News Brief by Kip Hansen — 8 February 2025 — 1000 words
A new study out of the University of Florida and the Colorado School of Mines written by Emma J. MacKie, Joanna Millstein, and Katherine A. Serafin and titled:
“47 Years of Large Antarctic Calving Events: Insights From Extreme Value Theory”
states that (from the Abstract):
“We use 47 years of iceberg size from satellite observations. Our analysis reveals no upward trend in the surface area of the largest annual iceberg over this time frame. This finding suggests that extreme calving events such as the recent 2017 Larsen C iceberg, A68, are statistically unexceptional and that extreme calving events are not necessarily a consequence of climate change.”
The Conclusion is a little more precise:
“…our analysis shows that maximum calving size has not increased over our study interval. Rather, extremely large calving events are likely typical of a healthy ice sheet system wherein exists a quasi‐stable cycle of calving front advance and retreat. The lack of an upward trend in annual maximum iceberg area could be attributed to an overall increase in the number of smaller calving events, which may inhibit the development of extremely large calving events.”
As with all results of these types of studies, one must read carefully what the authors are saying.
1. Over the last 47 years (the extent of reliable data), “maximum calving size has not increased”.
2. “extremely large calving events are likely typical of a healthy ice sheet system wherein exists a quasi‐stable cycle of calving front advance and retreat.”
3. There has been a “…lack of an upward trend in annual maximum iceberg area” .
4. Then follows a couplet of face-saving “could be” and “might”: “could be attributed to an overall increase in the number of smaller calving events, which may inhibit the development of extremely large calving events.”
Basically, the villain Climate Change has been shown not to be causing an increase in massive icebergs to calve off the ice shelves of Antarctica.
Rather, it seems, from their study, that large icebergs breaking off is part of the perfectly normal and expected behavior of these ice shelves.
This is a serious study based on a great deal of computational power and some novel approaches to “to understand their [sea ice and massive icebergs] physical drivers, temporal trends, and future likelihood” including extreme value theory (EVT).
The authors attempt to mitigate the unexpected findings by postulating that instead of more massive icebergs, there may have been many smaller icebergs: “While extreme calving events have not grown in area over the observational period, overall ice shelf area is decreasing (Greene et al., 2022). Our results suggest that this mass reduction is primarily driven by small calving events.”
Let’s just check that “overall ice shelf area is decreasing” (which should mean over the 47-year study period): (These two graphs cover approximately the same years as the study, 1979-2024/5, whereas the study uses 1976-2023)
The above is Antarctic Sea Ice Extent, in millions of square kilometers, at the height of the Antarctic Summer, with 2025 coming in in the middle of the pack and in the same general range as the earliest years, the 1980s.
This graph is Sea Ice Volume….and shows that 2024 was exceptionally low, but, if we highlight the higher years since 2010, we get this:
Most of the years in the last 15 years have been the higher/highest volume years. So maybe, the authors could have taken a closer and a broader look at the longer-term statistics. The authors cite a single study, Greene et al. (2022), in support of “overall ice shelf area is decreasing”.
Bottom Lines:
1. The repeated claim that Antarctica is producing more and more and larger and large icebergs is not correct. There is no trend (and possibly a negative trend) in massive icebergs calving from Antarctic ice shelves.
2. The large icebergs calved in recent years have not been caused by Climate Change, but are apparently just part of the long-term cycle of ice shelf growth and decline.
3. Concerns over Antarctic Ice Shelf area (km2) seem overheated…the area covered by ice shelves off the coasts of Antarctica is highly variable and currently in line with the extent seen in the 1980s.
4. Media claims to the contrary are false and based primarily on untrue Climate Crisis narrative talking point: “The icecaps are melting”.
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Author’s Comment:
Arctic Sea Ice, what passes for the Northern polar ice cap, is currently in a low ice mode, similar to that seen in the 1930s. So much so that commercial shipping again is possible over the Northeast Passage (Northern Sea Route) from Europe to Asia for a short season every year. Russia is using that window in the seasonal ice to ship its LNG from its Arctic LNG 2 project to China and elsewhere.
