back to article Natural geothermal heat under Antarctic ice: 'Surprisingly high'

Geothermal heating from within the Earth's core – as opposed to the possibly warming air or sea – has been measured beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet for the first time ever. And, we are told, it is "surprisingly high." The West Antarctic sheet is the part of the Antarctic ice cap thought to be easiest to melt. Worries …

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  1. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Boffin

    Heat balance

    I've always been puzzled that little debate seems to include the "hot interior" when discussing climate change. Heat loss presumably drives things like tectonic activity (convective plumes?) and the geological record suggests that the planet has gone through phases of intense volcanic activity followed by quiescent times.

    Heated outside by the sun and inside by something else (radioactive material??) - what's the heat balance look like?

    1. Steve Crook

      Re: Heat balance

      "I've always been puzzled"

      There's been no debate because many feel that *any* debate as to the extent of overall warming from various sources will inevitably allow 'deniers' like me to pop up and argue that, although CO2 is a problem, it's a problem that we have time to deal with.

      Of course there's some truth in that argument. Also, the fact that politicians won't do anything unless their feet are held to the fire doesn't exactly help matters when it comes to fair and balanced debate.

      If there's a continued recovery in north pole ice over the next few years it's going to be an interesting time for nu-statistics.

      1. SteveK

        Re: Heat balance

        Also, the fact that politicians won't do anything unless their feet are held to the fire doesn't exactly help matters

        ...and said fire must produce a fair amount of CO2, thus linking politicians directly to CO2-based-climate-change. So the solution is presumably to get rid of the politicians - or at least the ones that pursue inactivity as an art form.

        1. Bloodbeastterror

          Re: Heat balance

          The fire doesn't produce anything like as much hot air as their mouths...

    2. John 156

      Re: Heat balance

      No No No. Only Carbon Dioxide has any effect on the Earth's climate; this fact was discovered by Al Gore who deservedly, therefore, became very rich; his hypothesis has been now been verified by one the World's greatest Physicists, Paul Nurse, who is too busy to comment as he is fully engaged, burning the Royal Society portraits of dead white males who discovered stuff, in order to be replaced by those of women who didn't, including some who nevertheless produce highly literate articles which never need sub-editing for the Guardian and whose CVs demonstrates an enormous natural talent for creative writing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Heat balance

        @John 156

        Is 'John 156' a pseudonym for Tim Hunt when he is off his face? My upvote by the way..

    3. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Heat balance

      Wikipedia sub-title sums it up: "Earth's internal heat and other small effects"

      173,000 Tw from Sun onto Earth

      47 Tw emitted from Earth's core

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Earth.27s_internal_heat_and_other_small_effects

      Those not trusting Wikipedia can perhaps follow the references to other more-credible sources. or even conduct their own analysis.

      1. Dazed and Confused

        Re: Heat balance

        > 173,000 Tw from Sun onto Earth

        No those aren't warming Tw, I saw an environmental scientist on the tele refute a denier by saying the Sun's output has no affect on the temperature of the Earth. So all those Tw aren't working properly.

        1. Charles Manning

          "No those aren't warming Tw"

          Perhaps it's a bit like the bad carbs and good carbs the nutritionalists are always going on about.

      2. the spectacularly refined chap

        Re: Heat balance

        Wikipedia sub-title sums it up: "Earth's internal heat and other small effects"

        The figures don't really matter - this situation can be reasoned about without even needing any quantifiable data. The long term trend has to be either to a dynamic equilibrium or for net ice build up. We know this by the simple fact that the ice sheets are there and haven't already melted away and indeed have built up over time - they weren't always there after all. Therefore natural ice loss must on average be at least matched by new ice formation.

        However we can see a long term trend to less ice so something has changed. The amount of geothermal heating certainly does but that is a slow steady decline, not an increase.

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Heat balance

          I wish I could upvote the spectacularly refined chap so many more times than once: he has hit the nail on the head.

      3. Charles Manning

        Re: Heat balance

        "47 Tw emitted from Earth's core"

        Well from the sounds of this article, it looks like they've found that this number needs to be revised upwards. Dramatically.

      4. AndyDent

        Re: Heat balance

        I like the balance of figures but if they only just found out how much is being emitted under the ice, how can they have accurate estimates for how much is emitted in deep water?

    4. Ian Michael Gumby
      Boffin

      @Zog ... Re: Heat balance

      Radioactive material?

      Really? You do realize that the core of this planet is molten rock and iron, right?

      Riddle me this... what is meant by the earth's magnetic poles are shifting?

      Now what could cause that?

      When the so called 'boffins' start to put two and two together, they'd understand that while global warming is occurring, its not man made.

      Don't get me wrong, I'm against pollution and want a cleaner environment. I just don't like the fact that people are willing to fudge on data and lie about it so that people take the change necessary seriously.

      Man made pollution will kill us, yet Mother earth will rebound.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Ian Michael Gumby - radioactive core

        It is believed by many that radioactive decay of potassium, uranium and thorium isotopes may be a major reason the Earth's core is as hot as it is. We don't know for sure what is down there, but the simplistic models that show the core as a ball of solid iron surrounded by liquid iron are obviously not telling the whole story as it should have lost much more heat since the Earth was formed since tidal stresses from the Sun and Moon don't nearly account for it.

    5. Faux Science Slayer

      Motive Force for ALL Climate Change

      "Motive Force for All Climate Change" was posted at ClimateRealists.com on May 14, 2009 and explained the variable solar/cosmic particle bombardments, and variable magnetosphere protection as the cause for our variable internal Earth fission, resulting in our variable climate. This has been followed by a dozen articles, with major web posts and archived at FauxScienceSlayer.com under the Geo-thermal tab. In addition to climate change, this variable fission force is also the source for Abiogenic Petroleum production. There is NO Carbon climate forcing, NO 'sustainable' energy and NO 'peak' oil.

      We have been systematically LIED to by the elitist controlled parrot press and political puppet show. It is time for Crimes Against Humanity trials and executions. End feudalism.

      1. Rik Myslewski

        Re: Motive Force for ALL Climate Change

        @ Faux Science Slayer:

        My freakin' gawd, sir, but your unsupported blatherings are hilariously risible.

        But ... Well ... Ooops... Oh... Sorry... Perhaps I'm simply missing your sly humor, as you craftily slather such memes as "this variable fission force" and "Abiogenic Petroleum production" and "elitist controlled parrot press".

        My bad. My mistake. I didn't realize that you're simply an absurdist humorist, and not a serious commenter.

        Never mind.

    6. NomNomNom

      Re: Heat balance

      "Lead author Andrew Fisher, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, emphasized that the geothermal heating reported in this study does not explain the alarming loss of ice from West Antarctica that has been documented by other researchers. The ice sheet developed and evolved with the geothermal heat flux coming up from below--it's part of the system. But this could help explain why the ice sheet is so unstable. When you add the effects of global warming, things can start to change quickly," he said."

      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150710160922.htm

      How come that part never got mentioned?

  2. bill 36
    Alert

    It puzzles me too

    That we live on top of a burning molten mass and have another one above us, yet we are still so focused on man made global warming.

    Hmmm

    Climate change appears to be a fact but we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about whats under the oceans.

    1. JonP

      Re: It puzzles me too

      That we live on top of a burning molten mass and have another one above us, yet we are still so focused on man made global warming. Because even considering these things, the temperature has gone up faster than expected, with the cause looking likely to be increased levels of CO2 for which we appear to be responsible for. In this case it's the first time this geothermal heat has been measured, so we don't have any history to spot any trends. It's all interesting, but associating it with climate change doesn't really help.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It puzzles me too

        > That we live on top of a burning molten mass and have another one above us, yet we are still so focused on man made global warming.

        The source of the warming is still very much in the hands of the sun. The "man made" bit is simply that we are very good at chucking stuff up in the air which acts as a small multiplier on the 173,000 TW that the sun spits out, either allowing more energy through in the first place (CFCs) or stopping it radiating back off into space (CO2).

        I'd also note that there are other bad things about lots of CO2, such as acidification of oceans destroying coral reefs, not just the warming debate ^H religion.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It puzzles me too

          @Pete H,

          I'd also note that there are other bad things about lots of CO2,

          Those things you mention are far outweighed by the fact that CO2 is a plant food and the food crops are loving the slight increase.

        2. James Pickett

          Re: It puzzles me too

          Pete H

          "lots of CO2"

          How much do you think is there already? 0.04% isn't really 'lots', and the oceans are still alkaline, you know.

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: It puzzles me too

            "the oceans are still alkaline, you know."

            If you like shellfish and crustaceans, or things which eat them, you'd better hope they stay that way.

      2. Barracoder

        Re: It puzzles me too

        associating it with climate change doesn't really help

        It didn't help that the AGW crowd has been associating global warming with the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, or it doesn't really help that it looks like volcanism is doing it?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It puzzles me too

          Except volcanism can't explain the thinning and collapse of the floating ice sheets around West Antarctica. Warmer ocean currents can however.

        2. Domino

          Re: It puzzles me too

          I guess it depends on whether volcanism is the earth's equivalent of sweating.

  3. Efros

    Geothermal Power

    Something that's always bothered me about this in the US. Yellowstone, potentially the largest volcano on Earth with FSM knows how many TJ of heat energy lying in wait and absolutely, as far as I can see, no attempt to harness even a small amount of this. The objections I've seen to this are to do with geysers stopping and the survival of some of the exotic extremophiles, I'm pretty sure it could be at least trialled without affecting these in any way. Maybe we just need to be in a more energy deficient environment before this becomes important, well it's only a matter of time I suppose.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Geothermal Power

      How convenient is it to get the power out of Yellowstone to where it's needed. Without looking at a map I don't know but you've got to run all those miles of power cabling.

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: Geothermal Power

        "...all those miles of power cabling."

        Considering that gigawatts of hydro power is delivered from Labrador and Quebec to the USA, running HV power lines for a thousand miles is not really a big issue. Yes, It is a consideration, but the minions can work out the details.

      2. Bloodbeastterror

        Re: Geothermal Power

        Isn't running power cables what we've done for a century? Our landscape is covered in pylons and wires.

        So my answer to your question would be - simple.

      3. Tom 13

        @ Flatpackhamster Re: Geothermal Power

        Actually Efros is onto something even though he doesn't acknowledge having a solid handle on it. Yellowstone was one of the first parts of the US to be designated a federal nature preserve. As such, the government position on any sort of exploitation of resources in the area gets an even more jaundiced view than the econazis in these part give a Lewis Page article. It's getting to the point where they don't even want tourists in the park even though that's specifically part of its mission.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Geothermal Power

      Theoretically there is plenty of geothermal power available, as usual it's all about the economics. You need to drill deep (expensively), temperatures are low by the standard of a commercial steam turbine (more expense) and the water's highly corrosive (expensive). And often geothermal power isn't where people are living (expensive) .

      As long as cheap coal and hydrocarbons are the benchmark for pricing energy, and allowed to ignore the majority of their environmental costs, it is hard for any renewable to compete - hence the complexity and politics of subsidy.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Geothermal Power

      Yellowstone is a national park, beloved by many, and there would be a tremendous amount of resistance to building all the infrastructure that would be required there to support this. Not to mention all the worry warts who would be concerned that tapping the heat would cause Old Faithful to stop erupting, or worry that drilling is going to cause the supervolcano to blow.

    4. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Geothermal Power

      "as far as I can see, no attempt to harness even a small amount of this"

      Attempts have been made. The problem is that rock is a piss-poor conductor of heat, so once you start extracting energy that's percolated up from the magma chamber you're limited in what you can take by the influx from surrounding rock or the temperature declines and thermal efficiency of your turbines drops. Many geothermal projects have discovered this the hard way.

      Pumping water in just makes it cool faster.

      The icelandic geothermal plant is slightly different because magma is very close to the surface and being fairly constantly topped up. There aren't many places like it.

    5. ian 22

      Re: Geothermal Power

      @efros

      Good idea. Have your people talk to my people.

    6. Dagg Silver badge

      Re: Geothermal Power

      Try Lake Taupo in the middle of the north island of New Zealand, that is also a super volcano and it contains about 8 geothermal power stations.

  4. Omgwtfbbqtime
    Flame

    I'm just waiting for..

    .. the watermelons to blame this geothermal melting on fracking...

    1. Sir Sham Cad

      Re: I'm just waiting for..

      But it is! Fracking is so insidious that the terrible effects travel backwards in time like an ecological Terminator to cause environmental disaster before any fracking took place! Sumatran earthquake in 2004? All because some fucker decided to frack for shale gas in Yorkshire in 2016.

      Mark my words, it'll all be true!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Debate? DEBATE????

    There can be no debate! There is only BELIEF!!!!!

    Heathens...

    1. wolfetone Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Debate? DEBATE????

      Damn straight. We all know the Earth is hollow and it's the lizard people under neath us having bonfires causing the Global Warming, not the gas out of my backside.

      1. DropBear
        Joke

        Re: Debate? DEBATE????

        not the gas out of my backside.

        ...wait, you're a cow...?!?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Debate? DEBATE????

        Rubbish! Its turtles all the way down.

        1. DubyaG

          Re: Debate? DEBATE????

          There is only one turtle and you have get through the elephants first.

    2. Rik Myslewski

      Re: Debate? DEBATE????

      @ Debate? DEBATE????

      You are, of course, referring to the climate change deniers who prefer to ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence and careful analysis, and instead cling to their fantasies of crooked scientists and intentionally compromised data, ehh?

  6. Tom 7

    So this has just happened suddenly?

    Or is the melting due a combination of existing geothermal heat and global warming.

    If it is the former we could be fucked as the increasing geothermal heat melts all the ice and floods us anyway.

    1. Steve Crook

      Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

      Combination of the two. The problem is that the WAIS has become the southern hemisphere poster child for the effects of climate change. To hear that the melting may not (in total or in part) be due to the climate change upsets the purists as it's not 'on message'. An inconvenient truth one might say.

      The melting has been going on for a long long time. The problem is that we only started looking in the last, what, 50 years? So is it normal, cyclical or a real problem? Dunno.

      It could be that the combination of warming from climate change *and* geothermal is enough to cause a problem. But we're some way from being able to determine if that's the case. Big IMO.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

      This geothermal melting has been going on as long as man has been measuring temperatures in Antarctica and possibly long before that. We are not going to all the ice melt down there because the is a thermal balance - as the ice melts in one place it freezes in another. In fact there is more sea ice round Antarctica now than there has been since the 70s.

      It is only in the last 40 odd years that green ecofrekes have been looking for government money to fund their religion and latched on to the idea that it wasn't the sun or the internal heat of the earth or the fact that we are recovering from a little ice age causing the slight warming but it had to be mankind producing a rather beneficial plant food that was the cause of said warming. They then took that as the end result and wrote computer models that would give that result and then declared it had to be so because the models said it was so. Since none of the models have been validated there isn't much to worry about. Also water vapour is much more of a greenhouse gas than CO2 will ever be but you can't scare the population with clouds.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

        "In fact there is more sea ice round Antarctica now than there has been since the 70s."

        There's so much fresh water coming off the continent at the moment that it's affecting salinity levels and in the heaviest flow areas there's a layer of freshwater a few metres thick overlaying the salt stuff - something that used to only be seen in New Zealand's Fiords.

        Bear in mind that seawater freezes at -15 to -17C and fresh at 0C.

        Bear in mind also that this is WINTER sea ice. It disappears very quickly once it gets the sun on it and summer ice extent is so far much the same as it was.

        In any case, ice sitting on water doesn't change sea level. The worries are about land-based ice above sea level and that's currently sliding into the ocean at a rate of more than 150km^3 per year. (roughly 4700 tons per second. That's a lot of olympic swimming pools)

      2. Robevan

        Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

        Clouds are not water vapour they are liquid water droplets or ice crystals. The antarctic sea ice almost all goes in Summer, and theres your worry, the ice is no longer in equilibrium, it is reducing, steadily, year on year. And as legions of scientists, not ecofreaks whatever they are, learn more about the interesting processes that influence our climate it becomes more certain that the relentless biassing of the carbon cycle through increased transfer of carbon from geological stores to the atmospheric and oceanic stores is stressing those climate systems. Civilisation arose in a narrow climate window of opportunity, should we close that window, it is not certain that civilisation will continue.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

          "the relentless biassing of the carbon cycle through increased transfer of carbon from geological stores to the atmospheric and oceanic stores is stressing those climate systems. "

          Exactly - and it's worth reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event - the authors are careful to avoid trying to draw parallels between past events and current ones but it's entirely possible that in 60 million years whatever intelligence might be on Earth is scratching its collective head and wondering how the heck an anoxic event happened without corresponding mass basalt fields of the same age.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So this has just happened suddenly?

      Actually, it's only been happening since the end of WWII when the Nazis created their secret Antarctic base there and tapped into geo-thermal sources to power their underground city...

  7. h4rm0ny

    Why measure now?

    I'm very puzzled as to why something like this would only be measured now rather than a long time ago.

    Is there a reason why it's not been properly investigated earlier?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Probably because it's effing freezing over there, and you have to drill down to the crust through all that ice (which is probably less easy than it sounds) and then you have to lower into the hole the thingy that will take the temperature of the Earth's crust without being influenced by all the freezing (and compressed) ice in the immediate vicinity.

      Then you have the fact that this is a scientific mission, ergo not sexy and not a vote-winner whatever the greenies may think, so less inclined to be pushed by ambitious politicians. Other types of politicians (if there are any) might lend a hand in return for some form of kickback, but I have no idea what kind of kickback a scientist can offer that will convince a politician to invest in drilling a hole in a place he'll never be seen in on TV (free Subway sandwich card ?).

      Then, of course, <tinfoil hat:ON> you have the very real possibility that some oil company has decided that additional FUD measures are required to drive the debate away from AGW, and has accordingly infused the necessary cash via roundabout financial plays in order to get the ball rolling <tinfoil hat: OFF>.

      In any case, I note two things that are worthy of remark. First, this is the first measurement taken of the local temperature. Surprise is practically required at this point.

      Second : no wonder there is unexpected surface warming. Have you seen all those rocket boosters on that place in the into image ?

    2. veti Silver badge

      Re: Why measure now?

      You try taking reliable and systematic geothermal measurements through a mile of ice using 1970s technology, see how far you get.

      But with the pesky ice sheet out of the way, the whole operation becomes much easier. It's an ill wind...

  8. Dave 15

    Its still a wonderful excuse to tax some more

    Which is after all the ONLY thing that western governments have ACTUALLY done about the much vaunted threat. I STILL have to travel to work in an office doing EXACTLY what I could at home. I STILL have to sit in a traffic jam caused because fixing it means sorting out 2 or 3 rules and a few junctions (stop lorries using 3 of the 4 lanes of the M25, restrict them to 2, 1 in rush hour, make lane hogging a hanging offence and hang people at the side of the road for breaking the rule).

    Then of course we look at the electric generating... could be run off methane from the sewers (supposedly worse than CO2) but no, lets build windmills and solar parks where we once would grow crops... while selling the coal burning plant direct to China for them to use....

    When you add to this the naturally occurring peat fires and volcanoes that drown the drop in the ocean humans cause and you have a recipe for misunderstanding and ever increasing tax.

    1. Robevan

      Re: Its still a wonderful excuse to tax some more

      You don't have to do these things, you choose to do them. I suggest you do little research into exactly how little electricity could be generated from methane in the sewerage system rather than blather mindlessly. When or if 30 year plus coal plant does go to China, then it's in the form of scrap metal as feed for their steel furnaces.

      If your working analytical skills are as those you demonstrate here, maybe your best place is at home.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Its still a wonderful excuse to tax some more

      "while selling the coal burning plant direct to China for them to use...."

      You'll be happy to know that China capped its emissions last year and managed to reduce emissions since January by more than the UK's _entire_ CO2 output.

      When you have pollution events as bad as they're seeing in such a short timespan from almost none, there's an incentive to clean up that wasn't seen here in areas like the Black Country. China's long-term objective for energy has always been nuclear plants (they're investing in research on a number of technologies, but MSR looks best for the long term) with coal regarded as a kickstart only.

  9. The last doughnut

    Al Gore was a rich industrialist before he became a politician.

    The Earth's climate is a highly stable system that has supported a mellow biosphere for over 10^9 solar orbits, with only a small number of mass-extinction events.

    1. Dazed and Confused
      Happy

      with only a small number of mass-extinction events

      So one more is just part of natures cycle.

      1. The last doughnut

        Re: with only a small number of mass-extinction events

        There will almost certainly be more.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      "with only a small number of mass-extinction events."

      Most of which were associated with CO2 spikes..... :)

  10. Graham Marsden
    Boffin

    Science...

    Ignoring the "Nar nar ne-nar nar" tone of the article, this is what science is all about: A set of facts do not agree with expectations, so established theories are re-examined and research is done to see whether it's a statistical fluke or there's something else at work.

    We now know something that we didn't know before, we have more information which we can either ignore (the "extremists" on both sides of the argument are known to do this!) or apply it to the theories and improve them.

    To quote Isaac Asimov: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Science...

      Graham, you do realise what you are saying is exactly the opposite of climate science attitudes.

      With climate science they change the data to fit the end result NOT question why the end result doesn't match their ideas.

      1. Graham Marsden

        @Ivan 4 - Re: Science...

        As I said "the "extremists" on both sides of the argument are known to do this!"

      2. Rik Myslewski

        Re: Science...

        @ Ivan 4: "With climate science they change the data to fit the end result NOT question why the end result doesn't match their ideas."

        Y'know, I don't want to put too fine a point upon it, but after attending many a discussion and session of the American Geophysical Union, and after discussing many a climate science topic with many a climate scientist, I simply gotta say — with all due respect, sir — that you are thoroughly and completely full of shit.

        Get back to me after you've discussed your childish conspiracy theories with some reputable climate scientists, m'kay? Or, for that matter, with some reputable reporters or analysts.

        Demented fuckhead...

    2. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Science...not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...

      Years ago I was running a training class for some of the guys from CERN and it seemed their favourite answer to a question was "I don't know, but I can think of a way we could investigate that" questions are far more fun than answers, it's the learning which is the enjoyable part. Once you know the answer you need to move on and find some more fun questions.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all pretty irrelevant as Global Warming will mostly affect sub-Saharan Africa. We don't give a **** about poor people dying now, why will we care about them dying in 50 years' time?

    All the rich countries can deal with the consequences of Global Warming. Which is a real effect BTW - I don't know people have a problem understanding the basic thermal properties of CO2.

    1. Charles Manning

      AC you're right, but for the wrong reasons.

      It is the poor that will get the pain from what the AGWists propose. It is the rich that would generally not be impacted by what the AGWists propose.

      If we enter an age of energy and carbon austerity that the AGW-ists want us to, the people that will be most impacted by the lack of low-cost energy are those low income people in Africa.

      Low cost energy is one of the major factors why we are now able to support 9bn people - better fed and with better life outcomes than in the 1960s when we had 3bn people.

      If we do the right thing (according to the AGW-ists) and increase the cost of energy, the people that will suffer most are the poorest.

      This also ties in with the AGW-ist claim that we should use the precautionary principle. If the science is unsettled then we should reduce energy consumption. That would threaten the poorest.

      The real use of the precautionary principle is that until the science shows otherwise, we should keep doing what we're doing. It is keeping people alive.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        "If we enter an age of energy and carbon austerity that the AGW-ists want us to"

        Only the extremist nutters want that.

        The rest of us want safer nuclear plants as they're the only way to provide the amount of reliable energy required to pull the entire population out of poverty. The alternative is to see africa rapidly become one of the largest net carbon emitters due to industrialisation and deforestation (Africa is far larger than north america, western europe, india and china combined, with a population to match)

        Yes, you could build solar and wind, but they're variable, poorly controlled and not energy dense enough to do the job without a 80% reduction in per-capita electricity usage. This is despite needing to replace gas-fired boilers and petroleum burning cars with electric sources.

        Don't even think of suggesting solar in the Sahara. For starters, the output of that farm would go to Africa, not Europe and it's not enough to even come close to satisfying the needs of a population there with per-capita demands like ours.

        If you have fast-reacting nuclear plants like LFTRs (immune to xenon poisoning) to handle the spiky generation patterns of wind/solar then you also have fast reacting nuclear plants which can supply baseload and cater to peak power demands too, with that wind and solar shit being an expensive nuisance that should be banished from the grid.

        Because LFTRs are intrinsically safe and can't do all the stupid things that water-cooled plants have done over the years, you could build them closer to your population centres/away from water sources (they run hot enough that they don't need watercooling) and use the heat output for district heating/refridgeration schemes (see solarfrost.com for an explanation of how to drive cooling/AC systems from hot water or other lowgrade heat sources) - bear in mind that even the best turbine setups only run at 45% efficiency with the rest being waste heat.

        Yes you could still have a steam explosion or fire at a LFTR plant, but that would be non-radioactive output, the same as any of the same things at a coalburning plant.

        Large windmills and solar PV farms are greenwash, not green. So are tidal schemes.

  12. TheTransAtlanticRailroad

    the old science teacher

    Somewhere between our 7th year and 12th year in school we all had that one teacher, the one who might have taught a class when your grandparents went to school. The old teacher would start the class with a science news event like this then ask the class "What do you think this means regarding the current debate about climate change?" Then he or she would let us all ramble on one at a time about whether this finding changed everything, changed nothing, disproved this idea, disproved that idea or proved this or that. But eventually the discussion would turn to the students who saw how the finding generated more questions than answers and disproved very little... that the findings changed the direction of the overall debate by a few degrees only, not by 90 or 180 degrees.

    What have we "discovered?" That geothermal heating was a factor on a planet built by geothermal forces? No. That volcanic activity continues under Antarctica? No. We discovered one thing and that was exactly what was stated... the geothermal heating under one part of the Antarctic is more than expected and might be contributing to the localized melting in that part of the Antarctic ice shelf.

    Does this disprove anything currently posited about climate change? No. Does this throw into question the concern that climate change is occurring? No. Does this throw into question that it is occurring at a rate and to a degree that could cause significant harm? No. Does this significantly diminish the role that atmospheric changes resulting from human activity are influencing the rate and nature of current climate change? No.

    For people who have already concluded that climate science is a hoax, this finding will give them fuel for more chest thumping. For geophysicists worried about being laid off, this finding will give them a tid-bit of hope their work contracts or research grants might get extended or renewed. As to the expansion of Antarctic ice, there is a lot of science news reporting that the expansion is horizontal and not vertical, i.e. it's getting wider but thinner.

    If there is an implication from this finding, it could be that, thanks to more than expected or increased geothermal heating in certain key areas, climate change might happening faster than anticipated or predicted.

    1. Hardrada

      Re: the old science teacher

      "Does this disprove anything currently posited about climate change? No. Does this throw into question the concern that climate change is occurring? No. Does this throw into question that it is occurring at a rate and to a degree that could cause significant harm? No. Does this significantly diminish the role that atmospheric changes resulting from human activity are influencing the rate and nature of current climate change? No."

      1: NOAA's updated data shows that multiple small corrections can make a significant difference (pause vs. no pause):

      http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/06/updated-noaa-temperature-record-shows-little-global-warming-slowdown/

      Presumably that could break either way.

      2: Arctic melting is one of your best sanity checks. Without that, your best evidence is an instrumental record that's been held to a lower standard of gauge control than most industrial quality control labs. (Even the type of thermometer used is omitted in nearly all of the literature, and there's no calibration record, traceable or otherwise.) If there is significant heat influx from underneath, then the amount of atmospheric warming needed to cause the observed melting is lower, and it's harder to use ice sheet data to corroborate the instrumental trend.

      3: The models are calibrated against the temperature record, as John Cook of SkepticalScience.com acknowledges:

      "Climate models have to be tested to find out if they work. We can’t wait for 30 years to see if a model is any good or not; models are tested against the past, against what we know happened."

      Consider what effect this would have on your models:

      If current melting is caused exclusively by higher atmospheric temperatures, then the oceans are likely to be warmer as well. You would then expect less of an increase in winter sea ice due to lower salinity, since the meltwater would need to raise the solidus temperature of the solution by a larger amount. If it's melting because of geothermal forces, then it may mix with colder seawater and be more prone to freeze. Your assumptions about the effect of atmospheric warming on polar reflectivity will depend on which of those is the case. (To answer that, you'll have to rely on your crumby instrumental record, and a satellite record that was adjusted to match it.)

      3: If it's caused by local volcanism, then your assumption of a constant geothermal contribution may not hold. If the rate of heat flow is variable, then you could only dismiss it if it were very small. (I've pointed out in my other post to this thread that it isn't.)

  13. Howard Hanek
    Linux

    Repacking

    The Climate Change people would like nothing better than to repack the holes from the ice core samples with the bits of the people who say or do anything to undermine their agenda.

  14. Hardrada

    If you look on the Wikipedia page for earth's energy budget, you'll see that they describe the geothermal heat flux as being "dominated by 173,000 terawatts of incoming solar radiation." Skepticalscience.com has a similar statement.

    But if you look at NASA's own chart on the top on the aforementioned Wikipedia page, you can see that the global power surplus is only 0.18% of the incoming solar radiation (and the atmospheric back radiation, which is almost the same). So it's equal to about 15% of the total claimed imbalance.

    Then if you look at geothermal heat flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget#/media/File:Earth_heat_flow.jpg), you'll see that Greenland and Antarctica (where a lot of the headline-grabbing melting has occurred) are also areas of high flow. Combine that with their low insolation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation#/media/File:Insolation.png) and high reflectivity, and that "dominated" factor isn't so dominated anymore.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If you believe anything that Skepticalscience.com says or shows then I have a little used bridge you would be interested in purchasing.

