Study: ‘Early aerial expedition photos reveal 85 years of glacier growth and stability in East Antarctica’

That’s the title of the study, looking at an area that ‘covers approximately 2000 kilometers of coastline and contains as much ice as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.’ This article shouldn’t be relied on entirely due to obvious alarmist biases, so maybe better to read at least the abstract of the study for a clearer picture. For example [quote from the Discussion]: ‘This positive accumulation trend and positive mass balance is anticipated to persist as snowfall is expected to increase over the entire EAIS in the next century.’
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A whaler’s forgotten aerial photos from 1937 have given researchers at the University of Copenhagen the most detailed picture of the ice evolution in East Antarctica to date, says EurekAlert.

The results show that the ice has remained stable and even grown slightly over almost a century, though scientists observe early signs of weakening [Talkshop comment – a somewhat loose interpretation of the actual study].

The research offers new insights that enhance predictions of ice changes and sea level rise [Talkshop comment – climatist waffle, see the study].
. . .
Using hundreds of old aerial photographs dating back to 1937, combined with modern computer technology, the researchers have tracked the evolution of glaciers in East Antarctica. The area covers approximately 2000 kilometers of coastline and contains as much ice as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.

By comparing the historical aerial photos with modern satellite data, the researchers have been able to determine whether the glaciers have retreated or advanced and whether they have thickened or thinned.

The study reveals that the ice has not only remained stable but grown slightly over the last 85 years, partly due to increasing snowfall.

“We constantly hear about climate change and new melt records, so it’s refreshing to observe an area of glaciers that has remained stable for almost a century,” says PhD student Mads Dømgaard, the study’s first author.

Full article here.
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Study: Early aerial expedition photos reveal 85 years of glacier growth and stability in East Antarctica (May 2024)

NASA launches ‘ground-breaking’ climate change satellite

It turns out that ‘Until now the models that climate change scientists used to gauge heat loss were based on theories rather than real observations’. In other words, little or no data from the polar regions, so claims of Earth ‘overheating’ are lacking vital information. SciTech Daily says: ‘The PREFIRE CubeSats use advances in spectrometry to measure processes associated with ice melt and formation, snow melt and accumulation, and changes in cloud cover.’
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A tiny NASA satellite was launched Saturday from New Zealand with the mission of improving climate change prediction by measuring heat escaping from Earth’s poles for the first time, says Phys.org.

“This new information—and we’ve never had it before—will improve our ability to model what’s happening in the poles, what’s happening in climate,” NASA’s earth sciences research director Karen St. Germain told a recent news conference.

The satellite, which is the size of a shoe box, was launched by an Electron rocket, built by a company called Rocket Lab, which lifted off from Mahia in the north of New Zealand. The overall mission is called PREFIRE.

Russia finds vast oil and gas reserves in British Antarctic territory – what happens next?

Report: ‘Junior minister David Rutley last week told the EAC that his department had decided to trust Russian assurances it was just conducting scientific research.’ However, ‘reserves 10 times the North Sea’s output’ could be tempting – but not to most UK politicians, who prefer to import anyone else’s oil and gas in order to pose as climate friendly or something, while the government loses another court battle over its self-imposed net zero targets.
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Russia has found vast oil and gas reserves in the Antarctic, much of it in areas claimed by the UK, reports The Telegraph.

The surveys are a prelude to bringing in drilling rigs to exploit the pristine region for fossil fuels, MPs have warned.

Reserves totalling 511bn barrels of oil – about 10 times the North Sea’s entire 50-year output – have been reported to Moscow by Russian research ships, according to evidence given to the Commons Environment Audit Committee (EAC) last week.

Weird dent in Earth’s magnetic field is messing with auroras in the Southern Hemisphere

The South Atlantic Anomaly is an interesting phenomenon, which varies over time and may be related to a zone of unusually dense rock.
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A bizarre dent in Earth’s magnetic field above the southern Atlantic Ocean weakens the southern lights, new research finds.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is a large, oval-shaped region over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean where Earth’s magnetic field is weakest, says Live Science.

The anomaly is already well known for allowing charged particles from the sun to dip close to Earth’s surface, exposing satellites orbiting above to high levels of ionizing radiation, according to NASA.

Early start for seasonal polar stratospheric clouds

An Outbreak of Polar Stratospheric Clouds

An unusual temperature drop in the polar stratosphere.
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NASA (2008) said:
Scientists recently discovered that polar stratospheric clouds, long known to play an important role in Antarctic ozone destruction, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Arctic. These high altitude clouds [which] form only at very low temperatures help destroy ozone in two ways.
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NASA Ozone Watch (Images, data, and information for the Northern Hemisphere).

