ANTARCTIC ICE: During its first flight on October 16, the ICE Bridge team took this picture of the Getz Ice Shelf along Antarctica's Amundsen Coast.
Image: NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team
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A DC-8 rumbles down the runway in Punta Arenas, Chile, bound once again for the fickle weather of Antarctica. Chock full of scientific equipment, the nearly 48-meter-long plane—the core of NASA's Operation ICE Bridge—will fly as low as 300 meters above the glaciers and valleys of West Antarctica as well as the ice just off shore. Employing gravimeters, laser altimeters, even radar, the plane will attempt to get a handle on the rapid thinning of the Antarctic ice sheet—as well as fill in for the aging ICESat 1 satellite that is soon to be defunct.
"We want to monitor the change along the edge of the ice sheet, particularly the outlet glaciers that are critical for stability," says geophysicist Michael Studinger of Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, and a member of the ICE Bridge team. "This is, of course, an important process, because the ice that melts there ends up in the ocean and raises sea level."
He adds: "the closer we look, it seems like not only is the melting taking place faster than we thought, it's also penetrating inland farther than we thought. … It's not so much air temperatures but warmer water underneath that is melting these ice sheets."
The campaign of 17 flights this season—wrapping up by the end of November—will cost $7 million but will offer one advantage over space-based observations: detailed measurements of ice thickness via radar.
And until a successor to ICESat 1 is launched, probably in 2014, according to NASA, the flights will continue—for instance, to Greenland in spring 2010 and back to Antarctica next fall. In the meantime, Studinger says, the meltdown "seems to be accelerating."
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16 Comments
Add CommentWhile these studies add information to the pool of data it appears as if they intend to skew the data to yield the results they wish to see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone reviewing Bob Carters talk on "Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause?" from several years ago, or Lord Monckton's Minnesota speech from earlier this year can understand there is a massive deception being perpetrated. Both may found by searching YouTube for their names.
Those choosing to employ rudimentary argument such as, "This is, of course, an important process, because the ice that melts there ends up in the ocean and raises sea level.", promote a false reality. They are the current iteration of Chicken Little shouting out in false alarm, "seems to be accelerating."
Please do not accept my words at face value for I am just a simple man with an understanding of logic and common sense. Go and listen to Monckton and Carter for each show proof of our being deceived. deceived by people wishing to line their pockets and control how we live.
While these studies add information to the pool of data it appears as if they intend to skew the data to yield the results they wish to see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone reviewing Bob Carters talk on "Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause?" from several years ago, or Lord Monckton's Minnesota speech from earlier this year can understand there is a massive deception being perpetrated. Both may found by searching YouTube for their names.
Those choosing to employ rudimentary argument such as, "This is, of course, an important process, because the ice that melts there ends up in the ocean and raises sea level.", promote a false reality. They are the current iteration of Chicken Little shouting out in false alarm, "seems to be accelerating."
Please do not accept my words at face value for I am just a simple man with an understanding of logic and common sense. Go and listen to Monckton and Carter for each show proof of our being deceived. deceived by people wishing to line their pockets and control how we live.
@Jeb,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"While these studies add information to the pool of data it appears as if they intend to skew the data to yield the results they wish to see. "
Would you care to substantiate these allegations?
"Anyone reviewing Bob Carters talk on "Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause?" from several years ago, or Lord Monckton's Minnesota speech from earlier this year can understand there is a massive deception being perpetrated. Both may found by searching YouTube for their names. "
What do you think was their most compelling argument? More importantly is this argument substantiated in the scientific literature?
"Those choosing to employ rudimentary argument such as, "This is, of course, an important process, because the ice that melts there ends up in the ocean and raises sea level.", promote a false reality."
So when ice melts on land and runs to the sea why should we not expect the sea to rise? How do explain the sea rise that has been observed?
"Please do not accept my words at face value for I am just a simple man with an understanding of logic and common sense. Go and listen to Monckton and Carter for each show proof of our being deceived. deceived by people wishing to line their pockets and control how we live. "
I have read what both have written and found their articles to be wanting.
Now my question for you is: What would the evidence look like that would convince you of the reality of AGW? Please try doing this without listing all the reasons why you do not believe and without snark or sarcasm.
