One of the big shock, horror, visual weapons of the climate change alarmist camp, has been that the Antarctic is melting, rapidly. If this was true, then it would be a problem for sea level rises, depending upon how much ice melted. Much of the ice in Antarctica is land based, so once it melts and flows into the sea, the whole bath tub rises, so to speak. However, while the mainstream media continues to cheer pick data to support this narrative of melts, two studies have shown that Antarctic is not melting at all.
The contrary data is based upon satellite imaging. One study found that while some ice shelves did reduce in size over the past decade, overall, the Antarctic ice shelf area grew in size by 5305 square km, a gain of 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade. This is quite a substantial growth in ice.
There have been ice losses occurring in some areas of Antarctica, such as in West Antarctica from Pine Island and the Thwaites glaciers, and the media has dishonestly focussed upon this, ignoring the ice elephant in the room, that the overall amount of ice has increased. But that, of course, is inconsistent with the simplistic global warming hypothesis.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-01-07-melting-antarctic-fraudulent-ice-more-stable-climate.html
“Mainstream "news" is littered with scare stories about how global warming has apparently gotten so bad that the Antarctic ice shelves are melting. The truth, though, is that Antarctica's ice shelves are actually growing in size.
New research published by Andreasen et al. looks at Antarctic-wide satellite data collected between 2009 and 2019. The data was compiled using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS.
Between the 10-year period analyzed, Andreasen et al. discovered that the Antarctic ice shelf area grew in size by 5305 km2. Eighteen ice shelves did retreated in size somewhat during that time, but 16 others grew larger in terms of their overall area mass.
"Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade," the researchers noted in their paper.
Numerous studies confirm: Antarctic ice is doing just fine
Another study published by Banwell et al. that appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters looked at an even wider range of Antarctic ice data ranging from 1980 through 2021. That study utilized microwave satellite data from the snow model SNOWPACK.
Like the first study, this second one, which was published in 2023, found that the highest meltwater volumes occurred on Antarctica's Peninsula, reaching a peak in 1992 and 1993, as well as in 1994 and 1995. SNOWPACK calculated "a small, but significant, decreasing trend in both annual melt days and meltwater production volume over the 41 years."
Another paper published by Frazer et al. in the journal Nature backs these findings even further. This one explains that while dramatic ice losses are occurring in some areas of Antarctica, including in West Antarctica from Pine Island and the Thwaites glaciers, ice projections for the future cannot be accurately made.
This study, which looked at a time period ranging from 2003 through 2015, identified extensive glacial retreat and acceleration along the Bellinghausen Sea coastline. Conversely, things look rather well on the ice front along the Amundsen Sea.
"Our results provide direct observations that the pace, magnitude and extent of ice destabilization around West Antarctica vary by location, with the Amundsen Sea response most sensitive to interdecadal atmosphere-ocean variability," the authors wrote.
Finally, another paper published by Baico et al., also in 2023, found that over the centuries, Antarctic ice has both thinned and thickened, depending on the time period.
The authors looked at subglacial bedrock cores to discover that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) between the Thwaites and Pope glaciers "was at least 35 m (meters) thinner than present in the past several thousand years and then subsequently thickened."
"A past episode of ice sheet thinning that took place in a similar, although not identical, climate was not irreversible," the paper reads.
"We propose that the past thinning–thickening cycle was due to a glacioisostatic rebound feedback, similar to that invoked as a possible stabilizing mechanism for current grounding line retreat, in which isostatic uplift caused by Early Holocene thinning led to relative sea level fall favoring grounding line advance."
As you can see, the science is not settled on climate change. As we and others have been saying for quite some time now, the climate is always changing. It goes through periods of cooling, followed by periods of warming, followed by periods of cooling – and on and on it goes, regardless of human activity.
"Most of Antarctica has a temperature inversion so more greenhouse gases make those areas colder," a commenter further pointed out.”
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/
Abstract
Antarctic ice shelves provide buttressing support to the ice sheet, stabilising the flow of grounded ice and its contribution to global sea levels. Over the past 50 years, satellite observations have shown ice shelves collapse, thin, and retreat; however, there are few measurements of the Antarctic-wide change in ice shelf area. Here, we use MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data to measure the change in ice shelf calving front position and area on 34 ice shelves in Antarctica from 2009 to 2019. Over the last decade, a reduction in the area on the Antarctic Peninsula (6693 km2) and West Antarctica (5563 km2) has been outweighed by area growth in East Antarctica (3532 km2) and the large Ross and Ronne–Filchner ice shelves (14 028 km2). The largest retreat was observed on the Larsen C Ice Shelf, where 5917 km2 of ice was lost during an individual calving event in 2017, and the largest area increase was observed on Ronne Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, where a gradual advance over the past decade (535 km2 yr−1) led to a 5889 km2 area gain from 2009 to 2019. Overall, the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 since 2009, with 18 ice shelves retreating and 16 larger shelves growing in area. Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade, whereas the steady-state approach would estimate substantial ice loss over the same period, demonstrating the importance of using time-variable calving flux observations to measure change.
How to cite.
Andreasen, J. R., Hogg, A. E., and Selley, H. L.: Change in Antarctic ice shelf area from 2009 to 2019, The Cryosphere, 17, 2059–2072, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-2059-2023, 2023.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL102744
Plain Language Summary
Antarctic ice shelves, which are floating glacier ice extending from the continent into the ocean, are important for the ice sheet's overall stability. However, they are threatened by surface melting, which has been linked to several ice-shelf collapse events in recent decades. Here, we analyze the duration and amount of surface melting on Antarctica's ice shelves from 1980 to 2021. We first analyze microwave satellite data to identify the number of “melt days” (days when meltwater is present). Second, as meltwater volumes cannot be quantified from microwave data, we calculate these using the snow model SNOWPACK. Our modeled melt days show good agreement with the satellite observations of both total days and the variability from year-to-year, giving us confidence in the model's ability to also simulate realistic temporal and spatial variations in meltwater volumes. We find a strong non-linear relationship between the number of melt days and meltwater volumes each summer. We also find that the highest meltwater volumes are produced on the Peninsula, reaching a peak in the 1992/1993 and 1994/1995 austral summers. Across all ice shelves, SNOWPACK calculates a small, but significant, decreasing trend in both annual melt days and meltwater production volume over the 41 years.”