Brief Note by Kip Hansen — 6 October 2021
I am engaged in a community education program that includes a great number of climate activists and climate zealots as well as persons who are just curious and interested in improving their community’s response to weather and climate. In the process, I happened to mention in an online training session that Antarctic Ice Mass has been increasing, not decreasing over the last few decades, correcting a point made by the instructor.
The course instructor, a climate activist and educator, took exception to this correction. I was, however, confident in my position, though I had not reviewed the issue for years — thus, was a little unsure of exactly what sources I was depending on. But, I am not the self-doubting sort, so did not back down. I was asked to provide sources for my comment.
As with all things climate — facts depend on one’s epistemological values.
This is what I was able to report to the instructors:
Have I mentioned that almost everything about Science topics is complicated and often complex as well?
Antarctic Ice Mass is an example.
When I said Antarctic Ice Mass has been increasing since the turn of the century, I was quoting a recent NASA reported on this NASA website page: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
The study was published in 2015. Real science is always of the past, and studies like these can take years to do right, thus they seem “old” but are in fact often the latest studies available.
The study [ link to original Zwally study ], was reported byNASA here and quotes the study lead author, Jay Zwally, as saying:
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
The NASA article about the study [repeating the link] says: “NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses”
“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 [a gain of] 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.”
Now, here’s the rub, as they say. When one looks at NASA’s Vital Signs web page we are treated to this rather depressing graph of Antarctic Ice Mass losses:
The 2015 Zwally study — “the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet” — shows precisely the opposite, GAINS in the re-analysis by Zwally and his team instead of the DECLINES shown in the Vital Signs graphic above.
Sorting out these kinds of basic data conflicts takes literally weeks of journalistic research effort. I have not tackled this issue as of yet — but have been aware of the conflicting information — all from NASA — for several years.
It is not really possible that both sets of information are true and correct.
I certainly don’t know. But because NASA publishes contrary data, educators should not be making definitive statements about Antarctic Ice Mass, but rather should clearly say “Some NASA studies show Antarctica losing Ice Mass and some NASA studies show it gaining Ice Mass.”
I whipped up this alternate graph to show both sets of data on the same graph — GRACE from NASA Vital Signs and the gains found by Zwally et al. (2015):
The graph above uses GRACE’s 2002 zero as a common point — with Zwally’s 1992-2002 data to its left and 2002-2015 to the right.
I am aware that Zwally (2015) was sharply contested by the usual ice mass consensus team — but never required correction. Zwally is currently listed as being with the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Zwally and his team have come back in 2021 with this peer-reviewed study:
Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet 1992–2016: reconciling results from GRACE
gravimetry with ICESat, ERS1/2 and Envisat altimetry H. Jay Zwally et al. 29 March 2021 Cambridge University Press
Their latest analysis looks like this:
One sees the seasonal variation clearly at this scale. Although this latest analysis shows a tiny -12 Gt annual loss, I doubt that it is significant given what must be a fairly large +/- 1 SD (had it been shown). Even if the -12 Gt per year was physical and lasted all 9 years from 2012, the cumulative total nine year loss would be only 108 GT, a far cry from the NASA Vital Signs GRACE image’s minus 151 Gt per year offered to the general public as a sign of disastrous climate change.
I would appreciate any and all Ice Mass aficionados weighing in on the source of the disconnect between these two NASA approved Ice Mass calculations.
UPDATE: Reader John MacDonald pointed out that “One data item missing is the total ice mass of Antarctic.” The best guess total ice mass in Gt from the Wiki is 26.5 million Gt.
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Kip. Good job pointing out the function of discussion in science. And the importance of understanding sources, errors, relevance, and how to draw conclusions.
One data item missing is the total ice mass of Antarctica. That would add a lot of perspective to the anomaly data. People often forget that this sort of discussion occurs on a background of huge numbers that are orders of magnitude greater than the anomaly.
Cute! One NASA author using satellite data on Antarctic ice reporting the opposite of what another NASA author was reporting, also using satellite data.
IIRC the Envisat Altimetry uses radar to measure the surface altitude of the Antarctic ice cap. The depth of the ice is a function of the elevation of the rock underlying which is not measured. It is presumed that the crust under Antarctica is experiencing some of the largest isostatic rebound on the planet, though I do not understand why given the ice is still there. This large isostatic rebound is required to thin the ice. At least that is my understanding or lack there of.
didn’t we just learn that it was record cold in antarctica? i’m banking on ice loss.
