Don't listen
to the leftist
scaremongering
about ice melting.
The primary problem
is that writers
treat the subject
like supermarket
tabloids.
They are in the business
of selling fear and anger.
Studies of ice sheets melting
over the past century
actually show remarkable
ice stability.
The ice sheets will take
hundreds of thousands
of years to melt,
assuming the next
glacial period
doesn’t start first.
Sea level today
is lower than
at the end
of the last
interglacial
period 120,000
years ago.
We also know
that sea level
has already risen
400 to 430 feet
since the end
of the last
glacial maximum
20,000 to 22,000
years ago.
During warm periods
over the past
10,000 years,
sea level has been
several meters higher
than today !
The alarm over
melting ice sheets
is deceptive reporting.
A single scientific study
can cause headlines
in hundreds
of news articles.
In the past century,
we have only +1 °C
of global warming,
with haphazard
measurements,
and little Southern
Hemisphere data
before 1940.
Melting ice in
Greenland
and Antarctica
raised sea level
by only
+0.9 to +1.6 inches
in the past century.
A September 1, 2016
The Smithsonian article:
“Melting Glaciers
Are Wreaking Havoc
on Earth’s Crust.”
"At the current estimated rate
of one-tenth of an inch each year,
sea level rise could cause large
swaths of cities like New York,
Galveston and Norfolk to
disappear underwater
in the next 20 years.”
THE TRUTH:
You'd think they
would have mentioned
a sea level rise rate
of one-tenth
of an inch
per year is
only +2 inches
in 20 years.
The lowest elevations
of those cities
are over ten feet
above sea level.
A June 13, 2018
Washington Post, article
“Antarctic ice loss has tripled
in a decade. If that continues,
we are in serious trouble.”
"If the acceleration continues,
some of scientists’ worst fears
about rising oceans could be
realized, leaving low-lying cities
and communities with less time
to prepare than they had hoped.”
THE TRUTH
The reader assumes a melt rate
that has tripled must be extreme.
The original annual melt rate
of 1.3 parts-per-million (ppm)
has increased to nearly 4 ppm
over 26 years.
Losing slightly less than
4 parts in 1 million each year
means that it will take
over 250,000 years
to melt entirely.
But in real life, sometimes ice
is increasing, and sometimes
it is decreasing -- no trend
has ever been permanent.
ANTARCTICA:
Antarctica holds 91%
of the world’s land ice,
Greenland 8%, and the
remaining 1% is spread
over the rest of the world.
Two NASA agencies recently
published studies with
conflicting conclusions.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight
concluded Antarctica is not
contributing to sea level rise,
because snow accumulation
exceeded ice melting,
resulting in a 0.5-inch sea level
reduction since 1900.
NASA'a Jet
Propulsion Laboratory
reports that the
rate of Ice loss
from Antarctica
has tripled
since 2012
and contributed
+0.3 inches
to sea level rise
between 1992 and 2017.
Over 26 years,
Antarctica’s average
annual mass loss
was less than
0.00040% of its total.
At this alarming rate
it would take 250,185 years
to melt all of the ice.
It would take over 1,000 years
of melting to yield 12 inches
of sea level rise from Antarctica
if we assume the melt rate
continued uninterrupted.
If Antarctica were
a 220 lb. man,
his mass loss each year
would be 0.4 grams.
GREENLAND:
Information
about Greenland
comes from a study
in the journal Nature,
estimating Greenland’s
ice losses between
1900 and 2010.
We calculate
the ice mass in 2010
was between
99.5% – 99.8%
of what it was in 1900.
Ice melt from Greenland
in the 111 years contributed
+0.6 to +1.3 inches to
sea level rise.
It would take over 1,300 years
of melting to yield 12 inches
of sea level rise from Greenland
if we assume the melt rate
continued uninterrupted.
A squadron of
World War II planes
were forced to land ,
and were abandoned,
on an ice field
on Greenland
in the 1940’s.
Hundreds of feet of ice
has grown over the planes
in the next 80 years .
WHAT IS A GLACIER?
An ice sheet begins as snow.
Snow falls in the higher
elevations and over time
it compacts and becomes ice.
Antarctica ice
is over 12,000 feet
in the center of the continent
and over 9,000 feet over
most of East Antarctica.
Gravity initiates a thousand-year
journey where the ice flows
from its heights back to the sea.
At the end of this journey,
when its weight can no longer
be supported by the sea,
it “calves” and becomes
an iceberg.
Some icebergs can float
around Antarctica
for over 30 years
before fully melting.
Young ice is born inland
from snow.
Old ice dies near the coast,
often after drifting for years
as an iceberg.
This process is the
natural cycle of ice.
Note:
Geothermal energy
was not discussed here.
Greenland and Antarctica
are both extremely
active areas of
volcanic activity.
Some ice melt is due
to heat from below,
probably all of the
minor amount
of melting in Antarctica
in the past 60 years:
Local melting,
always located near
undersea volcanoes
-- local melting
could not be caused
by CO2