Antarctic ozone hole moving in mysterious ways, research suggests

Credit: earthhow.com

At least one expert was ‘not convinced’ by the study’s results. The theory that the ozone hole’s seasonal size was/is strongly related to human activity is left looking a bit threadbare, even if the study doesn’t exactly say that. But if the alleged cause has been mostly removed and the hole persists, to a significant extent at least, what other conclusion is there? ‘Rare events’ is one suggestion.
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The hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has been getting deeper in mid-spring over the last two decades, despite a global ban on chemicals that deplete Earth’s shield from deadly solar radiation, new research suggested Tuesday.

The ozone layer 11 to 40 kilometers (seven to 25 miles) above Earth’s surface filters out most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer and cataracts, says Phys.org..

From the mid-1970s, chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—once widely used in aerosols and refrigerators—were found to be reducing ozone levels, creating annual holes largely over the Antarctica region.

Melting ice, falling snow: Sea ice declines enhance snowfall over West Antarctica, say researchers

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

There’s still a long way to go though: “We want to know how those factors are impacting the ice sheets.” Researchers conclude “it’s essential to enhance our models, particularly in representing sea ice dynamics.”
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As the world continues to warm, Antarctica is losing ice at an increasing pace, but the loss of sea ice may lead to more snowfall over the ice sheets, partially offsetting contributions to sea level rise, according to Penn State scientists. — Phys.org reporting.

The researchers analyzed the impacts of decreased sea ice in the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica and found the ice-free ocean surface leads to more moisture in the atmosphere and heavier snowfalls on the ice sheet, the team reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

While the additional snowfall is not enough to offset the impacts of melting ice, including it in climate models may improve predictions of things like sea level rise, said Luke Trusel, assistant professor of geography at Penn State and co-author of the study.

“Mind-blowing” Claims of Record Low Antarctica Sea Ice on BBC Contradicted by Statements Made Seven Years Ago – The Daily Sceptic

Antarctica [credit: Wikipedia]

The BBC once again trying to pull the wool over the unsuspecting public’s eyes on climate? Surely not! Or…guilty as charged? With Arctic sea ice scare stories looking increasingly hollow, something along apparently similar lines at the other end of the globe proved irresistible.
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Antarctica sea ice is at a “mind-blowing” record low winter area of 17 million square kilometres, reports a three-person BBC “News Climate & Science and Data Journalism Team”, as lower levels than those recorded in the recent past provide the cue for yet more media climate hysteria, says The Daily Sceptic.

Of course, the BBC headline is clickbait nonsense, not least because it has been generally known in scientific circles that early NASA Nimbus satellites showed even lower winter levels around 15 million sq. kms in 1966.

But the BBC story does provide an excellent example of how science is twisted to fit the political narrative supporting the collectivist Net Zero agenda.

Rocks beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet reveal ‘surprising past’- i.e. natural variation

Thwaites Glacier [image credit: NASA]

Why the surprise? Natural climate cycles are well documented in Earth’s history. Their ‘many glaciers’ turn out to mostly mean the area around Thwaites Glacier (aka the Doomsday Glacier), known to be affected by subglacial volcanoes and other geothermal “hotspots”, which obviously have nothing to do with the current obsession over atmospheric trace gases.
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The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is shrinking, with many glaciers across the region retreating and melting at an alarming rate, claims the British Antarctic Survey @ Phys.org.

However, this was not always the case according to new research published last month (April 28) in The Cryosphere. [Talkshop comment – self-evident].

A team of scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), including two researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), discovered that the ice sheet near Thwaites Glacier was thinner in the last few thousand years than it is today.

This unexpected find shows that glaciers in the region were able to regrow following earlier shrinkage.

West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated far inland, re-advanced since last Ice Age

Antarctica

This research suggests natural climate variation in Antarctica has a much wider range than expected.
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The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting rapidly, claims EurekAlert, raising concerns it could cross a tipping point of irreversible retreat in the next few decades if global temperatures rise 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

New research finds that 6,000 years ago, the grounded edge of the ice sheet may have been as far as 250 kilometers (160 miles) inland from its current location, suggesting the ice retreated deep into the continent after the end of the last ice age and re-advanced before modern retreat began.

“In the last few thousand years before we started watching, ice in some parts of Antarctica retreated and re-advanced over a much larger area than we previously appreciated,” said Ryan Venturelli, a paleoglaciologist at Colorado School of Mines and lead author of the new study. “The ongoing retreat of Thwaites Glacier is much faster than we’ve ever seen before, but in the geologic record, we see the ice can recover.”

