Posted on 11/03/2015 10:01:52 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
From the “settled science†department and former chief alarmist Jay Zwally, who for years had said the Arctic was in big trouble (only to have his prediction falsified), comes this Emily Litella moment in climate science: “Never mind!â€. Curiously, WUWT reported back in 2012 about an ICEsat study by Zwally that said: ICESAT Data Shows Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses. I surmise that with the publication of this second study, the original is now confirmed. I suppose John Cook will have to revise his “Denial 101†video on Antarctica now.
This map shows the rates of mass changes from ICESat 2003-2008 over Antarctica. Sums are for all of Antarctica: East Antarctica (EA, 2-17); interior West Antarctica (WA2, 1, 18, 19, and 23); coastal West Antarctica (WA1, 20-21); and the Antarctic Peninsula (24-27). A gigaton (Gt) corresponds to a billion metric tons, or 1.1 billion U.S. tons. CREDIT: Jay Zwally/ Journal of Glaciology
From the NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER via press release:
NASA study: Mass gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet greater than losses
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 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,†said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.†Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.â€
Scientists calculate how much the ice sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks.
But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally.
“If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years — I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.â€
The study analyzed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites, spanning from 1992 to 2001, and by the laser altimeter on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) from 2003 to 2008.
Zwally said that while other scientists have assumed that the gains in elevation seen in East Antarctica are due to recent increases in snow accumulation, his team used meteorological data beginning in 1979 to show that the snowfall in East Antarctica actually decreased by 11 billion tons per year during both the ERS and ICESat periods. They also used information on snow accumulation for tens of thousands of years, derived by other scientists from ice cores, to conclude that East Antarctica has been thickening for a very long time.
“At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet,†Zwally said.
The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia, thickening the ice in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches (1.7 centimeters) per year. This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise.
Zwally’s team calculated that the mass gain from the thickening of East Antarctica remained steady from 1992 to 2008 at 200 billion tons per year, while the ice losses from the coastal regions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula increased by 65 billion tons per year.
“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.â€
“The new study highlights the difficulties of measuring the small changes in ice height happening in East Antarctica,†said Ben Smith, a glaciologist with the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in Zwally’s study.
“Doing altimetry accurately for very large areas is extraordinarily difficult, and there are measurements of snow accumulation that need to be done independently to understand what’s happening in these places,†Smith said.
To help accurately measure changes in Antarctica, NASA is developing the successor to the ICESat mission, ICESat-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. “ICESat-2 will measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,†said Tom Neumann, a glaciologist at Goddard and deputy project scientist for ICESat-2. “It will contribute to solving the problem of Antarctica’s mass balance by providing a long-term record of elevation changes.â€
###
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses/
In a piece at Nature News, Zwally has said:
“Parts of Antarctica are losing mass faster than before,†says Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper to appear in theJournal of Glaciology1. “But large parts have been gaining mass, and they’ve been doing that for a very long time.â€
The findings do not mean that Antarctica is not in trouble, Zwally notes.
“I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this, and say this means we don’t have to worry as much as some people have been making out,†he says. “It should not take away from the concern about climate warming.†As global temperatures rise, Antarctica is expected to contribute more to sea-level rise, though when exactly that effect will kick in, and to what extent, remains unclear.
Gee, thanks.
The study:
Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses
Source: Journal of Glaciology doi: 10.3189/2015JoG15J071
Mass changes of the Antarctic ice sheet impact sea-level rise as climate changes, but recent rates have been uncertain. Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) data (2003–08) show mass gains from snow accumulation exceeded discharge losses by 82 ± 25 Gt a–1, reducing global sea-level rise by 0.23 mm a–1. European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS) data (1992–2001) give a similar gain of 112 ± 61 Gt a–1. Gains of 136 Gt a–1 in East Antarctica (EA) and 72 Gt a–1 in four drainage systems (WA2) in West Antarctic (WA) exceed losses of 97 Gt a–1 from three coastal drainage systems (WA1) and 29 Gt a–1 from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). EA dynamic thickening of 147 Gt a–1 is a continuing response to increased accumulation (>50%) since the early Holocene. Recent accumulation loss of 11 Gt a–1 in EA indicates thickening is not from contemporaneous snowfall increases. Similarly, the WA2 gain is mainly (60 Gt a–1) dynamic thickening. In WA1 and the AP, increased losses of 66 ± 16 Gt a–1 from increased dynamic thinning from accelerating glaciers are 50% offset by greater WA snowfall. The decadal increase in dynamic thinning in WA1 and the AP is approximately one-third of the long-term dynamic thickening in EA and WA2, which should buffer additional dynamic thinning for decades.
Full study: OPEN SOURCE
zwally-antarctica-study (PDF)
Manbearpig strikes again!
fyi
—The earth has been both warmer and colder many times before man invented machines
—Satellite data says no warming in 20 years
—and now the antarctic ice is growing
Looks like this “settled science” that is not settled at all.
What!!!
This means my Antartica last days resort and my Tennessee ocean front property are worthless.
Well, using liblogic 101, since it didn’t gain as much during a certain time frame compared to another time frame, that is considered a loss.
The science is fine....
It’s just the raw data that is defective, it just doesn’t fit the agreed model of predicted events. .....
Ironically, NASA spending on global warming has been one of the biggest weapons to debunk global warming. It seems that it is a lot easier to fudge numbers written in pencil on paper via temperature logs than it is to fudge digital satellite data.
I'm sure you are not alone. Maybe time for a class action lawsuit?
But OTOH - global warming caused it.
Why hasn’t the ocean levels dropped? They were supposed to rise as the glaciers melted, right? Well the glaciers have thickened, so where did the water come from?
For all the people that are so worried about ChickenLittle reports of melting ice and living their lives and spending exorbitant amounts of money to ‘save the world’, this should be good news right?
This should be reason to rejoice! The ice is OK, hurray!
No?
Oh... reports like this don’t get funding and grants. Reports like this don’t sell the latest ‘green’ product.
For all these hippies who hate capitalism and loathe corporations, they sure do buy alot of green crap after swallowing the global warming scam hook line and sinker.
Your logic does not sell squiggly light bulbs or overpriced green crap.
Yep... its backward science.
Instead collecting all the data and reading the results, they have predetermined results and manipulate the data to reach the desired result.
“Why hasn’t the ocean levels dropped? “
I read somewhere this morning that instead of rising .23mm, levels fell by 2.3mm. Wish I could remember where I read it!
Sorry. Both levels should read .23mm.
Cancel the Club Med project, sell the umbrellas for the tropical drinks, buy polar bear rugs futures..
Strange how Mother Nature walks to her own beat.. And not the PC one.
Meanwhile, Narnia continues to experience extreme heat and rising sea levels.
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