From the POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
The warmer the higher: Sea-level rise from Filchner-Ronne ice in Antarctica
The more ice is melted of the Antarctic Filchner-Ronne shelf, the more ice flows into the ocean and the more the region contributes to global sea-level rise. While this might seem obvious, it is no matter of course for the huge ice masses of Antarctica: parts of the ice continent are characterized by instabilities that, once triggered, can lead to persistent ice discharge into the ocean even without a further increase of warming – resulting in unstoppable long-term sea-level rise. In the Filchner-Ronne region however, ice-loss will likely not show such behavior, scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research now found. Published in Nature Climate Change, their study shows that in this area the ice flow into the ocean increases just constantly with the heat provided by the ocean over time.
“While for other parts of Antarctica unstoppable long-term ice loss might be provoked by a single warming pulse, caused by nature itself or human action, ice loss in the Filchner-Ronne region increases directly with ocean warming,” lead author Matthias Mengel explains. “This is good news, because it is in our hands to determine how much the region contributes to the global sea-level rise.” Ocean warming results from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, produced by humankind’s unabated burning of coal, oil and gas. Importantly, however, the oceans might not respond linearly to atmospheric warming, and not in the same way in all parts of the world. This includes the risk that ocean temperatures first lag behind, and then rise rapidly.
“Good news” yet only compared to other parts of the ice continent
The Filchner-Ronne shelf covers an area bigger than Germany; its grounded-ice tributaries store water equivalent to a total of several meters of sea-level rise. “Our calculations show that this relatively small part of the Antarctic ice sheet within just 200 years of unabated climate change could contribute up to 40 centimeters to global sea-level rise,” says Mengel. “This kind of sea-level rise alone could already be enough to bring coastal cities like Hamburg into serious difficulties.”
“At present, most Antarctic ice shelves are surrounded by cold water masses near the freezing point,” co-author Anders Levermann says. “The topography around the ice continent acts as a barrier for heat and salt exchange with the northern warmer and saltier water masses, creating a cold water wall around the continent.” Projections of the breakdown of this front in ocean simulations for the Filchner-Ronne region under atmospheric warming raised concerns that such ocean instability might lead to unstoppable future ice loss also from this part of Antarctica, as is projected to occur in the Wilkes Basin region, for instance. “We found that this is not the case for the Filchner-Ronne shelf – which luckily means that we can still very well limit the ice loss in this area by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.”
Different mechanisms in different regions
Sea-level rise poses a challenge to coastal regions worldwide. While today sea-level rise is mainly caused by thermal expansion of the warming oceans, and by the melting of mountain glaciers, the major contributors to long-term future sea-level rise are expected to be Greenland and Antarctica with their vast ice sheets. The causes of ice loss differ greatly between the two. While on Greenland ice melting at the surface plays a large role, the Antarctic ice sheet loses almost all its ice through ice flow into the ocean. The simulation of the Antarctic ice flow is complex because the flow can become unstable. Ice shelves, the floating extensions of the ice sheet, can act as a break to the ice flow and inhibit instability. Warming oceans around Antarctica that melt the ice shelves therefore increase the risk of high sea-level rise.
The Parallel Ice Sheet Model, as used by the authors, resolves unstable grounding line retreat and simulates the flow of both the ice sheet and the ice shelves. It can therefore help to answer urgent questions as to the extent of Antarctica’s sea-level risks.
“It is more difficult to determine the risk that comes with global warming in parts of Antarctica that are considered unstable, and less difficult for the Filchner-Ronne region that responds linearly to global warming,” concludes Levermann. “One thing is clear: the more warming we cause by burning coal, gas and oil, the more expensive it will be for coastal regions to adapt.”
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Article: Mengel, M., Feldmann, J., Levermann, A. (2015): Linear sea-level response of Antarctic tributaries to strong projected ocean warming underneath the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf.Nature Climate Change (Advance Online Publication) [DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2808]
Link to the article once it is published: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2808
Link to a previous study on the Wilkes Bassin ice plug: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/archive/2014/uncorking-east-antarctica-yields-unstoppable-sea-level-rise?set_language=en
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Marcus is correct.
Antarctica temperatures are far below freezing, and they are not rising. At all. Therefore, Antarctic ice is steadily increasing:
Since the Antarctic contains ≈ten times (10X) more ice than the Arctic, even though the Arctic has seen some decline, global ice cover is near its long term average:
The shaded part above is one Standard Deviation (SD). Within 2 SD is considered normal. Currently, global ice cover is a bit below average. But last year global ice was well above average, in fact, sea ice set several all time high records in 2014, for example:
“Ice” is the last desperate claim of the alarmist crowd. Every other scary prediction they made has turned out to be flat wrong. But since Arctic ice declined for a few years (mostly 2006 – 2012), they cling to the “ice” narrative like a drowning man clings to a toothpick.
