Some Perspective on the Headlining Antarctic Ice Loss Trends From Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger of Cato. Excerpt:
"The new Sutterley research finds that glaciers in the Amundsen Sea
Embayment region along the coast of West Antarctica are speeding up and
losing ice. This is potentially important because the ice loss
contributes to global sea level rise. The press coverage is aimed to
make this sound alarming—“This West Antarctic region sheds a Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years, study says” screamed the Washington Post.
Wow! That sounds like a lot. Turns out, it isn’t.
The global oceans are vast. Adding a “Mount Everest-sized amount of
ice every two years” to them results in a sea level rise of 0.02 inches
per year. But “New Study Finds Antarctic Glaciers Currently Raise Sea
Level by Two-Hundredths of an Inch Annually” doesn’t have the same ring
to it.
Nor does the coverage draw much attention to the fact that the
Amundsen Sea Embayment is but one of a great many watersheds across
Antarctica that empty into the sea. A study published in Nature
magazine back in 2012 by Matt King and colleagues provided a more
comprehensive look at glacier behavior across Antarctica. They did
report, in agreement with the Sutterley findings, that glacial loss in
the Amundsen Sea Embayment was rapid, but they also reported that for
other large areas of Antarctica, ice loss was minimal or even negative
(i.e., ice was accumulating). Figure 1, taken from the King paper,
presents the broader and more relevant perspective (note that the
Amundsen Sea Embayment is made up by the areas labelled 21 and 22 in
Figure 1).
Figure 1. Best estimate of rate of ice loss from watershed across
Antarctica. The Amundsen Sea Embayment, the focus of the Sutterley
study, is encompassed by areas labeled 21 and 22 (taken from King et
al., 2012).
We discussed the King and colleagues study in more detail when it first came out. We concluded:
So King and colleagues’ latest refinement puts the
Antarctic contribution to global sea level rise at a rate of about
one-fifth of a millimeter per year (or in English units, 0.71 inches per
century).
Without a significantly large acceleration—and recall the King et al.
found none—this is something that we can all live with for a long time
to come.
The strategically timed new findings being hyped this week do not change this conclusion."
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