More on Antarctica

Another all encompassing show from Gary Null and the good prof' explaining the watering down of the information flow to us plebs who they don't want to spook with the truth of our predicament.Guy McPherson features from the 40 min mark but the whole show is very good.
---Kevin Hester

This is an excellent interview within a short period of time. 

In it Gary Null provides one of the best explantions of the disconnect between what the UN public policy documents of the IPPC are saying (and what the public is told) and what the very same authors are saying on a private basis - that things are worse than dire, but the power-that-be do not want to panic the Great Unwashed, and so lie.

I can recommend listening to this show, not only for the dialogue between Gary and Guy, but also for the wonderful information (that I rarely get to hear), that Gary gives on healthy life choices and the reality behind vaccination

Listen to Guy's interview from the 40 minute mark.

Guy McPherson and Gary Null discuss rapid climate change

The conservatism of climate change assessment and how we might face the potential extinction of western civilization and humanity in an awakened manner, with Guy McPherson. 

Dr. Guy McPherson is a professor emeritus of Natural Resources, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.  He has specialized in forest resources, energy decline and climate change and their economic consequences. In the past he has also taught at Texas A&M and University of California at Berkeley.

Having become disillusioned with the American university environment and academia, and after attempts by university officials to silence his outspokenness about the human causes of climate change, Guy abandoned his tenured position as a full professor for ethical reasons of conscience. He is the author of several books, the latest co-written with Carolyn Baker entitled “Extinction Dialogs: How to Live with Death in Mind.”  He is also the co-host of the radio program Nature Bats Last heard every Tuesday evening at 8 pm Eastern on the Progressive Commentary Hour.  His website is  GuyMcpherson.com


As if on spec, the following news came my way just before listening to the show.

Iceberg B-33 Calves near 

Pine Island Glacier

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/doc/press_release.pdf

February 17, 2015, Suitland, MD — On February 16th 2015, the National Ice Center (NIC) named a new iceberg that calved from an ice-shelf near Pine Island Glacier in Pine Island Bay.

B-33 is located at 7501’11” South, 10448’38” West, in the Amundsen Sea. The iceberg measures 11 nautical miles on its longest axis and 2 nautical miles on its widest axis. Analyst MST1 Tyson confirmed B-33 using the Radarsat-2 image shown below.

Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted. The quadrants are divided counter-clockwise in the following manner:

A = 0-90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea)

B = 90W-180 (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea) C = 180-90E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkesland) D = 90E-0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)

When first sighted, an iceberg’s point of origin is documented by the NIC. The letter of the quadrant, along with a sequential number, is assigned to the iceberg. For example, C-19 is sequentially the 19th iceberg tracked by the NIC in Antarctica between 180-90E (Quadrant C).

The National Ice Center is a tri-agency operational center represented by the United States Navy (Department of Defense), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Department of Commerce), and the United States Coast Guard (Department of Homeland Security). The National Ice Center mission is to provide the highest quality strategic and tactical ice services tailored to meet the operational requirements of U.S. national interests and to provide specialized meteorological and oceanographic services to United States government agencies

This relates to an earlier break-off of an iceberg the size of Singapore

Information is that iceberg B-334 has also broken off

Iceberg B-34Found in the Amundsen Sea

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/doc/press_release1.pdf

March 6, 2015, Suitland, MD—On March 6, 2015, the National Ice Center (NIC) discovered a new iceberg that meets the criteria for naming and tracking by the NIC. This particular iceberg is believed to have calved from the Getz Ice Shelf and is named B-34. B-34 is located at 74°12’ South, 129°31’ West, in the Amundsen Sea. Iceberg B-34 measures 15 nautical miles on its longest axis and 5 nautical miles on its widest axis. Analyst Chris Readinger located B-34 using MODIS imagery shown below.

Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted. The quadrants are divided counter-clockwise in the following manner:

A = 0-90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea)

B = 90W-180 (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea) C = 180-90E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkesland) D = 90E-0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)

When first sighted, an iceberg’s point of origin is documented by the NIC. The letter of the quadrant, along with a sequential number, is assigned to the iceberg. For example, C-19 is sequentially the 19th iceberg tracked by the NIC in Antarctica between 180-90E (Quadrant C).

The National Ice Center is a tri-agency operational center represented by the United States Navy (Department of Defense), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Department of Commerce), and the United States Coast Guard (Department of Homeland Security). 

