Archive for November, 2015

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Only gods and magic are “unnatural”

November 5, 2015

I dislike the manner in which we use the words “nature” and “natural” to surround some things with a halo of virtue and rectitude and righteousness, while we use “unnatural” to disparage others. The usage is somewhat perverse and illogical. There are some who define “nature” as “existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind”. By what logic can humans not be part of nature? Are they inherently, unnatural? What actually is “nature”? Is my garden part of nature or an unnatural artefact created by man. I find that defining nature without man is almost as stupid as defining “environment” to be all that excludes man and his works.

When a male lion takes over a pride from another and kills all his predecessor’s cubs it is natural and a part of nature. When ISIS does something similar, it is barbaric and unnatural. When weeds take over my garden and kill other plants, it is natural. If I use weed killer, it is unnatural. When humans make artefacts, they are unnatural. When a chimpanzee uses a stick to poke into and extract insects from down a hole, it is a wonder of nature. Evolution is taken to be a natural wonder of nature. But less than 1% of all species produced by evolution are still alive. Of all the species alive today, most have failed to develop any semblance of intelligence. Should I take human intelligence and its evolution to be unnatural? (Actually, I take the fact that only humans, of all the species, have developed intelligence to any degree, as being proof of the ineffectiveness of evolution). Earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis are examples of the awesome power of nature and perfectly natural. How is it that when an earthquake and tsunami kills 18,000 it is natural but when the same event damages a man-made nuclear reactor and causes great fear – but no loss of life and relatively little damage – it is unnatural?

When the monsoon fails once every decade or brings bumper rains – also around once a decade – it is natural variation. Almost every location on earth sees a natural variation of temperature during a single day of between 10 and 30ºC. Over a year the natural temperature variation at any location is between 30 and 50ºC. But an alleged temperature warming of about 0.8ºC over the last 100 years is termed unnatural. Natural climate change has caused forests to become pastures and vice versa. What were deserts in the past have become fertile land and what were seas in the past have become deserts today.Rivers have changed their courses and even ceased to flow or been created. All that was perfectly natural.

When some event or behaviour is deemed natural or to have natural causes, no further explanation is necessary. It is used to shut down discussion or questioning of the causes. A natural death needs no further explanation or discussion. When bad behaviour is to be excused it is termed natural whether it is the behaviour of a lion or a human psychopath. We tend to use unnatural to be synonymous with abnormal. Abnormal of course only means that the probability of something is low – not that it is impossible. We use the terms to imbue virtue or awe to the event or thing or behaviour being described. Natural foods are good foods. Natural storms are awesome and unstoppable. And we use unnatural to disparage without further justification. Our use of natural and unnatural already includes a value judgement.

The natural world can only be everything that obeys the laws of nature (as we know them). And that has to include humans and their works. There is nothing holy or sacrosanct then about being natural. The conclusion I come to is that there is nothing we know of in the Universe which is not part of nature. Everything is part of nature And everything that exists or happens in the Universe is also natural.

And that leaves only the gods and magic as being unnatural.

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Posted in Language | 2 Comments »

Russian Kogalymavia Flight 9268 investigation focuses on an engine explosion or the tail falling off

November 4, 2015

UPDATE! Apparently some US intelligence sources are saying that it could have been an IS bomb on the plane and David Cameron has stopped all UK flights to Sharm el-Sheih. I’m just a little sceptical since this news coincides handily with the visit of the Egyptian President to the UK and there is a fairly obvious political agenda. David Cameron is running scared of asking Parliament to vote on allowing strikes against IS. He needs to demonise them further (as if that was possible), before he plucks up his courage sufficiently to push for a vote in Parliament.

Kogalymavia Flight 9268 crashed in northern Sinai on 31st October 2015,  while travelling from  Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg. All 224 on board were killed (217 passengers and 7 crew). The aircraft was an 18-year-old Airbus A321-231, # 663.

There were no explosive residues found, so it is unlikely to have been due to a terrorist bomb on board. It was flying so high (9,400m) that it is extremely unlikely that some terrorist or IS group – based in Egypt – had the wherewithal to have shot it down. Now it seems that the investigators are narrowing the cause to the tail, or an explosion in one of the two IAE V2533- A5 engines powering the A321 Airbus, or both.

