Global Warming

Antarctica is gaining ice: NASA

An increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

Areas of the continent like the Antarctic peninsula have increased their mass loss in the last decades, says a new NASA study.

The research challenges the conclusion of other studies, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 report which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

According to the analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tonnes of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. The net gain slowed to 82 billion tonnes of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

“We are essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” explained Jay Zwally, glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica. “Here, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas,” he added. But it might take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally.

The study analysed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency satellites and by the laser altimeter on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat).

“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 noted.

“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 mm per year away,” Zwally said. But this is also bad news.

“If the 0.27 mm 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,” he pointed out in the study which appeared in the Journal of Glaciology.

Global Warming

Antarctic Ozone Hole

Intense depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica happens each year. In October 2015 it was more than 1.5 million square miles larger (2.5Mkm2) than in 2014, which is an area larger than the North American continent.

Global Warming

Sea Ice Around Antarctica Declines in 2015 Peak

The sea ice around Antarctica grew to its annual peak on Oct. 6 but showed a sharp decline from the record coverage of recent years.

NASA says this year’s maximum fell roughly in the middle of what has been measured during the past 37 years of satellite observations.

Scientists said the developing El Niño probably had a strong influence on this year’s sea ice.

Rather than being in sharp contradiction to a warming climate, a greater amount of ice ringing Antarctica in the recent past has been linked to climate change.

Stronger southern hemisphere winds due to a warmer climate appear to have caused the floating ice to bunch up around Antarctica rather than drifting northward and melting.

“After three record high extent years, this year marks a return toward normalcy for Antarctic sea ice,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at Goddard.

“There may be more high years in the future because of the large year-to-year variation in Antarctic extent, but such extremes are not near as substantial as in the Arctic, where the declining trend towards a new normal is continuing,” Meier added.

Satellite data composite of Antarctic sea ice maximum on October 6, 2015.

Environment

Record Antarctica ice contradicts global warming trend. As climatologists worry about the effects of global warming, Antarctica has quietly set a new record for the greatest sea ice extent ever measured at either pole.

Climate scientists have recently been alarmed by declining Arctic ice. But the Arctic Icecap is only 1 to 2 percent of Earth’s ice, while the Antarctic Icecap, contains about 90 percent of the Earth’s ice.

Climate Change

A recent study published Sunday, shows that sea levels are rising much faster along a 600 mile stretch of USA coastline from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to just north of Boston, than they are around the globe.

Since 1990, global sea levels have risen by about 2 inches, while along this stretch of coastline, sea levels have risen by up to 4.8 inches.

Computer models have previously suggested that melting ice from Greenland and Antarctica will change ocean currents causing a rise of sea levels along the US east coast. Now this is the first study that shows this has already happened.

 

Earthquakes

5.5 and 5.7 Earthquakes hit near the north coast of Papua, Indonesia.

5.6 Earthquake hits Antarctica.

5.4 Earthquake hits southern Xinjiang, China.

5.2 Earthquake hits near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.