Antarctic melting slows atmospheric warming and speeds sea level rise

From Eurekalert

Public Release: 19-Nov-2018
The research is the first to show how the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will affect future climate
University of Arizona

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IMAGE: Antarctica is covered with sastrugi — concrete-hard snow drifts — for thousands of miles in every direction. view more Credit: Kelly Brunt, courtesy National Science Foundation

As the Antarctic ice sheet melts, warming of the atmosphere will be delayed by about a decade but sea level rise will accelerate, according to new research scheduled for advance online publication in the journal Nature.

The study is the first to project how the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will affect future climate, said first author Ben Bronselaer of the University of Arizona, adding that current climate models do not include the effects of melting ice on the global climate.

The entire Earth will continue to warm, but the atmosphere will warm more slowly because more of the heat will be trapped in the ocean, he said

“Warming won’t be as bad as fast as we thought, but sea level rise will be worse,” said Bronselaer, a postdoctoral research associate in the UA Department of Geosciences.

Observations show that the Antarctic ice sheet has been melting faster in recent years.

The UA-led team found that by the year 2100, sea level could rise as much as 10 inches more than the previous estimate of approximately 30 inches by 2100.

“No one had looked at the big picture of what Antarctic ice sheet melting means for the global climate,” he said.

To figure out whether the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would affect global climate, the research team modified one of the most current climate computer models to include the ice melt.

Adding the melted ice into the team’s model indicated that the global temperature would increase by 2 degrees C (3.6 F) by the year 2065, rather than the year 2053, the team writes.

In addition to slowing warming and increasing sea level, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will change precipitation regimes because the tropical rain belt will shift north, said senior author Joellen Russell, who holds the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrative Science and is an associate professor of geosciences at the UA.

“Our projections indicate the tropical rain belt will shift toward the Northern Hemisphere, making it slightly wetter in the Northern Hemisphere and slightly drier in the Southern Hemisphere than previously predicted,” Russell said.

The team’s research paper, “Change in future climate due to Antarctic meltwater,” is scheduled for online publication in the journal Nature on Nov. 19. A complete list of coauthors and their affiliations is at the end of this release.

The research is part of the National Science Foundation-funded Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) Project. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA also funded the research.

Russell leads the part of SOCCOM that is charged with improving how the Southern Ocean is represented in the computer models of global climate. The Southern Ocean is the ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

Researchers previously thought the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would affect only sea level, not the entire climate system.

To test that idea, Bronselaer ran a climate model with and without the ice- sheet melting included. The team included researchers from NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey and from Princeton University. The scientists used NOAA GFDL’s climate model called ESM2M and tested the simulation over the time period from 1950 to 2100.

In addition, they set the level of greenhouse gas emissions for the 21st century using the scenario known as RCP8.5, sometimes called the “business-as-usual” scenario.

Russell and Bronselaer were both surprised by their findings. They did not expect the Antarctic meltwater to affect the global climate system.

Ocean circulation moves heat from the equator to the poles. The heat is then released into the atmosphere, Russell said. However, the team’s new research reveals that the additional freshwater from the melting ice sheet acts like a lid on the waters around Antarctica and slows the release of heat.

“It’s the first new identified feedback on climate in 20 years,” she said. “The melting delays warming – it’s still warming but it will warm less steeply and give us another 15-year grace period.”

Another SOCCOM team that has deployed robotic floats throughout the Southern Ocean that are gathering temperature, salinity, and biological and chemical information about the ocean.

Russell said her next steps are evaluating climate models against the observations from the SOCCOM floats to see what else the models might be missing.

###

Bronselaer and Russell’s coauthors on the paper, “Change in future climate due to Antarctic Meltwater,” are Michael Winton of the NOAA GFDL in Princeton, New Jersey; Stephen M. Griffies of NOAA GFDL and Princeton University; William J. Hurlin of NOAA GFDL; Keith B. Rodgers of Princeton University; Olga V. Sergienko of NOAA GFDL and Princeton University; and Ronald J. Stouffer of the University of Arizona and NOAA GFDL.

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Admad
November 21, 2018 4:09 am

How do they propose that the ice sheet will melt in significantly sub-zero temperatures?

icisil
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 5:25 am

If they were honest or capable they would be investigating volcanism’s effect in western Antarctica, where certain glaciers overlying volcanic hotspots are melting. I believe the eastern part and the continent overall are gaining ice.

Deno Gettas
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 6:25 am

I agree with you there are a number of volcanoes that are having effect and some scientists are saying we are going into colder weather apparently the solar system apparently warming and no sunspots according to NASA and other scientists

Bryan A
Reply to  Deno Gettas
November 21, 2018 9:48 am

OHGEE
Another study that can be utilized to “Push The Goal Posts” out another 15 years

Jean Parisot
Reply to  Bryan A
November 21, 2018 6:58 pm

15 years, Conveniently beyond the professional life of the writers and editors

WXcycles
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:40 am

The ocean’s been rising at a frightful rate Mosh.

icisil
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:40 am

Now that’s fresh news – published today. Thank you. That’s the first I’ve seen on the subject.

I do take issue with this:

“The process of melting we observe has probably been going on for thousands or maybe even millions of years and isn’t directly contributing to ice sheet change,” says lead researcher Tom Jordan, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).”

Since when is volcanism necessarily static, never changing? As you know, the 91 volcanoes there were only recently discovered, so I think it’s safe to say that not much is known about their history or current state of activity.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:55 am

And this is why the melt slows atmospheric warming?

sophocles
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 3:20 pm

Don’t panic Mosher. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet has survived nearly 30MY. I’m confident it isn’t going anywhere soon.

WXcycles
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 8:39 am

Eastern? … east of what? It’s a circumpolar continent.

icisil
Reply to  WXcycles
November 21, 2018 9:50 am

Penguins are offended by your normalization of equatorial privilege.

WXcycles
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 6:02 pm

I apologize and repent of my directionist insensitivity, that was wrong of me.

PS: could you please ask them to make less brown on the ice, we can see it from space.

Reply to  WXcycles
November 21, 2018 10:27 am

That drives me nuts too.

I think they mean the Eastern longitude lines. But you of course are correct. East and West on a circumpolar continent are just directions of travel, not locations.

richard Patton
Reply to  WXcycles
November 21, 2018 11:50 am

eastern Antarctica = Antarctica in the eastern hemisphere.

WXcycles
Reply to  richard Patton
November 21, 2018 7:35 pm

So once you get to the eastern hemisphere, is there any more east beyond that?

RoHa
Reply to  richard Patton
November 21, 2018 11:06 pm

Where does the Eastern Hemisphere start and end?

Paul Blase
Reply to  WXcycles
November 22, 2018 12:17 am

By convention, if the Prime Meridian is up, East is to the right.

TDR
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 10:36 am

Scientists are well aware of volcanism. There havnt been any significant changes to volcanoes in Antarctica. The ice is melting mostly where it meets the sea due to the AGW driven rise in sea temperature as referred to the article.

neil w
Reply to  TDR
November 21, 2018 11:41 am

AGW – a blast from the past!

Hugs
Reply to  TDR
November 21, 2018 11:44 am

Scientists don’t even know for sure the sign of the continental ice mass balance, yet you talk about the ‘reason’ of the hardly detectable mass change. I just love the being-on-message.

Yeah I don’t care about the volcanic melt. I don’t give a damn on the ‘melting Antarctica’. As long as the sea level barely nudges from its centennial pace.

icisil
Reply to  TDR
November 21, 2018 12:03 pm

They discovered 91 new volcanoes within the last few years (47 others were already known). How do you know there hasn’t been any significant changes? How do you know the volcanic-melted glacial water flowing downhill to the sea isn’t responsible for the ice melt?

chris
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 12:45 pm

Red herring.

When will the people on this site take Yes for an answer? (or in this case, slowing of global warming)

Whataboutisms, moving the goal posts, etc. have gotten really tiresome. Does the proposed cause – in this case, increased melting of the Antartic ice cap – drive the proposed consequences (slowed global warming and increased sea-level rise)? That is the question I’d like to see debated.

Oh, and please (a) document statements of (proported) facts with references to peer-reviewed journals, and (b) state your qualifications if you strongly disagree (e.g., someone lacking experience with simulations should have training and experience in modeling and simulation)

thanks. 🙂

MarkW
Reply to  chris
November 21, 2018 3:21 pm

I don’t see how this study is a yes.

