From the Ohio State University and the department of obvious science
Widespread snowmelt in West Antarctica during unusually warm summer
Strong El Nino played a major role in warming the air above the ice, researchers report
COLUMBUS, Ohio–An area of West Antarctica more than twice the size of California partially melted in 2016 when warm winds forced by an especially strong El Nino blew over the continent, an international group of researchers has determined.
In the June 15 issue of the journal Nature Communications, they report that the warm spell persisted for more than two weeks in January 2016. Satellite data revealed a mix of melted snow and ice over most of the Ross Ice Shelf–a thick platform of floating ice that channels about a third of the ice flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the ocean.
While researchers have been gathering evidence for years that warm ocean water is melting West Antarctic ice shelves from beneath, this is one of the first times they’ve been able to document how warm air could also cause widespread melting from above.
As it happens, researchers had installed the necessary instruments to investigate these processes in West Antarctica only a few weeks earlier, as part of a study to better understand how clouds affect the amount of energy that reaches the snow surface and influence its temperature.
“We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to deploy state-of-the art equipment to West Antarctica just before this large melt event occurred,” said Dan Lubin, principal investigator of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE). Lubin is a research physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California and a coauthor of the Nature Communications study.
“These atmospheric measurements will help geophysical scientists develop better physical models for projecting how the Antarctic ice sheet might respond to a changing climate and influence sea level rise,” Lubin added.
Julien Nicolas, lead author of the paper, is a research associate at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) at The Ohio State University. He’s part of the OSU team that provides weather and climate analysis for AWARE.
When Nicolas got a January 2016 alert from the AWARE expedition that the weather at their campsite atop of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet had turned unseasonably warm, he checked to see in the satellite data what was happening to the rest of West Antarctica.
The presence of water in the snow is often hard to detect from visible satellite imagery, especially if clouds block the view. Instead, Nicolas analyzed satellite measurements of the microwave radiation emitted by the snowpack, since dry and wet snows have very different microwave signatures.
What he saw during the melting event was an area of roughly 300,000 square miles, including most of the Ross Ice Shelf, that likely contained a mix of snow and water.
“What probably happened is that the surface snowpack was able to contain the meltwater, acting as a buffer and preventing the formation of melt ponds and streams that can be common on some Antarctic ice shelves,” Nicolas said, “but we cannot rule out the presence of standing water in many locations.”
What makes this event particularly interesting to scientists is that it took place during one of the strongest El Nino events on record.
“This conjunction of events was no coincidence,” he said.
During an El Nino, warm waters from the equatorial Pacific Ocean move east. El Ninos also favor weather patterns that steer warm air towards West Antarctica, but strong westerly winds that blow over the ocean to the north of the continent usually keep the warmer air at bay.
BPCRC senior research associate Aaron Wilson, also a coauthor on the study, used climate models to show that melt events in West Antarctica are more likely to occur during El Nino conditions, especially when westerly winds are weak. What makes this January 2016 event unique, he explained, is that the warming occurred despite strong westerly winds.
“Without the strong westerlies, it’s likely there would have been much more melting,” Wilson said.
Coauthor David Bromwich, professor of geography and leader of the Ohio State team, explained it this way: “In West Antarctica, we have a tug-of-war going on between the influence of El Ninos and the westerly winds, and it looks like the El Ninos are winning,” he said. “It’s a pattern that is emerging. And because we expect stronger, more frequent El Ninos in the future with a warming climate, we can expect more major surface melt events in West Antarctica.”
More frequent melting would accelerate the general deterioration of the ice sheet, he concluded.
###
Co-authors on the paper include former Ohio State master’s student Jonathan Wille, who served as a weather observer in West Antarctica in January 2016; Ryan Scott and Lynn Russell of Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Andrew Vogelmann of Brookhaven National Laboratory; Maria Cadeddu of Argonne National Laboratory; Johannes Verlinde of Penn State; Colin Jenkinson and Gregory Stone of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; and Heath Powers and Maciej Ryczek of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“As it happens, researchers had installed the necessary instruments to investigate these processes in West Antarctica only a few weeks earlier, as part of a study to better understand how clouds affect the amount of energy that reaches the snow surface and influence its temperature.”
They now have a base line measurement. In maybe 50 years they will have a record on which to base any conjecture. All they have is the first measurement.
No doubt this will be extrapolated out to doom, gloom and disaster.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
I agree with Warren in NZ.
