From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
We’re all going to drown – Half 94
During the last 25 years, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets have launched a staggering 7.5 trillion tonnes of water into the ocean, a examine has revealed.
Analyzing over 100,000 satellite tv for pc radar photographs, researchers from the College of Leeds found a gentle erosion of the continent’s ice sheets, with over 40 per shrinking between 1997 and 2021.
Whereas some ice sheets did develop in dimension throughout this time, the information revealed {that a} third have now misplaced greater than 30 per cent of their preliminary mass – unleashing huge portions of freshwater within the course of.
Worryingly, scientists say this huge launch of contemporary water might threaten to destabilise ocean currents and contribute to international sea stage rise.
What’s extra, human-induced local weather change implies that ice soften will proceed to occur quicker sooner or later, the consultants warn.
The scientists discovered that, whereas virtually all of the ice sheets on the east coast had been melting, many ice sheets on the west coast stayed the identical dimension or grew.
That is because of the patterns of ocean currents which encompass Antarctica, carrying water of various temperatures.
Whereas the Western aspect is uncovered to heat waters which erode the ice cabinets from under, East Antarctica is protected by a band of colder water near the shore.
Total, 59 trillion tonnes of water have been added to the continent’s ice cabinets since 1975.
Nevertheless, this was offset by the 67 trillion tonnes that had been misplaced.
The most important losses befell on the Getz Ice Shelf, which misplaced 1.9 trillion tonnes of water.
For perspective, one trillion tones of ice would make a dice greater than six miles (10 km) in each course – greater than half a mile taller than Mt Everest!
Of this loss, 95 per cent was brought on by melting and 5 per cent by ‘calving’, the place massive chunks of ice break off into the ocean.
In the meantime, on the opposite aspect of Antarctica, the Amery Ice Shelf gained 1.2 trillion tonnes of ice because of the colder waters surrounding it.
What this examine doesn’t point out is the truth that trillions of tonnes of ice are misplaced yearly, as a consequence of each calving and soften. That’s what ice sheets and glaciers do. And the loss is replenished by snowfall over the Antarctic continent.
So to argue that the inflow of freshwater might destabilise ocean currents is frankly a con.
And as ever with these Antarctic research, there may be an information previous to the handful of latest years, that are a mere speck in time. So we don’t know if any of that is out of the abnormal.
What’s attention-grabbing although is that this determine from the precise paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0186
Now let’s house in on the highest proper graph:
We will see that the Whole Mass Change (black line) has remained steady since round 2000. If something it has risen barely. This truly corroborates one other examine in Could this 12 months, which discovered that the Antarctic ice shelf had grown between 2009 and 2019.
All the decline befell between 1997 and 2001. No matter occurred again then, and there have to be query mark over the standard of the information then, it definitely will not be occurring now, though there are evidently regional variations.
Additionally word the huge margins of error. We truly don’t know whether or not the ice sheets are rising, shrinking or staying the identical.
This in itself makes the entire examine meaningless.
However little question it is going to generate tons extra grant cash for “additional analysis”!
