Archives par mot-clé : Antarctic

better to know...?, climate-debate

Study Debunks Media’s Iceberg Alarmism: Antarctic Calving ‘Statistically Unexceptional’

by A. Watt,  Dec 20, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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The climate chicken littles of the media blamed it on climate change then, but today, it looks like an Emily Litella moment has just occurred, as a new peer-reviewed scientific study says it wasn’t anything abnormal, nor should we worry about it.

The new study published in Geophysical Research Letters tosses ice-cold water on those overhyped media claims.

In the study, MacKie et al. (2024) analyzed 47 years of observational satellite data from Antarcticaand found that there has been no trend in annual Antarctic maximum calving size between 1976 and 2023.

The key findings of the study are:

  • There has been no detectable upward trend in the annual maximum iceberg area in Antarctica since 1973, based on satellite measurements.
  • The break-off of Iceberg A-68 from the Larsen C Ice Shelf was not statistically notable.
  • Calving events several times larger than anything observed in the modern record could occur, and still, it would not necessarily be due to climate change.

To be clear, the calving of the A-68 iceberg was “statistically unexceptional” in the historical satellite record. Let that sink in. The authors write:

This finding suggests that extreme calving events such as the recent 2017 Larsen C iceberg, A-68, are statistically unexceptional and that extreme calving events are not necessarily a consequence of climate change.

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climate-debate

Now You Sea Ice, Now You Don’t

by W. Eschenbach, Apr 20, 2024 in WUWT

I got to thinking about sea ice and the climate models. Here’s what we know about polar sea ice extent, showing data that starts with the satellite era when we began to have accurate observations of the poles.

Figure 1. Arctic, Antarctic, and global sea ice extent. Colored lines are CEEMD smooths of the underlying datasets.

Now, there are some rather large curiosities regarding the sea ice extent records.

  • The North Pole is a liquid ocean covered with sea ice, with most of the ice polewards of 70°N. The South Pole is a giant chunk of frozen rock surrounded by sea ice, with almost no ice polewards of 70°S. So why do both poles have about the same extent of sea ice?
  • From the start of the satellite era up until ~2015, Arctic sea ice extent was decreasing and Antarctic sea ice extent was increasing … and as a result, total global sea ice extent was relatively constant, with 2014 having about the same global sea ice extent as 1978. Why?
  • Around 2015, Antarctic sea ice extent started dropping rapidly … but Arctic sea ice stopped dropping and leveled off up to the present. Why?
  • After dropping precipitously for a couple of years, Antarctic sea ice extent leveled off again … and as a result, global ice extent also leveled off. Why?

Here’s the interesting part. Nobody knows the answers to any of those questions. And I suppose predictably, since they’re based on our (mis)understandings of the climate, none of the climate models either forecasts or hindcasts sea ice extent doing anything even remotely similar to the actual observations.

So I’ll leave this here as a testament to just how little we understand the magnificent global heat engine that we call the climate …

better to know...?, climate-debate

New Paper Claims Antarctica Had The ‘Most Intense Heat Wave Ever Recorded’. It Didn’t

by P. Gosselin, Sep 27, 2023 in ClimatChangeDispatch

On September 24th, 2023, Kasha Patel, a writer for The Washington Post (WaPo) created a story that is likely in the top 10 most false and egregious climate scare stories ever published.

Titled, “Scientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded — in Antarctica,” the story isn’t just false, it is doubly so because the research paper it is based on is also seriously flawed. [emphasis, links added]

In this case, peer review at Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) failed to catch and correct the most basic abuse of the definition of a “heat wave.”

The leading paragraph of the WaPo story said:

In March 2022, temperatures near the eastern coast of Antarctica spiked 70 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) above normal — making it the most intense recorded heat wave to occur anywhere on Earth, according to a recent study.

At the time, researchers on-site were wearing shorts and some even removed their shirts to bask in the (relative) warmth. Scientists elsewhere said such a high in that region of the world was unthinkable.

WaPo also provided a normal temperature, for reference with some “unbelievability” from the lead author of the paper.

Temperatures in March, marking a change into autumn on the continent, are typically around minus -54 degrees Celsius on the east coast near…Dome C. On March 18, 2022, temperatures peaked to minus -10 degrees Celsius. That’s warmer than even the hottest temperature recorded during the summer months in that region — “that in itself is pretty unbelievable,” said Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.

