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Comment by jackmott | Hacker News Reader

No, there is an Antarctic ice sheet that is gaining mass. As a whole, Antarctica is losing ice mass. As is the case for global ice mass balance. Chart of satellite gravity measurements for Antarctica: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Antarctica_Ice_Mass.g...

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NASA disagrees: "A new NASA study says that Antarctica is overall accumulating ice."

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of...

so that chart is from 2003 - 2009 ... and that is evidence of what exactly?

6 samples of a multi century phenomenon and you are ringing an alarm bell !

the chart smacks more of searching around for a chart that shows a decline to prop up the "ice is in trouble narrative".

ice extent ( recovered from 2008/12 ) , ice age ( recovered again from 2012 ), ice thickness ( recovered ), ice refreeze date ( recovered ), polar bear population ( highest its ever been )

now its ice mass that is the panic chart of the day. but 6 samples, its just not enough

https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/longterm

What is it going to take to convince you?

Let's just wait a few more decades to be sure though. It would be a waste spending resources trying to prevent the demise of life on Earth when we didn't need to.

Is there a name for this sort of chart?:

https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/sea-ice-vo...

Spider chart or spiderweb chart

Thanks.

more than 40 samples. 200 samples at minimum.

"Long term" is misleading and relevant only to a space age start point where we launched satellites.

2000 year ice core samples:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/15/western_antarctic_me...

Longer records exist in ships logs showing that ships sailed through an ice-free arctic.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/03/goddard_polar_ice?pa...

According to official US Weather Bureau records (pdf) from 1922, there was open sailing very close to the North Pole that year. Anthony Watts unearthed this quote from the Weather Bureau:

"In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81 degrees in ice-free water."

So much lower extent than today.

Can you provide a citations that Antarctica as a whole is gaining ice mass?

Here's one from NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of...

More detailed discussion on Antarctic here:

http://joannenova.com.au/2016/07/backflip-antarctic-peninsul...

Nature study finding Antarctic has cooled is in the "References" section of that second link.

Anything more recent? That article showed a dramatic slowdown in the growth and only covered up until 2008.

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