Where is this evidence that the 1) The Antarctic ice cap is melting and 2) CO2 is responsible?

Richard G.
Reply to  MarkW
November 21, 2018 9:52 pm

I agree Mark, Chris has not proved the case.
“As the Antarctic ice sheet melts,…”(second paragraph) is unproved thus a false premise. Assuming the answer to an unasked question (Is Antarctica melting?)is called begging the question. Two logical fallacies to start with. It may well be a humdinger of a computer model, but it will tell you what you make it say. So, melting may well cause XYZ, but is it melting Y/N?
comment image
NCDC shows 8 reporting grid cells for all of Antarctica, 5 of which show colder by 1 to 5 degrees C. The paucity of data leaves me unimpressed.

ray boorman
Reply to  chris
November 21, 2018 5:51 pm

Take your hand off it, chris, or you will get blisters – your appeal to authority is just bleating from a lost sheep.

Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 5:38 am

To illlusrate, if say a house is north an south poles melting, and say termites being Global Warming, insted of watching how the termites are destroying the house would it not be better just to destroy the the termites and be done with it?

Reply to  Russell
November 21, 2018 6:40 am

Russel

I am sure you refer to to the termites as being the volcanic activity below the Antarctic that is causing some of that melt.
How do you want to kill that termite?

Reply to  henryp
November 21, 2018 8:26 am

henryp

My interpretation of Russell’s confusing post is that the termites are global warming.

Unless I’m much mistaken he’s suggesting we stop all warming activity, natural or otherwise, around the planet, to stop the north and south poles melting.

Quite what purpose frozen poles serve is beyond me, other than to have scientists crawling all over them in order to confuse themselves.

The planet has jogged along happily for 80% of it’s existence with no frozen poles. Our current interglacial period is abnormal.

I wondered if God sequestered CO2 to create a cold environment, then begot man when he realised he screwed up with atmospheric CO2 hitting 180 ppm risking all life on the planet. His bright idea was to provide man the intelligence to make fire and burn all that fossil fuel he created to recover the planet. 🙂

No madder a theory than AGW.

WXcycles
Reply to  HotScot
November 21, 2018 8:42 am

So … when gawd’s got enough CO2 … what happens to us? Stratigraphy?

Reply to  HotScot
November 21, 2018 8:46 am

@#$%&

Reply to  HotScot
November 21, 2018 9:51 am

refusing or declining comment, I think we can safely assume that Russell is clueless?

Schitzree
Reply to  HotScot
November 21, 2018 11:04 am

WXcycles – George Carlin had a theory that the Earth created Man because it wanted plastic. Now that it has some it doesn’t really need us any more.

I assume the same goes for God needing the CO2 released.

~¿~

Patrick MJD
Reply to  henryp
November 21, 2018 6:56 pm

Maybe he is referring to the 4000 year old network of termite mounds the size of the UK discovered in Brazil recently.

Michael burns
Reply to  Russell
November 21, 2018 7:58 am

” […] if say a house is north an south poles […]”

Termites in the north and south pole…hm?

The parameters of this experiment, seems a bit ah…a bit..off. Have you considered using Penguins and igloos instead?

John Endicott
Reply to  Russell
November 21, 2018 12:50 pm

Russell, care to try again only this time try and make some semblance of sense? Thanks.

Keith
Reply to  Russell
November 21, 2018 8:39 pm

I do so love ridiculous analogies. I’ll play your game:

What course of action would you take if efforts to kill the termites would merely sicken the people living in that house and the rest of the neighbourhood, having very little effect on the termites? How about if better historical studies had shown that the house had periodically appeared in danger of collapse in the recent past, but it never came to that and the house was just fine? Continued study may show that it had been a mistake to just blame termites, and that there were woodlice and numerous types of beetles that had been appearing cyclically, which were having a much bigger effect on the house than the termites. At the time everyone was just working on projected termite populations and other feedback mechanisms supposedly caused by the termites, but these never showed themselves at the actual house.

Trebla
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 5:59 am

Warming is slower than we thought. In other words, the previous “thought” was wrong. Now we’re supposed to believe the current “thought”?

Rocketcientist
Reply to  Trebla
November 21, 2018 7:42 am

“Warming of the atmosphere will be delayed…”
Really!! I was unaware that the atmosphere had an agenda and schedule to complete, and now climate change is buggering that up as well.
Add yet another item to the list that climate change is causing: Climate change is causing a delay in…climate change!

Farmer Ch E retired
Reply to  Trebla
November 21, 2018 9:09 am

Another Climate Explainer study – what was funding source??

Joel Snider
Reply to  Trebla
November 21, 2018 9:43 am

They’re 97% positive… THIS time.

Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 7:05 am

BINGO!

Antarctica is well below freezing nearly everywhere nearly all of the time. It can’t melt. It can lose or gain ice which is a function of snowfall and calving of bergs decades or centuries later. They claim that it is melting from warm ocean water eating away at the grounding line which induces acceleration of the calving events. Follow this image link
http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/PIG.ai_-768×440.jpg
to see how they say that works.

It requires that warm water make its way under the sea ice*, then under the floating ice shelf to finally melt the base of the glacier at the grounding line. Really quite a simple concept.

*Their diagram doesn’t show the sea ice but it certainly must be there most of the time.

icisil
Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 7:58 am

“It requires that warm water make its way under the sea ice*, then under the floating ice shelf to finally melt the base of the glacier at the grounding line. Really quite a simple concept. ”

Geothermal-melted glacial water discharging into the ocean under the ice shelf would have the same effect.

Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 9:50 am

icisil – “Geothermal-melted glacial water discharging into the ocean under the ice shelf would have the same effect.”

You are implying that the circumpolar deep warm water melting at the ice sheet grounding lines concept is correct. Here’s another diagram.

But yes, geothermal would do some melting, but the circumpolar concept implies that this goes on all the way around Antarctica.

Volcanism is local it shouldn’t be an issue regarding sea level rise.

icisil
Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 12:23 pm

“But yes, geothermal would do some melting, but the circumpolar concept implies that this goes on all the way around Antarctica. ”

Are they observing melting all the way around Antarctica? No, only where certain glaciers in the west meet the ocean (that I am aware of). It seems rather specific and localized.

Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 10:35 am

How much change in sea level is there when an ice shelf breaks off. I don’t think very much. I believe that most of the weight of the ice is floating already, with the attachment to the ground based ice sheet only bearing a substantially smaller percentage of the total weight. I do not believe the ice is strong enough to cantilever itself out over the sea for 100 km (or however far each individual ice shelf extends past the shore or grounding line).

I guess there can also be melting of ice that is grounded but past the shore line if the sea water is warm enough.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 7:29 am

Admad

Exactly. It is one thing to calculate that a sheet will melt, another entirely to explain how the air temperature will rise from -40 to +2 in order to melt at all.

There is absolutely no evidence that Antarctica will warm by 40 degrees in the next few years at any location.

If the rain belt moves north into the Sahara, which is quite reasonable, it will open up tens of millions of ha of new farmlands, sufficient to feed many billions of people. That is something I look forward to.

Chris
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 7:41 am

“How do they propose that the ice sheet will melt in significantly sub-zero temperatures?”

Because the ocean currents are not sub zero.

Reply to  Chris
November 21, 2018 8:11 am

Chris

That’ll be sea ice the ocean currents ‘might’ melt, not the land bound ice, which will make no difference to sea levels whatsoever.

Then there’s the problem of the constantly growing glaciers that move out into the sea because of the weight of snow inland, they don’t just instantly melt the moment they touch seawater.

As has been said elsewhere, volcanic activity beneath the ice might have some effect but it hasn’t so far, as far as we humans are aware.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:18 am

Steven

no, unfortunately it is not as simple as that.
What makes you think there is no volcanic activity below the Antarctic ice?

Click on my name to read that it cannot be due to AGW?

WXcycles
Reply to  henryp
November 21, 2018 8:50 am

Because that would be an inconvenient truth.