What caused the record-low Antarctic sea ice in austral summer 2022? Natural variation perhaps…

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

Sea ice levels are notorious for misuse by climate alarmists. Thankfully no mention of climate red herrings in this study.
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Antarctic sea ice is an important component of the climate system [snip – redundant climate waffle] — [and] significant changes in Antarctic sea ice have been observed, says Phys.org.

Specifically, it experienced a slow increase during 1979–2014, but a rapid decline thereafter.

Despite a modest recovery after the record minimum in 2017, the sea ice area during austral summer 2022 (December 2021 to February 2022) again hit a new record minimum, at 3.07 million km2, which is approximately a 25% reduction compared with its long-term mean during 1981–2010.

Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again – Net Zero Watch

Is it game over for the climate yet? Media over-excitement takes off again.
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The great sleeping giant that is Antarctica that — apart from the Antarctic Peninsula — refuses to respond to global warming may just have begun to stir, and the implications are, well, apocalyptic, jokes Dr David Whitehouse @ Net Zero Watch.

According to CNN “Antarctic sea ice hits record lows again. Scientists wonder if it’s “the beginning of the end.” CNN also reports that, “90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.”

CNN are not the only media outlets to report on this years’ record low sea ice around Antarctica in apocalyptic terms, other media extremists are available.

For Sky News it’s the accelerating melt of polar regions. For the BBC “There is now less sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since we began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s.” All this is technically true, but misleading. When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.

So let’s have a look at the actual satellite data of Antarctic sea ice collected monthly since 1979. The NSIDC gives two data sets for what it calls i) sea ice extent, and ii) sea ice area. So let’s examine both of them.

The first graph is sea ice area, the second sea ice extent [see here].

From the empirical data it is evident that there is hardly any change of sea ice over the 44-year time span. Since 2016 there is a dip with possibly more variability (of which more later), and the lowest month (February) does show a record low, but by hardly anything (and also look at the data for 1992).

Does this actual data look like the beginning of the end to you? Where is CNN’s 90% loss or Sky News acceleration?

Antarctic sea ice evolution has no significant trends along the whole period, but a volume drop is observed since 2016.

Full article here.

CNN’s ‘chief climate’ reporter flies more than 6,000 miles to warn about melting ice, climate change

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

Apart from spouting dodgy climate theories and proposing absurd ‘solutions’, he seems to have a problem telling the difference between land and sea ice. Antarctica is land surrounded by churning seas and high winds, making its summer sea ice seasons inherently variable.
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CNN’s chief climate correspondent purportedly flew more than 6,000 miles to report on climate change, says The Blaze.

On Wednesday, CNN correspondent Bill Weir appeared on “CNN This Morning,” reporting from the Tierra de Fuego region of Argentina, the southern tip of South America. In his report, Weir bemoaned the shrinking Antarctic ice cap.

“But while we’re here we got this news out of the National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado that for the second year in a row the South Pole is shrinking. The ice down here is shrinking,” Weir reported. “What is troubling about this is the speed that it has declined. Just to give you some perspective, in the early 2000s, it looked like Antarctica was growing even as the Arctic was shrinking in alarming ways, and scientists weren’t sure why.

“In 2014, the sea ice around Antarctica: 7 million square miles. Now, less than a decade later, it’s under 700,000 square miles – so that’s a 90% drop,” he explained.

Show anchor Don Lemon followed up by asking Weir what, if anything, can be done to slow down the melting.

The answer? According to Weir, humanity must stop spewing carbon into the atmosphere.

“It’s the same answer has been for generations. The faster we can move away from fuels that burn, in the speediest and most equitable way possible, the less horrible this gets,” Weir told Lemon.

“That’s the only way right now. And not only stopping it at the source but pulling carbon out of the sea and sky,” he continued. “Carbon removal is going to be the biggest industry you’ve never heard of as people come to grips with the enormity of this.”

If not burning fuels or putting more carbon into the atmosphere is the anecdote to melting ice caps, Weir did not do his part to help.

Full article here.
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Update, 2nd March 2023:
NetZeroWatch — Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again
Quote: ‘When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.’

Kill dates of black mosses are archives of Antarctic glacier history

Credit: coolantarctica.com

Natural climate variation is and always has been an ongoing process in Antarctica, just like everywhere else. Research suggests conditions similar to recent years prevailed about 850 years ago in at least one region.
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Mosses, one of the few types of plants living in Antarctica, have a tenuous existence, threatened by advancing glaciers, says the U.S. National Science Foundation.

When glaciers move, they can entomb or cover a plant — starving it of light and warmth. Scientists have discovered that the timing of when a glacier killed a moss, the kill date, provides an archive of glacier history.

The date the plant died coincides with the time the glacier advanced over that location. As glaciers recede, the previously entombed mosses are exposed, now dead and black.

