Posted on 09/17/2014 4:58:10 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The sea ice around Antarctica is at a record high since satellites started recording, and snowfall is thumping down on the northern Antarctic Peninsula*, but alas — some glaciers on the same peninsula are continuing to melt, just like they have done for 300 years. Hence, a team of researchers-with-models conclude that this means these glaciers are especially, very, super-sensitive to air temperature changes and will “likely” melt fast, raise sea-levels, and disappear in 200 years time.
Increased snowfall will not prevent the continued melting of glaciers in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, according to new research. Scientists have discovered that small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula are highly vulnerable to slight changes in air temperature and may be at risk of disappearing within 200 years. – Science Daily
“Faster than ever!” Blame Climate Change TM:
[Prof Glasser]: “This unprecedented glacier recession, in response to climate change, will result in significant contributions to sea level rise from this and similar Antarctic Peninsula mountain glaciers and ice caps.” –Wales.co
Hmm. I note that other warming parts of Antarctica are near a string of volcanoes and (surprize) so is this one. Though some red dots are inactive or dormant.
The red dots on the map are volcanoes (up to 11 million years old). That includes the living and the dead ones.
The proximity doesn’t mean that volcanic or geothermal energy is melting the glaciers. But does anyone know if they aren’t? Dr Davies sweeping publicity suggests they can measure the geothermal heat flux under the ice and water. Call me unconvinced — rather than adding up the kilojoules, I don’t think we can even add up the volcanoes. It’s hard to tell what is going on under a km of ice. We seem to keep discovering new volcanoes — for example: like last May, and before that last November. As one researcher puts it, things are going swimmingly if you are a volcano researcher in Antarctica.
Prof Smilley describes the situation:
“Antarctica is the largest glaciovolcanic province in the world. There are many volcanoes and they occur all the way from the sub-Antarctic South Sandwich Islands, through the Antarctic Peninsula and Marie Byrd Land, and into East Antarctica, a distance of about 5000 km.
“Studies of past ice sheets using glaciovolcanic outcrops are still in their infancy.”"
Have we found the last volcano around Antarctica? Possibly not…
“This is really the golden age of discovery of the Antarctic continent,” said Richard Aster, a co-author of the study and a seismologist at Colorado State University. “I think there’s no question that there are more volcanic surprises beneath the ice.”
OK. But Dr Davies and co have plenty of time to discuss the implications of their “likely” calculations on glaciers 200 years from now, however they don’t mention any volcanoes in the press release.
“These small glaciers around the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula are likely to contribute most to rising sea levels over the coming decades, because they can respond quickly to climate change,” said Dr Davies, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. “This study is the first to show how glaciers in this vulnerable region are likely to respond to climate change in future. Our findings demonstrate that the melting will increase greatly even with a slight rise in temperature, offsetting any benefits from increased snowfall.”
Will any of the journalists who repeat the story ask them a question about volcanoes? Or will the coverage here be just as weak as the last time?
Note the big clue here about the glaciers starting to melt 300 years ago – - long before CO2 started rising.
Dr Davies added: “Geological evidence from previous studies suggests that the glacier grew by 10km within the last 5,000 years, before shrinking back to its current position. It was argued that this occurred during a warmer but wetter period, suggesting that increased precipitation in the future would offset the melting of the glaciers. However, our study shows that this growth occurred during the colder ‘Little Ice Age’, reaching its largest size just 300 years ago.”
Will any journalist ask about that either? Doesn’t fit the theory…
That West Antarctic melting couldn’t be caused by volcanoes could it?
As commenter icyduggie2 says on the ABC blog about record levels of sea ice:
Does this mean that it will eventually get so hot that all the oceans will freeze?
Bethan J. Davies, Nicholas R. Golledge, Neil F. Glasser, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Stefan R. M. Ligtenberg, Nicholas E. Barrand, Michiel R. van den Broeke, Michael J. Hambrey, John L. Smellie. Modelled glacier response to centennial temperature and precipitation trends on the Antarctic Peninsula. Nature Climate Change, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2369
*You may be wondering where the northern Antarctic Peninsula is — since every Antarctic peninsula is on the “north”. It’s the north end of the West Antarctic Peninsula.
