Natural variability rules in Antarctica. Scientists identify clouds, wind, and localized solar heating – not CO2 – as the factors driving ice melt. Rising CO2 leads to Antarctic cooling.
Image Source: Lüning et al. 2019
Antarctica rapidly cooling in recent decades
In a review of the scientific literature, Lüning et al. 2019 report Antarctica as a whole has undergone a cooling trend in recent decades.
The Antarctic Peninsula has cooled at a rate of -0.5°C per decade since the late 1990s.
West Antarctica as a whole has “slightly cooled” (or the warming has “plateaued”) over the past two decades.
East Antarctica “has not experienced any significant temperature change since the 1950s” with ice sheet mass gains and cooling during the past 15 years.
Rising CO2 leads to Antarctic cooling
Antarctica contains about 90% of the world’s ice.
Because the continent averages -28.2°C in summer and -60°C in winter, inducing even partial retreat for an ice sheet that averages 2.3 kilometers in height would require a substantial amount of heat energy.
This effectively rules out a significant human influence.
According to scientists, raising CO2 concentrations does not even lead to warming in Antarctica. Actually, scientists find Antarctica cools in response to rising CO2 concentrations, which means we humans may be contributing more to ice mass gains than to losses.
Image Source: Schmithüsen et al., 2015
Natural variability – clouds, wind, localized solar heating – drive Antarctic ice melt
The surface melting of portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has received quite a bit of attention in media circles, often accompanied by scary warnings of ice sheet collapse and catastrophic sea level rise.
For example, Dr. James Hansen – admitting his doomsday predictions are tendentiously designed to be “persuasive” – has claimed sea levels will rise by 10 feet by 2065 mostly due to Antarctic ice sheet melt.
Image Source: Slate
These harrowing warnings often seem to arise in response to observations of glacier calving events – large glaciers fissuring and breaking off from the ice sheet.
But glaciologists know that calving events are indicative of ice sheet thickening, not thinning. Glaciers calve when the ice accumulation has become so heavy and thick that the base of the ice sheet can no longer bear the load.
Image Source: Christmann et al., 2016
Yes, portions of Antarctica are undergoing ice melt. But ice sheet recession and advancement are both natural. And modern ice melt is well within the range of what occurs naturally for Antarctica.
Indeed, as Jones et al. (2016) conclude, natural variability “overwhelms” any forced response in satellite era trend observations.
Image Source: Jones et al., 2016
In two new papers, scientists identify the natural mechanisms driving the recession of some of West Antarctica’s glaciers in recent decades.
Scott et al. (2019) conclude surface melt is driven by wind currents and downwelling longwave radiation from clouds.
Stewart et al. (2019) find localized solar heating of surface water can explain melting in small portions of the Ross Ice Shelf.
Considering the total Antarctic meltwater contribution to sea level rise may only amount to 0.34 of a centimeter since 1958 (Frederikse et al., 2018), it is quite reasonable to conclude that nothing unusual, unprecedented, or concerning is occurring in Antarctica that could be said to fall outside the range of natural variability.
Image Source: Scott et al. (2019)
This is bullshit. Four of the references cited are the author of this very article. Stop propagating lies.
Shawn,
And your problem with the content of the papers is what exactly?
“Stop propagating lies.”
Where are these ‘lies’ that you claim?
“Four of the references cited are the author of this very article.”
So What! Are not each of these papers independent research papers in their own right?
Or are you just here to attempt to disparage the authors of all these papers?
Or maybe this comment of yours, Shawn, is just a smear from you because you can not find anything SCIENTIFICALLY wrong with these papers?
Either way you Shawn sound very childish with your puerile comment.
James E. Hanson, climate activist extraordinaire cites himself 10 times in this publication.
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pdf
It’s done all the time, and is perfectly legitimate. That is not what makes a paper right or wrong.
Thank you, Shawn, for playing, and better luck next time.
Kenneth, you’ve outdone yourself. Really 😉
You do know who this Lüning guy is, right? I’d be very skeptical about anything they (him and Vahrenholt) put out in the wild.
So you imagine warming something up from -30°C to say -25°C doesn’t have an effect on the total ice mass?
How is it then that Antarctica is losing six times more ice mass per year than a few decades ago? (or another paper about the ice loss)
How is that the existence of one glacier basically holds back lots of interior ice and this glacier is melting and could trigger quite a lot of ice melt?
You aren’t getting tired of repeating that falsehood, aren’t you. That’s not what they found. Please stop this gross misinterpretation …
Antarctica rapidly cooling in recent decades
There are 26 peer-reviewed scientific papers cited that support this literature-review conclusion (yellow-highlighted introductory paragraph). None of these 26 papers were authored by Dr. Luning.
Does a <0 to 1 Wm-2 CO2 "forcing" cause Antarctica's temperatures to warm up by 5°C? Where was "doesn't have an effect" written?
With the recent cooling onset, Antarctica is colder today than most of the last 2,000 years.
Let’s see what this “six times more ice mass per year” represents: over 26 years, Antarctica has lost 0.0004% of its total mass. It would take over 250,000 years to melt all the ice at this rate.🙄
And then when we consider Antarctica has been cooling, and that natural factors – wind, cloud, solar radiation – are responsible for melting, the narrative takes a rather vicious hit.
Keep on trying to alarm people, SebastianH. It’s really working.
