A new paper about to be in press, comes at the end of a flurry of papers and reports published this week that claims Antarctica was losing ice mass. Zwally says ice growth is anywhere from 50 gigatons to 200 gigatons a year.
NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally says his new study will show, once again, the eastern Antarctic ice sheet is gaining enough ice to offset losses in the west.
By Michael Bastasch
Is Antarctica melting or is it gaining ice? A recent paper claims Antarctica’s net ice loss has dramatically increased in recent years, but forthcoming research will challenge that claim.
NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally first challenged the “consensus” on Antarctica in 2015 when he published a paper showing ice sheet growth in eastern Antarctica outweighed the losses in the western ice sheet.
Zwally will again challenge the prevailing narrative of how global warming is affecting the South Pole. Zwally said his new study will show, once again, the eastern Antarctic ice sheet is gaining enough ice to offset losses in the west.
Much like in 2015, Zwally’s upcoming study will run up against the so-called “consensus,” including a paper published by a team of 80 scientists in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The paper estimates that Antarctic is losing, on net, more than 200 gigatons of ice a year, adding 0.02 inches to annual sea level rise.
“Basically, we agree about West Antarctica,” Zwally told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “East Antarctica is still gaining mass. That’s where we disagree.”
Reported ice melt mostly driven by instability in the western Antarctic ice sheet, which is being eaten away from below by warm ocean water. Scientists tend to agree ice loss has increased in western Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula has increased.
Measurements of the eastern ice sheet, however, are subject to high levels of uncertainty. That’s where disagreements are. (RELATED: Earth’s Largest Ice Sheet Was Stable For Millions Of Years During A Past Warm Period)
“In our study East Antarctic remains the least certain part of Antarctica for sure,” Andrew Shepherd, the study’s lead author and professor at the University of Leeds, told TheDCNF.
“Although there is relatively large variability over shorter periods, we don’t detect any significant long-term trend over 25 years,” Shepherd said.
However, Zwally’s working on a paper that will show the eastern ice sheet is expanding at a rate that’s enough to at least offset increased losses the west.
The ice sheets are “very close to balance right now,” Zwally said. He added that balance could change to net melting in the future with more warming.
So, why is there such a big difference between Zwally’s research and what 80 scientists recently published in the journal Nature?
There are several reasons for the disagreement, but the biggest is how researchers make what’s called a glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which takes into account the movement of the Earth under ice sheets.
Scientists use models to measure the movement of land mass in response to changes the ice sheet sitting on top. For example, Zwally said eastern Antarctica’s land mass has been going down in response to ice sheet mass gains.
That land movement effects ice sheet data, especially in Antarctica where small errors in GIA can yield big changes ice sheet mass balance — whether ice is growing or shrinking. There are also differences in how researchers model firn compaction and snowfall accumulation.
“It needs to be known accurately,” Zwally said. “It’s an error of being able to model. These are models that estimate the motions of the Earth under the ice.”
Zwally’s 2015 study said an isostatic adjustment of 1.6 millimeters was needed to bring satellite “gravimetry and altimetry” measurements into agreement with one another.
Shepherd’s paper cites Zwally’s 2015 study several times, but only estimates eastern Antarctic mass gains to be 5 gigatons a year — yet this estimate comes with a margin of error of 46 gigatons.
Zwally, on the other hand, claims ice sheet growth is anywhere from 50 gigatons to 200 gigatons a year.
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All the scientists in ConsensusLand reported breathlessly of strange creatures in a faraway land all wearing tuxedos. The newspapers dutifuly reported it in blazing headlines. But then, one scientist took a closer look, and realized that the Emperor Penguins truly wore no clothes.
” Newfoundland’s spectacular icebergs are M.I.A this year ! ”
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/iceberg-season-newfoundland-and-labrador-trinity-bay-eco-tours-ocean-quest-tours-tourism-canada/102711/
…and not from a lack of ice.
Someone could write a thesis titled, “The Rhetorical Method of WUWT”. The important aspect of this method are:
1. If nine scientists out of ten find additional evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is leading to global warming, which is leading to climate change — give space to the 1 scientist who does not support this finding.
2. Claim that the findings of the one scientist conclusively refute the findings of the nine.
3. Or, if uncertainty cannot be dismissed, claim that the uncertainty is all in favor of dismissing the concerns about man made climate change.
4. Claim that errors made by climate scientists are proof that they are never right, or almost never.
5. Claim that the fact that climate scientists don’t know everything is as good as saying that they know nothing.
6. Point to fatuous or ill-informed statements about climate change by someone on the “alarmist” side as being representative of all people who are concerned about climate change, regardless of their scientific credentials.
7. Claim that the views of climate change skeptics are suppressed, even though the media, always anxious to avoid the charge of bias, bends over to give space to the views of skeptics, with or with scientific credentials.
8. Ignore the totality of the changes that are happening. Dismiss each separate extreme weather event as a fluke, which, considered individually, it may well be. Never commit the mistake of trying to argue that the totality of extreme weather events is a fluke.
9. Because it is not.
See my comments above !!
“7. Claim that the views of climate change skeptics are suppressed, even though the media, always anxious to avoid the charge of bias, bends over to give space to the views of skeptics, with or with scientific credentials.”
Surely you jest. Skeptic views are suppressed.
You are correct that the media is anxious to avoid the charge of bias, but that doesn’t mean they are not biased because they are. Liars are anxious to avoid the charge of lying, but they are still liars.
Someone could also write a thesis on The Use by Climate Believers of Logical Fallacies Including Straw Man, Consensus, and Argument from Authority.
