A massive cavity two-thirds the size of Manhattan has been discovered growing in an Antarctic glacier, signaling rapid ice decay that has shocked scientists.
The huge hole -- measuring almost 1,000 feet (300 meters) tall -- was found growing at an "explosive rate" at the bottom of a glacier in West Antarctica, said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a statement Wednesday.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/health/antarctic-glacier-cavity-nasa-intl/index.html
I know that you would be disappointed if I didn't comment or maybe you actually think that one of these articles, will eventually yield an objective truth that I will agree completely with.
Actually, the study, though clearly biased wasn't that bad. After CNN got a hold of it and twisted the facts they turned it into an exaggerated, alarmist piece of propaganda.
CNN: If all the ice in the Antarctic melted, it would be enough to increase sea levels by 180 feet.
CNN: 252 billion tons of ice are melting a year from the glacier and 40 years ago, only 40 billion tons a year were melting.
CNN: We need to reduce our carbon footprint because hurricanes will be getting even more powerful like they did in 2018
CNN: Wildfires will be getting more intense
CNN: Rainfall will continue to be more intense
They actually got one right on the rainfall(because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture) but this story is about the ice in Antarctica. Only an activist journalist would feel the need to throw in wildfires, hurricanes and intense rainfall at the end their report on Antarctic ice.
With regards to their alarmist points. If the increased rate of melting is so massive, then why are sea levels not accelerating up at a much higher clip? Still at around 1 inch/decade(close to the rate of the last century-just slightly higher recently). At that rate, we'll get to that 180 foot sea level increase they mentioned in 18,000 years!
Possibly the great increase in precipitation is returning much of it to land?
With regards to there being a hole at the bottom of the glacier, which is what the story is about. This suggests the possibility of it coming from geothermal heat from underwater volcanoes.........and being evidence of it NOT being from man made climate change, in contrast to CNN spinning it into a human caused climate change propaganda story.
Part of the alternate universe, where up is down and down is up in CNN's world that I referred to in your extreme weather thread mojo.
]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica
"Scientists have uncovered the largest volcanic region on Earth – two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica."
The reason I call the study biased is that it failed to mention all the underwater volcanoes beneath this glacier. Gee, do you think that a bunch of volcanoes spewing hot lava underneath a glacier might contribute to some warmer water and melting.
By EarthSky Voices in Earth | July 19, 2018
https://earthsky.org/earth/volcano-under-pine-island-glacier-worlds-fastest-melting
"Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier is melting, thanks to warming waters from below. What’s more, a recent study has discovered a volcano beneath the glacier."
Any of CNN's reporters, some with gifted instincts, certainly could have found this out before covering the story. .............but this would have contradicted the narrative they wanted to tell.
"The reason I call the study biased is that it failed to mention all the underwater volcanoes beneath this glacier. Gee, do you think that a bunch of volcanoes spewing hot lava underneath a glacier might contribute to some warmer water and melting?"
Aw, c'mon Metmike -- who ever heard of heat from a volcano being, you know, like hot enough to melt ice and stuff?
Does Scientific American have enough credibility to meet your high standards? Probably not, but here's their side of the story anyway.
Whoa, Metmike -- I didn't realize how huge this area was -- 2/3 the size of Manhattan! And how large is Manhattan, you might ask? According to the interwebs, it encompases 22.82 square miles. And 2/3 of that is 15.213 square miles. That's huge! Heck, the entire earth, according to the interwebs, has only 196,900,000 (one hundred ninety six point nine million square miles), so this 15.213 square mile area represents an unfathomable 0.000006203 percent of the earth's surface!
Personally, I think it's all Trump's fault that NOTHING IS BEING DONE about this. The least he could do is nuke it or something, for heaven's sake.
I wonder how many football fields that is?
Hmmmmm ... a square mile is 27,878,400 square feet. (5280 * 5280). So square feet in 15.213333 square miles is 15.21333 times 27878400 = 424,123,391.1 sq feet.
According to the interwebs, a football field including the endzones has 57,600 square feet.
So, 424,123,391.1 divided by 57600 = 7636.25 football fields. I think.
But since math isn't my strong point (I'm still trying to figure out what that might be) I stand to be corrected.
Thank you JP. That's far more than adequate for the purposes of this discussion :-)
Much, much better source mojo. Good job.
I had a subscription to Scientific American for 25 years. However, I discontinued it after they became junk science, political activists pushing alarmism by misrepresenting the science of global warming.
Is it because they disagreed with me?
No, they blatatantly misrepresent the authentic science. How would I know? I'm an atmospheric scientist. Read my posts with the authentic data to support the authentic science. The data is the data.
Actually, I believed the same thing that they did in the 1990's..........until I did independent research and gathered all the data myself in the 2000's.
