Antarctic ice sheet "past the point on no return"

Antarctic land ice is melting due to volcanoes not CO2.
Antarctic sea ice is at highest levels ever in history.
Antarctic air temp set a record low for the entire Earths history last Dec 2013.

Geothermal Heat Accelerates Glacier Melting in Antarctic

 

Links please?

Or are you hyperbolically misrepresenting December's reports of remote satellite observations showing colder temperatures in certain remote areas of Antarctic than have ever been recorded at any land weather stations? The lowest in that ten years of satellite data (2003-2013) was set on August 10, 2010.

As best I can find, the land-based record set at Vostok station in July 1983, decades before that satellite was launched, still stands. Remember that December down there is the start of summer, not the dead of winter.

 

Coldest ever temperature recorded on Earth found in Antarctica | Watts Up With That?

 

Thanks for verifying my suspicions about your misstatement.

 

Antarctic land ice is not melting from increased CO2.
Care to dispute that?
Antarctic sea ice is at highest levels in history.
Care to dispute that?
CO2 is not causing any ice loss in Antarctica.
Care to dispute that?

I dont care what strawman you are trying to construct about the coldest temp in Earths history.
So it happened in 2010 ,who gives a f?
My point is valid.
CO2 has risen from 280ppm to 400ppm yet we have record cold in Antarctica.
THE PLACE WHERE CO2 SHOULD HAVE THE MOST WARMING EFFECT.

 

Lowest temperature recorded on Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

136 below: Shockingly low temperature report from Antarctica, but not a record
Antarctica records unofficial coldest temperature ever

I would go with december 2013 as setting the record for cold temperatures. But these are satelight not thermometer temperatures (I doubt you can build a mercury thermometer to go that low, so you would need something else). The satelite record is not very long. We might guess that it got colder during glacial periods, but we had nothing to record that. We do have the ice, but that won't really tell us how cold.

The WAIS is not melting because of high surface temperatures, it is melting because of warmer water beneath the surface. Chilling the air won't stop it.

 

I'm reading all three of your links, as well as many others checked earlier, as placing that satellite-observation record in August 2010, two of them being more specific that it happened on the 10th.

December 2013 is the dateline on the many news stories, not the date of the actual cold temperature.

Am I misreading those stories?

Typical old-fashioned mercury thermometers froze and burst at about -40F / -40C. Alcohol units was commonly used for colder places.

Mojo also claimed that this was:

when it was really for just the data recording life of a few orbiting satellites, beginning in 2003.

 

You wrote:

Your linked story actually said:
"Researchers at the Institute for Geophysics from the University of Texas, Austin, say the Thwaites Glacier, of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting not only due to the ocean but also because of geothermal heat. This new finding alters our understanding of the conditions existing beneath the Ice Sheet.
... This finding helps ice sheet modelers to accurately estimate the response of the glacier to the warming of ocean. Till date scientists couldn't measure the strength and location of the heat flow under the glacier."

Asked and answered in multiple other threads in the past year. 'Surface area' must not be confused with 'volume'.

As quoted above, even the article you linked mentions the warming of the ocean. Care to dispute that?

Pointing out how the articles you link for support, contradict your own statements, is not constructing a strawman.

 

Oh I think I misread and you are right.
July 31, 2013. was the -135.3 F
August 2010 has the standing number of -135.8 F

Either way it was very very cold last summer Some don't count these as records because they require satellites instead of thermometers. In the margin of error these temperatures likely tied. We can only say these two days are the coldest since measurements began which is only a short time period.

Record lows don't disprove global warming, and record highs don't prove it. Global warming is about the temperature on the whole surface of the earth averaged over time, not a single day.

WAIS is melting much faster than surface temperatures would indicate. The recent studies account for this from geothermal energy heating the water bellow the surface, and currents carrying it under the ice. Surface temperatures from ghg warming appear to be melting grealand's glaciers. THus we have both natural and man made mechanisms raising sea levels.

 

Accumulating research on grounded Antarctic ice continues to reveal that it is complicated. The geothermal effect appears to be new knowledge. Perhaps the seawater 'undermining' of WAIS is not entirely new knowledge, but it is what led to the media article title posted first.

Meanwhile the 'gravity satellite' analyses have improved understanding of localized areas of ice loss and increase. This is all good in the sense that the system is becoming better understood. It is only bad in the sense that it does allow for the possibility of willful misinterpretations. Complicated stuff.

 

For someone who has renounced denialism, you remain remarkably obtuse.

Earth climate involves the Earth. Land and air. Global Warming involves the Earth, both land and air. Local forcings are acting in conjunction with global warming on the WAIS. This may be surprise you, but the geothermal activity under WAIS did not start in 2014.

 

Not just ice but water in all forms. We've come a long way from the old Landsat days. We're also starting to get a handle on sea levels. All in all, an interesting time to see what the planet is doing globally.

Bob Wilson

 

That Southern Ocean is a source of consternation. Southern sea ice is increasing, supposedly due to water-circulation changes. Meanwhile, water at the continental margin is warm enough to undermine grounded ice. I would be the first to admit that I don't get that.

Yet I would be the last to assert, somehow, from that, that CO2 does not absorb infrared light.

 

What really caught my attention was that those satellites were even tracking changes in groundwater mass.

Was part of that increased sea ice due to reduced surface salinity, due to dilution with fresh water from the increased ice melt, allowing the surface to freeze easier?

Or has that hypothesis not held up?

 

Interesting, I wonder if the structure of frozen ice from brime has structural characteristics that can determine the original salt concentration. . . . hummmm.

Bob Wilson

 

I think its simple enough to surmise without any grant money.
Of course fresh water on the surface is going to freeze.
The question is ,is there more fresh water in the recent past few years?
Its not caused by CO2 or atmospheric warming though.
Has there been more volcanism recently?
Very likely as volcanism is effected by intense solar sunspots.Like weve witnessed recently.

 

About the volcanism study I think its flawed when it blames global warming and warm water for melting glaciers from beneath.
The water may be warm enough to melt ice , but that warm water would be created from the same volcano or nearby UNDERWATER VOLCANOES, not CO2.

 

In other news, the current solar sunspot cycle is turning out comparatively weak.

Sun's Current Solar Activity Cycle Is Weakest in a Century
Seemingly Strange Solar Cycle May Be Sorta Normal
The current solar maximum appears to be weak. But the few previously measured maxes could have been unusually strong.
Solar cycle