Engineering360: "Video: Antarctic Ice Loss Tripled Since 2012"

Wow! 190 feet of sea level rise is staggering!

This is sobering news for everyone, unless you believe that Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Those alive today, their offspring and generations of offspring may not be adversely affected.

However, coastal Naval and military bases are already seeing the sea levels rise in many places. Little to nothing is being done and NASA's Earth climate satellite study budget has been decimated.

Not until an administration is put in place that believes in, and uses science as a tool, and not until an administration is put in place that values human lives over corporate profits will we see any effort to mitigate the warming and the damage it is, and will, cause.

It really is only a small but well connected group of deniers who refuse to acknowledge why this is happening. The real crux of the problem is a three fold problem of circumstance.

1. The lack of immediate alternatives.
2. The long lag between action and reaction.
3. NIMBY based self centeredness.

I know, I know. We're preaching to the choir or at least you and I to each other right now. Any moment now, the naysayers will swarm in thumping their Puritanical chests like razorback gorillas trying to attract a mate.

At least some (3) of the most obnoxious gorillas are no longer on here.

None of the remedies are easy, nor inexpensive.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it can also be fatal.

I wonder what might be causing this ice loss?

Any validity here?

https://yellowhammernews.com/upcoming-research-will-buck-the-consensus-and-show-antarctica-is-still-gaining-ice/

appears to be another radical conservative propaganda machine, based in the heart of KKK land, Alabama.

Not sure if the name is related to the bird of the same name.

This is classic denial propaganda. The article by Michael Bastasch discusses a paper by Jay Zwally that has yet to be released. <Translation> This article contains no factual information.

The article claims the main reason the yet to be released paper differs from consensus papers is that it uses a different adjustment of the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (a fudge factor) for how much the Earth under this ice moves due to a load change. Nowhere in this brief hatchet job of an article about a paper that may or may not one day exist is there any mention of either the measurements or assumptions one must take to reach any conclusion.

A quick Google search for Jay Zwally shows that H. Jay Zwally is a glaciologist with NASA and that he along with others wrote just such a paper and published it back in July 2017.

Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses. H. Jay Zwally et al. in Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 61, No. 230, pages 1019–1036. Published online July 10, 2017.

I found this information by reading the much more thorough article by the Scientific American author, Shannon Hall. This article in particular and others I read about H. Jay Zwally's paper, but do not cite here, lead me to a few conclusions:

• Michael Bastasch is a biased hack of a reporter that should not be trusted to tell any truth, ever. He cannot perform the most rudimentary of corroboration efforts before posting a story he likes. He states a nearly year old scientific publication is actually unpublished. I suspect Mr. Bastach's typical readers are similarly incapable of thinking for themselves. Mr. Bastach might be discussing a second paper on the identical topic but that would be very unusual after publishing a comprehensive 17 page report.
• The internet does work very well for those who do think and put in the simple effort to expose bald faced lies.
• H. Jay Zwally is a well respected glaciologist. He has earned this respect by accurately reporting the details of his studies, including the necessary assumptions required to reach a conclusion from the research performed.
• NASA does not have a politically biased climate change agenda. NASA neither promotes nor impedes a publication based on any conclusion drawn.
• The fact that one scientific paper appears to a layman as a refutation of the preponderance of other scientific papers is actually an indictment of the layman's grasp of science and not the science itself.

To paraphrase Shannon Hall's conclusion, a scientific outlier ultimately ends up reinforcing science by showing where the flaws lie regardless of bias.

Thanks!

Great assessment. It always amazes my how one renegade, or even a few can sway so many gullible people.

Now, we are at a severe disadvantage with the new administration falsely claiming that science is a waste of money. Amazingly, this is one of the few things they seem to not have changed their opinion on every week.

Happy Father's Day!