First, it is important to point out that the so-called “heat wave” really wasn’t warm at all; the shorts and shirt removal were completely for show, rather than science.

Since most people in the United States use the Fahrenheit temperature scale, which isn’t mentioned at all in the WaPo article citing the actual high temperature recorded, it was easy for reporter Kasha Patel to sneak by the idea that it was actually warm at the time.

-10 Celsius is actually 14 degrees Fahrenheit – which isn’t warm, much less a “heat wave” by any definition. Patel can’t be forgiven for not mentioning this in the article because anyone can get the conversion simply by typing it into Google, like this example.

But that isn’t the worst journalistic violation Patel makes.

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climate-debate

Why Is Antarctica’s Climate Considered ‘Global’ But Arctic Siberia’s Is Not?

by K. Richard, Jan 26, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Independent analyses from multiple independent sources indicate Arctic Siberia was 3 to 5°C warmer than today during the peak of the last glacial, or when CO2 levels were below 200 ppm.

Measurements from Antarctica’s ice sheet are almost invariably used to characterize both the global-scale atmospheric CO2 levels and climate for the last 10s to 100s of thousands of years.

But it is rather odd that Antarctica’s climate is considered globally representative (i.e., “global warming”) since there has been no warming here for the last seven decades.

Further, ice samples from Antarctica have CO2 values that range between 900 and 2900 ppm (Matsuo and Miyake, 1966) for the modern period (i.e., the 1960s). These values are far outside the range of the accepted modern global atmospheric values (~300 to 400 ppm).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Antarctica’s Missing Warming: Japanese Syowa Station Shows Cooling Since 1977 By P Gosselin on 20. January 202

by Heller, Jan 20, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Despite all the claims of a “rapidly warming planet”, we know Antarctic sea ice extent has seen a rather impressive upward trend over the past 40 years, which tells us cooling is more likely at play.

Here’s southern hemisphere sea ice extent chart (up to 2017):

Antarctic sea ice has gained steadily over the past 40 years. Chart: Comiso et al, 2017

It’s not what you’d expect from a CO2-induced warming planet.

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unclassified

On the Annual and Semi-Annual Components of Variations in Extent of Arctic and Antarctic Sea-Ice

by Lopes F, Courtillot, V. et al., 2023  in MDPIGeosciences

Abstract

In this paper, the 1978–2022 series of northern (NHSI) and southern (SHSI) hemisphere sea ice extent are submitted to singular spectral analysis (SSA). The trends are quasi-linear, decreasing for NHSI (by 58,300 km2/yr) and increasing for SHSI (by 15,400 km2/yr). The amplitude of annual variation in the Antarctic is double that in the Arctic. The semi-annual components are in quadrature. The first three oscillatory components of both NHSI and SHSI, at 1, 1/2, and 1/3 yr, account for more than 95% of the signal variance. The trends are respectively 21 (Antarctic) and 4 times (Arctic) less than the amplitudes of the annual components. We next analyze variations in pole position (PM for polar motion, coordinates m1, m2) and length of day (lod). Whereas the SSA of the lod is dominated by the same first three components as sea ice, the SSA of the PM contains only the 1-yr forced annual oscillation and the Chandler 1.2-yr component. The 1-yr component of NHSI is in phase with that of the lod and in phase opposition with m1, while the reverse holds for the 1-yr component of SHSI. The semi-annual component appears in the lod and not in m1. The annual and semi-annual components of NHSI and SHSI are much larger than the trends, leading us to hypothesize that a geophysical or astronomical forcing might be preferable to the generally accepted forcing factors. The lack of modulation of the largest (SHSI) forced component does suggest an alternate mechanism. In Laplace’s theory of gravitation, the torques exerted by the Moon, Sun, and planets play the leading role as the source of forcing (modulation), leading to changes in the inclination of the Earth’s rotation axis and transferring stresses to the Earth’s envelopes. Laplace assumes that all masses on and in the Earth are set in motion by astronomical forces; more than variations in eccentricity, it is variations in the inclination of the rotation axis that lead to the large annual components of melting and re-freezing of sea-ice.
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better to know...?, climate-debate, Cooling

Dramatic Cooling And Recent Ice Shelf Advance Over The Antarctic Peninsula

by K. Richard, Nov 3, 2022 in NoTricksZone

Scientists struggle to keep their stories straight regarding the anthropogenic CO2 impact on polar climates.

