Friday, November 6, 2015

Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 3

"They conspired to ..."
I. Introduction

Conspiracy theorists are tasked with showing that two or more people planned to work together toward bringing about events that would end up being a crime.

Those conspiracy theorists must prove, with evidence, that particular events took place.

Here, I am talking about professional conspiracy theorists, such as an Attorney General or assistant Attorney General.

Those who work for the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), or who work for state departments of justice.

They are professionals who initiate one fourth of all federal criminal prosecutions using conspiracy theories.

In addition to that, in these United States, a significant percentage of state criminal prosecutions are also conspiracy theories about crimes.

These are the official conspiracy theorists who work in the federal and state courts of the nation every day.

A law review article points out the essential elements of thousands of conspiracy theories which send conspirators to federal and state prisons every year:
Over one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy.
...
Consider how a law school textbook might introduce the elements of traditional conspiracy law: Imagine that Joe and Sandra agree to rob a bank. From the moment of agreement, they can be found guilty of conspiracy even if they never commit the robbery (it’s called “inchoate liability”). Even if the bank goes out of business, they can still be liable for the conspiracy (“impossibility” is not a defense). Joe can be liable for other crimes that Sandra commits to further the conspiracy’s objective, like hot-wiring a getaway car (it’s called “Pinkerton” liability, after a 1946 Supreme Court case involving tax offenses). He can’t evade liability by staying home on the day of the robbery (a conspirator has to take an affirmative step to “withdraw”). And if the bank heist takes place, both Joe and Sandra can be charged with bank robbery and with the separate crime of conspiracy, each of which carries its own punishment (the crime of conspiracy doesn’t “merge” with the underlying crime). Why should conspiracy liability begin at the moment of “agreement,” before any crime is committed? Why can a conspirator be charged with both the inchoate offense of conspiracy and the robbery? Why should the law punish conspirators even if it’s impossible for them to commit the crime they planned? Why is withdrawal from a conspiracy so difficult?
(On The Origin of "Conspiracy Theory", quoting Conspiracy Theory, 112 Yale L.J. 1307, 2003). That said, the conspiracies that give rise to these prosecutions go very deep into American culture, where the notion of "too big to jail" has taken root, and has now grown into a misty forest.

II. Recent Examples

Once Attorney General, Eric Holder, let the cat out of the bag while testifying under oath to congress, saying in essence "I can't prosecute the big banks because they are too big to fail" (Everybody's Got A Holder Heart - 3, Why didn't Eric Holder do more to prosecute big banks?).

The infiltration of corruption into officialdom starts lower than that, for example, in some state Attorney General offices:
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”

Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”
(Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General). Millions of American homes were impacted by the bank crimes, and millions of Americans suffer health problems due to the operations of the corrupter / conspirator in chief, Oil-Qaeda.

III. Oil-Qaeda Is A Bastard Child of Big Tobacco,
And a Bastard Brother of Big Cancer

The first two videos below are recordings of presentations given by a professor of the history of science.

Specifically, those two videos present a history of "Big Tobacco" as it relates to climate change.

They do so in the sense of how Big Momma Tobacco passed on to "Big Oil" (Oil-Qaeda - its bastard child), the propaganda baton (The Deceit Business).

In other Dredd Blog posts, I have looked back into history a bit further than those two videos, and have found "Big Tobacco" to be a very old cultural disease:
Now comes “The Barbarous Years,” the next installment. It circles back to a period that most Americans don’t hear much about in school: the chaotic decades from the establishment of Jamestown (England’s first permanent colony in the Americas) in 1607 up to King Philip’s War (the vicious conflict that effectively expelled Indians from New England) in 1675-76. Bailyn’s goal is to show how a jumble of migrants, “low and high born,” sought “to recreate, if not to improve, in this remote and, to them, barbarous environment, the life they had known before.” As the title indicates, the story is as grim as it is fascinating: a group portrait in tones of greed, desperation and brutality. In recent years conservative writers dismayed by historical revisionism have flooded stores with books extolling the character and sagacity of America’s founders. “The Barbarous Years” is not one of them.

Death was everywhere,” Bailyn writes of Jamestown. The colony was a commercial enterprise, started by the Virginia Company with the sort of careful financial evaluation that in the more recent past was the hallmark of the dot-com boom.