  15. RIBrsiq

    I find it entertaining to see how the believers will always, in the face of any number of mountains of evidence to the contrary, continue to hold their beliefs...

    It is clear that most of the commentards do not have a proper science education and are thus not at all qualified to have an opinion either way. Yet they continue to have strongly-held opinions regardless.

    Let me try to help with that, though I know it is in vain:

    I presume that each and every one here is an accomplished professional who knows the ins-and-outs, the most tiny minutiae, of a specific field or three. Now, each of you separately please think back to that time when someone who clearly knows nothing about your field decided to open their mouth and voice their opinion that you don't know what you are talking about and that they know more than you do about the speciality you love and which you spent your life learning.

    How did s/he sound to you...?

    Because that is exactly how you sound when you go up against the bulk of the planet's specialists in any field.

    Please trust that other specialists know their field better than you do. Defer to them in their field, as you would have them defer to you in yours.

    The fact that you know everything there is to know about whatever it is you know does not mean that you know anything at all about anything else. Indeed, in this age of extreme specialization, it is more likely that the more you know about any given field, the *less* you know about everything else... The last polymath died quite a while ago.

    1. Rik Myslewski

      @ RlBrsiq: Bravo!

      May I direct our commentardian friends to this Wikipedia entry about the Dunning-Kruger effect:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

      Don't feel badly about it — we're all guilty at times, eh?

      1. The last doughnut

        Hmm yeah well. We are a diverse bunch us commentards. We may not climate experts but I like to think we all bring a little bit of something to the discussion.

        If the climatologists were a bit more open to scrutiny and a bit less sensitive and defensive about it, we would all have a lot less to question.

  16. Your alien overlord - fear me
    Flame

    "such that there is nowadays much more Antarctic sea ice than there used to be "

    Bleeding obvious - all that Arctic ice has drifted south and accumulated at the bottom. And before the smart arses claim that ice would float to the top, perhaps the earth flipped over and no one told us.

    Ice burns and since there's no ice-cold icons.....

  17. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Can I just say that the pic of the plane taking off is superb: propeller tip condensation trails, skis, and frikkin' rockets!

    1. Mayhem

      Rockets for the win!

      Yep, they're the ski equipped LC130s, usually operating out of McMurdo to the outlying stations.

      They use the rocket packs when taking off from unprepared runways - usually icefields in the middle of nowhere to minimise crevasse risk.

      If you're lucky when you fly south and the McMurdo ice runway is solid, it's a 5hr flight on a C17. If you're unlucky, its an 8hr flight on a C130, If you're really unlucky and the runway has softened, its a 10hr flight on the ski equipped ones to Williams Field.

      All three flight options have a roughly 40% chance of having to abort and turn around if the weather is too bad to land by the time you get there. A friend did two 20hr loops in a row before finally landing back in 2005. He was utterly wrecked for two days after.

  18. Hardrada

    "Please trust that other specialists know their field better than you do. Defer to them in their field, as you would have them defer to you in yours."

    That would be a fine argument if it were reciprocal.

    I spent a decade at an instrumentation maker that supplied calibration systems to NIST. I trained under Livermore's longtime chief of measurement, ran their main laboratory and worked with some of the best people in the world.

    Coming from that perspective, I'm perplexed by the error bars on the instrumental trend. The papers supporting them don't consider instrument error at all (meaning errors intrinsic to the instruments, rather than site- or shelter-biases). The closest figure that I found was in an NCAR manual ("An Introduction to Atmospheric and Oceanographic Datasets"): "Surface temperatures can be recorded to within 0.5 degree C."

    Using that figure (and I've found no other), the entire warming trend over the last 120 years would be within the error margin of the instruments alone.

    If you claim that instrument errors will be normally distributed, then you need to justify that. If you can't understand why it's not OK to take that as a given, then you should ask a metrologist, quality engineer, or other qualified expert. Meteorologists and climatologists aren't trained to answer those questions.

    1. Omgwtfbbqtime
      Headmaster

      That would be a fine argument if it were reciprocal.

      Agreed.

      I have spent 20 years in audit (not all financial) and nothing sets my bullshit detector screaming as much as the fudging behind the numbers used by the CAGCC camp.

      Here are your starters for 10:

      HADCRU emails

      Hockeystick

      Documentation for peer review (Lack thereof)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That would be a fine argument if it were reciprocal.

        Wow, you have lived a sheltered life. Let me guess, you audited Greece when it joined the Euro, and then moved to Northern Rock?

        1. Omgwtfbbqtime

          @AC

          Wow, you have absolutely no clue what auditing is, do you?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well as we are measuring a trend, it doesn't really matter how the error bars are distributed as long as we don't think that there is a systematic change in distribution of error over time. If you think there has been, you need to justify why, and how come that change has been gradational rather than stepped, and why the change has the same sign for different measuring technologies. For extra credit explain why temperature surrogates (tree rings,, stalactites etc) are congruent with the instrumental record.

      If you claim that measurements are biased you should ask a statistician or other qualified expert.

      1. Hardrada

        "Well as we are measuring a trend, it doesn't really matter how the error bars are distributed as long as we don't think that there is a systematic change in distribution of error over time."

        That's only true if you don't care about slope, acceleration or deceleration, since they depend on correct magnitude and linearity.

        In addition to that, instruments can have offset scales, drift, random noise or hysteresis. All but the last two can be directional, and all six can be caused by manufacture and design.

        Drift can can fabricate a trend entirely, as can changing from one class of instrument to another with a different error profile.

        "If you think there has been [a change in distribution of error over time], you need to justify why"

        Science requires traceability and reproducibility, which you can't claim of a dataset that depends on undocumented behavior of unnamed instruments. I'm only obligated to rebut scientific conclusions.

        (There are also plausible sources of bias in manufacturing, such as compression of the capillary of a liquid-in-glass thermometer during the glass-blowing step if the glass heats up more than the fixture that holds it.)

