Credit: British Antarctic Survey
Much ado about sea ice in recent times, but usually in terms of promoting climate alarm. On closer inspection East Antarctica (2/3rds of the continent) tells a somewhat different story.
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Some ice shelves in the eastern Antarctic have grown in the last 20 years despite global warming, a study suggests.
Researchers say that sea ice, pushed against the ice shelves by a change in regional wind patterns, may have helped to protect the ice shelves from losses, reports Yahoo News.
Ice shelves are floating sections of ice attached to land-based ice sheets and they help guard against the uncontrolled release of inland ice into the ocean.
During the late 20th century, high levels of warming in the eastern Antarctic Peninsula led to the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002 respectively.
These events drove the acceleration of ice towards the ocean, ultimately accelerating the Antarctic Peninsula’s contribution to sea level rise.
There was then a period when some ice shelves grew in area, but since 2020 there has been an increase in the number of icebergs breaking away from the eastern Antarctic Peninsula.
Academics, who used a combination of historical satellite measurements, along with ocean and atmosphere records, said their observations “highlight the complexity and often-overlooked importance of sea ice variability to the health of the Antarctic Ice Sheet”.
The team of researchers from Cambridge University, Newcastle University, and New Zealand’s University of Canterbury found that 85% of the 1,400km-long (870 miles) ice shelf along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula “underwent uninterrupted advance” between surveys of the coastline in 2003-4 and 2019.
This was in contrast to the extensive retreat of the previous two decades.
Research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggests the growth was linked to changes in atmospheric circulation, which led to more sea ice being carried to the coast by wind.
Full report here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
despite global warming
Not exactly global then?
Expedition chief scientist and study co-author Professor Julian Dowdeswell, also from the SPRI, said that during the expedition it was noted that parts of the ice-shelf coastline were at their “most advanced position since satellite records began in the early 1960s”.
My but they are quite pathetic. Forecasts are wrong but instead of confronting that we get these silly excuses and fantasies. Wind blew some ice?
Sky News version…
Parts of Antarctica gained ice in last 20 years after two decades of significant loss, study suggests
In the 1980s and 1990s, ice on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula was in retreat. A shift in wind patterns appears to have disrupted that trend.
Thursday 12 May 2022
https://news.sky.com/story/parts-of-antarctica-gained-ice-in-last-20-years-after-two-decades-of-significant-loss-study-suggests-12611332
‘parts of the ice-shelf coastline were at their “most advanced position since satellite records began in the early 1960s”.’
That’s a bit stronger than ‘study suggests’.
[…] Some Antarctic ice shelves grew in area over the last 20 years – study […]
[…] Some Antarctic ice shelves grew in area over the last 20 years – study […]
suggests the growth was linked to changes in atmospheric circulation, which led to more sea ice being carried to the coast by wind.
As I commented earlier, this is probably an inversion of cause and effect. Antarctica is possibly the strongest driver of climate change in earth. It changes both ocean and (consequently) wind circulation. Not the other way around.
I wonder why the University of NSW wasn’t on the panel. Readers may remember the expedition they organised to the Antarctic in 2013 alongwith ABC and The Guardian ‘reporters” – subsequently dubbed The Ship of Fools. One of the aims was to reach Douglas Mawson’s huts built 100 years before. The (russian) ship they were on, got stuck in pack ice 110 kilometres from where Mawson’s ship was moored then. (It apears that no-one looked at the satellite map of the ice before sailing).
There was much uproar about the difficulties of scientists and assorted others faced** and they were rescued by helicopters and ships diverted from useful operations. The Russian captain, now free of scientific help, got his ship out and returned to the New Zealand port at least a week before them.
**They had run out of the main ingredient for peanut butter smoothies.
‘These events drove the acceleration of ice towards the ocean, ultimately accelerating the Antarctic Peninsula’s contribution to sea level rise.’
Dammit. I look at the graphs of Sea Level Rise and I can’t see it.
Never forget, the rate of sea level rise the last hundred years has been CONSTANT. So all of their declarations about melting here or there or whatever are PHONY. Look at the graphs, and you can see with your own eyes that it JUST DOESN’T MATTER.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.