Hansen’s map above shows ice loss right at the South Pole.
In the real world, there has actually been a large increase in the amount of ice. The photograph below shows multi-storied buildings at the South Pole, which have become buried in ice and snow since they were built in the mid-1970s.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/South_Pole/south_pole0002.html
Do these people ever check their work?
Steven,
Galcier ice can bee seen as a low viscosity flouid. So the ice can flow out under the buildings while ice accumulation still will bury the buildings – all this with tempratures below zero. So the argument made with the picture is rather weak unless there is some altitude data for the base during the past 30 years, that confirms that its altitude are the same or rising.
Troels
You seem to be suggesting that more than 10 metres (thickness) of ice could have flowed away from the South Pole since the mid-1970s. Not very likely.
Why not? The stop motion videos of glacier ice flows you linked to in previous posts showed flows over a massive area and a massive amount. 10 meters did not seem much in them and that was over a couple of years not 4 decades.
Is this picture the only evidence to support you claim that’ there has actually been a large increase in the amount of ice’? Do you have nothing more convincing for the skeptical person?
Glacier ice behaves like a very high viscosity fluid even when frozen. As I’m not an expert in glaciers, I don’t know if it is likely or impossible. As a skeptic I’d say that data could prove or disprove your argument. Something a picture cannot.
Troels
Why Not Goddard? We gonna have one of these glaciology debates again where you run away crying?
Calculate the volume of 10 metres * 1,000,000 km^2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
Altitude map and ice speed map can be found there.
It’s not quite as simple as you state it.
Cook’s map shows essentially no movement at the South Pole.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/goddard_response1.jpg
Would not the buildings have moved?
I should not have used altitude as it does not account for movements in the crust. Instead it should have been the distance from the bedrock to the surface of the ice.
Troels
“In the real world, there has actually been a large increase in the amount of ice.”
Can you provide any credible data or research supporting this?
“The photograph below shows multi-storied buildings at the South Pole, which have become buried in ice and snow since they were built in the mid-1970s.”
This isn’t evidence of what you say. Just because their is more ice around the buildings does not prove that ice in the Antarctic has increased overall. For all we know the building could have sunk into melting ice!
To be taken seriously by rational, sceptical people you need real evidence and this photo isn’t.
Lazarus
“For all we know the building could have sunk into melting ice!”
What a dumb statement.
The ice below ground level is -50C pretty constantly all year. If buildings were rapidly sinking I don’t think the workers there would be hanging around long.
If you check out the link below you will see that they now build on stilts above the ice to avoid ” being buried in the snow”.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/South_Pole/south_pole0032.html
Steve is not claiming that this necessarily represents the whole continent, simply that Hansen’s map is wrong about the South Pole. If it is wrong there, it is hardly reliable elsewhere.
I know it was a dumb statement – that was the point. For all the evidence presented it could be for all we know. Steve’s claim is just as flaky given the evidence he has presented so far.
A build up of snow and ice on a structure in sub zero temperatures over 40 years certainly isn’t evidence of continental ice increase and that is exactly what Steve appears to be claiming.
10 metres thickness of ice flowing out from the interior of Antarctica over the last 35 years is beyond ludicrous – by several orders of magnitude.
I am glad you agree that Hansen’s claims are flaky.
Surely it must be quite simple to measure the altitude at the South Pole and compare to earlier years. I would have thought a change of 10 meters would have been easily detectable.
I am sure Hansen with all the tools he has at his fingertips would have leapt on such evidence years ago if this was actually happening.
As the ice accumulates it also compacts which takes longer than the 35 years or so of records.
Steve says;
“10 metres thickness of ice flowing out from the interior of Antarctica over the last 35 years is beyond ludicrous – by several orders of magnitude.”
I have no idea if it is beyond ludicrous or not, neither do I know if your figures are beyond ludicrous because you give no credible reference for them. However I do know that basing your claims for a whole continent on a single photograph is beyond ludicrous.
I wonder why they clear the snow at the South Pole throughout the summer if it keeps melting away?
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/South_Pole/south_pole0021.html
They also have to go to their remote weather monitor sites to raise them above the accumulated snow when they stop working.
Okay people. Enough of this crap.
Ice can still flow at cold temperatures. Thinning can still occur where there is no melting. A column of ice does not flow succintly. Not all of it flows together.
Furthermore, these issues have been addressed
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-Three-Response-to-Goddard.html
See Figure 4 where it shows ice loss measured from laser altimetry (i.e. surface elevation change) using icesat data which is very accurate.
