Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level
NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY
Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.
Pine Island Glacier is a region of fast-flowing ice draining an area of West Antarctica approximately two thirds the size of the UK. The glacier is a particular cause for concern as it is losing more ice than any other glacier in Antarctica.
Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.
Scientists have argued for some time that this region of Antarctica could reach a tipping point and undergo an irreversible retreat from which it could not recover. Such a retreat, once started, could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres.
While the general possibility of such a tipping point within ice sheets has been raised before, showing that Pine Island Glacier has the potential to enter unstable retreat is a very different question.
Now, researchers from Northumbria University have shown, for the first time, that this is indeed the case.
Their findings are published in leading journal, The Cryosphere.
Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model developed by Northumbria’s glaciology research group, the team have developed methods that allow tipping points within ice sheets to be identified.
For Pine Island Glacier, their study shows that the glacier has at least three distinct tipping points. The third and final event, triggered by ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2C, leads to an irreversible retreat of the entire glacier.
The researchers say that long-term warming and shoaling trends in Circumpolar Deep Water, in combination with changing wind patterns in the Amundsen Sea, could expose Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf to warmer waters for longer periods of time, making temperature changes of this magnitude increasingly likely.
The lead author of the study, Dr Sebastian Rosier, is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Northumbria’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences. He specialises in the modelling processes controlling ice flow in Antarctica with the goal of understanding how the continent will contribute to future sea level rise.
Dr Rosier is a member of the University’s glaciology research group, led by Professor Hilmar Gudmundsson, which is currently working on a major £4million study to investigate if climate change will drive the Antarctic Ice Sheet towards a tipping point.
Dr Rosier explained: “The potential for this region to cross a tipping point has been raised in the past, but our study is the first to confirm that Pine Island Glacier does indeed cross these critical thresholds.
“Many different computer simulations around the world are attempting to quantify how a changing climate could affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but identifying whether a period of retreat in these models is a tipping point is challenging.
“However, it is a crucial question and the methodology we use in this new study makes it much easier to identify potential future tipping points.”
Hilmar Gudmundsson, Professor of Glaciology and Extreme Environments worked with Dr Rosier on the study. He added: “The possibility of Pine Island Glacier entering an unstable retreat has been raised before but this is the first time that this possibility is rigorously established and quantified.
“This is a major forward step in our understanding of the dynamics of this area and I’m thrilled that we have now been able to finally provide firm answers to this important question.
“But the findings of this study also concern me. Should the glacier enter unstable irreversible retreat, the impact on sea level could be measured in metres, and as this study shows, once the retreat starts it might be impossible to halt it.”
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The paper, The tipping points and early warning indicators for Pine island Glacier, West Antarctica, is now available to view in The Cryosphere.
Northumbria is fast becoming the UK’s leading university for research into Antarctic and extreme environments.
As well as the £4m tipping points study, known as TiPPACCs, Northumbria is also the only UK university to play a part in two projects in the £20m International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration – the largest joint project undertaken by the UK and USA in Antarctica for more than 70 years – where Northumbria is leading the PROPHET and GHC projects. This particular study was funded through both TiPPACCs and PROPHET.
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Yep, they have confirmed that the program they wrote will demonstrate a tipping point exactly as it is programmed to do. Whether this actually matches reality or not has not been tested against anything real.
How the H*LL can it be irreversible since conditions HAD to exist for the ice to pile up in the first place? Obviously if the ice piled up once, it can happen again, therefore it cannot be called irreversible.
Climate Scare Tactics 101 at work here.
As in, “Send more money. We need to study it more.”
And of course where is their evidence???
I am sure glad that I don’t live in their Modeled Virtual World it’s all tragic in them models
The question is why a warmer world would be a tragic world. In other words , most of the last 200 Ma must have been tragic because they were (much)warmer. Only the last 3 Ma cold period has been Utopia.
Well, I’d be extremely surprised if a group paid £4 million to investigate if a tipping point would be reached did not conclude that a tipping point would be reached. Grants would dry up if they didn’t.
“Dr Rosier is a member of the University’s glaciology research group, led by Professor Hilmar Gudmundsson, which is currently working on a major £4million study to investigate if climate change will drive the Antarctic Ice Sheet towards a tipping point.”
Here’s my question. Has anyone, ever, been given 4 mill to look for a problem, and *not* found one?