Swedish Radio: The Egyptian accident investigators initial conclusion after analyzing the Russian aircraft black box, is that an engine may have exploded, according to several international media today. The search area for wreckage has also been expanded from 20 to 40 square kilometers.

It also seems from the debris that the tail broke off. This aircraft had had a previous accident where the tail was damaged and had to be repaired. Whether an engine explosion caused the tail to break off, followed by a cascading series of other events, or whether the tail fell off first and caused the engine to try and operate in some forbidden zones and then explode, will be surely something that will exercise the investigators.

CNN: The distance from the tail to the rest of the debris could be telling — especially because the tail was previously damaged, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said.

“To me, it says (the tail) exited the plane before (an) explosive event and before the fire engulfed the plane,” she said.

The same plane’s tail struck a runway while landing in Cairo in 2001 and required repair, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks aircraft incidents. At the time, the aircraft was registered to the Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines, registration records show.

Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said something could have gone wrong with the repair work after the tail strike. She said she once worked on a crash where a tail strike that had not been repaired well brought down a plane almost two decades later.

“A bad repair is like a ticking time bomb, because once it’s on the plane, it stays with the plane forever,” she said.

The engine manufacturers will be hoping that it was not an engine which exploded first and caused a whole series of catastrophic events. The V2500 is a two-shaft, high-bypass, turbofan engine which powers the Airbus A320 family among other aircraft and is manufactured by International Aero Engines which is a joint venture between Pratt and Whitney, Japan Aero Engine Corporation (JAEC) and Motoren- und Turbinen-Union (MTU).

(My earlier error now corrected — Rolls Royce is not now part of the JV having exited in 2012.)

IAE:

The V2500® turbofan is the most technologically advanced engine in its class. IAE’s shareholders collectively invest billions of dollars each year into the research and development of new technologies that are ultimately available to IAE.

Each IAE shareholder contributes an individual module to the V2500 engine, an arrangement that enables their engineering teams to focus on continuously refining their respective module.

  • Combustor and high-pressure turbine: Pratt & Whitney
  • High-pressure compressor: Pratt & Whitney Aero Engines International (A wholly owned subsidiary of Pratt & Whitney)
  • Fan and low-pressure compressor: JAEC
  • Low-pressure turbine: MTU

IAE’s employees are seconded from the shareholder companies across a range of business functions including sales, marketing, engineering and product support.

IAE V2500 engine

IAE V2500 engine

The V2500 first entered service in 1989 and comes in a number of models (V2500-A1, V2500-A5, V2500-D5, V2500-E5), producing between 22,000 and 33,000 lbs of thrust. It is currently used on Airbus A319, A320 and A321 Airbus Corporate Jets (ACJ), Boeing MD-90 and Embraer KC-390 aircraft.

It is early days yet for the investigation, but there is some relief that this was probably not a terrorist act. On the other hand, if it was due to an engine explosion, it could ground a lot of aircraft.

 

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Posted in Aviation, Technology | 1 Comment »

China has been burning more coal than reported – and any Paris “agreement” will have no significance

November 4, 2015

The NYT reports that in the last 10 years China has admitted it has been burning about 17% more coal than has been reported. The extra one billion tons burned every year is equivalent to what is consumed by Germany. But the global temperature (the satellite measurement based calculated temperature, not the calculated land based measurements which are fudged every year to keep cooling the past) has been flat for over 18 years. Antarctica is gaining ice mass. Ice cover in the Arctic is at the highest level for the last 10 years. Sea levels are not rising any faster than they have been for the last 500 years. Apart from shifting money between countries it is difficult to see what Paris is all about.

