THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 111, April 28, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
INCREDIBLE SEA LEVEL RISE IS NOT CREDIBLE
By Dennis T. Avery
GLOBAL WARMING & MELTING POLAR ICE CAPS: SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING THE BUILD-UP OF ICE IN THE
ANTARCTIC REGION CONTRADICTS THE PROPAGANDA OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS
FULL STORY:
A recent scientific paper quoted in the New York Times claimed Mexican corals that died 120,000 years ago
showed sea levels might have surged 10 feet in just 50 years! If so, such a sea-level rise must have involved a big
ice-melt in Antarctica.
Beware, however. Global warming alarmists are particularly desperate to claim that the Antarctic is “warming first”
— as the computerized climate models predicted the Polar Regions would. That’s a problem. Satellite readings show
the Antarctic ice is increasing by 45 billion tons per year and the Antarctic sea ice is at record-large extent.
Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, puts melting Antarctic ice into longterm
perspective. Easterbrook says there’s no way to date corals that died 120,000 years ago within an accuracy of 25 to
50 years. Dating within tens of thousands of years is more likely.
Secondly, he points out that the average temperature in the Antarctic is about 55 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. In
order to melt any ice at all, you’d have to raise the temperature of the region by 87 degrees Fahrenheit just to get to
the melting point of ice. To do this in 50 years is — incredible!
Third, notes Easterbrook, the volume of ice in the Antarctic is about 30 million cubic kilometers. To melt most of this
ice in ten years, 2 to 3 million cubic kilometers would have had to melt per year; and, remember, the average
temperature is -55 degrees Fahrenheit. This is far beyond anything even the computer models have imagined.
It is certainly likely that ice melted 120,000 years ago during the very warm Eemian Warming. But what produced the
heat for that melting? With no humans to blame, it must have been the sun. If the sun can vary that much in the
geologically recent past, how can we be sure that it hasn’t been the sun raising the earth’s temperature in the past
150 years?
When the last Ice Age began to end, glaciers covered North America as far south as Ohio and New York’s Long
Island. Then the sun caused the planet to enter a warming phase. At its maximum warming rate, however,
Easterbrook notes that the glaciers melted at about 1 meter per century.
Today, those huge glaciers are gone, and the oceans have already recovered about 400 feet of depth. Only two ice
caps are left, with nearly all of it in the Antarctic and the rest in Greenland. Easterbrook does not see the potential for
sea level rising faster than the one meter per century at the end of the last Ice Age — particularly with the slow,
erratic warming that has occurred over the past 150 years.
John Stone, of the University of Washington, noted in a 2003 paper that glaciers and ice caps take thousands of
years to melt because their surfaces reflect so much of the sun’s heat away. He says that even the relatively
vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet, at least 10,000 years past its most recent Ice Age, still has another 7,000 years
worth of ice to melt. Another Little Ice Age — or a big one — is certain to come along before that process is
complete.
Ian Allison, of the Australian Antarctic Division, says a recent meeting of the Antarctic Treaty Nations noted the
South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades,” and that recent ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring
show no large-scale ice-melt over most of Antarctica.
Remember Stone’s watchword — ice caps take thousands of years to melt because they deflect so much of the sun’s
heat away. It takes 80 times as much heat to melt a one-inch cube of ice as to raise the temperature of the water one
degree Celsius. Based on real-life physics, the Antarctica cannot melt rapidly.
SOURCES:
Sea Rise projected from Coral: “Coral Study in Mexico Suggests Rapid Sea Rise from Warming” New York Times, April
16, 2009.
Antarctic gaining ice: Curt Davis et al, “Snowfall Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level
Rise, Science, Vol. 308, 2005, pp. 1898–1901.
Antarctic sea ice extent: “Earth’s temperature 8th-warmest on record so far,” USA Today, April 16, 2009:
Slow melt of Antarctic ice: John Stone et al., “Holocene Deglaciation of Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctic,” Science 299,
pp 99-102, 2003.
Antarctic Treaty nations meeting: “Report: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking,” Fox News, April 18, 2009.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global
Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at P.O. Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421, or send email
to cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity