Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The record busting growth of Antarctic ice is threatening the viability of Australia’s Mawson Antarctic research station.
According to The Australian;
Satellite observations show a new daily record being set for Antarctic sea ice every day for the past two weeks. Annual records have also been broken every year for the past three years.
Rob Wooding, general manager of the Australian Antarctic Division’s Operations Branch, said expanding sea ice was now causing serious problems.
Last year, fuel supplies were flown to Australia’s Mawson base by helicopter because the harbour had failed to clear. Dr Wooding said the situation was “unsustainable”.
He said it was possible for the Aurora Australis icebreaker to break through a certain amount of sea ice to enter the harbour, and the planned capability of a replacement icebreaker would increase the ability to do this.
But conditions experienced last year of thick sea ice, with snow cover, extending out 40 to 50km could not regularly be navigated by any Antarctic resupply vessel.
“If we were to face such a situation at Mawson for three or four successive seasons, it would be unlikely that we could continue to resupply the station under the current operating model,” he said. “Unless we could find an alternative resupply strategy, questions would arise as to the ongoing viability of the station.”
You might think the rapid increase in ice contradicts previous claims that Antarctica is warming. You might be worried that if global warming continues to force massive growth in Antarctic ice, other bases might also have to consider moving. Some bases might even have to close.
Thankfully, most climate models indicate Antarctic ice is melting – we just have to wait for the observations to agree with the theory.
they should ask the ship of fools to help them with the fuel ,
The ABC in Australia could not help itself when reporting on this. The reporting was based on increasing sea-ice, but the banner on the screen was that increasing sea level was threatening Antarctic bases!
Shameless.
Brainless (and lazy)
If this “warming” keeps up, we’ll be in an ice age before you know it.
In the early to mid 19th century, ships regularly reported seeing icebergs off the south coasts of Africa and Australia, where none have been seen in the 20th century. Probably, what happened is reductions in sea ice allowed icebergs from icesheets to break free into the open ocean. This indicates to me that prior to the mid-19th century, Antarctic sea ice was considerably more extensive than the 20th century onwards, and that the SH warmed along with the NH at the end of the Little Ice Age.
It’s hard to attribute any cause for this, except natural climate cycles. And the current increases in Antarctic sea ice indicate we are returning to LIA conditions.
I figure that the farther out into the open ocean that the Antarctica sea ice forms ….. then the greater the chances are that the wind, wave and gravitational (tidal) forces will cause it to fracture off resulting in icebergs floating away.
“Professor Tony Worby, chief executive of the Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre, said expanding Antarctic sea ice had not been expected initially with climate change, but was now better understood.”
Rinse, repeat, the science is settled folks, but our esteemed Professor is just coming to a ‘better understanding’ on behalf of us all.
well good thing they built those windmills there.
I think you will find that they are only employed as hair dryers for the polar bears on holiday from the Arctic!
Charlie
There’s a very good post over at Climate etc. which demolishes the economic case for wind power (exposing the fact that it can only survive by subsidy).
The Klimatariat’s propaganda arm requires dismantling.
‘Researchers said the icy barrier being formed around the continent was due to windier conditions.
‘Scientist Tony Worby said those conditions, and consequent ice formations, were a side-effect of climate change.
“We do know that the strengthening winds around Antarctica are being driven by decreases in ozone and increases in greenhouse gasses,” he said.
“Both of those are a result of human activity.”
ABC
Reminds me of the inevitable floods in Oz after the long general drought and Tim Flannery’s pontifications that with global warmening there wouldn’t be enough rain to cause runoff and fill our dams. As one wit put it- I’m having trouble clearing away all this water to find the drought underneath Tim.
“You might think the rapid increase in ice contradicts previous claims that Antarctica is warming.”
No. One has to do with temp on the land, the other on the sea. And the amount of cold fresh water in the upper layers which freezes early. A little complicated for ya?
trafamadore,
Antarctica is not warming. Izzat a little complicated for ya?
Where is this cold fresh water coming from. Only one of Antartica’s glaciers is melting, and it’s the smallest one. For the continent as a whole, land ice is increasing.
[Well, 4 glaciers are advancing quickly. Around a continent as large as sub-Saharan Africa. .mod]
Glaciers advance most quickly when the weight on the upper reaches increases. More snow and ice
When sea water freezes the salt is left behind thereby increasing the salinity/density of the water around the new ice.
But I wonder how the purported sub-glacial fresh water sources make it out to the edge of the ice in winter — often tens of kilometers away? It would seem unlikely that glacial melt/freshwater is the source of the large increases in sea ice (unless katabatic winds push the shore ice seaward, etc.).
opluso
They do not want to answer your question – because the answers betray the false claim that fresh water is repsonsible for the huge increases the past 23 years in Antarctic sea ice area.
Not tens of kilometers from shore. The “average” Antarctic shore is right at 66-67 south. The edge of the Antarctic sea ice is “a little further” at 58-59 south at maximum, at 67-68 south at minimum – when the summer melt has FINISHED. Thus, at maximum, the edge (where the sea ice is newly freezing), when degree of latitude around the 14 million sq kilometer continent is 6-8 degrees latitude x 111 kilometers per degree. (For an average obviously. Many areas are freezing far past that “average” distance.)
And the closest areas – the areas of the ocean that would be most diluted by runoff of freshwater – are exactly the areas with the LEAST newly-freezing sea ice! That freshwater, should it actually be running off from shore glaciers – is nearly pure right at the coast, right under the glacier tip – and it is ONLY those very, very few areas where runoff freezing is actually seen. Areas that are NOTat the edge of the sea ice extents.