One event can hardly be extrapolated to a trend.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpres.com
Are you guys saying seriously that one data point is not a trend?
Youse guys are fergettin that those researchers are really good at interpolating what shudda, cudda, maybe, probably did happened during the past 200 years or so …… and then their extrapolations will become factual scientific evidence of present day CAGW.
Icebergs around the rim of Antarctica breaking off and gradually melting is supposed to be a sign of CAGW disaster. I guess the CAGWers believe that Antarctic Ice sheets should continue to grow until they cover the whole earth.
Climate science is beset continually by this problem.
We keep looking at the system in novel ways and finding novel things to observe.
In science you really need to check that the result that you appear to be getting is not an artifact of the thing that you are doing to get it.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Richard P. Feynman
Nearby Mcmurdo station does not exhibit any El Nino signal.
Mcmurdo’s Jan 2016 mean temperatures were essentially exactly average at -2.5C (July average is -25.4C). This either happens every January for a few days or it is not tied to the ENSO. I note the Arctic as well does not have an ENSO signature.
https://legacy.bas.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/McMurdo.All.temperature.html
Once you get into the melt season, the Arctic temperature is remarkably consistent year-to-year. link I wonder if there’s a similar phenomenon along the coast of the Antarctic.
I would suggest it is very consistent due to the latent heat of ice. As Ice is present all year round it would have a modulating effect for temperatures above zero Celsius, more so than below zero.
It is very hard to have temperatures deviating much from 0 C if the sea has a lot of ice around, but not completely frozen. Once the open sea is covered with ice, the temperatures may drop by 30 C, since the flow of energy from the sea to air essentially stops.
That is the reason why open winter sea makes a big difference in temperature but at the cost of the sea [losing] energy via evaporation before freezing over. Water [that] evaporates will fall down. In the north, it may be snow. So CAGW includes, among other things, increasing snow cover and cold snaps between the extreme heat, hurricanes, and Martians.
Do I need s-tag?
So I tried to say I agree with you, Duncan…
McMurdo station doesn’t seem very close to the west Antarctic Peninsula.
McMurdo: S 77° 51′ E 166° 40′ (New Zealand timezone)
Tip of peninsula: S 63° 18.76′ W 57° 20.91′
That’s about 2500 miles or 4000 km.
This is a good report with great data, and more to come over the years.
During the period 9th of to 23rd of January 2016 there was a rapid rise in NH pressure resulting in the warm atmosphere being displaced down the Pacific corridor at lower atmospheric levels. Zonal winds at 60S – 50/70 mbar were only mildly elevated compared to previous years, so the atmospheric transport was at lower levels.
It also provides evidence to confirm the movement of atmosphere from the NH to the SH. To these scientists I say, keep up the good work.
Soon the entire atmosphere will be piled up at the South Pole. No?
commiebob
No, we have adequate down here thanks.
The big vaccuum cleaner down below New Zealand over Antarctica ensures that we have plenty of atmosphere, particularly between late July and December.
Take a look at the South Pole CO2 data and you will get a good idea of the constant stream of atmosphere flowing to the south from the north. The SH accounts for less than 8% of emissions.
Then look at the dilution of ozone above Antarctica as your northern hemisphere tropopause moves downward at the end of Summer and into Autumn. Ever wondered where the tropospheric atmosphere goes to?. The start date of the Blozone hole will give you a good idea of the increasing NH pressure and start of the tropopause height reduction.
Atmospheric science still has a long way to go.
Kind Regards
Yes, I’ll wager that there must be something different in your atmosphere, there where you are.
It truly is amazing that CO2 becomes a well-mixed gas; but until very recently all the CFC’s were running down hill. Now the south is full up and CFC’s are progressing to the NH. 😉
ozonebust June 15, 2017 at 1:18 pm
AH SO, …… another miseducated individual that actually or religiously believes that 92+% of all CO2 emissions into the atmosphere is a direct result of the NH’s land-based rotting biomass and human activity emissions.
When the young and naïve are “brainwashed” into believing religious “fictions and fantasies” …… those “fictions and fantasies” will persist in their memories for the duration of their lifetime ….. and will have direct and/or daily effect on their ability to accept the “truth and facts” about the natural world that they are a part of.
Samuel.
I do not believe any such thing, nor have I stated above anything that resembles what you imply. I suggest you take another look.