It is claimed that anthropogenic CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are responsible for amplifying warming (“polar amplification“) and ice melt in polar climates, consistent with pronouncements pertaining to anthropogenic global warming.

However, Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf station indicates a massive cooling trend, -1.1°C per decade, has been ongoing since the late 1990s (Bozkurt et al., 2020).

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climate-debate

River longer than the Thames beneath Antarctic ice sheet could affect ice loss

by Imperial College London, Oct7, 2022 in ScienceDaily

An unexpected river under the Antarctic ice sheet affects the flow and melting of ice, potentially accelerating ice loss as the climate warms.

The 460km-long river is revealed in a new study, which details how it collects water at the base of the Antarctic ice sheet from an area the size of Germany and France combined. Its discovery shows the base of the ice sheet has more active water flow than previously thought, which could make it more susceptible to changes in climate.

The discovery was made by researchers at Imperial College London, the University of Waterloo, Canada, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, and Newcastle University, with the details published today in Nature Geoscience.

Co-author Professor Martin Siegert, from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said: “When we first discovered lakes beneath the Antarctic ice a couple of decades ago, we thought they were isolated from each other. Now we are starting to understand there are whole systems down there, interconnected by vast river networks, just as they might be if there weren’t thousands of metres of ice on top of them.

“The region where this study is based holds enough ice to raise the sea level globally by 4.3m. How much of this ice melts, and how quickly, is linked to how slippery the base of the ice is. The newly discovered river system could strongly influence this process.”

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unclassified

Climatologists Embarrassed: Increase In Global CO2 Levels Accompanied By Arctic Sea Ice Growth!

by P. Gosselin, July 26, 2022 in NoTricksZone

Today we look at the polar ice caps, which the global warming wingnuts claim is the canary in the coal mine and predicted earlier they’d melt and collapse. For example, Al Gore warned the Arctic ice would disappear by 2014.

While CO2 has gone up, Arctic sea ice has RISEN over past decade

But we have a big surprise. First we examine the Arctic sea ice extent so far this summer. Has it melted away like Al Gore said it would?

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Antarctica continues long-term upward sea ice trend

Looking at Antarctica sea ice, we also see a zero-crisis trend when plotting the data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA):

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climate-debate

Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet 1992–2016: reconciling results from GRACE gravimetry with ICESat, ERS1/2 and Envisat altimetry

by J. Zwally et al., 2021, March 29, in J.of.Glaciology

Abstract

GRACE and ICESat Antarctic mass-balance differences are resolved utilizing their dependencies on corrections for changes in mass and volume of the same underlying mantle material forced by ice-loading changes. Modeled gravimetry corrections are 5.22 times altimetry corrections over East Antarctica (EA) and 4.51 times over West Antarctica (WA), with inferred mantle densities 4.75 and 4.11 g cm−3. Derived sensitivities (Sg, Sa) to bedrock motion enable calculation of motion (δB0) needed to equalize GRACE and ICESat mass changes during 2003–08. For EA, δB0 is −2.2 mm a−1 subsidence with mass matching at 150 Gt a−1, inland WA is −3.5 mm a−1 at 66 Gt a−1, and coastal WA is only −0.35 mm a−1 at −95 Gt a−1. WA subsidence is attributed to low mantle viscosity with faster responses to post-LGM deglaciation and to ice growth during Holocene grounding-line readvance. EA subsidence is attributed to Holocene dynamic thickening. With Antarctic Peninsula loss of −26 Gt a−1, the Antarctic total gain is 95 ± 25 Gt a−1 during 2003–08, compared to 144 ± 61 Gt a−1 from ERS1/2 during 1992–2001. Beginning in 2009, large increases in coastal WA dynamic losses overcame long-term EA and inland WA gains bringing Antarctica close to balance at −12 ± 64 Gt a−1 by 2012–16.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The NOT melting glacier

by T. Ciccone & J. Lehr, May 31, 2022 in CFact

beautiful white icy hill with cave in antarctic

 

Could Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ meet its doom within 3 years?

“Time is melting away for one of Antarctica’s biggest glaciers, and its rapid deterioration could end with the ice shelf’s complete collapse in just a few years,” alarmist researchers warned at a virtual press briefing on Dec. 13, 2021 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)–a once outstanding professional society, but now a shill for the left.

