Wei Wang1, Yunzhong Shen3,1, Qiujie Chen1 and Fengwei Wang2
Published 9 November 2023 • © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 18, Number 12
Citation Wei Wang et al 2023 Environ. Res. Lett. 18 124012DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad0863
Abstract:
The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is susceptible to global climate change, and its mass loss has been 92 ± 18 Gt yr −1 between 1992 and 2020. Given the current intensive global warming, we investigate the AIS mass changes from January 2003 to December 2022, using the newly released satellite gravimetry and atmospheric datasets. The results show that the continuous mass loss in the AIS between 2003 and 2020 was 141.8 ± 55.6 Gt yr−1 . However, the AIS showed a record-breaking mass gain of 129.7 ± 69.6 Gt yr −1 between 2021 and 2022. During this period, the mass gain over the East AIS and Antarctic Peninsula was unprecedented within the past two decades, and it outpaced the mass loss in the Amundsen sector of the West AIS from 2003 to 2022. Basin-scale analysis shows that the mass gain mainly occurred over Wilhelm II Land, Queen Mary Land, Wilkes Land, and the Antarctic Peninsula due to anomalously enhanced precipitation. Further investigation reveals that during 2021–2022, a pair of symmetrically distributed high-low pressure systems, located at approximately 120°W and 60°E in the Southern Ocean, drove the observed abnormal precipitation and mass accumulation.
The full open source paper can be read here.
Linked to the same thing that caused the decrease in Antarctic sea ice, no doubt.
It will be that, yes. As I’ve mentioned several times, it was the short period of anomalous weather that broke up the sea ice.
An increase in open water resulting in an increase in precipitation. Who could have foreseen that?
That and the slightly warmer than usual air in the weather systems, yes.
“a record-breaking mass gain of 129.7 ± 69.6 Gt yr.”
Total Antarctica ice mass
is estimated at 24.4 million gigatons
129.7 gigatons is statistically insignificant.
With a +/- 53% claimed margin of error it is equivalent to a number pulled out of a hat.
Too small to be measured with accuracy
A BS “study”
In that case it is just as irrelevant as the panic over the earlier decrease in ice was.
Exactly right
Most of Antarctica has a permanent temperature inversion, preventing convection, and not allowing any warming from increased CO2. The only slight melting is local ice shelves over underseas volcanoes. That’s wht the estimated ice mass loss since the 1970s is too small to matter. and batrely large enough to measure.
Antarctica holds about 90% of the planet’s land-based ice and that ice is almost unchanged in the past 50 years.
That’s why tide gauges show no sea level rise acceleration from the post-1975 warming (The sea level rise is slightly faster during the post 1975 global warming, compared with the 1940 to 1975 global cooling, but the trend still looks like a straight rising line on a long term tide gauge chart.
Meaningless unless you use swimming pools as the metric.
I (will soon) have a 50,000 litre pool. Doubling the above 24.4 (48.8) and calling one million Gigatons one thousand litres, the Antarctic ice is my pool and the loss is almost exactly one cup. As significant to Antarctica as me jumping into my pool (splash!) or its daily evaporation. The loss is SFA (technical term).
I’ll guarantee that you’ll lose more than one cup of water per day by evaporation. I hope you have not budgeted on that basis.
So shifts in the weather patterning can have far more impact on the climate then CO2 ever will. Well who would have guessed that would have been the case!.
Oh! yes l did at least over a decade ago.
Several things happen as sea level rises:
Ocean surface area increases (35% from glacial low)
Sea level pressure decreases (1/R^2)
More evaporation and ocean latent energy release
More rain and snow, circulation determines where
Cooling of ocean and on and on
What are the limits(Boundary conditions) and how fast is the transition?
Alot depends on how static the weather patterning becomes.
But as this has shown even after only a year or two static weather patterning it can have a large and sudden impact on the climate. lf it hangs around for many years then you have a cause of major climate change.
You know that sealevel was several meters higher than present during the Holocene high stand between 8000 – 5000yrs B.P. There are wave-cut notches in cliffs throughout the Carribean and elsewhere from wave action as evidence. There is also an elevated beach above current sealevel with driftwood on it on the north coast of Greenland, which has been locked in shore-bound ice for a few thousand years.
Also, to form such a beach requires many tens of miles of open ocean for significant wave action to develop (and a forest to the north and adjacent to it to supply the driftwood!). Moreover, at many localities, including a place I sold a few years ago in the Carribean, a coral outcrop on the property that was 30 m above the sea was, of course below sea level during th Eemian which was the very much warmer interglacial over 120,000yrs ago. You can surmise your idea wasn’t at work then.
The higher the sea level the more ocean surface area and more precipitation and cooling. Understand sea levels were and will be higher again. They were a meter higher in this cycle. It is not the only factor, but are a major portion of the feedbacks that set extreme limits. Both high and low.