Hi Jesse
Chopping it up into 9 pieces looks very much like the “Gish Gallop”
And not surprisingly, since your warmist position is similar to that of the 6-day creationists. That the fossil record can’t be trusted and the earth isn’t that old.
The geological record thoroughly refutes CAGW many times over, principally by showing no correlation whatsoever between CO2 levels and temperature. And also by showing a global ecosystem in vibrant health with CO2 in the thousands ppm, too recently (e.g. Jurassic, Cretaceous) for the “dim sun” to be a factor. No sign of any of the warming tribulation prophesied by CAGW.
What is your CAGW strategy in response to geology? Simple – ignore it. Take advantage of the ignorance and apathy toward geology and deep time in the general public. Or like Michael Mann, who says that no palaeo data can be trusted prior to 40k years ago. No ice ages, no dinosaurs for him – just a 280 ppm garden of Eden from creation all the way till the industrial revolution.
At least Christian creationists give the earth an age of 6000 years. For the church of AGW, the earth was created in 1850.
So hallelujah Jesse! Preach it, sister!
Point 1.
Even if Zwally was just 1 scientist, Jesse Fell should read up the history of lone scientists battling to get their views accepted before dismissing his views. For example:
“Press Release
5 October 2011
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to
Dan Shechtman
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
“for the discovery of quasicrystals”
A remarkable mosaic of atoms
In quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Dan Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter.”
Shechman was one scientist who went against not nine but ninety-nine or more, including a man who had won two Nobel prizes and who said of Shechtman’s discovery “There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.”
The evidence shows that there are so many quasi-scientists amongst the majority publishing in climate science that real scientists often have their discoveries dismissed.
It’s hardly surprising if the incentives are right.
If you only reward claims of “it’s worse than we thought” with further research grants – guess what sort of papers will dominate?
If you find an area of the planet’s biosphere that isn’t “worse than expected” do you think publication will bring you fame and further research support?
The way incentives work at the moment is enough to explain the imbalance that you claim as proof.
So instead of weighing research papers, like you seem to prefer, try actually reading them and weighing the evidence, the approach, the estimates and the conclusions – that’s how real science is judged.
And someone could respond:
“1. If nine scientists out of ten find additional evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is leading to global warming, which is leading to climate change — give space to the 1 scientist who does not support this finding.”
When you find that “additional evidence” over and above what you have now, please let us know?
“2. Claim that the findings of the one scientist conclusively refute the findings of the nine.”
As men finally did Galileo, for example?
“3. Or, if uncertainty cannot be dismissed, claim that the uncertainty is all in favor of dismissing the concerns about man made climate change.”
Why is your faith more rational than mine?
“4. Claim that errors made by climate scientists are proof that they are never right, or almost never.”
When by the very nature of the task you cannot demonstrate you’re right, if it then becomes demonstrable that you’re wrong what else would you have me do? See #3 above.
“5. Claim that the fact that climate scientists don’t know everything is as good as saying that they know nothing.”
Taking action based upon that which one cannot know would be foolishness if doing so destroys that which one does.
“6. Point to fatuous or ill-informed statements about climate change by someone on the ‘alarmist’ side as being representative of all people who are concerned about climate change, regardless of their scientific credentials.”
Hypocrisy – your entire argument does this in reverse.
“7. Claim that the views of climate change skeptics are suppressed, even though the media, always anxious to avoid the charge of bias, bends over to give space to the views of skeptics, with or with scientific credentials.”
As in this example of one of the largest (if not the largest) media companies on the planet?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/22/caught-red-handed-google-search-suppresses-climate-realism/
“8. Ignore the totality of the changes that are happening. Dismiss each separate extreme weather event as a fluke, which, considered individually, it may well be. Never commit the mistake of trying to argue that the totality of extreme weather events is a fluke.”
What changes?
“…each separate extreme weather event…”
or the,
“…totality of extreme weather events…”?
Because in the absence of anything other than ill-informed, speculatory modeling, why is it not more rational to conclude that this is nothing more than weather?
9 out of 10 psychiatrists 80 years ago might have agreed that you need a lobotomy.
I always say… “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.”
Jesse Fell, yes, someone could write such a thesis and might even get it “published” given today’s standards, but if they did I assure you that the staff of WUWT and numerous commenters to the site would eviscerate it with calm, reasoned logic and reference to the scientific method where needed.
It certainly appears you haven’t spent much time reading at the WUWT website.
Jesse, spot on. That is a great list, and exactly what is happening on this site.
#3 uncertainty: there is this science-ignorant habit of assuming that any uncertainty means the viewer can look at the 90% uncertainly range, high or low, that comforts them. If successive record years were 0.05°C above each previous year for a decade, the trend is up, and no scientists doubts it.
This site points to the fact that we may not be able to know if 2014 was truly warmer than 2013, and a small group of people applaud because they think we may not be warming. Even when 2015 trounced 2014, they pretended that scientists were uncertain.
” If successive record years were 0.05°C above each previous year for a decade, the trend is up, and no scientists doubts it.”
Assuming you’re talking about the non-existent “global temperature”, the instruments don’t have anywhere near that kind of accuracy. Do you really believe such a trend, if it actually existed, would go on forever?
I see. So you believe that for the past five decades, each decade is not warmer than the last.
I guess satellites are out for you as well. What about global ice melt, earlier blooms, migration patterns, permafrost thaw?
5 decades is about 10 decades to short to declare a definitive trend.
Especially since the Earth is still warming up out of the Little Ice Age.
