Why is the Antarctic Ice Sheets Growing?

Question

The term "Global Warming" means warming in every region around the world. Otherwise it is considered "regional" warming which happens naturally...some areas get hotter as some areas cool. Given that, why is the Antarctic Ice Sheet expanding in a period of Global Warming?

Please review below:
http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=192

What is frightening me is why there is this huge emotional push in America? Remember the swine flue? Remember bird flue? It is as though someone is trying to find our hot button.

lynn y...
try the link again. I think the site had too many hits for a while.

It looks like even glaciers are growing too.

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2005/03/growing_glacier.html

Trevor:

Let us look at the big picture. Is this the hottest 100 year period on record for the Earth "as a whole" since the last ice age, say 10,000 years ago? Is this the hottest 50 year period? Is this the hottest 10 year period?

Who one the nobel prize in geology with the proof that the Earth the hottest it been since the last ice age? There is a prize in physics for discovering the Big Bang.

The Big Bang happened billions/trillions of years ago, yet it is now a scientific fact. There is evidence from multiple sources proving the same phenomena. There was a nobel prize in physics awarded to a team that discovered cosmic radiation backed up the evidence of doppler shifting proving the universe is expanding from a single point.

If the only evidence you have is a rapid increase in temperature the past 50 years, well there have also been a rapid increase (hockey stick effect) in UFO sightings during the exact same period. What is your conclusion there?

Look at all the evidence for evolution and they still call it the theory of evolution.

Al Gore is trying to label man-made global warming a fact and close the door on debate. Let's not step back to the dark ages and the age of the Inquisition.

I did look at the chart. At first glance, the chart appears alarming. But after reviewing it more closely, the black line is the only data series that clearly indicated a rapid increase in temperatures. The mean of the other 5 lines actually showed NO DRAMATIC INCREASE. The black line of course represents an average of physicaly measured temperatures, which would be biased towards urban areas, since the temperature guages around the world were towns and cities. Sure there are probably a number of rural areas included in the data, but it is weighted towards urban datapoints. Yet towns and cities only make up 5 percent of the Earth's surface. So 95 percent of the data of the Earth is missing in this measurement. The black line on the chart gross distortion of the world's actual temperature.

Answer 1

once again-


Cosmic Radiation

Global Warming or Hot Air?
by Carol Loeffler

Weather forecasting has always been a difficult job. Even with modern technology to aid their efforts, forecasters sometimes call it wrong. The reason why science has yet to completely master the art of predicting the weather is there are so many complicated factors affecting the weather that even massive supercomputers cannot account for all of the variables.

If short-term weather predictions are sometimes illusive, how much more difficult is it to develop long-term projections? How many times have we been told that we are going to have a rough winter only to have a relatively mild one? Even worse than predicting weather a day at a time or a season at a time are the attempts to forecast climate trends over the course of decades, which is what climatologists try to do. Equipped with mountains of data, charts of long-term trends, and computer models, these scientists are still handicapped in their ability to accurately foretell the future.

How is it possible then for predictions of global warming to be considered so certain as to spawn the Kyoto Treaty, which if implemented will harshly affect the economies and life-styles of the western world?

Just before the Climate Change Treaty was introduced at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, projections of an 8.5°C rise in global temperatures were predicted by the year 2050. More recently these projections have been revised to predict an increase of only 1° to 2.5°C by the year 2100.1 These catastrophic forecasts were based on computer models that failed to take into account the influence of two of the most important moderators of warming, clouds and forests. The computer models were also based upon the assumption that increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere would act like a greenhouse, causing a warming trend. While there has indeed been a rise in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, there has never been a cause-effect relationship established between CO2 and temperature. According to Dr. Harry N.A. Priem of Utrecht University:

"The fluctuations in the carbon dioxide concentration appear to track those in temperature to a remarkable degree, but a closer look reveals that the fluctuations generally lag behind those in temperature. Never does a changing carbon dioxide concentration precede that of temperature."2