Been known and written up since 2004. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1127&context=ers_facpub
This study suggests that accumulation in the Pine Island–Thwaites drainage system is associated with local climate, whereas accumulation near the ice divide and in the Ross drainage system may be associated with mid-latitude mechanisms. The prevalence of cyclones in the Pine Island–Thwaites drainage system (relative to the Ross drainage system) is due to its proximity to the coast and topographic pathways that enable cyclones to penetrate inland. It is difficult to ascertain if the mid-latitude signal (i.e. the SOI and SLP correlations) present in the ice-divide
and Ross drainage-system cores is present in the Pine Island–Thwaites drainage system. The localized cyclonic activity could be dominating the mid-latitude signal, although cyclonic activity near Antarctica is not entirely independent of the mid-latitudes. If the ENSO-like periodicities present in nearly all records are caused by ENSO, this would suggest the presence of a mid-latitude signal across the region of study.
Except that as far as I’m aware this weather system happened before the El Nino really built up. I’m really not sure it’s related to the current El Nino at all.
Never fear! Somehow this will be a BAD THING!
I doubt if any of the mainstream media or alarmist websites/social media will ever dare to mention this. Far from being a BAD THING, it will be a NON-THING, consigned to the memory hole, only read and understood by sceptics like us.
Given that the AGW theory is unfalsifiable, this will have no meaning or impact to warmist believers. The warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and Antarctica is still cold enough for it to be all snow; two years of data is too short to mean anything; the recent atmospheric changes are due to AGW, forget about Antarctica, what about the Arctic yada yada yada…
johnesm,
There is a critical difference between the atmosphere “CAN hold more moisture” and “DOES hold more moisture”.
Is global precipitation actually lower in cold times than warm times?
We observe that rainfall is less over hot deserts than over nearby colder forests and plains.
Geoff S
There’s also a big difference between the atmosphere can hold more moisture and the belief that this will result in more precipitaion. It’s more likely that the atmosphere will just continue to hold that extra moisture.
I was being sarcastic. I should have added /sarc.
johnesm,
AOK buddy. Geoff S
Not a problem. Long story short, any mass gain anywhere, West Antarctica, East Antarctica, Greenland, Alaska, and so on would run counter to their predictions. We won’t see their “accelerated” sea level rise if the Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing.
I think the important question is the sea surface temperature (which is obviously somewhat warmer with open ocean than with ice).
Deserts get hot because they are first dry and don’t have a lot of clouds for shade. Forests stay cooler because they are first wet and continue to transpire water vapor expelling latent heat up to clouds that provide shade.
The AGW theory is falsifiable. CO2 is supposedly the main driver of the temperature changes. It’s a volume control for your stereo. Turn it up and it gets hotter, turn it down and it gets cooler. So, we should see a strong correlation between the two, say it explains at least 75% of the temperature changes. The temperature changes are correlated at about the 50% mark. No sale.
Just another example of Northern oppression and hegemony-
Upside-Down Map of the World – an alternative perspective [3508×2480] : r/MapPorn (reddit.com)
Everyone knows that we (North America) are on top of the world 😉
Some warming in the Antarctic causes a firm growth of the Antarctic ice mass. Cooling however will cause a shrinking of the ice sheet, caused by the lower amount of moisture in colder air, according to Professor dr. J. Oerlemans, member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW):
“For values of TA [Antarctic Temperature] above 5°C, the model predicts that there will be little ice in Antarctica. At values of around -5°C (this is still 13 degrees warmer than now!), the higher areas are glaciated, but there is not yet a coherent ice sheet on a continental scale. The model further suggests that the Antarctic ice sheet will be largest at a temperature about 3 degrees above current temperatures. With a further drop in temperature, the ice sheet will become slightly smaller. This is a consequence of the fact that precipitation in an extremely cold climate is limited by the amount of moisture that the air can contain. This amount decreases sharply with decreasing temperature.” (Bold added)
Source page 2,3: Summary of a lecture given by Professor dr. J. Oerlemans for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 2006 and a publication in 2004.
(in Dutch).
It appears that how to use and properly display significant figures is no longer taught — or these authors, their peer reviewers, and editor slept through those lessons. It is absurd to claim that both the average and standard deviation are known to ±0.05 Gt/yr when the standard deviation is more than half of the average. The numbers should be rounded and presented as 130 ±70 Gt/yr, with the average having two significant figures and the standard deviation having 1 significant figure. Another way it could be presented is 130 Gt/yr ±50%. It might be justified to show an additional guard-digit in brackets if these are to be used for subsequent calculations. The way the numbers are presented in the paper suggests that both numbers have greater precision than is warranted.