And as for age, again you are wrong. Inside this youthful healthy exterior, is an older person.
ozonebust June 17, 2017 at 2:12 pm
Ozonebust, in your above post you explicitly stated that: “Take a look at the South Pole CO2 data and you will get a good idea of the constant stream of atmosphere flowing to the south from the north. The SH accounts for less than 8% of emissions..””
Thus, I took another look at it ……. and I seen the same as I seen the first time.
Ozoneb, given the fact that you claimed that the SH (Southern Hemisphere) accounts for less than 8% of (CO2) emissions …… then it is obvious that you are also claiming that the NH (Northern Hemisphere) accounts for greater than 92% of (CO2) emissions.
8% + 92% = 100%
How does the NH air make it through the Brewer-Dobson circulation cells? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer-Dobson_circulation
Probably turbulence.
One should never underestimate “the power of prayer” …… being requested by the CAGW’ers.
It won’t be by blooming F*d3x.
For SURE.
Couldn’t deliver a kitten, even if Cat-Mum copes perfectly well.
I was most disappointed by them the last time I used them.
In 1997.
Auto
Well aware that good service gets three compliments; but bad service gets a dozen rants.
Well, I reckon I must be approaching 50 . . . . . [Rants, of course!]
Clyde
Pressure and volume. It is not impervious. That pressure and volume varies annually. Transport south has been seen on earthnull. It occurs at various altitudes, depending on resistance.
Currently the pressure balance between the hemispheres is higher in the NH compared to the SH.
The current tropospheric pressure indicators are not very sensitive or informative.
All hurricane / cyclone forecasting is offered too early in the year to have gathered adequate data. Some of the key informative data seems to be overlooked. Early July is more appropriate. That is when I will offer one.
For global ACE, and for the blozonehole, max size of hole and annual profile. A world first.
Let’s have some fun and make the season interesting.
Hi Griff! Long comment, musta had a car payment this week.
[ “We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to deploy state-of-the art equipment to West Antarctica just before this large melt event occurred,” said Dan Lubin ]
About this ‘state-of-the-art equipment’, does it cause ice to melt?
Good point. 100% correlation.
LOL – good one.
Seriously, though I don’t think researchers consider their contribution much, even when they’re doing things that would definitely contribute – like drilling 100 meter bore holes in an ice shelf with hot water to study seismic activity:
“Along with a group of researchers, Booth invested 5 weeks on Larsen C in November 2015. They existed to study a rift in the ice rack, a mass of drifting ice the size of Vermont and New Hampshire. Every couple of days, they established camp in a various place, drilling 100-meter boreholes with warm water, pulling a radar system behind a snowmobile, and evaluating seismic activity. Matching that field information with satellite images, the group called Project Midas designed the internal structure of the ice, which they utilized to anticipate the habits of the rack.” http://www.babbleworld.com/science/the-break-in-the-larsen-ice-shelf-is-bad-for-the-planet-but-huge-for-science
Sometimes I think they’re deliberately trying to “help things along”
Stonemasons have been using that “borehole” method for thousands of years to create a rift or fracture in the stone that they want to extract from its place of origin …… and/or to reduce the size of a block of stone that they need a portion of.
Sure, some instruments are going cause melting across an area twice the size of California.
How much an imperial California is in acre-fathoms per square lightyear? Or just square kilometers, that I tend to use.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Two weeks of weather?
Exactly.
Paul
Its better than nothing at all, Future data will give it greater perspective.
And allow other researchers to ‘homogenize’ their data to what their models say it should have been.
Yeah, kind of..
“It’s better than nothing” is the way you push people to amputate their limbs to fix sore thumb. Yeah, sure better, if you sell axes. For the patient, not so.
Hi Griff
Wet snow for two weeks with no melt runoff. Then it refroze. To read the WaPo report, you’d think a third of WAIS was under water.
The paper’s El Nino attribution is probably nonsense, because that is a phenomenon in the equatorial eastern Pacific nowhere near WAIS. Confirmed as nonsense by McMurdo, which sits on Ross Island at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, whose catchment basin is 1/3 of WAIS.
Data from one other site makes it nonsene ?
I dont think so.
Come down to the South Island of New Zealand for the period of August to February and experience it
Alaska is one of the most impacted areas by the ENSO. But once you move into the next-door Beaufort Sea, the impact stops. What really happens is that the jet stream separating Arctic air from mid-latitude air is moved that little bit farther north during an El Nino. Not continuously, but just more often than normal. The result is that the area from Alaska to Minnesota is the third most area by the ENSO. Probably something similar happens in the South Island of New Zealand but it doesn’t extend down inside the Antarctic Circumpolar Current area. .