Above is the first sentence of the article titled “Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ could meet its doom within 3 years,” not what we would expect to see from a once reputable source, the AGU. It warns us that in a few years, the world’s largest glacier, about the size of Florida, will melt and raise ocean levels by up to 3 meters (about 10 ft). It then tells us that the glacier is melting from below because the surrounding ocean waters have been warmed “thanks to human-induced climate change.” Finally, it tells us that a team of more than 100 scientists from the USA and the UK have been studying the Thwaites glacier and sharing their findings with scientists worldwide.

The article then explains that the Thwaites is not melting from above, but “the melting is coming from below,” from the warmed-up oceans that have been warmed by human-made CO2 and the greenhouse effect. The bulk of the article then proceeds to detail the forecasted consequences around the world:

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This team may not have even been communicating with each other. Almost a decade earlier, geologists were seeing evidence of volcanoes in a known active tectonic plate boundary, buried under the glacier and the oceans. Before 2017, at least 47 volcanoes were found in western Antarctica and around the area of the Thwaites glacier. In 2017 the Guardian reported that an additional 91 volcanoes had been found along the western shores of Antarctica, with some sitting under the Twaites glacier itself. See the article “Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet.”

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climate-debate

Claims on the Antarctic Ice Breakup Suffer from Limited History

by A. Watts, Mar 30, 2022 in ClimateRealism

The media was full of disaster headlines this week over an observed breakup of a minor and little-known Antarctic ice shelf. Yahoo News and the New York Times, among others, lamented the “unprecedented” event. The problem is, we don’t really have any knowledge of previous events, making the present day claims false by omission.

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During that period the Antarctic sea ice will in fact refreeze just like it does every year. You can be almost certain that if the Glenzer-Conger ice shelf forms again from the fragments and new ice, we won’t see MSM headlines about it because it goes against the “climate change” narrative.

climate and geology, climate-debate

A new volcanic province: an inventory of subglacial volcanoes in West Antarctica

by M. van Wyk et al., May 29, 2017 in LyellSpecPublications

(a) Location of the main components of the West Antarctic Rift System and confirmed volcanoes (red circles: after LeMasurier et al. 1990; Smellie & Edwards 2016). (b) Location of Holocene volcanoes (red circles) in the Ethiopia/Kenya branch of the East African Rift (red shaded area). The majority of this activity is aligned along the rift axis with occasional flank volcanism. Data from Siebert & Simkin (2002) and Global Volcanism Program (2013).

 Abstract

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet overlies the West Antarctic Rift System about which, due to the comprehensive ice cover, we have only limited and sporadic knowledge of volcanic activity and its extent. Improving our understanding of subglacial volcanic activity across the province is important both for helping to constrain how volcanism and rifting may have influenced ice-sheet growth and decay over previous glacial cycles, and in light of concerns over whether enhanced geothermal heat fluxes and subglacial melting may contribute to instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we use ice-sheet bed-elevation data to locate individual conical edifices protruding upwards into the ice across West Antarctica, and we propose that these edifices represent subglacial volcanoes. We used aeromagnetic, aerogravity, satellite imagery and databases of confirmed volcanoes to support this interpretation. The overall result presented here constitutes a first inventory of West Antarctica’s subglacial volcanism. We identified 138 volcanoes, 91 of which have not previously been identified, and which are widely distributed throughout the deep basins of West Antarctica, but are especially concentrated and orientated along the >3000 km central axis of the West Antarctic Rift System.

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climate-debate

Temperature Bottom Falling Out: Antarctica’s Coldest Half-Year Since Measurements Began 60 Years Ago

by P. Gosselin, Nov 9, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Antarctica sets a record cold six month period…Neumayer station sets new winter record low, sees rapid cooling since 2000!

German Die kalte Sonne here features Antarctica’s record cold winter – the coldest since temperature measurements began some 60 years ago.

Coldest April-September period

The Amundsen Scott station at the South Pole recorded a mean temperature of -60.9°C for the April 1 to September 30 period, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). For the June-July-August period, the mean was minus 62.9°C  — the second coldest recorded.

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Apparently the 140 or so ppm added CO2 couldn’t trap enough heat to prevent a record cold from being set. The previous record for June-July-August was set in 2004.

