Over at the Cato Institute’s blog, Cato at Liberty, climate scientist Patrick J. Michaels recently wrote:
Even though this [the melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet] seemed like a very remote possibility, we can now confidently say that human-induced climate change cannot make it happen.
If the EAIS were to melt completely, he notes, sea levels would rise by 175 feet.
But that, he says in the quote above, can’t happen. Whenever someone says something can’t happen, not just that it is unlikely to happen, that gets my attention.
Why, according to Michaels, can’t it happen. He explains:
Global temperatures during the Pliocene averaged around 2-3⁰C higherthan the 20th century average. But the massive thermal inertia of Antarctica means it probably wasn’t that much warmer there. Let’s be very conservative and say it was about one degree warmer.
The Pliocene heat load over the EAIS then becomes:
3,000,000 years X 1⁰ = 3,000,000 degree-years.
Now let’s also be conservative about how long human-induced climate change might last, say, 1000 years. But again, climate change is attenuated over the vast ice-covered continent, so let’s posit we induce a global warming of 5⁰ (which is probably too large), and Antarctica warms half as much.
The maximum heat load over Antarctica then is:
1,000 years X2.5⁰ = 2,500 degree-years.
The Pliocene heat load was 1,200 times what humans could possibly exert on the EAIS, and it still remained largely intact. Because of that, fears about the ultimate climate catastrophe can no longer even be entertained.
Certainly the math is correct. I’m just not sure of the science. The key fact that led Michaels to do this calculation was in his first paragraph:
This week’s good news is that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), by far the world’s biggest ice mass, was largely intact during the entire Pliocene epoch. The Pliocene was slightly less than three million years in length, and preceded the Pleistocene, the epoch of the ice ages.
His conclusion seems to follow.
But what’s striking to me is how little notice his short blog post seems to have gotten, given its apparent importance. Is he missing something crucial? Any climate scientists out there who wish to comment?
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Jun 27 2018 at 1:52pm
There are a lot of recent publications that argue against this. Here is a summary of work done by one of the research groups. In addition, ocean heat is responsible for basal melting and we obviously have no data on this dating back to the Pliocene period. Climate science and its relationship to melting of Antarctica have a lot of moving parts and a simple envelope calculation is unlikely to provide an comforting answer.
Chris
Jun 27 2018 at 1:56pm
I don’t know enough to argue the math or conclusion, but I would guess the whole exercise is somewhat moot. If the sea levels rise even 5% of of 175ft, we’ve completely wiped most major cities off the map. (1% would probably be enough to devastate society)
I also agree that “can’t” doesn’t really give humanity credit for the level of destruction we can cause.
Jonathan Sawyer
Jun 27 2018 at 3:10pm
A 1’9″ sea level rise would “devastate society”? The only highly populated region I know of globally that might be impacted by that kind of rise in sea levels would be the southern tip of Vietnam. Smaller regions, like cities, should easily adapt Dutch-style.
People can always migrate, too. So if someone is quite confident that sea level rise is going to happen on a dramatic level, then they should easily make a killing by investing in some slightly higher elevation hinterlands surrounding low-lying megacities.
Ted
Jun 27 2018 at 4:59pm
David, I’m surprised that you find it striking when notice is proportionate to importance. When has notice EVER been proportionate to importance? If you think we should move toward a world with notice that’s more proportionate to importance, I implore you to blog more about malaria, which kills roughly half a million a year, mostly children.
Also, is a piece of news really of great important when something goes from very low probability to even lower probability? I personally was not worried about EAIS melting (even though I am worried about global warming). With this news, I will continue to be not worried about EAIS melting.
Ted
Jun 27 2018 at 5:05pm
Sorry, first sentence should say ‘when notice is *not* proportionate to importance.’
Mark Bahner
Jun 27 2018 at 11:08pm
I don’t see the point in even considering whether the EAIS could melt. One thing that can be stated for certain is that no one thinks there’s even a 0.1 percent chance of that happening in the next 100 years. It’s insane to spend significant time/money on hypothetical problems that are hundreds of years in the future.
Mark Bahner
Jun 28 2018 at 4:32pm
An addendum to my comments.
Imagine if in the year 1818 you’d had to predict the existential threats to humanity in 2018. It’s perhaps even *more* silly in 2018 to worry about existential threats in 2218, because many technologies are exponentially accelerating. So the change from 2018 to 2218 will be even larger than the change from 1818 to 2018.
Also, assume the world economy grows by 3 percent per year from now to 2218. That would mean the world economy would double every 24 years, or by about a factor of 16 a century, or 16 x 16 = a factor of 256 in two centuries. Why in the world should we spend time worrying about what happens to people who are a factor of 256 times richer than we are today?
Finally…assuming 3 percent per year growth, it will require far less than 10 percent of the annual income of the people of 2100 to reduce the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to the pre-industrial concentration of 280 ppm in a decade or two. That would result in the earth cooling back down to its pre-industrial temperature (assuming no significant change in the sun).
Tom Davies
Jun 27 2018 at 11:17pm
Is the assumption that temperature effects on the EAIS are linear justified? I have no idea, but I would like some argument as to why they are before I would accept that line of reasoning.