At 0.05C per decade, it will take another 20 decades for the Earth to reach the warmth it enjoyed during the Medieval Warm Period, and 60 to 100 decades to reach the warmth it enjoyed during the Holocene Optimum.
SO THE “F” WHAT? Good god I detest your ilk.
“If successive record years were 0.05°C above each previous year for a decade, the trend is up, and no scientists doubts it.”
Assuming such were demonstrably true, neither would I, who am not a scientist, doubt it. Nevertheless, absent other evidence besides a gradual, decade long temperature change, it’s only by faith that I would believe I had anything to do with it.
You don’t need to have faith in what an atmosphere is and how it makes each planet have a different climate. You also don’t need faith but reasoning that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There are very few people claiming to be scientists who doubt the basics at this point.
“There are very few people claiming to be scientists who doubt the basics at this point.”
But there are none that understand more than those basics, else, there’d be no more talk of unreliable models, for example.
Therefore, you have no other option than to believe by faith when you believe that AGW is real.
Even the IPCC admits as much (emphasis added):
“In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
I see. So the last five decades have not been shown to be successively warm.
I guess having the past few years smack dab in the middle of the IPCC forecasts is not enough for some people.
I give. You’re correct. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, and the earth is not warming. So what is really happening then?
What is really happening, Alley, is the temperatures get warmer and then they get cooler in a periodic manner.
The temperatures warmed from about 1910 to 1940, then the temperatures cooled from 1940 to 1980, and then the temperatures warmed up again from 1980 to the present.
The warming from 1910 to 1940 is equal to the warming from 1980 to the present. The earlier warming period took place when the IPCC says CO2 had little effect while the IPCC claims the warming from 1980 to present is driven by CO2.
Two equal periods of warming. One supposedly not related to CO2 and one supposedly related to CO2.
But you have to ask the question: If CO2 did not influence the earlier warming, then why should we assume CO2 influences the current warming when both warmings are of equal magnitude?
Hansen shows 1934 as being 0.5C warmer than 1998, which makes 1934 0.4C warmer than 2016, which means we have been in a temperature downtrend since 1934. The current warming trend did not break through the high of 1934 so far, and is currently cooling so the downtrend continues.
That’s what is really happening.
“I see. So the last five decades have not been shown to be successively warm.”
The question isn’t whether any certain time period has been shown to be successively warmer than another. The question is, if it has, why has it?
“I guess having the past few years smack dab in the middle of the IPCC forecasts is not enough for some people.”
What’s enough for this thinking man is that the IPCC argues in its own documentation that “we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Do you believe the consensus scientific opinion at the IPCC is wrong on this point? If you do, why do you believe them on any other point?
“I give. You’re correct. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, and the earth is not warming. So what is really happening then?”
I’ve neither argued that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas nor that the earth is not warming. Rather, I’ve argued that blaming CO2 for any such warming is at best premature, and at worst a textbook case of fallacious reasoning.
If Jimmy isn’t at school today, is it rational to believe that he cannot be anywhere else but on a family trip?
As to what’s really happening, I would argue the evidence currently available to us suggests Tom’s answer is the more likely one.
Explain the cooling of the 60’s and 70’s.
Explain the near 20 year pause that will soon be resuming?
First of all I believe none of the ‘global sfc temp data’. 2nd of all, is the earth’s temperature (puke metric) supposed to be static? Why, when it never has been? TO YOUR SAFE SPACE, AND TURN OFF ALL FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY SOURCES, NOW!!
We are still waiting for the Earth to get back to the temperatures of the 1930’s.
*buzz* Argument from Authority! Did you see how she snuck that in, implying “scientists” say so, so it doesn’t matter what you think. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, without it in our atmosphere this Earth would be X degrees colder (not to mention lifeless), but so freakin what? Even after the inordinate attention given to Global Warming(TM) for 30 years, we can clearly see that the so-called Global Average Temperature remained steady or even declined for 18 years while CO2 atmospheric concentration continued to increase at the same pace it has increased throughout the recorded measurements, so CO2 is clearly not the global thermostat you’re looking for (but I’m not looking for, the temperature will be what it will be). Drop it already and let’s direct research $ to someplace it will do some good!!!
Fascinating how the trolls have to cheer each other on.
I also love the way the latest troll just ignores all of the refutations of Jesse’s screed in order to cheer him on.
Oh we have some new trolls.
Ten out of ten believe increasing CO2 causes SOME global warming, including Zwally. But we were not talking about burning of fossil fuels, but Antarctic ice. Attributing the effects to fossils is considerably difficult when measuring the change is already almost impossible.
And you didn’t get the memo? Zwally wasn’t very happy with his results, and he can’t be counted as a skeptic. That he did not get a consensus result, was not because of lack of trying. And he ain’t actually stupid. The results also show that he appears to put science first, and not politics. His results are, to put it mildly, regarded as poisoning the message.
Now, you can of course say that this is one scientist against the 80 others that got with different methods a different result. And you can claim that the 80 must be right because they’re so many. But the fact is, a considerable controversy in the literature exists, and that is because it is freaking difficult to nail ice gain and melt rates that are smaller than 200 km³/yr over the whole continent, that happens to have temperatures around -20C during summer, and a kilometre-thick layer of ice. A Three Mile Island here or there doesn’t make an effing difference there.
In fact, 200km³ ice gain doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t matter! Whoever told you Antarctica should be in a perfect balance in the first place?
I say all this knowing that Zwally may retract whatever he wrote on grounds he finds it seriously flawed. I don’t think the results make a lot of friends or funding.
I believe we have been assigned as a high school class project.