None of these climate change doubters can explain the melting of glaciers all over the planet. This is just the kind of useful effort that flys right in the face of their manufactured "nothing is really changing, it's all a hoax" miasma. They just continue to spew their contrarian drivel. It's a waste of time arguing with conspiracy kooks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this..."deceived by people wishing to line their pockets and control how we live." This is the way we see you, as a puppet of the oil companies. Scientists have nothing to gain from informing US that we are destroying our only home... No - wait. Maybe they DO have something to gain after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood riddance to dumb species. ...a shame we have to wipe out all the others in the process, but, gotta break a few eggs I suppose...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is my understanding from worldclimatereport.com, a noted place to get info for us deniers, that the continent of Antarctica (which normally undergoes massive meltback every summer and always has) last summer season melted back the least that it has since satellite measurements began in 1980.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, is that true or not? Now, when talking about the Arctic meltback and many glaciers, there is another major factor to consider and that is the introduction of more dust and soot into the atmosphere from the rapid industrialization of India and China, plus the increasing desertification of Northern China and the over-grazing of the vast Mongolian grasslands.
All this dust and soot ends up crossing the Bering Straits and dirties the surface of ice and snow fields from North America to Iceland. A dirty surface greatly increases the absorption of solar radiation when the sun is in the sky 23 hrs a day.
This effect, however, has nothing to do with carbon dioxide or the greenhouse effect. It is entirely separate, but it may have encouraged some very confused thinking among some climate scientists.
As for the assertion that glaciers are shrinking "everywhere" that is certainly not true in recent years. Look on Mt. Blanc for one example, but certainly many North American glaciers will be doing well because they have gotten so much more snow in recent years and generally cooler mountain summers (away from urban heat islands) have not melted that away.
Yawn. Ice builds up in East Antarctica, and melts (enters the sea) in West Antarctica. So it has always been. Currently, East is building up faster than Wes is declining.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOops!
This must be one of the most self contradictory denier's arguments I've ever read. You are actually suggesting that the global warming and ice melting is due to massive air pollution, but the only thing you can't get your head around is the physics of infra-red absorption by the CO2 that is released along with the particulates. What a joke! If anything, the particulates spewed out by unregulated polluters of China and India would be causing a reduction in the incident radiation from the sun, as occurred during the 'pause' in the warming record between 1940 and 1970. Once the industrial nations of Europe and America cleaned up their act, the heating pattern returned to its original track, and made up for lost time. Oops, I think I hear the sound of someone shooting themselves in the foot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwenty or so computer models show declining radiation into space because of pollution and greenhouse gas effects as the temperatures rise. The one actual scientific data set shows a tight positive correlation between temperature and radiative loss to space.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.rightsidenews.com/images/stories/October2009/LindzenChoi.jpg
The models are completely invalidated by the facts. So is climate alarmism.
The study in Geophysical Letters published Oct. 6th this year is what I quoted on the fact that this summer's Antarctic ice summer meltback as measured by satellite was the least since satellite measurement began. Which makes me wonder what the heck the airplane study is looking at in Antarctica.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy other point is that particulates fall on ice and snow and dramatically reduce the albedo effect. In fact, the absorption of solar energy by a dirty ice surface is much enhanced, which means that the particulates are more effective as climate warmers at the end of their cycle back to earth.
In fact, I believe that if we properly account for the increased soot and dust coming from Asia and landing in the Arctic and on North American glaciers we explain nearly all the melting observed without involving CO2 arguments.
It's looking at the Amundsen Coast, in West Antarctica, which is always calving and rebuilding. The bulk of the ice on the continent is in the East.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wish people would get off the CO2 red herring. Does CO2 act as a green house gas? Yes, but only to a point and then a tables off. We passed that point a long long long time ago. CO2 is not causing global warming
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing how many people are in denial,..OK, let us all wait until we can not act; Just ask your self this, What if you are wrong? It is easy for one to say "It's a fact" and I will bet my life on it!.. The problem is they will not be around to see the change in this life time, and who cares when they will not be around...So look at your family and their family and the children. Are you willing to bet on their lives? If you are crossing the street and notice a truck speeding your way, do you step out in front of it or let it pass first?...An ounce of prevention is worth what?.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod help you all if we are wrong,. and praise our efforts to protect our fellow man. Grant us peace in our convictions and guide all who apply your teachings. Let us not be guided by greed or political ambitions but what we feel in our hearts. Tim, V. (In reply to Global warming)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvergreen, that "precautionary" fear argument is completely bogus. The MOST the mitigation schemes could achieve, even given the cooked modelling used by the IPCC, is a fraction of a degree reduction of the "inevitable increase" of several degrees. Trivial. At the cost of crippling the world economy and stifling the attempts of third world residents to improve their chances of survival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for the drastic sea-level predictions, etc., those are inane Gore-isms -- collapsing a thousand years of melting into a decade or two for dramatic effect, etc.
Warm periods are GOOD for humanity. Cooling is DESTRUCTIVE. CO2 should be MAXIMIZED, preferably up to about 2,000 ppm, to benefit agriculture, if it were humanly possible, which it is not. The effect on temperature would be barely detectable.