When they insisted that the science was settled and it was all there on their global climate models simulating the atmosphere for the next 100 years to prove the speculative theory, I continued to use observations for another 2 decades.
Aha! The observations have greatly busted the extreme versions of that theory being sold as settled science.........but the much too warm climate model computer simulations and exaggerated consequences to the planet(which has experienced the best weather/climate for life in 1,000 years, since the last time that it was warm) have not been adjusted.
So even pillars of scientific information have agenda's and bias. These are just words by me..............this is why I freely show/share the data to prove my statements on weather/climate change.
mojo,
I'm impressed that you're providing a highly regarded source like Scientific American...........much better than RawStory. Keep up the good work.
I did say that I provide evidence for everything. Here's powerful evidence of Scientific American completely mis charactering the position of people like me(making up things that only true science deniers would believe) in order to make us seem out of touch in order to attack us.
BTW, I'm in that 97% of climate scientists agree about climate change number that you always hear about.
What they don't tell you is that it also includes climate scientists that think the warming is beneficial and that some of us think that natural cycles also played a role to enhance the beneficial greenhouse gas warming.
So here's the absurd article, with my comments each of their 7 silly to false points.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/7-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense/
1. There is little doubt that CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 408 ppm and has caused warming.
2. Over 100 authentic scientific studies show that the Medieval Warm Period, 1,000 years ago was this warm or warmer.
3. Nobody in their right minds thinks the earth has been cooling since 1998.
4. The sun obviously plays a role in warming.............and cooling. Last century we had the most active sun in the last 1,000 years.........Grand solar maximum. Nobody is saying it was all from the sun but its really dumb to say the sun is no longer a significant cause and its all from CO2 (when it was the main cause for millions of years)
5. Actually, CLimate-gate and the emails between climate scientists that were released in 2009 proved they were doing this to hide the 10 year pause in global warming.
6. Billions in grant money? Working for the government? Reputations on the line from a theory which they claim was settled? No way would climate scientists be affected by this. They don't even vote in elections because they are so anti political(-: They're really just a bunch of underpaid, scientific Mother Theresa's working tirelessly to save the planet...............NOT!
7. Reducing our carbon foot print and lowering the amount of CO2 emissions will do very little to effect climate.............which, as mentioned previously is the best in the last 1,000 years for life. The only place where extreme weather and catastrophic climate consequences exists is on computer simulations of the atmosphere going out 100 years............which have been too warm.
Crop production and plant growth, just from the increase in CO2 is up 25%.
On this particular article you posted the link to about the Antarctic ice melting from SA, they do a good job on just stating the facts.
I didn't notice any mention on climate change being responsible. Also, no mention of the geothermal heat and volcanoes underneath which we know is a fact.
A huge hole in one spot underneath the ice, very strongly suggests the volcano connection vs climate change............ from warmer ocean water that has a fairly uniform temperature and would be more likely to erode the ice more uniformly.
Thats why the huge hole under the ice is such a huge surprise!
... pretty sweet debunk Mike !
Thanks for the calculations JP!
Here's another one:
'Scary': Warming of Oceans Is Equivalent to 1.5 Atomic Bombs Every Second Over Past 150 Years
https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-warming-atomic-bombs-2625539789.html
"Carbon emissions are affecting life in all of Earth's ecosystems—contributing to drought, flooding and the melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But a new study by researchers at Oxford University details how the planet's oceans are by far the climate crisis's biggest victim, with implications for the global population."
Somebody please inform life on this planet that it's supposed to be dying! The simulated atmosphere on the global climate models says so. Al Gore says so.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/soyyld.php
No, No, No, No, soybeans, you're not supposed to do this!!!!!! Die soybeans, Die!
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Die planet earth Die! Your supposed to be dying, stop greening up!!
Die polar bears Die! Al Gore said that you were dying..........at least stop increasing so much!
"In 2005, the official global polar bear estimate was about 22,500.
Since 2005, however, the estimated global polar bear population has risen by more than 30% to about 30,000 bears, far and away the highest estimate in more than 50 years.
A growing number of observational studies have documented that polar bears are thriving, despite shrinking summer sea ice. "
No not you tornadoes. Don't die tornadoes. Please get stronger, increase and join the party of growing extreme weather on the climate model/computer simulations.
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png
Dang, the planet and its creatures are just not behaving like the models predicted, even with millions of Hiroshima bombs of heat bombarding the oceans and climate models telling us what should be happening...............however, we might as well take what we can get:
Folks, global warming causes extreme cold! Yep, the "climate change" Polar Vortex's never happened before humans burned fossil fuels like we do now. All those extreme cold waves in the past were from something else, don't pay attention to that but this one was from man made climate change:
