Arctic Updates

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Great stuff.

Thanks.

Antarctic Warming is Robust -Real Climate

The discussion occurring in the comments, including answers to questions and comments by Steig, is worthwhile.

[Penguin]

TVC15:
In case you think I support that stuff you were so amused by, see this, from one of my favourite authors, Isaac Asimov, a short story called The Winnowing. Ill post the story in that thread later when I have time. Now theres just a Wikipedia synopsis. Should make my views on such clear.

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... hp?t=22996

[Ben D]

Do you, like Ben D, claim that the 2000sq km lost in 08 refroze in 09, despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise?

As I said wintler2, you do not have the necessary understanding to have meaningful discussion with on this subject.

Please try to understand that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is in Antarctica in the southern hemisphere and it is nearing the end of summer and the end of the ice melt/break up is coming to a seasonal end. It is not as you imply that here and now in February/March 2009 that Antarctica is refreezing, but rather the opposite, it's still summer and the reforming of sea ice and accumulation of snow falls awaits the Antarctic winter period later in 2009.

So after setting that straight...do you always make up your own reality?

I did not claim, nor do I imply that it is the precise areas lost in one summer period that reforms in the following winter. Like rainfall distribution and temperature variation by locality is different season after season, it is the same for sea ice formation and accumulated snow fall over Antarctica.

However, each summer in Antarctica, there will be some sea ice melt, some glacier, and some ice shelf break up, and each winter there will be new sea ice, and new snow falls.

If you want my prediction for the topic on this thread in Feb/Mar 2010, then once again it will be the annual Antarctic summer ice melt/break up being spun by the pro GW lobby as something of an extraordinary anomaly.

[freemason9]

Do you, like Ben D, claim that the 2000sq km lost in 08 refroze in 09, despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise?

As I said wintler2, you do not have the necessary understanding to have meaningful discussion with on this subject.

Please try to understand that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is in Antarctica in the southern hemisphere and it is nearing the end of summer and the end of the ice melt/break up is coming to a seasonal end. It is not as you imply that here and now in February/March 2009 that Antarctica is refreezing, but rather the opposite, it's still summer and the reforming of sea ice and accumulation of snow falls awaits the Antarctic winter period later in 2009.

So after setting that straight...do you always make up your own reality?

I did not claim, nor do I imply that it is the precise areas lost in one summer period that reforms in the following winter. Like rainfall distribution and temperature variation by locality is different season after season, it is the same for sea ice formation and accumulated snow fall over Antarctica.

However, each summer in Antarctica, there will be some sea ice melt, some glacier, and some ice shelf break up, and each winter there will be new sea ice, and new snow falls.

If you want my prediction for the topic on this thread in Feb/Mar 2010, then once again it will be the annual Antarctic summer ice melt/break up being spun by the pro GW lobby as something of an extraordinary anomaly.

Hey, Ben D, let's put this on the table. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased substantially due to human activity; that is absolutely inarguable. Do you contend, then, that this has no effect on the climate?

[Ben D]

freemason9 said..

Hey, Ben D, let's put this on the table. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased substantially due to human activity; that is absolutely inarguable. Do you contend, then, that this has no effect on the climate?

Hi freemason9, it may be absolutely inarguable to you, but with due respect, as it stands I certainly and humbly admit that I do not yet know absolutely one way or the other.

However it is my understanding that a lot of research is going on to gather more data and improved computer modelling to gain a better understanding of the subject matter. In the mean time, there is a lot of claim and counter claim going on between contending scenarios, but absolute understanding may be sometime off if ever?

Concerning your question does CO2 levels have an effect on climate? Yes, so far as I my present understanding goes, it does, but I also understand that the absolute understanding of being able to predict accurately earth climate change is presently beyond human capability.

[Ben D]

So Antarctica is actually gaining mass,..everyone please don't be frightened by the scaremongers

Antarctica Snowfall Increase

January 21, 2008

Filed under: Antarctic, Polar —
The ice caps hold a special place in the cold hearts of the global warming advocates who are all too quick to insist that our ice caps are currently melting at an unprecedented rate. We suspect that they will not be particularly thrilled to learn that a paper has just appeared in Geophysical Research Letters entitled “A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850.” The article is by scientists with the British Antarctic Survey and the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada; the work was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the U.S. National Science Foundation. In case you think that the Desert Research Institute in Nevada would have little interest in Antarctica, recall from geography classes you’ve had that Antarctica receives little precipitation and is regarded by climatologists as a frozen desert.