Has there ever been a scientific report that concluded with, “There’s no threat here and nothing new to be discovered, so don’t send us any more dosh.” ?
Nail on head:
“We conduct a quasi-steady modelling experiment whereby we subject PIG to slowly increasing rates of basal melt beneath its adjacent ice shelf (Fig. 3). Conducting a transient simulation with an evolving basal melt that exactly tracks the equilibrium curve (Fig. 1c) is not computationally feasible or necessary for our purposes. Thus, we adopt this quasi-steady modelling approach in which the forcing increases slowly enough that it approximates the steady-state behaviour but faster than the long response timescales the glacier would require to be truly in equilibrium.”
Salute!
outstanding point, Robert
How many other glaciers has the new, great model accurately hindcast?
And what if some weather phenomena occurs that is not programmed or weighed in the model? So is the process truly irreversible? This is not like that guy dropping a ball from the Tower of Pisa. THAT was irreversible.
Gums sends…
its well known that west antarctica sits on top of a lot of geothermal activity – So yes, the pine and twaits glacier are going to melt.
The ignored the active VOLCANOES in the area completely!
Paper is a pile of garbage…..
Those volcanoes will just have to stop their activity immediately, by order of AOC
It has been confirmed that they have a theory.
I guess they had to come up with something dramatic for all that money
3 months of SH summer field work to Antarctica while the NH (Northumbria U) is in winter. Cool stuff. What’s not to love when you’re spending OPM.
They are mainlining the OPM.
I note the word “could” and the word “model”. I therefore discount the use of the word “evidence” and put the paper in the round green filing cabinet.
That “could” weasel wording jumped out at me too. As in, they “confirm” it “could.”
Note: not “would.”
“Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.”
And I, using the best models available, have “confirmed” that no less than 2,000 angels “could” sit on the head of a pin.
It’s all pseudoscience masquerading as science is all this is. And those “researchers” probably don’t even realize it is the sad part.
Pretty sure that I could come up with a model that confirms that it could grow rabbit ears. Proof that I don’t deserve a grant.
…and on Easter. I see what you did there!
Not just one tipping point but a plurality of tipping points! How many tipping points can dance on the head of a pin? Ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2 C! I weep for the course and credibility of modern “science”.
I wonder how many times Einstein used the word “could” in his relativity theories.
That’s an interesting comment. Einstein likely used it less than most.
The so called modal verbs, like “could,” are used to denote a degree certainty and strength of opinion. This is appropriate in most cases in science, especially in observational studies of long-term processes, because one cannot completely know the whole truth and science is never absolutely “settled.”
As many have noted above, there are a whole lot of rent seekers working in the field of climate science. Any Einsteins? Probably not, but could be.
In any case, rather than using the ambiguous word “could,” they should assign a numeric probability to their estimate, along with an uncertainty. “Could” is a classic weasel word that only denotes a possibility. It is like saying “I could win the Publishers Clearing House lottery. I wouldn’t advise giving up your day job based on the claim “could win.”
The frequency of the word “could” in your opus is a good measure of a distance between you and Einstein.
The easiest tell is the “From EurekAlert!” tagline.
Yes.
“Tipping point”, as “forcing” and some other words or expressions with NO formal scientific definition or formulation are signals for me to STOP reading and abandon that text and mark it as BS.
Early last year I remember reading about models that predicted 3 million deaths by COVID in only a few months and only in Europe. Current count a full year later is not yet that ammount in the entire World. Yeah, sure, let’s trust models.
The headline states “evidence”. Down in the article, we read:
“Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model developed by Northumbria’s glaciology research group, the team have developed methods that allow tipping points within ice sheets to be identified.”
Models aren’t evidence.
The state of the art strikes again
It seems the art is in a terrible state because the State is too involved
Interestingly, Clisci’s refer to their computer runs as “experiments”. And an experiment implies that you physically tested a hypothesis. The delusion is inherent to their belief that they are “scientists” instead of in the same league as “astrologers using state of the art telescopes”.
Their model could be right — if they are lucky.
Computers are always precisely wrong. It is literally impossible.
…art isn’t real.
Exactly.
Unless verified, models are neither evidence, nor proof, of anything. I REALLY doubt their models have been verified.
and the only way to prevent “the tipping” is to create a gigantic “carbon” tax on “fossil fuels”(retroactively).
