1) This is going to be used, fast, by the climate change denial camp to show "everything is OK", sad but true.
2) Increased snow and ice build up in the interior, while the ice shelves surrounding the continent disappear, will have unpredictable consequences. It's not necessarily a good thing. The increased mass in the interior will increase the rate of flow out of the centre - which could ultimately hasten thinning.
3) This article doesn't mention it, but the paper itself does - they do compensate for bedrock motion.
To #1, I'm hardly a denier, but anytime I see everyone jump on a bandwagon, and start to see smugness (not referring to you), I wonder how much objectivity still exists.
IMHO we probably are warming the world with all of our machines, but the history of science is full of cases where it didn't know as much as it claimed, so let's keep some humility in the discussion and admit we still don't infact know everything for certain.
The trouble with climate change deniers is they turn everyone else into an equally unreasonable proponent. Look at these reactions to two pieces of evidence:
Antarctica is losing ice from its ice sheets - It shows global warming is happening and things might get worse.
Antarctica is gaining more ice than it's losing - We speculate that it might lead to another consequence that we haven't observed or modeled which would mean things still get worse.
That's bias if I ever saw it.
The fact is, we really don't know what will happen. Predictions range from 10m sea level rise in 50 years to nothing noticeable. It's a risk. A risk of things that might go very bad or might not. So we need to worry in case it does go bad. But the general public can't understand risk - they need black and white certainty which doesn't yet exist in this field. Proponents fear that people will choose black so they try to convince them it's white. Even though it's wrong, at least it seems like the safer choice of wrong.
To point 1, what would falsify the theory that humans are causing global warming and this is a bad thing. I've heard "weather isn't climate" a million times when there are snow storms, how is increasing ice mass not a mark against the theory of AGW?
> But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years -- I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
So while it's still increasing in mass, the current ∂∂m indicates it will start decreasing in 20-30 years.
I'm not at work, so I can't see the relevant articles, but I notice the linked study uses satellite altimetry. I'd be interested in the numbers for complementary techniques, in particular, gravitational mass anomalies from GRACE. Here's a link to an older comparative study: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/jog/2010/0000005...
My understanding is that GRACE still was seeing Antarctic mass losses, but perhaps that has changed.
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
Complete conjecture, but my money is on IPCCs estimates for other sources being a little too conservative, not some entirely new explanation.
As a climate change believer, I'm getting worried that a lot of svientists out there are just telling us all what we want to hear. It's incredibly fun to tell people that the world is going to end in 20 tears due to climate change, but if the truth is that it's end in 500 years, then doctoring the facts to make things seem more dire is dangerous.
This is an article that's going to get intensely mis-interpreted by the press and is going to sway public opinion in favor of non-anthropogenic global warming. While the study is solid, the fact remains that in spite of this ice gain, global sea levels ARE rising. Thermal expansion: When water heats up, it expands. About half of the past century's rise in sea level is attributable to warmer oceans simply occupying more space.
Where the rubber hits the road on the climate change debate is that the solution to climate change always includes carbon credits and cap and trade.
These two combine to be a global tax administered by new supranational organizations that can alternatively bribe and control development and the standard of living of every country on the planet. The governance of these entities will likely go the way of the IMF and the World Bank. Thus, it's just too convenient of a way to administer an empire. No wonder the countries that would get the short end of all this, such as the BRICS, are skeptical.
I realize we here in America have got to keep all these schemes going to keep the great balancing act we perform running the world moving right along. Heck, we need all the help we can get to keep the BRICS at an economic disadvantage. Too bad it's such a waste of smart people producing climate change B.S.
The US doesn't have to work very hard when it comes to the BRICS, they do it to themselves constantly.
Putin takes over Russia, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing to develop the economy away from its commodity dependency. Instead, he falls back onto the focus on energy that doomed the USSR. The US dollar goes on a big run, China's growth slows, US oil producers add four million barrels per day, and just like that Russia sinks into the abyss again. Russians are now spending half their income on just food alone, with their economy collapsing by 1/3 in dollar terms in just 18 months.
What did the US do to cause that? That's Russia's fault.
The same goes for what is happening to Brazil right now. They rode the fake boom good times on the back of a debased US dollar. Now that fake boom is over, the weak dollar has gone away, and with that tide going out, so has Brazil's economy.
Whose fault is that? It's only Brazil's fault.
Did the US force China to take on tens of trillions in debt to fake economic growth where there was none after the global consumer crashed in 2008? Nope, just like Japan before them, they did it to themselves willingly so they wouldn't have to admit the party was over.