My Scotch glass is less full than a few minutes ago. I think we are having a drought.
Climate change means that things are changing. The only time you don't have climate change is when nothing changes.
I can't believe how stupid I've been all these years. I feel so ashamed.
No one talks about Global Warming anymore. That is so early 21st Century. Now it is all about Global Climate Change.™
The problem with the Global Cooling and Global Warming scams is that eventually even the most low information rubes had to realize that all of the predictions ever made were wrong.
The world is getting colder. In 20 years we are going to have another ice age. Only it didn’t happen.
The world is getting warmer. In 20 years the polar ice caps will melt and the seas will rise. Only it didn’t happen.
That is why Global Climate Change™ is so much better. Global Climate Change™ is the scam that can never be proven wrong.
Is it warmer than usual today? It is caused by Global Climate Change.™
Is it colder than usual today? It is caused by Global Climate Change.™
Is it wetter than usual today? It is caused by Global Climate Change.™
Is it dryer than usual today? It is caused by Global Climate Change.™
Is it windier, less windy, cloudier, less cloudy? It doesn’t matter! There will always be weather. Now, whenever there is bad weather, no matter what the weather happens to be, it is caused by Global Climate Change.™
Notice how the environmental whackos on the left rarely talk about real water and air pollution anymore and instead focus entirely on CO2?
The leftists have always called for more socialist/marxist government control as the cure for pollution (and everything else). Pollution, don’t you see, is caused by capitalism.
Then the iron curtain fell and it became irrefutable that the worst polluters in the history of the world were the former communist countries, most of which had become large toxic waste dumps. People generally don’t pollute property that they own. People have no such restraint about polluting property that belongs to someone else. Pollution, the world could see, is caused by socialism.
So now the entire focus is CO2, because the United States, having the world’s largest economy, naturally produces the most CO2 per capita. Never mind that CO2 is a trace gas that is necessary for the survival of life on Earth.
This time socialism will work!
Mild Winter = evidence of global warming. Cold winter = evidence of global warming.
Well, it is. Climate changes. Climate has been changing since climate began. Water is Wet! The government has to Đo SOMETHING or we're all gonna DIE! Water is getting WETTER! If the government doesn't tax water it will get even WETTER and we're all gonna DROWN!
The world’s leftists never give up, do they? Take a false premise, give it a new name, and promote it differently and you end up with the same garbage, but it’s enough to continue fooling the duped among us. Thus, global warming becomes climate change and liberals are now progressives.
I live in New Jersey… The climate changes virtually every day
The "Climate Change Theory" is an EXTREMELY robust theory. ALL observations of ANYYTHING fully support the theory.
Most people don’t understand how (Mann, Jones, & Hansen’s) climate model actually works. In their model (which produced the much mocked Hockey Stick) “you enter the desired result” and the model cranks out data and graphics to support the entered result. You cannot possibly get and adverse result with this type of model hence “Climate Change”.
A huge flaw in their results, though, was tuning the models to match the slight warming in the '80s and 90s. Now that that warming has ended the models are grossly over predicting warming.
A key rule of modeling is: "All models are inaccurate. Some models are useful."
calving of glaciers at the nexus of land and sea GOES ALONG WITH additional snow on the land
additional snow on the land bound portion of glaciers adds to the overall weight of the ice build up, and it is weight from top to bottom that converts the viscosity of ice at the very bottom to something more like a liquid at below freezing, and that bottom liquid-like layer, with the weight of all the ice pressing down from above, and gravity, moves the ice of the glacier on the land slowly towards the shore where it begins to calve off
it seems probable that if you are having a period of snow fall, during a set period of time, that is greater than usual for such a period of time, you might also get more calving of the glacier during that time as well, due to dynamics of the natural course of glaciers - from snow & ice pack adding to the glacier, to the glacier itself becoming part of the mechanism that causes the glacier to calve off parts of it
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