Study: Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Been Stable For Millions Of Years – During Warmer Temps Than Now

Via: http://mailchi.mp/thegwpf/antarctic-ice-more-stable-than-thought?e=f4e33fdd1e

08/05/17

Antarctic Ice More Stable Than Thought

Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Been Stable For Millions Of Years: Study

The ice sheets of central Antarctica have been stable for millions of years when conditions were warmer than now, a new research has found. Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Northumbria studied rocks on slopes of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica, whose peaks protrude through the ice sheet. However, the scientists are concerned that ice at the coastline is vulnerable to rising temperature, though the discovery points towards the long-term stability of Antarctica’s ice sheet. — The Indian Express, 8 May 2017

Glacier flow at the southern Antarctic Peninsula has increased since the 1990s, but a new study has found the change to be only a third of what was recently reported. The new research calls into question recent claims of much more dramatic ice loss. The new Leeds led research calls into question a recent study from the University of Bristol that reported 45 cubic kilometres per year increase in ice loss from the sector. The Leeds research found the increase to be three times smaller. —University of Leeds, 2 May 2017

1) Antarctic Ice Sheets Stable For Millions Of Years
The Indian Express 8 May 2017

2) Antarctic Peninsula Ice More Stable Than Thought
University of Leeds, 2 May 2017

3) Data Analyses Show Rapid Global Surface Cooling, Growing Arctic Ice Thickness
No Tricks Zone, 6 May 2017

4) Scientists ‘More Confident Than Ever’ In Global Warming After Studying The Lack Of It For 15 Years
Daily Caller, 5 May 2017

5) NYT Columnist Warns Of ‘Intellectual Hubris’ Among Climate Scientists
Daily Caller, 7 May 2017

6) Ivanka Trump To Review Climate Policy As US Mulls Paris Pullout
Associated Press, 6 May 2017

7) And Finally: Are Microbiologists Climate-Denying Science Haters?
American Council On Science and Health, 4 May 2017

A new study examining explanations for the 10- to 15-year “hiatus” in global warming has scientists “more confident than ever that human influence is dominant in long-term warming.” But climate skeptics are already firing back at the claims. IACS’s study looked at different explanations for the “hiatus” in global warming, which the study defined as the 10 or 15 years after 1998, ultimately to put to rest arguments by skeptics the lack of warming during this time cut into theories of catastrophic warming. “I think it

New report about Antarctica is horrible news for global warming alarmists

By Justin Haskins

Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula has long been touted by supporters of the theory man is destroying the planet by using fossil fuels as proof of the dangers of global warming. Al Gore, the face of the world-is-going-to-end climate movement, has visited Antarctica on at least two occasions to highlight the alleged problem.

“This prediction has proven true,” Gore wrote about the claim Antarctica would warm faster than the global average. “Today, the West Antarctic Peninsula is warming about four times faster than the global average.”

Alarmists say the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica will cause massive problems for the rest of the world. For example, left-wing website ThinkProgress wrote in 2012, “Although the vast ice sheets of the frozen continent are remote from almost all of human civilization, their warming has drastic implications for billions of people. With the melting of those almost inconceivable reserves of ice, the planet’s sea levels are rising. Scientists now expect 21st-century sea level rise — on the scale of three to six feet or more — will be dominated by the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps.”

Climate realists have rightfully pointed out the evidence shows total ice accumulation on Antarctica has outweighed losses, a claim bolstered by a 2015 NASA study, which found, “An increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.” But even many climate change skeptics have accepted some significant parts of Antarctica are warming.

All that is about to change.

A study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment in February is now getting the attention of prominent climate change skeptics. The study claims the Antarctic Peninsula is cooling and that the previous warming in the second half of the 21st century is “an extreme case.” The researchers also found the recent cooling trend, which they say began in 1998-99, has already had a significant impact on the Antarctic Peninsula’s cryosphere, slowing down “glacier recession.”