The US hasn't had to do anything to these countries to hold them at an economic disadvantage, they're doing it to themselves.
Good news not all planetary patterns have been altered by humans, yet. Gives us a little more time down there. But we need to cut emissions quickly before this patterns reaches completion and the sea ice lost in west Antarctica causes significant sea level rise due to our burning of fossil fuels. The time to switch away from carbon based energy is now.
As a total noob, I'd say climate is a pretty complex problem to cheer at this as a 'good news'. Yes, there may be highly exaggerated attitudes on both sides, but scientific problems should addressed with data and verified scientific models. And I say this as an YEC. As opposed to science of the past, which poses specific epistemic issues, climate issues is something that can be observed now and here.
Personally, I think that there are much more important problems on the table before sea level rise, but nevertheless, climate change or not, pollution should be addressed on all fronts.
The West Antarctic Ice sheet is still flowing into the ocean, and accelerating. It's actually not even clear atmospheric warming is the ultimate cause. But it is clear that it's reached a literal tipping point. The glaciers have retreated past a point where the slope tips inland, and warm water is running down hill, melting the bottom. No amount of emissions reductions can stop it, we would need to pump heat away from the underside of the glaciers to slow it down.
Think of a similar word "faithful". Being faithful means you can be relied upon. When one is described as being faithful, there is normally some form of evidence behind it, whether tangible or not. And thus "faith" is the evidence of things unseen. You therefore can have "faith" in someone that is "faithful" because you know it to be true. You saw it, you felt it, you know it, ect.
Science: Is X true? Are we certain? Lets try and find evidence counter to X.
Actually that's not the definition of science, it's a definition of science, and whether it is a complete definition of science depends heavily on one's thoughts on philosophy of science. Falsification as the central concept has at times been popular and at times unpopular; right now, it is less popular than it was, say, about eighty years ago.
> “At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet,” Zwally said.
So there's a feedback mechanism that, as air temperatures rise, sequesters more liquid water that would otherwise raise sea levels. How will that be interpreted by the climate change alarmist camp as a portent of disaster?
Well, since air temperatures are still rising, basically you're increasing, dramatically, the wet-bulb temperature of the atmosphere.
You can survive 100-degree dry-bulb temperatures without problem, which is the reason why so many places of the world have a temperature above human core body temperature yet are still quite survivable. Now with wet bulb? Literally all these places can become literally unlivable for humans.
This study shows that the aggregate causes of sea level rise may be different from what we had guessed. However, it remains an amply demonstrated fact that global temperatures and sea levels are rising, even as the Antarctic ice sheet continues to grow.
Why do you think that the former is a good reason to ignore the latter?
[+] [-] madaxe_again|10 years ago|reply
1) This is going to be used, fast, by the climate change denial camp to show "everything is OK", sad but true.
2) Increased snow and ice build up in the interior, while the ice shelves surrounding the continent disappear, will have unpredictable consequences. It's not necessarily a good thing. The increased mass in the interior will increase the rate of flow out of the centre - which could ultimately hasten thinning.
3) This article doesn't mention it, but the paper itself does - they do compensate for bedrock motion.
Nice science.
[+] [-] DougN7|10 years ago|reply
IMHO we probably are warming the world with all of our machines, but the history of science is full of cases where it didn't know as much as it claimed, so let's keep some humility in the discussion and admit we still don't infact know everything for certain.
[+] [-] Asbostos|10 years ago|reply
Antarctica is losing ice from its ice sheets - It shows global warming is happening and things might get worse.
Antarctica is gaining more ice than it's losing - We speculate that it might lead to another consequence that we haven't observed or modeled which would mean things still get worse.
That's bias if I ever saw it.
The fact is, we really don't know what will happen. Predictions range from 10m sea level rise in 50 years to nothing noticeable. It's a risk. A risk of things that might go very bad or might not. So we need to worry in case it does go bad. But the general public can't understand risk - they need black and white certainty which doesn't yet exist in this field. Proponents fear that people will choose black so they try to convince them it's white. Even though it's wrong, at least it seems like the safer choice of wrong.
[+] [-] tsotha|10 years ago|reply
Seems pretty fair, doesn't it? I mean, any decreases have certainly been used by AGW promoters to show "the sky is falling".
[+] [-] jhspaybar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Shivetya|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zeckalpha|10 years ago|reply
So while it's still increasing in mass, the current ∂∂m indicates it will start decreasing in 20-30 years.
[+] [-] mturmon|10 years ago|reply
My understanding is that GRACE still was seeing Antarctic mass losses, but perhaps that has changed.
