Why are “Zombie Ice” and other claims about melting ice in Greenland raising sea levels just modeled hokum – Watts Up With That?

From testing your Chinese soot before you test your CO2 control climate model unit.

One of this week’s silliest climate claims is the “Zombie Ice” that was alarmed and almost always wrong. Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press.

Of course he just made up the term “Zombie Ice” for the title. It does not exist in scientific research.

Other headlines such as this one on the Washington Post are less absurd.

On Monday, August 29, 2022, The Washington Post (WaPo) made a request that melting of the Greenland ice sheet will raise global sea levels by one foot by 2050 or possibly by 2100. This is false and easily disproved.

One of the favorite scare stories that continue to circulate about the effects of climate change is the never-ending alarm about future sea level rise. Back in 1989, when today’s general phrase of “climate change” was called “global warming”, there was this prediction from the United Nations (UN) mentioned in a Associated Press story.

A senior United Nations environment official said that entire countries could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if global warming trends are not reversed by 2000. .”

The statement issued by the UN official is based on computer models that predict future sea levels. Apparently, the models were wrong, because that statement never happened. Today, 22 years past due, not a country, not even a city has been “wiped out from the face of the Earth by rising sea levels”.

Today, we have the same old fear story; Computer models designed and interpreted by humans, who fully believe in what they programmed, are used to create a scary story in the major media.

First, consider the claim in the subject line: Greenland ice sheet can raise sea level by nearly a foot, study finds

Sounds dire, doesn’t it? Surely some low-rise places built right next to the sea will be flooded if that happens.

In the body of the story they say this, which reinforces me:

Human-driven climate change has caused massive ice loss in Greenland that could not be stopped even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, according to a new study. new research second publication.

Findings from the Natural Climate Change project show that 3.3% of Greenland Ice will melt – by 110 trillion tons of ice, said the researchers. That would cause global sea levels to rise by almost one percent.

These predictions are more dire than others, even though they use different assumptions. While The study did not specify a timeframe for melting and sea level risesuggested authors most of it could take place between now and 2100.

No timeframe specified for a required increment? How can peer-reviewed climate science be so inaccurate?

110 trillion won tons of ice? That sounds unimaginably big, and most people can’t even begin to understand its significance. For most people, the number alone is already scary.

Let’s solve the big scary problem “110 trillion” first tons of ice” is expected to be melted. In our companion site, Climate at a glance (CAAG) we have debugged this issue in Climate at a glance: Greenland ice melt.

The key point to consider is this: When recent ice loss is compared with the entire Greenland ice sheet, the loss is so small it’s almost undetectable.

Over the past few decades, claims of melting ice in Greenland have been used to reinforce fears about rising sea levels. For example, NASA scientists have said the following about the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica:

“Two regions have lost 6.4 trillion tons of ice over three decades; unabated, this rate of thaw could cause floods affecting hundreds of millions of people by 2100.”

While a few trillion tons of ice sounds like a massive loss of ice, it represents less than 1% of Greenland’s total ice mass. As shown in Figure 1, the total amount of ice loss each year is almost undetectable, accounting for only 0.005% of the Greenland ice sheet.

As you can see, even if the 3% figure predicted by the computer model some time in the future does come true, it’s still very small compared to all the ice sheets in Greenland.

However, there are two very important real-world things that weren’t covered in the new study. The first is the weather patterns, and the second is the black soot.

Weather models, not climate change, determine if ice is melting in Greenland. In July 2021, the alarm was raised for a day-long weather event in Greenland in the summer when clouds covered and the sun came out, melting the surface layer.

Greenland: Enough ice melts on single day to cover Florida in two inches of waterdeclared Guardians. It’s another story about climate, and what they didn’t tell you that was the very next day, all that melted water froze again when the clouds came back. Water never reaches the ocean.

The new study cited by WaPo simply doesn’t affect weather models, but assumes a simple linear cause from atmospheric carbon dioxide warming the planet enough to cause enough melting to lift the ink. sea ​​level up a step in the future, maybe by 2050, maybe in 2100 – they’re not sure because both dates are used in the paper.

Another factor not considered is Black soot deposited on Greenland ice. Both wildfires and increased industrialization contribute to that soot. Black carbon black absorbs more sunlight, thereby increasing its ability to retain heat from sunlight, and enhances melting. Again peer-reviewed research said Asia’s booming coal-based economy is the main cause of soot depositing in the Arctic, including in Greenland. They say:

Ice and sea are two of the most naturally reflective surfaces on planet Earth. Light-absorbing aerosols, such as wind-blown black carbon, stick to these pristine surfaces which can make them less reflective, thus converting more sunlight into heat. The extra heat leads to increased surface temperatures and is detrimental to the Arctic climate.

Notice in the chart Figure 1 how the real ice melt didn’t start until around 2001. If climate change were to be the cause, you’d see the ice melt all the way back to 1980, because of global carbon dioxide levels. Demand has stabilized steadily and is believed to be warming the planet ever since. What really happened around 2001 becomes clear in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows that China’s coal use really exploded around 2001, and as most people know, Coal produces a significant amount of soot when burned, which is why it is dubbed “dirty fuel”. A PhD in climate science is not required to see a clear correlation between coal use, China’s carbon black production, and post-2001 Greenland ice melt.

New research cited by WaPo completely misses that. What will happen in the future if China uses less coal and produces less soot?

Finally, let’s run the numbers so far and without the aid of a billion dollar supercomputer we can create our own simple mathematical model to forecast sea level rise Future. Are from Climate at a glance: Sea level rise We have these numbers:

Global sea level has increased since at least the mid-1800sand the data showed that there were only minor acceleration recently. NASA satellite instruments, with readings dating back to 1993, show that global sea levels are rising at a rapid rate only 1.2 inches per decadeeven after 2001 with additional melting from Greenland.

So, if we choose 2050 as the end date of the 1 foot projected sea level rise, the calculation is:

2050-2022 = 28 years. We will round three decades.
3 decades x 1.2”/decade = 3.6” in 2050

Or for 2100 we have:

2100-2022 = 78 years. We will round eight decades.
8 decades x 1.2”/decade = 9.6” in 2100

No matter which end date you choose, you still can’t get a 1-foot sea level rise as the study cited. And since the study couldn’t even date that, they didn’t look at soot, weather patterns, or changes to energy production, particularly in China. It’s not just a guesswork exercise wrapped up in a colleague. – Paper has been evaluated to give reporters a sense of credibility.

And this is what zombie reporters, er, an intellectual like Seth Borenstein and Chris Mooney won’t tell you. “The Greenland ice sheet hit a record 7 gigatons of snow/ice yesterday, the most of any summer month since the early 1980s. Journos are selective, they will report one day. the record melts, but you can bet your hard earned dollars this won’t make any big headlines.” (h/t Chris Martz on Twitter)

Looking back at the impossible, irresponsible, and spurious sea level claim made in 1989, today’s articles from WaPo and AP remind me of Yogi Berra’s best quote ever. : ‘It’s Deja Vu Again’

Note: Some parts of this essay originally appeared on Climate realism – Anthony