Latest Antarctic Ice Reports

[Gray-Wolf]

Gray-Wolf, you're edging toward eco-lunacy again. Leave it out here.

The Larson B ice shelf last broke off 12'000 years ago - during the last ice age. It did not break up due to surface temperature then, there no reason to assume it was due to surface temperature now. Your theory is not proved. Your hypotheses are just hypotheses, this is not the right board to peddle them.

Leave the narrative for the Environmental Change board and just give us the facts about Antarctic ice, increase, decrease, in this thread.

Message received and understood.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Awesome, I'm sure this will be a great thread so long as you don't remind us we're doomed every other post.

The images you've posted so far have been a revelation, especially to anyone who doesn't know much about Antarctica, which is most of us. Looking forward to more of the same and analysis.

It will be interesting to see how much melt there is this coming spring/summer, and the effect of temperature and also storms on the ice pack. Are there any other variables to watch out for?

Are SSTs much of an agent in Antarctic sea ice melt?

[Gray-Wolf]

I'll just post this to get it back on the Radar for those who wish to frequent it!

Here is the eastern edge of the Weddell Sea (facing the Weddell plain). One of the more 'complete sections' but still well broken.

Edited October 8, 2007 by shuggee
To keep on topic

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

While one might be tempted to call the sea ice situation in the Arctic this October "catastrophic" the positive sea ice anomaly in Antarctica is almost miraculous in comparison.

This anomaly chart shows there is over 1 million square miles of sea ice around Antarctica above the mean.

Amazing

[Gray-Wolf]

Another image from today of the coast and Southern Ocean facing the Atlantic-India Ridge (from about 25E to 35E with the image starting just inside the Antarctic Circle)

and here is Northern Scotland to the same resolution (for the sake of scale)

As you can see the coastal melt is well advanced now (and this is true around Antarctica) with the broken pack now drifting ever further into the Southern oceans and it's final ablation. Compared with previous years we seem a little ahead of times especially at the coast (which does not bode well for the remaining shelf structures with the 'fridge door' well and truely 'open').

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Satellite chart showing above-average sea ice thickness and area.

Long, harsh winter at the south pole this year.

[Gray-Wolf]

Ok A.F., I've cropped your image to roughly the same area as the photo from 13:40UTC today

and

Explain please?

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Sorry, I'm not going to respond to what is a pathetic plea for my attention.

Troll somewhere else.

[Gray-Wolf]

A.F. This was a genuine plea for your 'explanation' as to the obvious discrepancy between your favoured methods of observation and real, visual observation.

Being mindful that most ice extent /thickness plots are taken from a visually examined grid system before being uploaded onto the 'mask' it would appear that either your method has a significant time delay (yesterdays news) or there is some other problem with your favoured method.

We are observing this years antarctic sea ice ablation here and the 'readers' should be offered the most reliable information to it's progress (or is it just a personal spat between yourself and I? if so I for one would find it distasteful in the least and I am sure many readers would feel the same way as it detracts from the content of the thread)

If you feel incapable of responding to a civil question I will understand .....but will others?

P.S. What is to "Troll"?

EDIT: first of todays images;

This is the sea ice edge in the Ross Sea yeaterday at 21:15 UTC

A little blighted by low strat but clear enough!

Edited October 9, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[Gray-Wolf]

Just a quickie, Here's an image of that Ross sea calving but now at 02:50 UTC on the 9th of October.

It helps highlight how quickly how ,once fragmented, the ice drifts off and ablates (especially this thin,single year ice).

Here are a couple of images that fit side by side (30 to 60£ facing the Enderby Plain)

They show both the state of the coastal strip along this section but also (in frame 1) how once fragments have ablated the room allows for further ice collapse to occur.

[oldsnowywizard]

lol you two are hilarious! your not married are you? Wolf i see your point completely... there is a clear difference between the images.

[Gray-Wolf]

Soon to be divorced ! (LOL)

Here is a complete section from coast to open water showing all the main features you'd expect to see over the melt season (and all in one spot!!!)

[Optimus Prime]

Gray Wolf I get a slight impressive you're trying to turn this into a Global Warming via Environment Change thread.

Are there no shots of ice you can post us that have no cracks in it?

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

lol you two are hilarious! your not married are you?

I don't find this funny. This is a serious thread.

Wolf i see your point completely... there is a clear difference between the images.

Of course there is. Who argued there wasn't? Nobody. That is why it was a troll. A troll is a post designed to provoke emotional reaction rather than add to constructive discussion by promoting rational thought.

The satellite record is not going to be exactly the same as the visual record. It is however a record, and a useful one with which to compare years.

Incidently there was very little difference at all between the two images.

[Gray-Wolf]

A.F. The images are a matter of science not opinion. It reminds me of a Father Ted episode with the model cow and the cow on the hill (near,far,near,far)

We could overlay and compare the difference but seeing as the floe is roughly the size of NW Scotland even a teensy weensy bit on the image makes a big, big, diference on the ground.......or am I wrong?

[derrylynne]

I thought this was an Antarctic ice report page - not a page about Global warming. Isn't there a thread for Global warming? I would have thought facts are all what is required - and not politics!!!"!!!

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

derrylynne, I have been trying to make this exact point with some mixed success.

[Gray-Wolf]

I thought this was an Antarctic ice report page - not a page about Global warming. Isn't there a thread for Global warming? I would have thought facts are all what is required - and not politics!!!"!!!