[+] [-] fndjcndjezx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baobabaobab|10 years ago|reply
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
Complete conjecture, but my money is on IPCCs estimates for other sources being a little too conservative, not some entirely new explanation.
[+] [-] ovis|10 years ago|reply
- The ocean expands as it warms, which is the single largest contributor right now (1.1 mm/yr).
- Mountain glaciers are next, as they are very rapidly melting (0.76 mm/yr, with large uncertainties).
- Then Greenland, as mentioned by another poster (0.43 mm/yr).
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/27/world/greenlan...
('greenland' in the search box returns a bunch of articles from a span of a few years)
[+] [-] partiallypro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3talridl3y|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narrator|10 years ago|reply
These two combine to be a global tax administered by new supranational organizations that can alternatively bribe and control development and the standard of living of every country on the planet. The governance of these entities will likely go the way of the IMF and the World Bank. Thus, it's just too convenient of a way to administer an empire. No wonder the countries that would get the short end of all this, such as the BRICS, are skeptical.
I realize we here in America have got to keep all these schemes going to keep the great balancing act we perform running the world moving right along. Heck, we need all the help we can get to keep the BRICS at an economic disadvantage. Too bad it's such a waste of smart people producing climate change B.S.
[+] [-] adventured|10 years ago|reply
Putin takes over Russia, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing to develop the economy away from its commodity dependency. Instead, he falls back onto the focus on energy that doomed the USSR. The US dollar goes on a big run, China's growth slows, US oil producers add four million barrels per day, and just like that Russia sinks into the abyss again. Russians are now spending half their income on just food alone, with their economy collapsing by 1/3 in dollar terms in just 18 months.
What did the US do to cause that? That's Russia's fault.
The same goes for what is happening to Brazil right now. They rode the fake boom good times on the back of a debased US dollar. Now that fake boom is over, the weak dollar has gone away, and with that tide going out, so has Brazil's economy.
Whose fault is that? It's only Brazil's fault.
Did the US force China to take on tens of trillions in debt to fake economic growth where there was none after the global consumer crashed in 2008? Nope, just like Japan before them, they did it to themselves willingly so they wouldn't have to admit the party was over.
The US hasn't had to do anything to these countries to hold them at an economic disadvantage, they're doing it to themselves.
[+] [-] blondie9x|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cristianpascu|10 years ago|reply
Personally, I think that there are much more important problems on the table before sea level rise, but nevertheless, climate change or not, pollution should be addressed on all fronts.
[+] [-] baobabaobab|10 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:West_Antarctic_Collapse.o...
[+] [-] pdonis|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gavanwoolery|10 years ago|reply
Faith: X is true! Because! Science: Is X true? Are we certain? Lets try and find evidence counter to X.
I see a lot of people (from each side) trying to prove their point, rather than disprove it.* The former is faith, the latter is science.
* Not referring to people here, just the population in general
[+] [-] esaym|10 years ago|reply
Think of a similar word "faithful". Being faithful means you can be relied upon. When one is described as being faithful, there is normally some form of evidence behind it, whether tangible or not. And thus "faith" is the evidence of things unseen. You therefore can have "faith" in someone that is "faithful" because you know it to be true. You saw it, you felt it, you know it, ect.
[+] [-] ubernostrum|10 years ago|reply
Actually that's not the definition of science, it's a definition of science, and whether it is a complete definition of science depends heavily on one's thoughts on philosophy of science. Falsification as the central concept has at times been popular and at times unpopular; right now, it is less popular than it was, say, about eighty years ago.
[+] [-] zkhalique|10 years ago|reply
Belief, in general, is a psychological attitude towards a claim.
[+] [-] taber|10 years ago|reply
Your definition of faith is more like my definition of fundamentalism: All evidence to the contrary of X is meaningless because X is true.
The distinction is subtle but note that faith uses the concept of faith as adjunct to rationality, rather than as replacement.
[+] [-] tomgg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] williesleg|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] emocakes|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hirundo|10 years ago|reply
So there's a feedback mechanism that, as air temperatures rise, sequesters more liquid water that would otherwise raise sea levels. How will that be interpreted by the climate change alarmist camp as a portent of disaster?
[+] [-] Daishiman|10 years ago|reply
You can survive 100-degree dry-bulb temperatures without problem, which is the reason why so many places of the world have a temperature above human core body temperature yet are still quite survivable. Now with wet bulb? Literally all these places can become literally unlivable for humans.
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|10 years ago|reply
Why do you think that the former is a good reason to ignore the latter?