English people kept coming anyway, lured by a discovery that the Crown and company hated: tobacco. Hip, fun, disdained by stuffy authorities and wildly addictive, the smoking weed was an ideal consumer product. Thousands of migrants were willing to risk death for the chance to cash in on England’s squadrons of new nicotine junkies. The Chesapeake Bay became a barely governed swarm of semi-independent tobacco fiefs, owned by families, operated by squads of indentured servants, all squabbling with one another, Protestants against Catholics, English against other Europeans, everyone against Indians.
...
"The addiction to oil ... at least to the wealth and to the products made accessible to us by oil ... look at the negative consequences on the environment we are destroying the very Earth that we inhabit for the sake of that addiction. Now these addictions are far more devastating in the social consequences than the cocaine or heroin habits of my ... patients. Yet they are rewarded and considered to be respectable. The tobacco company executive that shows a higher profit will get a much bigger reward ... doesn't face any negative consequences legally or otherwise ... in fact is a respected member of the board of several other corporations ... but tobacco smoke related diseases kill 5.5 million people around the world every year. In the United States they kill 400,000 people a year".
...
"And these people are addicted to what? To profit, to such a degree are they addicted that they are actually in denial about the impact of their activities, which is typical for addicts, is denial. And that is the respectable one. It is respectable to be addicted to profit no matter what the cost. So what is acceptable and what is respectable is a highly arbitrary phenomenon in our society. And it seems like the greater the harm the more respectable the addiction" (Dr. Maté).
(A History of Oil Addiction - 4). As their conspiracies developed along with their technology, they eventually began to destroy the environment.

Thereafter they began to conspire to cover up the scientific reality of what they were doing to the base of life on Earth:
Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation — a deliberate campaign to deceive the public that continues even today.

For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.

Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.

Each collection provides an illuminating inside look at this coordinated campaign of deception, an effort underwritten by ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Peabody Energy, and other members of the fossil fuel industry.
(The Authoritarianism of Climate Change). This is the largest such incident in the history of civilization.

IV. Can Anything Be Done About It?

The third video, below, is from the floor of the Senate, and was given by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

He points out that the current U.S. Attorney General is the same lawyer who beat "Big Tobacco" in federal court.

These types of  "tom toms" (drums of inquiry) are being heard in some state departments of justice too.

Several federal senators have even asked the federal Attorney General to take action against Oil-Qaeda now:
More Oil Companies a Focus of Climate Investigations?

Consumer Watchdog Asks California Attorney General and US Attorneys to Investigate Oil Industry for Mail Fraud in Effort to Defeat Climate Change Legislation

Oil-Qaeda and MOMCOM have psychopathic mental fingerprints about victims
This may be interrupted by the current, ongoing presidential election as follows, IMO: If Bernie Sanders is elected the investigations and inquiries into the depraved heart murder-by-Oil-Qaeda will proceed.

On the other hand, if Clinton, or members of the other circus, is or are elected, the "too big to jail" song will be revised.

The conspirators with continue unabated.

V. Conclusion

Whether or not the efforts to bring Oil-Qaeda to justice will end the same way it did for Big Tobacco, that end result will not be benign.

Oil-Qaeda has already set in motion the damaging system that has impaired the climate which civilization has existed within for these several thousand years (of human civilizations).

All that remains now is to stop, or not, the murder-suicide that Oil-Qaeda is bringing upon the world (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

I mean, at least with facing suicide we have a choice ... so let's get rid of the murderers (by definition we cannot murder ourselves) ... then deal with the issues of suicide.

We may have a chance to decide not to commit suicide, even if as potential murder victims we do not have any choice.

Well then, lets Stop the murders!

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Senator Whitehouse and Dr. Naomi Oreskes on the history and culpability of psychopaths within Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and the U.S.eh? :

From UCSD:



From Harvard:



From DC:




Thursday, November 5, 2015

When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 5

The "high tide" syndrome.
"Scientists warned the US president about global warming 50 years ago today" (Guardian).

The problem with anthropogenic global warming induced climate change is not a lack of technology, a lack of engineering prowess, or a lack of scientific ability to create wondrous new technology.

The problem is that the psychopaths who run this joint do not use technology for the common good, instead they use it selfishly for themselves, because they are full of the myth of selfish genes, and other demented ideology.

This series, and others on Dredd Blog, have shown that ultimately they use technology to commit depraved heart murder (Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 2).

One of the latest National Geographic episodes (video below), following the fox propaganda machine's purchase of that once authentic informative endeavor, was to finger technology as the saviour of civilization.

The same technology that is and has been destroying the base of life which civilization rests upon.

They came to this conclusion, about their technology being their savior, after a psychoanalysis of Williy Nigh and the No-Cigars, by The Psyche Terminator (the remains of The Fugs).

This after ignoring what none other than Sigmund Freud warned of.

He warned of the consequences of conflating individual psychosis with cultural psychosis:
I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness.
...
The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities.
(Social Dementia Causes Heated Misunderestimations - 3). The problem is deeper than the psychopathology of individuals; much deeper.