We have covered Antarctica many times in past essays, and despite literally thousands of websites claiming that some calamity is occurring in Antarctica related to global warming, we side with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in this matter. Magazine covers have wonderful pictures of melting of the Antarctic, but IPCC in their 2007 report clearly states “Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region” (in fact, Antarctic sea ice extent has recently set record highs for both total areal extent as well as total extent anomaly (see here and here)). Furthermore, IPCC tells the world (and we wonder if anyone is listening) “Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall.”


Elizabeth Thomas and her two colleagues begin their article noting “Antarctic precipitation is a difficult parameter to measure directly, primarily because of problems with blowing snow. A recent synthesis of available data suggests no significant change in snowfall across the continent as a whole since the 1950s. However, proxy indicators do suggest an increase in the Peninsula.” They note “that the number of days with precipitation — based on synoptic observations of ‘present weather’ — at Faraday station, in the north-western Peninsula, increased at a rate of 12.4 days/decade between 1950–99. In addition, model data reveal an upward trend in regional precipitation for the period 1980–2004 while satellite altimeter data indicate an increase in elevation in the western Peninsula for 1992–2003, thought to be due to greater snowfall.” Notice that they are talking about more snow and more snow accumulation – in Antarctica.

Thomas et al. analyzed a medium depth ice core drilled at a high accumulation site (Gomez) on the south-western Antarctic Peninsula (73.59°S, 70.36°W, 1400 m) (see map , Figure 1). If you want the details, the core was drilled in January 2007 using an electromechanical, 104 mm diameter drill to a depth of 136 m. As seen in the figure below, the snow accumulation (measured in meters of water equivalent per year, mweq y-1), has as the title of the article suggests, been rising like a rocket. In their own words, the authors state “Annual accumulation has more than doubled in the last 150 years: the mean for 1855–1864 was 0.49 mweq y-1while for 1997–2006 it was 1.10 mweq y-1. At the beginning of the record annual accumulation is relatively stable until about 1930 when it begins to increase steadily. Following a slight reduction in accumulation in the late 1960s, the most rapid increase occurs in the latter part of the record with the mean accumulation rate from the mid-1970s onwards increasing to 0.95 mweq y-1. Note that for the post-1980 period even the lowest annual accumulation values are still greater than the highest accumulation values from the first half of the record (1855–1924).” This huge increase may be unique to the Gomez area, but other cores sites certainly show increases in accumulation as well.



Figure 1. Annual accumulation at Gomez (dashed blue) and running decadal mean accumulation at Gomez (solid blue), Dyer Plateau (red), James Ross Island (black) and ITASE01_05 (green) in meters of water equivalent per year (mweq y-1) between 1850 and 2006 (from Thomas et al., 2008)

So while we’ve heard recent reports about Antarctica losing ice, here we again find evidence to the contrary, and then some, at least in these locations. Not only is there no evidence of melting at the Gomez site, snow is accumulating there at an amazingly high rate. Clearly, this paper adds to the evidence that suggests that we simply, as of yet, do not have a firm grasp on the climate changes and their drivers that are effecting Antarctica, past, present, or, much less, future.

Reference:

Thomas, E. R., G. J. Marshall, and J. R. McConnell, 2008. A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850. Geophysical Research Leters, 35, L01706, doi:10.1029/2007GL032529.

[wintler2]

..
However, each summer in Antarctica, there will be some sea ice melt, some glacier, and some ice shelf break up, and each winter there will be new sea ice, and new snow falls. ..

Ah, you're working a new fudge now - so where is you equivalent area of refrozen ice shelf? You keep claiming the 2000sq.km lost in 08 refroze, now you're saying it refroze somewhere else, where? isn't it time you showed some sort of evidence somewhere?

And no, the World Climate Report does not qualify, a) snow isn't iceshelf, & b) the WCR is a well known fossil fuel front group - have you no shame?

World Climate Report, a newsletter edited by Patrick Michaels, was produced by the Greening Earth Society,[1] a non-profit organization created by the Western Fuels Association.[2].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Climate_Report

[wintler2]

Alaskan Coastal Erosion Doubles, Threatening Oil Exploration

(Bloomberg) -- Coastal erosion doubled in parts of northern Alaska over a five-year period as sea ice retreated during global warming, threatening some land-based oil exploration.