Bill
Thanks for your comments. There are still many assumptions about the south pole, the vortex and and what drives what. I started out 12 months ago looking at the controlling factors of sea ice in both hemispheres. That has been very interesting and fruitful.
A key barrier to vortex entry is the rotational speed of the zonal winds. That takes precedence until the thermal release within the vertical column occurs due to solar heat. As a result surface pressure drops dramatically.
Agreed your comments on the Arctic. Atmospheric flow takes the easiest path into the region, usually via ocean corridors. The location of atmospheric drivers are a primary factor. Within all large air flows there are Eddie’s or calm spots. Just look around the rim of the Antarctic blozonehole hole. Where is less ozone, the higher the wind movement.
Regards
Here’s a really curious feature of the report: “researchers had installed the necessary instruments to investigate these processes in West Antarctica only a few weeks earlier, as part of a study to better understand how clouds affect the amount of energy that reaches the snow surface and influence its temperature.“. There was no mention of how cloud cover changed over the period!!!!! Seems an obvious alternative answer, especially as a nearby station didn’t get any of the effect. (Cloud is local).
Mike Jonas
We have also had scientists visiting the Antarctic trying to understand sea ice variables, and making comments in reports such ” The Antarctic circular winds blow stronger when the ozone hole is larger” altered the sea ice extent, both in a positive and negative (lower) way. They attributed the increased winds on solar influence because of the lower ozone levels.
They did not further their study.despite volumes of available being available. It is called a pre-concieved mind set. They have been educated to believe that CFC’s are causing the ozone hole, so look at the downstream associated problems.
Ultimately, considering all the components that make atmospheric entry to the vortex difficult and ultimately possible, Its the wind at various levels of entry that is causing the ozone dilution.
— available data
ristvan
Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 emmitting serious volumes of CO2. It was not detectable immediately or at any other time in any of the down wind. side wind, upwind sensing stations. Nothing globally out of the ordinary. I guess the eruption did not happen.
Regards
ozonebust June 15, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Brilliant deduction, …….. ozonebust, …….. claiming that “serious volumes” were emitted …… but no one seen it, heard it, smelled it, sensed it, measured it or recorded any quantities that were emitted.
In a related story, Climate Can Vary From Region To Region
… especially notable for a continent the size of the continental United States and Mexico COMBINED.
Also, water is wet. But it will be wetter in the future, due to climate change.
It’s probably worse than we think.
Some 6,000 years ago much of Antarctica was ice free. Core drilling over frozen rivers located by through-the-ice ground survey identified river-borne gravel and debris which was dated to around 6,000 years ago.
Go back 10,000 or so years ago and Antarctica was probably entirely ice free – accurate maps of it were copied from far earlier maps by 15th and 16th century navigators – some 300+ years before Antarctica was ‘discovered’. It was only when the ground survey of the 1980s was compared to these maps that they were found to be entirely accurate, showing rivers, hills, valleys and the 2 land masses that lie beneath the ice precisely as they are today.
OE, whatever you are smoking is illegal. We have multiple ice cores going back 800,000 years saying you are wrong. We have plate tectonics going back 34 million years saying you are wrong. You have zero (and I looked before posting this comment) scientific evidence for your patently false assertions. Please do not do that stuff here. PLEASE. You give skeptics a bad name by association. Google is your friend. Use it wisely. I explained some of the techniques in 2012 ebook The Arts of Truth. You are with this comment a prime example for the second edition.
rivstan,
“OE, whatever you are smoking is illegal”
What the hell is the purpose of such an “ad hominem” attack?
“Please do not do that stuff here. PLEASE. You give skeptics a bad name by association”
What do you think your treatment of that person makes “skeptics” look like, sir? I’d say haughty intolerant A-holes that attack people for not knowing and/or agreeing with the current “consensus science” . . which is to say flaming hypocrites . .
JK, develop your own excuse for what actually happens.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, rivstan . . Are you suggesting that not acting like that will cause some sort of calamitous shift in public opinion toward climate alarmism? . . Or just that some hasty “collectivist” type thinker or two might judge all CAGW skeptics based on what one person says here about antarctic ice cores? The first seems extremely unlikely to me, and the latter seems kinda; Who cares? . .