Not only have global warming proponents failed to disprove this basic assumption, they have also failed to prove that warming itself is a fact. Temperatures taken by weather stations around the world do show a slight warming trend; however, some scientists dispute the accuracy of this data because most weather stations are located in or near cities, which are known to be "heat islands." The increase in pavement and cement and the reduction of vegetation within cities naturally results in higher temperatures. Satellite measurements, which monitor remote areas including oceans, indicate a slight cooling trend in mean global temperatures.3

Since 1995 over 18,000 scientists have signed the Leipzig Declaration, which says:

The policies to implement the Treaty are, as of now, based solely on unproven scientific theories, imperfect computer models—and the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from an increase in greenhouse gases, requiring immediate action. We do not agree. We believe that the dire predictions of a future warming have not been validated by the historic climate record, which appears to be dominated by natural fluctuations, showing both warming and cooling. These predictions are based on nothing more than theoretical models and cannot be relied on to construct far-reaching policies.4

Also, scientists studying the climatic effects of the sun have warned global warming proponents that they have underestimated the sun’s role in climate changes. Not only does ultraviolet radiation from the sun affect the protective ozone layer, but the sun’s magnetic field and solar wind, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, act as a shield from cosmic rays coming from outer space. The cosmic rays affect the formation of low-level clouds. The low clouds cool the earth by reflecting more heat back out into space. Therefore long-term cycles of solar activity affect the earth’s own warming and cooling cycles.5 This is evident in history where we have recorded periods of cold like the Little Ice Age (1350-1850 A.D.) and of warmth like the Medieval Climatic Optimum (900-1350 A.D.).

In spite of the dissenting scientific views, the politicians and the media continue the drumbeat that the world is experiencing catastrophic changes due to human intervention and that we must take drastic action to save the planet.

A news article in the New York Times this past fall proclaimed that for the first time in 50 million years the Arctic ice was melting, allowing a Russian ice breaker, the Yamal, to travel through its icy waters. The article was later retracted when experts on the far north said that, in fact, open stretches of water are common in the Arctic Ocean. A photograph of an American submarine, which surfaced in the Arctic Ocean on March 17, 1959, has been produced as proof,6 but the earlier story is still quoted by talk show hosts who apparently didn’t see the retraction.

The Agendas
Upon closer examination it becomes obvious that there is more to the issue of global warming than science. In fact, every little change in the weather has been blamed on greenhouse emissions. It no longer matters whether we have an unusually warm year or an unusually cool year; it is all the result of global warming. The rhetoric has changed slightly to call the phenomenon global climate change in order to allow for just about any weather event.

In Europe, the media have told the people that so-called "luxury emissions" in the United States were the cause of flooding in England and Australia. At the convention on climate change held at The Hague in November, the U.S. delegate received a literal pie in the face from a protester who viewed the United States as the global villain. As the founder of Greenpeace said in a Forbes magazine article, "It doesn’t matter what is true; what matters is what people think is true."7 The issue has left the realm of science and entered the realm of propaganda.

Just what do the environmentalists hope to gain? They want the first-world nations to cut back energy consumption to pre-industrial levels. What do the world socialists want? They want to redistribute the wealth of the first-world nations to the developing nations, to force industry to move to those countries where no harsh environmental limitations exist. What do the politicians want? Politicians want to create a global government. As French President Jacques Chirac said about the Kyoto Protocol, it is "the first component of an authentic global governance."8

If these people succeed in imposing the Kyoto Protocol on the world, we can expect certain adverse results. For example, personal transportation will be severely restricted, fuel-efficient apartment-style housing will become more common, the economy will suffer, and unemployment will rise. The Kyoto Protocol will have severe personal costs, all because of political exploitation of the scientifically unproven hypothesis called global warming. Truth is always the first casualty in any war.

Answer 2

By taking things out of context it's possible to infer pretty much anything you want. Look at the bigger picture and not just tiny fragments of it.

The Antarctic as a whole is shrinking, it has been shrinking every year for decades. There are times when it expands, there are times when some parts expand whilst others recede but the overall picture is one of a shrinking ice cap.