DHR
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:22 am
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 8:42 am

DHR

Top post.

icisil
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 1:15 pm

After reading that report a while back I examined the underwater topography beneath the Ross Ice shelf to try to figure out what is going on (because I think some areas of it are melting). There’s a couple of large glaciers feeding that area, and the underwater topography extending from the mouths of those glaciers (especially the westernmost one) suggested to me the possibility that geothermal melt water would be channeled away from where that test was conducted (where ice is forming under the ice shelf).

icisil
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 1:18 pm

Small correction. Not only the underwater topography, but the land topography beneath the glaciers as well.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:43 am

Mosher,
Oh, the Guardian! Then the statement, “With global warming, BOTH of the poles are warming quite quickly, and this warming is causing ice to melt in BOTH regions.”, MUST be true. There is no source of science information more reliable than the Guardian.

LdB
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 8:46 am

The ice shelves are also mostly floating you really think you can extend a piece of ice out kilometers and not break it off if it wasn’t supported and because they are floating they have almost no effect on sea level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_shelf

Although it is believed that the melting of floating ice shelves will not raise sea levels, technically, there is a small effect because sea water is ~2.6% more dense than fresh water combined with the fact that ice shelves are overwhelmingly “fresh” (having virtually no salinity); this causes the volume of the sea water needed to displace a floating ice shelf to be slightly less than the volume of the fresh water contained in the floating ice. Therefore, when a mass of floating ice melts, sea levels will increase; however, this effect is small enough that if all extant sea ice and floating ice shelves were to melt, the corresponding sea level rise is estimated to be ~4 cm

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  LdB
November 21, 2018 9:35 am

LdB,

“When sodium chloride dissolves in water to make a saturated solution there is a 2.5 per cent reduction in volume.”

Therefore, when fresh water mixes with salt water, I would expect that there would be a small decrease in the effective volume of the admixed fresh water, reducing the effect that you quote above. But, that effect is only applicable to fresh water derived from glaciers. Pack ice around Antarctica, created from freezing sea water, will still contain brine and salt in it, therefore having the same weight as the original volume of sea water that froze. So, if the above calculation didn’t differentiate pack ice from ocean water from glacier ice, then the 4 cm estimate is too high.

But, what do I know about things affecting climatology? I’m only a geologist.

DHR
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
November 21, 2018 10:18 am

I believe that when sea water freezes, the freezing process forces some of the salt out of the solid ice creating a supersaturated and very cold dense brine that sinks to the bottom in rivulets. Benthic creatures in the path of these rivulets are frozen in place almost instantly. The ice left afloat will therefore contain somewhat less salt than the seawater it originated from. I forgot the source of my understanding but perhaps you could find it in a Google search.

Dan
Reply to  LdB
November 21, 2018 9:58 am

Every year, in the southern hemisphere summer, more than 3/4 of Antarctic sea ice melts. The reason sea level doesn’t rise is that nearly the same amount of water freezes in the northern hemisphere.

This article is not talking about sea ice. It is talking about Antarctic land ice. AGW scientists assumed that land ice was melting (“As Antarctic ice melts…”) because of the movement of Antarctic glaciers, and of course AGW had to be the culprit. But their premise is blown up by the discovery that the glacier movement was facilitated by volcanic activity.

So the article is fallacious because it assumes under the RCP 8.5 scenario, AGW will cause more Antarctic land ice will melt to begin with and then simply predicts higher sea level rise. Wonder which of the IPCC’s wildly inaccurate 100+ climate models they are using to predict melting of the Antarctic land ice.

TDR
Reply to  Dan
November 21, 2018 10:42 am

Volcanoes are only under some of the Western part of Antarctica. Yet all the the glaciers are flowing faster into the sea so volcanic activity can’t be the primary cause.

icisil
Reply to  Dan
November 21, 2018 12:54 pm

Volcanoes run the entire length of the western coast. From the tip of the peninsula to Victoria Land. It is the largest area of volcanoes in the world. The areas with the highest heat fluxes are where most of the melting is occurring.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Dan
November 21, 2018 1:49 pm

Every year, in the southern hemisphere summer, more than 3/4 of Antarctic sea ice melts. The reason sea level doesn’t rise is that nearly the same amount of water freezes in the northern hemisphere.

Dan, melting sea ice cannot raise the sea level to any degree at all. It’s floating!

Keith
Reply to  Dan
November 21, 2018 8:44 pm

RCP8.5? The sure sign of bullcrud. Into the bin.

Reply to  LdB
November 21, 2018 10:43 am

This is a good point. I think the only possible way Antarctica can produce significant sea level rise is by grounded ice beyond the shore line melting (if sea currents bring warmer water in), and maybe some continental ice melting on the Antarctic Peninsula (it does extend quite far North, I think as far as S61°, similar to Lillehammer Norway in the Northern Hemisphere).

tty
Reply to  Steven Mosher
November 21, 2018 9:43 am

Ice shelves calve, they don’t melt. Ice shelves can’t form in climate warm enough for significant melting.

TDR
Reply to  tty
November 21, 2018 10:43 am

Ice shelves can both calve and melt.

TDR
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 10:32 am

The sea is not generally at sub zero temperatures for starters.

kwinterkorn
Reply to  Admad
November 21, 2018 1:43 pm

This another non-science article on the effects of purported climate change. Science requires a hypothesis which is then tested against empirical data. But here a theory is turned into a computer model that spits out predictions which are pretended to be data—-but they are not data, just predictions. Scientus interruptus. Typical CAGW pseudoscience. Non-science that is non-sense.

Earl Jantzi
Reply to  Admad
November 25, 2018 5:48 pm

You mean YOU can’t figure out how 5 degrees of “glow bull warming” will melt a Continent where the average daily temperature is MINUS 59 degrees F? Boy, do you need re-education! Sarc off

Dave Burton
Reply to  Earl Jantzi
November 25, 2018 5:55 pm

The water underneath the floating ice shelves is 32 degrees F

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Dave Burton
November 25, 2018 6:12 pm

No. It’s a complex salt water-fresh water mix.

If i take a well-mixed bucket of salt water, put it in a stagnant (not stirred or mixed!) small bucket in a “perfect freezer” of well-mixed air (so the air temperature is uniform all around the bucket and water surface), I can measure the freezing temperature of that salt water mix, right?

But I actually have very cold air (of constantly changing temperatures very far below freezing (0.0 C or 32.0 F)) being randomly blown across a very rough, irregular surface of sea ice, then a constantly changing thickness of sea ice of varying thermal conductivity and varying thermal mass with varying speeds of salt water at verying temperatures and salinity moving with random velocities below the sea ice as varying “globs” of salt water move around and below the irregular sea ice lower boundary. At individual crystals at the boundary, salt water is forced out the ice crystal martix above, and the salt forced into the brackish water right below the crystal grain border. So that little bit of water is now more brackish (heavier) and tends to fall away from the bottom of the new sea ice, but new warmer water less saline water replaces the previously cooled and heavy salt-laden water. The new sea ice is mostly fresh water, but ice crystal boundaries have trapped salt and salt water right above the new boundary. Those melt little bubbles of salt water in the fresh water crystals, but at -2 to -4 degrees freezing points, these little bubbles will remain liquid for a while as the ice around them cools as it loses heat to the very cold air above. The bottom of the sea ice “generally” has a salt water boundary water temperature of -2 to -4 degrees. “Lab conditions” of “average” sea water show it freezes about -4 degrees.

rhoda klapp
November 21, 2018 4:14 am

And they know for sure how all these mechanisms inter-relate, down to the order of years? Wow, hubris!

Chris Lynch
November 21, 2018 4:16 am

Ah yes the University of Arizona – garbage in garbage out.

Ron
Reply to  Chris Lynch
November 21, 2018 4:26 am

“To test that idea, Bronselaer ran a climate model”
There’s the garbage you were referring to.

old white guy
Reply to  Ron
November 21, 2018 6:10 am

I have a model that says 1.5 degrees c cooler by 2030.

KaliforniaKook
Reply to  old white guy
November 21, 2018 10:22 am

Guy, does your model say 1.5 degrees cooler will happen because of excess CO2 in he atmosphere? AGW theory WILL predict that (if it happens, cannot be adjusted away, and after the actualization, of course).
1.5 C is quite a bit. I think your model exaggerates a little. Wouldn’t be the first model to do that.

Reply to  KaliforniaKook
November 21, 2018 10:32 am

My model agrees with his model…

MarkW
Reply to  KaliforniaKook
November 21, 2018 3:23 pm

My model agrees with who ever is paying the most.