Irrespective of what Paris may “agree”, it will be non-binding and will allow India to treble its coal consumption and China to double its coal burn. Both will however “reduce” their carbon emission intensity per unit of GDP (how not?). Energy growth exceeds GDP growth at low levels of development (and fuels GDP growth) but then flattens out as the GDP increases. Thus reducing carbon emission intensity per unit of GDP is easy (and virtually impossible to avoid) when GDP is growing and development has reached the point where growth in electricity (or energy) consumption is lower than GDP growth.

energy to gdp growth as function of gdp

energy to gdp growth as function of gdp

The trebling and doubling respectively of India and China’s coal consumption over the next 20 or so years is an inevitability. Carbon emissions will follow no matter how they are packaged to seem to be “a reduction of emissions per unit of gdp”.

What European countries do to cut their fossil fuel use – and increase their electricity costs – is pointless and with no measurable objectives. European actions are no longer of any significance in terms of global emissions. Moreover nothing “agreed to” in Paris will give any measurable impact on any climate parameter over the next 50 years. The only measurable results of any Paris deal are the inputs – money flows between countries and the changes in fuel use. None of the desired “climate changes” are measurable. Truly policies without any measurable objectives.

china - revised coal consumption - graphic NYT

china – revised coal consumption – graphic NYT

NYT: 

China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been burning up to 17 percent more coal a year than the government previously disclosed, according to newly released data. The finding could complicate the already difficult efforts to limit global warming.

Even for a country of China’s size, the scale of the correction is immense. The sharp upward revision in official figures means that China has released much more carbon dioxide — almost a billion more tons a year according to initial calculations — than previously estimated.

The increase alone is greater than the whole German economy emits annually from fossil fuels.

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Posted in Alarmism, China, Climate, Coal, India | 1 Comment »

Trend reversal and sharp increase of mortality of 45-54 year old, US white population

November 3, 2015

A new paper by Nobel winner Angus Deaton and his wife Anne Case points out a trend reversal and a sharp increase of mortality rates among 45-54 year old, non-Hispanic whites in the US between 1999 and 2013. This is highest among the less educated, less well-off population. It is the reversal of a previous trend and that is both perplexing and a little alarming. It suggests a deeper social malaise prevalent in this group.

A rather deadly – and morbid – case of “White Flight”.

Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century, PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1518393112

All-cause mortality, ages 45–54 for US White non-Hispanics (USW), US Hispanics (USH), and six comparison countries: France (FRA), Germany (GER), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada (CAN), Australia (AUS), and Sweden (SWE) Case & Deaton

All-cause mortality, ages 45–54 for US White non-Hispanics (USW), US Hispanics (USH), and six comparison countries: France (FRA), Germany (GER), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada (CAN), Australia (AUS), and Sweden (SWE)  – Case & Deaton

Abstract

This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall. This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases.

The sharpest increase has been in “poisonings” which is essentially the use of drugs (including pain related opiates) and alcohol.

Mortality by cause, white non-Hispanics ages 45–54.

Mortality by cause, white non-Hispanics ages 45–54.

American Prospect comments:

Case and Deaton’s data indicate that the white midlife mortality reversal was due almost entirely to increased deaths among those with a high school degree or less. Mortality rates in that group rose by 134 per 100,000 between 1999 and 2013, while there was little change among those with some college, and death rates fell by 57 per 100,000 for those with a college degree or more.

Death rates from suicide and poisonings such as drug overdoses increased among middle-aged whites at all socioeconomic levels (as measured by education). But the increases were largest among those with the least education and more than sufficient in that group to wipe out progress in reducing other causes of death. Deaths from diabetes rose slightly but did not account for a significant part of the white midlife mortality reversal.

  ……. Among blacks, midlife mortality has been higher than among whites. But over the period 1999-2013, according to Case and Deaton, midlife mortality declined by more than 200 per 100,000 for blacks while it was rising for whites. As a result, the ratio of black to white mortality rates dropped from 2.09 in 1999 to 1.40 in 2013. Contrary to what many Americans may still believe, drug overdoses are no longer concentrated among minorities; in fact, among the 45-54 age group, drug-related deaths are now higher among whites. …..

American Prospect goes on to suggest that this might be a loss of hope among the white, middle-aged, less educated population, which is part of the malaise which is showing up politically as support for Trump and Carson.

