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Gains in ice accumulation in East Antarctica outstripped the losses in West Antarctica, leading to a net gain of about 100 billion tons of ice per year on the West Antarctic ice sheet during this period.

Antarctic Misleading News Corrected



Antarctic Misleading News CorrectedGlobal warming enthusiasts were recently thrilled by some of the media reporting on Antarctica. They were told that:
  • The Thwaites Glacier recorded temperatures above the freezing point
  • Esperanza Peninsula recorded a high temperature of 65F

Thwaites Glacier

The New York Times reported scientists in Antarctica have recorded, for the first time, unusually warm water beneath a glacier the size of Florida that is already melting and contributing to a rise in sea levels. The researchers, working on the Thwaites Glacier, recorded water temperatures at the base of the ice more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the normal freezing point. 1 “Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” said David Holland, a lead researcher on the expedition and director of New York University's Environmental Fluid Dynamic Laboratory. 26 Both the quoted scientists and the New York Times article failed to mention that the Thwaites Glacier is subject to volcanic activity. Research in 2018 funded by the National Science reported: Previously unsuspected volcanic activity confirmed under (WAIS) West Antarctic Ice Sheet at Pine Island Glacier.3 The Times missed this or simply ignored it. Recent data have been presented for 11 Antarctic stations under operation, scattered along the Antarctic coastline and operated by various countries. These results are not impacted by volcanic activity. Results? Zero warming which is really inconvenient news for global warming activists. 4

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Esperanza Base

Esperanza Base at the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reported a daily high temperature of 65F. 5 The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent's peninsula, beat Antarctica's previous record of 63.5 set in March 2015. Jim Steele writes, “Attempting to reinforce the climate crisis narrative, a recent high temperature record in Antarctica has been misleadingly ballyhooed as an example of global warming by the world's largest media outlets—New York Times, BBC, the Guardian, etc. These media giants seem more intent on scaring the public and manufacturing a false climate crisis, than educating the public about the real physics that cause weather changes causing Antarctica's temperature record.” 6 The fact that Antarctica is the coldest place on earth has nothing to do with a temperature record at a single weather station. Esperanza is located at the warmest, most northerly part of the mountainous Antarctic peninsula, and is most sensitive to El Nino warming and to the southward flow of warm moist subtropical winds. And Esperanza's topography always amplifies temperatures when winds form the northwest cause wind events. What happened at Esperanza has nothing to do with Antarctica' overall climate trends, never mind any global warming trend. 6 The Guardian wrote, Antarctica “is one of the fastest warming places on earth, heating by almost 3 degrees C (5.4 F) over the past 50 years.” However, the Guardian hides the fact they are using zombie data. Recent research shows a cooling trend since the year 2000 and that contradicts any CO2 driven global warming theory. 7 Dishonestly, the Guardian ignores the recent cooling trend to suggest a recent one day Esperanza temperature record is “a sign that warming in Antarctica is happening much faster than the global average and is the foreshadowing of what is to come.” Likewise the NT Times dishonestly claims, “The high temperature is in keeping with the earth's overall warming trend, which is in large part caused by emissions of greenhouse gases. 6

Another interesting fact: Esperanza Base, Argentina is located at south 63.4 degrees latitude. The Antarctic circle is defined as south 66.6 degrees latitude. So, technically Esperanza Base is not part of Antarctica. The base is as far from the South Pole as the capital of Iceland is from the North Pole, and it sticks out into the ocean on a long peninsula. In fact, it is very close to South America. Thus to claim a one day temperature record from a north wards jutting peninsula of Antarctica represents the temperature of that vast land is akin to saying a one day temperature from Key Largo tells us what is happening to the climate of the US and southern Canada.

Real Data

John Turner and colleagues report that the Antarctic Peninsula has actually cooled in the past two decades. 8 All the hoopla about warming is contradicted by findings from Antarctic ice cores that during the Eemian, the last interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago), global climate was warmer than today and global mean sea level was 6-9 m higher, reports Doug Hoffman.9 In 2015 NASA reported that during the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century (1992-2008) the gains in ice accumulation in East Antarctica outstripped the losses in West Antarctica, leading to a net gain of about 100 billion tons of ice per year on the West Antarctic ice sheet during this period. 10


References

  1. Shola Lawal, “Temperatures at Florida-size glacier in Antarctica alarm scientists,” The New York Times, January 29, 2020
  2. Steve Milloy, “What's melting: NY Times Antarctic glacier story,” junkscience.com, January 29, 2020
  3. “Previously unsuspected volcanic activity confirmed under West Antarctic Ice Sheet at Pine Island Glacier,” News Release 18-044, National Science Foundation
  4. P. Gosselin, “10 of 10 coastal Antarctic stations show zero warming over past decades. Failed scientists need to resign,” notrickzone.com, May 31, 2019
  5. Uumair Irfan,, “Antarctic just set a record high temperature of 64.9 degrees,” vox.com, February 7, 2020
  6. Jim Steele, “Media's horribly dishonest Antarctica propaganda,” wattsupwiththat.com, February 9, 2020
  7. M. Oliva et al., “Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere,” Science of the Total Environment, 580, 210, February 2017
  8. John Turner et al., “Absence of 21st century warming on Antarctic peninsula consistent with natural variability,” Nature, 535, 411, July 2016
  9. Doug Hoffman, “Stay frosty Antarctica,” the resilientearth.com, August 17, 2016
  10. “NASA study: mass gains of Antarctic ice sheet greater than losses,” nasa.gov/feature, October 30, 2015

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Jack Dini -- Bio and Archives

Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology.  He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.


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