According to the authors’ abstract:

“The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is often described as a region with one of the largest warming trends on Earth since the 1950s, based on the temperature trend … recorded at Faraday/Vernadsky station. Accordingly, most works describing the evolution of the natural systems in the AP region cite this extreme trend as the

Warmists have just lost the Antarctic peninsula: Temperature shifted from a warming trend to a cooling trend

Via: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2017/04/warmists-have-just-lost-antarctic.html

The peninsula was the only bit of the Antarctic that suited the Warmists.  They gleefully reported glacial breakups there, quite ignoring that the Antarctic as a whole was certainly not warming and was in fact tending to cool.  The study below however shows that the warmer period on the peninsula was an atypical  blip that has now reversed

Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere

M. Oliva et al.

Abstract

The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is often described as a region with one of the largest warming trends on Earth since the 1950s, based on the temperature trend of 0.54 °C/decade during 1951–2011 recorded at Faraday/Vernadsky station. Accordingly, most works describing the evolution of the natural systems in the AP region cite this extreme trend as the underlying cause of their observed changes. However, a recent analysis (Turner et al., 2016) has shown that the regionally stacked temperature record for the last three decades has shifted from a warming trend of 0.32 °C/decade during 1979–1997 to a cooling trend of − 0.47 °C/decade during 1999–2014. While that study focuses on the period 1979–2014, averaging the data over the entire AP region, we here update and re-assess the spatially-distributed temperature trends and inter-decadal variability from 1950 to 2015, using data from ten stations distributed across the AP region. We show that Faraday/Vernadsky warming trend is an extreme case, circa twice those of the long-term records from other parts of the northern AP. Our results also indicate that the cooling initiated in 1998/1999 has been most significant in the N and NE of the AP and the South Shetland Islands (> 0.5 °C between the two last decades), modest in the Orkney Islands, and absent in the SW of the AP. This recent cooling has already impacted the cryosphere in the northern AP, including slow-down of glacier recession, a shift to surface mass gains of the peripheral glacier and a thinning of the active layer of permafrost in northern AP islands.

Science of The Total Environment. Volume 580, 15 February 2017, Pages 210–223

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Related Links: 

Antarctica: Via: Skeptics Deliver Consensus Busting ‘State of the Climate Report’ to UN Summit

NASA Study: ‘Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise’ – ‘Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses’ – Zwally’s team calculated that the mass gain from the thickening of East

Study: ANTARCTIC PENINSULA COOLED NEARLY 1°C DURING 1999–2014

CO2 Science Magazine

Warming trends that were once among the highest recorded on earth have slowed and even reversed to show cooling.

Paper Reviewed – Oliva, M., Navarro, F, Hrbácek, F., Hernández, A., Nývlt, D., Pereira, P., Ruiz-Fernández, J. and Trigo, R. 2017. Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere. Science of the Total Environment 580: 210-223.
Figure 1. Temporal evolution of the difference between the mean annual air temperatures and the 1966-2015 average temperature for each station (3-year moving averages). Source: Olivia et al. (2017).

Climate alarmists generally contend that current temperatures are both unnatural and unprecedented, as a result of global warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions; and they claim that this “unnaturalness” is most strongly expressed throughout the world’s polar regions. In this regard, they often point to warming on the Antarctic Peninsula (typically the Faraday/Vernadsky station) as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, where over the past several decades it has experienced warming rates that are among the highest reported anywhere on Earth.

However, in recent years two studies have challenged this assessment. Carrasco (2013) reported finding a decrease in the warming rate from stations on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula between 2001 and 2010, as well as a slight cooling trend for King George Island (in the South Shetland Islands just off the peninsula). Similarly, in an analysis of the regional stacked temperature record over the period 1979-2014, Turner et al. (2016) reported a switch from warming during 1979-1997 to cooling thereafter (1999-2014). And now, in 2017, we have a third assessment of recent temperature trends on the Antarctic Peninsula confirming that the canary is alive and well!