Kudos to you for pointing that out first! 🏆
Quoting all that fake precision when the range is so huge would have cost even a high school student quite a few marks on their tests and exams – but in the new normal climate scientists get published with such glaring errors.
Or course, it’s possible that they know their error and did it intentionally to make their results look better – quote all those significant digits and most people won’t look at the plus/minus, or even if they do only scientists/engineers/current high schoolers would notice the red flags.
And for context, 130 Gt increase in the AIS corresponds to a 0.36mm decrease in global sea level (keeping two significant figures throughout.
That paper never states what the total ice mass is. Only what the change in total ice mass. So, are these 1% changes? 0.01%? No way to know.
Antarctic total Ice Mass since 1900
Wow, looks horrifying! We must declare an emergency! In impending disaster! /sarc
Actually, a great chart. Where did you get it or did you prepare it yourself?
Looked up the apparent “losses” since 1900
Found the actual estimated mass.
Simple spreadsheet.. easy to graph.
Have seen similar from other realists.
quick 3 beers mental calculation.. Assuming total mass is about 2.6 x 10¹⁵ tonnes (a general estimate found in several places)
… 130Gt loss is about 0.00005% of Antarctic ice mass
oops make that 0.005% I mentally used 1.3Gt and forgot to x100
been working outside on a rather warm day…
… 3 beers.. someone please check my soggy maths 🙂
must have been a 4 beer estimate 🙂
So, for either value, no significant change. Another Chicken Little fairy tale.
So that’s where the water vapor from Hunga-Tonga went.
Maybe. The Hunga Tonga eruption was in Dec 21 and this weather system was noticeable in the Antarctic in Jan-Feb 22.
Well, perhaps, but it would be difficult to find.
“In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer.”
— https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere
146 teragrams is equal to 1.46×10^8 metric tons. In comparison, the above article’s cited record-breaking mass gain in AIS was 129.7 ± 69.6 Gt between 2021 and 2022, or 1.30×10^11 metric tons using the mid-value.
So the Hunga-Tonga stratospheric injection of water into the stratosphere would account for only about 0.11% of the reported AIS mass gain for 2021-2022, assuming it all precipitated out over the AIS.
As for the water and water vapor that the Hunga-Tonga eruption sent into the troposphere, that should have been rapidly dispersed and precipitated around the Southern Hemisphere by the southeasterly trade winds underlaying the southern Hadley atmospheric circulation cell and by the “westerlies” underlaying the southern Ferrel atmospheric circulation cell, well before that moisture could reach Antarctica.
Surely if 0.11% of the water from Hunga-Tonga fell as precipitation over the highest and most sea-ward parts of Antarctica, that would indicate that just a little bit more of it fell in the Southern Ocean, there being not alot of land area down there, and it being Summer down there. I find this simpler to believe than in the H-T eruption being directly responsible for simultaneous Central Eurasian and Australian heat waves in 2023.
You misread what I wrote.
I clearly stated that if ALL the 1.46×10^8 metric tons of water estimated to have been injected into the stratosphere from the H-T volcano fell as precipitation (snow/ice) onto the Antarctic Ice Shelf, it could only account for 0.11% of the reported 1.30×10^11 metric tons ice mass gain there for 2021–2022.
And I said nothing about the H-T eruption being related to “Central Eurasian and Australian heat waves in 2023” . . . not did I see any such reference in the above article’s cited abstract of the Wang, et.al, Environ. Res. Lett. paper.
WOW!!
Glaciers grow when it snows!
Who knew that?
Climate enthusiasts don’t. Apparently glaciers are supposed to stay exactly as they are, regardless of weather or temperatures.
You mean the glaciers we are losing that didn’t exist 300 to 5000 years ago…
The Scotts and Vikings at least…
“Given the current intensive global warmimg ….. ”
Stopped reading at that point.
“… Given the current intensive global warming…”
Such a comment doesn’t belong in a science paper- at least not with that kind of language. They should at least define “intensive”.
Well, now that new, improved research has shown that warming will result in more and heavier snowfalls, this is easily explained.
I know that snow is a thing of the past and children don’t know what it is anymore, but something very similar to it seems to be accumulating over Antarctica. So strange.
By sheer coincidence, Hunter Biden’s jwt was flying nearby…
Is that why the snow smells like bull “stuff”
That explains why NASA have not updated their ice sheet vital signs since June this year. Obviously not “vital” if the data doesn’t fit the scare narrative
https://climate.nasa.gov/
“Given the current intensive global warming…”
Given? by whom? Not by me.
Plus OR minus 55 gigatons is a 110 gigaton range! How is that even science? The variation each year makes it at best a guestamet!
They clearly are trying to distance themselves from this 2015 report that came to the opposite conclusion:
A new NASA study on the Antarctic Ice Sheet 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 present. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008
.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2361/study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses/