A new NASA study found that Antarctica has been adding more ice than it’s been losing, challenging other research, including that of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that Earth’s southern continent is losing land ice overall.
In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology on Friday, researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland in College Park, and the engineering firm Sigma Space Corporation offer a new analysis of satellite data that show a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001 in the Antarctic ice sheet.
That gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
Climate scientists caution that these findings don’t mean it’s time to start celebrating the end of global warming. More than anything, the paper shows how difficult it is to measure ice height in Antarctica and that better It could take only a few decades for the ice melt in Antarctica to outweigh the ice gains, the paper’s authors say.
“I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses,” Jay Zwally, NASA glaciologist and lead author of the study, said in a press release.
For now, the study authors say, these findings challenge current explanations for sea level rise, much of which is attributed to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” said Dr. Zwally.
“But this is also bad news,” he added. “If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
The paper calls attention to how difficult it is for scientists to measure small changes in ice height, particularly in East Antarctica, the largest part of the polar continent and the one that showed discrepancies with previous measurements.
“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge,” in other parts of the continent, Zwally said.
“Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica; there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas,” he explained in a NASA announcement.
The scientists calculated this gain by looking at the height of the Antarctic ice sheet as measured by radar instruments on two European Space Agency satellites from 1992 to 2001, and by laser sensors on a NASA satellite from 2003 to 2008.
Other scientists have observed gains in land elevation in East Antarctica, explains NASA, but they’ve attributed this to snowfall in the region. But Zwally’s team used meteorological data dating back to 1979 to show that the snow accumulation in East Antarctica has actually been declining, showing that the increase in elevation must be the result of thicker ice.
NASA explains that this has been possible because at the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, warming air carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snowfall that has been accumulating and compacting it into solid ice.
The agency is developing new tools – due to launch in 2018 – that will help more accurately measure long-term ice changes in Antarctica.
“ICESat-2 will measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,” said Tom Neumann, a glaciologist at NASA.
“More than anything, the paper shows how difficult it is to measure ice height in Antarctica and that better It could take only a few decades for the ice melt in Antarctica to outweigh the ice gains, the paper’s authors say.”
If the paper showed just the slightest warming and melting, 100% consensus, the science is settled, period. We are going to fucking DIE.
But if the facts don’t jibe with the claims………well then this just proves “how difficult it is to measure” So we best wait 20 years or more, so you will forget all about our silly claims.
Look over there! ISIS in the ice!
You people are like the monkey who can see the equation on the blackboard — 2+2=4 — but, does not understand it.
The REASON the ice is increasing is BECAUSE of global warming!! Fact: Ice cannot increase in thickness unless it’s warm enough to snow.
Got it?
Yeah Stuck, can’t freeze water. You win dumbass comment of the day! Got it?
BTW, snow can occur reasonably up to -40 degrees C. Last time I checked, it gets 70-80 degrees WARMER than that in Antarctica in the summer. You need to check out Moisture Advection.
Back in PA Mike
I shoulda kicked your ass when I had the chance last month!!
Hey, I was being facetious. I recall actually reading that argument — just can’t remember where. GloBULL Warming fuknuts always want it both ways. Too few hurricanes? Globull warming!! Too many hurricanes? Globull warming!!
The seas have been rising for 20,000 years since the unwinding of the Pleistocene, a major Ice Age.
The West Antarctica ice sheet is melting due to hydro-thermal activity from below (volcano).
Stucky – I think your comment was solely to elicit responses. But, do you really know the definition of Global Warming?
AGW (CO2 induced warming from human activity) was changed to Global Warming because most of our citizens couldn’t pronounce or spell Anthropogenic. It was a smart advertising move by the warmists (liars) as a means to influence our sloping-forehead dumb-fuck citizens.
Then we had a change from GloBull Warming to Climate Change as it wasn’t warming and they knew the PDO was flipping. Now, every normal weather event is attributed to CO2 increase. Right !!!!!
CO2 has increased for the last 18-1/2 years but no scientifically significant warming during this period per satellite data (UAH and RSS) and confirmed by 40,000,000 weather balloons.
This reminds me of the story of the Globull Warming “scientific expedition” that went to Antartica to chronicle the melting of the ice pack and then, drum roll please, GOT STUCK IN THE ICE and had to be rescued, by, I think, the Chinese.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/30/stuck-in-our-own-experiment-leader-trapped-team-insists-polar-ice-is-melting.html
So, let’s see: A group dedicated to the (preposterous and disproven) hypothesis that fossil fuels is contributing to global warming find their fossil fueled ship stuck fast in the EXPANDING ICE and have to be rescured by fossil fuel burning ships and helicopters from the country (China) that is one of the highest carbon emitters on planet Earth.
You just can’t make this shit up.
Anyone whose biggest problem is the ocean rising by 27/100ths of a millimeter per year needs to get another problem. That’s like, literally, a cunt hair, or 1CH in glaciologist-lingo.
This little factoid is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, they will have a nice excuse for it. The end goal is a global tax on all carbon emissions. What emits carbon? ALL economic activity. The end game is basically a global tax on everything. That has always been the goal. Notice we have gone from global cooling, to global warming, to now just calling it all ‘climate change’ over the course of the last 40 years of so, yet their supposed solution to it all hasn’t changed. Higher taxes on energy, and “carbon credits” traded in an exchange run by our big banks, of course. Who wins in this scenario? the government and the biggest banks and corporations. Anytime you hear someone like obama or clinton pushing the same thing as goldman sacs, bend over and grab your ankles.
Read about this few days ago then IPC makes a report that talks about west Antarctic is losing ice.
FFS, this is what ice does.
Funny how melting ice in my glass of vodka was not reported at all………..
They are loathe to admit it but it is a scientific fact that “staggering amounts” of water enter and leave the atmosphere every day. If a larger than usual amount enters and this occurs for an unusual length of time sea levels would rise and have zero to do with anything else. Certainly nothing taxable.
They know all of this yet continue with all their lies in their quest to tax and control. The climate change people are more dangerous than a zombie apocalypse. They consist of dupes and truly evil, lying sociopaths lusting for complete control of others.