Give this up Goddard. You’re not going to win your “it’s too cold to lose ice” argument. There’s a reason Geologists should stay away from Glaciology unless they’re willing to ACTUALLY RESEARCH THE SUBJECT.
So where do you think this massive volume of ice is going?
Cook was talking about the coast. I was talking about the interior. He wasted a lot of column space on his straw man.
Goddard,
The time wasn’t wasted. This was in response to a ridiculous post you did this summer at WUWT where you claimed ice loss couldn’t occur in Antarctica where temperatures were below freezing. You claimed that ice couldn’t move quickly at that temperature (Glen’s flow law) and many other nonesense claims.
It was pointed out to you then that temperature is not the only controlling mechanism on glacier flow and eventually you just gave up the argument.
Either way, the reason I pointed you to figure 4 is because you can clearly see some interior areas (including right near the north pole) that had ice losses. I don’t need to circle it for you do I?
Robert:
If you want to make a point you should use a reliable source for your supporting evidence. Your Scepticalscience is a well known propaganda site that is supported by fabricated assumptions.
Ice can do a lot of things and there are groups that sit around and contemplate the meaning of ice sort of like meditating on the meaning of life. They want to share there self convinced wisdom with the world even though it may not match what happens in reality. There are gulible people that hang on to every word from a self proclaimed expert without comparing that with other research. There are self promoters who make dramatic proclamations that may be possible or even probable but until verified should be ised as a reference combined with other research in the field.
If you take the total number of Glaciologists you will be abe to determine the total number of glacial theories that exist. The big problem is that even when a theory is falsified it is not retracted and may be recovered from the garbage bin at any time as new old evidence only to be eventually falsified again one day. The main thing is that real researchers are to busy to keep shooting down garbage theories.
Next time find a reliable source and if you want to claim ownershoip of a theory, if you want to be respected try to find a different repository for your research.Scepicalscience is about as respected as climate progress.
Of course I failed to add that these type of sites are the source of supporting evidence for the CLB ( Chicken Little Brigade) and its minions that are now rightly concerned with ACD ( Acquired Cognitive Dissonance ).
“Your Scepticalscience is a well known propaganda site that is supported by fabricated assumptions.”
“Next time find a reliable source and if you want to claim ownershoip of a theory, if you want to be respected try to find a different repository for your research.Scepicalscience is about as respected as climate progress.”
I don’t think anyone needs to claim “ownership” over any theory. And I think your understanding of the way glaciology works is very incorrect. Glaciologists tend to be more hands-on and do not sit around theorizing all day as you seem to think. Glaciologists are also in very well agreement over the mechanisms through which ice losses occur in general and I think to challenge an assertion would be disrespectful to the knowledge of glaciologists. I cannot control your opinion of that subdoctrine but I can tell you that individuals who spend their lives studying glaciology and developing techniques for monitoring ice sheets are very hardworking and by nature skeptical people. They are not sitting around fawning over AGW. You should also point out where this “other research” exists that it should be compared to?
I think it is funny how skeptical people here can be of anything put forward by anyone that supports any part of AGW. And yet the same level of skepticism is not directed towards half-assed posts like Goddards one.
Figure 2 from your reference shows little or no ice movement at the pole.
Steven:
You are a braver person than I as you went to that site. I am concerned with having the ACD or Crainialanalitis viruses affect my computer.
Look at how much damage the viruses have inflicted on the climatology community and their models. 😉
It is dangerous in the trenches. You need a gas mask.
Robert
So you regard a trip to Skepticalscience as “actually researching the subject”?
Sad
Pete:
He may be the composer of the symphony at scepticalscience!
Glaciers either gain or loose ice with the one that is greater determining if the mass of ice grows or is lost. Ice is lost through melting or calving. In the case of Antarctica ~ 90% of ice is lost through calving. Since you acknowledge that the the ice is being lost while the temps are too cold for melting, then it must be transported to the sea faster than it is accumulating inland.
So, is this an acknowledgement that global warming is not the cause?
What part of AGW theory explains a reduction in snow fall inland and/or an increase in transport of ice to the coast?
Imagine a Ice sheet the size of the North American Continent and the amount of time the glacier would need to flow from Eastern Colorado to the gulf Of Mexico. Or from Grand Junction Colorado to the Pacific Ocean. This all at an average temperature of -40C or F.
How many climate regions would be a wild guess for the North American Continent? Transfer your answer to Antarctica and probably double it as it is to conservative.