Maintaining a relatively “friendly” environment seems more . . productive to me.
ristvan June 15, 2017 at 7:07 pm
John has a point. Old England is a good sort.
First many people are feed populist history and archaeology. They come across it while very young and it stays in mind.
It is also important how you point out erroneous information. Never insult or mock an ally. That type of behavior is in the end, worst then the erroneous information. Since you did not attempt to provide educational information other then pushing your E-book why would anyone listen?
michael
Rud was just giving OE some legal advice.
Of course, what he is smoking may *not* be illegal, depending on where he lives. 🙂
I found it just lightly funny. Since I had the same thought for a good reason.
This is stunning. No, there has been ice for much longer, and the 15th century navigators didn’t even know how to measure a longitude to any precision. Don’t believe stuff that resides in the Internet just because it is against the common knowledge. It might be both against common knowledge, and false.
*OE, whatever you are smoking is illegal ; ) Seriously, we have multiple ice cores that …*
Just sayin’ . .
(And by the way, those ice cores only “go back” a few decades . . and speaking as though the great Siants gods can actually see into the distant past by looking at some ice, only serves to bolster the sort of con artistry we are now trying to defuse here, by those who exploit that kind of talk-talk to generate the casually logical impression that they can see into the future by looking at some computer displays, it seems to me.)
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html
“800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)”
Old England June 15, 2017 at 1:51 pm
ristvan Is correct, to many people have been mislead by the ice free Antarctica tale.
You have to dig deeper to understand ancient documents.
Below is a good essay on how the people who advanced the theory screwed up. I don’t think it was intentional but rather over looking details because they predisposed to believe at really was Antarctica.
michael
https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/old-maps-the-americas-and-antarctica/
Mike the Morlock
June 15, 2017 at 4:38 pm
Mike, have you ever thought about asking the Emperor penguins ….. why in hell their ancient ancestors made such a stupid decision to “establish” an egg laying, incubating, chick rearing colony location ….. up to 70 miles from the water’s edge (shelf ice edge), …. the ocean water that is, ….. from which 100% of all their food is obtained?
Samuel,
Your question is good, but proves nothing about the age of the continental ice sheet of Antarctica.
But it does raise another question, which is “what predators penguins have been avoiding by nesting miles and miles inland on an island (continent) that does not have land-based mammals?”
The answer could be a predator seal or a bird.
Samuel C Cogar June 16, 2017 at 8:55 am
Good morning.
Yes I agree with you about the Emperor penguins.
But the map which the ice free Antarctic is based on is not actually Antarctica. Like most of the maps at the time, the locations of land masses are wrong. What the folks who advance the ice free antarctic fail to mention is that the Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, map has place names on it. Spanish outpost names in the new world. Names of places in Argentina.
The area in question is actually South America.
The essay is actually good worth reading.
michael
Mike, tell me about the accuracy of this map of North America by Edward Wells, to wit:
Is it a superb example of the topographical accuracy of early map making compared to all the obvious distortion and dislocated land masses of the Piri Reis map? To wit:
http://old.world-mysteries.com/pirireis_2maps.jpg
A good read about the PR map at this source link: http://old.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm
Mike the Morlock – June 16, 2017 at 11:13 am
Mike, it looks to me like the location of Spain, Gibraltar and western Africa is pretty much correct on the above cited Piri Reis map. And the eastern coast of South America seems to be aligned correctly on the equator and doesn’t look too shabby given the time it was re-drawn or copied from much, much older documents, ….. the source of which could very well have been and probably was, the Library of Alexandria. Read more @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria
HA, next you will be trying to convince me that it was the Egyptians who constructed the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Sam C
@ Hugs June 16, 2017 at 10:30 am
Now Hugs, ….. get serious.
Given the fact that penguins are non-flying birds, that are only capable of slowly waddling along bipedially or slowly scooting along on their bellies over the ice or snow, ….. they sure as hell are not capable of evading a land based predator.
Sharks and the leopard seal are the Emperor penguins most dangerous predator.
6 million years ago is what you mean?
That’s what the N W O wants you to believe…
*wears foil hat*
The Columbus (OH) Dispatch reported the study, with a line: “If the Ross ice shelf completely melted, it would raise ocean levels by 11 feet,”
But the full release does not contain that scare. It said that: “the Ross Ice Shelf–a thick platform of floating ice”.
