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The Ross Ice Shelf is Freezing, Not Melting. Which Is Weird.
www.popularmechanics.com ^ | Feb 23, 2018 1.7k | By Sophie Weiner

Posted on 02/25/2018 11:37:47 AM PST by Red Badger

Scientists were surprised by the results of their study.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In November, scientists from New Zealand used a hot water drill to go deep into Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf. The shelf, which can be up to 10,000 feet thick, is the largest of several that hold back West Antarctica's massive amounts of ice. If these were to collapse, global sea level would rise by ten feet.

Drilling a hole and lowering a camera and thermometer inside is a way for researchers to understand the history of the shelf, and what is happening to it now. In measuring the temperature and currents below the shelf, they expected to find that the ice was melting.

Instead, the water appeared to be crystalizing and freezing. In the video from National Geographic below, you can see the white dots of ice crystals as the camera is lowered towards the dark sea below. If the shelf was melting, the hole at that level would have smooth sides.

“It blew our minds,” Christina Hulbe, the glaciologist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, who co-led the project, told National Geographic.

Scientists have left instruments deep in the hole to measure currents and temperatures below the shelf for the next few years. Though the freezing seems to be a promising sign for the shelf's stability, it doesn't tell the whole picture. Scientists also hope to learn whether the ice shelf has melted in the past due to other climate shifts.

Though results of this study were unexpected, that doesn't change the larger trend of accelerated warming and icecap melting. In fact, NASA just confirmed we are losing ice in Antarctica at a faster rate every year. The reasons for these odd Ross results probably won't become clear until much more research is done. But for now, at the very least, it's a decent sign that catastrophic melting of the Ross Ice Shelf won't occur in the near future.

Source: National Geographic


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: antarctica; catastrophism; climatechange; eltaninimpact; globalcooling; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; rossiceshelf
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To: JPJones
Their ‘theory’ is: if it melts then the land ice will flood into the ocean.

The problem with that theory is...actual science: The Antarctic land ice, because of its weight, sits in a bowl. Ice doesn’t flow uphill.

Their theory also depends on the ice never getting replenished on the continent. Just like how rain and snow fall on mountains, only to collect into rivers which flow down hill to the oceans, ice does the same thing in glaciers. All ice that breaks off Antarctica is replaced by new snow on the continent.

41 posted on 02/25/2018 1:13:55 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Cats Pajamas

ping


42 posted on 02/25/2018 1:14:26 PM PST by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Red Badger
It seems to me that if the ice is thick enough, the bottom will always be so deep that the ocean water coming under the shelf will be at a constant 39 degrees Fahrenheit, like all deep ocean water.

So any freezing is being done by the convection of heat away from the water through the ice to the surface.

So any melting at the bottom is ultimately being driven by surface air temperatures, so those must not be changing significantly.

43 posted on 02/25/2018 1:15:50 PM PST by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens")
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To: Red Badger

That’s a lot of ice

44 posted on 02/25/2018 1:17:37 PM PST by xp38
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To: Red Badger
They know it. They choose to use it to their advantage to control the narrative and scam more money from ignorant folks.

Those perpetrating or participating in the AGW scam, ignore and hide the real climate data. Deniers and heretics are punished with extreme prejudice. Careers are destroyed and funding is denied to those who dare to question the orthodox consensus of man-made climate change.

Sadly, there's now a whole generation of 'scientists' who've been indoctrinated with this claptrap their whole lives.

45 posted on 02/25/2018 1:28:35 PM PST by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: philman_36

Look how small the people are!..................


46 posted on 02/25/2018 1:28:36 PM PST by Red Badger (The people who call Trump a tyrant are the same people who want the president to confiscate weapons.)
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To: Vince Ferrer

“All ice that breaks off Antarctica is replaced by new snow on the continent.”

Yup:

Interior gains exceed losses (on the coasts). (Zwally2015)

Which means (net) Antarctic ice is not melting but gaining, which means it’s a net loss for sea-levels, which means all sea-level papers and measurements on the subject prior to Zwally are completely WRONG.


47 posted on 02/25/2018 1:29:00 PM PST by JPJones (More tariffs, less income tax.)
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To: Red Badger
And it's so...flat, both E - W & N - S.

