Map showing the rates of mass changes from ICESat 2003-2008 over Antarctica. Image: Jay Zwally/ Journal of Glaciology
Ten thousand years ago, the planet slowly began to warm up. As it slowly emerged from the grip of the last ice age, the air carried more moisture across the Antarctic continent, doubling the amount of snow on the ice sheet. And although many other studies have proven that the ice sheet is melting, NASA scientists released a study a few days ago saying that massive snowfall all those years ago is “currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.” Which means quite a few things.
First off, it means that a lot of people will read a headline and immediately turn into vindictive assholes claiming that “climate change alarmists” are idiots and they were right all along and those granola eating hippies should go back to their vegan tofu steaks and Birkenstocks. Those people are idiots who should be wholly ignored, because that is not what NASA is saying.
Although NASA’s new research posits that the Antarctic ice sheet gained 112 billion tons of ice per year from 1992 to 2001 with a net gain of 82 billion tons per year between 2003 and 2008, they are still worried about the planet’s overall rising temperatures and corresponding sea level changes. “The good news,” said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away. But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
In 2013, one of the most important studies on ice changes in the Antarctic was done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or the IPCC). They found that overall, it was in fact losing ice–and at an alarming rate. Though NASA had different conclusions, they do agree on many standpoints. “We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” said Zwally. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”
Either way, though, the future still looks grim, according to whoever you talk to that has done any research in the area. “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,” Zwally continued, “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.” When Zwally’s research team concentrated on the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, they found staggering losses–as much as 65 billion tons per year from 1992 to 2008.
The Antarctic, while so hostile to us, is extraordinarily important to global health. The ice sheet, attaching East and West Antarctica, acts as a global air conditioner that keeps ocean temperatures in check, alters massive currents that move huge amounts of water around the world, regulates heat, moisture and gas exchange between our atmosphere and the ocean, and creates the intensely cold conditions at the bottom of the sea. No one is disagreeing that climate change is happening… they’re just disagreeing on where it is happening.