You could apply the IPCC method of averaging the competing sources, then calling the average “a scientific consensus” 😉
“ANTARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT LARGEST SINCE 2015, AND GROWING” Per June 2021 analysis.
It must be noted that all “recorded history” only dates back to 1979 when we we told a new ice age was at hand. Of course it’s warmed since then and with sea ice extents expanding in both the Arctic and Antarctic in recent years tied to our projected entry into a Grand Solar Minimum, it stands to reason we can continue to see expanded sea ice extents into the foreseeable future. Probably not a straight line but certainly a trend reversal back to 1979 levels or greater.
Given that anything NASA says, on the subject of “climate”, must be taken with a very large ‘grain’ of salt (owing to their propensity to be “creative” with the truth), I’d guess anything they publish might be exaggerated by at least an order of magnitude … subject to change at any moment.
Do you think the Denver mint would miss a few quarters?
“Antarctic Ice Mass – Gaining or losing?”
YES. It does both. If there is a pro-longed drought in antiarctica then it will lose ice for years. It certainly isn’t melting at the surface.
Also, measuring gravity is yet another proxy. They assume it is measuring ice, but it also is measuring any other mass – like magma near the surface. If a magma chamber loses pressure and drains it will show up as a mass loss and they assume it is Ice. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. That is the problem with proxies – their result are always complicated because natural systems are complicated.
If we use the worst Grace data and hell lets even apply stupidly high acceleration then the ice is all gone in a million years.It’s a climate emergency and we need to act now.
Steve McIntyre had a good (but very long) analysis of Zwally 2015 and competing studies here:
Antarctic Ice Mass Controversies « Climate Audit
I haven’t had a chance to give it a good re-read, but I remember it was excellent.
And herein lies probably the biggest schism between pro and anti AGW sides. Who’s data do you believe? But non of the contested data answers the AGW question of “where’s the proof” even if we settle on a data set. Natural climate variations have the history so you’d think that would be enough/only “proof”.
According to GRACE the Antarctic continent is losing ice at a catastrophic rate of 150 cu km per year.
Since the Antarctic ice cap contains about 2,650,000,000 cu km of ice, it means it will all melt away by 176,668,688 AD. We should panic immediately.
From the study: “−12 ± 64 Gt a−1 by 2012–16.”
First off – hate this ‘a-1’ business – what’s wrong with “/a”?
Second – I would have failed grade 9 science if I did any kind of graph or report without error bars, like the graphs above.
Third – +-64GT on -12GT? Why bother printing the results? I wouldn’t waste a dollar on a ultrasonic tape measure that was +-1cm let alone +-10m – which is like the error on these measurements of ice loss/gain, using multi-million dollar satellites.
Kip, a few thoughts.
In my opinion , GRACE is garbage. First let us understand that Antarctica ice-loss and GRACE Sea Level Rise are intimately linked. What Grace says about SLR impacts GRACE ice loss levels.
Other commenters here have noted that Antarctica is undergoing a very high rate if rebound.
Actually, the rebound is *estimated* from GRACE data. Here is the story:
The GRACE people *assert* that for every ton of ice loss, there is a ton of mantle rock which flows in to replace the lost mass. In a trivial case, your net mass change is 0.000, and you can claim any crazy ice loss you like, with the mass replaced by rock migration and crustal rebound.
And this is what we find in the GRACE analysis of the data. GIA, or glacial isostatic rebound is a critical component of both the GRACE ice loss and SLR. Then we find out that the GRACE SLR estimates conflict with reality with what is known as the “closure problem”.
Rud Istvan covered this topic in one of his ebooks. One more reason I need to get those ebooks and keep for reference.
Somebody:
## Global warming requires sea rises, we can’t find it anywhere else so let’s blame it on something immeasurable where nobody can check
** Actually, in real life, consuming Kool Aid would actually do that – or any other beverage containing large amounts of sugar. Is the US still on a 3 cans per day ‘habit’ And, yes it is A Habit in the contemporary vernacular
Here’s a nice little BBC story that is Wildly Off Topic but simultaneously Madly On Topic. ‘madly’ being the operative here
Headline:”Stink bug discovery raises fears of threat to crops”
here
What would anyone, in their usual mad rush these days to earn money, mind the children, eat mush, glue themselves to the road and pay tax, make of that story?
