Guest essay by Larry HamlinPosted on 05/29/2014 12:50:58 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
IPCC report shows Antarctica has “negative contribution to sea level” over the 21st century
The recent ridiculous and scientifically flawed media claims of large Antarctica related sea level rise impacts due to “unstoppable” glacier ice loss supposedly reflected in two recent scientific papers looks even more absurd when these made up claims are compared against the Antarctica scientific findings of the UN IPCC AR5 WGI climate report.
Recapping the wonderfully informative reporting by the major “news” networks on May 12 about these two Antarctica ice loss studies we have:
NBC’s anchor Brian Williams asserting that these new studies reflect that sea levels would rise by 13 feet over the next 100 years because of the glacier ice loss which was caused by global warming and is unstoppable. Virtually nothing Williams said was reflected in what was contained in the new studies.
Williams failed to understand that the two studies did not say anything about sea level rise projections, made no mention that man made global warming was driving these glacier ice loss results and additionally appears to have ineptly borrowed his made up 13 foot number from a newspaper article (The Guardian which claimed a 4 meter sea level rise) which managed to confuse “feet” with “meters”. What impressive reporting by the NBC news anchor!!
But Williams was not alone in his zeal to invent the alarmist story line regarding the two new Antarctica studies. ABC’s anchor Diane Sawyer warned us that NASA had issued an “alert” about rising sea levels based on a 40 year study of glaciers in Antarctica that showed they were melting so fast is was unstoppable. She warned that low lying states like Florida would be hardest hit with sea level rise of 3 feet (another made up number) or more by 2100.
CBS’s anchor Scott Pelley not to be outdone by his competition warned that the studies showed that a large part of Antarctica is melting and cannot be stopped. Again the CBS report used yet more numbers telling us sea levels would rise by 4 feet by 2214 and then later by another 6 feet.(1)
The BBC told us that these melting glaciers would cause sea levels to rise by 4 feet when they melt.(2)
Apparently none of these news agencies actually obtained, read and evaluated the studies which did not address sea level rise projections at all nor did they make any claims that man made global warming was driving the study results. One of these two studies mentioned that the amount of ice in these glaciers which represent about 1% to 2% of the total Antarctica ice mass is equivalent to about 4 feet of sea level. That information was not associated with a sea level rise projection estimate or any specific time period.(3)
The UN IPCC AR5 WGI report, which is often used as a source of climate information by the news media, deals extensively with climate issues regarding Antarctica including the continents contribution to sea level rise from climate change.
Amazingly the UN IPCC AR5 report says this:
“Taking all these considerations together, we have medium confidence in model projections of a future Antarctic SMB increase, implying a negative contribution to GMSL rise (see also Sections 13.4.4.1, 13.5.3 and 14.8.15).”
That’s right – the IPCC says that its Surface Mass Balance (SBM) models for Antarctica show that its projected future climate behavior causes sea level to decline not increase!