John Endicott
Reply to  KaliforniaKook
November 23, 2018 5:42 am

Don’t most of the models do that MarkW? At least your model is honest about it 🙂

Alasdair
Reply to  Chris Lynch
November 21, 2018 5:23 am

Yes. The U of A an akamedia institution.

Editor
November 21, 2018 4:16 am
Reply to  Paul Homewood
November 21, 2018 5:54 am

Paul

They are just covering all the bases so they can point to a ‘peer reviewed’ (~ahem~) study to support any argument they care to make.

MarkW
Reply to  Paul Homewood
November 21, 2018 6:46 am

There’s no increase in sea level rise either.

Phillip Bratby
Reply to  Paul Homewood
November 21, 2018 6:48 am

Paul: Please don’t confuse them with facts. They are only happy when looking at their models.

Tasfay Martinov
Reply to  Paul Homewood
November 21, 2018 6:50 am

Paul
In the article you link they indeed acknowledge Antarctic mass growth, but dismiss this by saying “but in a few decades (our models show) it will start shrinking again”.

This seems to be good enough to keep the trillion dollar CAGW heist on the road.

Reply to  Paul Homewood
November 21, 2018 9:10 am

Yes, the freeze positive melt ratio means latent heat of fusion in Antarctica is a net energy loss to the atmosphere and a net loss of ocean mass.

So they are half right…

NorwegianSceptic
November 21, 2018 4:18 am

‘modified one of the most current climate computer models’ – Yeah, that’ll teach that rascally ice sheet!

ChrisB
Reply to  NorwegianSceptic
November 21, 2018 6:05 am

It seems it is quite easy to modify ” the most current climate computer models”. I hope they are keeping the model in a locked storage and have comprehensive insurance. A child might accidentally touch and modify it. No one wants this model to be useless in projecting into the future.

TonyN
November 21, 2018 4:19 am

“Adding the melted ice into the team’s model indicated that the global temperature would increase by 2 degrees C (3.6 F) by the year 2065, rather than the year 2053, the team writes.”

Is this the defininitive ‘jumping the shark’ moment?

Graemethecat
Reply to  TonyN
November 21, 2018 6:53 am

A prediction for 47 years in the future of a system as complex and chaotic as the Earth’s climate. Why isn’t this sort of nonsense simply laughed out of court?

Graemethecat
Reply to  Graemethecat
November 21, 2018 6:58 am

Correction to my previous comment. These bozos are actually making predictions for 82 years, not 47 years ahead.

“The UA-led team found that by the year 2100, sea level could rise as much as 10 inches more than the previous estimate of approximately 30 inches by 2100.”

NorwegianSceptic
November 21, 2018 4:20 am

‘Russell said her next steps are evaluating climate models against the observations from the SOCCOM floats to see what else the models might be missing.’ = Send more money!

Reply to  NorwegianSceptic
November 21, 2018 10:47 am

Now we are getting somewhere. I don’t mind models if they can be shown to be validated against reality. But in the climate ‘science’, that is difficult. It takes time (30 years?)

yarpos
November 21, 2018 4:21 am

Trying to manufacture a way to kick the reality can down the road and rationalize lack of warming. The smell of desperation is in the air.

November 21, 2018 4:27 am

More utter nonsense!

TRM
Reply to  Salvatore Del Prete
November 21, 2018 5:28 am

Well not a total waste. They got this part right IMHO: “they set the level of greenhouse gas emissions for the 21st century using the scenario known as RCP8.5, sometimes called the “business-as-usual” scenario.”

Unless China and India change, and that is highly unlikely, we will be at or above BAU.

Hugs
Reply to  TRM
November 21, 2018 6:38 am

Unless China and India change, and that is highly unlikely, we will be at or above BAU.

What do you mean?

RCP 8.5 is not “business as usual”. It’s more like “the worst we could come up with our imagination”. Citing climate models fed with RCP 8.5 is just gigo science. Publishable, but of no value other that pushing fearmongering.

There haven’t been much melt at the Antarctica. Should the situation change, it would be interesting, but they’re talking about “the melt” in a manner which misleads the great public.

tom s
Reply to  Hugs
November 21, 2018 8:14 am

Currently -46F at station DOME A about 700mi inland to the south of the coast to the north, where present temperatures range from 3F to 21F…oops, there’s on 36F site northwest coast. Summer is almost there! This frozen wasteland will ALWAYS be frozen as it almost always has for millions and millions of years. These ‘scientists’ are fools….but I repeat myself.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Hugs
November 21, 2018 9:51 am

“RCP 8.5 is not “business as usual”. It’s more like “the worst we could come up with our imagination”

“Business as Usual” is the worst-case scenario. By “business as usual” the IPCC means that current and future fossil fuel burning will *not* be curtailed (business as usual) and will result in the highest proportion of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, as compared to scenarios which attempt to restrict fossil fuel burning to one extent or another.

Hugs
Reply to  Tom Abbott
November 21, 2018 11:07 am

RCP 8.5 is much worse than business-as-usual. Quote Fabius Maximus here.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/06/02/fix-the-mistakes-that-killed-the-climate-change-campaign/

“RCP8.5 is not just a “high warming scenario” but the worst-case scenario of the four used in AR5, aka IPCC 2013 (details here). As a worst-case scenario should, it assumes ugly changes in important long-term trends – such as tech (from progress to stagnation) and fertility (slow or stopping the decline in emerging nations). Each is unlikely; the combination is very unlikely.”

I agree with this.

commieBob
November 21, 2018 4:27 am

Surface temperatures aren’t rising fast enough to support the CAGW narrative. First we had Trenberth’s theory that the heat was hiding in the ocean. That’s pretty dodgy. link

The climate isn’t behaving the way the models say it should. The trick is to explain that without destroying the CAGW narrative. We had this WUWT story from a few days ago where they found gobs more heat in the ocean and then had to admit their math was wrong. I think the alarmists will continue to be ‘creative’. For sure they won’t admit they were wrong.

Southerncross
November 21, 2018 4:32 am

Cause “Models” Right?

Alasdair
Reply to  Southerncross
November 21, 2018 5:16 am

No. I think they were using the wrong entrails from the wrong chicken.

Marcus
November 21, 2018 4:32 am

“However, the team’s new research reveals that the additional freshwater from the melting ice sheet acts like a lid on the waters around Antarctica and slows the release of heat” ?
Why would water on top of water “act like a lid” ?

MarkW
Reply to  Marcus
November 21, 2018 6:49 am

I thought the oceans were absorbing heat.

Cephus0
Reply to  Marcus
November 21, 2018 6:50 am

Lower thermal conductivity for freshwater.

Pamele Matlack-Klein
November 21, 2018 4:33 am

This is just one more pathetic attempt to try and keep the wheels from falling off CAGW and save their jobs. If this is the quality of scientist our universities are now churning out we are in big trouble. Their faith in their models is truly amazing and in the face of so much observational data that is contrary to what the models say. One has to wonder if any of these people has ever gone outside their computer labs to see what is happening in the real world. How sad….

lee
November 21, 2018 4:35 am

“In addition, they set the level of greenhouse gas emissions for the 21st century using the scenario known as RCP8.5, sometimes called the “business-as-usual” scenario.”

Only by those who don’t know what they are talking about.

Dave
November 21, 2018 4:42 am

Their arrogance knows no limits. It must be nice to be able to draw conclusions that can’t be verified or proven wrong until everyone is long since gone.

Reply to  Dave
November 21, 2018 4:55 am

It stinks more of desperation than arrogance …. and does it stink.

Roger Knights
Reply to  philincalifornia
November 21, 2018 5:32 am

One might say, “it stinks on ice.”

GoatGuy
Reply to  Dave
November 21, 2018 4:56 am

~It must be nice…~

And to think: they also #get paid# too! It is like having a university department focussed on sussing out Nostradamus’ prognostications in ever finer detail. Whip out those crystal balls, boys. Buff ’em up good.

E J Zuiderwijk
November 21, 2018 4:54 am

The ocean ate my heat, again! Will it ever stop?

Eustace Cranch
November 21, 2018 4:57 am

I have a nit to pick about the headline. It makes it sound as if WUWT is reporting this as an established fact, when it’s really only a press release of another in an endless chain of climate “studies” which establish nothing.