Trafamadore is anagram for fart aroma. Maybe that’s the answer to Antarctic ice growth – fight back with some methane and particulates.
Sorry – I meant “trafamadore” is anagram for farted aroma
I guess Turney’s Ship of Fools did a service after all. Getting the Ozzie icebreaker stuck in the Antarctic summer ice was an unwitting guinea pig test. And I mean unwitting with a dozen exclamation marks. I note the leading Antarctic researchers meeting in Hobart didn’t include the South Ozzie U “centre of excellence in climate science”. You know, you get a little mean when you have been assaulted with all this nonsense for years. Sorry.
All the CAGW computer models predicted Glooooobal Waaaarming would melt sea ice at BOTH poles…
WRONG!
Arctic sea ice flux is simply sinusoidal, roughly following the AMO/PDO 30-yr warm/cold ocean cycles. Since the current 30-yr AMO warm cycled peaked in 2007, Arctic sea ice has steadily grown, and will continue to so for the next 30+ years as the AMO approaches its next 30-yr cool cycle around 2022… The PDO entered its 30-yr cool cycle in 2005 and Arctic sea ice has been increasing on the Pacific side of the Arctic ever since…. Ooops..
Science still doesn’t understand why Antarctica sea ice is setting records, although it IS known the CAGW hypothesis was 100.000% wrong in predicting Antarctic sea ice would decrease due to CO2 induced gloooooobal waaaarming..
How much longer will the disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis be taken seriously??? NONE of its predictions are coming even CLOSE to reflecting/explaining reality.
Exactly. AGW theory is 100% wrong.
“How much longer will the disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis be taken seriously??? NONE of its predictions are coming even CLOSE to reflecting/explaining reality.”
Do keep up. You need to stop dwelling in the past and move on to a higher plane with a ‘better understanding’ of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and extreme weather. Just look out the window occasionally, watch the weather report and feel Gaia’s wrath and understand the need to sacrifice more money to placate her.
Look on the bright side. You could be a superfluous, ignorant Aztec minion.
Ah, yes… All peasants must sacrifice their lives to the goddess Gaia…
Do all peasants need to die? Can’t we just sacrifice a few virgins to appease Gaia like our ancestors did?….
97% of our ancestors agreed human sacrifice was the answer… The 3% being sacrificed didn’t much care for the idea, though… They called them “deniers”, too…
Lots of virgins in the UK green movement, largely because most of them are absolute munters!
The infinitely flexible, omnipotent “climate change” theory explains all things, and hence explains nothing.
Maybe we need to wait for a new generation of young scientists to rebel against their elders and return to science that remembers the now minor things like hypothesis, experiment, data, falsification, and so on of the apparently outdated Scientific Method we older fools learned about in school so many decades ago.
Never hear anything about Indian Ocean cycles and their effects on the planet (apart from nino/nina cycles). Does this mean that the “science is settled” on this part of the planet and it has negligible effects on world climate?
Time to call in the national guard.
Je Suis Le Vent
by Working for a Nuclear Free City
Ha ha! Classic!
This is the sort of thing that happens when you can’t remember what snow is!
It must be the revenge of Odin.
A few years ago the largest Swedish icebreaker Oden was sent to Antarctica to assist scientists with their research into global warming. In 2011 it was recalled because the warming had produced record sea ice in the Baltic and all the other breakers together couldn’t cope.
Now the research stations themselves are under threat.
Delicious, delicious irony.
OT Was I the only person to note how quickly the Met Bureau declared that we now had an El Nino. Our ABC jumped on it in a flash. No more rain this year for the east coast – allegedly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3079089/Massive-ice-shelf-Antarctica-break-without-warning-say-scientists-cause-havoc-coastlines.html
Wait…What?
Hovercraft?
Who will provide backup for misguided summer political science field trips? Call in the Americans when things go wrong.
CBC Garbage interview Amanda Lang and John Englander… If this is not state propaganda what is it?
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/World/ID/2667079521/
Mt Erebus is an active volcano in Antarctica that reaches 3,794 metres (12,448 ft) above sea level. The gasses venting from this volcano include carbon dioxide (~1.5%) as well as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. Such volcanoes are also know emitters of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids. Mt Erebus even has its own observatory and website – http://erebus.nmt.edu/index.php/volcanology/49-gas-chemistry
Imagine the tipping point when CO2 starts precipitating out of the atmosphere above Antarctica when temperatures drops below CO2’s freezing point? More and more CO2 would be taken out of the atmosphere reducing the greenhouse effect making it colder thus accelerating the removal of CO2. Then all the plants will die! Snowball earth! We’re DOOMED!
[freezing point? .mod]
“[freezing point? .mod]” If it’s good enough for Steven Goddard who am I to disagree? https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/antarctic-temperature-drops-below-the-freezing-point-of-co2/
[Noted. .mod]
Nowhere in Antarctica does the Temperature ever get lower than the freezing point of CO2 at a partial pressure corresponding to 400 ppm of the local atmospheric pressure.
CO2 freezes at around -82 deg. C ONLY at a partial pressure of CO2 about 760 mm of mercury.
Only CO2 molecules can adhere to a mass of dry ice and form more dry ice. No matter how many other molecules collide with the dry ice mass, they can never become dry ice, only CO2 molecules count.
It is all due to warm water sinking to the bottom of the Southern Ocean & pushing to the surface ice forming cold water !
Trust me ! I am a “respected” scientist mentored by “respected” scientific genius Tim Flannery !