By Paul Homewood
From Phys.org
Glaciers have lost more than 9 trillion tons (that is 9,625,000,000,000 tons) of ice between 1961 and 2016, which has resulted in global sea levels rising by 27 millimeters in this period. The largest contributors were glaciers in Alaska, followed by the melting ice fields in Patagonia and glaciers in the Arctic regions. Glaciers in the European Alps, the Caucasus and New Zealand were also subject to significant ice loss; however, due to their relatively small glacierized areas, they played only a minor role when it comes to the rising global sea levels.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-glaciers-sea-greater.html
Wow!! 27mm between 1961 and 2016!
Two inches a century. Head to the hills!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Wow! It (almost) rivals the rise in the level of the Black Sea around 8,000 years ago.
Scientists are arguing whether that rise was 80 or 90 metres, or only 30 metres. The neolithic
ancestors experienced a rise of up to 500 mm PER HOUR.
Want to be clear this comment. Ryan etal 1997 argued that 125 meters flood occurred with a breach of a barrier and that this flood can be argued to have occurred in less than 1 year. (For the Black sea)
Meaning a minumum of a 15mm/hr (not 500) unless you argue for a specific flooding scenario. I don’t believe they did.
A really cool flood occurred in the NW of the USA, in the Channeled Scablands. Bretz first hypothosized it back in 1920’s, a flood of biblical proportions. He was beat down but never defeated, then in 1940’s Pardee came along and said: Yep, the water came from a hugh lake blocked by an ice dam and then was a flood that left “waves” of land banks, scoured 1000 foot cliffs, devasted an area measured in the land area of western states.
It only took 50 years to overturn the consensus.
Thanks Timo,
Here’s more and a link:
Bretz looked at the landscape and saw a flood of catastrophic proportions. The established geologists of the time were educated to believe in “Uniformitarianism” in contrast to “Catastrophism”, so the concept went against the established truth, or religion.
Bretz outlived his tormentors, and saw his hypothesis accepted.
For the record, there was more than one flood and more than one source of water.
Ice Age Floods Institute: https://iafi.org/
Sorry, that was supposed to be per DAY.
One thing is certain, no-one wanted to buy sea side property.
I’ve just been reading a history where the author remarks that in the 2nd century AD the sea level in the Solway Firth was nearly 5 metres higher than today. Consequently there was at Netherby – on the Esk, near Carlisle – a river port, used by the Roman fleet that policed the upper Solway.
Can he have got his facts right?
5m sounds high. But Caerlaverock Castle nr Dumfries used to have sea access, but is well above sea level
The raised beaches in Scotland indicate that isostatic rebound was at a greater rate than the sealevel rise after the last iceage. I think that there is evidence of raised beaches from the previous interglacial. The rebound in Scotland must have been in the ordrr of 130 metres. I’ve never read anything about whether thebland was inundated and then reappeared again or whether it kept ahead of the rising sea.
Time to buy a houseboat, methinks.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Wow? Another scare, but again with no attempt to document or explain what could possibly be done to prevent it. We cannot capture and store enough CO2 to even return to the melting ice in 2015… about 78 billion tons would be needed. Never mind all that ice in the 1920s and 30s before CO2 was the problem. When will these climate alarmists realize there is no realistic solution that involves lowering atmospheric CO2 by negative emission technologies, or planting lots of new trees? The children are protesting the inaction, and in need of the answer. What is it? Hello?
“What is it? Hello?”
Gaia can melt ice and make snow. This can be done in a hurry, as She sees fit.
Mid-April Blizzard to Clobber the Upper Midwest
up to 30 inches of snow
Often these things are over predicted, but they don’t want to be wrong on the low side.
Note they end their figures in 2016. Is that because those glaciers have been increasing since 2016? The greenland glaciers are increasing (see tony heller’s ‘deplorable climate science’ blog. the antarctic glaciers are growing – so much so that the iceshelf is about to snap off. The 2 largest New zealand glaciers (fox and franz Josef) are also increasing again.
Oh my, whoever thought that climate waxs and wanes in cycles!!!! Oh my, how did the Thames valley get carved? Oh, by a glacier! That’s retreated – for now – but will be back!
That’s good to know. About the loss of ice that is. But how much was gained?
Wasn’t there a news item last week about a major Greenland glacier growing again?
Here ya go: Polar PortalSeason Report 2018
You’ll find Fig 5 of interest:
From the report:
In 2017 there was much ado about an Alaskan glacier changing the direction of the river it feeds. Media talked about water “piracy” and blamed global warming/climate change. The story has a kernel of truth but the science of glaciers is complicated, having little to do with CO2. It was an education for me to dig into the science and the post is here for anyone interested in glacier background and context.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/glaciermania/
Good gosh. It’s as if they don’t believe in the natural process anymore; that nature does things.
The great Missoula floods come to mind.
There has been multiple “Climate Scare stories” in the Daily Mail every day this week.