The National Ice Center mission is to provide the highest quality strategic and tactical ice services tailored to meet the operational requirements of U.S. national interests and to provide specialized meteorological and oceanographic services to United States government agencies.

This is the article mentioned by Gary in the intereview

Congress Turns its Back on Global Warming

“Ground Zero” Moves to Antarctica

Robert Hunziger

Counterpunch,

16 March 2015

Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap (alt. 17,950 ft.), the world’s largest tropical ice cap, will likely lose another 400-600 feet of ice before the final presidential nominating debates in March/April 2016. All of which brings to mind, wouldn’t it be interesting to ask the prospective presidential nominees this question: What are the implications of Antarctica suddenly becoming “ground zero” for global warming?

Apart from dumbfounded stares, their boilerplate answer will likely be: “I am not a scientists, the climate always changes, blah, blah, blah.” Rumor has it Republican operatives came up with these clever rejoinders at one of their confabs in ultra-secretive preparation for capturing or cratering the presidency, depending. Some Democrats may fall back on the same rote answer, but probably not.

Furthermore, there is good reason for the Arctic to be conjoined with Antarctica for “ground zero status.” According to NSIDC, Arctic sea ice during the winter of 2014-2015 in March has ominously hit such low levels that it could set a seasonal low record, if it persists. Hopefully, excessive loss of ice this upcoming summer does not turn lose too much methane (CH4), a potential lights-out scenario within current lifetimes.

Beyond the twin biggies of Antarctica and the Arctic, glaciers spoil most of the world’s population rotten. After all, billions of people simply turn on faucets, ship goods on rivers, generate electricity, and irrigate crops at no expense because of free water. That’s right, it is free because of nature’s bountiful glacial water towers. It’s the deal of a lifetime!

But, in time, it may be too good to be true. Glaciers are suffering devastating blows because of global warming! However, it’s doubtful that any of the presidential office-seekers are aware of this upcoming calamity. After all, they’re way too busy raising money to think about melting glaciers, honestly!

Anyway, the candidates should bone up on the issue, just to sound smart, because glaciers store 75% of the world’s freshwater.

Still, whenever grilled about the issue, the candidates will likely opt out by saying “I am not a scientist, blah, blah, blah”. So, maybe the question should be framed this way: “Does heat melt ice?”
Answer: Yes.

Massive Threat

“The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia. China and India are the world’s leading producers of both wheat and rice—humanity’s food staples… 

[Furthermore] according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the Himalayan glaciers are receding rapidly and many could melt entirely by 2035,” Lester R. Brown, Melting Mountain Glaciers Will Shrink Grain Harvests in China and India,” Earth Policy Institute.

According to Yao Tandong, a leading glaciologist in China, “If this melting of glaciers continues… [It] will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe.”
In 2014, the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the Tibetan glaciers experienced the most intense heat in 2,000 years. Indeed, seventy percent (70%) of the glaciers at the headwaters of the commercially active Lancang River, the “Danube of the East,” are gone, melted away, Glaciers on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Melting Fast, China.org.cn, Oct. 21, 2011.

In certain regions of Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap the melt rate is 600 feet per year or 40 times faster than a few decades ago, threatening loss of electricity (Peru is 76% hydropower), irrigation, and drinking water.

“Melting glaciers are an icon of anthropogenic climate change,” according to Ben Marzeion, Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Innsbruck, et al, Attribution of Global Glacier Mass Loss to Anthropogenic and Natural Causes, in Science 22, Vol. 345, no. 6199, August 2014.

Marzeion’s study found unambiguous evidence of very sharp increases in anthropogenic ice loss over just the past few decades. His evidence runs in parallel with cumulative buildup of CO2 emissions now at 400 ppm, the February 2015 monthly average at Mauna Loa.

Beware, according to very recent “preliminary data” from Earth System Research Laboratory at Mauna Loa, as of March 14th, CO2 registered 402.28 ppm, this is +2.28 ppm in just a couple of weeks versus an average annual rate of change of +2.11 ppm ever since 2005-2014. Is it a troublesome trend spiking up? Nobody wants to see that happen! Nobody!

