Researchers: Antarctica ice sheet stable - AP

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Researchers: Antarctica ice sheet stable

By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 3 minutes ago

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - An ice sheet in Antarctica that is
the world's largest — with enough water to raise global sea levels
by 200 feet — is relatively stable and poses no immediate threat,
according to new research.

While studies of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets
show they are both at risk from global warming, the East Antarctic
ice sheet will "need quite a bit of warming" to be affected, Andrew
Mackintosh, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, said
Wednesday.

The air over the East Antarctic ice sheet, an ice mass more than
1,875 miles across and up to 2.5 miles thick centered on the South
Pole, will remain cold enough to prevent significant melting in the
near future, the New Zealand-led research shows.

But it eventually may become vulnerable to the effects of rising
sea levels driven by the melting of other ice sheets, Mackintosh's
team found. Their research was published this week in the journal
Geology.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070627/ap_on_sc/antarctica_ice_sheet

[orleans]

1. here's a big incentive for us to get our shit together. maybe it's not

too late to save the world!

[Nihil]

2. Hmmm. Bullshit.

Isn't is nice to be reassured that the world's largest ice sheet
"is relatively stable and poses no immediate threat, according to new
research"?

Great. No need to fret about human influence on climate.
No need to worry about changing weather patterns.
No need to prepare for sea-level rising.

Unfortunately the claim of this article is largely bullshit ... there
is no "new research" but plenty of feelgood waffle to report to the sheep.

> the East Antarctic ice sheet will "need quite a bit of warming" to
> be affected

Errr yes ... it's the biggest ice sheet on the planet and so will
obviously require "quite a bit of warming" to melt ... duh?

> But it eventually may become vulnerable to the effects of rising
> sea levels driven by the melting of other ice sheets

Precisely what has been stated many times before. Nothing new so far.

> "The East Antarctic ice sheet is the largest and the coldest and is going
> to be the last to respond in any great way" to global warming

Still no news there ... this has always been the case in all studies to date.

> The air over the East Antarctic ice sheet ... will remain cold enough
> to prevent significant melting in the near future
...
> "There is no short-term risk as far as the overall magnitude of the
> East Antarctic ice sheet goes"

Ah ... now we're getting to the meat of the study ... or are we?

Nowhere in the article did anyone state what "near future" or "short-term"
meant. Nowhere was there anything quantitative about timescales.
I would not be going out on a limb to say that there is no chance of the
EAIS melting this week or even this month but I certainly wouldn't put
any money on it avoiding "significant melting" this century (which is
pretty damn short-term on geological scales).

For that matter, they didn't say what they considered "significant melting"
either: the statistical implication of "significant" is "at least 5%" ...
did they really mean this? That's 9 feet.

On the other hand, did they mean 35% (still minority melting compared to
"the whole thing")?

> when sea levels rose by more than 330 feet, the East Antarctic ice sheet
> thinned by 660 feet to 1,150 feet.

Slight different of scale now isn't there? How many readers would think
about checking this "worst case scenario" rather than just writing it off
as "it'll never happen"?

In addition, they admitted that this (historically proven) event is beyond
their ability to predict:

> Rising waters during that period would have lifted the buoyant ice sheet's
> edges off its rocky base, causing pieces to detach or "calve" and melt.
> If the sheet experienced such calving again, even small changes could have
> a significant impact, the researchers said.
>
> The study .. did not predict how much sea levels would have to rise
> before the sheet's edges started to break away.

Basically, this "study" (or at least the salient points that people felt
worth reporting) is a worthless rehash of existing knowledge presented
in a feel-good fashion to calm down all the fears of ongoing climate change.

Thanks for nothing guys.
I love it when people support the denialists. :grr:

[acmavm]

3. If you're referring to the first response to the article as someone who

support the 'denialists' I wish you'd explain how.

What I got from their response that 'thank goodness, maybe we can still do something'. In fact, wasn't that pretty much what they said?

[Nihil]

4. If I'd been referring to the first response, I would have replied to it ...

... whereas I was actually referring to the article posted in .0
and so I replied to that instead.