Read it and you find
‘Hundreds of these bugs gather in your house’
Yeah right, thousands of spiders and flying critters do so every Autumn here in the UK. With perfectly no problemo signor
Don’t bother them and they won’t bother you
‘Only one single bug has been captured’
Yet this is front page BBC News and has ‘raised fears over food crops‘
‘Stink bugs attack peaches and nectarines’
On nooooohh, cue picture of The Scream. That’s certainly the end of UK Peach & Nectarine Industry.
No mention of how huge and important the UK peach industry actually is.
“Zero” and “Not” being the answers in case you wondered
See the connection?
World Science and all who sail in her have completely lost their heads/minds – and the whole shebang is now in flat-out headless chicken panic mode.
Thereafter putting all our (scientifically/technically illiterate) Western politicians into a similar state and they then project that, via the MSM, onto the general populace. (++)
As Mencken said/predicted
++ See how it was/is a Government funded organistion that found the stink bug and the BBC, reporting it.
Compared to The Science, it’s perfectly obvious that these critters are among the most sweetly & delicately fragranced things that God, Nature, Gaia whoever, has so far created.
Bless them for pointing it out
So given the magnitude of the possible error it looks like the answer to whether Antarctic ice mass is increasing or decreasing is “no one knows for sure but they’re trying to figure it out”.
Which is unacceptable to the indoctrinated and the dogmatic but that’s the way scientific discovery works. There are a lot of things we don’t know but are trying to understand. It’s so hard for some people to say “we don’t know”. Try it yourself and see if it hurts you. If it does, you just may be dogmatic.
This is exactly the same situation that Galileo ran into.
The Vatican were quite happy for astronomers to do their calculations ‘as if’ the Earth was going round the Sun – because they got more accurate answers that way.
They just wanted it publicly stated that the Earth was static in the middle of the Solar System, because a large amount of religious dogma depended on that.
So long as the public kept accepting their religion, they didn’t care what the truth was, and were quite happy to let the scientists do what they wanted. What they did not want was the money to cease rolling into the Church coffers.
You will find that The Climate Change supporters are quite happy with the idea that the mass balance is complex. They just don’t want it publicised that their Articles of Faith are wrong. And one who does that gets put under house arrest , or cancelled in modern parlance, for rocking the boat and threatening the income flow….
Published on WUWT a few years ago, I believe by someone who frequently publishes here, was an examination of the publishing of one alarmist blathering about so many Giga tons of ice having been lost from Antarctica over the previous 25 years. He (or she?) listed (with links) the 4 most recently published estimates (by supposedly responsible parties, such as NASA, NOAA, and some academics) of total Antarctic ice mass. There was quite a bit of difference between them.
Then, taking the difference between the smallest and the largest as a reasonable measure of uncertainty of those published estimates, showed that this claim of 25 years sum of ice loss was, as the general saying goes, not even a rounding error of the uncertainty in total ice mass.
I have a question:
Can gravity measurements of Antarctic mass fluctuate due to seismic activity under the ice ?
Thank you for any clarification.
Where do ice mass measurements in Antarctica show the most variability? Are these changes related to changes in sea current temperature, as in Greenland?
I think troposphere temperature can only affect Antarctic ice during La Niña and El Niño periods, and only during the summer season.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zt_sh.gif
How much time and effort is put into the study of Antarctic ice? Why are there no equivalent amounts put into the study of human adaption and how we can improve? Speaking scientifically – not politically – this should be getting as much media attention if not more because of the huge benefits shown.
With both Antarctica and Greenland ice, the total mass is never mentioned to put things in perspective. Every single time they mention an anomaly, we need to point out the total and how little has shed, and how long it would take a linear process to do anything meaningful. We will be long dead and gone before anything important has melted, and God knows, into the next ice age.
So, according to their own data they don’t know what is happening. Only fact in actual evidence is the Antarctic is still 100% frozen and no possibility it will become unfrozen anytime in the foreseeable future. Oh, the horror!