For an ‘A’ bring proof of how you lectured to the climate deniers.
And for an A+, define the term “climate denier”.
Is it anyone who thinks there is no such thing as climate on Earth (the literal interpretation)? Is it someone who thinks that climate can change without effects from human civilization? Is it anyone that thinks global climates (sic) may eventually become colder when they are now growing hotter. Is it anyone that thinks there may be causes other than human-originated atmospheric CO2, including natural causes, for Earth’s temperature increase over the last 200 years?
“If you can’t define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is. There is, in fact, no formal difference between inability to define and stupidity.” — Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Someone could write a thesis titled, “The Rhetorical Method of WUWT”. The important aspect of this method are:
Someone could also write a thesis titled, “The Misguided Whining of Jesse Fell
1. If nine scientists out of ten find additional evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is leading to global warming, which is leading to climate change — give space to the 1 scientist who does not support this finding.
… because that one scientist is probably NOT parroting the other nine, who, oh by the way, are pals and have collaborated for years, sharing and re-enforcing the same errors over and over again.
2. Claim that the findings of the one scientist conclusively refute the findings of the nine.
That’s an overstatement. A more appropriate phrasing might be, “strongly bring into question the findings of the other nine”, ESPECIALLY if the findings of the one scientist were based on sound scientific methodology and use of real data.
3. Or, if uncertainty cannot be dismissed, claim that the uncertainty is all in favor of dismissing the concerns about man made climate change.
When is uncertainty EVER transparently revealed by your fantasized nine scientists? The one scientist has to dredge it out of them to even bring it to the table for a rationale discussion, while the other nine consider their faith as the overriding force of reason that should guide economic policy.
4. Claim that errors made by climate scientists are proof that they are never right, or almost never.
Again, … an overstatement. Or better still, … a completely false characterization.
5. Claim that the fact that climate scientists don’t know everything is as good as saying that they know nothing.
See response under #4. That’s three overstatements now, which reveal your drama-queen tendencies.
6. Point to fatuous or ill-informed statements about climate change by someone on the “alarmist” side as being representative of all people who are concerned about climate change, regardless of their scientific credentials.
Do you even know what “fatuous” means? If you did, then you’d realize how fatuous your statement #6 is.
7. Claim that the views of climate change skeptics are suppressed, even though the media, always anxious to avoid the charge of bias, bends over to give space to the views of skeptics, with or with scientific credentials.
All I can say to that is “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!” — yes, maniacal laughter of disbelief that you could really entertain such a wild falsehood. Wake up, you’re dreaming !
8. Ignore the totality of the changes that are happening. Dismiss each separate extreme weather event as a fluke, which, considered individually, it may well be. Never commit the mistake of trying to argue that the totality of extreme weather events is a fluke.
It’s NOT a question of IGNORING changes, but rather a question of ACCEPTING changes and NOT trying to ATTRIBUTE changes to the WRONG causes. You fail to view the TOTALITY of the pattern that you accuse WUWT of doing. It is YOU who treat each separate extreme weather event as a component of a larger pattern of extreme weather events that DOES NOT EXIST. What totality? The totality of weather events is nothing out of the ordinary. What IS out of the ordinary is human interest to recognnize extreme events, to hype extreme events, to mass communicate extreme events at a pace and production clarity that has never existed before.
9. Because it is not.
No one here is arguing what you have just claimed. No one here is arguing that the totality of extreme weather events is a fluke. The PATTERN of extreme weather events is NOT a fluke. Look at the pattern, NOT the totality. Your view of TOTALITY blinds you to the actual PATTERN, which is nothing out of the ordinary. You exist in an information age that is hyper-aware and hyper-communicative about things that many people have never experienced. More people are in existence. More people live to see storms. More people build more structures that they can witness storms destroy. It’s NOT more storms — it’s more people and more of their stuff getting in the way of storms that have always occurred in a very similar pattern.
I might have added point 10. Think like a lawyer, not like a scientist. The point of this site is advocacy — to advance a particular point of view, and not to weigh ALL the evidence dispassionately, in order to point the way to truth. So use all the lawyer’s tricks — present only the evidence that appears favorable to your client, impugn the character of opposing witnesses, call to the witness stand an “expert” to refute expert testimony, and so on. Challenge the motives of anyone who claims to be motivated by simple curiosity — because we aren’t so motivated, so how could anyone else be?
“I might have added point 10. Think like a lawyer, not like a scientist.”
Because scientists shouldn’t employ the rules of evidence and logic in their analysis of the world?
“…and not to weigh ALL the evidence dispassionately, in order to point the way to truth.”
“ALL” the evidence your side can offer are models of possible future climate states, Jesse. If you have something besides the models, please advise?
If you disagree with the following statement by the consensus of scientists at the IPCC, why do you?
“In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
Anthony frequently posts articles by warmists and has invited others to participate as well.
Like most trolls, you think proper debates consists of two advocates arguing over how fast CO2 is going to kill us. Even allowing other opinions is just proof of how biased you are.
It really is fascinating how hard the trolls cling to the belief that all of the real scientists agree with them, so they don’t even need to look at anything that they might disagree with.
If the nine are wrong, it only takes one scientist to disprove it. That’s how science works. Something you would know if actually knew something about science.
If we aren’t certain that CO2 is going to kill us? Why do something about it? We have proof that CO2 levels of over 5000ppm did not harm. So why all the caterwauling about 500ppm?
If the climate scientists made mistakes, then they aren’t right. By definition.
If they don’t know everything, then they don’t know enough to claim that CO2 is going to kill us.
