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ESA's Cryosat Mission Sees Antarctic Ice Losses Double

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-getting-hot-in-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with news that seems to confirm the alarming reports last week about Antarctic ice melting. "The new assessment comes from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet. The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year. Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (abstract). The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010. Cryosat has been using its altimeter to trace changes in the height of the ice sheet — as it gains mass through snowfall, and loses mass through melting."

37 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. 0.43 mm per year, eh? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, sea level rise will be a bit less than two inches by 2100?

    And nearly 3.5 inches by 2200?

    As a result of Antarctic ice melting, of course.

    Color me unworried. I wasn't terribly impressed when people were talking a foot this century - a sixth of that is a complete yawner as far as threats go....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    1. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hey, illiterate, that is simply from one source not the entire source of sea levels rising.

    2. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by WhiteZook · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, there's more than just Antarctic ice melting, but more importantly, it is likely that the melting rate will accelerate as the planet keeps warming.

    3. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The big secret(I don't know why it's a secret) is that melting ice has never been the biggest source of sea level change from climate change. Never. Contrary to what most people learn in middle school science classes, temperature does affect slightly the volume of liquids, and the increasing temperature of the deep ocean drive changes in volume. Tiny fraction decreases in the density of water might not seem like much, but it adds up to a lot more than a little melting sea ice when the average depth of the ocean is 2.4 kilometers.

    4. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by geekoid · · Score: 2

      Just from that alone. also, it has doubles it's spead since last observed.

      A loss of all the ice in the six glaciers would add about 1.2m to global sea level.

      This is still a small fraction of the total sea-level potential of Antarctica, which holds something like 26.5 million cubic km ice (or 58m of sea-level rise equivalent).

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by WhiteZook · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, this recent study claims that in the years 2005-2011, contribution from melting ice was 3 times as high as thermal expansion of the oceans: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/jou...

    6. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Interesting. So... I have to admit I made a factual error in my post.

      I shouldn't have used the word "never", it was apparently quite hyperbolic.

    7. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      Hey, at least its real data that hasn't been blown completely out of proportion. Normally a story like this would have a headline that read "Noah back from the dead to rebuild Ark! God said he wouldn't do it again but now he's just mad at republicans!" etc...

    8. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think anyone was suggesting it was going to be total devastation since before "Waterworld" came out, but you should be asking "How much of my tax dollars are going to be spent on things like disaster relief after more levees and such break" or "How much more expensive is food going to get because all the good farmland is in floodplains that are now going to have higher insurance premiums for flooding?" Because the answer is going to be more than you want even if you're smug that your house is more than a few inches above sea level.

    9. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, see, only government intervention can harm an economy. It's right there in their political philosophy, so it must be a true.

    10. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by sycodon · · Score: 2

      Whack all the gauges with a hammer into the mud an inch or so. There's a lot of them, but it'd be funny as hell.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    11. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by bigpat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This implies that stopping greenhouse emissions cold turkey doesn't have real costs that outweigh the potential problems you cite. So far all the solutions that are proposed by the most active main stream environmentalists like cap and trade or solar and wind build outs either won't make a dent in Global Climate Change and/or taken as holistic solutions would cause massive disruptions to the economy with some very negative consequences that would very likely outweigh the benefits.

      In the US, we have spent the last 40 years on conservation and pollution controls and the result has been an export of much of our industrial base to China where they pollute more freely with a coal based economy and then ship back those cheaper goods on great big ships, trains and trucks. Has it even made a dent Globally or just moved the problems of pollution to China? Possibly, that historic movement of production partly based on cheap labor, but also partly based on US environmentalism, has even accelerated CO2 emissions. Certainly, the US is somewhat less polluted especially in some urban and downwind areas which is good. But thinking Globally means we can't just think of short term localized benefits when we tally up the good and the bad for the bottom line.

      We could be 100% greenhouse free in 20 years if we embraced a mix of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and most importantly nuclear. But without nuclear it is going to be fracked Natural Gas, Oil and Coal providing the majority of our base load for our electric grid and the majority of fuel for our cars and trucks. The good news is that natural gas is less polluting than coal and oil and might fill the gap and slow down CO2 emissions while we reassess our collective priorities, but the bad news for Global Climate change is that a change to natural gas from oil and coal just slows down Global Warming a bit and it isn't a longer term solution and we will be back to coal not too long after that if we don't get to a more sustainable energy system.

