The Ghost Plumes - 16

Fig. 1 See the plume?

I. A Little

This Dredd Blog series began several years ago in 2018 (The Ghost Plumes, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

I am updating it today to add an aspect of it that was not mentioned previously.

That subject is the increase in ice shelf protrusions caused by "frazil ice" generation during plume activity.

In this case when photons from the seawater enter the ice sheet at or near the grounding line, ice turns into fresh water for which there is a mathematical and software way of calculating some of the dynamics.

Those dynamics are found in the TEOS-10 library, as well as the dynamics as to when and why frazil ice emerges (gsw_melting_ice_into_seawater, gsw_frazil_properties_potential). 

Fig. 2 See the frazil?

The extent of any addition to the ice shelf would be determined by the volume of glacial melt water in the plume and the frazil generation and refreezing of the plume water as it approaches or contacts the bottom of the ice shelf.

Some of the potential dynamics are elaborated upon in the paper linked-to at Fig. 2. 

The frazil is a small part of increased sea ice because it forms from melt of the glacier at the grounding line zone, not from additional glacial outflow or snow.

The Sahara Desert receives more precipitation annually than Antarctica does; Antarctica is the largest desert on Earth (You Are Here - 7). 

II. A Lot

Now let's take a look at a lot, i.e., a lot of sea level change (rise and fall) at various locations around the globe (the Earth is not flat yet).

Like the ice shelf around Antarctica, there is both rise and fall of sea level depending on one's proximity to a large ice sheet like Antarctica, Greenland, Glacier Bay Alaska, or the Third Pole (see Fig. 3 and the video below).

Fig. 3 As of Now

And also take a look at the HTML tables of locations of tide gauge stations around the globe that have at least a foot of sea level change (Ports, Sea Level Rise, Sea Level Fall).

The pseudo-science media sing the silly millimeter songs.

One is about the "bathtub" model, another is about the global sea level rise average in millimeters (The Warming Science Commentariat, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

A noted sea level scientist and professor points out that nothing could be further from the truth and they didn't have a clue when speaking of the bathtub model pseudo science and why sea level change is not the same as it is in a bathtub (i.e. evenly distributed everywhere).

III. Closing Comments

 See videos below.

The previous post in this series is here.

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