Earth Growing Due to Melting Glaciers

Dr. Shim writes "Some interesting (and rather frightening) news over at Space.com tells that the Earth is growing around the equator due to the fact that ice in the Antarctic (and other areas) is melting at an alarming rate."

Comments

not growing, changing shape

[real_smiff]

there's a difference, ya know! :)

(i read TFA)

Slower?

[digitect]

Will this make days longer?

Just as figure ice skater retract their arms closer to their axis of rotation to go faster, and spread them out to slow down, won't this have the same effect on the earth's rotation? If so, it should then be measurable, proving or disproving the claim.

Re:Alarmists...

[FlyingOrca]

Yeah, it's definitely you. And a whole bunch of other people who have bought the "it's too early to tell" line.

I used to live on the shores of Hudson Bay, and the ice used to break up at the end of June/early July. It's happening a lot earlier now. The result? Polar bears are losing weight and dying more often because they can't hunt as long. Things don't look good for the Hudson Bay bear population.

Or let's look at another species - murres. Twenty years ago, they mostly fed on arctic cod they found under the sea ice. Now they are feeding more on capelin because the cod, apparently, are getting harder to find.

A few years back, my folks were some of the biologists on an expedition to chart the surface heat budget of the Arctic Ocean. The idea was to drive a Canadian icebreaker into the ice pack and freeze it in for over a year, then use it as a research platform. They expected no trouble finding thick ice.

Much to the surprise and alarm of pretty much all of those involved, they couldn't find ice thicker than about 2 metres. This is a hugely significant change.

Climate change is not a theory, it's a reality, and more evidence is showing up every day. And it's not going to be pretty for a lot of species, and a lot of fragile ecosystems, and ultimately - I suspect - for ourselves.

Bad Reporting

[penguiniator]

The article you cite (which was published over a year ago) starts by saying, "Accelerated melting of Earth's glaciers in recent years has forced the planet to let a notch out of its belt as its midsection gains girth, according to a study released today."

The only source linked by the author of that article says, "They considered that ice melting at the poles and raising the overall sea level could be the culprit. Calculations showed, however, that 'you would have to drop a 10x10x5 kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years.' Separate measurements of sea surface height from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon mission don't support this scenario."

The article concludes by tempering its opening assertion. "Dickey cautioned that the study is not entirely conclusive, as the changes in sea level are measured in millimeters and represent a "daunting task" that requires numerous corrections to account for various known factors, such as natural short-term fluctuations."

So it is conceded that glacial melting cannot account for the few millimeter changes in sea level observed, and that they don't know enough to conclude that it is anything more than a natural short-term fluctuation. Once again, "journalists" are inflating the conclusions of scientists and alarming the public with no more justification than a desire to sell a weekly rag.

So tell us. Why are you bothering to bring up an article published more than a year ago as though it were breaking news?