This is why I hate debating with climate change deniers – it's like debating with creationists. You can always cherry-pick a narrow data point here or there that reinforces the nice cozy lie that “oh look, everything’s fine - nothing to worry about” self-delusion that everyone
wants to believe because the threat is so enormous and terrifying.
But those of us who don’t succumb to the denial impulse because the stakes are too high to bury our heads in the sand, look at
the entire current data set to see the complete and deathly sobering picture here.
Like:
“
Over the last 25 years, melting Antarctic ice has added nearly 3 trillion tons of water to the ocean, enough to fill Lake Erie six times over. That’s according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, which used more satellite data than any other investigation of Antarctica.
By measuring the Earth’s gravitational pull and changes in ice sheets, the researchers show a sharp uptick in Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise over the last decade.
Most of this ice loss comes from West Antarctica, where the rate of ice melting tripled over the past quarter century from 58 billion to 175 billion tons per year. Less substantial losses occurred in the Antarctic Peninsula, while East Antarctica remained mostly unchanged.”
Source: “Antarctica is losing ice twice as fast as anyone thought,” 6/13/2018
Antarctica is losing ice twice as fast as anyone thought
“The Antarctic Ice Sheet is an important indicator of climate change and driver of sea-level rise. Here we combine satellite observations of its changing volume, flow and gravitational attraction with modelling of its surface mass balance to show that it lost 2,720 ± 1,390 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017,
which corresponds to an increase in mean sea level of 7.6 ± 3.9 millimetres (errors are one standard deviation). Over this period, ocean-driven melting has caused rates of ice loss from West Antarctica to increase from 53 ± 29 billion to 159 ± 26 billion tonnes per year; ice-shelf collapse has increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic Peninsula from 7 ± 13 billion to 33 ± 16 billion tonnes per year. We find large variations in and among model estimates of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment for East Antarctica, with its average rate of mass gain over the period 1992–2017 (5 ± 46 billion tonnes per year) being the least certain.”
Source: “Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017,” 6/13/2018
Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017 | Nature
Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands' Utrecht University additionally found that
the accelerated melting caused global sea levels to rise more than half an inch during that time.”
“Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago,” 1/14/2019
Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago: Climate change-induced melting will raise global sea levels for decades to come