No fish eye lens there!

48 posted on 02/25/2018 1:34:00 PM PST by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Red Badger

I think an ice “shelf” is on the water, not on land. As such it is like an iceberg. If it melts it will not raise the sea level even an inch.


49 posted on 02/25/2018 1:40:23 PM PST by arthurus (t̃u)
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To: Windflier

And food will become more expensive. Once the cooling is undeniable the AGWists will turn on a dime back into the ICE AGE hysteria they tried to gin up in the 70s.


50 posted on 02/25/2018 1:46:18 PM PST by arthurus (yu)
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To: Larry Lucido

I re-froze the Ross Ice Shelf using apple cider
vinegar twice a day for 30 days and firmed up
my abs at the same time.


51 posted on 02/25/2018 1:50:33 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: TexasGator
If you had researched before posting you would not have made this post!

Actually I did research it - and I made sure to ask the question as well, so as not to claim specialist knowledge of it. If YOU care to research the Ross Ice Shelf, you will find the definition is: "Ice shelves are thick plates of ice, formed continuously by glaciers, that float atop an ocean."

Now, do you want to offer information that contradict that in a useful way? Or are you just about being snarky?

52 posted on 02/25/2018 1:55:43 PM PST by PGR88
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To: PGR88
These ice shelfs are already in the ocean, aren't they? So their volume is already accounted for in total volume of water of the oceans. Just like a glass full of ice-cubes and water doesn't overflow when it melts.

Excellent,PGR88. I never thought of that, but it's absolutely true. We can use that fact in arguments with the Global warming crowd.

Now why was this simple fact never exposed before?

53 posted on 02/25/2018 2:09:13 PM PST by poconopundit (MAGA... Get the Spirit. Grow your community. Focus on your Life's Work. Empower the Young.)
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To: Red Badger

If they were using ice from the top of the ice shelf to power their “hot water” drill, and this would be fresh water, fallen snow turned to ice.

If you drilled to the bottom of the shelf all the fresh water in the bore would siphon out through the hole at the bottom and create a local concentration of fresh water that would freeze quickly to the bottom of the ice shelf. (Fresh water has higher freezing point than salt.) I do not think their conclusion about salt water freezing to the bottom of the shelf is correct. I think its the fresh water they used for the drill.

They contaminated their observation site and do not think that they can draw a conclusion from this. (Yes, I know, most of us liked the conclusion.)


54 posted on 02/25/2018 2:10:45 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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To: Pollster1
I believe that we are still in an "Ice Age", albeit a warming period between glaciations.

30,000 yrs ago the ice on the Great Lakes was a mile thick.

30,000 yrs from now the ice on the Great Lakes will be a mile thick and there's nothing man can do about it.

55 posted on 02/25/2018 2:13:06 PM PST by Eagles6
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To: arthurus
And food will become more expensive. Once the cooling is undeniable...

I highly encourage everyone to stock up at least eight weeks of food right now.

As the geologic record shows, when this thing truly kicks in, it may happen suddenly, which will trigger mass migrations southward. It could take months for state and regional governments to restore order.

56 posted on 02/25/2018 2:14:48 PM PST by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Windflier

As the geologic record shows, when this thing truly kicks in, it may happen suddenly,


Sudden and geologic are poor bedmates. What you call sudden to a geologist is at least thousands of years. That plenty of time to more around.


57 posted on 02/25/2018 2:16:49 PM PST by sparklite2 (See more at Sparklite Times)
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To: Red Badger

The alarmists use models that are predicated on a belief system - a belief that science understands all the natural feedback loops relative to earth’s climate and conditions within it. They don’t know as much as their models assume they know.


58 posted on 02/25/2018 2:28:42 PM PST by Wuli
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To: Red Badger
Though results of this study were unexpected, that doesn't change the larger trend of accelerated warming and icecap melting.

LOL
59 posted on 02/25/2018 2:35:24 PM PST by Trillian
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To: Red Badger

A surprise? Really? No...because global warming is fake news..


60 posted on 02/25/2018 2:48:03 PM PST by ConservaTeen (Islam is Not the Religion of Peace, but The religion of Pedophilia...)
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