Antarctic Sea Ice is highly variable in both extent and ‘thickness’. Extent has been ‘measured’ by satellite using images which can be compared year to year. Thickness is currently estimated using gravity measurements from satellites and by the “Global Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (GIOMAS).”
As we all know, melting sea ice does not add to sea level or cause sea level rise. Only melting land ice (glacial ice) can do so.
Less ice at the northern pole of the planet is a good thing as it allows shorter shipping routes in our ever more interdependent commercial societies. Sea ice in Antarctica is a negligible issue. Land ice mass on Antarctica is a scientific controversy.
Thanks for reading.
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Anybody who frets over Antarctic ice extent doesn’t have any real problems in their lives.
Joseph ==> Climate Anxiety can strike anywhere, anytime, anyone!
“Anybody who frets over Antarctic ice extent doesn’t have any real problems in their lives.”
I disagree Joseph, they have a big problem. Failure to think.
If the Ice Sheets didn’t calve and melt then the ice coverage would continue to grow. Then you have an ice age, climate change to fret about.
I don’t want to sound alarmist about a coming ice age but the ice that calves floats around for YEARS before it starts shrinking, and only if the currents around Antarctica let it escape to warmer waters. So “ice age” is apt for the situation.
The climate/insane
So nature continues to be the main driver of climate and weather. Who’d have thunk?
mleskovarsocalrrcom ==> It does seem odd that so much time and effort and intellectual capital is being spent trying to prove that the ever-so-ill-defined concept of “Climate Change” causes various geophysical phenomena. Given that if there is Climate Change, it can ONLY be an effect — and not a cause.
So the proper question might have been: “Are the massive icebergs calving off of ice shelves in Antarctica an effect of changing climatic conditions?”
An the answer, at least in the featured study, is: “No.”
I like calving events, because many calves grow up to be steers. Your silage may vary.
George ==> Very punny.
“…because many calves grow up to be steers.” And then graduate to being steaks!
YUM!
If you Google “Do penguins depend on sea ice” AI comes up with this:
_________________________________________________________
Over 90% of Emperor Penguins Will Be Quasi-Extinct By 2100 …
Yes, penguins depend on sea ice for many aspects of their lives, including breeding, feeding, and raising their chicks.
How penguins depend on sea ice Breeding Penguins breed on the ice, laying their eggs on a platform of stable sea ice.
Feeding Penguins rely on sea ice ecosystems for food, such as krill, which also depend on the ice for spawning.
Raising chicks Penguins raise their chicks on the ice, where they stay until they develop waterproof feathers.
Resting and molting Penguins rest and molt on land-fast sea ice, which is connected to the nearby coastline.
How climate change affects penguins Sea ice loss Climate change is causing sea ice to melt at an increasing rate, which threatens the long-term survival of penguins.
Breeding failure In 2022, emperor penguin colonies experienced unprecedented breeding failure due to a loss of sea ice.
Chicks dying If the breeding platform disintegrates before the chicks have fledged, they are likey to die.
Colonies being abandoned Some penguin colonies have been abandoned due to the loss of sea ice.
What can be done to help penguins Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rate of sea ice loss?
Take protection measures to reverse the decline of emperor penguins Emperor penguin colonies abandoned after ‘unprecedented ..
.
Aug 24, 2023 — Penguins are heavily dependent on sea ice as part of their life cycle. In particular, they need land-fast sea ice, whi… Blah . . . bla . . . bla . . . bla . . . bla . . . bla . . . bla
____________________________________________________________________________
Groan! Perhaps “Story Tip” is appropriate. “Quasi Extinct” needs to be defined.
“Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rate of sea ice loss?”
There are people who believe this ^^^^. They walk among us. I try my best to believe that they’re also too stupid to figure out how to vote.
Quasi extinct is something like sorta pregnant.
Perhaps what the AI meant is that the female penguins only become slightly pregnant.