Funny how that works.
I’m sure there’s a model somewhere proving that.
“State of the art flow model”. Need you say more!
a Bovine Excrement flow model.
I think that the model was a flop.
To bad can only vote that up once.
Once the model is confirmed it becomes a tera-flop?
Yeah but a state-of-the-art bovine excrement. Which is the one with the most flies around it.
“Researchers have confirmed for the first time…”
“Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model…”
JaJaJa
Meanwhile, sea level slowly increases as it has for the past 6,000 years.
That’s the biggest elephant in the climate emergency room : why are levels of CO2 and the sea rising at such steady rates, regardless of the huge increases in Chinese fuel use since about 2005ish, and the lack of temperature growth since 1998 (see uah’s latest graph).
Lack of temp growth technically ever. As the temperature in ground/sea level air increases the amount of energy stays the same because gravity doesn’t believe in global warming and pressure will stay the same while density drops off. Specific heat is used in science for a very very valid reason – its why we put thermometers at airports so that planes don’t simply drop from lack of lift.
And we know this interglacial period and the one before have had much warmer episodes than we have today.
West Antarctica sits on part of the Pacific Rim of Fire and is characterised by volcanic activity and high heat flow. Nothing to do with melting of glacial ice, of course! Do I need to add the sarc tag?
This is one of the heat flux maps of Antarctica. I think this one was compiled from the average of several other heat flux maps. Notice the highest heat flux is directly beneath Pine Island Glacier.
“West Antarctica sits on part of the Pacific Rim of Fire” a fact that is conveniently (or deliberately?) overlooked or just not mentioned. (See wiki Ring of Fire – Wikipedia )
“It is widely recognized that heat flux from the Earth’s interior is a significant source of thermal energy in Polar Regions”.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/New-heat-flow-map-of-Antarctica-based-on-revised-data-sets-For-details-see-the-text_fig2_340086938
file:///Users/christopherhanley/Downloads/51-ArticleText-341-6-10-20200328.pdf
The Pine Island Glacier sits in an area of very high geothermal heat flow.
Wow haven’t seen that one. Largest red blob is Thwaites and Pine Island..
You can almost see the ‘scientists’ from Northumbria University Slavering with delight as they pen the words ‘tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.‘ and ‘could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres.‘ They are clearly revelling in delight at the prospect of millions of Bangladeshis being swept away in a gigantic tsunami of Antarctic collapse. They know this prediction is justified as those Bangladeshis and all the rest of us have brought it on ourselves by driving our SUVs, heating our houses, flying hither and thither, and generally ignoring all their previous cataclysmic warnings.
They must be clearly relishing the thought of impoverishing the world especially people in Bangladesh, who need cheap, reliable and safe sources of energy to develop their countries, but instead the tries to force them to buy into the Rube Goldberg scheme of wind-solar-batteries-crossed-fingers. They’ll go to China instead, who will have the last laugh, when they have most of the world making monthly payments to them.
Even if true, there is no reason for us Westerners to reduce our CO2 emissions, since the Easterners’ increasing emissions will swamp whatever we do.
I’m guessing that we have to reduce our emissions SO MUCH that they become negative (would that be remissions? 🙂 ) in order to make up for China’s increases.
Hmmm … must be grant renewal season. Can you imagine the state the university admins would be in if these weren’t the findings of that team of prognosticators and modelers? What they don’t mention is that this process, if true and from whatever cause, is likely to take several millennia and even more likely to be halted by the end of this interglacial.
This note was conceived of using “state-of-the-art” brain cells, not
chicken entrailsmodels.Invest a few millions to give you a reason to have even more power over the population is not a bad deal.
“Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.”
That’s 10% of SFA. By the way, there is an error in the title of the source publication. I think you’ll find it’s called The Crywolfosphere…
”Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points”,
confirm….
to establish the truth, accuracy, validity, or genuineness of; corroborate; verify:
to acknowledge with definite assurance:
”CONFIRM” something ”COULD” do something?
Sorry dudes, It doesn’t work that way!
Link to paper
Simulations all the way down and not a single mention of the volcanoes
Figure 2 from the above paper here.
“Evidence of an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier” Nature.com
Yep, Pacific Ring of Fire, goes all the way down the coast there.
