antarctic sea ice at all time record

Maybe due in part to decreasing salinity?

People of a Feather | Documentary

 

Unfortunately, the article mentions only sea surface area of ice. It is conspicuously silent about Antarctic ice mass.

It does us no good if this extra surface ice is caused by easier freezing of comparatively fresh surface water flooding off from melting land ice. And articles elsewhere estimate that the overall Antarctic ice mass is shrinking. While East Antarctica appears to be gaining ice, this appears insufficient to compensate for losses from West Antarctica and the Peninsula.

 

I gave up on the 'Register' as a reasonable news site years ago.

 

"We have more to learn?" Such blasphemy !

Al Gore has told us that there is no more to learn; the matter is settled. Would you argue with a Nobel Prize winner? To do such is denial of fact.

Off to the tower with such heretics!

merge, Oh wait, I forgot. Global cooling is a result of global warming.

 

AGW is settled fact, although lots of important details remain to work out. You may want to argue if the Earth is flat, but humanity has more pressing matters.

 

Brilliant.

 

Source: Ice sheet highs, lows and loss / CryoSat / Observing the Earth / Our Activities / ESA

Do you have a better source of ice inventory?

Bob Wilson

 

The only thing that will convince me that we have a problem, is when people start to lose beachfront property due to rising water. The rest is all just chatter until then.

 

Have it your way:

At this rate, Antarctic melting alone:

• 1 year = 0.45 mm (all of us alive reading this note)
• 10 years = 4.5 mm (add kids born minus the ones who die)
• 100 years = 45 mm (all of us reading this note are dead, many of our kids)
• 1000 years = 450 mm (people who no longer remember us as individuals)

There is another major source of ice melt, Greenland, which appears to be about twice as fast as Antarctic melting. So now the combined rates look closer to:

• 1 year ~= 1.35 mm (all of us alive reading this note)
• 10 years ~= 13.5 mm (add kids born minus the ones who die)
• 100 years ~= 135 mm (all of us reading this note are dead, many of our kids)
• 1000 years = 1350 mm (people who no longer remember us as individuals)

But the rising sea level accelerates the ice loss from the shores of Greenland and Antarctica by floating the end of the ice glaciers that empty into the sea. This allows more ice to flow into the oceans where it floats to warmer seas and melts. Floating ice has no effect on sea level but ice on land going into the ocean does. Melting polar ice occurs over a time frame that exceeds our expected lifespan.

Now interposed over this gradual sea level rise is weather that looks like 'noise'. Compared to climate change, weather is a chaotic event. The loss of homes are seen in hurricanes and typhoon along with the occasional, severe storms, typically 10-20 hour events. Sea level changes are typically measured in 10**4 to 10**5 longer time frames.

Bob Wilson

 

No. As I pointed out in the other thread, even that won't convince many.

The first 8 inches have already demonstrated that.

 

It is amazing what an inch or two or extra water will do in a storm, but AGW denialists will of course blame the 'natural' storm.

 

Not enough people are from Missouri, when it comes to actual climate change. It's all about predictions so far, and nothing coming true.

 

Actually the scientific method means testing hypothesis with data such as the EU CryoSat inventory of both Greenland and Antarctic ice. Another characteristic is referencing original sources so we can look for errors.

Near as we can tell, satellite measurements, the CryoSat mission, has found substantial ice loss. One hypothesis is the lost, Antarctic ice over the land mass reached the ocean and expanded the floating sea ice. In effect, a part of the missing land-based ice has relocated to the sea where that fraction extends the thin crust of floating, sea ice.

So how would a Canadian fan of Missouri propose to test this hypothesis? Only a true Missourian would have an answer.

Bob Wilson

 

We're not going to settle anything here. The only difference between our points of view, is that I'm taking a "show me" attitude instead of believing what I'm told. I work in the environmental field, and I spent a long time in the agricultural field, and I haven't seen any real evidence of an abnormal shift in the climate. I'll certainly admit I'm wrong when I see a few actual signs. Until then, lets not try to change each other's minds.

 

"Show you," how ?
Shoot your arse into space with your very own pocket camera ?
Send ice samples and tree rings to your home via Fed-Ex ?
Buy you a mainframe and the services of a University CS dept to evaluate satellite data ?

All very sensible in your eyes I am sure, but I suggest something radical: pull you head out of your nether regions and READ science; or if you are incapable, read interpretation of science for laypeople by leading scientists. No, not weathermen.

 

That's the dysfunction I'm talking about, and the reason the climate debate is going nowhere. Until people actually see and feel climate change, many of them will remain skeptical.

Sorry I don't write the rules of human nature.

 

Take a guess -- what fraction of these uber-skeptics are atheists ?

 

One issue with that: climate changes happen at a "glacial" pace. Until marked climate change occurs within one human lifetime, it's only the long term chroniclers that will see and feel it, vicariously. That may all change, soon.

 

If ostriches could talk, they would stick their heads deep into the mud and join your ranks.

Seriously though, the problem with your attitude is that the denialists are not scientists. A blind person saying "I am skeptical of what you say exists because I cannot see it" is being an idiot.