There are deserts on Antarctica and dried up inland seas. Mountain Ranges to equal the Himalayas and plains to equal the great plains.
Under thick ice, glaciers can flow very quickly because they are insulated at the bottom and can therefore have basal lubrication which is one of the primary mechanisms through which glaciers flow. See Lake vostok for an example of water under deep ice sheets. Little side note, lake vostok is really interesting.
The reference you linked shows no movement of ice at the South Pole. All of your hysterics won’t make the ice move.
🙂 🙂
every time this comes up i post some article showing antarctica is a net moisture sink…even the warmists have to admit it when they actually get out and measure something.
5 stories buried in 30 something years…current buildings on stilt/jacks to jack above accumulating snow and ice…according the architects the south pole accumulates 8-12 inches of snow/ice yearly, or roughly 85mm h20 equivalent.
lower elevations are accumulating as much 8ft per year.
and virtually every study shows said accumulation has been increasing
How do they think that ice in the interior flows?
i haven’t looked up studies on ice flow for the area, and they probably don’t really know anyway…but
south pole ice flows towards the weddell sea, at about 10m per year, it is not a basin.
it is however, 3km thick. and -9f for a high in the summer… and i have a hard time imagining the entire 3km thick glacier sliding along towards the ocean. there must be some daunting complexity involved.
and i am not sure exactly where the the high ground delineating the drainage is at, i.e. from which direction it is flowing.
i bet robert knows all this stuff 😉
i am curious too but i don’t have time to google it all right now
It either flows downhill, as in alpine glaciers, or under its’ own weight when enough accumulation occurs, as in ice sheets.
Around the South Pole there are some regions with high velocities.
See the Rignot and Thomas map
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-One-Why-do-glaciers-lose-ice.html
But at the pole itself it could be different. The pole could be accumulating ice but there are regions around it that are pretty clearly losing ice. That figure with the map shows the balance velocities and the actual velocities for Antarctica. Have a look around the South pole and in regions around there that have measured ice velocities below the balance velocity there is likely accumulation and regions with measured above leads to ice losses. Some of the fast moving ice streams do in fact penetrate deep into East Antarctica lets remember.
there are so many logical and empirical flaws in the skeptical science thing it is difficult to know what reliable information could be hidden in there.
these glacier experts might be out there measuring something but they sure as hell are incapable of constructing consistent explanations for what they think they are observing.
maybe only part of their problem is their reliance on climatologists, which puts their observations in contradictory context…i.e. julienne strove once said how she relies on the “temperature guys”. if she is relying on jones, mann, hansen et al then no wonder nothing makes sense.
anyway the accelerated by melt water lubrication at -9 summer temperatures ice cap at the south pole will take 180,000 years to reach the ocean.
so we’ll be in the next interglacial when said ice contributes to catastrophic sea level increases 😉
Accumulation may be increasing in some regions but the overall net balance of Antarctica is negative because of the Amundsen Sea Embayment losing exceedingly greater amounts of ice. This is measured using 4 different methods and it is clear that ice losses from the ASE have increased because ice flow has increased according to Rignot 2008a and b. (One study he uses 2006 radar interferometry and then he checks back with the 2007 data and finds an even greater acceleration). The awesome thing about radar interferometry is that you can ACTUALLY SEE accelerations so no need to have the usual accusations of scientific fraud.
if they are accelerating than accumulation in the accumulation zones must be accelerating.
at what altitude is the firn line in antarctica, exactly?
according to wiki it is indeed an ice cap…but it also says there are two ice caps, a west and east. must be one or more high points on there somewhere.
wiki also says, gaining ice 😉 i guess connelly hasn’t got to it yet.
sorry, i just assumed it was a glacier since it says it flows toward the ocean. i hadn’t heard of vostok moving so just thought that the southern cap was stationary.
It is a mass of different glaciers. There are Mountain ranges and they are doing radar studies of the ranges. There was an article recently showing some results of their mapping efforts. Of course West Antarctica is a mountain range of volcanoes providing geothermal activity.
Here is the KICKER to think about. With the orbit we are currently experiencing the globe is closest to the sun during the Southern Hemisphere Summer when the globe experiences its coldest weather. The so called OZONE hole is at its thinnest during Southern Hemisphere Winter! The ozone HOLE is a reduction in the Ozone concentration and not a real hole! You need to remember it was discovered in the 60s and 70s when LSD was the research assistant of choice!!!!
maybe a weekend project for me to research the topography of antarctica.
details. i need details!