Antarctic sea ice hits record low, satellites reveal

[Admin]

Antarctic sea ice shrunk to a record low in February, satellite measurements revealed.

Antarctic sea ice hits record low, satellites reveal : Read more

 

[Jack Colter]

45 years out of a total history of 3.5 billion years?
A rediculously small sample set.
This means absolutely nothing.
Stop the hysteria.

 

[bwana4swahili]

The Antarctic continent has been ice-free many times in the past and will be again in the future. Homo Sapiens will simple adapt or die; nature's law!

 

[bwana4swahili]

45 years out of a total history of 3.5 billion years?
A rediculously small sample set.
This means absolutely nothing.
Stop the hysteria.

But the hysteria is needed to fund more research, sadly!

 

[JAS]

This is a science-based web-site, and so the article is written to an audience that is knowledgeable enough to know that long-term historic ice levels in the Antarctic and Arctic since the peak of last ice age about 21,000 years ago are known to be much higher than modern levels. No hysteria involved. As to the last 3.5 billion year of geologic history, well, going that far back would be hysterical.....and redundant.

 

[PWB]

The Antarctic ice sheet has been steadily growing for decades and is very healthy. Each year the temps down there get colder and colder (this year has been record setting). The article only talks of sea ice, which is not the same thing. The currents have been wild around the continent this last year causing that ice to break up and dissipate much faster. Nothing to do with warming climate. Zip...zilch...nada. Please do not mislead. Do your research and start writing balanced news.

 

[PWB]

P.S., Admin, it's 'Antarctic sea ice shrank'.

 

[JAS]

The whole issue of antarctic ice levels and its relationship to Climate Change and global sea levels is really quite complex and beyond the expertise of arm-chair experts, including myself. You're an arm-chair expert if you hold strong opinions on the subject but don't have extensive experience as a antarctic climate scientist. Typically, I find the stronger the opinions of the arm-chair expert, the weaker the qualifications. To get at least a flavour for what's involved at a high level, here is a good article from NASA's website that highlights at least a few of the interrelated issues. The experts readily agree that there's more out there than is currently known, and so aren't quite as opinionated as the arm-chair crowd.

NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses

A new NASA study says that 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.

www.nasa.gov

 

[PWB]

Hello JAS. Yes, I couldn't agree with you more that I am indeed an 'arm-chair' expert and that the interactions are complex, to say the least. And I do appreciate the link to the NASA article. I do my best to educate myself from many sources. The main point in my post was to highlight the article's inferred bias toward AGW by highlighting the sea-ice dissipation without acknowledging the fact that the land-ice accumulations have steadily grown. If that point had at least been mentioned, then the question would have been, why one but not the other? Thanks again.

 

[JAS]

Hi PWB, thanks for your thoughtful response. As I reflect from my 'arm-chair' on the concern you've expressed, I wonder if the bias you detect might be related to the way in which science journalism operates. As I understand it, journalists see some new study coming out, and write up a popularized description for general consumption by the typical reader of, in this case, Space.com. It's not often that each descriptive article includes a general overview of the 'state of the science' surrounding the whole subject matter, which would eliminate perceived bias, but which might create too large an article, or too difficult a task for the journalist who has to balance their time against what they're paid for that submission. This phenomenon would be more likely the more complex or wide-ranging the topic was. For example, Antarctic ice levels are often considered a bell-weather to various issues associated with climate change, even though the relationships are not straight-forward (eg warming trends elsewhere generating more snow pack and so more ice, not less as one would expect during global warming, as noted in the NASA article). A thorough synthesis of the whole issue of global warming and Antarctic ice, both on land and over water would be quite a task for our modestly-paid science journalists. Thoughts?