More than 40% of Antarctica’s ice shelves have shrunk since 1997 with almost half showing “no sign of recovery”, a study has found, linking the change to the climate breakdown.
Scientists at the University of Leeds have calculated that 67tn tonnes of ice was lost in the west while 59tn tonnes was added to the east between 1997 and 2021, resulting in a net loss of 7.5tn tonnes.
OK
The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth, with an average thickness of over 2 kilometers.[2] Separate to the Antarctic sea ice it covers an area of almost 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square miles) and contains 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice.[3] A cubic kilometer of ice weighs approximately 0.92 metric gigatonnes, meaning that the ice sheet weighs about 24,380,000 gigatonnes.
OK.
A gigatonne is 1,000,000,000 tonnes.
24,380,000,000,000,000 tonnes. And 7,500,000,000,000 tonnes.
0.04%. Yes, it’s time to panic, isn’t it.
It’s only of academic interest that there are volcanoes under the western shelf.
This area has only been properly observed for about 70 years. You’d have to be pretty hubristic to claim you know what’s going on from that.
There’s that magic Percentage of Doom again: 0.04%, same as the proportion of the atmosphere which is carbon dioxide.
“ This area has only been properly observed for about 70 years. You’d have to be pretty hubristic to claim you know what’s going on from that.”
I take it you don’t watch much TV news or follow the rest of the MSM?
Scientists believe the ice loss is a result of the climate crisis because there would be more ice regrowing if it was part of a cycle of natural variation . . .
. . . Scientists in France analysed 78 Antarctic ice cores to recreate temperatures going back 1,000 years and found the warming across the continent was outside what could be expected from natural swings.
A thousand years? You shouldn’t conclude fuck all about “natural” from that. Try over a couple of glacials / interglacials and get back to us you agenda driven, grant sucking slimers. And while you’re at it, learn the difference between “natural” and normal. Twats.
Big numbers baffle Guardian* journos. Hold the front page.
* though they’re not exactly unique among their profession in this regard
BiND: I take it you don’t watch much TV news or follow the rest of the MSM?
I’m not answering for rhoda but I’m not sure that there’s much mileage and doing either if you want to hear a range of reporting.
A bit like covid and vaccines in that respect…
They can’t do that @PJF, otherwise they’d have to conclude that “the changes are within the boundaries of natural variation” or as we used to say in old money “less significant than a rounding error”.
What sort of climate crisis would that be?
“since 1997 with almost half showing “no sign of recovery”, a study has found”
So more than half does show signs of recovery then. At ease.
26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles)
These numbers mean nothing to me. What is that in Waleses or Luxemburgs ?
Yet… actual Antarctic ice mass has been increasing. Ice moves slowly to the coast where it meets ‘warm’ water and melts – been doing that for very long time. Surprise.
For most of Earth’s history it has had no Polar ice caps. For it to have on ice cap is unusual, two us rare. This is one of the colder periods in Earth’s history.
If ‘records’ only started in 1860, none of this vital information will be considered.
What is that in Waleses or Luxemburgs ?
In Sussexes it’s just under half an ego.
TMB,
My point was that climate researchers that we see on/in the MSM are hubristic and there’s no reason to believe the rest aren’t when you read the likes of WUWP.
Fewer than 60% of Antarctic ice shelves are growing.