Cuts No Ice
I've sent off an email to the reporter of this story in today's Washington Post as well as one to my contact at ICECAP. The report is quite lurid with a shouting headline: Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica.
Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.
While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of South America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years — as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world.
"Without doubt, Antarctica as a whole is now losing ice yearly, and each year it's losing more," said Eric Rignot, lead author of a paper published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Without a doubt, that last statement is incorrect - according to NASA data. Last year saw the largest extent of Antarctic ice since record keeping began. There is also the physical data from the Cryosphere Today website - which uses NASA data - that says that the amount of ice is increasing with an obvious upward trend. Two pictures say it all:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
This one says this year is deviating from the mean - but in the opposite direct of that reported in the Post:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
There is currently about one million square kilometers more ice than the annual average for this time of year - summer down there.
UPDATE: ICECAP has a post up via Junk Science that shows a strong cooling trend in the Antarctic region supposedly suffering ice loss.
Environment | Gaius Monday, 14 January , 2008
By feeblemind, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 10:32 am
I wonder if he will read your email?
By Gaius, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 10:34 am
No answer so far.
By feeblemind, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Whether he responds or not, I admire the effort.
By martian, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Are you kidding, Gaius? You’re obviously one of those deluded conservatives who has allowed his mind to be clouded with facts rather than going along with the “climate change” and “global warming” that “everyone” (at least everyone who counts in his mind) knows about. That reporter will never respond.
By Maggie, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Gee, anybody seen that slick Tanqueray guy around the western Antarctica?
They put out articles, such as these, completely aware of the People Magazine mentality of today’s (general) reading public. Grab `em with a thrilling title, and then load them down with half-truths … oh, hell, fiction fits so much better … Besides, they (readers) won’t bother reaserching it for themselves.
Just stick the misinformation I.V. into the main vein and open it all the way …
By Rich Horton, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 1:42 pm
So they are using one year anomolies as “evidence” again. Where have I heard that before?
By Gaius, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Sounds like it, Rich. I suspect the full media barrage of this story actually has a lot to do with the upcoming visit of the head of the IPCC to Antarctica.
By Mockin'bird, Monday, 14 January , 2008 @ 4:50 pm
I smell government grants.
Wait a sec…
Ahem
I know what is causing the loss of ice in Antarctica, and how fast it is happening. Furthermore, I know how to stop it in it’s tracks.
Please send the government grant in the amount of …$500,000, in check form to:
The Mockin’bird
4 Golden Palm Way
Palm Beach, Fl
37734