As their contribution to the debate, Olivia et al. (2017) report in the journal Science of the Total Environment how they “complete and extend [the study of Turner et al.] by presenting an updated assessment of the spatially-distributed temperature trends and interdecadal variability of mean annual air temperature and mean seasonal air temperature from 1950 to 2015, using data from ten stations distributed across the Antarctic Peninsula region.” And what did that assessment reveal?

In describing their findings, the eight European researchers write “we show that [the] Faraday/Vernadsky warming trend is an extreme case, circa twice those of the long-term records from other parts of the northern Antarctic Peninsula.” They …

NASA scientists baffled by huge patch of GREEN ice in Antarctica – Likely massive bloom of phytoplankton

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/779141/Green-ice-Antarctica-NASA-pictures-mystery-theory

The luminous-looking green ice already covers about 650 square miles (about 1000 square kilometres) – and it is growing by the day.

NASA scientists who spotted the bizarre green ice among the thousands of routine survey pictures taken from 700 miles up US satellite Landsat 8 by are baffled.

As ever aliens have been blamed by online conspiracy theory forums.…

Antarctic Record Temperature Con – ‘Balmy temperatures’ claim is ‘clearly nonsense’

Via: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/antarctic-record-temperature-con/

By Paul Homewood

The supposed record comes from Esperanza. As Jim Steele at WUWT points out, Esperanza is at the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula, at a latitude of 63.4S, just about as far outside the Antarctic Circle as you could get.

 

https://i1.wp.com/voices.lafayette.edu/files/2015/04/esperanza-base-300x300.jpg

 

 

And as WUWT also points out,  the temperature was purely the product of a fohn wind.

The temperature of 63.5F was actually set in March 2015, but has only just been officially confirmed by the WMO. As the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post noted at the time, the previous record of 62.8F was also set at Esperanza as far back as 1961.

The implication now is that “balmy” temperatures of 63F are unheard of Antarctica, which is clearly nonsense.

And as we can see, monthly average temperatures in March 2015 were not in the least unusual. Indeed, the hottest March was in 1965.

 

image

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=301889630008&dt=1&ds=14

 

None of this information is mentioned by either Greenpeace, or media outlets such as MSN, who also carry the story.

 

 

But the really dishonest part is that photo of two poor penguins stranded at the top of a melting lump of snow.

As Joe has discovered, exactly the same photo appeared in December 2013, in an article by the International Science Times, which was about record cold temperatures in Antarctica. The picture is actually on Cape Denison, as the report makes clear:

 

image

When it’s late February and you’re complaining about the winter dragging endlessly on, take comfort in the fact that you’re not on the East Antarctic Plateau, where scientists have measured the coldest temperature on earth. At negative 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the August 10, 2010, temperature was “tens of degrees colder than anything ever seen in Alaska, Siberia or Greenland,” said Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., the group that made the discovery.

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6506/20131210/scientists-locate-coldest-place-earth-east-antarctic-plateau.htm

Antarctica Set Record High Temperature In 2015 After Setting Record Cold Record in 2014

Sounds like a nice balmy day on the Antarctic Peninsula, but let’s put the news into context.

The Esperanza base is located on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and just outside the Antarctic Circle. The base is farther north than the Vanda Station, which at the mouth of the Onyx River.

Temperatures around the base average 22 degrees Fahrenheit, but fluctuate widely throughout the year. March is near the end of the Antarctic summer when temperatures typically peak, so a record-high reading is most likely to occur during this time.

Antarctica logged a record-cold temperature in 2014, according to NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, but until confirmed by the WMO, the coldest temperature ever recorded in the South Pole was -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit at the Soviet Union’s Vostok Station on July 21, 1983.

The Weather Underground first reported the record-breaking temperature in 2015, but it was confirmed by the WMO until Wednesday.

Weather Underground noted the record temperature readings “were made possible by an unusually extreme jet stream contortion that brought a strong ridge of high pressure over the Antarctic Peninsula, allowing warm air from South America to push southwards over Antarctica.”

Antarctic sea ice was at record levels in 2014 — records that were shattered in 2015. Sea ice has since hit record-lows in 2016 as global average temperature got a boost from an incredibly strong El Nino warming event.…