Everywhere there seems to be tipping points, “just about to happen.” You have to wonder how life on earth made it this far.
I’m expecting the planet to flip over any minute now.
Marijuana.
Guam tipping over never gets old. Not only is this simple dope still a member of congress, he is on the Judiciary Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Yet another fine example of our sober, judicious, sophisticated and rational “law makers”.
Can’t you see that’s “raciss”. According to the most recent assessment of ‘white privilege’, the expectation of empirical fact is “raciss”. People are entitled to “their own truth”, according to Oprah.
Much of the detail is unclear as to what the facts are & what the “model” has manufactured but I’m no climate expert.
How fast is it changing? How fast will it change in the future? What is the earliest to latest prediction of when this will occur? How can this be tested in the future to verify the model with observations? How much recovery can occur due to natural variation in any number of years along the timeline? If we see large recoveries can we invalidate the model? If they can’t understand what instigates natural variation then how do they expect to understand long-term variations. Averaging & smoothing long term climate records hides the natural negative feedbacks & short-term recovery ability. Yes, it’s looked much worse in the past but yet here we are with an imagined optimum that had improved over many years & seems to have various cycles.
Yes, they have the ENSO, IOM, and a lot of other indexes but these have unclear inputs & unknown triggers that make them cycle up & down. It’s like understanding steps F to J but not knowing the steps A to E. There’s a difference between short-term predictions of these indicators with some accuracy vs long term multi-cycle predictions which have no timing/strength accuracy. If they can average the predicted signal over enough years then the effect size is said to be accurate without having any real accuracy.
It’s like saying I can guess the phone numbers of 100 people BUT all I do is predict the range & mean of the sum of the digits. A set of statistics which can be applied to all 100 phone numbers without actually guessing any phone number accurately. I might get a few digits right in a sequence but no better than chance. Those statistics could be accurate but totally pointless to make predictions specific to a year.
I’m just a silly uneducated fellow, but whenever I dot my cursor all round the Antarctica coastline on the earth.nullschool.net website, it’s always desperately cold.
“The third and final event, triggered by ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2C”
Is that all. Time to panic. NOT.
I think they are still using RCP 8.5 as business as usual input.
They didn’t find just one tipping point, they found three. The study cost £4m. Could they have found six tipping points if they had been paid £8m, or is the relationship between grant money and tipping-points non-linear?
And how can there be three tipping-points? Tipping-point is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as:
“the time at which a change or an effect cannot be stopped”
with example:
“The earth has already passed the tipping point in terms of global warming”.
Once you pass a tipping-point, it’s all over red rover. You can’t have a tipping-point still in front of you because you have already tipped. If it isn’t all over then you can’t have passed a tipping-point.
I reckon the Northumbria University team cheated the grant-giving government (presumably) out of £2.6m, ie. the cost of two redundant tipping-points.
Actually, I think they cheated them out of £4m. The really sad thing is how easy they are to be cheated- but of course it is only OPM.
”The study cost £4m. Could they have found six tipping points if they had been paid £8m,”
Ha ha ha
Invest a few millions to give those in power a reason to have even more power over the population is not a bad deal.
The real tipping-point is the amount of funding needed to go or not go to Antarctica. The to be or not to be question.
The tipping point occurred 25000 years ago.
Their noses were so glued to their monitors checking their code that they forgot to do some real research and look under the glaciers at all that volcanic activity.
I see those “end times scientists” Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) are also involved. Not a good sign.
Anyone remember this…
A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
… just listen to the scientists they say, who are all in agreement.
I could make the argument that the additional weight of the 82 B toms of ice would cause the glaciers to speed up and flow even faster into the see and melt causing even more CAGW and meters of SL increase. Can I get another 4M to study this disastrous development?
If you amputate a dog’s right side front leg and then amputate his left side rear leg, he could be unable to run anymore.
And, if the dog hadn’t have stopped to sh*t, he COULD have caught the rabbit.
Where would we be without computer simulations?
Yes that’s right, out in the field looking for actual information, around which we could form an opinion.
One more mystery regarding computer advance and the evolution of AI. Why do we have grants paid to Uni’s these days when as we are often told AI can do things so much more accurately and so much cheaper than mere humans?
You would be amazed how cheap, computer research can be….. 🙂