Pointing out fatuous statements by major players in the climate wars is legitimate.
That skeptic views are routines suppressed is proven. Things like major newspapers having open policies to not print letters from those who don’t agree with the consensus.
Another troll who doesn’t want to know the difference between weather and climate.
BTW, the statistics show that there is no increase in extreme weather.
It’s just morons like you trying to claim that things that have happened before are all “unprecedented”.
“It really is fascinating how hard the trolls cling to the belief that all of the real scientists agree with them”
They fool themselves into thinking they are on the right side of the issue and don’t have to give the details much thought because the “experts” have already done that for them. That’s why you hear the “97 percent” argument all the time: It’s real easy to do and doesn’t take much thought.
In Alaska, boreal forests are being destroyed by warm weather pests. The trees in the forests have no natural defenses against these pests, because the trees evolved into their present form in a climate that was too cold for these pests. Evolution takes a long time — thousands of years. So, it is reasonable to assume that the parts of Alaska that are now welcoming these warm weather pests were cold for many thousands of years.
So why the change now? Increased atmospheric CO2 owing to the burning of fossil fuels is a reasonable explanation, and there is no other explanation that is at all reasonable.
And so with many other changes that we are seeing: warmer nights, loss of old ice in the arctic, shrinking of glaciers world wide, wildfires are higher altitudes that ever known before, etc. The warming behind all this could be the result of something natural — but what is this natural thing? The only comprehensive, scientifically grounded explanation is the increase in atmospheric CO2 resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
“So why the change now? Increased atmospheric CO2 owing to the burning of fossil fuels is a reasonable explanation, and there is no other explanation that is at all reasonable.”
Except that what you’ve done here is presuppose your conclusion in your premise. This can’t be a reasonable argument because it is fallacious reasoning:
http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Begging-the-Question.html
“The warming behind all this could be the result of something natural — but what is this natural thing?”
Glad to hear your at least willing to entertain the possibility. We just don’t know yet, because we just don’t know enough about the climate system. Was past warming due to CO2 as well?
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/mid-holocene-warm-period
I’ll ask you again. Will you ignore the question again, as all of those who believe you like you have so far?
If you disagree with the following statement by the consensus of scientists at the IPCC, why do you?
“In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
I was not writing about modeling, but about the changes that we are already seeing, such as the destruction of boreal forests in Alaska.
To say that such changes are most plausibly attributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2, etc. is not an example of “petitio principii”, as you charge. It is to say that the AGW thesis is supported by solid physics and atmospheric science, whereas the invocation of cycles of nature or something else, anything else, is guesswork.
Man, I’d hate to be you. You must never enjoy anything. Do you wear a grey hair suit by chance?
Actual measurements of actual temperatures show that the amount of warming is minor.
Regardless, you haven’t shown that even this tiny amount of warming was caused by CO2.
Abject nonsense.
Alaska’s boreal forest covers most of NOAA NCDC’s three interior climate divisions and part of the North Slope division…
Boldt et al., 2015 discussed a Holocene summer temperature reconstruction from Lake Kurupu, which lies on the boundary of the North Slope and Central Interior divisions.
Boldt et al., found that the period from 3.0–2.9 ka BP was 3.0 °C warmer than the reference period (1961-1990)…
http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/buf/pubs/Boldt_et_al_2015.pdf
Summer temperature anomalies (3-yr avg) for the North Slope and Central Interior divisions…
The Central Interior has been generally near the 1961-1990 mean (+/-1 °C).
North Slope and Central Interior anomalies plotted at same scale (inside red oval) and resolution as Holocene reconstruction…
The climate of Alaska’s boreal forest isn’t behaving any differently now than it has for the past 5,000 years.
Wow nice, thanks for your time and effort!
TO THE SAFE ROOM WITH YOU. TURN OFF ALL FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY SOURCES AND STOP USING, CONSUMING ANYTHING REMOTELY ASSOCIATED. WE MUST DRIVE THE PLANET COLDER AND GROW CONTINENTAL ICE SHEETS FOR THE GOOD OF….
Hypocrite.
I believe Jesse Fell off the banana boat yesterday.
Stick around. You won’t find a consensus here!
A timely update in view of recent alarms.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2018/06/14/blinded-by-antarctica-reports/
I wish someone would investigate and publish the financial incentives of every alarmist pushing fake data and every big business & NGO promoting AGW. Big oil, for instance – the ‘useful idiots’ I know have [had] no clue beyond the Koch Bros.
It’s gaining sea ice but losing land ice. That’s what causes sea level rise and that’s what’s important.
Nope, no gain in land ice. Hence, no rise in sea level. Sea ice is irrelevant to sea level changes.
I don’t care a wit about it. It’s meaningless in my life and yours. Fool
“So what?”
Just that this article appears to be about one man’s take on the science.
I posted an alternative that is the product of 84.
That’s what.
Claiming it is one person is just another lie. Why do people continue to ignore Frezzotti et al?
“Our SMB reconstructions indicate that the SMB changes over most of Antarctica are statistically negligible”
Pretty much exactly what Zwally is seeing.
“Claiming it is one person is just another lie. ”
What I said ….
“Just that THIS ARTICLE appears to be about one man’s take on the science.”
So, are you saying that scientific fact is established based on polling/voting numbers . . . basically, whatever theory has the largest consensus?
I guess I missed that being a keystone of the scientific method.
Alarmists are pseudo in their science, so that’s the reason.