Roger Knights
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
November 21, 2018 5:33 am

Right: the first word in the title should be “Claim:”

DHR
November 21, 2018 5:01 am

A 30-inch real (not relative) sea level rise by 2100 requires an average annual real sea level increase of about 9.5 mm/year. beginning now. Tide gauges show a rise rate of about 1.6 mm/year to date going back as far as about 150 years. Recent satellite sea level height measurements show a rise rate of about twice that; a difference that remains unexplained, at least to me.

So when are we to begin observing a rise rate of 9.5 mm/year?

icisil
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 5:38 am

” Recent satellite sea level height measurements show a rise rate of about twice that;”

“Recent” since when? Since they started using satellite data to measure sea level? Just curious.

TonyL
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 6:56 am

???????
The clown show at Colorado University.
Many of us have watched with a mixture of horror and amusement as the satellite derived sea level rates have gone up, up, up over the years.
It used to be the rate was 2.1 mm/yr. Then 2.2 mm/yr. Next, they discovered GRACE gravity measurements over Antarctica, and “corrected” the data. Then they discovered isostatic rebound caused by ice loss, purportedly measured by GRACE again. All told, the corrections drove the rate all the way to 3.3 mm/yr. Then they tacked on another 0.1 mm/year hitting the high water mark of 3.4 mm/yr.

I just surfed over there and and they are now back down to 3.1 mm/year.
From their introduction at the top of the page:
“As new data, models and corrections become available, we continuously revise these estimates (about every two months) to improve their quality.”

“Corrections” based on “models” says it all.
Here it is, in all of its “glory”.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Reply to  TonyL
November 21, 2018 7:20 am

TonyL November 21, 2018 at 6:56 am
???????
The clown show at Colorado University….

Last January they changed their sea level data to show higher levels from 1992 to 1998. This had the effect of inducing an acceleration curve which they then extrapolated out 8 decades to claim 0.65 meters of sea level rise by 2100. LINK

They stopped revising their data every two months. You can come up with whatever reason for that on your own.

TonyL
Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 8:30 am

I saw that. They are sooo desperate to find an acceleration in sea level data.
So there are no surprises here at all. After I saw what they did, I was playing with the idea that with my higher order polynomial fits and maybe a data tweak or two, perhaps I could get above a 10 meter SLR by 2100. Then I could put them to shame for their paltry 0.65 meter SLR.

Nonetheless, the ground truth of SLR is the tide gauges. Regardless of relative SLR at any individual gauge, either you see acceleration or you do not. So far, we do not. In spite of all their thunder and noise, acceleration just is not happening.

Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 10:04 am

TonyL…I was playing with the idea that with my higher order polynomial fits and maybe a data tweak or two, perhaps I could get above a 10 meter SLR by 2100. Then I could put them to shame for their paltry 0.65 meter SLR.

Ten meters? Dr. James Hansen says five meters by 2100 is possible
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf

Nonetheless, the ground truth of SLR is the tide gauges. Regardless of relative SLR at any individual gauge, either you see acceleration or you do not. So far, we do not. In spite of all their thunder and noise, acceleration just is not happening.

Over the short run since the ’70s you can claim acceleration. Over the long run no. Here’s a little graphic that shows that for some long running tide gauges around the world:
comment image
Is there an undulating 60 year cycle? Only time will tell.

DHR
Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 10:30 am

If by New York you mean The Battery, about 2/3 of the gauge increase at least in recent years is due to land subsidence as shown by the GPS sensor(s) at that location. The GPS record is only about 8 years long so it is only suggestive of a long term issue. The tide gauge record goes back over 200 years.

TonyL
Reply to  steve case
November 21, 2018 10:58 am

@ steve case:
“Over the short run since the ’70s you can claim acceleration.”
Actually, no. I look at the Boston tide gauge in detail. There is a sine wave in the data. The sin wave passes through the linear fit, going below, right at 1971. Then it arcs up, looking like acceleration. But it is not. The sine wave is due to the nodal precession of the moon, and is well known among people who study these data sets. The period of the precession is 18.60 years, and the total length of the sine wave in the Boston data is 74.4 years. Why the wave is exactly 18.6 * 4 = 74.4, I do not know, but there it is. Also of note is that the apsidal precession of the moon is 8.0 years.
So we could say the sine wave is (nodal * apsidal / 2) = 74.4
I note here that the Boston data goes back to Jan., 1921 and is complete. Therefor it contains the whole cycle and then some, on both ends. Other records are similar.
In any event, when I found out what was the likely cause of the sine wave, I measured it by determining the points where it crosses the linear trend. I was able to determine the period of the nodal precession +/- 10 days! Not bad for a monthly data set.
Now, I always thought you needed a telescope to do astronomy, and here we are doing astronomy with a tide gauge.
A while back, I saw that the folks at NASA GISS did what you suggest. That is to show some tide gauge data from 1970 on, and claim acceleration.
Two possibilities suggest themselves.
A) NASA GISS does not know that the tides are governed by the moon. (!)
B) They are lying through their teeth.
Either way, it does not look good for them.

Here is the image I made a while back, click through if it does not display.
comment image
(click to embiggen)

DHR
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 7:16 am

1993

Alan Tomalty
Reply to  icisil
November 21, 2018 7:27 am

Using satellites to measure sea level changes is uselessly inaccurate and is only used by the alarmists to show a doubling of sea level rise which is fictitious. Many WUWT articles on this have shown that the old system of measuring water marks that show only a 1.8mm per year rise as in the last 8000 years is the reality. Alarmist scientists in the government agencies will stop at nothing to try to prove their global warming meme.

DHR
Reply to  Alan Tomalty
November 21, 2018 7:39 am

You may be interested in a report by Larsen, et al. “A search for Scale in Sea-Level Studies”, Journal of Coastal Research, July 2006. Larson concluded that sea level along the North Eastern US coast has risen at a rate of 1.3 to 1.4 mm/year for the past 6,000 years. Delaware Bay locations show an increase of about 2 mm/yr suggesting slight land subsidence over the period.

Curious George
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 7:18 am

You just don’t understand how modern science is done. The main contribution of satellite altimetry are measurements in the middle of oceans. That’s where the sea level rises most – and that’s why any comparison with tide gauges is meaningless. 🙂

DHR
Reply to  Curious George
November 21, 2018 7:30 am

Check PSMSL.org. There are many tide gauges on islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean near the equator. There are also hundreds or perhaps thousands of tide gauges on coastlines throughout the Tropics. If you choose to look at any, also check the GPS data, included with many but not all sites, for elevation changes.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 8:52 am

DHR,
You asked, “So when are we to begin observing a rise rate of 9.5 mm/year?” AFTER the 10-year delay in warming, and then the rate will have to be much greater than 9.5 mm/yr. All very probable — IF you are gullible.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  DHR
November 21, 2018 10:02 am

“So when are we to begin observing a rise rate of 9.5 mm/year?”

It has to warm up first.

Currently the temperatures are cooling globally. This Antarctic melting requires that the temperatures be much higher than they are today. Until the temperatues go higher, we don’t have anything to worry about. The “Business as Usual” scenario they use is not even close to reality, so we shouldn’t put much faith in a new study that is based on the Business as Usual scenario.

Earthling2
November 21, 2018 5:02 am

“The entire Earth will continue to warm, but the atmosphere will warm more slowly because more of the heat will be trapped in the ocean, he said”

Ah…more of the heat will be trapped in the ocean meme which is where it has been hiding. And then they say “Warming won’t be as bad as fast as we thought, but sea level rise will be worse,” I suppose from thermal expansion of the hiding heat. But then they say the Earth won’t hit an extra 2 C until 2065, rather than the year 2053, the team writes. Odd numbers…why not 2064 rather than 2052? Clearly a clairvoyant, must have a crystal ball.

If science is supposed to verified by observation, then for their science to be correct, we have to wait until 2065 now to see if we ever do hit an extra 2 C. By then most of us will be long gone. It may be more accurate to conduct the services of an astrologer since this isn’t science either.

How is this legitimate science, without a forward that this is purely speculation based upon a model, that has no credibility in future prediction. Even the IPCC admits this. This is the kind of science that should be de-funded although with all the kids going into climate science, and they have to publish or perish, is this the new normal for science papers? Weird.

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Earthling2
November 21, 2018 5:21 am

I love that neat trick of heat diving straight into the ocean, barely touching the atmosphere. Defying the laws of physics. Is there nothing climate change can’t do?