Erosion rates along a 37-mile (60-kilometer) stretch of the Beaufort Sea coast were 13.6 meters (45 feet) a year in 2002 through 2007 compared with 6.8 meters a year from 1955 through 1979, researchers led by Benjamin Jones at the U.S. Geological Survey said in a study. ..
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... M&refer=us

[Penguin]

As I said wintler2, you do not have the necessary understanding to have meaningful discussion with on this subject.

Hi freemason9, it may be absolutely inarguable to you, but with due respect, as it stands I certainly and humbly admit that I do not yet know absolutely one way or the other.

, but absolute understanding may be sometime off if ever?

Concerning your question does CO2 levels have an effect on climate? Yes, so far as I my present understanding goes, it does, but I also understand that the absolute understanding of being able to predict accurately earth climate change is presently beyond human capability.

So after setting that straight...do you always make up your own reality?

Ben D -
This is exactly why Im harsh on you. You go on saying that others "Dont know shit to talk about this" - and then you say "you dont know shit" - so "nobody can know no shit" - but still your viewpoint must alone be correct, since without knowing shit, you are still able to sense what is "the truth". For so it must be, because we mere mortals are not qualified to discuss this. The above clearly illustrates this. You also claim your sources are always correct (Ive posted contradicting information on several occasions), but how can they know anything for certain either? We are merely humans, how can we ever know or observe anything at all?

You also have not addressed my concerns that Global Warming is not the gravest danger we face - but the result of the other things weve been doing on Earth - deforestation, desertification, poisoning the environment with chemicals and radiation, erosion and loss of fertile topsoils at a huge rate, salinization due to irrigation, floods created by paving over large areas of land, and destroying most wetlands that took care of flood control previously, and habitat loss and dieoff of species, which is the largest dieoff since the dinosaurs died. You always just shrug and ignore that.

You also seem to be inable to change your views even when its clear you have been wrong. And I dont mean whether warming is real, man made or unreal - I mean several specific claims youve made and which have turned out to be wrong or inaccurate - you just ignore those.

And Im funny?

Its seems to me that you think:
If we cannot be 100% certain, let us do nothing at all. It may be all right!

And I think:
If we cannot be 100% certain, let us still act, because the consequences of being wrong could be disastrous.

See what I mean?

[Ben D]

..
However, each summer in Antarctica, there will be some sea ice melt, some glacier, and some ice shelf break up, and each winter there will be new sea ice, and new snow falls. ..

Ah, you're working a new fudge now - so where is you equivalent area of refrozen ice shelf? You keep claiming the 2000sq.km lost in 08 refroze, now you're saying it refroze somewhere else, where? isn't it time you showed some sort of evidence somewhere?

Friend wintler2, do you not understand that I understand that the reason you keep asking me for evermore evidence is that you haven't a clue. If you really understood, you would provide the evidence that corrects any misunderstanding on my part.

So in this case it is assumed that you think that when 2000sq.km of ice shelf is lost, that it is a long term loss and that it can't be replaced in the short term. Well I hope you enjoy this.....

Huge ice tongue in Antarctica grows at astonishing rate annually

June 25th, 2008 - 3:15 pm ICT by ANI - Send to a friend:

London, June 25 (ANI): Scientists have found that an ice structure, which has been referred to as a huge sea-ice tongue, that projects outwards from the West Ice Shelf in Antarctica, grows at an astonishing rate each year.

According to a report in New Scientist, the huge sea-ice tongue can be seen on the east side of Antarctica, and has been found to grow at an astonishing rate.

Pushing out around 3 centimetres of ice per second, the structure, that projects outwards from the West Ice Shelf, can grow to several hundred kilometres in just a few weeks.

Satellite images collected over several decades reveal that the tongue reached a record length of 800 km in May 2002, and covered an area of around 200,000 km2.

Such a large feature may represent an important biodiversity hotspot, according to the researchers who discovered it.

Similar features do occur elsewhere.

The Odden ice feature in the Greenland Sea, and the Drygalski Barrier, in the Antarctic, are both large ice tongues, but neither reaches the huge size of the West Ice Shelf tongue.

By studying images from between 1978 and 2004, Steve Rintoul at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, Australia, and colleagues, found that the feature grows during the Antarctic winter months in most years.

Later in the winter, shore ice obscures the tongue, but it emerges once more as the surrounding ice retreats, before finally melting away around January.

To find out what causes the ice tongue to grow to such huge size, the researchers analysed local wind and water-current data.

