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| Gary Novak
The Cause of Ice Ages and Present Climate |
Washington Post Article on Oceans Rising The Washington Post article on Antarctica is an example of fraud which shows how science and journalism are combined to misrepresent global warming. The purpose of the article was to convince the public that sea level will be rising, as the subtitle indicates: "Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly—New Study Warns Of Rising Sea Levels". Doesn't this tell the public that melting ice is causing the sea level to rise? The science study which the article is based upon shows no such thing. The study used gravimetric satellite measurements of Antarctica's ice. This method of measurement can only determine the surface area of the ice; it cannot measure the thickness of the ice, as the researchers stated. In other words, it does the same thing as observation of an image would do. The way the gravity sensing works is that when satellites pass over the ice, a change in gravity shows where the boundary of the ice is located. Changes of gravity within the ice sheet could be due to uneven topography of the ground, which cannot be distinguished from differences in ice thickness. Not knowing what was under the ice, the only thing the measurements could determine is where the edges of the ice were located, just as an image would show. Other studies based upon radar from satellites rather than gravity show ice thickening over Antarctica and Greenland. What is not usually clarified for the public is that ice which sits over water cannot change the level of the water as it melts, because the water is already supporting the weight of the ice. To cause sea level to rise, ice which was over land needs to move into the ocean. Therefore, when the study showed shrinkage of the ice sheet, only the ice over the ocean was shrinking, and it had no ability to cause sea level to rise. A change in surface area, as measured, can only apply to ice over the ocean, not ice over land. First, a reduction in ice over land could not be detected with the gravimetric method being used, because the procedure could not distinguish between the ice and the land under it. Secondly, if ice over land were ending up in the ocean, it would either have to melt—and there is no melting of inland ice on Antarctica—or it would have to move as ice, like a flowing glacier. But the study had no method of determining how glacial ice was moving. I haven't seen the original science article, but the methodology does not lend itself to measurement of moving ice with any credibility. That isn't to say that frauds producing junk science don't find anything they want to find in a study. Regardless, the only way glacial ice on Antarctica can move faster is if there is more weight on it, which requires the ice to be thickening. Thickening ice on Antarctica causes sea level to decrease, not increase. There is a different mechanism on Greenland, where ice melts to form liquid which flows under some glaciers, and this causes them to move faster; but ice does not melt to liquid on Antarctica's inland areas. The Washington Post article indicated that sea level might be increasing by 20 ft. Here's the quote: (The melting ice at Antarctica) is causing global sea level to rise by 0.4 millimeters a year. The continent holds 90 percent of the world's ice, and the disappearance of even its smaller West Antarctic ice sheet could raise worldwide sea levels by an estimated 20 feet. (But there is no evidence that it is going to happen.) The claimed increase in sea level of 0.4 mm per year is equivalent to 1.6 inches per century. What is going to cause the 20 ft increase mentioned in the next sentence? Supposedly, the disappearance of the West Antarctic ice sheet. That's like saying the green Martians might do it. There is nothing in the science to indicate that it will happen. The only purpose of the statement was to get the 20 ft number in print, because it is the number now floating around amongst frauds and the reason why Congress is supposed to act now, before Miami and New York end up under water. The 20 ft number has other sources also. Someone found a way to associate it with Greenland. Isn't it a coincidence that either Greenland or Antarctica could cause the seal level to increase by 20 ft, when there is so much difference between them? As long as it is the same number all of the time, no one can say where it came from, and criticism is muted. But the criticism can be based on more reliable science which shows the fraud of the global warming propaganda from beginning to end. |
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