Catcracking
Reply to  Earthling2
November 21, 2018 6:12 am

“Speculation”. It seems to be the main product of climate science and the MSM in their attempts to entertain and misinform their audience making claims and forecasts that never happen, without consequences, so they continue speculating.

Neil Jordan
Reply to  Catcracking
November 21, 2018 7:12 am

Replies also to ScottyP. As reported on WUWT some time ago, the term you are looking for, for heat diving right down to the abyssal ocean, is Immaculate Convection.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Neil Jordan
November 21, 2018 2:01 pm

Immaculate Convection

Is nice, I like! 🙂

ScottyP
Reply to  Earthling2
November 21, 2018 6:39 am

I watch Great Lakes temperature quite closely and see no evidence they are trapping any heat. Temperature just varies with the seasons, same thing, year after year after year, some years a little warmer, some a little colder. I dont understand why the oceans should be any different.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Earthling2
November 21, 2018 8:08 am

@ Earthling2 – November 21, 2018 at 5:02 am

I wasa in bout the middle of reading your above post when the statement you quoted got me ta thinking about the Post-Glacial Sea Level Rise that began like 21,000 YBP …… and with all the glacial ice melting caused sea levels to rise 130+ meters (427 feet).

This quote, to wit:

“The entire Earth will continue to warm, but the atmosphere will warm more slowly because more of the heat will be trapped in the ocean, he said”

Well “DUH”, all that heat that showed up beginning 21,000 YBP that melted all that glacial ice is technically still “trapped” in the ocean water, …… right?

Earthling2
Reply to  Samuel C Cogar
November 21, 2018 9:39 am

Yes, for the most part, you are right Sam. The only heat that would have went missing, would have been that which was transferred to the atmosphere, which ultimately would have exited to space by LWIR. But the vast ocean in a full blown ice age may have had an average temperature of .9 C while the Interglacial ocean now has an average temp of 3.5 C. Plus there is also the extra 130 meters (427 feet) of additional liquid water in the ocean that is no longer ice that was maybe previously an average temp of -25 C when in the ice sheet. Although much of the ocean rise was a result of thermal expansion from .9 C to 3.5 C, not all additional water. So the heat since 21,000 YBP had to first warm that cold frozen ice to melting point, and then the entire ocean had to keep acquiring heat over the millennium’s to raise the entire average ocean temp to 3.5 C. That is a lot of heat that is still hiding in the ocean since the peak of the last ice age. But I suspect this is a trick question, so go ahead and pounce.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Earthling2
November 22, 2018 6:12 am

@ Earthling2 – November 21, 2018 at 9:39 am

Yes, for the most part, you are right Sam.

Of course I was RIGHT, ….. Earthling2, ….. I knew that before I posted it. Try harder, next time tell me something that I’m not already aware of. And it will likely hafta be quite new …… because I have been a “student” of the natural world for the past 70+ years.

But I suspect this is a trick question, so go ahead and pounce.

Earthling2, no trick question involved. It was a straight-forward question that you either had to IGNORE or respond to with a affirmative “Yes” ………. or explain in detail such as you did.

And that was pretty much an excellent explanation of the ocean‘s post-glacial accumulated “hidden heat”.

Instead of you and others suspecting devious intentions as prompting my postings, it would behoove ya’ll to pay closer attention to the context/content of my commentary. Common sense thinking, logical reasoning and intelligent deductions cannot be learned from a book, but they do require above average “memory recall” abilities. Mimicry of “book learning” does not a research scientist make.

Iffen I had posted, and I could have, what you posted, but probably not as eloquent as you did, ……. you and others would have surely just ignored it, …… probably because of that age-old problem of NIH.

“DUH”, for several years now, the “funded-interest” climate scientists and their loyal fans have been trying to CTA’s by claiming that the “heat” responsible for their predicted temperature increase “is hiding in the ocean”, …… and Earthling2, most every one of you per se “experts” just ridiculed, laughed and/or poked fun at them ……. instead of pointing out that the ocean has been per se “hiding” a majority of the increase in solar energy ever since the current interglacial began.

Far too many people think that once they graduate from their “school-of-choice” that they don’t need to learn anything from anyone that is not “pre-approved” by their mentors and/or associates. Those persons who “believe” only what their mentors and/or associates tell them, ….. will always be stuck in a “rut” of ignorance.

Iffen learned individuals are automatically “suspect” of what they hear, read or are told, without first questioning its validity and/or worthiness, ……. then why in hell should said learned person expect the masses of unlearned, uneducated and/or miseducated populace to believe what the per se “learned” individual tell them?

Cheers

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Samuel C Cogar
November 21, 2018 10:33 am

That ocean heat is super-sneaky. It crept up out of the water and melted the glaciers, then jumped back in before the atmosphere even noticed.

LdB
November 21, 2018 5:11 am

They also didn’t check the sea level rise since Jason 3 took over sea levels have slowwwwed. So this would be like thee accelerated sea level rise your having when you aren’t.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Kaiser Derden
November 21, 2018 5:27 am

seems like they stole 1st, 2nd and Third base with the “when the Antarctic ice sheet melts” assumption …

Peta of Newark
November 21, 2018 5:36 am

Oh wait – I see more faeries** dancing.

Really I do.

(That is a *slight* lie, haven’t seen any *yet*. Am actually inside Meadowhall Sheffield and going to see Bohemian Rhapsody. Plenty zombies tho, a great number of them queueing inside McDonalds – waiting for the Cheeseburger Level to rise. Sod the sea level.
Priorities eh, where would we be without them?##

**Queen fans would murder me for saying that…
## Up to our necks in cheese perhaps?
Mmmmmmmmmmm
I hear that the Moon is made of cheese – any comment please NASA?
Remember, dance like no-one’s watching.
😀

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Peta of Newark
November 21, 2018 8:58 pm

I hear that the Moon is made of cheese – any comment please NASA?

NASA: Of course it’s not. We’ve been there and brought some of our back. It’s made of hard gray rock.

Me: Ahah! But what happens to cheese when you leave it out for a long time? It goes hard. And gray!

Gamecock
November 21, 2018 5:52 am

‘said first author Ben Bronselaer of the University of Arizona, adding that current climate models do not include the effects of melting ice on the global climate.’

Confirming ALL climate models to date are junk.

What unknown unknowns will be known tomorrow?

MarkW
Reply to  Gamecock
November 21, 2018 6:53 am

It takes energy to melt ice. It only took them 40 years to figure that out.

Gamecock
November 21, 2018 5:59 am

‘The UA-led team found that by the year 2100, sea level could rise as much as 10 inches more than the previous estimate of approximately 30 inches by 2100.’

When is this supposed to start? We’re 30 years into alleged global warming, yet the seas haven’t started to rise more rapidly.

10 PLUS 30 = 40 inches.

1016mm. A meter plus. 12.4mm per year starting NOW.

This is an absurdity.

Hugs
Reply to  Gamecock
November 21, 2018 11:33 am

Well, who lives, sees. I just hope someone documents the level of hysteria so that the future generations can compare what was said to what happened.

The trackrecord is not always so good.

Roger Knights
Reply to  Hugs
November 21, 2018 3:46 pm

“I just hope someone documents the level of hysteria so that the future generations can compare what was said to what happened.”

I hope Trump or someone at the EPA will set up a group to do that, and fund it well. We must not let this teachable moment go down the memory hole.

Scott
November 21, 2018 6:16 am

Stunning. They discovered phase change!

Rich Davis
Reply to  Scott
November 21, 2018 1:45 pm

Recalling the phase diagram for water, there is no pressure at which ice will melt at a temperature below about -20C (and that’s at about 2000 atmospheres). In the same week we heard that Antarctic temperatures are reaching historic lows.

Well anyway, the usual nonsense delivered in the usual way. *yawn*

East Antarctica isn’t and won’t be melting.

November 21, 2018 6:22 am

“Our projections indicate the tropical rain belt will shift toward the Northern Hemisphere, making it slightly wetter in the Northern Hemisphere and slightly drier in the Southern Hemisphere than previously predicted,” Russell said.
I heard this argument recently here somewhere on radio related to ‘global warming’

Truth is there is no global warming. By my results it is already globally cooling. And it already playing out exactly as I thought it would: warmer and drier summers and cooler and dryer winters at the higher lats.