If I’m not mistaken penguins breed on land, ice-or-snow-covered perhaps, but land.
The WWF has discovered the penguin as the follow up on the tiresome polar bear in need scam and is urging its blood donors to adopt a penguin in peril.
The Emperor penguins are a little different, they start the dating game on sea ice – ice on top of the sea, lay their egg, balance it on Papa’s feet then Momma leaves for the worst of the winter. When warmer temps return the egg hatches but the clock is running and the ice is melting, and hopefully Jr is fattened up in time before the swimming lessons are needed.
AI – Artificial Insanity
Steve ==> Which AI gave you that load of nonsense? See the Antarctic sea ice graphs above.
Adobe’s Acrobat AI Assistant comes with this caveat: “AI features are built upon powerful, emerging large language model technologies that may generate outputs that are inaccurate or misleading”
No AI response should be used for anything other than a quick peek and maybe references (which themselves may be imaginary).
And never ever, as in NEVER, taken as even slightly dependable on any topic that may have even the slightest controversy.
I have stronger opinions than that, but not publishable here.
Here’s the link: Google Search on “Do penguins depend on sea ice“
So Google gave you an answer to a question you didn’t ask.
You asked:
“Do penguins depend on sea ice“
And Google answered:
“Almost all emperor penguin colonies depend upon stable land-fast sea ice“
Google’s AI answer mentioned sea ice nine times including land-fast sea ice.
Clearly, AI has never heard of African Penguins also known as Jackass Penguins
Kip, nice post on a good study. Makes sense intuitively. Yet another alarmist claim falsified by observation.
Rud ==> Yes, it seems as though the authors might have been disappointed with their findings, and felt it necessary to hedge their bets with “maybe a lot more smaller icebergs”. Oddly, they used a n iceberg database out of BYU in Utah, which I didn’t know even existed. “Brigham Young
University (BYU) consolidated database (Budge & Long, 2018).” or more fully: “Brigham Young University (BYU)/National Ice Center (NIC) Antarctic iceberg tracking database“.
This topic was also covered at SciTechDaily: https://scitechdaily.com/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-new-research-reveals-that-antarcticas-ice-shelves-are-dying/
The provided link ( https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL112235 ) for the original article, has an illustration showing the location of the calving events:
The majority of the large calving events have taken place in West Antarctica, suggesting the possibility that the cause of the large and small icebergs is different, such as sub-ice volcanoes and hydrothermal fields in West Antarctica.
Please read my comment at the bottom of the page for SciTechDaily.
I wonder if there were many major calving events during the PETM? Oh, that’s right; there weren’t any Antarctic ice sheets until the early Oligocene, but they were gone by the early Miocene, only to return permanently mid-Miocene! I still don’t understand how anyone with a smattering of knowledge about the geologic record can be climate anxious!
Recently, I have been spending more time over at SciTechDaily than here. The level of ignorance and inability to think demonstrated there is appalling. The caliber of responders here at WUWT, with a few notable exceptions, is much higher.
Clyde ==> Here I re-post your comment from SciTeh:
“This study is the first of its kind to focus on these large calving events.” They summarize their observations with, “Calving, …, is common and increasingly influenced by climate change.” However, they temper that with, “The research confirms widespread ice shelf loss due to rising temperatures but finds that the frequency and size of major iceberg calving events have remained relatively stable.” The assertions about the correlation of small icebergs with ‘climate change’ is not as strongly supported as the lack of correlation with climate change. They reinforce that with, “This indicates that extreme calving events do not correlate with climate change, …”
Interestingly, this University of Florida press release does not make the explicit point that the study was for all of Antarctica. Therefore, I went to the provided DOI link to read the actual paper. What I confirmed was that the study was for all of Antarctica. However, what stood out was that most of the calving, and in particular the largest, were located in West Antarctica. This is interesting in light of the lack of correlation with “climate change” because it is generally known that West Antarctica has more known volcanoes than East Antarctica, and also contains regions of high geothermal heat flow.