Short term receding and advancing is perfectly normal, long term receding is not normal.

The same is true of the second link you provided (the first isn't working). The Franz Josef Glacier, like all glaciers, retreats and advances. But as with the majority of glaciers on the planet the overall picture is one of retreat. You could select just about any glacier anywhere in the world and point to a time when it was advancing. It's not exactly the height of intelligence to do so and is a deliberate distortion of reality.

Global warming is a complex subject - it's NOT something that can be learned from the media or reading websites. I've studied it for 23 years and there's a lot I don't know, if you're going to form opinions about global warming then obtain your evidence from reliable sources that don't have an aggenda to push.

What you're doing, and what so many other people do, is picking up one piece of a jigsaw and deciding what the overall picture is. Look at all the pieces, put them into place then decide what the picture is.

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Additional Details:

Let me start by saying that you present your arguments in a much more professional and considered manner than most people do on this forum. However, you also demonstrate a lack of knowledge of the subject. The last ice age ended 105 million years ago, those who don't know geloogy, climatology, geography etc often refer to the last glacial retreat as being the end of the ice age. There are icecaps on the planet now therefore we're in an ice age and have been for a little over 50 million years.

I'll use your definition of ice age. Yes this is the hottest 100 year period since the end of the last ice age, it's also the hottest 50 year period and the hottest 10 year period (statistical odds of that happening by chance - 1 in 20 million).

I'm making an assumption here in that you've read or heard that the world was warmer in the time known as the Medieval Warm Period. This unfortunately is a lie put about time and again by global warming skeptics. The world did indeed warm up and warmed above the long term avaerage but it was not as warm as it is now and the rate of warming was a fraction of that which the planet is currently experiencing. Have a look at this graph - http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

I'm not sure why you bring Nobel Prizes into the equation. Following that logic then cars, televisions, computers etc don't exist because the inventors didn't receive a Nobel Prize.

As for UFO's - if they were killing one person every 3 minutes, had been studied by over 100,000 scientists, photographed daily by satellites, observed for over 200 years etc then their existence wouldn't be questioned.

My evidence is based on 542 million years of data, over 1200 reports and research papers I've written, hundreds of experiements, first hand experience of Antarctica, the Arctic and many of the worlds hottest and coldest regions. Having seen and documented the evidence for myself I can confidently say that the world is warming and it is doing so at an unprecedented rate.

There is an awful lot that can be learned about global warming but the basic dynamics of it are quite straightforward. With all due respect, may I suggest you study the mechanisms of the 'greenhouse effect'; if you were to do this the link between greenhouse gas emissions and warmer temperatures would become crystal clear.

Answer 3

couldn't find your article and would really like to read it! However, am familiar with the data and it is true that some areas are experiencing colder than normal temps and buildups of ice, like Antarctica. Global warming is an average of all areas and the budget tips us toward a warmer than "normal" climate. So what is "normal" anyway? Normal is a dynamic, changing planet that has gone through ice ages and warming ages of such great extremes that scientists discuss "snowball Earth" hypotheses and we have fossils of tropical plants in the Arctic. So what's the big deal?Humans are one of the shortest lived species in the planet's history and a major change either way has historically heralded an extinction, hence, a global warming could be our end.

Answer 4

Be careful. People will start calling you names for not worshiping at the temple of "Global Warming".

I'm just a simple country boy, and I just can't figure out why the sea level hasn't risen over the past 25 years given the global warming is sending us all into a dire tailspin? I've been drinking beer in my bud's back yard (canal connected to Pacific Ocean), and the high tide level hasn't moved in the past 25 years. I guess nobody told the tide about rising sea levels and melting glaciers.

Answer 5

The ice sheets are growing due to increased precipitation resulting from climate change. But bear in mind that, while the mass of the sheets may be growing, their rates of melting are certainly increasing.

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/antarctic-ice-is-growing.html

You guys really need to think things through before forming an opinion on them.

Answer 6

Water is the only liquid that expands when it is a liquid and contracts when it is a solid--or ice.