Antarctica’s melting ice shelves have unleashed 7.5 TRILLION tonnes of water into the oceans since 1997–Daily Mail
By Paul Homewood
We’re all going to drown – Part 94
Over the last 25 years, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets have released a staggering 7.5 trillion tonnes of water into the ocean, a study has revealed.
Analyzing over 100,000 satellite radar images, researchers from the University of Leeds discovered a steady erosion of the continent’s ice sheets, with over 40 per shrinking between 1997 and 2021.
While some ice sheets did grow in size during this time, the data revealed that a third have now lost more than 30 per cent of their initial mass – unleashing vast quantities of freshwater in the process.
Worryingly, scientists say this vast release of fresh water could threaten to destabilise ocean currents and contribute to global sea level rise.
What’s more, human-induced climate change means that ice melt will continue to happen faster in the future, the experts warn.
The scientists found that, while almost all the ice sheets on the east coast were melting, many ice sheets on the west coast stayed the same size or grew.
This is due to the patterns of ocean currents which surround Antarctica, carrying water of different temperatures.
While the Western side is exposed to warm waters which erode the ice shelves from below, East Antarctica is protected by a band of colder water close to the shore.
Overall, 59 trillion tonnes of water have been added to the continent’s ice shelves since 1975.
However, this was offset by the 67 trillion tonnes that were lost.
The biggest losses took place at the Getz Ice Shelf, which lost 1.9 trillion tonnes of water.
For perspective, one trillion tones of ice would make a cube more than six miles (10 km) in every direction – more than half a mile taller than Mt Everest!
Of this loss, 95 per cent was caused by melting and five per cent by ‘calving’, where large chunks of ice break off into the ocean.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Antarctica, the Amery Ice Shelf gained 1.2 trillion tonnes of ice due to the colder waters surrounding it.
What this study does not mention is the fact that trillions of tonnes of ice are lost every year, due to both calving and melt. That is what ice sheets and glaciers do. And the loss is replenished by snowfall over the Antarctic continent.
So to argue that the influx of freshwater could destabilise ocean currents is frankly a con.
And as ever with these Antarctic studies, there is an data prior to the handful of recent years, which are a mere speck in time. So we don’t know if any of this is out of the ordinary.
What is interesting though is this figure from the actual paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0186
Now let’s home in on the top right graph:
We can see that the Total Mass Change (black line) has remained stable since around 2000. If anything it has risen slightly. This actually corroborates another study in May this year, which found that the Antarctic ice shelf had grown between 2009 and 2019.
All of the decline took place between 1997 and 2001. Whatever happened back then, and there must be question mark over the quality of the data then, it certainly is not occurring now, although there are evidently regional variations.
Also note the massive margins of error. We actually don’t know whether the ice sheets are growing, shrinking or staying the same.
This in itself makes the whole study meaningless.
But no doubt it will generate lots more grant money for “further research”!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Interestingly when you fill a glass with ice,then add liquid to the top, when the ice melts it does not come pouring over the top of the glass.
Apparently some Ancient Greek scientist worked this out centuries ago. Eureka
So Martin, is that a glass half empty … or a glass half full statement ??? (:-))
It’s too big.
Depends on the thermal expansion coefficient of the glass. Look at your car cooling system. Higher level when hot because the water expands more than the volume of the cooling system
I use a gin and tonic but usually drink it before the ice melts so I am unconvinced
Liardetg – repeat the experiment until you are convinced.
That sound worth trying!
Making one less worried anout climate change in to the bargin.
Just more ongoing lies and propaganda to try to keep the Global Warming fraud going .
Actual data shows that they have exaggerated figures by 3000% from the real facts .
https://notrickszone.com/2023/06/05/scientists-caught-inflating-antarctic-ice-losses-3000-more-than-observations/
The Antarctic ice sheet does vary year by year . But 2014 /2015 it was shown as the largest on record . [ Not sure how far back that record goes ].
And other real records show the Antarctic temperatures have not got any warmer over the last 50 years or so .
Full satellite data on ice area starts in 1980.
Japanese Antarctic observatory thinks slight cooling for 50yrs
“But no doubt it will generate lots more grant money for “further research”! ”
Paul, can you get some grant money for all the further research you do into the veracity of all these junk ‘ research’ papers ??
Hahahahahahaha!
That made my day.
The reason why that will never happen is that their “cyense” is being produced to support an agenda, not to be confused with science which is a journey not a goal in search of the truth. Remember Dr Peter Ridd who had his career destroyed by James Cook University for doing science which showed up a bunch of his colleagues for doing anything but science?
That case shone a light on the epic scale of corruption which is taking place. Here is how this all works.
At the bottom spineless “scientists” apply for funding with applications run through with handwringing nonsense about klymutt sheyngshe and how it is worse than they thought and how “their” research is critical to the future of the pwannet. . They get the funding which pays for their lousy job as well as letting them hire more and more underlings so their egos inflate. They also get to write worthless “oh no, it is worse than we thought”, letters and papers to once upon a time academic journals who publish them based on how often they use the klymutt buzz words, thereby enhancing their career prospects in this corrupt pyramid of lies. A three times win.
The funding comes in bucket loads from the tainted national bodies (wasting your hard earned taxes) as well as from commercial entities wanting a to get their noses into the troff as part of the Klymutt industrial complex. Now those in the funding bodies spend the calendar year jetting off here and there to pointless conferences staying in very nice hotels having their egos massaged giving lectures and being awarded prizes for wittering on about how much of out hard earned taxes they have wasted on pointless research projects.
