{"id":263645,"date":"2023-06-24T16:58:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T14:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263645"},"modified":"2023-06-24T16:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T14:58:25","slug":"antarctic-ice-shelves-are-melting-slower-than-they-were-40-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263645","title":{"rendered":"Antarctic ice shelves are melting slower than they were 40 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From \u00a0CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Joanne Nova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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75248124 – emperor penguins with chick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the dreaded \u201cpolar amplification\u201d and 1,000 new coal fired plants<\/a> in China, apparently the fragile Antarctic ice shelves have barely changed in the last 40 years. Indeed, instead of fragmenting, they are melting slightly slower now than they were in 1980. Naturally, the researchers *know*, as only high priests can, that things will change any day now. The tipping point is just around the corner, hiding, ready to pounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mankind has emitted fully 65% of our total carbon emissions since the year 1980 \u2014 and yet it has not done much at all to the melt-rate of the ice shelves of Antarctica. In fact, if anything, climate change is slowing the ice melting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s 1.1 Trillion tonnes of man-made CO2, and no catastrophe to show for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new study by Banwell et al used satellite microwave data and modeling of meltwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GRL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that the \u201csmall but significant decrease\u201d in melting gets headlined as \u201ca minor change\u201d. Since when where significant\u00a0warming<\/em>\u00a0trends reported as just a \u201cminor change\u201d of indeterminate direction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Antarctic ice shelves experienced only minor changes in surface melt since 1980<\/a>, study finds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The results show Antarctic ice shelves overall have seen only minor changes in surface melt rates over the past 40 years, and the modeling results even show a small but significant decrease in melt rates during the study period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings appear to be good news for the Antarctic region, but the researchers caution that they do expect Antarctic ice shelves to see higher surface melt in the coming decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the \u201csmall but significant\u201d decrease in melt rates is visible to the naked eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Timeseries of observed and modeled melt days. All ice shelf regions in Antarctica. \u2013Banwell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1998 the Antarctic ice shelves have had cooler mean summer temperatures and lower meltwater volume. Which climate models predicted this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 4. Modeled meltwater production volume. (a) Modeled annual meltwater volume (Gt yr\u22121) over all ice shelves (black line, left y-axis) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 mean summer (November 1 to March 31) air temperature over all ice shelves (red solid line, right y-axis). Banwell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel the faith of the research team  \u2014 \u201cit just hasn\u2019t kicked off yet\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs air temperatures increase over the coming decades, we\u2019re expecting a real increase in these surface melt rates up until the end of the century,\u201d Banwell said. \u201cSo although we haven\u2019t seen much change in melt rates yet, we will see that to come. It just hasn\u2019t really kicked off yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Antarctic ice shelves were melting faster we would have seen headlines every year. Indeed we got them anyway \u2014 from August 2022 \u2014  \u201cAntarctica\u2019s Ice Shelves Could be Melting Faster than We Thought.<\/a>\u201d <\/em>That was Caltech, which modeled the effects of a small current running counterclockwise around Antarctica and predicted the ice sheets were melting more than the great climate models thought they would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When will \u201cThe Team\u201d admit they were wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not the graphs of the Antarctic tipping point we were told to expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Banwell 1980 https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2023GL102744<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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REFERENCE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Alison F. Banwell et al, Quantifying Antarctic\u2010Wide Ice\u2010Shelf Surface Melt Volume Using Microwave and Firn Model Data: 1980 to 2021, Geophysical Research Letters<\/em> (2023). DOI: 10.1029\/2023GL102744<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at\u00a0JoNova<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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