New study reveals Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 from 2009-2019
By Paul Homewood
New study reveals Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 from 2009-2019
3 June 2023 
A new study by a team of climate scientists and published by the European Geosciences Union reveals that the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 from 2009-2019, gaining 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade. 
The new observations confirm the findings of eminent meteorologist Professor J. Ray Bates whose research has shown that trends in polar sea-ice levels give little cause for alarm.
In a paper published just over a year ago by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Professor Bates contrasted climate model simulations – which predict significantly decreasing sea ice levels in both hemispheres – with empirical data and observed trends in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.
Professor Bates said:
"In 2007, Al Gore told us that Arctic sea ice levels were ‘falling off a cliff’. It’s clear now that he was completely wrong. In fact, the trends in sea-ice are an antidote to climate alarm.”
Professor Bates also says that little reliance should be placed on model simulations of future sea-ice decline:
"Climate models failed to predict the growth in Antarctic sea ice, and they missed the recent marked slowdown of sea-ice decline in the Arctic. It would be unwarranted to think they are going to get things right over the next 30 years.”
Professor Bates’ paper can be downloaded here (pdf)
This is the paper’s Abstract:
Abstract
Antarctic ice shelves provide buttressing support to the ice sheet, stabilising the flow of grounded ice and its contribution to global sea levels. Over the past 50 years, satellite observations have shown ice shelves collapse, thin, and retreat; however, there are few measurements of the Antarctic-wide change in ice shelf area. Here, we use MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data to measure the change in ice shelf calving front position and area on 34 ice shelves in Antarctica from 2009 to 2019. Over the last decade, a reduction in the area on the Antarctic Peninsula (6693 km2) and West Antarctica (5563 km2) has been outweighed by area growth in East Antarctica (3532 km2) and the large Ross and Ronne–Filchner ice shelves (14 028 km2). The largest retreat was observed on the Larsen C Ice Shelf, where 5917 km2 of ice was lost during an individual calving event in 2017, and the largest area increase was observed on Ronne Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, where a gradual advance over the past decade (535 km2 yr−1) led to a 5889 km2 area gain from 2009 to 2019. Overall, the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 since 2009, with 18 ice shelves retreating and 16 larger shelves growing in area. Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade, whereas the steady-state approach would estimate substantial ice loss over the same period, demonstrating the importance of using time-variable calving flux observations to measure change.
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/?mc_cid=7a3485fd02&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Difficult to impose preconceived climate theories onto this region of the world.
Despite 120+ Volcanoes under the ice sheets………
Oh dear, has the GWPF lost it’s marbles and sense or perspective with such an un-critical posting of this paper?
The Excel file (Table 1) suggests an increase of 5305 km^2 in a total area of 1,422,102 km^2, or 0.37%. This number must be well below the uncertainty of the analysis, which the authors don’t discuss at all.
All one can justifiably conclude from the paper is that there has been no discernible downward trend in area over the decade given the limitations of the analytic method employed.
I’m not sure how you’ve concluded that? The % is meaningless in judging whether the instruments can measure accurately the changes.
The paper, as I read it is talking about the changes in the ice shelf not changes in Antarctica, even though the Antarctica total is included in Table 1.
But it is not just the area .
Another study shows that the ice is about 8 times thicker than it has been for thousands of years.https://notrickszone.com/2023/05/29/new-study-destroys-doomsday-glacier-narrative-todays-ice-8-times-%f0%9d%98%9b%f0%9d%98%a9%f0%9d%98%aa%f0%9d%98%a4%f0%9d%98%ac%f0%9d%98%a6%f0%9d%98%b3-than-last-8000-years/
Given that the Southern Hemisphere is colder than the Northern, how far North do these calved icebergs go? Are they ever a hazard to navigation as they are in the North Atlantic?
About 10 years ago a load of green loonies attempted to get to the South Pole on a ” Russian ” [ I think ] icebreaker .
It was the middle of the summer , [ there ] and the ship got stuck in ice over a hundred miles further out than Amundsen ,[ I think ] managed in about 1912 .
It took a large rescue mission from many countries to get them out , but it shows that Antarctic sea ice has not reduced over the years .
But actual facts will never stop the lies and propaganda from coming out .
The expedition was sent by the UNI of NSW and included a number of journalists (ABC and The Guardian). They claimed that they would repair Mawson’s huts from his 1911 expedition, but were stopped about 110 kms. away. They wear stuck in ice by ignoring the captain’s advice, while some people were ashore and wouldn’t return.
Yes, various actual research/supply shipped were diverted to ‘save them’ and eventually returned them home, after their complaints about running out of ingredients for peanut butter smoothies.
