Antarctica 2.0

Fig. 1 Antarctica 2.0

I. A Brief Look-Back

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has been aware that Greenland and Antarctica are more sensitive to global warming induced climate change than establishment science managers have been allowing.

In a past post I questioned one of establishment science's cryosphere dogmas: "Today, I want to question whether or not we have an accurate picture of the sensitivity of the polar ice sheets, ice caps, and glaciers to global warming" (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 54, 2015).

The concluding statements in that post were as follows:

Fig. 2 SLC in the Golden 23 Zones

"The take home from this information is that the Arctic ice sheets had much more volume back then, and they were and are more sensitive to global warming than we have been led to believe (The Evolution of Models - 18).

They still are.

We are making a Titanic mistake if we fail to heed the warnings ..."

(ibid). In stark contrast to those Dredd Blog assertions, the scientific establishment managers had fostered a dogma.

The dogma was that Antarctica was "stable" in the sense of not being subject to surface melt or demise ("the one reassuring point has been the apparent relative stability of the eastern (and, by far, larger) half of the Antarctic Ice Sheet" - Science, 2013; The Case for a Stable East Antarctic Ice Sheet: The Background, 1993).

Fig. 3 Future SLC

The arguments were generally based on sedimentary and similar records that are millions of years old.

II. Dredd Blog Is On The Correct Side of 

The History of The Cryosphere

Regular readers also know that last week a section of the journal Nature featured a scientific paper that, of all things, looked at the available evidence concerning Antarctica (The Ghost-Water Constant - 9).

Fig. 4  Deep ocean SLC

The authors of that paper had the audacity to look at real aerial photographic evidence of the surface of Antarctica going back to 1947, as well as more recent photos taken by satellites.

I think of that paper as the new notion of "Antarctica 2.0" (Fig. 1).

That notion is similar to the way software is named whereby a "version 1.0" is usually far surpassed by a following "version 2.0".

As it turns out, like Dredd Blog argued, Antarctica 2.0 (like Greenland 2.0), is a very sensitive place in terms of vulnerability to global warming induced climate change ("[Antarctic] Surface drainage has persisted for decades, transporting water up to 120 kilometres [75 miles] from grounded ice onto and across ice shelves, feeding vast melt ponds [lakes, not ponds, dood] up to 80 kilometres [50 miles] long", ibid).

III. Acceleration 2.0

Fig. 5 SLC at the tide gauge stations

In light of that paper (and a 17 Apr 2017 update to the PSMSL datasets), I have revisited the Golden 23 Zones.

Those zones were brought to the fore by Professor Mitrovica during his "sea level fingerprints" video presentations (The Gravity of Sea Level Change, Calling All Cars: The Case of the "Missing Six" - 5) by pointing out that one of the fingerprints of Greenland ice mass loss (when its ice sheet is melting or otherwise in demise) is sea level fall in N. Europe.

That is, sea level will fall (not rise) all the way from the coast of Greenland out to the "hinge point," to impact even some parts of Europe with sea level fall (Proof of Concept - 5).

Not knowing that fact is what caused "the European problem" (Mitrovica).

The "European problem" was the historical case where some scientists, while looking at European tide gauge records, were "without a clue" as to why sea level fall was happening there, instead of sea level rise (The Evolution and Migration of Sea Level Hinge Points, 2).

IV. The Graphs

The graphs of The Golden 23 Zones show that sea level rise acceleration has been taking place in the last few years at tide gauge stations in the Golden 23 Zones (Fig. 2, Fig. 5).

Also, even higher sea level rise acceleration is taking place way out at sea (Fig. 4).

When I run the software modules, there is a segment of the software code that collects and presents a statement about acceleration:

"avg mm per year [SLR] from 1808 to 2016 was 1.21861 mm yr
avg mm per year [SLR] from 2007 to 2016 was 9.28577 mm yr"

The incline on the graph at Fig. 3 estimates that there will be more steep sea level rise acceleration in the future at tide gauges located within those 23 zones.

This too has been expected (The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

That being said, nevertheless the graph at Fig. 3 is a conservative look at the acceleration that my low-end projection module shows when in "IPCC mode."

"Acceleration" simply means that a steeper incline will appear on graphs that are made with software that is programmed to consider acceleration when projecting future sea levels.

V. Alarmist?

Big oil lackeys advocate that people should listen to big oil propagandists instead of listening to honest scientists.

Those phony denialists are rapidly becoming obvious outliers, even to the public they had previously deceived with their ludicrous urgings:

"Between cold snaps and heat waves, droughts and heavy rain that is either unseasonable or of unusual duration, the feeling is growing almost everywhere in the world that the usual weather patterns have gone haywire."

(Are weather patterns changing because the Arctic is becoming warmer?). That link is to the world's premiere reinsurance company "Munich RE."

To stay in business, while insuring climate change scenarios, insurance companies have to know what is happening, and is going to happen, on several fronts:

"To date, the issue of liability under international or private law for the consequences of climate change has not been conclusively resolved.

Attempts by individuals and groups of people to sue industrial groups have hitherto met with failure.

Of course, the insurance industry is following trends in court decisions in this area with the keenest attention.

Thus far, there has been no case that has really tested whether and how international liability claims based on the consequences of climate change would be settled. The lodging of a liability claim based on a country's impaired security interests due to migratory movements resulting from climate change would in any case open up entirely new dimensions." (Munich RE)

"Are weather patterns changing because the Arctic is becoming warmer?"

"Prevention instead of head in the sand"

Munich RE (video conversation).

VI. Conclusion

This is not a political game where pols flip flop and change their minds about as much as they lie through their teeth to our faces.

They can go from worse to better, or from better to worse on a daily basis.

On the other hand, the climate change predicament is real and it will not get better in our life times, or in the lifetimes of our immediate descendants.

The next post in this series is here.

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