Neumayer sets record cold, sees 3°C of cooling since 1985

Die kalte Sonne reports that a record was also set at the German Neumayer Antarctic station, located on the Antarctic coast, which saw a mean June-July-August temperature of -28.6°C.

better to know...?, climate-debate

ANTARCTIC SEA ICE ‘REBOUND’ SURPRISES SCIENTISTS — MSM SILENT

by Cap Allon, Aug 25, 2021 in Electroverse

Just two years ago, many mainstream media outlets declared that sea ice at the South Pole was melting at an “astonishing” rate.

As recently pointed out by notrickszone.com, German national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported in June 2019 that Antarctic sea ice had “shrunk 1.8 million square kilometers”, writing: “the massive disappearance of ice is astonishing”.

And while the reporting was technically factual, it has proven to be yet more AGW-driving obfuscation and cherry-picking rather than well-founded indications of a concerning climatic trend.

And now, in 2021, as the ice sharply rebounds, these same MSM outlets have fallen silent–which is speaking volumes…

 

Sea ice at the South Pole has rebounded in 2020 and 2021, to the levels of some 3-decades ago.

Moreover, the trend of the past 40+ years (the satellite era) remains one of significant growth (of approx 1% per decade).

In 2021, Antarctic sea ice is actually tracking well-above the multidecadal average (shown below).

MASSIVE SEA ICE REBOUND GOES UNREPORTED

The climate-ambulance chasing MSM have stopped reporting on the state of the ice across the Southern Hemisphere.

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CLASSIC DISINFORMATION TECHNIQUE

“Researchers are in agreement that the decline in Antarctic sea ice from 2016 to 2019 is due to natural causes,” writes Die kalte Sonne. “Obviously this is not a good topic for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, who prefer not to report on the ice recovery.”

Not informing the public about the most recent developments, but instead leaving them with a false impression based on carefully cherry-picked data from two years prior, is a classic disinformation technique that has long been perfected by the activist media.

For more on Antarctica, see:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Antarctic Sea Ice Recovery Surprises Scientists… Classic Disinformation Technique Of Not Reporting

by P. Gosselin, Aug 15, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Just two years ago, many of Germany’s mainstream media outlets declared sea ice at the South Pole was melting at an “astonishing” rate. For example, the left of center, Munich based Süddeutsche Zeitung,

German national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (above) reported in June, 2019, that Antarctic sea ice had “shrunk 1.8 million square kilometers”, writing: “the massive disappearance of ice is astonishing”.

But many readers here, who are aware of the real data, know nothing of the sort over the long term has happened since satellite measurements began over 40 years ago.

Massive sea ice rebound goes unreported

Today, two years later, German climate science site Die kalte Sonne looks at recent sea ice developments in Antarctica – noting that the climate-ambulance chasing mainstream media like the Süddeutsche Zeitung have since mysteriously stopped reporting on Antarctica. Here’s why:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

ANTARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT LARGEST SINCE 2015, AND GROWING

by Cap Allon, July 14, 2021 in Electrroverse

According to the June, 2021 report recently released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), it is revealed that the ice locked at Earth’s poles is actually GROWING.

The opening paragraph of the report reads: “Sea ice in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica was well above the 1981 to 2010 average extent in June, rising above the ninetieth percentile near the end of the month”.

But that’s as far as the NSIDC go…

They have plenty to say on the Arctic –which is experiencing its sixth lowest extent on record (big whoop)– but when it comes to Antarctica, I hear nothing but “crickets” — clearly, the icy continent GROWING in mass, and so offsetting the comparatively small losses registered by its northern cousin, is seen as a dampener to the AGW party.

Or perhaps the NSIDC are just letting the data speak for itself:

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… it is revealed that Antarctic sea ice extent, as of June 12 (or day 193), is at an impressive 15.808 million square kilometres (6.104 million square miles) — this is the largest extent at this time of year since 2015, and also sees it tracking well-above the 1979-1990 average.

This news, if you’re an alarmist, is surely something to be celebrated.

The icy continent holds 90% of Earth’s freshwater — so, if you’re one of the gullible that have been conditioned to lose sleep over ‘sea level rise’ then this latest datapoint should quell those fears.

