Vocal Voices

In two days the BBC released two completely contradictory reports on Antarctica. Whilst the first is an article about scientific research in the 20th century on the Pine Island glacier which is rapidly in retreat.

To level set, PIG drains about 25% of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), the WAIS has enough ice to raise sea levels by about 20M. So PIG, should it drain completely, could raise sea levels by 5M on it's own.

Granted PIG is not going to drain completely in the next 50 years. But it might drain enough to raise sea levels 1M.

Then there is the little obscure fact that the calculated sea level rise (IPCC AR5), by 2100, of 1/3 of a Meter, is based almost entirely on sea expansion from heat and land glacier reduction. It does not factor in significant discharges from either the Antarctic or Greenland. Each of which is currently discharging, net, 150 cubic km and 250 cubic km of landfast ice into the sea respectively.

Of course if you look at the 2009 Copenhagen conference on Climate Change for which AR5 was compiled, the vast bulk of these data stop at 2000 and small amounts of data are included up to 2005. Nothing after 2005 is included because the studies were not all complete.


Almost ALL of the really interesting stuff has happened since 2000. Sea level rise, annually on average has lifted from <2mm per year to over 3.5, mainly on landfast ice discharge. The Arctic ice has gone from relatively stable to totally unstable and disintegrating. Antarctic ice has expanded and capped warm waters under the sea ice which has been eroding the bases of the landfast glaciers. Especially PIG which is held in place by an under-ice mountain range. Warm sea water has now made it's way over that mountain range and is allowing the glacier to flow more easily.

Now the [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38085147]second[url] article is all about how the early explorers log books show that Antarctic ice hasn't really changed much in the last 100 years. Unlike the Arctic. This seems to be used to make some kind of excuse for reporting that Global Warming is not as bad as we fear and the "Climate" Scientists have no clue what they are talking about.

Given that the press are supposed to be our "friends", the old adage is never more true. "With friends like these, who needs enemies???"

Both articles are still on the BBS's Science pages.

Pallab Ghosh, of the Scott/Shackleton piece, is more of a generalist science reporter where Jonathan Amos spend most of his time dealing with the environment. It is a shame that they do not seem to talk to each other.

The ice obviously ebbs and flows and these cycles are annual, multi-decadal and even over centuries and millennia. So is it really such a surprise that the very basic data, by today's standards, taken by Scott and Shackleton show differences from today.

What their data do not show is the extent of sea ice over the whole continent, and more importantly, its depth. Yes, they have a valuable snapshot of that time, and that is how it should be treated. The other thing that bugs me about the Scott/Shackleton article is the contrasting of the Arctic with Antarctica.

The Arctic is basically an ocean bounded by land from Russia, Canada, Greenland and the top of Scandinavia. It doubles then halves in size on an annual cycle. Its multi-year ice is estimated to be about 20m thick. Less in some places, more in others. It is susceptible to weather never mind climate. Antarctica, on the other hand, is the world's fifth largest land mass. It is covered in ice over 1.5km thick. Its highest point is 8,892m above sea level. It creates its own climate.

To be blunt, there is no comparison.

Today the "not so" Independent has an article about the Arctic causing 19 tipping points which will impact global weather...

Who would have known? Nobody if the press had their way most of the time....

The press is going to get whiplash if they don't stop this.... Certainly people are going to stop believing anything they say.

I'd just finished telling a guy, online, that 2005/6/7 was a step change in the ice balance of the Arctic. It's looking like 2015/16/17 is going to be the same.

It's like running a car which is cooled by ice rather than by circulating water. You start out with a huge block of ice and add to it every year. However it's always burning more ice than you add. Then you suddenly wrap the engine in insulation and the heat builds up and melts even more ice. At the same time you add less ice each year.

Guaranteed end result? The engine overheats and breaks.

Our engine is what we call the "livable biosphere". The weather balance which allows us to grow enough food (sort of), to support 7 billion lives.

Granted we have two ice packs and Greenland and Antarctica. But those are also melting and the Arctic cap holds down an even thicker warming blanket than we currently have today, by about 2:1.