Ground Zero 85% of World’s Ice

Still, the really, really big news is this: “Parts of Antarctica are melting so rapidly it has become “ground zero of global climate change without a doubt,” says Harvard geophysicists Jerry X. Mitrovica, et al, The Big Melt: Antarctica’s 
Retreating Ice May Re-Shape Earth, Associated Press, Feb. 27, 20 15.

Antarctica has been the subject of controversial statements by “certain parties,” claiming the ice is expanding. Evidently, “certain parties” rely upon “surface evidence” and only “look east,” thus ignoring the western region and ignoring: 

Down below, where the ice meets the water, Harvard geophysicist Dr. Mitrovica discovered an altogether different story. “Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans… 130 billion tons of ice per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations.”

Not only that: “’Temperatures [in Antarctica] rose 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the last half century, much faster than Earth’s average,” says Ricardo Jana, a glaciologist for the Chilean Antarctic Institute, evidence various latitudes are seriously heating up!

“A few years back, scientists figured Antarctica as a whole was in balance, neither gaining nor losing ice. Experts worried more about Greenland; it was easier to get to and more noticeable, but once they got a better look at the bottom of the world, the focus of their fears shifted. Now scientists in two different studies use the words ‘irreversible’ and ‘unstoppable’ to talk about the melting in West Antarctica. Ice is gaining in East Antarctica, where the air and water are cooler, but not nearly as much as it is melting to the west,” Ibid.

Accordingly, ice scientist Ian Joughin, University of Washington states: “Now I would say it’s less of a wild card and more scary than we thought before.”
NASA ice scientist Eric Rignot says the melting “Is going way faster than anyone had thought. It’s kind of a red flag. What’s happening is simple physics. Warm water eats away at the ice from underneath…The world’s fate hangs on the question of how fast the ice melts,” Ibid.

Argo floats, 3,300+ worldwide, measure heat content in the oceans, accordingly, the Journal of Geophysical Research says the oceans carry a considerable load of the planet’s heat. Antarctica is proving it.

Catastrophe Hinges on Antarctica (altogether with the Arctic)

Worldwide ice melt is setting records, left and right, surprising scientists year-over-year, for example, the recent research in Antarctica surprised scientists. In fact, science cannot keep up with the speed of melt. Ipso facto, what does this say about the prospects for Antarctica? Ask the presidential candidates… no, no, no scratch that. Again, what does the tantalizing speed of worldwide melt say about Antarctica’s prospects?

“Scientists have long worried that the West Antarctic ice sheet is a place where climate change might tip toward catastrophe,” Warren Cornwall for National Geographic, Warming Seas Drive Rapid Acceleration of Melting Antarctica Ice, National Geographic News, Dec. 4, 2014.

“Melting Antarctic glaciers that are large enough to raise worldwide sea level by more than a meter are dropping a Mount Everest’s worth of ice into the sea every two years,” according to a new study: Tyler C. Sutterley, et al, West Antarctic Melt Rate Has Tripled, American Geophysical Union, Dec. 2, 2014. Remarkably, cascading ice tripled!

A second recent study, Sunke Schmidtko, et at, Multidecadal Warming of Antarctic Waters, Science 5, Vol. 346 no. 6214, Dec. 5, 2014 explains the accelerating ice melt. Warm ocean water is melting the floating ice shelves that hold back the glaciers, further confirmation the oceans have been absorbing much of Earth’s heat.

Those two pieces of new research were issued just before officials of the World Meteorological Organization announced 2014 as the “warmest”/hottest year on record.

Current predictions of sea level rise may understate the risk because they don’t accurately take into account shoaling of warm water in the Antarctic, says Sarah Gille, an oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego.

According to glaciologist Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University, historical studies have shown that ice sheets can remain stable for centuries or millennia and then switch to a different configuration, suddenly. “If another sudden switch happens in West Antarctica, sea level could rise a lot, so understanding what is going on at the grounding lines is essential,” Ker Than, Friction Means Antarctic Glaciers More Sensitive to Climate Change Than We Thought, Caltech, March 10, 2015.

Congress turns its back on Global Warming

Considering the widely held belief in the halls of Congress that humans are not behind climate change, if it’s not anthropogenic global warming, then, what is it?

Inasmuch as Congress does not have a serious interest in understanding or investigating the global warming issue, it’s difficult to gain much intelligence from America’s most prominent class of leadership, ahem. Congressional disinterest is unambiguous, evidenced by no renewable energy plan, none whatsoever, not even a “trial balloon.”