Unfortunately though, alarmists selectively ignore ‘good news’ and instead accumulate only bad news–the news that supports their fears, which, thanks to the likes of the IPCC and their MSM lapdogs, is rammed down our collective throats on a daily basis — it is impossible to ignore.

It’s a type of cognitive dissonance, I guess — people are rejecting new information that conflicts with their existing beliefs, even when the new information is positive: this isn’t how science is supposed to work.

Oh, and the NSIDC has more.

Looking at their historical chart which runs back to 1979, an overall trend of growth is shown here, too.

According to the data, ice around the southern pole has been increasing at ≈1 percent per decade:

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climate-debate

New Study: A ‘Profound’ ~1°C Cooling Trend Across East Antarctica Since 1979 Is ‘Likely To Accelerate’

by K. Richard, July 12, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Except for a few pockets of warming along the West Antarctic coast, surface air temperatures have cooled profoundly across East Antarctica – most of the continent, as well as the surrounding Southern Ocean – in the last 40 years (1979-2018). About 30% of the cooling can be explained by Madden-Julian Oscillation forcing.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 337 ppm in 1979 to 408 ppm in 2018.

But according to graphical illustrations of surface air temperature (SAT) trends from satellite observations documented in a new study (Hsu et al., 2021), nearly the entire continent of Antarctica and much of the surrounding Southern Ocean have undergone about -0.02°C/year (-0.2°C per decade) SAT cooling during this period.

East Antarctica’s temperatures have fallen by about 1°C in the last 40 years, with approximately -0.4°C cooling from 1999-2018 relative to 1979-1998.

Per the authors, one-third of this 40-year cooling trend can be attributed to Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) forcing. The MJO influence is “likely to accelerate” the long-term cooling trend for East Antarctica in the coming decades.

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better to know...?

Antarctica wasn’t quite as cold during the last ice age as previously thought

by OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, June 6, 2021 in WUWT

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A study of two methods for reconstructing ancient temperatures has given climate researchers a better understanding of just how cold it was in Antarctica during the last ice age around 20,000 years ago.

Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth today, was even colder during the last ice age. For decades, the leading science suggested ice age temperatures in Antarctica were on average about 9 degrees Celsius cooler than at present.

An international team of scientists, led by Oregon State University’s Christo Buizert, has found that while parts of Antarctica were as cold as 10 degrees below current temperatures, temperatures over central East Antarctica were only 4 to 5 degrees cooler, about half of the previous estimates.

The findings were published this week in Science.

“This is the first conclusive and consistent answer we have for all of Antarctica,” said Buizert, an Oregon State University climate change specialist. “The surprising finding is that the amount of cooling is very different depending on where you are in Antarctica. This pattern of cooling is likely due to changes in the ice sheet elevation that happened between the ice age and today.”

Understanding the planet’s temperature during the last ice age is critical to understanding the transition from a cold to a warm climate and to modeling what might occur as the planet warms as a result of climate change today, said Ed Brook, a paleoclimatologist at OSU and one of the paper’s co-authors.

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climate-debate

POLAR CHILL GRIPS NEW ZEALAND + ANTARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT HOLDING ABOVE 1979-1990 AVERAGE

by Cap Allon, Apr 28, 2021 in Electroverse

Winter is arriving early across New Zealand, particularly in the South Island where well-below average temperatures and even a dusting of out-of-season snow have set in.

A midnight snowstorm delivered a healthy dumping to the Porters Alpine Resort near Castle Hill Tuesday morning, while parts of inland Canterbury and Otago woke to freezing temperatures, down to -3.2C.

The mercury had plunged even further by Wednesday morning, as an Antarctic air mass took charge.

The conditions led to a hard, widespread frost, according to stuff.co.nz, one that stretched from the Canterbury region down to the Lakes District, and beyond.

Lows of -5.1C and -6.4C were registered at Mackenzie Basin and a MetService weather station near Twizel, respectively — also note, Twizel’s low of -6.2C is some 8.8C below the average for the time of year.

Other South Island locales to report freezing temperatures included Lauder, which dropped to -2.7C; Ranfurly with -3.1C; Alexandra with -2.3C; and Mount Cook Village, which registered -1.9C.

A few negative readings were logged in the North Island, too: a weather station near Waiouru dipped down to -0.7C early Wednesday morning.

