but what about the ice melting? answers for bedwetters of the apocalypse*

I received another email from a reader about these posts at Tim Blair's Delusion Widespread post. Thought you'd be interested in reading them.

I thought you may be interested and also with the additional comment from Mark L after the response to this comment. See here -- Scroll down to:

Jovial Monk of Unley, SA Fri 11 Jul 08 (06:29pm)
Scientists see effects of global warming growing in Antactica.
But of course, AGW doesn’t exist, LOL

Wand replied to Jovial MonkFri 11 Jul 08 (09:45pm).

Scientists see effects of global warming growing in Antactica.

and from the article

“So it’s really a fundamentally, at the most basic level, a response to warmer temperatures.”

Dr Meier contributed to last October’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Good grief! Where do these people get their joy juice? Have they never studied Physics and learned a few fundamental properties of water and about heat flows? Are they unaware of the latent heat of fusion of ice. Can they ever explain the precise physical processes that they say are occurring as the ice ‘melts’?

I’d say not because there is no way that the air in the Antarctic at these temperatures can impart enough heat energy to make any difference let alone melt any ice. It is physically impossible for any global warming to have any effect here, yet still they persist with this nonsense. (Not that there is any global warming)

Stress fracture in the ice - yes. Warming and melting - no. It’s just not possible.

So come on Walt Meier, what’s your explanation of the Physics in action here? (I won’t hold my breath for any reply from you or anyone else).

MarkL of Canberra replied to Jovial MonkSat 12 Jul 08 (03:21pm)

Aaah, the Jovial Monk, another bedwetter of the apocalypse (*™ Lotocoti Inc.)

The ocean currents are melting the ice inland on a continental landmass? Um. How?

JM, I know that you can legally grow your own wackybaccy in SA, but think of what it does to your cogitive abilities, man!

You do know that 97% of Antarctica has been cooling since the 1950s, and building ice cover, and that only the Antarctic Peninsula (3% of the Antarctic landmass) is warming slightly and for reasons not understood, don’t you?

You do know that this gradually thickening icecap is causing gradually accelerated glacial flows to slowly extend the ice shelves, yes? You know that these shelves then break away as the ice flexes after it leaves the grounding line, yes?

Thought not....

MarkL
canberra

Further to these two comments, the point made is actually very important and I have never seen it raised in this 'debate'.

In case you are interested here is some more detail:

AGW proponents including many scientists (who should know better) claim that AGW is causing all sorts of events with seemingly no regard for what they are saying.

The story linked on Blair's blog was from the ABC where you will read that:

"Summertime is becoming warmer in the Antarctic Peninsula area where the Wilkins is and so we have had more melt than in the past, and that's obviously going to make things more susceptible to breaking up," he said.

"We also have had a strong decrease in sea ice in that area particularly in the summertime and that allows warmer ocean currents and oceans waves to kind of buffet that ice shelf, and that also probably contributes to the break up.

"So it's really a fundamentally, at the most basic level, a response to warmer
temperatures."

Dr Meier contributed to last October's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now for some Physics about ice, water and heat transfer.

1. The solid state of water is called ice. The freezing point of water is 0 degrees Celsius.

2. To change the state of water from water to ice, or from ice to water (i.e., to freeze water or melt ice) requires energy. That energy is known as the latent heat of fusion and is 80 calories per gram.

3. 1 gram of water is the same as 1 cubic centimetre and to put this into perspective, if you took 1 cc of tap water (at about room temperature of 20 degrees C) it would take 80 calories to heat that water to boiling point of 100 degrees C.

4. So the energy required to melt a litre (or kilogram) of ice, i,e., to convert it into water at 0 degrees C is that same amount of energy required to bring a similar amount of tap water (at 20 degrees C) to the boil.

5. Heat can only transfer from a hotter body to a colder body.

In the Antarctic, the air is always frigging cold. See the reference source quoted. Forget about the warmest and coldest temperatures. The means (let's call them averages for the sake of discussion - may not be quite the same but it doesn't matter) are Winter: -40 to -94°F (-40 to -70°C); Summer: -5 to -31°F (-15 to -35°C)

There is absolutely NO way with these conditions that any heat could be transferred to the ice to cause it to melt! There is no heat in the air!

For the sake of it, I've also looked at the ice temperatures in the Antarctic. Here's a map but the map is of temperatures at a depth of 10 metres. Some additional data here (a little dated but note it is in negative C readings) shows much the same for ice closer to the surface.

All that can be concluded from all this data is that the ice is about as cold as the air ... hellish cold at that.

So it is not possible for the air to cause the ice to melt. Meier did make a suggestion in the article above warmer ocean currents... but there is no evidence of any warmer ocean currents due to AGW. The main claim about AGW is that the air temperatures have risen and the 'standard' agreed change is + 0.55 over the last century. Actually I have even come to doubt that number given the way the data has been manipulated, the 'noise' in the measurements, the relevance of the locations of the data sources in determining an overall picture across the globe as well as uncertainty about the consistency in the data. I'd say a proper review of the data would conclude we just cannot be certain one way or another. Perhaps that doesn't matter - a half a degree of two degrees - so what.

But when it comes to claims of ice melting as a result of air temperatures increasing that is different. The scientists who make these claims would know . Supposedly they are atmospheric scientists and would be familiar with the Physics of heat flows. Knowingly making these claims is straight fraud. It's shocking really that so many are prepared to join a bandwagon of lies.