This suggests that even the smaller icebergs may be the result of geothermal hot spots in the west, rather than from warmer air caused by an increase in the well-mixed CO2. If one were to complain that the small icebergs are the result of ‘warm’ water eroding the base of the grounded ice, then there is a problem of explaining why warm, generally buoyant water is found several hundred feet below the surface of the water. The point being, “How did the CO2-warmed air result in warming the water below the surface?”
Believing that CO2 can warm subsurface water is akin to thinking you can warm your bath water with a blow dryer! There’s only one way that’ll work; you’d need a really powerful circuit to make it happen; preferably when you’re not in the tub!
Clyde – your attached image makes sense when accepted as a consequence of Antarctic Geothermal Heat Flow as summarised below from this recent study
The future evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet depends on its stability, which describes how sensitive it is to environmental change. A key factor influencing ice sheet stability is how much thermal energy is transferred into its base from Earth’s interior: a parameter called geothermal heat flow. If the level of heat supply is high, melting at the base of the ice sheet is encouraged, resulting in enhanced sliding toward outlet glaciers at the continental perimeter. Consequently, ice loss is accelerated, and the likelihood of glacial collapse is increased.
The attached Figure 3 from the report indicates significantly higher geothermal heat flow (GHF) in the west Antarctic region, where the majority of calving has taken place.
Thanks! Interesting graphics. I just finished a quick read of the paper from which those graphics come. While I could quibble about the number of significant figures in some of the calculations, over all, I wish that all climatology papers paid as much attention to the detail of uncertainty and comparisons to other similar studies. The only real complaint that I could lodge is that I cannot find anywhere an explicit declaration whether the error bars represent +/- 1-sigma (as is all too often the case in climatology) or +/- 2-sigma. Inasmuch as they are doing real science, and yet the numbers are relatively small, it is probably safe to assume that they are using the 95% probability of 2-sigma error bars.
Good find!
Clyde,
Is there some place you would recommend in particular for a map of Antarctic spreading ridges and transverse fault configuration?
AM – try Earthbyte – you can download their viewing software and examine virtually all aspects of seafloor spreading in a GIS environment.
Nice play, Kip! I’ll bet if you told schoolchildren, anywhere from 6 to 26 years old, that the increase in polar bear population in the Arctic is due to climate change forcing them to flee Antarctica; you’d get at least 25% who sincerely believed you! Climate Anxiety is closely linked to Climate Stupidity!
To understand the variability of Arctic sea ice see the story of the RCMP vessel St. Roch.
Only way to get the real status of sea ice in the Antarctic is for Chris Turney to set sail in another “Ship Of Fools” amateur research / holiday passage down there.
As I understand it, ice shelves are produced by glaciers (ice rivers) flowing into the sea. Eventually, the end of the shelf breaks off – ice being relatively rigid, and not good at flexing when tides move a massive amount of ice up and down. It snaps off and becomes an iceberg.
As NASA says, “Even though Antarctic ice shelves can be up to about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) thick in places, tides can lift these shelves as much as 4.5 meters (about 15 feet).”
Nothing to do with CO2, climate change, or “global warming”. Just nature at work.
Unfortunately, even Kip wrote “The point being, “How did the CO2-warmed air result in warming the water below the surface?”, implying that adding CO2 to air can somehow “warm” it, which is quite impossible, as impossible as “cooling” air by removing CO2! The deep oceans are warmed by geothermal heat – which is why the oceans don’t freeze right through, and ocean currents exist.
Icebergs are not the result of sea ice, as far as I know. Icebergs may be embedded in sea ice, and alarmist piffle referring to “glacial collapse” is just that – piffle.
The Antarctic continent is obviously quite a lot cooler than when it supported a wide variety of flora and fauna. Cooled. No cause for panic just yet.
Kip didn’t write that, I did. The point was that recent expeditions using submersibles have reported that ‘warm’ water is currently eroding the base of glaciers extending beyond their grounding line. Their concern is that, if the so-called Doomsday Glacier retreats behind the current grounding line, the warm water will penetrate more deeply.
