Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by melatonin

You're deluded, but I still like you.

I like you too Mel. It's so much fun to watch you squirm your way through these debates while trying to act cool and collected.

I added that last line for completeness. Actually, I thought about adding the fact that I posted links to prove the Antarctic is not losing ice, but I didn't want to mess up such a fine and well-thought out quote.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

True, if the Antarctic ice were melting. But the Antarctic ice is not melting ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

According to Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison, sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.

"Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally," Dr Allison said.

The melting of sea ice - fast ice and pack ice - does not cause sea levels to rise because the ice is in the water.

Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting.

"The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west," he said.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

True, if the Antarctic ice were melting. But the Antarctic ice is not melting: ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

It's the southern ozone hole whatdunit. That's why Antarctic sea ice is growing while at the other pole, Arctic ice is shrinking at record rates. It seems CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals have given the South Pole respite from global warming.

But only temporarily. According to John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey, the effect will last roughly another decade before Antarctic sea ice starts to decline as well.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing dramatically and reached a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by Turner and his colleagues show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

True, if the Antarctic ice were melting. But the Antarctic ice is not melting ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting. “The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west,” he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

True, if the Antarctic ice were melting. But the Antarctic ice is not melting:ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

Published Online March 2, 2006
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1123785
Science Express Index

Reports
Submitted on December 13, 2005
Accepted on February 21, 2006

Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica
Isabella Velicogna 1* and John Wahr 2*
1 University of Colorado and CIRES, UCB 390, Boulder, CO 80309-0390, USA; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 300-233, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA.
2 University of Colorado and CIRES, UCB 390, Boulder, CO 80309-0390, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Isabella Velicogna , E-mail: isabella@colorado.edu
John Wahr , E-mail: wahr@colorado.edu

Using measurements of time-variable gravity from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites we determine mass variations of the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002-2005. We find that the ice sheet mass decreased significantly, at a rate of 152 ± 80 km3/year of ice, equivalent to 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/year of global sea level rise. Most of this mass loss came from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Letter abstract
Nature Geoscience 1, 106 - 110 (2008)
Published online: 13 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo102

Subject Categories: Climate science | Cryospheric science

Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling
Eric Rignot1,2,3, Jonathan L. Bamber4, Michiel R. van den Broeke5, Curt Davis6, Yonghong Li6, Willem Jan van de Berg5 & Erik van Meijgaard7

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Large uncertainties remain in the current and future contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica. Climate warming may increase snowfall in the continent's interior1, 2, 3, but enhance glacier discharge at the coast where warmer air and ocean temperatures erode the buttressing ice shelves4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here, we use satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar observations from 1992 to 2006 covering 85% of Antarctica's coastline to estimate the total mass flux into the ocean. We compare the mass fluxes from large drainage basin units with interior snow accumulation calculated from a regional atmospheric climate model for 1980 to 2004. In East Antarctica, small glacier losses in Wilkes Land and glacier gains at the mouths of the Filchner and Ross ice shelves combine to a near-zero loss of 4+/-61 Gt yr-1. In West Antarctica, widespread losses along the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas increased the ice sheet loss by 59% in 10 years to reach 132+/-60 Gt yr-1 in 2006. In the Peninsula, losses increased by 140% to reach 60+/-46 Gt yr-1 in 2006. Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration. Changes in glacier flow therefore have a significant, if not dominant impact on ice sheet mass balance.

Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE

I. Velicogna
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

We use monthly measurements of time-variable gravity from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass-loss for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that the GRACE observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one, implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time. In Greenland, the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −30 ± 11 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. The observed acceleration in ice sheet mass loss helps reconcile GRACE ice mass estimates obtained for different time periods.

Received 28 July 2009; accepted 3 September 2009; published 13 October 2009.

Who cares what he thinks?

I know its disappointing that all you can do is lie and misrepresent to bolster your ideological viewpoints, but that's life.

It first needs to be emphasized that natural variability and radiatively forced warming are not competing in some no-holds barred scientific smack down as explanations for the behavior of the global mean temperature over the past century. Both certainly played a role in the evolution of the temperature trajectory over the 20th century, and significant issues remain to be resolved about their relative importance. However, the salient point, one that is oftentimes not clear in arguments about variability in the climate system, is that all else being equal, climate variability and climate sensitivity are flip sides of the same coin.

[W]hen the major modes of Northern Hemisphere climate variability are synchronized, or resonate, and the coupling between those modes simultaneously increases, the climate system appears to be thrown into a new state, marked by a break in the global mean temperature trend and in the character of El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability.

Here, a new and improved means to quantify the coupling between climate modes confirms that another synchronization of these modes, followed by an increase in coupling occurred in 2001/02. This suggests that a break in the global mean temperature trend from the consistent warming over the 1976/77–2001/02 period may have occurred.

"Decadal predictions"
(Gavin A. Schmidt)

There has been a lot of discussion about decadal climate predictions in recent months. It came up as part of the ‘climate services’ discussion and was alluded to in the rather confused New Scientist piece a couple of weeks ago.
…
One thing that is of concern are statements that appear to assume that this is already a done deal – that good quality decadal forecasts are somehow guaranteed (if only a new center can be built, or if a faster computer was used).

If you didn't spout such obvious tripe which can be shown to be erroneous so easily, then all would be well. Closed-mindedness is effectively closing your mind to evidence, I've seen almost every denier argument, and all are BS.

Chris Landsea is a butthurt scientist who was a little peeved that his pet scientific position was not accepted by a lead IPCC scientist (Trenberth) who signified a different position from hisself when giving a talk.

the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.

I have often seen references to predictions of future climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), presumably through the IPCC assessments ... . In fact, since the last report it is also often stated that the science is settled or done and now is the time for action.

"Correlation does not equal causation."

Landsea says no effect on hurricanes, others like Kerry Emanuel say there might well be (which Trenberth agrees with).