I can’t feel fingertips after rowing in Antarctic seas

Scotia Sea, Antarctica [image credit: Antarctic96]

Midsummer in the Antarctic – no picnic.
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Adventurer Jamie Douglas-Hamilton says his latest rowing challenge in the world’s most treacherous waters has left him in the worst pain he has ever felt, reports BBC News.

“I still can’t feel my fingertips and can’t wiggle my toes,” he says.

“I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom from my bed without hanging on to things along the way.”

Jamie was part of a crew of six who battled 30ft (10m) waves, crippling seasickness, icy cold winds and constant terror in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean and Scotia Sea.

Elephant seal remains show Antarctic sea was warmer in the mid-to-late Holocene

Antarctica

Once again, evidence of times in the past long before the industrial era when warming similar to or in excess of the present ‘crisis’ conditions occurred in a polar region. Natural climate variation is the norm.
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Studying the response of Antarctic ice sheets to past warming episodes is essential to understand how they may respond to the present warming climate, as their melting and collapse can contribute to global sea level rise, says Phys.org.

Detailed records of past ocean temperatures close to the continent are rare, but clues to how ice sheets and sea ice responded to global conditions in the past can be found in funny places—even in the remains of animals that once lived there.

A study led by the University of Maine used the presence (and eventual lack thereof) of elephant seals to illustrate how the area transformed in a warm period in the recent past.

Study finds three phases of glacier advance in Northern Antarctic Peninsula in the last 1,500 years

Credit: coolantarctica.com

Glaciers advance and retreat. Repeating cycles of natural climate variation exposed.
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Receding glaciers in the northern Antarctic Peninsula are uncovering and reexposing black moss that provides radiocarbon kill dates for the vegetation, a key clue to understanding the timing of past glacier advances in that region, says Phys.org.

A University of Wyoming researcher led a study that determined the black moss kill dates coincide with evidence of glacier advances from other studies that found such events occurred 1,300, 800 and 200 calibrated years prior to 1950.

“We used radiocarbon ages, or kill dates, of previously ice-entombed dead black mosses to reveal that glaciers advanced during three distinct phases in the northern Antarctic Peninsula over the past 1,500 years,” says Dulcinea Groff, a postdoctoral research associate in the UW Department of Geology and Geophysics.

Benzene and toluene in polar oceans have a biological origin, study finds

Natural aerosols, not ‘human pollution’. Another climate assumption gets blown out of the water.
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In addition to oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide, the air we breathe contains small amounts of organic gases, such as benzene and toluene, says Phys.org.

These oxidize into small particles or aerosols that contribute to the condensation of water in the droplets that form clouds.

Now, a study by the Institut de Cièncias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), the Instituto de Química Física Rocasolano (IQFR-CSIC) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) stresses the importance of clouds, which filter solar radiation, for understanding past and future climate changes.

“If we don’t get the clouds right, we won’t get the climate right,” says Charel Wohl, ICM-CSIC researcher and lead author of the study. “We are just beginning to unveil the multiple ingredients that form cloud seeds,” he adds.

Science Writer Warns Ozone Hole Recovery Claims Likely Premature, Too Optimistic

Credit: earthhow.com

Is there a role for natural climate variation here, and if so, what is going on?
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Claims by a UN-backed expert panel that the ozone layer is healing and headed to full recovery may be premature and overly optimistic, Net Zero Watch’s Science Editor Dr. David Whitehouse has warned.

Any internet search will find hundreds of news stories announcing that the ozone hole over the Antarctic is slowly filling and that by about the middle of this century mankind’s vandalism of this natural atmospheric layer will have been remedied, says Benny Peiser via Climate Change Dispatch.

The ozone hole has become an icon of anthropogenic interference in the natural world — and a hopeful signpost that there is a way back. But is the ozone hole healing? Not by as much as many headlines suggest, it would appear.

What Climate Crisis? A Primer On Earth’s Turbulent Climatic Past

Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Blinkered climate obsessives, from protesters to governments, need to wise up about their pet topic. Professor Ian Plimer offers some assistance to trace gas worriers.
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For more than 80 percent of the time, Earth has been a warm wet greenhouse planet with no ice, says Ian Plimer at Spectator AU (via Climate Change Dispatch.

We live in unusual times when ice occurs on continents. This did not happen overnight.

The great southern continent, Gondwanaland, formed about 550 million years ago. It occupied 20 percent of the area of our planet and included Antarctica, South America, Australia, South Africa, and the Indian subcontinent.

Gondwanaland was covered by ice when it drifted across the South Pole 360-255 million years ago. Evidence for this ice age is in the black coal districts of Australia, South Africa, and India.