Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance

[Logan13]

Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO.../V9/N45/C2.jsp
Nov.08, 2006
What was done
The authors "analyzed 1.2 x 108 European remote sensing satellite altimeter echoes to determine the changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2003." This survey, in their words, "covers 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet," which together comprise "72% of the grounded ice sheet.""

What was learned
Wingham et al. report that "overall, the data, corrected for isostatic rebound, show the ice sheet growing at 5 ± 1 mm year-1." To calculate the ice sheet's change in mass, however, "requires knowledge of the density at which the volume changes have occurred," and when the researchers' best estimates of regional differences in this parameter are used, they find that "72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27 ± 29 Gt year-1, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower [authors' italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm year-1." This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica."

What it means
Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more.

[Logan13]

And BTW, it snowed in Florida last night. Is this to be blamed on global warming as well?

[Tock]

It would be interesting to know where this group gets its $$$ from. Seems like it comes from Exxon . . .
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO...on/funding.jsp

[Kärnfysikern]

then we offcourse have this. Antartic might be growing, but all the ice on the northern hemisphere is sure shrinking.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0111-06.htm

Since 1980, satellite observations taken each September, the warmest month of the year in the Arctic, show that the ice cover has been shrinking by an average of almost 8 percent a year. During that time, the polar ocean lost 540,000 square miles of ice - an area twice the size of Texas, Scambos said.

In addition to covering a smaller area of the ocean, the remaining ice is getting thinner. Submarine measurements indicate that the central ice pack thinned by 40 percent from the 1960s to the 1990s, Lindsay reported in the November issue of the Journal of Climate.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/arctic-03g.html


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGARADH401.DTL

Shrinking glaciers evidence of global warming
Differences seen by looking at photos from 100 years ago

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...646656,00.html

Almost 95 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are also shrinking - and that kind of ice loss has profound implications, not just for Nepal and Bhutan, but for surrounding nations, including China, India and Pakistan.

Eventually, the Himalayan glaciers will shrink so much their meltwaters will dry up, say scientists. Catastrophes like Ghat will die out. At the same time, rivers fed by these melted glaciers - such as the Indus, Yellow River and Mekong - will turn to trickles. Drinking and irrigation water will disappear. Hundreds of millions of people will be affected.

What happens in the antartic isnt as important as what is happening on the glaciers here on the northern hemisphere.

[Kärnfysikern]

and then we offcourse have this, directly disputing the original article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4228411.stm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030201712.html

[Kärnfysikern]

And to add more, greenland might have been shrinking for a long time before we started mass releaseing co2. They think the current release is making things worse though.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/0....o0mynclv.html

[Logan13]

And to add more, greenland might have been shrinking for a long time before we started mass releaseing co2. They think the current release is making things worse though.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/0....o0mynclv.html

Man may be shortening the time between Earth's climate changes, but this planet has had drastic climate changes since it was created. I doubt that the Neanderthals' use of fire is to blame for ending the last Ice Age. Why is this so hard to understand? I think that some people just need a cause...........

[Logan13]

And to add more, greenland might have been shrinking for a long time before we started mass releaseing co2. They think the current release is making things worse though.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/0....o0mynclv.html

Checkout the folowing website for a detailed examination of Earth's climate from 70 million years ago thru today. You need to know more about the past in order to understand the future, Johan.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/chill.html

[Logan13]

and then we offcourse have this, directly disputing the original article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4228411.stm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030201712.html

Steven Chu won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997. He is now the Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, here are some of his statements:
The fact that the globe has been warming up for the last 150 years is just a measurement, and I'm not sure how you debate a measurement. Let me be as fair as I can to the naysayers. In the last half million to million years, we've gone through cycles of warmth and cold. You can even go further back--for hundreds of millions of years, we have gone through periods where the globe was much warmer than it is today with the carbon dioxide levels much higher.
Six to 10 degrees is the difference between the temperature today and the temperature of the deepest ice age.

What I am presenting to you, Johan, are accepted facts in the scientific community in regards to the earth's climatic history. Why have you chosen to ignore these facts when forming your opinion?

[Logan13]

It would be interesting to know where this group gets its $$$ from. Seems like it comes from Exxon . . .
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO...on/funding.jsp

You do realize that this thread does not pertain to anything sexual, right?

[Kärnfysikern]

Man may be shortening the time between Earth's climate changes, but this planet has had drastic climate changes since it was created. I doubt that the Neanderthals' use of fire is to blame for ending the last Ice Age. Why is this so hard to understand? I think that some people just need a cause...........

Sure I am aware of that. But just because something can happen naturaly doesnt rule out that humans might cause it do right?

Fact is for most of the earths history the climate has been so hostile that we would not have been able to evolve. The earth has been in a unnaturaly cold period for a long time now. That doesnt mean I want humans to try and speed things up to get into a warmer state again.

Steven Chu won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997. He is now the Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, here are some of his statements:
The fact that the globe has been warming up for the last 150 years is just a measurement, and I'm not sure how you debate a measurement. Let me be as fair as I can to the naysayers. In the last half million to million years, we've gone through cycles of warmth and cold. You can even go further back--for hundreds of millions of years, we have gone through periods where the globe was much warmer than it is today with the carbon dioxide levels much higher.Six to 10 degrees is the difference between the temperature today and the temperature of the deepest ice age.

What I am presenting to you, Johan, are accepted facts in the scientific community in regards to the earth's climatic history. Why have you chosen to ignore these facts when forming your opinion?

Yupp you are quoting a guy that is indicating that there is a strong relation betwen co2 and temperature. Back when giant calderas erupted the co2 release was much much larger than anything we humans can imagine. But that doesnt change the fact that we are still right now pumping out much more co2 than natur is. We have raised co2 alot by our activites and since we know co2 and temperature follow eachother we should be worried.

Checkout the folowing website for a detailed examination of Earth's climate from 70 million years ago thru today. You need to know more about the past in order to understand the future, Johan.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/chill.html

Why do you assume I dont know the past? I acctualy took a class last summer that dealt with how plate tetonics effect the climate long term and stuff like that. Nothing indepth but I know the basic picture.

But that doesnt change the fact that right now we humans are reshaping the planet faster than nature would. We are releaseing far more CO2 than all the worlds volcanoes combined. We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The fact that the earth has been very extrem in the past doesnt mean we cant effect it in the present. If we look at climate history we see that when the CO2 is high the temperature is high and vice versa.

When the earth is in stable periods with few volcanoes we have low co2 and a cool climate with ice on the poles. when the earth is in periods of extrem vulcanic activity we have lots of co2, the earth shifts into higher termperature and we have vegitation at the poles.

Do you realy think the climate cares if its humans or volcanoes that release the CO2?

But as I have always said, even if co2 isnt such a danger as climatologists predict we would still gain from getting rid of fossile fuels. Getting rid of fossile fuels is a win win situation. It might have a transient negative effect on the economy. But if the option is more polution Im willing to pay that price. Nothing protects you and me from beeing in the group that dies prematurely because of fossile fuel polution, nothing prevents our kids from developing diseases because of fossile fuel polution. There is no getting around that the filth we release into the air is detrimental to our health.