I agree that there appears to be high probability that the water is being warmed by submarine vulcanism. However, I have yet to see a study directly supporting that hypothesis with empirical data. Therefore, I raised the question, to be answered by alarmists, how the water gets warmed if it has to rely on CO2 to warm the air and then transfer that warmth to the base of the glacial tongues that may be several hundred feet deep.
Clyde,
Apologies. I didn’t realise Kim was quoting you.
As to “warm water” from any source causing calving, that’s just silly. Any “warm water” would merely melt the ice it came in contact with – from the bottom. The ice shelf would slowly vanish as the floating ice became thinner and thinner.
No “collapse” at all. Icebergs floating into warmer waters simply vanish as they melt.
You are right – alarmist nutters have no clue. CO2 warms nothing, and the deep oceans are not heated from above. Nor are glaciers, whose thermal gradient means the base is warmer than the surface.
I suppose alarmists claim that CO2 “warmth” penetrates frozen water just like liquid water! Over the last couple of million years, Antarctica got a lot colder. Definitely not likely to warm up anytime soon.
That’s a stretch at best. Sea ice is a very small subset of the polar ice cap. Sea ice accounts for about 15,000 km^3 of the polar ice cap while the ice sheets account for about 3,000,000 km^3. That’s about 0.5%. [Schweiger et al. 2019] [NSIDC 2025]
Arctic sea ice today is significantly lower than it was in the 1930s. [Brennan & Hakim 2022] [Walsh et al. 2016]
This is remedial thinking. Melting sea ice does add to sea level. And anyone reading this who is chomping at the bit to proclaim that I’m an idiot for saying that I advise you to take a deep breath and think about the topic at a high school level as opposed an elementary school level before responding. When sea ice melts the buttresses are removed allowing land ice to slide into the sea. Mass is literally getting added to the ocean when sea ice melts. That is absolutely going to raise sea level so says the law of conservation of mass which is unequivocal and indisputable on this matter. [Surawy-Stepney et al. 2024] [Gudmundsson 2013] [Robel 2017]
I’m proclaiming that you are definitely an idiot – no chomping necessary.
i refer you to “NSF just now figures out Archimedes’ buoyancy principle.”, which appeared on WUWT”, by Anthony Watts in 2011.
Floating sea ice cannot stop glaciers from flowing – the sea ice is floating, and gets pushed aside by the more massive glacial outflow. As to the conservation of mass, you might care to think about where the glaciers get their ice. Precipitation. Water evaporated from the surrounding oceans!
You are just a wee bit gullible, aren’t you? Floating sea ice preventing glacial outflow? Good fairytale, just like the NSF “scientists” who refused to accept that an Ancient Greek called Archimedes knew more than NSF “scientists”!
Yes, that’s sarcasm.
bdgwx ==> You seem to be co-mingling Arctic and Antarctic “ice caps”.
In the Antarctic, it is hypothesized that glacial terminal ice shelves “hold back” glacial flow. The evidence is still widely uncertain….but it may be. So far, there is no solid evidence of that.
There is a great deal of difference between seasonal sea ice and glacial terminal ice shelves.
I’m responding to the statement “Arctic Sea Ice, what passes for the Northern polar ice cap…” The boldening is mine. Arctic sea ice volume is about 15,000 km^3. Northern polar ice cap volume is about 3,000,000 km^3.
We know it is possible because it has been observed. The Larsen B ice shelf is a notable example in Antarctica. The Petermann ice shelf in Greenland is another notable example as well. [NSIDC 2025] [Scambos et al. 2004] [Millan et al. 2022]
From your fourth citation (S&S 2024), “… and the remaining four glaciers exhibited fairly stable speeds on annual timescales,” it appears that ‘buttressing’ is not universal or uniform. For “landfast” sea ice, the implication is that there is no glacial ice entering at those points and, therefore, there is nothing to buttress. Something that the authors have overlooked is that new sea ice, forming on the leading edge of glacial outlets, will inherit the momentum of the glacier at the time of crystallization. That is, that sea ice will comply with Newton’s First Law and have the same speed as the glacial ice and will not subsequently buttress the glacial ice.