But they’re only half right, about half the globe: Arctic ice did decline for a while. Now it is recovering.
Of course, being half right means being all wrong. Sort of like a drop of poop in a milkshake. So whenever I see someone wringing their hands over “ice”, I get a mental image of them being terrified by what amounts to a ghost story around a campfire. But if some folks need something to worry about, I suppose worrying about natural fluctuations in the polar ice cycle will do as well as anything.
I prefer to be ” terrified ” of EMP attacks , Solar Flares , Asteroid hits or all out Nuclear war !!!! Maybe even the switching of the magnetic poles….or getting hit by a car tomorrow !!!!
The catastrophe of the melting ice.
Because a world with less acreage to freeze to death on is just not worth having.
Your Antarctic graph is a year out-of-date. The sea-ice dropped below average a couple of months ago, and has been below average for most of the time since.
And as for the recovery in the Arctic ice – it is currently 32 per cent below average, and the second lowest in the whole satellite record for 5th October. Not much of a recovery.
It is worse than we thought.
Richard Barraclough,
Yes, it’s the chart from 2014. I explained that when I posted the chart:
“…last year global ice was well above average, in fact, sea ice set several all time high records in 2014…”
As for your statement that Arctic ice is 32% below its average (since only 1979?), let me point out that Arctic sea ice has had the earliest minimum on record this year, and it showed record growth in September.
Arctic ice thickness has increased by 40% during the past 5 years:
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst-9.png
The graph above begins in 1979-80, when global T was coming out of a cooling cycle. Naturally, polar ice will be higher then. So you will understand if I am not the least bit worried about what is obviously nothing more than a natural fluctuation in global ice.
Yes – all the figures are unfortunately only since 1979, since there are no readily accessible daily figures before that. So all sea-ice averages, extremes, daily records, etc. refer to the last 36 years.
According to the figures which can be downloaded from “Cryosphere Today”, the average date for the Arctic minimum is 10th September, with an average of 4.72 million sq. km.
This year bottomed out on 9th September at 3.09 million.
In 2005, the minimum was on 31st August
The averages for sea ice gain in September are
Start 4.80 million
End 5.38 million
Gain 0.58 million
This year
Start 3.32 million
End 3.85 million
Gain 0.53 million
So perhaps you are getting your “earliest minimum” and “greatest gain” information from somewhere else? I have no idea whether there are competing sites for Arctic ice which show different figures.
Just another Frankenstein Monster from the Pot in time for Halloween.
Ha ha
Where’s the part in the story about another model predicting unstoppable sea-level rise?
“Ocean warming results from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, produced by humankind’s unabated burning of coal, oil and gas.”
Excuse me, and I’m not a scientist here, but I thought the sun was responsible for–or at least a significant contributor to–ocean warming. If I’m right about that, where do these people keep getting the idea from that humanity’s use of fossil fuels is doing it–or at least a sizable chunk of it?
Model only speculation which claims it is worse than we thought, is climate ‘ science’ the easiest subject to study in all of history. Given you never need to reflect reality and no matter how rubbish your approach any old BS from models is good enough?
This absolutely, irrefutably and undeniably proves…GIGO is REAL !!!!!
In other words..Garbage In = Garbage Out !!!
Ice growth in the Antarctic in October.
Are these the same scientists who are punching each other out, after a few drinks?
Scientists in Antarctica drink so much they get into fights and it’s a growing problem
Office of the Inspector General conducted a health and safety audit of U.S. bases last year
National Science Foundation officials in Antarctica told auditors drinking has created ‘unpredictable behavior’ that has led to fights
They also it has ‘indecent exposure and employees arriving to work under the influence’
NSF is considering deploying breathalyzers to the continent in order to enforce new teetotaling mandate from Washington
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3261062/Scientists-Antarctica-drink-fights-s-growing-problem.html
Now THAT could account for a lot!
The solution might be to go the Colorado route:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/upshot/alcohol-or-marijuana-a-pediatrician-faces-the-question.html?_r=0
I like to look on the bright side. With the “rising sea levels” that *could* happen, we may finally be able to find those formerly hidden sea monsters of ancient lore, since they will subsequently also be theoretically closer to the surface. Megalodon, Kraken?
This is scientifically incorrect.
With rising sea levels the oceans will be deeper.
Hence, on average, the monsters will have more range in which to dive.
