The Hockey Schtick
A paper published today in Earth and Planetary Science Letters
finds evidence that one of the largest glaciers in West Antarctica, the
Thwaites Glacier, is primarily melting from below due to geothermal
heat flux from volcanoes located along the West Antarctic Volcanic Rift
System, i.e. not due to man-made CO2.
CAGW proponents
have alleged that West Antarctic glaciers such as such as the Thwaites
Glacier and the neighboring Pine Island Glacier are rapidly melting due
to man-made greenhouse gases and/or ocean heating, despite observations
showing the air temperature in the Antarctic hasn’t risen since 1979, Antarctic
sea surface temperatures have fallen since 2006, and ARGO ocean heat
content of the Southern Ocean shows no increase at any level of the top
2000 meters since the system was put in place in 2004. The authors find
the neighboring Pine Island Glacier also overlies the same
volcanic rift system and thus may also be melting from geothermal heat
below.
The West
Antarctic Volcanic Rift System is illustrated by JoNova below, and just
so happens to correspond to the areas of notable glacier melt and
alleged warming. In contrast, East Antarctica, which holds > 80% of
Antarctic ice mass and does not have any known underlying volcanoes, is
significantly increasing in ice mass.
The paper joins
several others finding geothermal heat largely if not entirely
responsible for glacier melt in multiple regions in both Antarctica and Greenland, i.e. not anthropogenic. "
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