If glacial ice were experiencing buttressing, one would expect compression ridges (similar to what is observed commonly near shorelines in the Arctic) and not tension cracks that are where icebergs form. The speed of glacial ice is determined by the slope of the bedrock, the thickness of the ice, and the basal friction over the 10s of miles it travels. When it reaches the ocean, there is no longer any slope or basal friction, and the ice thickness starts to decrease. Any buttressing of glacial ice from the momentum of sea ice is going to be negligible compared to the friction it had experienced in its travels to the coast and what the upstream ice is experiencing from sliding down-slope over irregular terrain and shearing over obstacles.
I believe that the effects of buttressing in the Antarctic are negligible, and where they are present, are the result of coherent grounding lines, not sea ice that is floating and is experiencing so little friction that winds can push it around. One might as well claim that it is wind that is buttressing the glacial ice.
Ice is melting continuously and it is replenished continuously by forward motion of the glaciers. However, that forward motion is driven by new snow in the Zone of Accumulation, which results from water evaporated from the oceans precipitating. That is, there is a system that is approximately in balance, with sea level constant, unless evaporation and precipitation somehow become unequal. It is a little hard to imagine how the dry Antarctic air can deliver much more short-term snow if the evaporation rate were to decline. If the evaporation were to increase, and precipitation not keep pace, then sea level would decline. With significant surging of the glacier, tension cracks will form upstream of the place where the ice is accelerating. If the accelerated block in front continues for any significant length of time, the amount of ice delivered will actually decrease because the upstream section can’t deliver at the same rate as it is being consumed in the ocean.
Considering that you don’t seem to have a good grasp of the complexities of the system, I think that your arrogant insults about school grade levels are unwarranted.
They are.
Not necessarily. Not that it matters since some glaciers do, in fact, have compression ridges which can be either parallel or perpendicular to the flow. Additionally buttresses sometimes cause a rumple at the pin point as well. [Wild et al. 2024]
No offense, but duh. Free floating sea ice does not buttress glaciers. It is only grounded sea ice that does that. This is explained in excruciating detail in the [Gundmundsson 2013] and [Robel 2017] citations and their 59 first order citations and the countless other second, tertiary, etc. citations they include that I provided.
And there is something I should nip in the bud right now so this doesn’t get misrepresented as well. Typically academic literature uses the term “marine ice” to refer to ice in the sea that is either free floating or grounded while “sea ice” is often constrained to only the floating type. This is not a universally accepted practice though with some publications using “sea ice” to refer to any ice that is not on land above sea ice. Since Kip stated that melting sea ice does not add to sea level I’m going with the definition that includes the grounded ice in the sea as well.
As has already been mentioned sea ice can and does provide a buttress for glacial ice slowing their movement and thus the total mass that entering the ocean. I have already provided citations (and repeated them again in this comment) with details and additional sources for you to explore.
It’s not an insult. It is a nod to Wired Magazine’s 5 Levels series in which progressing through academic levels of explanation reveals new insights and complexities to be considered. It is precisely because of these complexities I mentioned (which you arrogantly accuse me of not grasping) that results in a far more nuanced situation than the trivial “melting sea ice cannot cause sea level rise” myth that Kip repeats in his article.
And don’t think the irony of you erroneously lecturing me about arrogant insults when it was actually you doing the insulting went unnoticed. Not that I care. You can insult me all you want. I’ll even defend your right to do so without you needing to fear that I will respond in kind.
I’ll say it again. When sea ice melts it can and does cause sea levels to rise through the removal of buttressing resulting in a net positive mass change of water in the ocean.
“first order citation”
I searched, but want to know more.