And therefore, on average they will tend to lurk at a proportionally greater depth.
It’s time that people commenting on this blog got the science of sea monsters correct.
I’m tired of all the unsupported and unreferenced speculation.
Dear Indefetagiblefrog–science, schmience, don’t confuse me with facts –I took my sea science cue from those “97%” people . Besides, I have it on good authority from the Weekly World news (pretty close to The Guardian and the NYT as far as content goes), quoting “a” scientist!
Study by PIK published in Nature… Says it all.
There has been some imprecision in the comment thread. The waxing and waning of seasonal sea ice may or may not be a signal of AGW polar amplification. But it has nothing to do with SLR thanks to Archimedes principle. Melting ice cubes in a glass of water do not cause the water level to change. The Ronne/fitchner is grounded below sea level. So it can raise sealevel if it melts or ‘slides off’. It cannot slide because locked to that big rocky Island (James Ross Island)on the post map, and to a lot of rocky features on the ice floor. It either has to melt, or calve off icebergs. It cannot melt at Antarctic temperatures. That leaves iceberg calving at the sea face undercut by oceanwater. Which is happening, and likely what the model accelerates. But according to NASA, measured first by ERS and then by ICESat, the Ronne/Fitchner overall is gaining between 8 and 20 Gt of ice per year annually since 1998. It isn’t losing anything. Plus, an ice core from Fletcher Propmontory shows it was also stable during the entire warmerEemian interglacial, just as ANDRILL showed Ross to have been. There was more ice loss then than now; Emmian peaked about 6 meters higher than now over about 3000 years, a rate of SLR of 20cm/century.that includes everything (greenland, EAIS, WAIS, thermosteric rise). Shows how divorced from reality the Potsdam model is. Essays Tipping Points and By Land or by Sea give all the scientific references.
+100
TY. You are on the east or west coast of Florida? I am on the east coast, except when not. Regards.
Schellnhuber is concerned about the future of Potsdam funding, even with the aid of the false prophet?
Soon to be renamed the Hotdam Institute.
sorry for the off-topic but i was looking for a link that someday in the past got posted here with a website containing all the failed predictions so far and i just can’t remember the name of that website, if someone could help me out i would be very grateful!
Theses links will help:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/10/failed-climate-predictions-gets-a-website/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/quote-of-the-week-mckibben-calls-for-a-climate-strike-while-an-msnbc-poll-goes-horribly-wrong/#comment-1604216
the first one is exactly what i was looking for, thank you very much.
You’re welcome.
I quote:
” Projections of the breakdown of this front in ocean simulations for the Filchner-Ronne region under atmospheric warming raised concerns that such ocean instability might lead to unstoppable future ice loss also from this part of Antarctica,”
First, we have a model again. None of their models since the beginning of IPCC have been any good. Second,they talk of instability from atmospheric warming. Apparently the lack of warming for the last 18 years has made no impression on them. May I suggest that they look outside first before they construct any models that predict warming? It is well known that up-welling of warm water under the ice has periodically caused WAIS ice shelf collapse. This record of ice sheet collapses is found in the sediments that have accumulated in the Ross Sea. They start in the Pleistocene, with the most recent collapse about 1,500 years ago. If the authors weren’t non-readers they could have gotten this information frpm my book. The Antarctic continent is isolated from the rest of the world ocean by the circum-Antarctic current. It is the coming into existence of this cold current that caused it to ice over. Prior to that it had an ecosystem that included flora and fauna in a forested environment. All these facts could have come out in a peer review that is evidently absent. It is just like Nature Climate Change to publish papers that meet their ideological criterion without bothering to inconvenience the authors with a peer review.
Very O.T. sorry I just thought UN scandals worth speaking of.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/10/06/us-investigating-alleged-united-nations-bribery-scheme/
michael
Another article on ‘Sea Level’ that is impossible to measure.
See HERE—
One of my favourites.
Well I am selling kayaks that fits in your living room, The flood comes and no problem, you hop in the kayak and there you go paddling to dry land. Kayak comes with a free Michael Mann compass. Life vest and paddle is extra.
For global warming enthusiasts, a must have. Go to to http://www.foolsgoldkayaks.com for more info – have your credit card ready.
Alx – I will help you with a promotion.
I plan to kayak to the North Pole next September, once the ice is gone. Do you want to be a corporate sponsor? I will use your kayak.
