Robot Sub Finds Surprisingly Thick Antarctic Sea Ice

[Bill the Cat]

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/robot-sub-finds-surprisingly-thick-antarctic-sea-ice/ar-BBfC446

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating.

The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

© Copyright Original Source

[Cow Poke]

[Truthseeker]

Why should people be puzzled? The theory of anthropogenic global warming has not gained empirical ground for many years now.

[pancreasman]

Or, maybe, climate is a complex system with multiple factors:

here

and here

[shunyadragon]

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/robot-sub-finds-surprisingly-thick-antarctic-sea-ice/ar-BBfC446

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating.

The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

© Copyright Original Source

I seriously question this conclusion; 'According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming.' The Antarctica's climate is to a certain extent isolated by circular current around the main ice and land mass, and I do not believe that all climate models make this prediction in short term climate change. I will check some sources and be back.

I do know that certain areas of the Antarctica ice sheets and glaciers are melting faster then ever recorded in history. Checking sources.

[shunyadragon]

This source explains some of the impacts of rising air temperatures due to climate change.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140914211024.htm

Increased snowfall will not prevent the continued melting of glaciers in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, according to new research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

An international team of researchers, led by Dr Bethan Davies, from Royal Holloway, University of London, has discovered that small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula are highly vulnerable to slight changes in air temperature and may be at risk of disappearing within 200 years.

Temperatures are currently rising rapidly in the Antarctic Peninsula. Because warmer air holds more moisture, the amount of snowfall has also increased. Some researchers have suggested that this may offset the melting of the glaciers, however this study found that just a small rise in air temperature increased melting so much that even large amounts of extra snowfall could not prevent glacier recession.

"These small glaciers around the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula are likely to contribute most to rising sea levels over the coming decades, because they can respond quickly to climate change," said Dr Davies, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. "This study is the first to show how glaciers in this vulnerable region are likely to respond to climate change in future. Our findings demonstrate that the melting will increase greatly even with a slight rise in temperature, offsetting any benefits from increased snowfall."

The researchers carried out extensive fieldwork on James Ross Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula, to map and analyse the changes to a glacier, which is currently 4km long, over the past 10,000 years. They used a combination of glacier and climate modelling, glacial geology and ice-core data.

Dr Davies added: "Geological evidence from previous studies suggests that the glacier grew by 10km within the last 5,000 years, before shrinking back to its current position. It was argued that this occurred during a warmer but wetter period, suggesting that increased precipitation in the future would offset the melting of the glaciers. However, our study shows that this growth occurred during the colder 'Little Ice Age', reaching its largest size just 300 years ago."

Researcher Dr Nicholas Golledge, from Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, said: "This glacier, though small, is typical of many of the small glaciers that end on land around the Antarctic Peninsula. This research is important, because it helps reduce some of the uncertainties about how these glaciers will react to changing temperature and precipitation over the next two centuries."

Professor Neil Glasser, from Aberystwyth University, added: "We found that this glacier remained roughly the same size for thousands of years until it started to grow again 1,500 years ago. However, it is now melting faster than anything seen before, and over the next 200 years will become far smaller than at any point over the last 10,000 years. This unprecedented glacier recession, in response to climate change, will result in significant contributions to sea level rise from this and similar Antarctic Peninsula mountain glaciers and ice caps."

© Copyright Original Source

Journal Reference:
1.Bethan J. Davies, Nicholas R. Golledge, Neil F. Glasser, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Stefan R. M. Ligtenberg, Nicholas E. Barrand, Michiel R. van den Broeke, Michael J. Hambrey, John L. Smellie. Modelled glacier response to centennial temperature and precipitation trends on the Antarctic Peninsula. Nature Climate Change, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2369

University of Royal Holloway London. "Glaciers in northern Antarctic Peninsula melting faster than ever despite increased snowfall." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 September 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140914211024.htm>.

[shunyadragon]

Also note the reference in your own source highlighted;

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techno...ice/ar-BBfC446
Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating.
The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

This likely due to rising air temperatures due to climate change as in the other source I cited.

