ICYMI: NASA Found Out That A Key Antarctic Glacier Isn’t Melting As Fast

Al Gore thinks the weather has been out of the Book of Revelation, while Time and ABC News have reported that Antarctica is melting very quickly. Now, it’s not (via NASA):

The melt rate of West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is an important concern, because this glacier alone is currently responsible for about 1 percent of global sea level rise. A new NASA study finds that Thwaites’#8217; ice loss will continue, but not quite as rapidly as previous studies have estimated.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, finds that numerical models used in previous studies have overestimated how rapidly ocean water is able to melt the glacier from below, leading them to overestimate the glacier’s total ice loss over the next 50 years by about 7 percent.

Despite what liberals may say about global warming, science is never a settled issue. That’s what you should glean from this. The studies can be wrong. The models can be wrong. And the question nations face concerning so-called global warming is whether they want to invest hundreds of billion, if not trillions, of dollars on a group of people who have been wrong before. How much economic growth, decreased standard of living, less prosperity, and the accompanying misery will you artificially inflict among those in your society on predictions that have been grossly inaccurate? In the 1970s, global cooling was the threat that could spell mankind’s doom. Nothing ever happened.

Peter Gwynne has gone back and updated his 1975 Newsweek piece to deny climate change skeptics of using it as ammunition. Still, he had to change it because the science was wrong—and Gwynne admits that. He said that this field of study is always advancing. Yet, if you speak to these green warriors, the issue is settled. There is no more debate.

I beg to differ.

leading them to overestimate the glacier’s total ice loss over the next 50 years by about 7 percent.

They are assuming you accept the rest of their BS. The fact is that Thwaites and other Antarctic glaciers cannot speed up because it is too cold for them to speed up. To claim otherwise is to ignore the ice sheet models. But not only will there be no additional loss, but Antarctica, including Thwaites will gain ice once it starts to warm up down there.

"The fact is that Thwaites and other Antarctic glaciers cannot speed up because it is too cold for them to speed up. To claim otherwise is to ignore the ice sheet models. But not only will there be no additional loss, but Antarctica, including Thwaites will gain ice once it starts to warm up down there. "

I wonder how many people know that the Antarctic ice cover is due to compressed fallen snow and that warmer temperatures would likely lead to more precipitation and therefore more snow/ice accumulation.

While not everything science studies is settled, some things are obvious. For example the Earth is roughly sperical. We are held to it by gravity, increases humans have made in CO2 levels in the Earths atmosphere are not a significant driver of warming yet are very helpful to plants and thus on balance very good for the enviorment.

To sum it up: pro CO2 is the only "green" position on the matter.

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