And what is the classification of a scientific paper citation that lists the paper, but offers no reasoning on how it was used? Aksing for a friend with a nearly 6 year old paper that has picked up a few more citations recently, but still with none that explains how that paper was used in their research. Could it be that biblio’s are fattened up with such papers? NOOO….
It’s just a phrase I use (probably unique to me) to refer to the citations included directly in a publication. 2nd order would then be citations that the 1st order citations included, 3rd is what the 2nd includes and so on. For example, if each publication cites say 10 other publications then the 2nd order list would contain 10^2 = 100 publications, 3rd order would contain 10^3 = 1000, and so on. Obviously citations would overlap a lot with other citations from other publications so the expansion would be less than 10^n at n levels deep.
The polar ice “scientists” are either victims of foreign online diploma mills or could they possibly be fibbing about the whole thing, or is it possible that their climate cultism has deluded tham?
How can the Antarctic ice be effected by ‘warming’ if it’s always extremely subzero in most of the area, and when ice does break off it floats around for YEARS before noticeably shrinking at all and only really melts when the spiralling currents finally release it to warmer northern waters.
Ice is calving because Antarctica is the world’s freezer with a built in ice maker – it’s making ice like on a production line which then floats on the sea until the waves causes it to break off, to be replaced by the ever-flowing glacier.
The best thing to happen would be for all the polar ice to melt so the creatures below the sea ice can get some more light for photosynthesis (when the Sun pops up for a little bit) and also less precious sunlight gets reflected back out to space.
We’re in an ice age, which isn’t normal for our planet.
If the polar ice caps melted it would raise sea level by about 70 meters.
We’ve been in an ice age for 34 million years. To say an ice age isn’t normal is a stretch at best.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing at 70m it would include a lot of coastal cities with high populations of inner city greens and lefties. For the rest of us we could get some nice coastal real-estate 🙂
Seriously but the melting is going to take thousands of years that huge ice-berg A23 that calved in 1986 and is still running around off the coast of Argentina. That is just a big iceberg now try a timeline for the whole of Antarctica.
Oh I see that’s only the baby glacier that’s doomed with the warmening at present-
Scientists Uncover a 770,000-Year-Old Mystery Frozen Beneath the Canadian Arctic
Reminds me of rabbit shooting around sundown when you’re waiting for the bunnies to come out of their burrows and the oldies push the littleys out first to check for predators but we’re wise to that and hold fire for the bigguns.
It seems obvious to me that glacier calving is an event occurring because the glaciers are growing? It means we are making more ice
Pat ==> In general, calving is a normal process as shelves become “too long” (extending too far into the open water) where the constant rise and fall lead to cracking and calving. A lot of dynamics involved — and in certain areas in the antarctic, underwater volcanism sends plumes of warmer water to the surface under the ice causing instability.
Kip, do you have a ready citation for that? I’d like to read it.
Clyde ==> Not ready…but try this one.
Kip,
your link contains the following –
“The discovery of volcanoes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet means that there is an additional source of heat to melt the ice, lubricate its passage towards the sea, and adding to the melting from warm ocean waters.
“It will be important to include this in our efforts to estimate whether Antarctic ice sheet might become unstable and further increase sea level rise.”
A farrago of nonsense. “An additional source of heat”? Additional to what? Glaciers are rivers of ice – warmed from below by heat from the Earth’s interior. Nothing to do with the bizarre idea that CO2 can somehow make glaciers flow!
“Melting from warm ocean waters”? An excellent trick – how does the “warm ocean waters” raise itself above sea level to “lubricate” the bottom of the glacier?
Pseudo-science based on wishful thinking.
Next thing, “climate scientists” will discover that enough heat comes from the interior that freshwater lakes are formed under 3.5 kms of ice! Or maybe not. “Climate scientists” refuse to accept anything that they cannot ascribe to CO2!