The declining health of middle-aged white Americans may also shed light on the intensity of the political reaction taking place on the right today. The role of suicide, drugs, and alcohol in the white midlife mortality reversal is a signal of heightened desperation among a population in measurable decline. ……  The phenomenon Case and Deaton have identified suggests a dire collapse of hope, and that same collapse may be propelling support for more radical political change. Much of that support is now going to Republican candidates, notably Donald Trump. Whether Democrats can compete effectively for that support on the basis of substantive economic and social policies will crucially affect the country’s political future.

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Idiotic Greenpeace barred from bidding zero for Vattenfall’s brown coal

November 3, 2015

It’s no secret that I find Greenpeace to have deteriorated into an organisation that is lacking both in intelligence and ethics. So it is a bit of a relief to find their planned bid of zero to buy and shut down Vattenfalls brown coal assets has been barred.

TheLocal: Greenpeace said on Monday that it has been barred from bidding for the German coal operations of Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, which the environmental activists intended to shut down. …..

Citigroup, which had been in charge of the sale, had informed Greenpeace of its decision on Friday, arguing that the environmental protection group had no intention of standing as a bidder. Neither Citigroup nor Vattenfall were willing to comment.

“We treat all potential bidders equally,” said a Vattenfall spokesman.

Vattenfall is hoping to find a buyer for the open-cast coal mines and two power plants close to the German-Polish border amid growing resistance to fossil fuels in Germany, while public subsidies of renewable sources of energy makes coal-fired energy less profitable.

Greenpeace offered no money to purchase the activities, arguing that the lignite mines and power plants in eastern Germany were in fact a liability. It hoped to transfer the operations into a charitable foundation, paid for by Vattenfall and the German and Swedish governments, in order to phase them out by 2030.

Greenpeace started with good intentions but since the fall of communism has just become a haven for the homeless hard left. They know best what is good for others and look to impose their truths. Unfortunately they have done more to keep people in poverty than most others. It is not just that they are misguided, they have become malicious under the cloak of do-gooding.

Related:

A feudal culture of sexual harassment at Greenpeace India

“Greenpeace’s crime against humanity” – Patrick Moore

Science and advocacy do not mix (the “Greenpeace syndrome”?)

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Posted in Alarmism, Coal | Comments Off on Idiotic Greenpeace barred from bidding zero for Vattenfall’s brown coal

Swedish study of one million children shows early exposure to dogs reduces asthma

November 2, 2015

We have probably gone a little too far and are just a little too protective of our children. The cleaner we try to keep everything around children, the less developed is their immunity and the more vulnerable they become later. I suspect it is the same thinking which has meant that we have also gone too far with so called Health and Safety provisions in schools which – for fear of accident and resulting liability – has reduced the fun – and the learning opportunities – of play, sports and excursions. The so-called precautionary principle (which is no principle but a political ideology) actually encourages actions to be subservient to fear. There is a difference between avoiding being foolhardy and being cowardly.

A Swedish cohort study on over one million children has found that early exposure to dogs clearly reduces the later risk of asthma.

Tove Fall, Cecilia Lundholm, Anne K Örtqvist, Katja Fall, Fang Fang, Åke Hedhammar, Olle Kämpe, Erik Ingelsson, and Catarina Almqvist. “Dog and farm animal exposure reduce risk of childhood asthma – a nationwide cohort study”.  JAMA Pediatrics. In press. DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.3219

Uppsala University press release (in Swedish) is here.

Medicalxpress:

A team of Swedish scientists have used national register information in more than one million Swedish children to study the association of early life contact with dogs and subsequent development of asthma. This question has been studied extensively previously, but conclusive findings have been lacking. The new study showed that children who grew up with dogs had about 15 percent less asthma than children without dogs.  

A total of more than one million children were included in the researchers’ study linking together nine different national data sources, including two dog ownership registers not previously used for medical research. The results are being published for the first time in JAMA Pediatrics. The goal was to determine whether children exposed to animals early in life are at different risk of asthma.

“Earlier studies have shown that growing up on a farm reduces a child’s risk of asthma to about half. We wanted to see if this relationship also was true also for children growing up with dogs in their homes. Our results confirmed the farming effect, and we also saw that children who grew up with dogs had about 15 percent less asthma than children without dogs. Because we had access to such a large and detailed data set, we could account for confounding factors such as asthma in parents, area of residence and socioeconomic status” says Tove Fall, Assistant Professor in Epidemiology at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, who coordinated the study together with researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. ……. 

