Image: Montana.edu
Posted on 03/08/2011 9:06:13 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Image: Montana.edu
From AAAS online:
Widespread Persistent Thickening of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet by Freezing from the Base
Abstract
An International Polar Year aerogeophysical investigation of the high interior of East Antarctica reveals widespread freeze-on that drives significant mass redistribution at the bottom of the ice sheet. While surface accumulation of snow remains the primary mechanism for ice sheet growth, beneath Dome A 24% of the base by area is frozen-on ice. In some places, up to half the ice thickness has been added from below.
These ice packages result from conductive cooling of water ponded near the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountain ridges and supercooling of water forced up steep valley walls. Persistent freeze-on thickens the ice column, alters basal ice rheology and fabric and upwarps the overlying ice sheet, including the oldest atmospheric climate archive, and drives flow behavior not captured in present models.
+ Author Affiliations
4Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, Hannover, Germany.
fyi
That tears it!
We’ve just GOT to do SOMETHING about all this man-caused global warming...
So only Glowball Warming from above can fight this Globe’s Cooling from below?
I see a SyFy tv mini-series!.....
Just wait until it gets so big it breaks off. Then we will have proof of global warming.
Just watch.
"And Leon is getting laaaarger."
Interesting E.. We knew the eastern half of the continent was gaining snow/ice thickness for a few years. This finding now gives us a better idea to the why.
Wassa matta U?
Sea ice around Antartica has actually been growing for years. Also the temperature has been dropping in most of Antartica for about 40 years. NOAA used to have a temperature chart on the ‘net showing this, but took it down a couple of years ago. They recalculated the average starting in 1950, which showed a slight increase. The previous average that showed a decline had been from 1970. After they put the new chart up the scientests involved said this proved Antarctica was warming, inspite of the fact the temps had been declining over most of the continent since 1970.
The main area showing an increase in temps is the peninsula in W. Antarctica, and that’s where most of the global warming stories are centered. Also, there aren’t that many weather stations located in Antarctica, and Watts Up With That has published some photos showing them completely buried in snow, which would of course insulate them and make the temps they record inaccurate.
How ‘bout some coffee, Johnny ?
No, thanks.
Much discussion in the comments on this and what it means....
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E.M.Smith says:
@Baa Humbug:
Don’t know if I meet your qualifications, or if I’ve got it right, but what it said to me was:
1) Ice can form at the bottom. Some ice cores may ‘have issues’ due to this, or not, if you are careful.
2) Ice forms around the edges where there are puddles from the mountains. Ice growth is NOT just from snowfall. Measuring snowfall does not tell you total ice growth.
3) We don’t really know where all the ice is coming from.
4) We don’t really know the exact history of all the ice (as we now know some is from the bottom). So things like “it’s about this thick so about that old” are now broken.
5) How does adding ice from the bottom change the implied CO2 in the ice (if at all)? Does it in any way mess up the nice snow layers? (I’d guess not, but…)
6) Doing a “mass balance” that says “snow on / calving and melt off” will be saying “it’s MELTING” when it isn’t as you missed the “added from below” ice. It may well be growing a lot more than that technique would indicate. So you need something more like sats and radar measuring height…
7) It’s just kind of way cool and a new idea!
I’m sure there is more, but that’s the big bits I got at 4 am and sleepy ;-)
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Don Penim says:
Someone should tell Tim Naish about this because he seems to be coming to very different and alarming conclusions:
–Victoria University Antarctic and climate change researcher Professor Tim Naish has been watching the weather this year and has found nothing to reassure him.
In Antarctica, where Tim’s research is focused, the trends are the same. Both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are beginning to melt and new research suggests the same is happening to the world’s biggest ice sheet in East Antarctica.
“Rising sea levels present one of the biggest threats to civilisation as we know it,” says Tim.
Tim is Director of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre and one of the lead authors of the next international climate change assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , due for release in 2014. –
http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/campusViewpointArticle/Climate-change-The-clock-is/388/
Thanks for the feedback. Didn’t sleep a wink after going to bed at 3AM then getting up at 8AM., to do house chores, shopping etc.. Think I am going to hit the rack.
Am I surprised? No. Not really.
wow. That is interesting. I would say we might need a new theory of how this happens.
Global Cooling.
Maybe the Earth’s core is no longer producing those millions of degrees Algore said it was.
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