NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses

[lockedout]

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 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.”

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...er-than-losses

[Garnier Fructis]

Yup.

But before anyone decides to misunderstand: when you factor in all ice sheets, there's a massive net loss.

Crowder from 'Louder with Crowder' made this mistake in his '5 climate myths' video.

[Tradewind]

Yup.

But before anyone decides to misunderstand: when you factor in all ice sheets, there's a massive net loss.

Pfft, the ice is coming back in one place! Time to roll coal on more Priuses(Priusii Priii?)!

[Yvaelle]

I brought a snowball onto the floor of the senate. Your argument is invalid.

[Deleted]

Trump shod close Nasa

[Darkeon]

Clearly the only explanation is that Al Gore is working with Antarctic Aliens and have developed some sort of magic shield against the Climate Changes.

[Endus]

Yeah, the important details here are that the ice sheet's been thickening for over 10,000 years, it's just that the rate of accumulation across the entire continent still outpaces the increasing melting at the edges, which they absolutely observed as well.

So anyone thinking this is someone a contradiction of climate change models/theory isn't reading this very closely.

[Nadiru]

It'll be irrelevant once the space infrastructure is in place to shade the planet slightly. Which is good because we still have 3.5 billion people on the planet with barely-industrial standards of living.

[PC2]

Documentaries love to show all the chunks of Antarctic ice crashing into the ocean because it's dramatic. Showing the bigger picture of more melting along with more precipitation/snowfall isnt as scary.

[Garnier Fructis]

Documentaries love to show all the chunks of Antarctic ice crashing into the ocean because it's dramatic. Showing the bigger picture of more melting along with more precipitation/snowfall isnt as scary.

Showing the even bigger picture (i.e. the most accurate one), which is the net loss on the global scale, is once again scary.

[truckboattruck]

every time you say global warming a beta cuck buys a 4 prius

its almost tooth fairy levels of magical
gee....i wonder who benefits

[PC2]

Showing the even bigger picture (i.e. the most accurate one), which is the net loss on the global scale, is once again scary.

It's not scary, civilization is more capable than ever at dealing with problems.

[Garnier Fructis]

It's not scary, civilization is more capable than ever at dealing with problems.

Again, I'm not interested in your constant tangents.

[Thepersona]

It's not scary, civilization is more capable than ever at dealing with problems.

No, we're not. We havent been capable to dealing with droughts, hurricanes and floods. Massive biological die offs, etc. And as the planet gets warmer, the effects will be worse. We (as a civilization) dont hsv the capability to make a full adaptation, even less in a short amount of time and with a reasonable budget.
Srsly, my parents told me that there are 30° celcius (around 90 farenheit) in my hometown. In november, its not even summer. When i was a child, the hottest day was around january, with 25 degrees celcius

[Jakisuaki]

On one hand this is great news, on the other I know some idiots will use this as an argument for why climate change is fake or unimportant (It's not)

[Garnier Fructis]

On one hand this is great news, on the other I know some idiots will use this as an argument for why climate change is fake or unimportant (It's not)

It's not great news, because it doesn't represent any reversal of any kind. This is just a thing that is happening. On the global scale, we have a large net loss of ice. And that rate is going up.

[PACOX]

You ever had a bad freezer or let left it open too long only to find a ton of ice all over the place? Warm air carries water, the in the air freezes and becomes ice. Antarctica is a desert, huge gains of ice are indicative of lots of warm air entering the region, like your freezer Antarctica is processing a huge amount of hot air. No bueno because like your fridge when your freezer is over frosted, the cooling system becomes out of whack.

Some could probably lay down in more scientific term but claiming that the phenomenon is evidence against climate change is just wrong.

[Thepersona]

Why the hell the only place in the world where global warming isn accepted as a fact by a large % of its population is the US?

[Deleted]

If only Antarctica was the only place being affected by man-made climate change.

[Post]

Why the hell the only place in the world where global warming isn accepted as a fact by a large % of its population is the US?

How do you know that?