I was under the impression, from many misspent years watching ice melt into my whiskey, that the melting of floating ice cannot affect the level of the liquid. Was I wrong about that?
“If the Ross ice shelf completely melted, it would raise ocean levels by 11 feet, according to the research team that included scientists from the University of California-San Diego.”
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170615/ohio-state-researchers-find-el-nino-melting-ice-shelf
People pay good money for their kids to get this education……..
WS, the Ross is more complicated. True, the outer shelf has melted from below, is floating, and cannot raise sea level. But most of it is grounded, and could. It is pinned by ‘islands’ somhas to melt rather than slide. Essay Tipping Points in ebook Blowing Smoke has details with references. Or, Google the Andrill program results specific to Ross.
None of the Ross Ice Shelf is grounded, meaning resting on the ground. However, it is attached to grounded glacier ice, which flows from the WAIS.
If the entire Ross ice shelf were to melt, it would have no immediate effect on sea-level.
Longer term, of the Ross ice shelf melted it could affect sea-level in two ways:
1. Grounded glacier ice “uphill” from the now-missing shelf would presumably flow more rapidly toward the sea, without the ice shelf in the way to slow it down. That would cause the rate of sea-level rise to increase.
2. The additional open water would increase evaporation, and cause “lake/ocean-effect” snowfall on nearby land. That would cause the rate of sea-level rise to decrease.
The net effect would be the difference between those two opposite-sign effects. If I had to guess, I would guess that #1 would be greater than #2, but that’s just a guess.
I’ve written to the author of the article, asked who told him that melting the Ross Ice Sheet would raise ocean levels by eleven feet, and explained that it isn’t true.
Ristvan,
The transition from land ice to floating ice must show in sea levels as it happens. You cannot go from land ice whose melting might raise sea levels, to floating ice whose melting will not, without a change in level. It might be a small effect, increased by larger original ice thickness and area. Should be easy to model.
Geoff
Eureka!
“The great white barrier wall of the shelf’s front, first seen in 1841 by the British polar explorer James Clark Ross, rises in places to 160 or 200 feet (50 or 60 m) high and stretches about 500 miles (800 km) between fixed “anchor points” on Ross Island to the west and the jutting Edward VII Peninsula on the east.”
The quote is from the Britannica website, so I would say Rus is correct.
Quite possible that the land based ice sheet could melt and raise sea levels that much. Some of it probably melted during the Holocene maximum 11,000 years ago when sea levels were much more than 11 feet higher than present. That melting, sea level raising and awesomely balmy and life friendly time came about from NATURAL VARIATION, which has been banned by “climate science” as not grant friendly! ie. It is no longer acceptable as a topic for discussion, like sex and politics in older times. Too much for sensitive ears.
Actually the eleven feet is correct for the melting of the whole West Antarctic ice sheet. But You can’t expect too much from a journalist. A small thing like that, it would be like requiring him to know the difference between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay.
Looks to me like 80+-% of the exterior edge of the, per se, Ross Ice Shelf, is “grounded” to the continent of Antarctica, ……. which in my learned opinion, ……. it was misnamed or mislabeled as being an “ice shelf” …….. when in fact it should have been named Ross Bay.
To wit: “bay – a broad inlet of the sea where the land curves inward.
synonyms: cove, inlet, estuary, indentation, gulf, bight, basin, fjord, arm ”
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-1570-9555/Ant1.jpg
Of course, Captain Sir James Clark Ross didn’t know it was a bay when he first discovered it on 28 January 1841. So he just called it the The Barrier,
The Ross Ice Shelf, which is actually the frozen surface of a bay, is only188,000 mi² in area.
Iffen the Gulf of Mexico froze over, would you be calling its 617,800 mi² area of ice an “ice shelf?”.
When Chesapeake Bay freezes over, …… no one call it an “ice shelf”. They call it a “pain in der arse” because it puts the “kebash” to fishing, crabbing, hunting, mail delivery and shipment of goods, just to name a few.
Cheers
Click on the “black X” in my above post to see the graphic of the Ross ice shelf.
Samuel, I’m sure you know, but for others,right click on image then copy link location.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-1570-9555/Ant1.jpg
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-1570-9555/Ant1.jpg
I give up
Manmade CO2 changed everything! 😏
Could be. A glass of whiskey is so small you can ignore any effects of gravitation. I think. Some people gravitate towards whiskey. Also, there is no salt in whiskey which complicates calculations at the sea. I’m sure however, that I’m nitpicking. I guess you more probably (p>.99) ‘drown’ in whiskey than in raising sea levels.