        "...and how come that change has been gradational rather than stepped"

        Non-linearity is as likely to be smooth as stepped, and magnification is evenly distributed over an instrument's range by definition. (The same physical defect may cause other types of error, but they're accounted for separately.)

        Switching to a different type of instrument would only cause a sharp change in the global trend if all of the international agencies supplying data made similar changes simultaneously.

        "...and why the change has the same sign for different measuring technologies."

        As far as I'm aware, it would only take one type of instrument to skew the GST, since lower readings at sites with other types would be attributed to local variability. It's possible that the SST is more resistant to that.

        I can't comment on satellite measurements except to say that they would need to be prepared much more thoughtfully than the surface temperature record.

        "For extra credit explain why temperature surrogates (tree rings,, stalactites etc) are congruent with the instrumental record."

        I've only read Anderson et al. 2013, which doesn't include tree rings:

        "To avoid potential loss of low-frequency variations, we excluded tree ring series."

        Most of the site records relied on O-16/O-18 ratios:

        "Sixty percent of the 170 records are oxygen isotopes preserved in ice or carbonate"

        Precipitation has been increasing (as per climatologists' own literature), and snowfall has been underreported due to problems with gauge design (ditto). Precipitation decreases salinity and increases the O-16 fraction, both of which would be interpreted as increasing temperature in Anderson's index.

  19. Jim Birch

    Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

    This isn't news. It is clutching at straws.

    Have a little think about it people. A kilometer of rock is a very good insulator. Many kilometers, even better. That's why accessing geothermal energy involves very deep holes down into the earth. Heat flow upwards through the earth is extremely slow compared to atmospheric and ocean processes so the numbers are much smaller. When researchers say the geothermal heat is "surprisingly high" they means that it is high for geothermal heat. Sorry, you can't fry an egg with it. This may be an interesting bit of geothermal science. It says almost nothing about global warming. Geothermal energy is completely known to be a tiny effect in the ocean-atmosphere heat balance. Not zero, but tiny. This is well established science, for those who understand the term.

    Please show us the numbers, Lewis! There are no number in this story and if there were, I doubt even you would be willing to put your name on it.

    The poor old AGW deniers are desperate for crumbs of anecdotal evidence because there is just about no one left with half a real science qualification arguing their side, and no substantial evidence. All they have left to cling to is a bunch of stories! But hey! keep it up boys. Sure, you might have this vague feeling that you're on a serious loser, but just wait, there always the next Lewis Page pseudoscience scoop to keep you going.

    FYI, some indicative numbers:

    Sunlight at top of the atmosphere = 1367 Watts per square metre, varies a few percent with orbit and solar activity.

    Sunlight at the surface (like) 1120 W/m2. Some attenuation by the atmosphere.

    Average incoming solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere 342 W/m2, averaged over day/night and latitude. Equals the average radiation of the earth out to space.

    Global average geothermal heat flux = 0.06 W/m2, varies from place to place.

    The Antarctic Thwaites Glacier average, these new measurements, like 0.1 W/m2

    Thwaites hot spots, up to like 0.2 W/m2

    Clearly, geothermal isn't a big factor globally, it is very small, like a 20,000th the power of sunlight or if you like, a 6,000th of the average power of radiation absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gasses. It could however have a significant local glaciological effect where the heat is "trapped" under the glacial ice. A higher temperature would increase melt and glacier velocity. That's why scientists are interested, not for the very minor input into the earth's energy budget.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

      "The poor old AGW deniers are desperate for crumbs of anecdotal evidence because there is just about no one left with half a real science qualification arguing their side, and no substantial evidence."

      For the record, I'm not an AGW denier. However, I am yet to be convinced that man is the primary cause of any warming we are seeing. A lot of the rhetoric seems to focus on people who are for or against the idea, when in reality there are quite a few people who just don't think the evidence* provided so far is conclusive enough.

      Whilst we are at it, you don't require evidence to prove a negative. It is incumbant on the proponent of a theory to provide evidence that can be tested rigourously by independant parties. You can't prove a negative (that I am aware of).

      *especially when there appears to be a lot of fudging going on.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

        Your 'incumbant on the proponent of a theory to provide evidence that can be tested' proposition cuts both ways. And you can't absolve one party from the scientific method by assertion.

        Science needs to prove that man made climate change is happening, and so far the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests it is. 'Deniers' need to prove their case in as rigorous a manner. We know as a physical fact that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will cause global warming (basic physics). We know from multiple measurements that CO2 concentrations are increasing, and we know that it is a result of burning fossil fuel (isotopic evidence). We know that solar fluctuations are relatively small and often counter to observed temperature trends. So where is the evidence of another mechanism to explain the measured warming and counteract future warming? Mostly 'I am yet to be convinced' or ' I believe'.

        At the moment one side is making measurements, publishing peer reviewed arguments and making their data available. The other side is, generally, advancing their argument by playing chinese whispers with blog posts.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

          @AC You seem to have drawn things up into two camps again, leaving little room for those who have not been convinced by the evidence so far, a lot of which is tainted by accusations of fudging and bias.

          "We know as a physical fact that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will cause global warming (basic physics)."

          Do we? If you only include basic physics then this is probably a fair assertion, but what about increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere of a complex system with a large number of subtle (and not so subtle) feedback mechanisms? Are you 100% certain there is no feedback mechnism in play that reduces the impact of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere on heat retention by the planet?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

            I stand (in cowardly mode) beside my assertion. More CO2 = hotter. And I totally accept that there are subtle and not so subtle feedback effects. But it's not good enough to say the feedback 'might' reduce the impact. You have to do the science, make the measurements, show it.

            Are you 100% certain that there is a feedback mechanism in play that reduces the impact of CO2? If so write it up, publish it, go to Oslo and collect your prize. The best of today's science says that the feedback mechanisms increase climates sensitivity to CO2, rather than decrease it.

            1. Sir Runcible Spoon

              Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

              No, I'm not certain that there is such a thing, but then I'm not making any assertions to that effect am I? So no proof necessary (to ask questions).