They concluded that ice forming around the mainland gets drawn out to sea by a sharp northward turn of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

This current normally flows around the Antarctic, but it is diverted away from the continent around 85deg east precisely where the tongue forms when it collides with the underwater Kerguelen Plateau.

Winds probably also contribute to the growth of the tongue and determine its size from year to year, said the researchers.

According to Ted Maksym, an ice expert with the British Antarctic Survey, the sea-ice tongue is a very interesting feature that highlights how quickly ice can change in volume. But, more research is needed to understand its relevance for wildlife.

We dont yet know how important the tongue itself is, in comparison to the currents and winds that form it, he says.

Rintoul hopes to learn more about the currents that push out the sea-ice tongue with the help of oceanographic sensors mounted on deep-diving elephant seals. (ANI)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, here is some more info on ice shelf formation from wiki....Ice shelves flow by gravity-driven horizontal spreading on the ocean surface. That flow continually moves ice from the grounding line to the seaward front of the shelf.

[Ben D]

Its seems to me that you think:
If we cannot be 100% certain, let us do nothing at all. It may be all right!

And I think:
If we cannot be 100% certain, let us still act, because the consequences of being wrong could be disastrous.

See what I mean?

Hi Penguin, there's more to it than that. When there is a lack of affinity of understanding, there is much misunderstanding and that is the point I'm making to you. You really don't understand my present understanding and I understand that, but it seems your present understanding doesn't allow for admitting that you don't understand my present understanding!

Now having cleared that up,.. to your your misunderstanding that it is my understanding,..."If we cannot be 100% certain, let us do nothing at all. It may be all right!". All I can say is that you imagine that to be reality, and I understand that, but it is not my understanding!

True understanding is not just understanding understanding, it is also understanding not understanding. (Bodhidharma)

Concerning your own thoughts,.."If we cannot be 100% certain, let us still act, because the consequences of being wrong could be disastrous.", I understand that that is your present understanding, but it is not my understanding.

Penguin, conceptual thinking can be so addictive that the thinker thinks that his conceptual thoughts are the actual reality that they are meant to symbolize. Step back and seek to understand that perhaps the reality which your conceptual thoughts represent will only be realized when there is no obscuring conceptual thoughts masking.

Here is a cute little poem for you my friend... Thoughts

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

[Penguin]

Ben D:
See? You did it again. Ignored everything I said.

Haha. No, you dont understand that I understand that you dont understand my understanding and your understanding is unfettered by concepts, mere images flitting in the dharmic wind.

You are seriously condescending and patronizing, and arrogant to boot. You keep telling us we dont understand a thing, and you do, even when you say you dont - this somehow magically transmutes your understanding to an illuminated level. As I pointed out above using your own words quoted.

A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent.

Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.

Energy is eternal delight.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.

I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me.

Innocence dwells with Wisdom, but never with Ignorance.

William Blake

(I can quote too)

[Ben D]

Penguin said...

HAHA. No, you dont understand that I understand that you dont understand my understanding and your understanding is unfettered by concepts, mere images flitting in the dharmic wind.

Hi Penguin, getting close, but whose understanding is it?

What say that beyond the transitory mine and yours claims of understanding, there is true understanding,..that is the understanding that Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem is dedicated to.

In fact to complete the Bodhidharma quote....if one thinks they understand, then they just don't don't understand!

Do you now understand?

[brainpanhandler]

So while we’ve heard recent reports about Antarctica losing ice, here we again find evidence to the contrary, and then some, at least in these locations.

Not only is there no evidence of melting at the Gomez site, snow is accumulating there at an amazingly high rate.

Amazingly high rate relative to what? Other areas? Different times? And if it is an amazingly high rate of accumulation then does that suggest an abnormally high rate, as in different than what would be expected? Again, relative to what? And if there is an amazingly high rate of snow accumulation is that not then potential evidence of climate change? Duh.

Clearly, this paper adds to the evidence that suggests that we simply, as of yet, do not have a firm grasp on the climate changes and their drivers that are effecting Antarctica, past, present, or, much less, future.

Who ever said we have a firm grasp? Notice the author implicitly accepts the notion of climate change. duh.

I wish I could say I appreciate your attempt to bring a balance to the discussion.


There’s no sound science that absolutely confirms global warming. I mean, we really need to have some kind of overwhelming evidence, don’t you think, like, maybe a city under water?- Triumph the insult comic dog

[Penguin]

Ive said all Im going to say for now, Ben D.
Ill let you speak for yourself.