Scientists: Rising CO2 Causing Antarctic Cooling
Natural variability rules in Antarctica. Scientists have identified clouds, wind, and localized solar heating – not CO2 – as the factors driving ice melt; rising CO2 leads to Antarctic cooling.
ANTARCTICA RAPIDLY COOLING IN RECENT DECADES
In a review of the scientific literature, Lüning et al. 2019 report Antarctica as a whole has undergone a cooling trend in recent decades.
The Antarctic Peninsula has cooled at a rate of -0.5°C per decade since the late 1990s.
West Antarctica as a whole has “slightly cooled” (or the warming has “plateaued”) over the past two decades.
East Antarctica “has not experienced any significant temperature change since the 1950s” with ice sheet mass gains and cooling during the past 15 years.
Image Source: Lüning et al. 2019
RISING CO2 LEADS TO ANTARCTIC COOLING
Antarctica contains about 90% of the world’s ice.
Because the continent averages -28.2°C in summer and -60°C in winter, inducing even partial retreat for an ice sheet that averages 2.3 kilometers in height would require a substantial amount of heat energy.
This effectively rules out a human influence.
According to scientists, raising CO2 concentrations does not even lead to warming in Antarctica. Actually, scientists find Antarctica cools in response to rising CO2 concentrations, which means we humans may be contributing more to ice mass gains than to losses.
Image Source: Schmithüsen et al., 2015
NATURAL VARIABILITY – CLOUDS, WIND, LOCALIZED SOLAR HEATING – DRIVE ANTARCTIC ICE MELT
The surface melting of portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has received quite a bit of attention in media circles, often accompanied by scary warnings of ice sheet collapse and catastrophic sea-level rise.
For example, Dr. James Hansen – admitting his doomsday predictions are tendentiously designed to be “persuasive” – has claimed sea levels will rise by 10 feet by 2065 mostly due to Antarctic ice sheet melt.
Image Source: Slate
These harrowing warnings often seem to arise in response to observations of glacier calving events – large glaciers fissuring and breaking off from the ice sheet.
But glaciologists know that calving events are indicative of ice sheet thickening, not thinning. Glaciers calve when the ice accumulation has become so heavy and thick that the base of the ice sheet can no longer bear the load.
Image Source: Christmann et al., 2016
Yes, portions of Antarctica are undergoing ice melt. But any ice sheet recession and advancement are both natural. And modern ice melt is well within the range of what occurs naturally for Antarctica.
Indeed, as Jones et al. (2016) conclude, natural variability “overwhelms” any forced response in satellite era trend observations.
Image Source: Jones et al., 2016
In two new papers, scientists identify the natural mechanisms driving the recession of some of West Antarctica’s glaciers in recent decades.
Scott et al. (2019) conclude surface melt is driven by wind currents and downwelling longwave radiation from clouds.
Stewart et al. (2019) find localized solar heating of surface water can explain melting in small portions of the Ross Ice Shelf.
Considering the total Antarctic meltwater contribution to sea level rise may only amount to 0.34 of a centimeter since 1958 (Frederikse et al., 2018), it is quite reasonable to conclude that nothing unusual, unprecedented, or concerning is occurring in Antarctica that could be said to fall outside the range of natural variability.
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Dean M Jackson
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“rising CO2 leads to Antarctic cooling.”
Rising carbon dioxide levels leads to cooling everywhere! It’s a denser molecule than the nitrogen-oxygen based air, therefore it sinks, pushing upwards the less dense air – less dense because nitrogen and oxygen hold approximately one-third more heat energy than carbon dioxide.
What we have then is a Marxist campaign that has outrageously mis-identified the role carbon dioxide plays in cooling the Earth, for the purpose of further* sabotaging the West’s economies.
Maximum Price Controls on Capital
When interest rates are interfered with, the ‘productivity cost of capital’ – an economic law discovered by this researcher – is jeopardized to the degree that interest rates are debased.
The cost of capital isn’t based on cost – a tautology – it’s based on (1) the quantity of capital loaned; and (2) the time it takes to pay back the capital loaned. The cost of capital – interest – depends on the magnitude borrowed (and time needed to pay back the loan). If one borrows a capital outlay of X, the cost of X will be less than a capital outlay of 6X, but if a central bank maintains interest rates at the artificially low X level, there can be no loans for capital outlays between X and 6X. By implementing low cost interest rates, central banks have set in motion ruinous price controls on capital, thereby preventing the employment of capital.
For those who didn’t get the basic Algebra 1 example illustrating the productivity retarding affect of central bank price controls on interest rates for loaned capital, the following simplified version should do the trick…
A young boy is at the candy store and hands the retailer a candy bar costing $.95. The boy decides he wants to buy six candy bars instead, five candy bars more than one candy bar, so the price is $5.70. The boy tells the retailer he doesn’t have $5.70, but that he will have the money in three years and then pay the retailer, with interest for the deferment of payment. The retailer agrees to the transaction. When the boy returns in three years, he pays the retailer only $.95! Why did the boy offer only $.95, when he owed $5.70 plus interest? Because the boy told the retailer that his father told him there’s no difference between $.95 and $5.70 with interest!
Capital, an economic good like any other economic good, isn’t an amorphous quantity that has an intrinsic ‘productivity cost’. Capital has units – as do candy bars, cars, houses, plots of land, etc. – hence the cost of 1 unit is less than the cost of >1 units. If the price for a capital outlay – interest – is below the capital outlay’s ‘productivity cost’, then there can be no deployment of the capital.
At my blog, read the articles…
‘House of Cards: The Collapse of the ‘Collapse’ of the USSR’
https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/house-of-cards-the-collapse-of-the-collapse-of-the-ussr
‘Playing Hide And Seek In Yugoslavia’
https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/playing-hide-and-seek-in-yugoslavia
Then read the article, ‘The Marxist Co-Option Of History And The Use Of The Scissors Strategy To Manipulate History Towards The Goal Of Marxist Liberation’
https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/the-marxist-co-option-of-history-and-the-use-of-the-scissors-strategy-to-manipulate-history-towards-the-goal-of-marxist-liberation
Solution
The West will form new political parties where candidates are vetted for Marxist ideology/blackmail, the use of the polygraph to be an important tool for such vetting. Then the West can finally liberate the globe of vanguard Communism.
My blog, for other discoveries…
https://djdnotice.blogspot.com/2018/09/d-notice-articles-article-55-7418.html
Reply
Matt
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Oh I get it now.
Antarctic sea ice loss is caused by central bank price controls on interest rates with further ice loss attributable to anomalous and random candy bar transactions I totally overlooked these obvious factors.
Damn, you’re good..
Reply
Dean M Jackson
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“Oh I get it now.
Antarctic sea ice loss is caused by central bank price controls on interest rates with further ice loss attributable to anomalous and random candy bar transactions I totally overlooked these obvious factors.
Damn, you’re good..”
We have a Marxist on the thread who just self-identified his Marxist credentials with that non-reply reply!
Reply