I'm trending towards the scientist currently in NZ telling the people "We're screwed, enjoy it whilst you can because we are our own Extinction Level Event." No need to worry about satellites, we're doing a really good job of killing ourselves off. It's just taking longer...

This all fits in nicely with what I have been on about forever, namely that we have no real knowledge of the time lag between different events and their consequences. We know the events have happened, we know the lags are there, but we are not sure exactly when their consequences will manifest themselves.

Things are not linear. For argument, take a 50 year lag, if an event happened in 1970 and its outcome was expected in 2020 it does not mean that a different event in 1990 will show in 2040. They could coincide in 2020 with a doubling of the consequences.

Today we are constantly focussing on the here and now and trying to predict how things might be in 20, 30, 50 or 100 years hence. Unfortunately we are not sure. Things 100 years from now could be a world away from what is currently predicted. My prediction is that they will be much worse.

Yep, in the year 2000 there was a scientific consensus that we would begin to see an Ice free Arctic somewhere around 2070 +- 20 years.

I'm pretty certain we'll see the beginning of the Ice free Arctic next year. If, indeed, we have not already seen it.

No scientist would have predicted what happened in the decade following that 2000 prediction. Not and keep his/her reputation. Let alone what happened in 2012.

If a Scientist had predicted we would see a 10mm sea level rise in an 18 month window between the beginning of 2015 and the autumn of 2016, s/he would have been laughed out of the room and derided as an alarmist.

Funny how things change isn’t it. Prof Wadhams is still being ridiculed for predicting a black swan ice free arctic. He's been predicting it for 2 years now and I expect he will continue to predict it until it becomes true. He's been called "going emeritus", lost the plot, ostracised by peers.

But the sad fact is this. As every year goes by he comes closer to being right and we move further and further away from the predictions of 2000. In fact the UN IPCC AR5 climate change report was still talking about ice free arctic in 2060 and 30cm sea level rise by 2100.

My personal thought is Wadhams will be right by, or before, 2022. The reality of the AR5 sea level rise prediction? It predicted that 90% of the sea level rise would happen in the last 30 years of the century. Well I have sad new for the IPCC. We have already seen nearly 10% of that sea level rise since they released the report in 2009. Fully 2.75cm of the 30cm to make up 10%. I do wonder what they will predict next? Because on that average, we'll see 3.3M sea level rise by 2100 and, remember, they're right about 90% of the rise happening in the last 30 years of the century.

So if I change that and average the last 7 year’s rise, per year, until 2070 then times it by 10, we get 21 meters.... Which would constitute a major breakdown in the WAIS and Greenland. Not unexpected with those levels. A 2m sea level rise would float all the descending ice shelves higher and cause more lubrication of the ice bed...

But wait, you say, that's unrealistic. Is it? The AR5 predictions were made on data showing sea level rise was 1.9mm per year in the decade up to 2000 and 2.2mm per year in the half decade to 2005. In the decade from 2005 to 2015, that average rose to 3.3 and in the 7 years since the AR5 report (2009) it has increased to 3.9, per year, on average.

Does anyone really believe it won't be 4 by 2020? Or 5 by 2030?

You might note the lack of optimism or hope?? Is there anything to be optimistic about? Or to hope for?

You know what is really sad? Our inputs of CO2 have stabilised, finally, in 2015. We're still pushing out way too much CO2 but the increase, annually, has finally stopped. 30 years too late and 70ppm CO2 in the atmosphere too much. Because CO2, at the current emissions rate, will continue to rise at around 3ppm per year. In a decade we'll be at 435. In two decades we'll be at 465 and 450 is considered the gateway to uncontrolled melting of the remaining ice fields of Antarctica and Greenland.

Of course that is completely ignoring the methane releases from the Arctic 50m continental shelves and the permafrost tundra. At a conservative estimate there is enough methane there to add 200ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Driving the ppm to over 660. Or, in other words, the same level as before the ice ages began.

The time to stop producing net CO2 emissions was 1900. The time to stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye is somewhere around 30 – 40 years from now. If we haven’t managed to have a global war over food, resources and land by then.