This morning the BBC News Channel had a Female Scientist talking about Ice melting in Antarctica.
The only place in Anarctica where Ice can “melt” due to air temperatures is around the coast, the rest of it is below zero down to -50C.
They are getting ever more desperate.
I would be interested to see the results of their geodetic satellite survey in 1961 which would be necessary for an apples-with-apples assessment of glacier changes.
My understanding is that these techniques only started to be used in the ’90s (wrt glaciers) so the baseline measurements must originated from physical records of glacier movement, and I am guessing not every glacier in the world had that level of attention. Thus I suspect a lot of modelling is going on here, and we should also expect the error bars to be set pretty wide.
Sorry A C, the original was supposed to be a general comment, not a reply to you.
However I was planning to add to your comment the fact that Attenborough has a new work of fiction starting on the BBC this week, I think, described by BBC as an “urgent” new documentary about climate change. So I think that may explain the press activity.
“Glaciers have lost more than 9 trillion tons (that is 9,625,000,000,000 tons) of ice between 1961 and 2016”
sure glaciers melt – that’s a natural process and glaciers/ice sheets are in constant flux. What I’d like to see their assessment of how much ice has accreted in said period, ain’t it – it’s the stuff that they don’t tell you.
Let’s put this in perspective. The Outer Banks along North Carolina, South Carolina, etc. are barrier islands which form along coastal areas. They are, therefore, subject to where the ocean actually is at a given time.
During the height of glaciation the most water is tied up in ice sheets more than a mile in depth. Therefore the oceans are lowered. Conversely, during the height of the inter-glacial period when the glaciers are melted and water returned to the oceans, they rise. I will add that you also have to take the isostatic rebound as the crust readjusts to the weight of ice being removed. Of course it was changed by the weight of ice being added. As the rebound occurs, there are dips and slants in the crust and it is not like a flat sheet rising. This also accounts for uneven ocean “rises” in given areas.
The barrier islands along the North Carolina shore have been as much as 40 miles east during the height of glaciation when the ocean was some 400 feet lower. The fall-line (ancient ocean shore) is near Raleigh, North Carolina (nearly half way across the state) denoting the height of an ancient inter-glacial period.
You, across the pond, have Doggerland which once connected Great Britain to the rest of Europe. About the same time the Outer Banks formed, it disappeared.
Their figures are interesting.
Back of the envelope calculations:
9,625,000,000,000 tonnes of ice = 8,855,000,000,000
tonnes of water (Ice density = 0.92) = 8,855,000,000,000
m3
Surface area of oceans = 361,132,000,000,000 m2
Sea level rise = 0.0245 m = 24.5 mm
Another thought – have they accounted for sublimation (“a largely unquantified component of glacier mass loss worldwide” http://glacierhub.org/2018/11/14/where-the-yala-glaciers-ice-is-going/) ?
Reported rates of sublimation vary from 12% to 23% of annual precipitation with a mean of 19%, I have not tracked down sublimation rates for bare ice.
If snow has a density of 0.1 and glacier ice is 0.92 then glacier ice is compressed to 11% of the initial snow depth, this suggests that a minimum of 2% of the glacier ice mass loss is due to sublimation. This reduces sea level rise over the period to 24mm and it probably has a greater effect.
Apologies for logic error – back of the wrong envelope.
9,625,000,000,000 tonnes of ice = 9,625,000,000,000 m3 of water
Surface area of oceans = 361,132,000,000,000 m2
Sea level rise = 0.02665 m = 26.65 mm
= 0.476 mm year = 47.59mm/century.
Close enough to 27mm for government work – although still not allowing for sublimation.
What a schoolboy error I made when I moved house. I was on top of the North Downs at a safe 600ft but am now down at just 164ft – I’m gonna drown!!!
Just a small point to remember – melting sea ice will not raise sea levels. If you need proof place an ice cube in a glass and then fill it to the brim with water. The ice will melt but the water will not overflow.
This would also be true of the majority of land ice loss from calving ice shelves (Antarctic, Greenland, Canadian/Russian Arctic) where the floating land ice is already displacing around 90% of its volume.
Hopefully correct calculations this time – effect of ice loss including ice shelf displacement oh sea level.
% Ice Shelf Seal Level Rise (mm)
100 0.002826901
90 0.035336258
80 0.205443363
70 0.778194557
60 2.185939766
50 4.879329834
40 9.03579599
30 14.29714555
20 19.74743861
10 24.20029241
0 26.65230442
I thought I read last week that one or two of Greenland’s biggest glaciers had advanced in the last couple of years surprising the desk jockey climate scientists who model and predict this sort of thing
Does that mean the Dutch will have to raise their dikes by 2 inches?
I wonder why the Dutch have dikes?
Do they have a purpose?
What are they for?
They must be incredibly expensive and hard to construct if a 21st Century society will a vast array of heavy equipment couldn’t build one 2 inches high in 100 years.
Surely 27mm in 55 years is 1/2 inch per century.