And so it is ,but if it's escaped you're attention we are in the midst of a warming planet and this 'warming ' impacts all areas of the planet. The polar regions happen to be warming at at least 3 times the global average (hence this years record ice min up north and the vast amounts of shelf ice/glacier snouts lost over the last 7 years)

To witness the start of the Antarctic ablation is to watch the continuation of that process and ,for me at least, the importance is the augmentation of that melt by the warming.

If you'd like I'll pull up some images from the Weddell Sea where Larsen B used to reside so you can see a sight not witness for over 12,000yrs, the melting back of the sea ice to the coast, all thanks to global warming.

If you have any suggestion of how to extrapolate warming effects from pre-warming effects and then have these give a meaningful picture of this seasons melt I for one would enjoy to read them.

As you say ,this is a thread on the melt season 2007/8 so lets keep it there and not wander, A.F. doesn't like it (LOL) and there is a thread up and running down in Environment for such debate,

Ta,

Ian.

[derrylynne]

If you'd like I'll pull up some images from the Weddell Sea where Larsen B used to reside so you can see a sight not witness for over 12,000yrs, the melting back of the sea ice to the coast, all thanks to global warming.

And there it is. It has happened before. The earth has been warmer than the present day. It will one day cool. And then warm again. And hey. It will not mean the end of the world - or man - if it warms a little. But if it was to become an ice age - that my friend would be the end of man or society as we know it. Warming has happened before. Apart from that there are many reasons why the ice in places is melting. For instances there are places where it is in fact colder now than before - yet ice loss has accelerated. There are a lot of things about the mechanics you or I do not understand - and as one small variable can make a huge difference - we can only speculate. But as ever I am always interested in ice loss - and ice expansion.....

Edited October 9, 2007 by derrylynne

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

If you'd like I'll pull up some images from the Weddell Sea where Larsen B used to reside so you can see a sight not witness for over 12,000yrs, the melting back of the sea ice to the coast, all thanks to global warming

Ian.

This is the wrong forum to keep repeating this canard I have corrected you on more than once.

Why do you still repeat it when you know you are wrong, and you force me to reply to correct you again?

The LarsonB ice shelf last collasped 12k years ago. That was near the end of the last ice age. "Global warming" sledgehammer shatters this complex and fascinating science into a million incomprehensible fragments.

[Gray-Wolf]

Couldn't resist the temptation of showing you the glorious sight (early this afternoon),

A.F.

12,000yrs ago we were at the end of our northern 'ice age' and the massive melting that led to the removal of our 'land bridge to Europe'.

The global sea level change at that time most probably 'floated' the then 'LarsenB' leading to it's mechanical erosion. The South may lag behind the north in temp change but water doesn't obey such notions. When the seas rise 30m then they do so globally and any ice cemented to the coast is thus 'lifted and smashed' by the rise...basic eh?

Just to remind us of the scale of things here's N. Scotland again.

A.F. Are you suggesting that , unlike Corrinth on his thread, I am to remain mute when pertainant questions are asked and ,if so, by what right?

Edited October 9, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

The peninsular is 5% of the Antarctic. The rest of the Antarctic has been well above average. Unlike Caranthian you appear only to be concerned with ice melt, not ice growth.

That makes you biased. This is what makes this thread properly something for the Environmental Change board. This is not something you have understood even though it's been repeated over and over to you for more than two weeks.

A.F.

12,000yrs ago we were at the end of our northern 'ice age' and the massive melting that led to the removal of our 'land bridge to Europe'.

The global sea level change at that time most probably 'floated' the then 'LarsenB' leading to it's mechanical erosion. The South may lag behind the north in temp change but water doesn't obey such notions. When the seas rise 30m then they do so globally and any ice cemented to the coast is thus 'lifted and smashed' by the rise...basic eh?

So you're supporting exactly what I said. (Why am I not surprised?).

Near the end of the last ice age Larson B became ice-free due to warming/rising sea levels (though not warmer than today). Now it's happened again.

Why do you patronise me with "basic eh?" when what you say exactly supports what I've told you and exactly contradicts your own line of the extraordinariness of current warming/melt!?

It happened 12k years ago.

Forgive me for

Just to remind us of the scale of things here's N. Scotland again.

A.F. Are you suggesting that , unlike Corrinth on his thread, I am to remain mute when pertainant questions are asked and ,if so, by what right?

Rights are for slaves. I have the freedom to tell you to put Environmental Change content on the Environmental Change forum. You have the freedom not to do that. You seem to enjoy exercising that freedom.

Edited October 9, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[pottyprof]

I have the freedom to tell you to put Environmental Change content on the Environmental Change forum. You have the freedom not to do that. You seem to enjoy exercising that freedom.

And I have the freedom to tell you to pack in with the personal stuff.. Enough is enough. Any further public outbursts and we will have to consider our options.

Don't you consider this quote to be off topic AFT? I don't see you reporting yourself though.....

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Pottyprof, my opinion is shared. At least two posters have joined me on this forum over the last few pages to complain. Now I'm being told to control my behaviour. I think that's unfair.

This thread was supposed to mirror Carinthian's one. Can I not complain when it mirrors one on the Environmental Change forum?

[pottyprof]

This thread was supposed to mirror Carinthian's one. Can I not complain when it mirrors one on the Environmental Change forum?

I agree AFT.. Just don't get personal and dont get off topic as you currently are doing. Simple. There is a PM system for discussing personal differences, provided that doesn't get out of hand.

GW :- AFT does have a point about this being current reports rather than an environment change thread although to a point some contrasts are interesting..

Ding ding. Round 2...