Nature reports that warm ocean currents are increasing Antarctic ice melt:
Reporting in this week's journal Nature, an international team of scientists including Helen Amanda Fricker of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has established that warm ocean currents are the dominant cause of recent ice loss in Antarctica. New measurement techniques have been used to differentiate, for the first time, between the two causes of thinning ice shelves - warm ocean currents melting the underside, and warm air melting from above. This finding brings scientists a step closer to providing reliable projections of future sea-level rise. The work was initiated during a late 2009 visit to Scripps by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientist Hamish Pritchard, lead author of the study. Working with Fricker, Pritchard used measurements made by a laser instrument mounted on NASA's ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite) to estimate the changing thickness of almost all the floating ice shelves around Antarctica, revealing the pattern of ice-shelf melt around the continent. Of the 54 ice shelves studied, warm ocean currents are melting 20, most of which are in West Antarctica. In every case, the inland glaciers that flow down to the coast and feed into these thinning ice shelves are also draining more ice into the sea, contributing to sea-level rise. Only Larsen Ice Shelf, on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula (the long stretch of land pointing towards South America), is thinning because of warm air above it instead of melting from ocean currents.Republicans may still be in denial, but we better be prepared for some climate driven issues in the near future.
"In most places in Antarctica, we can't explain the ice-shelf thinning through melting of snow at the surface, so it has to be driven by warm ocean currents melting them from below" said Pritchard.
So this study concludes that antarctic melting is not caused by climate change. But that means nothing to you, a faithful member of the church of climate alarmism.
ReplyDeleteI saw nothing in this which concluded that warm ocean currents weren't linked to climate change. But then again, I don't have your oceanography background.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait:
ReplyDeleteCirculation changes are mostly driven by changes in the pattern of winds around Antarctica which, in turn, are related to global changes in climate. The new research shows that understanding how the ocean responds to climate change is critical to forecasting future Antarctic ice loss.
So reading means nothing to you.