antarctic shelf melt lowest recorded

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Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey say that the melting of the Pine Island

Glacier iceshelf in Antarctica has suddenly slowed right down in thelast few years,

confirming earlier research which suggested that the shelf's meltdoes not result from

human-driven global warming.

The Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica and its associated sea ice shelf is closely

watched: this is because unlike most of the sea ice around the austral continent, its

melt rate has seemed to be accelerating quickly since scientists first began seriously

studying it in the 1990s.

Many researchers had suggested

that this was due to human-drivenglobal warming, which appeared to

be taking place rapidly at that time

(though it has since gone on hold

for 15 years or so, a circumstance

which science is still assimilating).

However back in 2009 the British

Antarctic Survey sent its Autosub

robot probe under the shelf

(famously powered by some 5,000

ordinary alkaline D-cell batteries

on each trip beneath the ice,

getting through no less than four tonnes of them during the research). The Autosubsurvey revealed that a previously unknown marine ridge lay below the shelf, over

which the icepack had for millennia been forced to grind its way en route to the

ocean. However in relatively recent times the ice had finally so ground down the

ridge that the sea could flow in between shelf and ridge, freeing the ice to move

much faster and warming it too.

As we reported at the time, this caused BAS boffins to suggest that the observed

accelerating ice flow and melt seen since the '90s was actually a result of the ridge's

erosion and sea ingress, rather than global warming.

Now, the latest BAS research has revealed that rather than accelerating, "oceanic

melting of the ice shelf into which the glacier flows decreased by 50 per cent between

2010 and 2012".

The BAS goes on to explain:

Observations made in January 2012, and reporte d now in [hefty boffinry

mag] Science, show that ocean melting of the glacier was the lowest

ever recorded. The top of the thermocline (the layer separating cold

SCIENCE

Antarctic ice shelf melt 'lowest EVER recorded,global warming is NOT eroding it'

Human CO just not a big deal at Pine Island Glacier

By Lewis Page, 3rd January 2014

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antarctic_ice_shelf_melt_lowest_ever_recorded_just_not_much_affected_by_global_warming/


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surface water and warm deep waters) was found to be about 250 metre s

deeper compared with any other year for which measurements exist.

This lowered the rmocline reduces the amount of heat flowing over the

ridge. High resolution simulations of the ocean circulation in the ice

shelf cavity demonstrate that the ridge blocks the deepest ocean

waters from reaching the thickest ice ...

In January 2012 the dramatic cooling of the oce an around the glacier is

believed to be due to an increase in easterly winds caused by a strong

La Nin event in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Dr Pierre Dutrieux of the BAS adds, bluntly:

"We found ocean melting of the glacier was the lowest ever recorded, and less than

half of that observed in 2010. This enormous, and unexpected, variability contradicts

the widespread view that a simple and steady ocean warming in the region is eroding

the West Antarctic Ice Sheet."

The Sciencepaper can be read by subscribers to the journal here. The BAS

announcement of the results can be read here. Readers unfamiliar with the rules of

the climate game should note that the term "climate variability" as used in those

documents means for this purpose "climate effects not caused by humans".

2014 predictions: Top technology trends

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