“And because we expect stronger, more frequent El Ninos in the future with a warming climate,”..now predict when it will start warming
We were also told to expect more hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, tornadoes…etc
Are these people immune to being embarrassed?
Re-write:
“And because we desperately want to expect stronger, more frequent El Ninos in the future with a warming climate,”
Ice forms in winter. Ice melts in summer.
Climate Change!!!
Let’s all go burn down a coal plant!!
Is there a question of weather it is due to weather or weather or not it is not due to weather. Weather we agree or not, we are all going to have to weather these types of wandering statements.
Weather changes, Weather or not weather changes are “climate change” depends on weather or not one is desperate to explain wither the Global Warming went.
(Into the water?)
Whether the weather be hot,
Whether the weather be cold.
Whatever the weather,
We’ll weather the weather,
Whether we like it or not.
(My dad always quoted me this ditty back in the 40s and 50s whenever I complained about the weather.)
I like it, noaaprogrammer! I’ll have to remember that one.
Disconformity
The melting of ice should leave a discontinuity that in theory will show up in drill cores if they were taken in future. Likewise, the discovery of such features in existing core is a marker for past times at the Antarctic lication, that were as warm as now. Roughly.
Geoff
We also have a very unique situation in Brisbane, Australia.
It is worthy of a few billion dollars in research grants.
The winter temperatures are cooler than the summer temperatures.
How can that be so?
But from my perspective, in the continental USA, your summers are cooler than your winters… Must be climate change, damn that CO2!
And the other morning, here in Sydney we apparently had our coldest morning for eight months!!! Eight months!!! Climate change!
It takes a lot of energy to melt snow. How do they know it melted and wasn’t wet due to rain?
This paper is all bullshit! Nothing true. Just fabricated, i.e. fraud.
Evidence to support your claim?
If he had evidence, that’d be big news here. Not in the MSM, definitely, but here it would be.
Why do you ask?
Haven’t got my head round this quite yet but… the simple experiment of turning a warm-blowing hair-dryer onto your wet skin after a bath/shower keeps bugging me.
Contrary to expectation, it makes you feel cold. Is it that warm moving air evaporates water and whenever you do that, you get cold.
Is that not what *should’ have happened here?
I suggest that something else melted the ice/snow/whatever and of course the question is begged, what happened to it after the warm winds went away.
2 things on that point because surely ice sheets are flat and level – melted ice/snow= water won’t find a hill to run down and get into the sea.
Secondly these guys shoot their own feet by saying/suggesting that the melted ice sheet will affect (global) sea level. By their own words they call kit a ‘shelf’ so it is already part of the sea.
And me being relentlessly tedious & boring… These guys talk about ‘climate change’ *and* microwave signatures.
So let’s hear it lads & lasses, boys & girls and scientists & scientists, all together and in your own words-
How Does This Green House Gas Effect Actually Work?
Wikipedia.
(I’m sure this topic is very much off-topic here, and many here would argue that the atmosphere is warmed by the surface, not the other way around, but let’s not go there. Anthony may make a discussion blog entry for this if he wants. Please don’t comment me here.)
[??? This general subject has been raised before. Several times in fact. Please look through any of the 2,077,605 site replies and comments for earlier responses. .mod]
Lol, yes.
Although the conclusions of the paper are obvious the attacks on it are unjustified. Historical records are important to people studying the climate. From time to time Tony Brown has written about this subject on this forum, e.g.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/a-short-anthology-of-changing-climate/
Therefore it will be useful for researchers in 50 years time to look back at accounts of what was happening in the Antarctic in 2016.
Roy
Thank you. The data record has to start at some point in time. It allows the continuance of a broader understanding, of which there is little of currently. That is why so few conclusions are at hand of any value.
How did CO2 cause El Nino? These “experts” seem to forget they are trying to justify their salaries by tying everything to man-made CO2. Highlighting natural phenomena that aren’t due to CO2, but impact climate totally works against their arguments. If this is what counts as “science” at OSU and climate “science,” we need to start quality control measures to stop this waste of taxpayer money.
Look, only man-made CO2 is bad. There is good CO2; people use it to make pretty limestone statues.
We need to identify the bad CO2 and get it registered, only then can we control it.
We should dye the man-made CO2 pink. Then in addition to be identified for tracking, everything will look rose colored. No need for special scientific instruments that make things look rosy.