Further review of more literature on the subject concludes that the sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph [italics] is an msn editorial remark and not from the original research article, and other articles as;

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/.../22093036.html.

[shunyadragon]

Or, maybe, climate is a complex system with multiple factors:

here

and here

I just read your sources, and they confirm my conclusions and references.

[rwatts]

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/robot-sub-finds-surprisingly-thick-antarctic-sea-ice/ar-BBfC446

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating.

The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

© Copyright Original Source

With respect to your last point about the ice sheet, there is also this:-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...imate-changes/

To my mind, part of the problem is that we can measure minute changes in this and that, all over the globe these days and as a result we are very senstive to the meaning of very small changes hear and there.

I'd like to think that the skeptics are correct, but simply don't see how that can be so. We are taking an ancient atmosphere and pumping it back into the sky. It goes somewhere. And with the average wealth of people on the globe increasing all the time (which is, I think, a very good thing), we need to do something to counter the bad side affects that are associated with this improvement.

It's not just the potential for global warming that is the problem, but also it's the changes we are making to the surface of our planet and how it adds to or subtacts from that potential.

[shunyadragon]

There are overlapping climate cycles that follow warming and cooling trends. These cycles over lap. We are in a long term warming trend,that is on a paleoclimate scale older then possible human influence on climate change. Pretty much all the models indicate we are warming faster then normal based on a natural model. The other problem is we can experience cooling trends within the over all warming trend. The other complicating climate change is that there is a drying trend of the mesic and semiarid regions of the world where our major agriculture regions of the world. Based on recent data these regions are drying faster then the natural trend.

The problem is regardless of whether human influence is real or to what extent it is real, the natural trends of climate change is enough to upset the apple cart, our food supply.

[Cow Poke]

There are overlapping climate cycles that follow warming and cooling trends. These cycles over lap.

I'm guessing that's why they call them overlapping climate cycles? Because they over lap?

[Cow Poke]

The problem is regardless of whether human influence is real or to what extent it is real, the natural trends of climate change is enough to upset the apple cart, our food supply.

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

[phank]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

So your position is that if humans ARE not influencing the climate, therefore humans CAN not influence the climate. I don't think that conclusion necessarily follows. Instead, I think it's entirely possible for human activities to influence climate.

Meanwhile, even the skeptics must admit that human activities are puffing billions of tons more CO2 into the atmosphere each year than are being absorbed (this is the NET increase), and have increased the (admittedly small) percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% and climbing. The AGW folks have been trying to determine what all that CO2 is actually doing, while their opponents take the position that if what it's all doing is not obvious, therefore it's not doing anything and can be ignored.

So we have the practical question: are human activities influencing climate? And the answer seems to be very clearly in the affirmative. And as the old joke has it, if it hurts when we do that, then stop doing that.

I think it's of purely academic interest to wonder what humans might do if they are NOT influencing the climate, but for other reasons climate is changing in ways we don't like. Personally, I think if humans perceived a vested interest in managing the climate, they'd do so. If they perceived (as they do now) a vested interest in denying the effects of their behavior (which would help our grandchildren at the expense of today's profits, a tradeoff NEVER made), they'd probably go ahead and try to increase profits by managing the climate.

Currently, this seems to be the bottom line. If admitting a problem promises to boost profits, DO something. If admitting a problem promises to reduce profits, deny the problem.

[Cow Poke]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

So your position is that if humans ARE not influencing the climate, therefore humans CAN not influence the climate.

I didn't STATE a position. Perhaps you failed to notice the QUESTION MARK?

[pancreasman]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

I have a physics degree, but I don't understand climate science. It's very complex. As with any subject I don't fully understand my default position is to go with strong consensus of scientists trained and working in that field. Could they be wrong? Possibly. But the alternative is to ignore sound advice. Is climate change not at least contributed to by the actions of humanity? Possibly. But if we do nothing, then again we ignore that sound advice. On something as critical as the climate on our only planet, I think we'd be foolish not to take action if only 'just in case'. Our children and grandchildren deserve at least that.