Since Congress is totally clueless in the face of the biggest worldwide melt down in modern history, hopefully America’s presidential aspirants will provide some fresh ideas at their upcoming debates. For sure, they must have strong leadership qualities if they are running for president.

After all, sooner or later anthropogenic glacial loss will become the hottest political issue the world has ever witnessed, and then some. Somebody’s gotta start prepping!

Speaking of which, according to The Washington Post, January 21, 2015, Republicans are now in control of both houses: “Climate-Change Skeptics Cruz and Rubio Now Help Oversee Nation’s Climate Science.”

Hmm, those two will be in the debates.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com

It Was Warmer in Antarctica Than in New York City Last Week — and That's Not Even the Bad News

By Meredith Hoffman

Vice,

31 March, 2015

If you lived in the many parts of the United States and Europe last week and were in need of a reprieve from persistent, frigid temperatures, you would have found relief in the most unlikely of places.

Part of Antarctica hit a record high of 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit last Tuesday, the hottest ever reported, according to the climate monitor OGIMET.

By comparison, Washington DC was 46 degrees, New York City reached 45 degrees, and the temperature in London topped 50 degrees.

While scientists warn not to draw conclusions from a single weather event, the temperature record hues closely to more alarming, long-term trends in the southern continent.

Antarctica's floating ice shelves have recently decreased by as much as 18 percent in some spots over the last 18 years, says a new study, published in the journal Science. As the oceans have warmed, they've spurred more of the frozen mass to become water, researcher Fernando Paolo told VICE News.

"There is evidence that the amount of warm ocean water reaching the ice shelves has increased, so more warm water under these is causing the melt," Paolo, a PhD candidate with UC San Diego's Scripps Institute of Oceanography, told VICE News. "And there is a lag in the response time of the environment. So, even if conditions changed now, 20 years from now the environment will still be reacting this way."

And the findings indicate that sea levels are certain to continue rising, Doug Martinson, a professor with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, told VICE News.

"You could stop global warming tomorrow but that doesn't matter from this perspective because there's already so much heat stored in the ocean, it'll keep coming up and melting the ice," Martinson, who was not involved in Paolo's study, told VICE News.

The study, which advanced previous research on Antarctica's ice mass, compiled 18 years of continuous data starting in 1994, and found that the bulk of melt occurred between 2003 and 2012, Paolo noted.

"We could see there was an acceleration of loss," Paolo said of the ice mass. 

"Another important thing we were able to see was that some of the ice shelves have a large fluctuation of gain and loss in volume over time. So, if you look at a shorter period, you won't see the trend."

Air temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula — where the record high was documented last week — have been found to further affect ice melt there, Paolo said, so such steamy weather could certainly cause more reason for concern.

"On the Antarctic Peninsula we have a weather station so we know the weather is responsible for changes," Paolo said.

Still, one or two extremely hot days cannot be directly attributed to global warming, said Hugh Ducklow, also a professor with Lamont-Doherty. He warned of drawing too many conclusions from the 63.5-degree weather.

"I don't believe that you can attribute any isolated event to global warming. This is just like saying the next 100-degree day or next hurricane in NYC is due to global warming," Ducklow told VICE News. "A warmer climate could increase the likelihood of occurrence of hot days, but the individual events are not 'caused' by global warming."

Related:  Antarctica's melting ice sheets might bring more sea level rise to the US than anywhere else

And regardless of the air temperature, the ocean's conditions actually have a far stronger impact on the melting ice and rising sea levels, Martinson explained.

"The heat contained in water is thousands of times stronger than the heat of the atmosphere," Martinson said of the sea's ability to dissolve Antarctic ice.

"Heat is absorbed in the ocean like a sponge, and a good amount of that heat is coming up. Where it comes up it melts underside of the ice shelves," Martinson said, warning that the phenomenon could push the sea level dangerously high. "I don't like to say 'doomsday scenario' but this is sort of pointing toward it."

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter: @merhoffman

Greenland's Melting Glaciers - VICE

In this episode, Shane Smith travels to Greenland with climate scientist Jason Box to investigate why the glaciers are melting, and how the resulting rise in sea level will devastate our world sooner than expected. Then VICE goes to Pakistan, where millions of men, women, and children work as bonded laborers in brick kilns.