The previous interglacial period, the Eemian, was warmer than this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels yet CO2 levels were lower than today The cause is the sun and the oceans.. The climate change we have been experiencing is well within the real of natural variability and there is nothing that Man can do to change it
The AGW conjecture is just too flawed to support. For those who believe in the radiant greenhouse effect, the idea is that increases in CO2, because of CO2’s LWIR absorption bands, is suppose to cause an increase in the radiant thermal insulation properties of the troposphere causing a restriction in heat energy flow causing warming at the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere and cooling in the upper atmosphere because that is how insulation works. The effect is small because there is so little CO2. We are talking jsut .o4%. To make the effect seem more significant the AGW conjecture adds the idea that H2O provides a positive feedback to changes in CO2 because warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes more warming because H2O is also a greenhouse gas. That is where the AGW conjecture ends but that is not all what happens. Besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is also a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere transporting heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. More heat energy is moved by H2O by phase change then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. Then one must also consider clouds and what is happening in the upper atmosphere. When everything is added together the feedback must be negative and not positive. This negative feedback must operate to mitigate any effect that CO2 might have on climate, not increase it. Negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here.
A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping, so called, greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect. So to on Earth. The Earth does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping greenhouse gases. The surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be because gravity limits cooling by convection. It is this convective greenhouse effect, as derived from first principals, that keeps the Earth warm and accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no room for an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The convective greenhouse effect is evident on all planets in our solar system with thick atmospheres. Even Venus, with an atmosphere that is more than 90 times as massive as the Earth’s and with a CO2 percentage of more than 96%, has no evidence of an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The high temperatures on the surface of Venus can all be accounted for by the planet’s proximity to the sun and the planet’s very thick atmosphere. The AGW conjecture neglects the fact that good absorbers are also good radiators and that heat transfer by convection dominates over heat transfer by radiation in the troposphere. CO2’s LWIR absorption bands do not really add any thermal insulation effect in the troposphere. It is all a matter of physics. If CO2 really affected climate then the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years should have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. Based on these observations the climate sensitivity of CO2 is 0.0.
marked this thread ‘willhaas comment’.
Thx. Hans
“…more warming we cause by burning coal, gas and oil…”
What warming? As Alice observed she can’t have more tea when she hasn’t had any.
“Antarctica ice melt”…
Is this a “what if ” of some kind?
In retrospect, it would have been more appropriate for Mann to have turned his hockey stick upside-down when applying it also to the southern hemisphere.
The problem for the Antarctic scaremongers is that there hasn’t been a decent sized iceberg (>1,000 km²) break off the continent since 2002 (C-19 which broke off the Ross Ice Shelf). Two years before that, in 2000, the biggest recorded iceberg, B-15 (11,000 km²), also broke off the Ross Ice Shelf. The last one to break off the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf was A-38 in 1998. Before A-38 the only recorded big one was the Mertz Glacier tongue (B-9) which broke off in 1987. Recent icebergs from Antarctica (only two) have been tiny in comparison (310 & 660 km²).
It’s difficult to whip up alarmism when nothing of real note has happened in the way of big icebergs drifting off Antarctica for 13 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recorded_icebergs_by_area
The alarmists have been conning you the public for years because iceberg’s breaking off have always been a sign of too much snow/ice. In southern regions in Greenland for example where glaciers have been retreating no icebergs have been breaking off because the ice is not being pushed into the ocean like is does on Antarctica. For this to happen in Greenland it requires advancing glaciers caused by gaining mass pushed towards the coasts.
The Heinrich events are a natural phenomenon in which large armadas of icebergs break off from glaciers and traverse the North Atlantic during the coldest periods of ice ages. These icebergs were caused when too much snow/ice formed and had no where to go other than towards the coastal and ocean edges. Eventually these were pushed into the North Atlantic ocean where they floated in the ocean current until they reached warmer waters and melted. Majority of them flowed in a gyre around the North Atlantic ocean, where at the time was cold enough to preserve them for many thousands of miles.
ice flow into the ocean increases just constantly with the heat provided by the ocean over time….
…what kind of crap are they feeding into these models?
the more expensive it will be for coastal regions to adapt.”
……..it will cost exactly the same
I note PIK is conforming to the memo that over the top alarmism has made the public more skeptical, so warming proponents are adopting a nuanced ‘alarm’. They realized that this “it’s too late, now” scare just makes people think there is nothing to be done about it. Now they say “The good news is if we kill off world industry”, we can prevent the Antarctica ice sheet from sliding of into the ocean. I’m sure the public will give a sigh of relief.
Another study on Antarctic Glaciers and not even a reference to the 3 studies finding surprising levels of geothermal activity on the West Antarctica Peninsula in the last 2 years. But why do that. It would only create questions about all the dynamics that might actually be going on. Plus it makes hysterical headlines much easier to write without the messy details.