Thanks for the good laugh, jlurtz!
Good, the instruments will be in place to measure when climate change gets colder as well as warmer.
Just recently there was a Horizon doc about moving Halley 6 ice station in the Antarctic. No mention of climate change. It’s a kind of torture. My hand hovering over the off switch for the moment they made any mention.
Do these fools actually believe Antarctica is going to melt. Damn idiots. Fools. Miscreants. Alarmists of the highest order. And most of all, namby pamby losers. Did I cover it all?
No Tom, they don’t believe it is going to melt. They just,literally, get paid to say that!
“And because we expect stronger, more frequent El Ninos in the future with a warming climate, we can expect more major surface melt events in West Antarctica.”
Is this a true statement? It sound like it is an unsubstantiated claim. The main-stream junk scientists claimed that tornadoes and hurricanes are going to increase due to global warming which is not true. They slip this in there like an indisputable fact. So, true or false?
Imo, they are 100% wrong with their claim. I expect to see more negative ENSO region conditions over the next 20 years, approximately. This will be interesting to watch as I should have at least 20 years left in my life, God willing. By the way I had made a comment that tornadoes would increase because of the shift back to cooler ENSO regions. here is a piece of that comment, “…If there is an actual pattern to this, then the next above average tornado season should be in 2017. This happens to coincide with my forecast for a PNW flood event in the winter of 2016/17, or at the latest 2017/18…”.
From here, …https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/19/how-does-the-ipcc-explain-the-severe-storms-of-history/#comment-2011352
“ice melts in warmer temperatures”
No it does not. It melts when the temperature gets 0 degrees C and you still force heat energy into the ice. And by the way the ice keeps the 0 C temperature untill it has all melted.
You could warm Antarctica from -20C to -1C, and no ice would melt.
And for the not so obvious question of what is the most significant driver of gain and loss of Antarctic sea ice here is a great example of what I had pointed out several years ago, when someone was asking about causes for change in the sea ice extent. My comment was panned by a few at the time, but undaunted I press on with my original thought. Note the warm surface air penetrating into the cold boundaries offshore of the continent, …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=247.58,-68.35,302/loc=-122.593,-71.407
Then look at how the sea ice is pushed back from the average trend line in the same area where that warm surface wind is flowing, …http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
The Sea Ice Index is now updated to V2.1, and the extent has fiannly moved back into the -2SD area
It’s all the tourists plonking down their camera bags- http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/the-latest-threat-to-antarctica-an-insect-and-plant-invasion/ar-BBCPf3m
or something like that. As you can tell from the pic of the last remaining penguin the whole joint’s doomed so I wouldn’t worry too much about it and leave it to the mosses and flies. Damned inhospitable tax-eating place anyway- http://www.antarctica.gov.au/
Isn’t this correct? Nitpicking encouraged. When a floating ice shelf melts it will release all the particles embedded in it into the water. All of those particles (tektites, dust, fish bones, discarded trash from visitors) that are non-buoyant in sea water (about 1.03 specific gravity) will sink, causing the water level to sink. (an anchor in a boat displaces more water than if it is thrown overboard for instance) All the buoyant particles will continue to float, causing essentially no effect on the water level.
The ice, being almost entirely fresh water (frozen sea spray being the main exception) has a greater volume than the sea water per gram (1.0 to 1.03 relative specific gravities) it was displacing, of about 3%. (not exactly the actual situation, but be patient)
There are about 140 million square miles of ocean. If the Ross Ice Shelf was 200,000 sq. miles that would be 1/700th of the size of the world’s oceans. If it was 700 feet thick with no salt intrusion into the 90% that is below sea level that would be a layer one foot thick of fresh water covering the oceans of the world. 3% of 1 foot. is .36 inches. Subtracting the slight lowering of the water level caused by the majority of substances embedded in the ice being non-buoyant my estimate is .35 inches or slightly less than 1 cm.of water level rise.
However, fresh water density and ice density are not the same because of the air (up to 11%) that is trapped in it. If a fresh water ice density of .92 is used, the cm. rise becomes more than an inch. But, as ice at the bottom of a glacier or an ice shelf tends to have less trapped air or the air is pressurized I’m putting my money on a one inch rise in sea level if the whole Ross Ice Shelf was melted by alien invaders using laser rays from their Flying Saucers seeking to flood our coastal.cities. .