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Another alarmist meme bites the dust – UK study shows neonicotinoids don’t harm honey bees

November 2, 2015

The EU is almost a perfect example of an organisation which makes all its actions subservient to fear (which also happens to be my definition of cowardice). They banned neonicotinoids two years ago as a result of alarmist hype about their feared catastrophic effects on honey bees. It seems the fears have probably been grossly exaggerated.

HCJ Godfray et al, A restatement of recent advances in the natural science evidence base concerning neonicotinoid insecticides and insect pollinators, Proceedings Royal Society B, 28 October 2015. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1821

Farmers Weekly:

Honeybees are avoiding any significant damage from neonicotinoid insecticides according to an academic review of all in-field research carried out so far.

With the European Commission’s two-year ban on neonicotinoids to be reviewed soon, and new trial data about to be published, a number of academics were asked to study the current data.

“The evidence so far points to a lack of effect on honeybee colonies from neonicotinoids,“ Professor Charles Godfray, Oxford University Professor of Entomology, told a news briefing. He and his colleague Prof Angela McLean were two of the academics asked by the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, to review the data as the European Commission (EC) considers whether to extend the ban.

The EC imposed a ban in December 2013 on three neonicotinoids that were used as seed dressing on bee-attractive crops such as oilseed rape, due to their perceived harmful effect on bees. Prof Godfray said although there was no field data so far to show neonicotinoids had any effect on honeybee colonies, a Swedish study led by Dr Maj Rundlof had shown they have a harmful effect on bumblebees.   ……

He and Prof McLean are members of the Oxford Martin School, a research arm of Oxford University, and they were asked to review more than 400 scientific papers on the topic. Prof McLean said they looked to act as an “honest broker” to give a summary.

The EC ban covers three neonicotinoids – clothianidin, used in Bayer CropScience’s Modesto, thiamethoxam, used in Syngenta’s Cruiser, and also imidacloprid.

The seed dressings were used to control cabbage stem flea beetle and without the treatment, 3.5% of the nation’s oilseed rape crop was lost to the pest in autumn of 2014, according to an AHDB survey.

This season, growers in four flea beetle hotspot counties – Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire – were allowed to use neonicotinoids on up to a maximum of 30,000ha or about 5% of the national crop.

The UK government has always opposed the EC ban, as has the agrochemical industry, which has agreed to fund an independent trial run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, due to be published before Christmas.

The summary of recent evidence surrounding neonicotinoids and bees is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

I note also the statement by the authors in their paper that:

An analysis of the historical shifts in the ranges of European and North American bumblebees showed that they have failed to track climate warming at their northern range limits, while southern range limits have contracted.

They wouldn’t be able to track a non-existent warming now, would they?

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Posted in Agriculture, Alarmism, European Union, Wildlife | 1 Comment »

You gotta have a dream

November 2, 2015

2016 MERCEDES-MAYBACH S600

You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

2016 Mercedes-Maybach S600

2016 Mercedes-Maybach S600. 523-hp, 6.0-liter twin-turbo V-12 and the world’s quietest car

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Confirmed: Antarctic has been gaining ice mass (even while fossil fuel use has been increasing)

November 1, 2015

One again, very clear evidence that the IPCC reports are mere advocacy for lobby groups. They are not scientific reports.

A new study by NASA confirms their finding of 2012 that the Antarctic is gaining in ice mass. The paper is published in the Journal of Glaciology.

Zwally, H. Jay, ; Li, Jun; Robbins, John W.; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui; Brenner, Anita C. Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses. Journal of Glaciology, 2015 DOI: 10.3189/2015JoG15J071

Antarctic ice accumulation not only provides no evidence of any global warming, it is also direct evidence that the global warming hypothesis itself is flawed. This ice accumulation has been taking place while carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has been increasing. Leaving aside how much of this increase may be due to human use of fossil fuel, the ice accumulation shows that carbon dioxide concentration is not a significant factor.