      If people on all sides get serious about Global Climate change and want to slam on the breaks to try and simply lock in a few feet of sea level rise and some slightly warmer temperatures in the next three hundred years, then the way to do that is with a tripling of nuclear power capacity with existing technology and much bigger multi-Billion dollar investments in new nuclear power technologies, along with some solar and wind power to supplement.

      Otherwise much of what many in the environmental movement have been talking about for the last few decades has been a meaningless distraction from the engineers task of making more efficient use of our resources to support the largest population in human history as best we can. Both sides need to get real if we are going to make the world a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable place for billions of people.

    12. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by WhiteZook · · Score: 2

      I bet climate scientists will be shocked to hear water can also evaporate. I'm sure nobody has ever considered that. You'd better start working on your Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

    13. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by Ambitwistor · · Score: 2

      They're talking about melting LAND ice, not SEA ice. Compare sea levels today to those at the Last Glacial Maximum (~120 meters lower), and ask yourself where the extra water came from.

    14. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by geekoid · · Score: 2

      ", snow packs and back on a glacier"
      it does not do that if it is too warm. There will be no ice packs. we will have snow for awhile, but it won't stay through the year.

      Funny how idiots never mention that.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    15. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by dryeo · · Score: 2

      Our species has evolved to live in this cold climate and if it gets back to 30+ degrees celsius ocean temperatures near the poles we may have problems

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  2. I REMEMBER FLORIDA by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not fondly, of course...

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  3. Re:Do as the rich do by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The rich aren't actually doing that. Contrary to common belief, rich people are not actually more insightful and aware of things than your typical well-educated person. There isn't a conspiracy to exploit the results of climate change. Why bother when everything is based on next quarters' earnings anyways?

  4. And when you put shiny metals... by sideslash · · Score: 2

    on your head, it protects you from the mind control of the lizard people.

  5. Gobal... What About Local? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Averaged global increase isn't that interesting. How about better information on local changes. Which areas will be effected the most by this melting? Whats the possible range of total increase instead of averaging it out across the entire ocean. Will the water temperature change be enough to alter any normal currents?

  6. History? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What historical observations is this to be compared with? By the sounds of it there is nothing prior to 2005 - certainly nothing in the 40s thru 80s. Given that the few researchers down there are not running around the perimeter of the continent checking on where ice ends and sea begins, how do we place the current observation in context? Seems that we can't.

    1. Re:History? by WhiteZook · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think there's much useful ice volume data before special satellites were used to measure it. However, we can look at historical sea level data, and observe that levels have not been significantly higher in any period since the last ice age. We can also look at the temperature data, and try to model the ice sheet based on those. Since temperatures before 2005 have been lower, it is very unlikely ice loss was as great as it has been in the recent years.

    2. Re:History? by Xyrus · · Score: 2

      What historical observations is this to be compared with? By the sounds of it there is nothing prior to 2005 - certainly nothing in the 40s thru 80s. Given that the few researchers down there are not running around the perimeter of the continent checking on where ice ends and sea begins, how do we place the current observation in context? Seems that we can't.

      Reading is a useful skill. Practice it. The research cites their sources and methods. Feel free to disagree and put forward your own work to show why they're wrong.

      --
      ~X~
  7. Funny thing by QuantumSam · · Score: 2, Informative

    The ice sheet may be coming apart up in the whitw continent, but that's where several volcanoes are located. Active volcanoes. As in HOT. As for the rest of Antarctica, the ice is at a 30 year high. Here: chew on some better data http://judithcurry.com/2014/02... http://wattsupwiththat.com/201... http://wp.me/P7y4l-5Kc http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

    1. Re:Funny thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is completely ridiculous. Parts of the Antarctic icecap are indeed increasing. This is due to higher humidity as a result of -- wait for it -- global warming. Other parts are rapidly decreasing. And the volcanoes? Well, you know, they are so hot that it is well-known that all volcanoes outside of the Antarctic have no snow on the summits, of course.