The beginning of the ‘dust bowl’ drought of 1932-1939 is almost here.

That was one of the worst disasters in northern America.
Click on my name to read my final report on this.

Jim G
November 21, 2018 6:35 am

It does stand to reason that as the ice sheet expands further north that it would melt faster.
If they assumed the rate of melting remains constant, then you would see greater sea level rise.

Sadly for them, good for people, the rate of melting would decrease as the sea ice extent recedes back toward the pole. I’m sure in their paper their is a plea that “…with additional funding, faulty estimations could be made with greater precision.”

The climate models remind me of the random paragraph generators.

Enter a random variable and voila!
It also amuses me the wamista’s argument “the models are based on well established physics”.

John Shotsky
November 21, 2018 6:38 am

Someone should inform them that when ice melts in water, the water level decreases. The article says nothing about land ice being added to replace the so-called melting sea ice. The model has the wrong sign for melting ice…

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  John Shotsky
November 21, 2018 9:02 am

John,
You said, “Someone should inform them that when ice melts in water, the water level decreases.”
Either you stated that poorly, or you don’t understand Archimedes’ Principle.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
November 21, 2018 9:22 am

Clyde

true enough

ice that melts from the arctic does not contribute to sea level increase because the volume of ice is smaller than that of water…

So the increase of water level comes from the ice melting off ice from Greenland and the Antarctic.

Now, remember that the ocean’s levels in the interglacial periods was occasionally 30 m higher than it is today, there is evidence for this in the Cape (South Africa)

my question is: how could this have happened, why?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  henryp
November 21, 2018 9:40 am

henryp,
There are several things that I can think of that might be responsible, such as the water that was formerly in glaciers in the northern hemisphere being relocated to Antarctica, or isostatic adjustment increasing the volume of the ocean basins. However, I’m unaware of any research that has looked into quantifying either of those hypotheses.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
November 21, 2018 9:48 am

Clyde

I am informed that the cause of occasional higher sea levels in the interglacial periods must have been due to the so-called Milankovich cycles which proposes a different cycle of earth around the sun and/or inclination.

To those who know: please let me know what could have caused this?

Andrew Burnette
November 21, 2018 6:39 am

This “settled science” sure changes fast, doesn’t it?

Thomas Graney
November 21, 2018 6:39 am

When did modeling come to be equated with research?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Thomas Graney
November 22, 2018 6:34 pm

Thomas Graney,
You asked, “When did modeling come to be equated with research?”

When it is done for research purposes and it is done properly. That is, insight on the behavior of dynamic systems can be gained from models by conducting classical experiments where a single parameter is allowed to vary and one observes the results. This is then done for all the parameters in turn. One obtains information on the sensitivity of the model to changes, and it can be seen if unreasonable values are generated. Based on that information, one can then make changes in the model to make it more realistic. Thus, one can learn how Nature works, or at least to a level of simplicity that has utility for forecasting.

The problem is, climate modelers have created models with little predictive skill, and instead of focusing on improving the skill, they (and others) are assuming that the models are fully functional simulators and making forecasts based on scenarios. Thus, instead of being first and foremost research tools, they are being used as political tools — in my humble opinion.

Tasfay Martinov
November 21, 2018 6:42 am

Antarctic ice mass data is total misinformation for several reasons. First, it is based on highly unreliable GRACE gravitational data on the total ice mass and thickness. This data is probably wrong, and even if it were correct, it is irrelevant to climate. It is a geology issue only. Climate is what happens at the surface. Thickness and mass are influenced by volcanic activity at the base and is unrelated to atmospheric climate. It is quite possible for Antarctic thickness and mass to be decreasing while climate is at the same time cooling, which it is at the present time.

Second, keeping the false Antarctic warming scare show on the road is done primarily with computer models. It ignores the instrumental data that show a persistent substantial cold anomaly in the sea all around Antarctica.

The continent of Antarctica and the surrounding southern ocean are slowly cooling, and this possibly represents the early initiation of glacial inception. Both glacial and interglacial inceptions are always led by Antarctica.

tty
Reply to  Tasfay Martinov
November 21, 2018 9:52 am

GRACE measurements are actually very precise (and not significantly different from zero). Unfortunately they can’t distinguish gravitational effects from rocks and ice, so te supposed melt is entirely a matter of GIA (Global Isostatic Adjustment) models. There are several, widely different, and none of them matches actual measurements in Antarctica.

Tasfay Martinov
Reply to  Tasfay Martinov
November 21, 2018 3:00 pm

tty
Thanks for highlighting what’s at the core of the GRACE based estimate of Antarctic mass balance. Indeed – almost the entire mass loss signal is the GIA. When an adjustment comprises most or all of a signal, and the measured signal is insignificant, then that is what most people would call unreliable data.

MarkW
November 21, 2018 6:45 am

What Antarctic melting????

Fernando L.
November 21, 2018 6:48 am

The study is worthless because it uses RCP8.5.

MarkW
Reply to  Fernando L.
November 21, 2018 6:55 am

It’s useless for a lot of reasons. But that is one of the big ones.

Dan Davis
November 21, 2018 6:58 am

A search for “by the year 2100, sea level could rise as much as ” shows that the science is settled!
Webpredictions galore show that we are doomed – and HOW!

Bent Andersen
November 21, 2018 7:06 am

“…give us another 15-year grace period.”

Glad to see the end of the world has been postponed for 15 extra years. So, instead of always being now + 30 years, it’s now + 45 years. Got it.

observa
November 21, 2018 7:08 am

You always look for the money quote-
“To figure out whether the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would affect global climate, the research team modified one of the most current climate computer models to include the ice melt.”
easy peasy ….yada, yada and then the finale-
“Russell said her next steps are evaluating climate models against the observations from the SOCCOM floats to see what else the models might be missing.”

Needs more grants

Tasfay Martinov
November 21, 2018 7:18 am

In Antarctica, as anywhere else, any outcome is interpreted as showing warming.

Does ice mass decrease? Warming oceans are melting it at the edges.

Does ice mass increase? Then snowfall is increasing due to a warmer and moister atmosphere.

Does it stay the same? Then both of the above cancel each other out.

In all cases, the catastrophic warming story is preserved.

November 21, 2018 7:19 am

Bronselaer et alia could have saved themselves a lot of bother and embarassment by having a quick look at WUWT’s Sea Ice page.

SAMURAI
November 21, 2018 7:39 am

“In addition to slowing warming and increasing sea level, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will change precipitation regimes because the tropical rain belt will shift north, said senior author Joellen Russell”

Because there has been no statistically significant global warming trend since mid-1996, CAGW advocates must come up with excuses to keep the CAGW gravy train chugging along.

There will be many excuses to try to explain why all of CAGW’s projections have been so pitifully devoid from reality.

Alllll the way back on October 30, 2015, NASA announced Antarctic Land Ice has been increasing 80~100 billion tons/year for many decades, NOAA announced that for the first time in a century, Greenland’s net land ice mass increased by 47 billion tons in 2017 and +20 billion tons in 2018, while Arctic Sea Ice Extents bottomed out in 2007 with signs of recovery.

The wheels are to starting to fall off the CAGW gravy train..

Coach Springer
November 21, 2018 7:47 am

“If, then” … without the “if “and an estimate of “then”.

frederik wisse
November 21, 2018 7:51 am

Thats exactly the problem : The WUWT-icepage does not hand any grants , let alone a steady income .

Editor
November 21, 2018 7:55 am

I hate to burst the bubble but any article that starts with a sentence such as “The research is the first to show how the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will affect future climate” can simply be binned.

Despite the illusion/delusion of far too many “scientists” : We can not predict the future.

Using the verb “will affect” negates this study as science.

The current state of climate/oceanic science does not even include a quantitative understanding of if the Antarctic ice is melting or if the Antarctic is gaining ice mass.

They may have done a study of “If this future then ….” but there is no “will affect” possible.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Kip Hansen
November 21, 2018 9:07 am

Kip,
Typical hubris of a true believer they they can reliably predict the future.

ray boorman
Reply to  Kip Hansen
November 21, 2018 7:03 pm

Kip, we can bin their study if you want to, but think of the enjoyment it gives to WUWT readers. And to be fair to members of the climate science industry, what else are these prats going to do for a living? – other than a university, who would employ them?