The Russian ship wasn’t an icebreaker, merely strengthened for Arctic, but once the passengers had been evacuated by helicopter the captain got the ship out and to NZ about 2 weeks before the passengers arrived there after times at base camps.
They were christened as The Ship of Fools.
Much annoyance by real researchers who had work/supplies being delayed or cancelled. There is a replica of Mawson’s huts in Hobart, in case your readers were planning to visit them.
Thanks for that Graeme 3 , I was going from memory , which after about 10 years , is not always spot on .
So it was a Russian Artic research ship , not an icebreaker .
And Mawson , not Amundsen .
But the main point is it was stuck in ice which was a lot more than in the same place 100 years ago .
“…ice-bergs…”
Mainly, the currents take them in circles around the South Pole; but they do often meander a couple of thousands miles to the North before melting. I seem to recall that the big chunk (‘the size of Wales!’) that broke off a couple of years ago grounded on South Georgia and is disappearing now.
In truth, ice-bergs are not much of a hazard for any ship. Although the Old Greenlanders had a superstition that if you make a noise while passing an inlet an ice-berg will come out to get you!
“…the big chunk…”
How time passes! That ice-berg broke off in 2017 and helped to make doom’s-day headlines for several years, until it finally melted in 2021. It was very disappointing, since it was supposed to kill a penguin in South Georgia but missed him.
I recently asked an Australian scientist “Does Australia hold the record for firing academics who oppose consensus?”
He replied “Our record would be hard to beat”.
He then provided a list of academics that he was aware of who were fired for their ‘wrong’ climate research.
He has requested that I let him know if I have any more.
The list, below, is quite horrifying in terms of Australian academic freedom; but it also shows that Aussies are the least prepared to be cowed by the funding establishments
Prof Murry Salby
Dr David Legates
Dr Stewart Franks
Dr George Taylor
Dr. Jaworowski
Dr Bill Grey
Prof Dennis Rancourt
Dr Willie Soon
Prof Peter Ridd
Dr Lennart Bengtsson
Dr Caleb Rossiter
Dr Nicholas Drapela
Prof Bjorn Lomborg (lost $5m contract in Australia to do climate research)
Dr Jennifer Marohasy
Dr Henk Tennekes
Dr Gavriel Avital
Dr Askel Winn-Nielsen
Prof Bob Carter
Dr Alfonso Sutera
Dr Anonio Speranza
Dr Robert Ian Holmes
Prof Judith Curry
Prof Ivar Giaever
Prof Chris de Freitas (NZ)
Dr Robert Ian Holmes
Reminded of: http://phys.org/news/2015-10-mass-gains-antarctic-ice-sheet.html
OK why are they talking about 2019 levels , when it is now 2023 ?
The 2015 report said similar
NASA-PR website : The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
Zwally muscled in with “Yeh, but yeh ,If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years
— I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
Changes in ice-cover triumphantly declared to a square kilometre?
“How many angels can dance on a needle?”
Personally, I prefer the vivid imagery of reports from the Southern Seas, in
what must have been a proper ice-calving episode, about a hundred years ago. One ship reported encountering two thousand huge icebergs majestically sailing northwards.
The following is quite interesting as showing the possible influence of under-sea volcanoes:
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/1787/2023/
40 years ago, Gamecock had no reason to care about Antarctic shelf ice. Whether it was growing or shrinking, or turning purple.
Nothing has changed.
“…care about Antarctic shelf ice…”
It is like those games in amusement arcades. You keep adding coins (snow from
water lost from the sea) to a heap (ice-cap), until some get near (slide to) the edge (shelf) and spill over (calve) as a win (return of water to the sea). The heap itself is a nothing – a transitional stage.
Whatever ice there is, in the sea in the Antarctic, is carried away northwards and melts every summer. There is no such thing as multi-year sea-ice there. Every year is a new event. Two years ago the sea-ice was above normal. This year it was below normal.
Of course, since the Southern Hemisphere is mainly water and therefore an enormously stable heat sink/source, there is no reason to expect noticeable changes in the climate of it.
The ‘big heap’ (Antarctic Ice Cap) behind the ‘little heap’ (Shelf Ice) is not a ‘nothing’ but it has been growing for thirty million years now, and will not even notice when the Human Race becomes extinct – in a thousand years or ten thousand or a hundred thousand or whatever time it takes, in an inevitable evolutionary development.
In the Arctic, the Greenland Cap Ice Balance has ‘put a wiggle on’ and has attained a completely normal peak this year:
Just saying.