Good news -- new research shows that glacial ice is melting far slower than previously estimated. (Source: Ned Rozell)
The revised figures are critical as governments worldwide are considering spending trillions to push developing technologies like EVs into premature production to "fight" warming. (Source: GM-Volt)
Global warming proponents are forced to revise their predictions in the face of mounting evidence
Is
the Earth warming? Recent studies have shown that the some scientists believe that the Earth is experiencing
climate change of the warming variety. And the body
of collected evidence seems to support the hypothesis that
the Earth is undergoing warming. The more interesting questions
are "how much warming is occurring?" and "are humans
causing it?"
On those issues there's still much debate
and rancor, as illustrated by the recent embarrassing leak of emails
from the University of East Anglia. The emails indicated a couple of
particularly zealous advocates of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)
theory suggesting a concerted effort to suppress
publication and funding of studies that offered alternative
or skeptical perspectives.
Now the premise that warming is
posing an immediate threat has been dealt
another setback, with top climatologists forced to yet again
revise estimates of glacial ice loss after lower than expected
melting.
According to the new study, over the last several
years Greenland shed roughly 104±23 gigatons (billions tons)
annually, and 64±32 gigatonnes from West Antarctica, according to an
international team of climatologist led by Bert Vermeersen of Delft
Technical University, in the Netherlands. Those estimates are
less than half of previously published estimates of ice loss.
It
goes on to state that each year sea levels are rising by
approximately three-millimeters (0.2 inch), up substantially from
1.8mm (0.07 inches) per year in the 1970s.
The team says that
past estimates badly missed the target as they failed to account for
a phenomena called glacial isostatic adjustment. Glacial
isostatic adjustment is a term for the rebounding of the Earth's
crust that occurs at the end of an Ice Age. When the weight of
the ice on the land is released, the land pushes minutely upwards
changing the amount of sea level rise, and even the amount of ice
loss itself.
The problem is that the rebound effect is
sporadic and hard to predict. Professor Vermeersen comments, "A
good analogy is that it's like a mattress after someone has been
sleeping on it all night."
The previously overlooked
effect explains why the amount of ice loss shown by satellites since
2002 was dramatically less than previously published figures --230
gigatons of ice per year for Greenland and 132 gigatons per year for
West Antarctica.
Professor Vermeersen cooperated with a team
of researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsation Laboratory and the
Netherlands Institute for Space Research. He states, "The
corrections for deformations of the Earth's crust have a considerable
effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each
year. We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica
ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally
predicted."
With the revisions, ice cover loss is
expected to only be contributing a third of sea level rise, rather
than half, as previously published. The rest of the sea level
rise comes from thermal expansion of the water.
The research
was published in
climatology's most prestigious journal, Nature
Geoscience.
Most
are not advocating scrapping research on global warming, ice loss,
and potential human contributions to forcing. It is critical,
however, to accurately assess the pace of climate change in order to
formulate an economically feasibly response.
Some have
criticized the carbon
emissions reduction plan proposed by President Obama at
Copenhagen late last year as being too
economically damaging, particularly to developing
nations. They point out that much of the talks were based
on inaccurate figures submitted by the U.N.'s International Panel on
Climate Change, figures which have since
been revised.
Ultimately the depletion of oil stockpiles
will lead to increasing prices, which in turn will lead to the
adoption of emissions-free or reduced emissions modes of
transportation like electric
vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Likewise, new technologies
like clean
nuclear fission, nuclear
fusion, and solar
power stand to eventually offer inexpensive, emissions-free
power as they refine.
The critical question for policy makers
in governments worldwide is whether they have to push for the early
adoption of these technologies before they become economically
feasible. A major premature push could have a serious
deleterious impact on their citizens' standard of living. But
failure to respond to an impending crisis could be equally
dangerous. Thus the new figures of reduced ice loss from NASA and the Netherlands university researchers offer critical
insight, which politicians will hopefully heed when considering how
much taxpayer money to devote to funding new technology to "fight"
warming.
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