Analysis: ‘Another Antarctic Sea Level Rise False Alarm’ – Climate fear claims ‘grievously wrong’
Another Antarctic Sea Level Rise False Alarm
http://judithcurry.com/2016/05/22/another-antarctic-sea-level-rise-false-alarm
by Rud Istvan Aitken et. al. in Nature newly comports to confirm 2015 fears about instability of the Totten Glacier in Eastern Antarctica. This could ‘suddenly’ raise sea level as much as 4 meters! (Or, based on the abstract, maybe only 0.9 meters in ‘modern scale configuration’, but over 2 meters [2.9-4] in unspecified other configurations). There are two parts to the story of Aitken et. al. 2016: the author’s comments as reported by MSM, and what the paper actually found. Media reports An example from the Weather Channel: “An Antarctic glacier three-fourths the size of Texas continues to melt into the sea, and if it disappears completely, sea levels will rise dramatically around the world, a new study says. The Totten Glacier is melting quickly in eastern Antarctica and threatens to become yet another point of concern as global temperatures rise, according to the study published in the journal Nature. It’s getting close to a “tipping point,” the study found, and if the glacier collapses, global sea levels could rise nearly 10 feet…”I predict that before the end of the century the great global cities of our planet near the sea will have two- or three-meter (6.5 to 10 feet) high sea defenses all around them,” study author Martin Siegert told the French Press Agency.” [Bolds mine] From Science Daily, drawn from the Imperial College London press release: Current rates of climate change could trigger instability in a major Antarctic glacier, ultimately leading to more than 2m of sea-level rise. By studying the history of Totten’s advances and retreats, researchers have discovered that if climate change continues unabated, the glacier could cross a critical threshold within the next century, entering an irreversible period of very rapid retreat. This would cause it to withdraw up to 300 kilometres inland in the following centuries and release vast quantities of water, contributing up to 2.9 metres to global sea-level rise. [Bolds mine] Finally, the lurid title of Chris Mooney’s article in the WaPo on May 18: ‘Fundamentally unstable’: Scientists confirm their fears about East Antarctica’s biggest glacier Paper Most of the paper is a complex analysis of detailed gravimetric and magnetic data captured from low pass aircraft mapping an important ridge component of Totten’s subglacial geology. It is helpful to understand the context for seeking evidence of alarming seal level rise (SLR) (see my …
1959 Paper Shows Most Warming Before 1945 …Arctic Warmed 7.7°C, Sea Level Rose 8 mm/yr
1959 Paper Shows Most Warming Before 1945 …Arctic Warmed 7.7°C, Sea Level Rose 8 mm/yr
The following clearly shows a complete lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature. Most of the 20th century warming occurred before 1945, and clearly was linked to natural factors at time the planet was emerging from the Little Ice Age. ==================================== Explosive (Non-Anthropogenic) Warming in the Early 20th Century By Kenneth Richard As Figure 1 depicts, human CO2 emissions were essentially flat during first half of the 20th century. Yet, the world’s climate warmed dramatically throughout this period. For example notice how steep the rise in near-surface (0 – 20 m) ocean temperatures was between 1900 and 1945 according to Gouretski et al. (2012, “Consistent near-surface ocean warming since 1900 in two largely independent observing networks“). As the Gouretski et al. (2012) graph indicates, near-surface ocean temperatures rose by about 1.2°C between 1900 and 1945. But then, in the next 65 years, between 1945 and 2010, the near-surface ocean only warmed by about 0.3°C in total, which includes a 30-year cooling trend (1945 – 1975). If we compare the two trends, the early 20th century (1900 – 1945) near-surface ocean waters warmed at a rate of almost 0.27°C per decade, whereas the more recent period (1945 – 2010) only warmed at a rate of under 0.05°C per decade. Interestingly, it was the more recent 1945 – 2010 period that contained the rapid expansion of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, with rates rising from ~1 GtC/year (1900 -1945) to nearly 10 GtC/year by 2010. These warming (and cooling) trends in the near-surface ocean are the opposite of what would be expected if human CO2 emissions were the primary driver. Sea level rose 8 mm/year between 1930 – 1948 What follows are some of the details of this dramatic early 20th century warming as documented by Princeton geologist Dr. Erling Dorf, a veritable expert on the subject. Notice from the summaries provided below that sea levels were observed to be rising at a rate of about 8 mm/year between 1930 and 1948 (6 inches in 19 years), which is more than double today’s modeled satellite altimetry rate (3.2 mm/year). These early 20th century temperature and CO2 trends beg the question: What were the physical mechanisms that caused this dramatic global-scale warming, since anthropogenic CO2 emissions were both low (~1 GtC/year) and stable during this period? Summary of the …