Furthermore it explains this finding by saying:
“Projections of Antarctic SMB changes over the 21st century thus indicate a negative contribution to sea level because of the projected widespread increase in snowfall associated with warming air temperatures (Krinner et al., 2007; Uotila et al., 2007; Bracegirdle et al., 2008).” (13.4.4.1)
The IPCC AR5 report acknowledges that Antarctica is losing ice from some of its glaciers in West Antarctica and the Antarctica peninsula with the following findings:
“The Antarctic ice sheet has been losing ice during the last two decades (high confidence). There is very high confidence that these losses are mainly from the northern Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica, and high confidence that they result from the acceleration of outlet glaciers. {4.4.2, 4.4.3, Figures 4.14, 4.16, 4.17}”
“There is very high confidence that these losses are mainly from the northern Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica. {4.4}”
“The Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica is grounded significantly below sea level and is the region of Antarctica changing most rapidly at present. Pine Island Glacier has sped up 73% since 1974 (Rignot, 2008) and has thinned throughout 1995–2008 at increasing rates (Wingham et al., 2009) due to grounding line retreat. There is medium confidence that retreat was caused by the intrusion of warm ocean water into the sub-ice shelf cavity (Jenkins et al., 2010; Jacobs et al., 2011; Steig et al., 2012).” (4.4.5)
“There is low confidence that the rate of Antarctic ice loss has increased over the last two decades (Chen et al., 2009; Velicogna, 2009; Rignot et al., 2011c; Shepherd et al., 2012); (4.4.2.3)”
“As with Antarctic sea ice, changes in Antarctic ice sheets have complex causes (Section 4.4.3). The observational record of Antarctic mass loss is short and the internal variability of the ice sheet is poorly understood. Due to a low level of scientific understanding there is low confidence in attributing the causes of the observed loss of mass from the Antarctic ice sheet since 1993. Possible future instabilities in the west Antarctic ice sheet cannot be ruled out, but projection of future climate changes over West Antarctica remains subject to considerable uncertainty (Steig and Orsi, 2013).” (10.5.2.1)
“Due to a low level of scientific understanding there is low confidence in attributing the causes of the observed loss of mass from the Antarctic ice sheet over the past two decades. {4.3, 10.5}”
The IPCC AR5 report addresses the West Antarctica and Antarctica peninsula glaciers in considerable detail showing that these glaciers have been experiencing ice loss for decades, that the reasons behind this ice loss are associated with warming oceans and ice sheet internal variability in the region and that the causes for this ice loss behavior are unidentified and uncertain. Furthermore the IPCC acknowledges that the total Antarctica ice loss has not increased in the last two decades.
Additionally the IPCC AR5 WGI report also shows that the huge Eastern Antarctica area which is the largest ice mass region with 90% of the continents total ice mass, is in fact gaining ice mass by noting the following:
“The recent IMBIE analysis (Shepherd et al., 2012) shows that the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Antarctic Peninsula are losing mass at an increasing rate, but that East Antarctica gained an average of 21 ± 43 Gt yr–1 between 1992 and 2011. Zwally and Giovinetto (2011) also estimate a mass gain for East Antarctica (+16 Gt yr–1 between 1992 and 2001).” (4.4.2.3)
The UN IPCC AR5 WGI report doesn’t support at all and in fact offers clear scientific evidence to the contrary which both refutes and embarrasses the alarmist sea level rise claims made by the major news media and their “star” anchors concerning their ludicrous reporting on the latest Antarctica ice loss studies.
Thus we have the two new scientific studies themselves and the findings of the UN IPCC AR5 WGI report both of which completely debunk the alarmist baloney put on the air and in print by the “news” agencies regarding these most recent studies.
The news media really “blew it” and provided an astounding demonstration of their monumental political bias and climate science incompetence in their reporting about this Antarctica related climate story.
(1) http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/05/13/abc-cbs-and-nbc-freak-
out-over-melting-antarctic-ice-much-south-flori
(2) http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27381010
(3) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/13/the-media-over-hyped-the-west-antarcti
ca-climate-propaganda-reporting/
Well. How dare the ipcc have a contrarian view to the lames and to the lyin’king.
I take it Pelley and Williams are graduates of the Algore School of Global Warming,Carbon Credits and Sex Poodles.
The clowns at the L/MSM obviously are not going to stop, or change their positions on AGW issues.
Damn, I was going to score a killing on future ocean front property to buy in Framingham.
Water seeks a level if the sea level rises in
Antarctica, it will rise on all coasts as well!
When your aim is to cripple the industrialized world and transfer the wealth to turd world dictators, no lie is too big to tell.
Counting down 400 and something days til climate chaos.
Waiting for the retractions from these climate change cultists.....................
Sounds about right to me..
Still ice on Lake Superior – never before seen to this extent in the satellite era
SOUTH POLE
I saw this pic posted yesterday. Lots of cold still in Canada and the far north obviously.
oh come on... you don’t want folks to rely on data do you???
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