Mark Bahner
Jun 29 2018 at 11:07pm
Hi,
The two aspects that would contribute to melting of ice in air are convective and radiative heat transfer. As far as I know, they’d both increase approximately linearly with temperature for fairly small (a couple degrees Celsius) changes at about the temperature water freezes.
Below water it would be entirely convective changes. Again, I think it would be linear.
Ice cap
Jun 28 2018 at 3:12am
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DrEleanor
Jun 29 2018 at 1:31pm
All of global warming “scientists” begin with the fundamental premise that CO2 rises high into the atmosphere where it collects and forms a one-way barrier that lets heat in, but will not let it escape, like the glass of a greenhouse; thus the name “greenhouse effect”. These scientists apparently missed the day in high school chemistry when the periodic table was covered. The problem to society is NOT that CO2 rises high, but rather that CO2 (atomic weight = 44) is massively heavier than normal air (say O2, atomic weight 16), and thus it tends to SINK into low places — suffocating people in mines, tunnels, or even poorly designed wineries. Any grade school kid can prove this with baking soda, vinegar, and a candle. [Only do this with parental supervision.] put some baking soda in a pitcher, add some vinegar – making CO2 gas. If CO2 was the cause of the greenhouse effect, it would rise out of the pitcher. BUT if you now light a candle, and pour the gas in the pitcher over the candle, it will SINK over the candle, displacing the oxygen, and extinguishing the candle. (all the supposedly evil hydrocarbon gassed labeled by environmental “scientists” as “greenhouse” gasses are heavier than air. QED: Their model is fundamentally failed. It boggles the mind that such “science”, that is out of whack with fundamental of real science (e.g., the periodic table, experiments that can be reproduced by ANYONE, and so on) still gets such attention. And then … even if true … man cannot heat up the entire planet (as shown in this article), and that does not even take into account other things that will radiate the heat off into space. Thanks for your article. VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
Mark Bahner
Jun 29 2018 at 9:14pm
DrEleanor,
You’re simply wrong. CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere. When a power plant burning natural gas or coal emits CO2 from its smokestack, or when a car or truck emits CO2 from their exhausts, the CO2 doesn’t sink to the ground and kill people. The CO2 instead mixes all around the earth.
Best wishes,
Mark
Roger Berwanger
Jun 30 2018 at 11:16am
When will both sides of the climate change “so-called” debate agree on achieving two objectives: 1) Agree that governments should NOT be part of any involvement in “fixing” climate change, except to lower the cost of developing technology solutions through fiscal policy, thereby incentivizing innovation, and 2) stand aside and leave all solutions to the private sector?
Endless discussion about the degree of right or wrong about the science is charged with politics. Innovation is required regardless of what may or may not happen climate-wise. So incentivize innovation and stop bickering.
Mark Bahner
Jun 30 2018 at 4:19pm
I think the answer is that the vast majority of one side will never agree to that. They think that government should be deeply involved in steering technologies towards a desired course. (Although they may not agree on the desired course.)
Again, I think the answer to that is probably “never.”
Let me give a particular example from my own experience. I’m virtually certain that the best way to reduce storm surge from hurricanes (aka cyclones or typhoons) is to have a portable system that can be deployed to protect any coast anywhere in the world on a few days’ notice. My very rough estimate is that it would save $20 billion of damage in the U.S. per decade, and more than $50 billion around the world per decade. But such a system would have a capital cost of billions of dollars . It’s difficult for me to envision any private enterprise coming up with the solution of a portable storm surge protection system, even though I’m virtually certain that’s preferable to fixed systems.
J Scheppers
Jul 2 2018 at 6:53pm
Your question seems to be answered by Chris in the second comment above. Patrick Michaels arguments do not use quality heat transfer metrics, but his back of the envelope does demonstrate that the EAIS most likely will not melt. Chris’ rightness is in the point that EAIS melting is a strawman.
Global Warming alarmist do not have as their base argument that the EAIS will melt. My understanding is they are concerned regarding 3.5 meters of sea level rise over the next 100 years. This greatly reframes a question of 175 meters sea level rise, this is not what the typical IPCC warning addresses.
I offer my own reasoning why we should not be investing more than current market rate for green house gas reduction. I support all efforts that reduce green house gasses where no external subsidy is granted. There is every reason to be market rate cautious.
However, history is a good gage to determine what rates of change fall into the naturally occurring range.
“Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 metres as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 metre per century.” according to the National Oceanographic Centre (Great Britain), “Global sea-level rise at the end of the last Ice Age” Dec 1 , 2010. This implies a rise of 0.9 meters per 100 years over a 13,000 year period. A rate of rise higher than the last 100 years, and a rate of the same order of magnitude as the projected rate that is causing many people alarm.
The worlds surface changes, continents drifted apart, meteors and volcanoes changed the face and fluids of the earth. Attempting to hold the earth as a constant could be just as deadly as radically changing the environment. We do increase our risk not paying attention to the changes to earth that humans are involved in making, but the current status quo will not be here 100, 100,000 or 100 million years from now. I would like to see earth’s life’s descendants, including mine, evolve and still thrive in all those timeframes.
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