:shrug:

[happyslug]

5. Actually support the general rule on Antarctica

The concern is the WEST Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), NOT the EAST Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS). The WAIS sheet holds about 12 % of the Fresh water in the World (As oppose to the 70% held by the EAIS). The 12% is NOT within the Antarctic Circle NOR is it located on the TALLEST Continent in the world (Antarctica). The WAIS is located BELOW sea level (The part of Antarctica that holds the WAIS is a set of Islands where the Ice Sheet flows around for the WAIS sheet is located in the sea area of the Southern Oceans) unlike thee EAIS sheet is while ABOVE Sea level. All together the EAIS is actually expected to EXPAND do to global warming, given increase snow fall do to increase snow do to increase amount of Precipitation that the warming air can carry to the EAIS. All together the EAIS is considered STABLE and will remain STABLE unless temperature greatly exceed what most people think Global warming will bring.

On the other hand the WAIS is considered unstable and has been unstable since for at least 10,000 years (When the North American Ice Sheet melted). Unlike the EAIS the WAIS is based BELOW Sea level and part of it is NORTH of the Antarctic Circle. Thus global warming temperature will directly affect the WAIS do to the connection of Warming Water and the Ice Sheet. The WAIS may even collapse, causing world wide increase of 20 feet in sea levels (And this may occur OVERNIGHT as opposed to any gradual increase in sea levels). Thus the may concern is NOT the EAIS but the mush smaller and less stable WAIS.

More on the WAIS:
http://www.junkscience.com/news2/icesheet.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Key_Topics/IceSheet_SeaLevel/index.html
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/096ice_sheet/index.html
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/2007/02/20_icesheet.asp
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleId=000CD823-862F-1C6A-84A9809EC588EF21&ec=ypi
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleId=000CD823-862F-1C6A-84A9809EC588EF21&ec=ypi

[hatrack]

10. Exactly - EAIS will likely be the last big mass to shift no matter what . . WAIS - another story

Has anyone checked the grounding line on Pine Island Glacier lately? Moving right along.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Not a 'worthless rehash' - it invovles new data

Here's the paper:

ABSTRACT
Past changes in East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) volume are poorly known and difficult to
measure, yet are critical for predicting the response of the ice sheet to modern climate change.
In particular, it is important to identify the sources of sea-level rise since the Last Glacial
Maximum (LGM), and ascertain the present-day stability of the world’s largest ice sheet. We
present altitudinal transects of 10Be and 26Al exposure ages across the Framnes Mountains in
Mac. Robertson Land that allow the magnitude and timing of EAIS retreat to be quantified.
Our data show that the coastal EAIS thinned by at most 350 m in this region during the past
13 k.y. This reduction in ice-sheet volume occurred over a ~5 k.y. period, and the present icesheet
profile was attained ca. 7 ka, in contrast to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which continues
to retreat today. Combined with regional offshore and terrestrial geologic evidence, our data
suggest that the reduction in EAIS volume since the LGM was smaller than that indicated by
contemporary ice-sheet models and added little meltwater to the global oceans. Stability of the
ice margin since the middle Holocene provides support for the hypothesis that EAIS volume
changes are controlled by growth and decay of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and associated
global sea-level changes.

http://www.vuw.ac.nz/geo/papers/staff/mackintosh-etal-exposure-ages-mountain-dipsticks-geology2007.pdf

[Nihil]

8. Thanks for the link ...

... have pulled the article and will check through it later.

I still stick to my comments on the OP article but hope that
you are right and it was "just" a very badly written publicity
piece for a useful scientific article.

Ta! :hi:

[kestrel91316]

6. "......relatively stable and poses no immediate threat......"

There's a lot of wiggle room there.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. If this fell into the ocean, would it cause a tsunami?

[phantom power]

11. I don't think there are the conditions for a tsunami.

Loss of stability in this case would mean the ice begins to melt, and glaciate. Start flowing off the shelf into the sea. At least, I'm not aware of any way for a tsunami to happen.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Thanks. I just had this vision of a massive chunk of ice going

SPLOOSH!

Not that simply melting isn't bad either. *sigh* I wonder how much longer I can live on the current coast of Maine?