More on the Thwaites Glacier

In State of the Climate in 2019, glacier expert Mauri Pelto reported that the pace of glacier loss has accelerated from -171 millimeters (6.7 inches) per year in the 1980s, to -460 millimeters (11 inches) per year in the 1990s, to -500 millimeters (1.6 feet) per year in the 2000s, to -889 millimeters (2.9 feet) per year for the 2000s. In many parts of the world—including the western United States, South America, China, and India—glaciers are frozen reservoirs that provide a reliable water supply each summer to hundreds of millions of people and the natural ecosystems on which they depend. Their accelerating retreat poses major challenges for people and nature.

1643584437761.png

 
Here is the true picture for Greenland and Antarctica even with the melting factored in.

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Alarmists keep posting scary-looking graphs of the loss of polar ice, like this one of Antarctica.

1643651970940.png


Or this one, from Greenland.
1643651994726.png


Those look totally frightening and emergency-like … until you realize that they ignore the reality of just how much ice there is in those locations. Here are the corresponding changes in total ice mass for the two locations.

1643651828368.png


1643651842341.png


In fact, a recent study in Nature Magazine says “The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.”

Despite all the hype and all the alarmism about how a melting Antarctica was going to raise sea levels by 20 feet (6 metres) and flood the world, Antarctica Has. Not. Warmed. In. The. Last. Seven. Decades.

What about the widely-hyped reduction in Arctic sea ice? Turns out that it’s been matched by a widely-unhyped increase in Antarctic sea ice, so the total global sea ice area is currently right at the long-term average of 18 million square kilometers. No change in the 43 years of records, we’re back where we started. See here for more details.

1643652137197.png


LINK

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This paper from NATURE might help you sleep better tonight:

Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet orography

 
NATURE open access

From Communication Earth and Environment:

Ricarda Dziadek, Fausto Ferraccioli, Karsten Gohl

Published: 18 August 2021

High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data​


Abstract​

Geothermal heat flow in the polar regions plays a crucial role in understanding ice-sheet dynamics and predictions of sea level rise. Continental-scale indirect estimates often have a low spatial resolution and yield largest discrepancies in West Antarctica. Here we analyse geophysical data to estimate geothermal heat flow in the Amundsen Sea Sector of West Antarctica. With Curie depth analysis based on a new magnetic anomaly grid compilation, we reveal variations in lithospheric thermal gradients. We show that the rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pope glaciers in particular are underlain by areas of largely elevated geothermal heat flow, which relates to the tectonic and magmatic history of the West Antarctic Rift System in this region. Our results imply that the behavior of this vulnerable sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is strongly coupled to the dynamics of the underlying lithosphere.

LINK for the rest with detailed charts

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It is made clear that Volcanoes are a major factor in their melting history.
 

Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ glacier: how its collapse could trigger global floods and swallow islands​

December 22, 2021 by Climate To

The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice.
Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be coastline-changing amounts. For context, there’s been around 20cm of sea-level rise since 1900, an amount that is already forcing coastal communities out of their homes and exacerbating environmental problems such as flooding, saltwater contamination and habitat loss.

But the worry is that Thwaites, sometimes called the “doomsday glacier” because of its keystone role in the region, might not be the only glacier to go. Were it to empty into the ocean, it could trigger a regional chain reaction and drag other nearby glaciers in with it, which would mean several metres of sea-level rise. That’s because the glaciers in West Antarctica are thought to be vulnerable to a mechanism called Marine Ice Cliff Instability or MICI, where retreating ice exposes increasingly tall, unstable ice cliffs that collapse into the ocean.

A sea level rise of several metres would inundate many of the world’s major cities – including Shanghai, New York, Miami, Tokyo and Mumbai. It would also cover huge swathes of land in coastal regions and largely swallow up low-lying island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives....

`
 

Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ glacier: how its collapse could trigger global floods and swallow islands​

December 22, 2021 by Climate To

The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice.
Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be coastline-changing amounts. For context, there’s been around 20cm of sea-level rise since 1900, an amount that is already forcing coastal communities out of their homes and exacerbating environmental problems such as flooding, saltwater contamination and habitat loss.

But the worry is that Thwaites, sometimes called the “doomsday glacier” because of its keystone role in the region, might not be the only glacier to go. Were it to empty into the ocean, it could trigger a regional chain reaction and drag other nearby glaciers in with it, which would mean several metres of sea-level rise. That’s because the glaciers in West Antarctica are thought to be vulnerable to a mechanism called Marine Ice Cliff Instability or MICI, where retreating ice exposes increasingly tall, unstable ice cliffs that collapse into the ocean.

A sea level rise of several metres would inundate many of the world’s major cities – including Shanghai, New York, Miami, Tokyo and Mumbai. It would also cover huge swathes of land in coastal regions and largely swallow up low-lying island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives....

`

Yawn this shit gets posted every year for scaremongering purposes.

:cuckoo:
 
But it's all about who's not winning! :up:

Only unserious people are obsessed with things like glaciers. Most have no real responsibilities in life. For a huge majority of the public, they are waaaaaay too busy to be concerned about silly shit like glacier melt.:backpedal:

The Glacier shelf is in the water already thus very little effect to sea level rise.
 
Yep, a lot of halfwits don't care about it.

I see that clipper wants to worry over a glacial shelf that is already in the water does that mean YOU are the halfwit who falls for a non-emergency media generated scaremongering.

Now that the usual climate gooks ran away quickly after their typical yearly worry over a glacier that isn't a threat to the planet was smashed what will they cry over their ice cubes in their Vodka drink?
 
I see that clipper wants to worry over a glacial shelf that is already in the water does that mean YOU are the halfwit who falls for a non-emergency media generated scaremongering.

Now that the usual climate gooks ran away quickly after their typical yearly worry over a glacier that isn't a threat to the planet was smashed what will they cry over their ice cubes in their Vodka drink?

They don't get that the "half wits" are the overwhelming majority :coffee: Nothing else matters.

These rubes might as well be sitting in some enclave in Siberia screaming "fire". Nobody listening to them.

I'll embrace the half wit moniker all day, every day. I like winning
 

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