More Antarctic Melting Drivel
Utter drivel from the Daily Mail, and doubtless the rest of the MSM as well:
- Strong gusts from the east are driving waves of warm water towards the sea ice
- When the warm water washes against the ice, it causes it to melt at a faster rate
- Winds of up to 435mph (700km/h) are caused by climate change, research finds
- Study come days after at iceberg the size of Delaware broke off from the region
The West Antarctic ice shelf is rapidly melting away because of 435mph winds which are driven by climate change, a new study has found.
Strong gusts from the eastern coast are driving waves of warm water towards the ice, which is now melting at a faster rate than once believed, according to scientists.
This is fuelling the breaking off of vast icebergs in the West Antarctic – such as the iceberg on the Larsen C ice-shelf last week.
The iceberg weighs a staggering trillion tons and has an area of 2,239 sq miles (5,800 sq km), making roughly the size of Delaware, or equivalent to the size of Wales.
This image shows the path of ocean waves push warm waters under the ice shelves of the West Antarctic Peninsula (seen top). These waves are generated by ultra-fast winds.
WHY IS THE ICE MELTING?
New research has revealed how strong winds from the east of Antarctica are driving the high rate of ice melt along the West Antarctic Peninsula.
Researchers found that the winds in East Antarctica can travel across the continent at almost 435mph (700km/h) via a type of ocean wave known as a Kelvin wave.
When these waves encounter the steep underwater cliffs off the West Antarctic Peninsula they push warmer water towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline.
The warm Antarctic Circumpolar Current passes quite close to the continental shelf in this region, providing a source for this warm water.
‘It is this combination of available warm water offshore, and a transport of this warm water onto the shelf, that has seen rapid ice shelf melt along the West Antarctic sector over the past several decades,’ said lead researcher Dr Paul Spence from the University of New South Wales in Australia.
In the latest study, researchers found climate change has caused water close to south pole to warm, as well as the increased frequency of strong winds in the region.
They looked at how strong winds from the east of Antarctica are driving the high rate of ice melt along the West Antarctic Peninsula.
Researchers found that the winds in East Antarctica can travel across the continent at almost 435mph (700km/h) via a type of ocean wave known as a Kelvin wave.
When these waves encounter the steep underwater cliffs off the West Antarctic Peninsula they push warmer water towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline.
The warm Antarctic Circumpolar Current passes quite close to the continental shelf in this region, providing a source for this warm water.
‘It is this combination of available warm water offshore, and a transport of this warm water onto the shelf, that has seen rapid ice shelf melt along the West Antarctic sector over the past several decades,’ said lead researcher Dr Paul Spence from the University of New South Wales in Australia.
‘We always knew warm water was finding its way into this area but the precise mechanism has remained unclear.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4697076/Antarctic-sea-ice-melting-strong-winds.html
In fact, as the article goes on to report, the scientists themselves have no evidence that climate change has anything at all to do with changes in wind patterns.
The changes in the Antarctic coastal winds, particularly along East Antarctica, might themselves be related to climate change.
The simple reality is that scientists have only been monitoring these ice sheets for a couple of decades or so, and have no idea about their behaviour prior to that.
And as the Mail also points out:
The iceberg, which is expected to be dubbed ‘A68’, is predicted to be one of the 10 largest icebergs ever recorded.
So there have been nine others in just the last few decades. Hardly unprecedented then.
We can however put these events into some sort of perspective, in two separate ways.
Explorers’ logbooks
Last year, researchers closely examined the logbooks of Scott and Shackleton. I covered the story here.
They concluded that, despite concerns that Antarctic sea ice had declined significantly since the 1950s, the ice extent was very similar to now 100 years ago.
Clearly there is a cyclical nature to this.
The same Telegraph report revealed that ice loss in West Antarctica had been in progress since at least the 1940s, and was “probably caused by El Nino activity rather than global warming”.
Storm tracks
According to the Mail:
Dr Spence said: ‘If we do take rapid action to counter global warming and slow the rise in temperatures, southern storms tracks are likely to return to a more northerly position.
‘That may slow the melting in Western Antarctica and bring more reliable autumn and winter rains back to the southern parts of Australia.’
Claims that global warming has brought drought to southern Australia are common, but also easily disproved garbage.
This is what the Australian BOM rainfall records show for that part of the country for winter and autumn:
There is nothing remotely unusual about these rainfall patterns, and certainly no evidence that storm tracks have gone south.
FOOTNOTE
In these sort of scare articles, there are usually a couple of subliminal messages.
Note for instance, the scary headline:
“Winds of up to 435mph are caused by climate change”
The implication is that such high wind speeds would not be possible without climate change.
This is a straight lie. High wind speeds are commonplace in Antarctica because of the katabatic effect, due to cold, dense air flowing out from the polar plateau of the interior down the steep vertical drops along the coast. It is at the steep edge of Antarctica that the strong katabatic winds form as cold air rushes over the land mass.
The highest wind speed there was actually recorded in 1972.
There is also this little sidebar box:
Record temperatures, and 63°F too? No wonder all that ice is melting!
At least, that’s what most readers will think, blissfully unaware of the actual facts. As I noted at the time, the previous record high was 62.8°F, set way back in 1961.
Contrary to popular myth, the Antarctic is not melting down!
Read more at Not A Lot Of People Know That
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