As the French mathematicians recently charged:

no sensible, high-quality journal would publish the IPPC‘s work. The IPPC‘s conclusions go against observed facts; the figures used are deliberately chosen to support its conclusions (with no regard for the most basic scientific honesty), and the natural variability of phenomena is passed over without comment. The IPPC‘s report fails to respect the fundamental rules of scientific research and could not be published in any review with a reading panel.

The new NASA paper shows that in recent times the Antarctic gains about 200 billion tons of ice a year while losing about 65 billion tons. Which also means that the Antarctic is responsible for about 135 million tons of water leaving the water cycle and being locked up as ice. This water can only come from the moisture concentration in the atmosphere (including clouds) or from the sea. There is no measurable change in the moisture in the atmosphere and that leaves the seas.

Rather than Antarctic melting causing sea level rise, Antarctic ice accumulation is most likely reducing the rate of sea level rise due to the recovery from the last glacial.

Of course the global warming orthodoxy will now tell us with impressive modelling results, that ice increasing at the Antarctic is perfectly consistent with the warming of the planet.

Go pull the other one.

This and the 2012 paper are in direct contradiction to the IPCC’s 2013 report which claimed that the Antarctic was losing ice. But as the French mathematicians noted the IPCC reports would not meet the normal publishing standards for scientific reports.

I don’t suppose anybody will take any notice of this during the Paris wealth transfer discussions. When will any politician or government have the courage to challenge the religious orthodoxy?

Abstract:

Mass changes of the Antarctic ice sheet impact sea-level rise as climate changes, but recent rates have been uncertain. Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) data (2003–08) show mass gains from snow accumulation exceeded discharge losses by 82 ± 25 Gt a–1, reducing global sea-level rise by 0.23 mm a–1. European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS) data (1992–2001) give a similar gain of 112 ± 61 Gt a–1. Gains of 136 Gt a–1 in East Antarctica (EA) and 72 Gt a–1 in four drainage systems (WA2) in West Antarctic (WA) exceed losses of 97 Gt a–1 from three coastal drainage systems (WA1) and 29 Gt a–1 from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). EA dynamic thickening of 147 Gt a–1 is a continuing response to increased accumulation (>50%) since the early Holocene. Recent accumulation loss of 11 Gt a–1 in EA indicates thickening is not from contemporaneous snowfall increases. Similarly, the WA2 gain is mainly (60 Gt a–1) dynamic thickening. In WA1 and the AP, increased losses of 66 ± 16 Gt a–1 from increased dynamic thinning from accelerating glaciers are 50% offset by greater WA snowfall. The decadal increase in dynamic thinning in WA1 and the AP is approximately one-third of the long-term dynamic thickening in EA and WA2, which should buffer additional dynamic thinning for decades.

This map shows the rates of mass changes from ICESat 2003-2008 over Antarctica. Sums are for all of Antarctica: East Antarctica (EA, 2-17); interior West Antarctica (WA2, 1, 18, 19, and 23); coastal West Antarctica (WA1, 20-21); and the Antarctic Peninsula (24-27). Credit: Jay Zwally/ Journal of Glaciology

This map shows the rates of mass changes from ICESat 2003-2008 over Antarctica. Sums are for all of Antarctica: East Antarctica (EA, 2-17); interior West Antarctica (WA2, 1, 18, 19, and 23); coastal West Antarctica (WA1, 20-21); and the Antarctic Peninsula (24-27).
Credit: Jay Zwally/ Journal of Glaciology

Science Daily reports:

A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica — there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.” Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.” 

Scientists calculate how much the ice sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks.

But still the authors find it necessary to bow down to orthodoxy. That’s probably necessary to get published and to avoid being labelled climate heretics. “It might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse”. Right, and then again it might not.

But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years — I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”

In any event, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by cutting the use of fossil  fuels is of no significance to Antarctic ice accumulation – and therefore, of no significance either to any global warming that may be occurring.

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Posted in Alarmism, Antarctic, Climate, Ice Cover | Comments Off on Confirmed: Antarctic has been gaining ice mass (even while fossil fuel use has been increasing)

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