This has been debunked several times before. Cherry picking information to suit your interest isn’t scientific. The cooling trend is temporary. The West Antarctic has already reversed, and the peninsula isn’t far behind. The article the author cited even says the cooling data in the West Antarctic contradicts itself many times. Temporary cooling happens, but the general trend is still towards warming. 20 years of cooling doesn’t negate 50+ years of warming. You all pride yourselves on the shreds of evidence against, no matter how shaky, and ignore the mounds of evidence in favor.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2098187-one-part-of-antarctica-has-been-cooling-since-1998-heres-why/amp/
“This has been debunked several times before.”
Hardly!
How is “COOLING” to be understood as global warming ? Don’t you think it is time to quit lying? Bill
[…] Read more at No Tricks Zone […]
The surface layer of the 45 def S Southern Oceanhave cooled over the last 3 decades.
For as long as I have been looking at global SSTs, there has been a persistent cold anomaly around Antarctica. This is rarely discussed for some strange reason. It could be the most important climate fact on earth. Antarctica led the earth into the Holocene interglacial, and it will probably lead us out of it as well.
Because the continent averages -28.2°C in summer and -60°C in winter, inducing even partial retreat for an ice sheet that averages 2.3 kilometers in height would require a substantial amount of heat energy.
This effectively rules out a human influence.
This is actually silly, and spoils the impact of an otherwise well reasoned and accurate article. Antarctica is not performing as scripted for the alarmists.
What’s silly?
I’ve edited it to “a significant human influence” since any influence above 0, even if 0.00000000000001 K, is still an influence.
Kenneth
The line, “This effectively rules out a human influence” does not follow logically from the preceding paragraph. For several reasons. Yes Antarctica is cold – below zero on average all year round. But this does not mean that ice cannot melt since warmer seawater can cause ice loss. Just theoretically – I don’t actually see evidence that this is happening. Also what happens at the base of the ice is not necessarily much affected by surface conditions. (This is a fact that warmists fail to understand. They cling to data pointing to mass loss in Antarctica, e.g. from unreliable GRACE satellite gravity measurements, not realizing that it is irrelevant. Climate and glacial status is determined by what happens at the SURFACE. What happens at the base of Antarctic ice is academic geology only. At the surface Antarctica is cooling and so is the surrounding ocean and the warmists want to distract attention from this.)
There has been a degree or so of warming in the last century. This might be 100% human caused, or zero % human caused, or something in between. The human causation or non human causation of this warming makes no difference to what is happening in Antarctica. The question of how much energy would theoretically be needed to melt Antarctic ice substantially, is not logically connected with the question of recent rather trivial climate change human caused or of natural origin (as if humans aren’t “natural” !!?)
Just a minor quibble really.
The comment about the extent of a human influence on the Antarctic ice sheet follows directly after the conclusion from the Schmithusen et al. (2015) paper that says the CO2 influence in Antarctica amounts to <0 to 1 Wm-2. It would not appear this is significant enough energy to melt an ice sheet the size of Antarctica.
Huybrechts and Oerlemans, 1990
http://epic.awi.de/1461/1/Huy1990c.pdf
“According to this mass balance model, the amount of accumulation over the entire ice sheet is presently 24.06 x 1011 m3 of ice, and no runoff takes place. A 1°C uniform warming is then calculated to increase the overall mass balance by an amount of 1.43 1011 m3 of ice, corresponding to a lowering of sea level with 0.36 mm/yr. A temperature increase of 5.3° C is needed for the increase in ablation to become more important than the increase in accumulation and the temperature would have to rise by 11.4°C to produce a zero surface mass balance. Imposing the Bellagio-scenario and accumulating changes in mass balance forward in time (static response) would then lower global sea level by 9 cm by 2100 AD.”
Give hope and but certainly not falsehoods….these are propagandas by large companies who are affected by the great green drive….guys we all know we are responsible for what we have have done … responsible enough to change it to back beautiful cool planet home…only because of our ancestors didn’t have any idea of they were actually doing to this world… to us…well future depends on us changing it cause past has already set a catastrophic future…
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
@Pierre
You must be doing something right, because there has been a surge in the troll infestation of late, each one loopier than then last. Loungerat’s meaningless doublespeak platitudes, however, may be slightly more banal than the rest, at least so far.
Indeed Yonason, Pierre must be very close to the target.
I wonder if Loungerat’s “great green drive” is the not the same as (or very similar to) Chairman Mao Zedong ‘great leap forward’. We should all know and understand what a failure that was.
The outstanding thing about these cAGW advocates is their illogical over-emotionalism and hysteria, mistaking how things are for how they feel about how things are. It’s that they’re a failure, and it is their failure. Their failure to seek out and understand weather/climate history that enables such an irrational perspective on what is now observed.
Previously I’d have advised them to read http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/climatehistory.pdf (a 1.3MB pdf) to put a little perspective in their thinking but it’s now worthless as these day too many of them are too deeply into the cAGW cult.
“Great Green Drive,” “Great LEAP Forward;” same difference
Interesting link you have there. Lots of material contradicting the narrative of an idyllic past prior to modern times. Thanks.
Caught off their guard
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/icebreaker-headed-for-north-pole-turned-back-by-thicker-ice-than-expected/
When can we expect them to say “We meant to do that. An increase in arctic ice is just what we expect in a warming world.”?
Just what they said about snow, when it wasn’t disappearing like they predicted. Give them a minute to concoct a similar lie about ice.
All those inmates on the ship of fools to explore nonexistent new ice free routes seem to be fishing for a Darwin prize. One doesn’t know whether to wish them luck or not.
“Antarctica cools in response to rising CO2 concentrations, which means we humans may be contributing more to ice mass gains than to losses.”
Keep that quiet!
GLOBAL DROUGHT! LOSS OF ALL MARINE SPECIES! BURN THAT COAL!
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