On January 10 the Palmer followed one of the glacially carved seafloor canyons into Prince Gustav Channel—a narrow corridor between the jagged, glaciated peaks of the Antarctic Peninsula to the west and the bare, sandstone buttes of James Ross Island to the east. The ship pushed south through a meter of ice at a steady five knots, rocking and grinding as it went—creating the impression that it was bumping along a hard, dirt road rather than floating on 700 meters of water.

Scientists on board hoped to push southward to the site of Larsen B—the largest ice shelf collapse to date, which occurred in 2002. But severe sea ice would eventually halt the ship's progress on three different occasions. The researchers still managed to accomplish many of their research objectives, but only through a mixture of ingenuity and pure tenacity.

8 Comments

1. 1. R.Blakely 04:47 AM 6/23/12

   "Cold clues reveal how fast ice is disappearing, and therefore how quickly sea level could rise" is an interesting notion. But systems resist change, which means that disappearing Artic, and Antarctic ice, is due to global cooling not warming.
   Global cooling reduces snowfall in the Artic since less moisture is transported. Less snow means that glaciers are shrinking.
   When global warming does occur then we will enter another ice age, which is the more normal condition for Earth. Global warming will cause greater snowfall and thus glacier expansion.
   Measuring average temperature at the Earth's surface does not include a measure of cloud cover. An average rising surface temperature, and a shrinking cloud cover, is actually a condition of global cooling!
   

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2. 2. Eco_steve 07:54 AM 6/24/12

   Mr. Blakeley : Can you provide validated and refereed proof of your statements?

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3. 3. Steve Case 11:23 AM 6/25/12

   The head line says:
   
   "Cold clues reveal how fast ice is disappearing, and therefore how quickly sea level could rise"
   
   Sea level has had a negative acceleration over the last 20 years or so.
   
   Here's a screen shot:
   http://i39.tinypic.com/nr14bq.jpg
   From this Colorado University Presentation:
   Why has an acceleration of sea level rise not been observed during the altimeter era?
   Link:
   http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/documents/OSTST/2011/oral/02_Thursday/Splinter%203%20SCI/04%20Nerem%20ostst_2011_nerem.pdf
   It shows that sea level has an acceleration of minus 0.06 MM/yr² since 1993.

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4. 4. R.Blakely in reply to Eco_steve 08:23 PM 6/25/12

   Global dimming has been measured over India. Dimming is a more significant effect than any change that CO2 concentration can cause. Global cooling is not evident from temperature measurement since cloud cover reacts, like most systems, to counter change. Reduced cloud cover increases surface heating since sunlight can heat the surface more.
   CO2 already blocks all 15-micron photons, and so more CO2 cannot cause any more warming.

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5. 5. Padgie in reply to R.Blakely 10:34 AM 7/1/12

   Thank you Mr Blakely. An average rising temperature is an indication of Global cooling? Global cooling not evident from temperature measurements? Cloud cover needs to be taken into account when measuring temperature. Certainly gives one an insight into the problems one faces when dealing with these issues.

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6. 6. Denny0789 12:34 PM 7/8/12

   NSIDC data shows the Antarctic is *gaining* sea ice, not losing it:
   http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives/index.html
   
   In the last decade (i.e. 120 months), there has been 1.4% more Antarctic sea ice than the decade before. In fact, for the most recent month (June), Antarctic sea ice is 9.6% higher than 10 years before. Over the NSIDC's total record, starting in Nov 1978, the linear trend of Antarctic sea ice implies a total increase of 4.2%, or 1.3% per decade.
   
   So why is Fox writing as if Antarctic sea ice is disappearing?

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7. 7. Denny0789 in reply to Steve Case 12:38 PM 7/8/12

   Your graph is out of date. AVISO now shows sea level back on its previous trend:
   http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/index.html
   
   (It dipped because of the strong La Nina, which moved a lot of water from the oceans onto land. That water has not drained back to the oceans.)

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8. 8. V Pontchartrain 10:27 PM 7/10/12

   One interesting detail: On Google Maps most of the areas described in article as "Former Ice Shelves" seem to be PhotoShopped.

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