James in WNC
November 21, 2018 8:40 am

Is the code for the model public information?

Kevin kilty
November 21, 2018 9:07 am

“No one had looked at the big picture of what Antarctic ice sheet melting means for the global climate,” he said.

I very much resent people using false history, and noise in data, for purposes of self-aggrandizement.

Art
November 21, 2018 9:22 am

If only we could find a way to melt the Antarctic ice cap so as to save the planet……

Gary Pearse
November 21, 2018 9:39 am

Another “…as the AA ice sheet melts” that is really a ‘what if?’ proposition. They always dishonestly use the present tense in these things and follow up with a reasonable thesis IF this fanciful event were to come to pass. Why does “As the Ice Sheet Melts” come across like a soap opera cliché? Probably because of the ‘communications’ flacks that have come to scientists aid when they were wrestling with how to get dubious science accepted by the masses.

Chris D'Avoine
November 21, 2018 10:36 am

How can you “research” the future? How can you “study” the future? This corruption of language drives me nuts.

Bruce Cobb
November 21, 2018 11:20 am

So, “the entire earth will continue to warm”, but we won’t be able to see the warmth because it will be hiding in the oceans. How convenient.

November 21, 2018 11:26 am

Does anyone know if these SOCCOM floats are the same as the ARGO floats, or are they a new addition?

November 21, 2018 11:54 am

This longterm decadal icemelt effect, observed within the 18 + 19 century, is
described in detail in http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/climate-papers.html.
The paper, PART 8, is dedicated to the period 1600 to 2050 AD.
Therefore, no new conclusions gained out of this Antarctica paper, all
is known and said before – even for century scale time intervals.

Reply to  J. Seifert
November 21, 2018 2:21 pm

The melt of ice, accumulated over centuries, lowers atmospheric temps –
which is the message. There are other (wrong) interpretations that “ice
melt would free ocean surfaces, which are darker, which absorb more
solar energy instead of radiating solar energy back into space, as the bright
ice surfaces do … and thus increasing global temps”.
Now it is admitted that by a higher ice quantity entering the oceans, the
colder the ocean waters get on the ocean surface, thus lowering the
atmospheric temps, because this colder water will cool down the atmosphere.

November 21, 2018 12:23 pm

This is a typical “What if”scenaro beloved by the Warmers. But then the Media comes along and think that such “Results”is real scientific data and publishes it.

Is ther e a “Honest”University or research centtre anywhere in the World which has a “Model”which says that the World is cooling down ?

MJE

Marcus
Reply to  Michael
November 21, 2018 2:04 pm

>..Russia…

November 21, 2018 12:26 pm

This is a typical “What if”scenaro beloved by the Warmers. But then the Media comes along and think that such “Results”is real scientific data and publishes it.

Is ther e a “Honest”University or research body anywhere in the World which has a “Model”which says that the World is cooling down ?

MJE

November 21, 2018 1:17 pm

The following, all of which directly affect global sea-level, have very high uncertainties on their associated quantitative values in the past, today and going into the future:
1) the temperature and associated heat distribution throughout Earth’s oceans as a function of depth, particularly below 2000 m (the average depth of Earth’s oceans is about 3,700 m).
2) the overall rate at which heat energy is transferred vertically from Earth’s ocean surface layer to its depths
3) the overall rate at which heat energy is transferred horizontally across Earth’s oceans, especially from equator to polar regions
4) the overall rate at which heat energy is removed from the oceans due to evaporation (= function of water temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, sea state and surface contamination)

Better accuracy (via physical measurements) of all of the above items is needed to accurately calculate the degree to which sea-level rise can be explained solely by temperature-induced volumetric expansion of seawater at global scale. If this were to be done, I am confident that melting of ice that is resting on land will be found to be a relatively minor contributor to sea-level rise.

Notwithstanding the above, there have been no accurate measurements, on a global scale, of the extent to which land subsidence and land uplift (plate tectonics and isostatic rebound from Earth’s last glacial period) in ocean bottom contours have combined to contribute to global sea-level rise.

Given this situation, one is hard pressed to imagine there is any accuracy in assigning a quantitative value to the extent melting ice in Antarctica (or elsewhere on Earth) affects sea-level rise.

In addition, the basic laws of physics say that since the world’s oceans are in thermal contact with solid Earth and its gaseous atmosphere, there can be no such thing as “trapping heat” in the ocean (water).

ray boorman
November 21, 2018 6:15 pm

“Ocean circulation moves heat from the equator to the poles. The heat is then released into the atmosphere, Russell said” – this explains why the air temperatures in the Polar regions are so warm! I am off there for my next beach holiday.

What Russel should have said, is, that the heat remaining in the oceanic water after it’s long journey from the Tropics, has been dispersed into an exponentially larger volume of water, which warms the Polar regions very slightly.

Walter Sobchak
November 21, 2018 7:41 pm

Calling this garbage research and the dudes ho publish scientists is a category error.

What they did is not research. Scientific research is determining facts. And these clons ar not “scientists”

They are computer gamers running Madden 2018 and telling us ho ill in the super bowl in 2020.

Bent Andersen
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
November 21, 2018 11:39 pm

Agreed alter, but check your keyboard – lol. In particular the “” key, I mean the “” key! Damn – the one beteen “q” and “e”… ;P

RoHa
November 21, 2018 11:10 pm

But we are doomed anyway.

dennisambler
November 22, 2018 2:02 am

Although currently at Arizona, (they move around like this to keep up the consensus coming out of the multifarious climate institutes, he is a product of Oxford Climate Change Institute, (Myles Allen, Diana Liverman, also at Arizona, Martin Parry)
https://bronselaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/cv_benbronselaer2.pdf

Jim Whelan
November 22, 2018 12:24 pm

Yet another study making a prediction. Tested by running “a climate model with and without the ice- sheet melting included.” I’m sorry but real science demands that your hypothesis and prediction be validated with actual observations and measurements. Models are nothing more than part of the hypothesis.

Clyde Spencer
November 22, 2018 6:48 pm

Jim Whelan

You said, “Models are nothing more than part of the hypothesis.”

Models are complex hypotheses of how a dynamic system (such as climate) works. Unfortunately, they are not subject to rigorous testing against real world data to verify that they provide results that are sufficiently accurate to have predictive value. Modelers should set a goal, such as a 10% acceptance range, and evaluate both false-positive and false-negatives for temperature, precipitation, and wind. They should be rejected if any of the three predictions exceed the tolerance.

Instead, we have a situation where Hansen’s 1988 prediction is lauded as being “highly accurate” when it was only shear luck that the intermediate scenario came close to reality (and not as close as a naive linear extrapolation) ONLY because Hansen assumed a volcanic eruption that never happened. Being right for the wrong reason is unacceptable in science.

John Mathon
November 30, 2018 2:27 pm

The biggest problem with all these projections is the issue of coastal area.

Coastal area is affected by sea level but many things affect the height of the land and the amount of coastal area.

Over the last 30 years according to a comprehensive study done 5 years ago the total coastal area of the world has been climbing. 30,000 km increased coastal land size. In other words even with all the sea level rise the amount of land we are living on is climbing NOT decreasing. Many people may find this hard to believe but it is true. There are many reasons for land and coastal areas to increase.

1. Silt from mountain erosion spreads down and accumulates at the sea.

2. Volcanic eruptions

3. Dendritis from the ocean accumulates on beaches

4. Increased rainfall is filling acquifers and increasing height of land 0.3mm yearly.

5. Natural tectonic plate movements

6. a natural rebound effect as glaciers melt and mountans erode of less mass causes the land in general to float higher just like the land was like sea ice. Archimedes principle on a larger scale

7. Some of the projected sea level rise is faked and imputed by removing the rebound from the ice age which is happening but which they subtract anyway from their estimates.

8. The biggest reason is: Man builds coastline. We build, fill in and expand coastline constantly all over the world.

The net result of these 8 things is that it has completely mitigated all sea level rise for decades. It will probably do so for the foreseeable future so essentially this entire worry is vastly misplaced and misunderstood.

Johann Wundersamer
December 1, 2018 3:35 am

With 40 years development

“current climate models do not include the effects of melting ice on the global climate.”

said Bronselaer,

“No one had looked at the big picture of what Antarctic ice sheet melting means for the global climate,” he said.

__________________________________________________

Little late to search where to begin with.