"Antarctica is actually gaining ice, says NASA"

"Is global warming over? Not quite, scientists say. But new study results show the fallibility of current climate change measuring tools and challenges current theories about the causes of sea level rise."

A new NASA study found that Antarctica has been adding more ice than it's been losing, challenging other research, including that of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that Earth’s southern continent is losing land ice overall.

In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology on Friday, researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland in College Park, and the engineering firm Sigma Space Corporation offer a new analysis of satellite data that show a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001 in the Antarctic ice sheet.

That gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

Climate scientists caution that these findings don’t mean it’s time to start celebrating the end of global warming. More than anything, the paper shows how difficult it is to measure ice height in Antarctica and that better tools are needed...

For now, the study authors say, these findings challenge current explanations for sea level rise, much of which is attributed to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

NYT: Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt

"A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries."

"Global warming caused by the human-driven release of greenhouse gases has helped to destabilize the ice sheet, though other factors may also be involved, the scientists said."

 

 

ADDED: Senator Marco Rubio weights in...

 

You can survive falling through the ice

Latent Heat Of Fusion

I opened my latest copy of Chemical & Engineering News and saw an intriguing "letter to the editor." [The letter is behind a pay wall].

The writer offered a simple reason why the oceans and ambient seas have failed to warm during the past dozen years: the latent heat of fusion of water.

The calorie is historically defined as the energy required to raise the temperature of 1g of water by 1 degree C. The energy required to convert 1g of ice to water is about 80 calories.

No one can argue with the fact that glaciers and polar ice masses are shrinking dramatically. That consumes a staggering quantity of energy and could well explain the recent flat change in surface temperature. 

He could have added that the energy added to melt ice does not raise the temperature of the water -- it all goes into tearing down the rigid structure of ice -- but his audience already knew that. Did you?

Here's a visual that every chemistry student is exposed to:

original

The author is drawing attention to the first flat red line labeled "latent heat of fusion."  Melting the polar ice caps will not raise the temperature of the seas until the last ice is melted. We know that the arctic ice cap is melting rapidly, but what about the antarctic ice mass?  What is the overall balance?

[added]:

The difference between melting and freezing is infinitely small in degrees Fahrenheit and is measured instead in degrees of freedom.  link

sonic rock on ice

Is that a chilled drink or something? No, it is the sound of tossing a rock on ice.

More of this sort of thing.

But the delightful sonic activity could be bad for we do not fully understand the affect that our idle amusement has upon the cweetures of the dip.