Antarctic Ice is Growing
(Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic guide)
illconsidered.blogspot.com
Objection:
The Antarctic Ice sheets are actually growing, which would not be happening if Global Warming were real.
Sigh. A gaggle of shrinking glaciers all around the globe doesn't prove a thing, but one thickening ice sheet at the south pole and the debate is supposedly over. What can you do except present a few facts and explain the very simple cause?
Answer:
There is actually very little data about the changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets, and the conclusion of some growth in the East Antarctic ice sheet is so little that with the uncertainty, it might even be shrinking. This is not a surprising phenomenon as such an increase would be the result of increasing percipitation and this is fully consistent with a warming world as the antarctic is a desert and warmer climates tend towards more percipitation. And even if you warmed 10 oC from -50 oC, you would still be accumulating snow, not melting in the rain.
There is some widespread glacial melting on the Antarctic peninsula and ice shelves are breaking up, but it does indeed appear that the mass balance on ice at the south pole may be positive but negligible. This does not, however contradict the theory of Global Warming in any way whatsoever.
While on the subject of ice sheets, Greenland is also growing ice in the center for the same reasons described above, but it is melting on the exterior regions, on the whole losing approximately 200 km^3 of ice annually, doubled now from a decade ago. This is a huge amount compared to what the changes may be in the Antarctice, around three orders of magnitude larger. So any potenial gain in total volume of ice on the planet due to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is wiped out many many times over by Greenland's ice sheet.
a NASA JPL news release
a CIRES study
a NASA new release |