              Any chance of a citation for the claims you made in your last sentence?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

                That positive feedbacks outweigh negatives? Take your pick from the IPCC reports bibliographies - the balance of feedbacks is what gives us climate sensitivity, and while you can argue the magnitude, in the absence of feedbacks 2 x CO2 would warm us 1.2 C. Current estimates of sensitivity range from 1.5 C to 4.5 C. http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n1/full/nclimate2477.html

                1. Sir Runcible Spoon
                  FAIL

                  Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

                  That link takes you to a paywall, so it's a bit hard for me to examine what it actually says.

                  1. The last doughnut

                    Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

                    I am with Sr Runcible on this. There may be some basic science that links rising atmospheric CO2 with increasing heat retention, I accept that. But what climate scientists have failed to do is quantify the effect.

                    My much earlier post made the assertion that the Earth's climate is fundamentally stable. It varies over time because it is a complex system and has many non-man-made variables. But I really don't believe that the level of atmospheric CO2 (in the range we are ever likely to see) will make any significant difference to the global temperature.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Surprisingly high: Compared to what?

      "A higher temperature would increase melt and glacier velocity."

      But only in the vicinity of the geothermal heat. The entire continent isn't being warmed, not even the entire edges, just a few local spots.

  20. Hardrada

    Since it wasn't clear in my original post, I interpreted the NCAR value as referring to instrument error because of the sentence preceeding it ("Instrument quality varies from country-to-country.") and other context in that section of the manual.

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  22. This post has been deleted by its author

  23. Hardrada

    ...it may not, though, in which case I've found no numbers at all for instrument error.

    "Please show us the numbers, Lewis! There are no number in this story."

    Perhaps you could do the same.

    "Global average geothermal heat flux = 0.06 W/m2, varies from place to place.

    The Antarctic Thwaites Glacier average, these new measurements, like 0.1 W/m2

    Thwaites hot spots, up to like 0.2 W/m2

    Clearly, geothermal isn't a big factor globally, it is very small."

    As mentioned on the previous page, Earth's average power surplus (which is a more relevant comparison value) is only 0.6 W/m2. The insolation in polar regions is also lower, and the reflectivity is higher. So the 0.2 W/m2 value that you give for those hotspots is 33% of the global average surplus that you attribute the glacial melting to, and a significantly higher fraction of the available energy in the area where that melting actually occurs.

    Do you and your 'thousands of scientists' have no better argument? That would be pretty sad.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The earth has an area of about 5 x 10^14 m2. The 0.6 W/m2 is an average over the whole earth. Lets generously assume the Thwaites Glacier is 1 x 10^9 m2. So having a heat flux twice global average would make a difference in the global flux of 1 part in 100,000, so global heat flux from geothermal is 0.06001 rather than 0.06. Within your instrument error?

      1. Hardrada

        That's a fine rebuttal of an argument that I didn't make. From earlier:

        1: Polar melting is one of the main lines of evidence corroborating the instrumental trend. (Note that arguments similar to yours above could be used to dismiss that.)

        2: Even before this recent paper, measurements of geothermal heat flux showed that Greenland and Antarctica have relatively high geothermal heat flow.

        3: When you also account for the poles' lower insolation and higher reflectivity, it's no longer a dismissable factor in the areas where the melting is occurring. (From the chart that I linked to, it looks as though most of Antarctica has a flow rate of 0.09-0.15 W/m2, which is equal to 15-25% of the global average power surplus, and a larger fraction of the energy available in the Antarctic.)

        The above has nothing to do with geothermal heat flux changing the surface temperature of the entire planet, and only deals with how strongly Arctic and Antarctic glacial melting corroborates the instrumental record.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What would happen if a supervolcano lay beneath Antarctica?

    OK, probably a silly question since some of the ice is millions of years old so there isn't a previously active supervolcano there. But Yellowstone wasn't always there, it formed at some point so every supervolcano has its "first" eruption.

    If it blew like Yellowstone has in the past, would it send city sized icebergs into the stratosphere, falling down at random and leaving huge craters in which lakes form or resulting in tidal waves when they fall into the sea? Or is two miles of ice heavy enough to hold in all that pressure?

    How much ice could that melt, and if it was hundreds of square miles were melted from below wouldn't that make it much easier for the whole west shelf to slide into the ocean?

    Seems like I just wrote the plot for the next Hollywood disaster blockbuster. One of the city sized icebergs will drop on LA, after dropping on a few major cities in Europe or Asia. Somehow disasters always seem to hit LA or NYC, so I'm glad I live in the midwest where I'm obviously safe :)

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: What would happen if a supervolcano lay beneath Antarctica?

      To get a supervolcano you need a subducting oceanic plate such as the ones under Yellowstone, Toba and the Oroanui field. There aren't any that I'm aware of under Antarctica.

  25. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    16!

    It took me the first sixteen words of this article to realise it was written by Lewis Page.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is old news

    In 2011 I had this conversation with Johnathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey team, Head of Meteorology. I pointed out thermal mapping of the West Antarctic along with a news release by the British Antarctic Survey Team where they had observed many volcanic vents in the area. There were also undersea vents warming the water around the peninsula. Key to the discussion was that there was no trail of warm water entering the area. It was localized to the West Antarctic. Anyway, he was unaware of his own team's findings and had denied it was even true until he saw the release. That it is now quantified is great, but it is old news that the peninsula has been heated, both onshore and offshore, for several centuries. It really is kind of humorous. And regarding a previous comment that the Antarctic sea ice is shrinking year by year, look it up. Antarctic sea ice has been setting records all year round, at minimum as well as maximum, for the past 3 + years. Arctic ice is also recovering. While we are at it, the Sun is taking a snooze and there is a strong cooling trend on the way. Some say it will last 15 years, others 30 years and many believe that it will be cold for the next 100 years. Man-made global warming is a scam and entirely political. Check out the Agenda 21, Biodiversity Convention and Wildlands project put out by the 1992 Rio Earth Conference using global warming as the excuse to install worldwide socialism ruled by the corrupt UN. No thanks.

    Kirt G

  27. Nathanial Wapcaplet

    Picture caption - WHEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

    title says it all

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