Those from the commercial entities get funding for worthless klymutt projects several orders of magnitude above the research funding they have given ( which of course was also tax deductible so you and I pay again). The Universities win because a substantial part of the funding received goes directly into the university…bricks and mortar allowing them to hire hundreds more bureaucrats and yes a few more full time staff performing junk science at best and meaningless modelling at the worst.
Ultimately the money is all taken from your pocket and not one penny of it progresses science or by inference contributes to the future wellbeing of mankind one jot. This is a closed ecosystem and the last thing any of them need is someone like Paul shining a light on the corruption which it embodies.
Ahh….I’m afraid research grants are only given to true believers in climate change. That’s why there is so little questioning of this religion by these “scientists”.
As I understand it, Western Antarctic and the Antarctic Peninsular in particular, where most of the claimed ice loss occurs, overlies a chain of volcanoes, some of which are currently active. This of course cannot possibly cause any ice loss unlike CO2.
Far be it from me to suggest that Climate so-called Scientists use evidence to possibly support their beautiful theory but they might want to check the sea level gauges around the Antarctic. Nothing to see here except hyperbolic headlines.
Fort Denison (in Sydney Harbour) sea level gauge says no sea level rise since 1911 (slight fluctuations year by year). Geological stable substrate.
The 2013(?) ship of fools went down to Antarctica to study ice retreat and was struck in pack ice 110 Km. away from where Douglas Mawson was able to moor his ship in 1910/11.
‘7.5 trillion tonnes of water into the ocean’
What is that in cubic elephants?
‘a study has revealed’
What have we here, laddie, a study?
The rate of sea level rise is unchanged in a hundred years. Their gazillion gallons are irrelevant.
‘What’s more, human-induced climate change means that ice melt will continue to happen faster in the future, the experts warn.’
Wut? That’s just juvenile.
Higher temp more evaporation? A sort of equilibrium that nature excels in.
There is no evaporation in the Antarctic . . .
‘Of this loss, 95 per cent was caused by melting and five per cent by ‘calving’, where large chunks of ice break off into the ocean.’
No evaporation (!).
I wonder how many trillion tons of snow (water) have fallen on antarctica since 1997 and are sitting there compressed to ice?
The height of the ice sheet covering antartica has grown approx 12inches a year over the last decades. Lots of that eventually cascades to the sea and breaks away.
It may be that the NET balance of water on Antarctica has increased!
Curiously the apparent error in total mass change gets bigger the closer the estimate gets to today. I cannot imagine any way that could be realistic. Says all you need to know…
It’s a statistical quirk of calculating error rather than considering error. Do I think examining satellite images has any kind of accuracy? No, not at all and who is going to check? Can you feed done numbers into a statistical model that yells you the error is small? Yes.
If 40% are melting does that mean that 60% are not,or even gaining mass,or am I missing something?
Trying to analyze goofball science will just leave you frustrated.
Yes, my thought too.
I may be wrong but I calculate that 7.5 trillion tonnes of water (7.5 x 10(12) tonnes) is 0.0006% of all the water in all of the oceans based upon the NOAA’s estimate of 1.3 x 10(9) cubic kilometres of ocean water.
If correct then this isn’t going to make much of an increase in sea level.
When it comes to climate change, that old adage “follow the money” works pretty well: https://wordpress.com/post/silvercityburro.com/1132
They try to impress with large numbers. Don’t buy it.
The “7.5 TRILLION tonnes” over 26 years translates to 288.5 gigatonnes per year, right?
The total mass of the Antarctic ice sheet is stated at 24.4 million gigatonnes on Wiki.
Hence follows that he annual loss has been no less than a massive 0.0012 % per year.
Compare to having 24.4 MUSD in a bank account and you were charged an annual fee of $288. Sheer panic of course!
Antarctica’s melting ice sheets have released a staggering 7.5 trillion tonnes of water into the ocean
So let’s spend at least $1 per ton, sorry…tonne, trying to put it all back again 🙄
From NASA’s satellite data, sea level rise between 1997 and 2021 averaged 3.1mm per year.
Removing steric changes (33.3% according to NASA) leaves 2.1 mm/year to ice melt.
From these figures Antarctica contributed 0.83mm/year (40.5%) and Greenland (NASA data 2002-2021) 0.72mm/year (35.4%).
This leaves 0.5mm/year (24.1%) for ‘other sources’ which seems a little high.
Perhaps satellite measures of sea level are overestimating what is happening?
The huge plumes of warm water being spewed up the the line of active submarine volcanoes off the western coast would be having a major effect on ice melt.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110715-undersea-volcanoes-antarctica-science-tsunamis#:~:text=A%20chain%20of%20giant%2C%20undersea,to%20the%20British%20Antarctic%20Survey.
Thanks. I was thinking of that and also the chain of undersea volcanoes leading from New Zealand northward into the Pacific . A recent one surfaced. Was it near Tonga?
When you see elites selling their waterfront mansions you may be concerned, until then, it’s just part of the hoax
According to Wiki (okay, not the best source of information), the Antarctic ice sheet weighs about 24,380,000 gigatonnes. The study talks about a loss of about 10,000 GT per year. So, 0.04% per year.
Wouldn’t that fall within the measuring error of the mass of the entire ice sheet?
1 trillion tones of water has a volume of 1000 cubic km at standard condition, so 7.5 trillion tonnes water is equal to 7500 cubic km, the area of the worlds oceans is little over 361 million square km , so the 7500 km³ would raise sea level by about 7500/361000000 c.a = 0.0000208 km or 0.0208 meters = 2.08 cm. Over the 26 year period that gives a rise of ~ 2.08/26 = 0.079 ~ 0.08 mm average annual rise. (We are all going to drown hahaha)