These guys can make an estimate of any damn thing they want (Glacial Isostatic Adjustment) but the fact is, they DO NOT KNOW, and they HAVE NOT MEASURED. When the human signal for climate change equals the human adjustment signal, which I think is very much the case today, then the human climate scientists have lost the script. They should try to be productive by getting new jobs in the private sector, making widgets
“… they HAVE NOT MEASURED”
“Satellites launched by the European Space Agency and NASA allow scientists to monitor changes in ice height, ice velocity and ice mass through changes in Earth’s gravity field. Each of these satellites provide an independent way to measure Antarctica’s past contribution to sea level rise.”
How can satellites “measure Antarctica’s PAST contribution to sea level rise.” ?
They don’t.
The ice cores, however, can allow for reconstruction of ice accumulation for the past 800,000 years. The ice cores inconveniently show that the EAIS has grown since the last glacial maximum, and is typically out of phase with the northern ice sheets in general. That’s why they base their work on purely modeled fantasy instead, like this study that modeled the EAIS to simply grow or recede based on a surface temperature inflection point (fig 3 B)
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/313/5786/492.full
Of course they assume that every difference they measure, must be caused by changes in the ice.
Earth warming, sea levels rising, warm records outpacing cold records by more than 2:1, CO2 rising, sea levels rising…
And here we are discussing the possibility that one pole may or may not be losing total ice because of one study. Possible, and let’s assume this one report is true, because it could be. That’s fine.
So what? We are still left with a warming planet and an overall loss of global ice. We are left with rising sea levels. And we are clearly setting global warming records, whether you look at all records, El Nino year records, La Nina year records, rural areas, urban areas, the very best ground stations, satellite data, etc.
Where does your post prove that it is caused by Humans ??
Are you seriously thinking that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, or that we are not responsible for the increase?
CO2 in the past has been over 6.000 PPM and no “catastrophe” happened !! Explain that little Grasshopper !!! What you fail to understand is that most comments here
reflect the knowledge that CAGW does not exist !! The world will not end tomorrow…or next year..or the next century due to Humans driving SUV’s !!
Since man has been on earth, what is the highest concentration of CO2?
I’m not concerned about billions of years when 100,000s of years will suffice. The planet will survive, we will survive, it’s just going to be really expensive to move cities and farmland.
I just love it when trolls proclaim that CO2 behaves differently now compared to the past, because mankind exists now.
If 6000ppm did not cause the catastrophes that keep your panties in such a twist, why do you believe that 500ppm is going to?
Duh, because solar irradiance was lower then.
Chris, only by a few tenths of a percent, if that much.
Do you really believe that the human race could exist with 6000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere? It wasn’t around the last time when the CO2 was anyway near that high.
Could we survive with 6000ppm? Easily. In fact survival would be even easier than now.
Why does it matter how long ago it was. It happened, and life thrived. That’s all that matters.
“Could we survive at 6000ppm? Easily”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
“There are few studies of the health effects of long-term continuous CO2 exposure on humans and animals at levels below 1%. Occupational CO2 exposure limits have been set in the United States at 0.5% (5000 ppm) for an eight-hour period.At this CO2 concentration, International Space Station crew experienced headaches, lethargy, mental slowness, emotional irritation, and sleep disruption. Studies in animals at 0.5% CO2 have demonstrated kidney calcification and bone loss after eight weeks of exposure. A study of humans exposed in 2.5 hour sessions demonstrated significant effects on cognitive abilities at concentrations as low as 0.1% (1000ppm) CO2 likely due to CO2 induced increases in cerebral blood flow. Another study observed a decline in basic activity level and information usage at 1000 ppm, when compared to 500 ppm.”
When it comes to anything related to CO2, Wiki is not to be trusted.
Beyond that, there’s not enough coal, oil, nat gas in the ground to get the CO2 levels much above 1000ppm, even if we burned it all over the next couple of years.
The carbon dioxide levels on submarines are kept around 8000 ppm. Few adverse effects are found at even higher levels, so, yes, the human race could exist at 6000 ppm levels, as long as that increase does not come by reducing oxygen levels, which is the primary limiting factor.
Marcus, ever heard of feeding the troll? Yes, me neither.
In your pathetic little excuse for a mind, the only possible source of warming must be CO2.
How do you explain the fact that during the last 10000 years, the earth has been warmer than it is today 5 times, and none of those warm periods were caused by CO2?
Some of us don’t need to rely on assumptions whether we accept a study or not. And some of us have at least a college level of philosophy, so things like more heat records than cold records relative to a 180 year average do not mean much to us.
Some of us have a math degree, and know that a 2:1 ratio of warming to cooling only happens in a dynamic systems when the system is warming on average.
Relative to 180 years means a LOT! In the first year all sites have records. In the second year half of the sites, on average, will have new records (picking warm or cold only.) Each year it becomes hard to reach a new record.
In a relatively stable climate, you would expect fewer warm and fewer cold records, but always in equal ratios. In a warming climate you expect more warm records. Philosophy has nothing to do with this.
Simple question…When has the climate NOT been changing ?? Tell me the year please !! The Earth is Approximately 4.5 billion years old so you have a lot to choose from !!
Some of us have enough intelligence to know how short a record mankind has when it comes to these temperature records.
That’s cute, let’s put the 180 years into perspective. 180:4,500,000,000 = 0.000004% of Earth history. Now let’s say you have a 1 mile long roller coaster that represents Earth History. The 180 year temperature record would represent a section of track 0.25 inches in length. Chicken Little might cry if the track is descending or ascending over this 0.25 inches and claim it’s significant and unprecedented, but those that have studied the history of the track realize that the track is always ascending or descending and has done so at much steeper gradients.
Fool. Icky stinky fool.
Alley
WE are setting global warming records? how do you know that > what about previous interglacials?
In the interglacial periods temperatures were occasionally higher than they are at present, resulting in the melting of the ice sheets (mostly Antarctica/Greenland), and a sea level much higher than today. Around the Cape here (South Africa) you can see the places when the water was in fact 30 meters higher than today and in those days the Cape Peninsula was just a string of islands.
Of course we cannot blame man for this …….., can we? For the past 10000 years (Holocene) sea levels have remained more or less constant and this is the period when man showed up on earth….. The recent increase observed in melting of ice in the Antarctic, IF TRUE, could simply be due to increased volcanic activity in that area. It makes sense to believe this if we notice what happens around the world with volcanoes on land?
Apparently, nothing that happened before man learned to walk upright matters, because the world works differently now.
Alley, you know what?
I think you’re in a wrong place. I’m here to smile on funny things, like a NASA scientist who gets a politically wrong result but is incapable of shutting up, or 80 scientists which get politically correct result and claim a doom to come.
Some humourless people like you telling that SEA LEVELS ARE RISING… that is not funny. We know sea levels are rising. You can hold the ruler in many ways and publish different numbers. The fact is, the sea level as I feel in my rubber boots, is actually falling here. Some people say it will stop falling any time now. My toes don’t see that. But even if it would, then where’s the reason to panic? People can adapt. People will adapt.
Last summer was cold. Last winter was partly mild, partly cold. This summer has been very warm, along the two warmest during my lifetime. But this may change any day. Next week will be rainy.
And I’m enjoying. Thanks to carbon (and hydro and nuclear), I have a working A/C. Be sure, that given right, I will vote for the people who make sure the price of energy does not rise.
I’m sure you would most certainly vote for rising the price, if it were possible. That’s the sad part with you.
Correlation is not causation?
What caused all the warming prior to the increase in CO2?
Crickets….
Wow, convincing. I better turn off my lights. Thanks.
And then there are the 91 volcanoes beneath the western portion of Antarctica. Co2 not needed here.
And they are indeed correct that much of West Antarctica is isostatically rebounding. This actually accelerates glacier flow, not to mention helps those volcanic necks grow and increase the heat gradient underneath the region.
This is exactly what I said about the Nature paper. When you start with a conclusion — that the icecap MUST be melting — and then make assumptions to fit that conclusion, it isn’t science. This is exactly what the Nature paper and their predecessors did. They give the wrong sign to GIA for East Antarctica, leading to wildly erroneous conclusions.
There is empirical evidence that East Antarctica gains ice when the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets contract, and vice versa, due to changes in snowfall. If the EAIS has grown since the LGM then the continent is being isostatically depressed, and there is ample evidence that this growth has accelerated in the past 2,000 years due to relatively high snowfall rates. If you assume that the continent is rebounding instead, based on laughable models that literally assume warm global climate equals melting ice sheets and cold global climate equals growing ice sheets irrespective of regional temperatures or precipitation rates, then of course your research is going to be wrong — grossly wrong.
Kudos to Zwally and his team for letting the data and evidence guide them to their results, despite being an alarmist himself.
It’s even worse than that… They’re basing rates of sea level rise on their assumption that the EAIS must be melting.
One of the craziest recent bits was the assertion that the seafloor was being deformed at a specific rate because sea level wasn’t rising fast enough to account for their assumptions about ice mas loss.
x + 3 = 10…but x MUST be 8…so 3 = 2: climate science
Based on evidence that 3 = 2 (climate scientist, 2018), we show that 1 + 1 = 3…and that’s how we arrive at the current state of natural science as it is “popularly” understood.
Here is how one should combat AGW enthusiast. This is how I go about it at any rate. This article and all the other ones where they claim AGW is doing this or that. It all bogus!
I have said many times , that the climate test will be on and which way the climate goes will determine who is correct and who is wrong.
I said if my 2 solar conditions are meant expect cooling and I said this year is the first year since post Dalton times that this is happening.
On the other hand all predictions and premises AGW theory has been based on have yet to come true.
The climate being no way unique, and premises such as the positive feedback between water vapor and CO2 failing to materialize. Not to mention their ridiculous bogus infrared /overall oceanic temperature connections. What BS!
Overall sea surface temperatures now in a definitive cooling trend since last summer due to weak solar UV/NEAR UVLGHT intensities which are the wavelengths which penetrate the ocean surface to several meters not infrared light which barely penetrates the ocean surface. Maybe a tenth of an inch. Give me a break!
I have examined AGW theory that is why I am so sure it is WRONG.
Yes there is a GHG effect but it comes as a RESULT of the climate it is not the cause. This has been shown time and time again through Ice Core data. CO2 follows the temperatures does NOT lead it. This time is no different.
The global warming which did occur was entirely due to ENSO ,and lack of major explosive volcanic activity which can influence the climate within a climate regime to values of +/- 1 C .Look at the MEI INDEX.
AGW theory hi jacking that and trying to say it was AGW causing the recent relative warmth instead of naturally occurring ENSO.
When the climate changes to another regime which I think it is (colder) it will be more then 1C when all is said and done.
CO2 or the so called AGW has yet to change the climate regime the climate has been in since 1850.
The climate regime did change post 1850 when solar went from an inactive state to an active state, and from there the climate zig zagged in an upward trend moderated by ENSO/VOLCANIC ACTIVITY within the general rise from 1850-2017.
It was not until year 2005 that the sun switched from an active to an inactive state, meaning up to year 2005 the solar contribution to the climate was warming. That changed in year 2005 but lag times of 10+ years have to be considered.