With regards to the snow, it has for now been restricted to the highest elevations; however, Porters operations manager Blair James believes the recent cold snap –which he says has brought snow and well-below average cold for the past two weeks now– could be an early indicator of a good snowfall season to come.

The below photo was snapped at Mt. Hutt on Wednesday.

The resort, according to @SnowForecast on Twitter, had just received “more pre-season snowfall.”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Antarctic Sea Ice Grows 2 Million Sq. Km – Area As Big As Saudi Arabia. And: Hamburg Spring Arriving Later…

by P. Gosselin, March 28 in NoTricksZone

Antarctic sea ice grows 2 million square kilometers in 4 years…

It’s hard to back up the statement: Global warming is global. Some places have seen warming over the past 40 years (e.g. Arctic), but other places have not.

Antarctica definitely has not been playing along with the man-made global warming hoax. (Yes, man has caused some of the warming, but not all – and it certainly isn’t catastrophic).

Antarctic sea ice surges

Though Antarctic sea ice fell to a “record minimum” in 2017 – after having reached a “record high” in 2015 – the latest data from the National Snow and Ice Data Centershow sea ice at the South Pole has bounced back robustly since, surging some 500,000 sq km above the mean.

On March 26, 2017, Antarctic sea ice measured 3.055 million sq km. Four years later, sea ice reached 5.103 million sq km. That’s a difference of more than 2 million sq. km., which is an area the size of Saudi Arabia!

No way to ignore natural factors

So why would sea ice grow so quickly? If the ice had disappeared, many would blame it on greenhouse gases – absurd of course. And it would be just as absurd to blame the recent gain on global cooling. Obviously there is a complex array of natural factors at work – factors that climate alarmists consistently have ignored over the past decades.

Here’s the March 26, 2021 satellite photo of Antarctica:

Source: NSIDC

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better to know...?, climate-debate

False Alarm: IPCC Models Say A Warming Antarctica REDUCES Sea Levels -0.8 Of A Meter By 3000

by K. Richard, March 15, 2021 in NoTricksZone

The IPCC-endorsed anthropogenic global warming (AGW) paradigm finds a warming Antarctica results in more precipitation locked up as ice on the continent. This contributes to reducing sea levels: a -1.2 mm/year−1 mitigation of sea level rise over the next 80 years.

In the 4th IPCC report, Working Group 1 (the physical science) reported that as global temperatures rise, “GCMs [models] indicate increasingly positive SMB for the Antarctic Ice Sheet as a whole because of greater accumulation.” This means that by 2100 Antarctica “would contribute 0.4 to 2.0 mm yr−1 of sea level fall.” Over the next 980 years, Antarctica’s ice accumulation will reduce sea levels by nearly a full meter (-0.8 m by 3000).

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climate and geology

Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf Break-Up Driven by Geological Heat Flow Not Climate Change

by J.E. Kamis, Jan 19, 2017 in PlateClimatology

 

Figure 1  North tip of Antarctic Continent including Larsen Ice Shelf Outline (black line), very active
West Antarctica Rift / Fault System (red lines), and currently erupting or semi-active volcanoes (red dots).

Progressive bottom melting and break-up of West Antarctica’s seafloor hugging Larsen Ice Shelf is fueled by heat and heated fluid flow from numerous very active geological features, and not climate change.

This ice shelf break-up process has been the focus of an absolute worldwide media frenzy contending man-made atmospheric global warming is at work in the northwest peninsula of Antarctica. As evidence, media articles typically include tightly edited close-up photos of cracks forming on the surface of the Larsen Ice Shelf (Figure 2) accompanied by text laced with global warming alarmist catch phrases. This “advertising / marketing” approach does in fact produce beautiful looking and expertly written articles. However, they lack subsidence, specifically a distinct absence of actual scientific data and observations supporting the purported strong connection to manmade atmospheric global warming.

Working level scientists familiar with, or actually performing research on, the Larsen Ice Shelf utilize an entirely different approach when speaking about or writing about what is fueling this glacial ice break-up. They ascribe the break-up to poorly understood undefined natural forces (see quote below). Unfortunately, comments by these scientists are often buried deep in media articles and never seem to match the alarmist tone of the article’s headline.

“Scientists have been monitoring the rift on the ice shelf for decades. Researchers told NBC News that the calving event was “part of the natural evolution of the ice shelf,” but added there could be a link to changing climate, though they had no direct evidence of it.” (see here)

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