Only a few thousand years ago, when CO2 levels were both stable and low (~265 ppm), the (1) Arctic had far less ice and more vegetation than it does now and (2) the massive rate of ice melt in Antarctica rendered modern melt rates negligible by comparison.
A new study (Cherezova et al., 2020) reveals that until about 6,500 years ago Bolshevik Island in the Russian High Arctic brimmed with grass, birch and willow trees, and large herbivores grazing on grass year-round. At that time sea levels were rising at rates of 7.9 mm/yr, which is more than 5 times faster than the global sea level rise trend since 1958 (~1.4 mm/yr, Frederikse et al., 2018).
Today this same High Arctic island is treeless with “very scarce vegetation.” It is locked in sea ice and mean annual temperatures only reach -13°C, which is a “similar climate to the Lateglacial.” Modern climate warming “is not observed” in either the meteorological or ice core data (Tvyordoe Lake) for this region. The ice caps are today about the same size as they were during the peak of the last ice age (~20,000 years ago).
Image Source: Cherezova et al., 2020
Another new study (Jones et al., 2020) reveals that from about 7,500 to 4,500 years ago, when CO2 was about 150 ppm lower than today, Antarctica’s Ross Sea glaciers abruptly lost 220 meters (!) of ice surface height. This ice loss – at times reaching >400 cm per year – occurred throughout the region regardless of the topography. This strongly implies the “overarching external driver” of the glacier retreat was an ocean warming trend.
The authors point out that the ice surface lowering may have “continued below the present-day glacier surface,” only to advance again during the last few hundred years.
Image Source: Jones et al., 2020
A recent study (Sinclair et al., 2012) indicates the sea surface temperatures in this region (western Ross Sea) have been rapidly cooling (-1.59°C/decade) since 1979, and there has been no net ocean warming since 1882.
Image Source: Sinclair et al., 2012
Still another study from this region (Yokoyama et al., 2016) corroborates a “widespread collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf” between 5,000 and 1,500 years ago. Modern melting rates are the slowest in the last 5,000 years and there was “much warmer water beneath the ice shelf at 5 ka compared with the present.”
These studies strongly imply modern polar climate changes and ice melt rates in both hemispheres are neither unprecedented or unusual. In fact, if there is anything anomalous about today’s polar climates, it’s that they are colder and ice melt is less pronounced than just about any time in the last 8,000 years.
Interesting studies. Thanks.
Back when “plate tectonics” was being worked out (prior to the internet) it took a long time for the explanation to be in a publicly accessible form (in Scientific American Magazine). Good science, and it has continued to be investigated, improved, and used.
The “climate” issue has the problem of having been converted into a religion-like phenomenon.
Research, such as you are presenting, is helping to explain the dynamic Earth – – but isn’t of much interest to those that have accepted the CO2 narrative as an axiom.
Consider that Johnson in the UK and Biden (USA) are moving forcibly to promote green solutions to a situation neither understands. Automobile companies are spending trillions to produce electric vehicles, causing an environmental “cost” only apparent to those that seek to understand. Wind and solar facilities are treated likewise.
I do, however, find the history of science fascinating. Mathematics, chemistry, and physics have provided interesting reading.
The science of Earth dynamics (atmosphere, ocean, and such), as you find and report, is an immediate interest.
Seems media and governments have accepted the axiom of CO2, and moved on.
Sad.
One late evening I arrived at the gate of my farm lodgings only to find the gate shut and a few cows behind it. I knew the farmer wanted to keep them in but they were often allowed out in the daytime and there were other fences and cattle grids around. I decided to put the car front up against the gate, then open it and drive in. I assumed the cows knew my intentions and understood.
The cows had other ideas. I tried to block them with my door, then I got out and tried to stand in their way, and reason with them. One cow stuck its head in the passengers window and tried to lick my son’s face – he screamed!
The distance between the hire car body and the gate post was less than the width of the fattest cows – I saw a large bill coming my way as well as fat and heavy cows.
It was then that I realised how much bigger and stronger a cow was than me. They wouldn’t listen to me and go back. They just kept coming!
I had no choice – I had to let them out.
The reason for me remembering this story is the above message from John.
There are some battles you can’t win, even with all your strength, though it is sad and disappointing, when a mass of dumb creatures want to go in the wrong direction, you just have to let them go. Like lemmings and cliff diving walruses, you have to let them go.
Meanwhile, a new record of daily mass accumulation has been set for the period in Groenland :
http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/surface/SMB_curves_LA_EN_20201109.png
Sadly for alamists, a warmer arctic does not mean less snow accumulation in Groenland.
The physics is simple.
Very cold air will allow only a very little water vapor to move along with it.
Warmer air – more water vapor – will move into a colder region and the H2O will condense. Just moving up-slope causing cooling.
thanks for the sharing
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