experts discovered the new and exciting phenomenon of Atmospheric Rivers.
Seems to me the Team ™ IPCC is not even trying anymore.
Perhaps the actual article is something new, but the press release is certainly calculated to make an interested observer go;”Why bother “.
So coming up with a “sexy’ name for the water cycle and its impact on land masses is worthy of publishing in the science journals? Seems excessively vapid.
Whatever is happening with Antarctic ice, it is nothing unusual: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/antarctica-gaining-ice-mass-and-is-not-extraordinary-compared-to-800-years-of-data/
Interesting how the surface mass balance closely tracks TSI the past 800 years. Must be coincidence.
Er…Is this good or bad?
Will Antarctic sea ice surviving the southern summer soon start increasing?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
Will it “survive” the coming Antarctic “summer” months? It is within a few days of the annual lowest point, and the “positive” Antarctic sea ice anomaly is ‘only” 60% the size of Greenland! Oh yes, it will survive, probably keep increasing in fact – but will the ever-increasing Antarctic sea ice reflect enough solar energy to push us towards cooler, more dangerous times?
Rather than your limited 6 month plot, look at this plot of Antarctic sea ice anomaly for the past two years (ALL Positive, steadily increasing since 1992, more rapidly increasing across ALL seasons of the year and across ALL ranges of Antarctic sea ice from 2.0 Mkm^2 in February to 16-17 Mkm^2 in mid-September for all months of the year since 2011.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Thanks RA – I was kind of hoping you would take the bait 🙂
Glad to help, glad to help. 8<)
So, in just one year, atmospheric rivers added enough snow mass to offset 3 years of 68 gigatons lost by melting ice sheets. But a few things are still unclear to me:
1. Were the 200 gigatons just from Dronning Maud Land alone, or were other areas in Antarctica included in that measurement?
2. Are the 200 gigatons in 2009 typical of an atmospheric river event, or was it an extreme? And how many gigatons fell in 2011 in comparison?
3. How often do atmospheric river events occur? If they happen every 2 or 3 years, and add about 200 gigatons on average, wouldn’t that just about make up for the 68 gigatons lost every year?
Good points. It may be concluded from this study that ice mass of Antarctica is increasing, if snowfall is balanced against a loss of ~70 gtonnes/yr. Could be this study has some value, after all, but contrary to what was presented by the wretched press release.
I believe you will find the estimates were derived through radar. That would be localized, but able to be extrapolated to a degree.
Antarctic ice doesn’t exist without precipitation. It takes a bunch to cover a continent to any depth over time.
“Our results should not be misinterpreted as evidence that the impacts of global warming will be small or reversed due to compensating effects. On the contrary, they confirm the potential of the Earth’s warming climate to manifest itself in anomalous regional responses. Thus, our understanding of climate change and its worldwide impact will strongly depend on climate models’ ability to capture extreme weather events, such as atmospheric rivers and the resulting anomalies in precipitation and temperature.”
Good grief. Is it one or all of the following?
1. That last part was nothing but pure street prostitution setting up another trick for more funds from the gravy train.
2. They have reverted back to the dark ages when only one thing caused everything: “It’s flooding therefore God is mad. The Sun is shining therefore God is happy.”
3. Scientifically, these people have no shame that they do not know a damn thing about proper use of observation methods, measures of statistical significance, and plausible mechanisms.
“Moving forward, we aim to explore the impact of atmospheric rivers on precipitation in all Antarctic coastal areas using data records covering the longest possible time period. We want to determine exactly how this phenomenon fits into climate models,” says Irina Gorodetskaya.
Pamela, lets see what they do. Remember, just to publish many people have to at least pay lip service to A.G.W.
Most of us were asleep at the switch when these people (agw) infested the various centers of authority. Slamming people who now have to work within it is not fair. They left bread crumbs, you just have to read carefully without seeing “red” when it comes time for them to render up their pound of flesh.
Be of good cheer
michael
My sentiments exactly.
No. I don’t buy that message at all. Far too many times that exact “play the game” thinking has led to real human and animal tragedy, including butcher medicine. Acquiescence is no innocent game when the game could end in suffering. Sorry, you will find no sympathy or empathy here.
Better NOT to publish in those journals if the price is dishonesty. Put it online at your university library, or on WUWT or CA. Hasten the death of guilty journals. I believe biased, tendentious editors are far worse than no editor. The internet is poised and ready to take up all the slack when no editor is the case.
ICESAT data showed Antarctic Ice mass was actually growing slightly at +49GT/yr….
Since ICESAT data didn’t jive with the CAGW narrative, the “scientists” now only refer to GRACE data which shows a slight loss of land ice:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/
Even the GRACE data only shows a net land ice loss of just 63GT/yr, which is hardly a “significant” loss” considering the total Antarctic Ice Mass is around 23,000,000 GT…
Let’s see…. 23,000,000GT/63GT/yr= about 365,000 years to melt Antarctica.. Oh, the humanity…. We’ll probably be in the next glaciation period within 5,000 years, so I think 360,000 years is a large buffer…
The British Halley Research Station on the coast of the Weddell Sea temperature record 1955 – 2014 shows no obvious trend:
http://climate4you.com/images/AntarcticTemperatures.gif
I have a theory.
Sometimes it snows in Antarctica.
I can’t actually prove it.
But I feel it in my water.
So, we need a page to show all the facts that refute all the lies just stated about climate change in the State of the Union by President Obama.
1. Drought graph
2. Tropical storm graph
3 18 year plus of no global warming graph
4. Global sea ice graph
5. Global snowfall graph
6. Precipitation graph
7. Extreme weather graph
8. Extreme weather fatalities graph
9. Other suggestions which show the out and out lies just stated by Obama…(I couldn’t believe my ears)
It was broadcast here in Australia just now, but only focussed on the growing economy/jobs, reduced national debt and more people insured. No mention of climate change etc.
He stated that 2014 was the warmest year on record and all the credible scientists agree among other lies.
Here is direct quote from the text of his speech:
“2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does — 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.
I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what — I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.
That’s why, over the past six years, we’ve done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it. That’s why we’ve set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history. And that’s why I will not let this Congress endanger the health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts. I am determined to make sure American leadership drives international action. In Beijing, we made an historic announcement — the United States will double the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, other nations are now stepping up, and offering hope that, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got.”
What do I tell my close friends who believe all this as gospel??
Maybe I blocked out the BS and just listened in on the real issues.
What do I tell my close friends who believe all this as gospel??
Tell them to wait a couple of decades then ask them to show us their promised thermogeddon.
These lunatics claim to prophesy the climate.
Reality will show everyone what lunatics they are.
Eventually they will be forced to climb down from their end-of-the-world gathering at the top of the hill,
and get on with the real life they have been trying to deny and escape.
Failed to include Obama’s intro to his climate change spiel:
“No challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” he warned, proceeding to launch into a three paragraph sally that included some serious mockery…
(It wasn’t in the published speech text)
If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance> … There don’t you feel better… I did notice that none of the commenters talked about it afterwards.
OMFG!: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/20/1700-private-jets-fly-to-davos-to-discuss-global-warming/
You can’t make this shit up.
Here’s another article. No mention of jets though!
https://theconversation.com/davos-delegates-dont-care-about-inequality-or-your-debt-36511