Kip, you wrote –
“antarctic, underwater volcanism sends plumes of warmer water to the surface under the ice causing instability . . . “
I shouldn’t think so. All that would happen is that the bottom of the ice sheet might melt, to the point where an opening on the ice might appear. As far as I know, this has never been observed, but in any case a hole in the ice might serve as a weak point where any eventual crack might pass through.
No “instability” as far as I can see. Sorry to be picky, but as Feynman wrote “science is belief in the ignorance of experts.” As Anthony Watts pointed out some years ago, the “experts” at the NSF refused to accept Archimedes’ principle (basic physics) for years, and continued to claim that melting sea ice raised sea levels!
About as preposterous as any “expert” who claims that adding CO2 to air raises the temperature of the air!
Climate science? The very definition of an oxymoron.
But nett losing:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=406273;image
A badly misinformed article, the author apparently doesn’t understand the difference between ‘Ice shelves’ and seaice!
Phil ==> It is the original article that shares that confusion, along with several commenting here.
Land-fast ice is a type of sea ice that touches the land, and in many parts of the Antarctic, does not melt seasonally. Land-fast ice is somewhat different from glacial terminus ice shelves.
Both types of ice in Antarctica are floating on the sea and touch the land, though their origins are different.
“Both types of ice. . . are floating on the sea.” And floating ice floats. No “buttressing” or “holding back”. Any more than the mightiest floating ship in the world can “hold back” a tugboat!
All fantasy. No ice shelf “collapse”. No melting glaciers. Sea levels rise and fall as tectonic plate movement changes the shapes of the ocean basins.
No CO2 influence in evidence.
In the introduction it says: “Iceberg calving, the detachment of ice blocks from ice sheets and glaciers, is a primary process in mass loss from ice shelf systems in Antarctica”
To which you responded: “Let’s just check that “overall ice shelf area is decreasing” ” and attempted to do that by presenting graphs of sea ice extent, which has absolutely nothing to do with that process!
Had you produced a graph of the change of Antarctic Ice mass it would have been more relevant:
Shepherd-et-al-2018.-41586_2018_179_Fig2_HTML.jpg
Try this instead:
This is what Ice sheet breakup looks like, here’s the Thwaites in 2017
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=43853;image
Here it is in January this year:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=427662;image
I hear what you’re saying, but ice shelves are in the sea so in that context Kip is not out of line in his usage of the terms. I will say that the usage of “sea ice” can sometimes be constrained to only the portion that is free floating, but since sea ice metrics often include the grounded portion I and many others adopt the broader definition. It’s also why I say that melting sea ice can and does cause a rise in sea level since the grounded portion buttresses the land ice.
bdgwx ==> Now we are getting closer to reality here….. melting sea ice itself, whether free floating or land-fast, does not add to sea level rise.
If land-fast sea ice is “buttressing” or “holding back” glacial ice flow, then that land-fast ice, when melted away, might allow the glacial ice to flow more rapidly sea-ward. this is an hypothesis and not a fact, at least not yet found or proven.
I am familiar with the hypothesis, it has been repeated nearly endlessly to support the alarmism about Antarctic Ice Melt and Ice Shelf demise.
If you (bdgwx) think that it is likely true, please supply links to studies supporting the hypothesis.
Not just studies that propose the hypothesis, there are a lot of those, and not just studies that explain how it could be so, a lot of those too, but studies that show it is happening or has happened in the real world.
The NSIDC writes –
“While thickness varies significantly within both regions, Antarctic sea ice is typically 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) thick”
Sounds about right. Sea ice cannot really get more than about 15 m thick.
Even 2 m of grounded sea ice cannot hold back the remorseless flow of a large glacier. As soon as the grounded sea ice tries to “stop” the glacier from flowing, it simply gets “ungrounded” and floats out of the way. Don’t forget that a glacial front may be thousands of metres thick, and is moving across the “ground”, whether above or below sea .
Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth. Also extremely cold on the surface. Glaciers (rivers of ice) are unlikely to evaporate any time soon. Too cold. Any return to Antarctica’s previously abundant flora and fauna seems unlikely, CO2 or no.