Another doomsday scenario has been shown to exist only in the minds of climate alarmists. The ice of Antarctica is sound and in no danger of melting away. The data have again trumped the alarmist narrative. Collapsing Antarctic Scare Narrative…4 NEW Papers Find Antarctic Ice Is MORE STABLE Than Thought By P Gosselin on 3. January 2024 Four new studies in prestigious journals show Antarctic ice shelf as stable as ever. Hat-tip: EIKE Klimaschau Andreasen et al (2023) finds net gain A study by Julia R. Andreasen and colleagues looked at the changes in ice shelves, Antarctic-wide, using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data from 2009 to 2019. Image: Andreasen et al (2023) They found that over the period 2009-2019, overall Antarctic ice shelf area grew by 5305 km2. 18 ice shelves retreated somewhat and 16 larger shelves grew in terms of area. “Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade,” the scientists summarized. Banwell et al (2023) meltwater volume dropped Another new paper by Banwell et al published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters looked at the duration and amount of surface ice melting on Antarctica’s ice shelves from 1980 to 2021, using microwave satellite data the snow model SNOWPACK. Result: They found that the highest meltwater volumes were produced on the Peninsula, reaching a peak in the 1992/1993 and 1994/1995, and that SNOWPACK calculated “a small, but significant, decreasing trend in both annual melt days and meltwater production volume over the 41 years.” Frazer et al (2023) Another study published in Nature authored by Frazer et al (2023) found that although West Antarctica – particularly from Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers – has seen dramatic ice losses in recent decades, projections of their future rate are confounded by limited observations. Also, looking at the period 2003 and 2015, they found rates of glacier retreat and acceleration to be extensive along the Bellingshausen Sea coastline, but slowed along the Amundsen Sea. The authors conclude: Our results provide direct observations that the pace, magnitude and extent of ice destabilization around West Antarctica vary by location, with the Amundsen Sea response most sensitive to interdecadal atmosphere-ocean variability. Baico et al (2023) 35 meters thinner thousands of years ago Finally, in yet another new published paper by Baico et al (2023), the authors looked at subglacial bedrock cores show that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) between Thwaites and Pope glaciers and found it “was at least 35 m thinner than present in the past several thousand years and then subsequently thickened.” Moreover: “A past episode of ice sheet thinning that took place in a similar, although not identical, climate was not irreversible. We propose that the past thinning–thickening cycle was due to a glacioisostatic rebound feedback, similar to that invoked as a possible stabilizing mechanism for current grounding line retreat, in which isostatic uplift caused by Early Holocene thinning led to relative sea level fall favoring grounding line advance.”
There's no ice emergency in Antarctica. The Elevation Of The Early Holocene’s W. Antarctic Ice Sheet Once Plunged 480 Meters In 200 Years By Kenneth Richard on 26. February 2024 Retreat rates for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) were massive during the Early Holocene, when CO2 concentrations were low and stable (~265 ppm), dwarfing any retreat rates witnessed in the modern era. New research published in Nature Geoscience (Grieman et al., 2024) assesses the elevation of West Antarctica’s ice sheet fell by ~480 m within just 200 years from about 8,000 to 8,200 years ago, a drop of more than 2 meters per year. The scientists also document an ice area retreat of 270 kilometers at the study site within only 400 years, from ~7,300-7,700 years ago. That’s an area retreat rate of about 675 meters per year. No modern WAIS recession rates are even remotely comparable to those achieved naturally during the Early to Mid Holocene. In fact, recent research (Zhang et al., 2023) indicates West Antarctica’s mean annual surface temperatures cooled by more than -1.8°C (-0.93°C per decade) from 1999-2018., which would preclude a recession of the WAIS linked to a surface warming trend. Image Source: Grieman et al., 2024
Try as they may, alarmists just can't make a scary story out of Antarctic ice. Check Your Facts, CNN, Human Emissions Aren’t Driving ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Decline GLACIERS MARCH 5, 2024 . . . Further evidence suggesting that anthropogenic climate change has nothing to do with the Thwaites Glacier’s recent melting trend is found in the study as well. Indeed, the study determined that the Thwaites Glacier has retreated and expanded multiple times over the millennia. As CNN writes, the researchers involved found that “similar retreats have happened much further back in the past, the ice sheet recovered and regrew . . . [with] James Smith, a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey and a study co-author, [telling CNN] ‘Once an ice sheet retreat is set in motion it can continue for decades, even if what started it gets no worse.’” The researchers and CNN bemoan the fact that the Thwaites glacier’s decline is not reversing, but they themselves admit that such declines in gone on for decades in the ancient past, with no help from humans. And, the precipitating event, a strong El Nino, has been repeated multiple times since the 1940s, including this year, which would tend to keep conditions for melting in place. In short, the idea that human carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to the Thwaites Glacier’s decline is pure speculation; speculation seemingly refuted by the significant decline in surface temperature where the glacier resides, and the net gain of ice and snow on Antarctica. The Thwaites Glacier is bucking climate trends in West Antarctica and for the continent as a whole, almost surely because of El Nino warmed waters. Climate change is not causing the Thwaites Glacier’s decline. Even still it would be prudent to plan for higher sea levels, regardless of trends for the Thwaites Glacier, because they are rising, although not at a historically rapid rate. Seas always rise between ice ages, and history suggests that they will continue to rise, with fits and starts, until the next ice age commences.
