Sundays

Sundays are just for me... and blowing off steam

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Sea Ice in Antarctica - What kind of news did you expect?

 More news on the climate front out of Antarctica. It is bad news; what other kind of news could it be?

An aside here. I have started using "Grammarly" which is great for fixing missing words, composition problems, and more. But it makes recommendations that change the way I write. I tend to write like I talk. With parentheticals - you know, comments after commas or dashes - suffice it to say that Grammarly regularly flags these as very fixable.

I had an English teacher, at USC no less, that used to say I made grammatical mistakes, but that my meanings were clear. And that was more important.  Anywho...

It turns out that Antarctic sea ice fluctuates mildly from year to year. Until this year. This year it has astonished observers by being SO MUCH less than usual. It's not El Nino, since the 1970s data there have been lots of El Ninos.

They've found all kinds of odd stuff they did not expect. Warm water under the ice shelves are causing unique problems, and currents are changing. And for a long time, the ice cover was growing by small amounts year over year.

And then, all of a sudden, sea ice levels have crashed. There is no doubt to me that we have hit a tipping point where the old rules no longer apply. Worryingly, there is a lot of sea level rise that was outlooked for decades or centuries from now, that is happening (checks watch) now.



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