Now I expect the climate to cool in a zig zag fashion but could be abrupt. The other shoe to drop will be major explosive volcanic activity, and an increase in global cloud /snow coverage. That equates to higher ALBEDO game over climate cools down!!
“Yes there is a GHG effect but it comes as a RESULT of the climate it is not the cause. This has been shown time and time again through Ice Core data. CO2 follows the temperatures does NOT lead it. This time is no different.”
From all I’ve read, the data show a strong and immediate correlation between CO2 levels and warming. This is consistent with the theoretical understanding of how CO2 absorbs the infrared radiation given off by the Earth.
“Strong and immediate correlation”.
You mean, like this?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-paper-studies-ordovician-ice-age.html
You read wrongly.
Here is a quote from Zwally in Nature. He is not a climate change denier:
The findings do not mean that Antarctica is not in trouble, Zwally notes. “I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this, and say this means we don’t have to worry as much as some people have been making out,” he says. “It should not take away from the concern about climate warming.” As global temperatures rise, Antarctica is expected to contribute more to sea-level rise, though when exactly that effect will kick in, and to what extent, remains unclear. [Nature, 10/2/15]
Why do you find it necessary to take the research of other, which you are not credentialed to understand, and lie about it? Who pays your bills?
Don’t you mean “If temps continue to rise”. All of the current signs are pointing to continued cooling, imo. The main cooling being in the oceans, and that will affect land temps in the years ahead.
They should mean “If” to be accurate, since they don’t know if it is going to continue to warm or not, they are just guessing that it will because CO2 is involved. Methinks the Alarmists assume too much about many things.
That pablum is required to get a paper published these days.
Antarctic melting concerns me about as much as…well….NOTHING!
I’m amazed that Zwally has kept his job. This is NASA maybe he’s Muslim? You know, Muslim outreach is NASA’s top priority because Obama ordered it.
Wait isn’t this the same guy that predicted that the Arctic would be ice free by 2012? I mean is he saying ice gain in the hopes that he will be wrong or is he being honest?
Emperor M.E. Mann and MiniMe Der G. Schmidt and the GayStream Media Outlets and the UN will apply pressure on “Top Gun” Bridenstine to fire Zwally.
Ha ha
“We gotta protect our Phony Baloney jobs!”
Sea level rises 20 thousandths of an inch per year. People drown because they don’t have time to put their galoshes on.
Parts of Holland are 5 meters below sea level, unless their dikes are made to extremely high tolerances and calibrated precisely for the current sea level, it’s hard to see why there would be a crisis with such a slow rise.
They can spend years laying a single course of bricks on top of an existing dike and still be ahead of the game.
If Holland can maintain land 5 meters below sea level, other countries should easily be able to handle a few millimeters a year of rising seas.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html
Ice increases every winter and melts every summer, even in Antarctica.
Antarctica is very very cold, ice increases on top all year. ice on Antarctica does not melt much. Ice flows away from the inside of Antarctica outward to the ocean and forms ice shelves that break off, most ice loss is from the breaking off of what flowed out. Ice thawing and meltwater flowing out is a fraction of the ice loss.
Oh, I understand. Best to keep it simple when trying to explain anything climate related to warmunistas. More than 12 words usually confuses them, so I try to keep it short and direct. And gawd forbid you show them a composite satellite image of actual Arctic Sea ice extent! That makes them trip a breaker every time.
They will someday understand, should be soon, they are watching what happens. More warming thaws more sea ice and promotes more snowfall on the land. The warm times are when the ice is replenished. Cold times are when the ice depletes because it does not get enough snowfall. It snows more when it gets warm and it gets cold after the more ice advances faster. It snows less when it gets cold and the ice depletes from lack of snowfall and then ice retreats from lack of flow rate. It is a self correcting cycle.
Even Zwally does not understand that Antarctic is gaining ice because it is warm and sea ice is thawed. When the ice donut around the land is small, it can snow on the land with moisture from more thawed ocean. When the ice donut around the land is large, the less moisture from less open water causes snow that falls on flowing ice and most snow does not even reach the land.
Ewing and Donn published this sixty years
Climate cycles are natural and our CO2 did not suddenly take over for natural causes that stopped.
“snow falls on flowing ice” should be “snow falls on floating ice”
I’m beginning to wonder whether anybody really knows or can even determine what the mass balance is.
If conflicting studies can coexist, then I’d say nobody really has a true grasp of the situation.
when ice thaws and flows into the oceans, the spin rate of earth slows down, when snow falls on land closer to the spin axis using water from the oceans, the spin rate of earth speeds up. you can look at leap seconds, if they start adding more and more leap seconds, we are losing ice, if they keep adding less and less leap seconds we are gaining ice. Time measurements are much more accurate than ice and sea level. They are adding less leap seconds than they did 40 years ago, we have gained ice.
Just what I thought. No one really knows because no one knows the actual ****Volume**** of the ice sheet. It’s just a big guessing game!!!
10,000yrs hasnt been long enough to complete the rebound from the glacial maximum after the 50 million cubic kms of ice disappeared. How thick a layer is 50Gt? Assuming 5million km^2 coverage this works out to 1mm thick. 200Gt would be 4mm thick. I dont think 1.6mm depression in 10yrs.
It sounds as though Really is at least honest. Remember the Nature paper quotes error margins at one standard deviation. Had they used two standard deviations they would not have been able to claim reasonable certainty of any ice loss. It would be 7.6+/-7.8mm of sea level rise.
I hate autocorrect. Zwally not Really.
GIA is such a con.