    2. Re:Funny thing by WhiteZook · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sounds like somebody needs to learn the big difference between Antarctic sea ice and grounded ice.

    3. Re:Funny thing by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's so funny that you think sceptic websites are good sources. How about linking to some actual scientific studies? Oh, but wait, the links you gave cite studies? Yes, but they confused sea ice and ground ice, which you might have realized if you had gone to the actual data and understood it.

      I'm afraid this is all that climate sceptics have to offer - misinterpreted data.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Funny thing by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      If you compare the heat put out by all the volcanoes in Antarctica to the heat required to melt 160 GT/year you'll find that you need several orders of magnitude more volcanoes to melt that much ice.

    5. Re:Funny thing by rahvin112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And if you had actually read the real research those garbage stories are referring to you would know that those volcano's have little to no effect on the ice sheet because the ice refreezes almost immediately after it's melted due to the fact that it's under several hundred (up to thousands) feet of ice. Hell, even the steam vents refreeze all the moisture in the air before the gases reach open air (creating some rather magnificent stalactites and ice formations).

    6. Re:Funny thing by gtall · · Score: 2

      According the article, the increase in icecap in those parts of Antarctica has stopped.

    7. Re:Funny thing by Xyrus · · Score: 2

      You're citing Judith Curry and WUWT in a climate discussion. You may as well cite The Onion and The Weekly World News. They have almost as much credibility, and are a hell of a lot more entertaining.

      --
      ~X~
    8. Re:Funny thing by OneAhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here: chew on some better data

      ...because everyone knows a blog that is heavily funded by the Heartland Institute must be better than direct satellite measurements.

      And no, this is not an ad hominem; I'm not necessarily saying WUWT must necessarily be terrible purely because they have undeclared conflicts of interest, I'm just attacking your ridiculous qualifier better. How can you possibly argue that the quality of data on a blog with undeclared conflicts of interest is better data than direct satellite measurements? Your "better" just seems to mean "confirms my preconceptions".

      Though let's not kid ourselves, WUWT is terrible. Every time I visit it, I find huge embarrassing mistakes any BA in science could spot.

  8. Re:.43mm/year... by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

    ...so, let's do math .43mm/year = 4.43mm/decade

    4.43mm/decaed = 44.3mm/century

    44.3mm/century = 4.43cm/century

    So, a little less than 2 inches in 100 years.

    Is this supposed to worry us?

    It's the difference between a storm surge 50 miles from a major city and a storm surge 10 miles from a major city.

    Does that help?

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  9. Oh that can't possibly be happening by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 2

    We all know that Global Warming is a hoax and conspiracy, so this just has to be BS. No amount of evidence could ever contradict that well known fact.

  10. Re:perspective by riverat1 · · Score: 2

    Back to school for you. Go learn the difference between sea ice, ice shelves and ice sheets.

  11. Re:.43mm/year... by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Assuming the rate of melt will remain the same for the next 100 years really puts the ass in assume.

  12. Re:.43mm/year... by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's true that the rate of sea level rise will be slow but it's also something that's probably unstoppable at this point. The last time CO2 levels in the atmosphere were as high as they are now, 400 ppm, sea level was over 60 feet higher than it is now. It might 500 or 1000 years to get there but it's going to happen regardless of what we do (unless we actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere to get it back down below 350 ppm).

    In order for scientists to fully understand the climate they have to understand all sources of climate change both natural and man made. If all known sources of natural climate change are taken into account we should actually be cooling since 1990 or so. The phrase "hitting the brakes on our world economy" is just alarmist nonsense. In fact responding to global warming in some ways gives a boost to the economy because all of the things we need to change will have to be replaced with some other means of doing them. That means a lot of capital expenditures which put money back into the economy because of the materials and labor that goes into making them.

    I agree that draining the reservoir because one person peed in it is rather silly but the global warming situation is more like behind the guy peeing in the reservoir there's an endless line of others waiting there turn to pee. Eventually there will be enough pee in the reservoir to make a difference.