Posted on 11/19/2006 3:51:00 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s
Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Wingham, D.J., Shepherd, A., Muir, A. and Marshall, G.J.
What was done The authors "analyzed 1.2 x 108 European remote sensing satellite altimeter echoes to determine the changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2003." This survey, in their words, "covers 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet," which together comprise "72% of the grounded ice sheet.""
What was learned Wingham et al. report that "overall, the data, corrected for isostatic rebound, show the ice sheet growing at 5 ± 1 mm year-1." To calculate the ice sheet's change in mass, however, "requires knowledge of the density at which the volume changes have occurred," and when the researchers' best estimates of regional differences in this parameter are used, they find that "72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27 ± 29 Gt year-1, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower [authors' italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm year-1." This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica."
What it means Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more.
Oh man. That's funny.
WE ARE DOOOOOMEED... no wait..
Could it be that...Earth is in a balance? Warmer in some places and colder in others? In a natural cycle? Hey, there's a catchy book title in there somewhere.
Good grief, doesn't he know about white loafers after Labor Day?!
Does this mean the "Neocon Slaughter of the Baby Seal Week" will last longer?
I'm psyched.
Including, if we are to believe what he says, John McCain.
The sky is...........still there.
I like the guy. I respect him. I would not put him in charge.
Maybe we can provide government assistance to those who can't buy them...
Nah, I got a new (used, but new to me) snowboard. I'm ready, BRING IT ON! :-)
a chilly bump. . .
"Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga.
So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama,
hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know."
And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed,
you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. "
You CAN'T confuse the left with facts. The left, simply, won't hear any actual facts.
LOL!
"The ice age is comeing."
Yup...and the ice age is caused by global warming.
Antarctica is a world apart. Greenland's ice sheet is a much better bellwether.
The Antarctic Ice Sheet and Climate Change
This is a downloadable document with lots of abstracts and references. I've copied one of the most pertinent below:
Wild, M., et al. 2003. Effects of polar ice sheets on global sea level in high-resolution greenhouse scenarios. Journal of Geophysical Research, 108(D5), 4165, doi:10.1029/2002JD002451. (Authors' abstract, modified.)
"Projections of future global sea level critically depend on reliable estimates of mass balance changes on the polar ice sheets. A model of greenhouse warming with doubled carbon-dioxide concentration suggests an increase in snow accumulation on both Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. There is an increase in summertime melting on Greenland, but it amounts to less than the snowfall increase. Antarctica is still too cold for significant melting. The experiment with doubled carbon-dioxide concentration thus suggests a mass gain in both Antarctica and Greenland. These mass balance shifts correspond to a net sea level lowering of 1.2 millimeters per year at the time of doubled carbon-dioxide. This may compensate for a substantial fraction of the melt-induced sea level rise from smaller glaciers and ice caps, leaving thermal expansion of the ocean as the dominant factor for sea level rise over the coming decades. The compensating effect, however, could fade if carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise above double the present values, since the additional climatic warming could then induce significant melting of the Antarctic ice sheet."
I will also note that this projection on Greenland may be incorrect; the more recent data analyses published (autumn of this year) indicates that melting is exceeding accumulation.
bookmark for later
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