The deep problem is a cultural trance phenomenon that is in want of diagnosis and treatment; at a place, a social institution or two that can and will transform whole cultures from their trances.

It does not exist.

It is one thing when an individual is transfixed, but it is entirely another when cultures become captured in trances of their own making (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 3; Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

Civilizations left to themselves and their technology, without a dynamic and serious cultural psychiatry that has teeth, will generally commit "suicide" according to the historian Toynbee, a phenomenon we call ecocide these days:
"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."
(Petroleum Civilization: The Final Chapter (Confusing Life with Death) - 4, quoting historian Arnold J. Toynbee). Extolling the virtue of a science of mind that can only focus on individuals, but cannot concentrate on the psychological direction a culture is taking, is in fact simply the cultural denial and ignoring of the problem (Agnotology: The Surge).

It guarantees the demise of civilization (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.




Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The Extinction of Providence

Change that has no end of the tunnel
Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has essentially been saying that civilization is in danger because its means of international intercourse is in danger.

A government report from several years ago used language that also says just that: "Inundation of the state’s ports and railroads may reduce interstate access, affecting economic viability and potentially limiting imports and exports."

The thing about sea level change (SLC) is that it affects all sea ports around the world with either sea level fall (SLF) or sea level rise (SLR), or both, depending on their proximity to ice sheets (see the Series Tab at the top the post, under SEA LEVEL CHANGE and EXTINCTION, for many posts on the subject).

The Government of the state of Rhode Island indicated some years ago, the following:
Climate change has the potential to pose significant risks for Rhode Island’s water, wastewater, surface transportation, and energy infrastructures and utilities, our natural environment, and our health, welfare, and economic well-being.
...
Historically, most of Rhode Island’s development has occurred along the
It is not like a storm that eventually stops
coast and rivers; therefore the potential for the damage of a large number of homes and structures is substantial. A recent study determined that there are 2,705 housing units situated less than 1 meter (3.28 feet) above the Mean High Water (MHW) elevation along the Rhode Island shoreline (Strauss et al., 2012).


Rhode Island’s historic coastal and riverine villages, such as Wickford and Pawtuxet, are at particular risk, consisting of older buildings being located in vulnerable coastal areas. Sea level rise and storm-related flooding have the potential to displace a significant number of residents and cause the closing of a number of businesses and institutions, either permanently or for significant periods of time.
...
Sea level rise may lead to the permanent inundation of some of Rhode Island’s transportation infrastructure, including port facilities, access roads, bridges, railroad tracks, airports, bike paths, ferry terminals and drainage systems. Such permanent breaks in the transportation network may lead to isolated communities that are disconnected from the rest of society and have no access to goods, services and employment. Inundation of the state’s ports and railroads may reduce interstate access, affecting economic viability and potentially limiting imports and exports. Sea level rise may also reduce navigational clearances for the state’s bridges, additionally limiting access.
(Rhode Island Gov Report, Nov. 2012, emphasis added). This is not something that is isolated to any one town, port, state, nation, or lifetime.

That is why the traditional reaction is unavailing (Why The Military Can't Defend Against The Invasion, Greenland & Antarctica Invade The United States, 2, 3, 4; The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise FirstWeekend Rebel Science Excursion - 44, Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

The Extinction of Chesapeake Bay Islands

Did God do this?
The Dredd Blog series on extinction of U.S.eh? coastal cities and sea ports draws gasps.

People wonder who could do such a thing to the "city on a hill" that brings "peace and light" to the world.

As I have written, one side explains the long-ongoing scientific subject matter by saying that a certain addiction is at the oil base of it.

"Oil-Qaeda" means "the oil base," which is the private empire that created and now perpetuates civilization's addiction to fossil fuels (MOMCOM: The Private Parts, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Since circa the late 1800's Oil-Qaeda has been the source of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), induced by those fossil fuels that are in, on, around, and through us (A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 2).
Modern Engineering Feats

Fossil fuels, their premier product line, is said to generate green house gases (GHG) when burned.

The other side says that God, through Barbara Streisand (yes for real), is doing it just because "He is still on His throne"  (Evangelist / Senator Inhofe).

Choose your side of the coin, but either way you choose, melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as melting glaciers in various mountain locales, are the means to the end.

Strong but vulnerable
The end we call extinction (The Extinction of Charleston, ... Philadelphia, ... Washington, D.C., ... Robust Sea Ports, ... Boston, ... Miami, ... Manzanillo, ... Houston).

The situation is not theoretical on Tangier, one of many disappearing Islands in Chesapeake Bay.

Soon enough, it too will become another one on the list of thirteen or so islands that have already gone under the Chesapeake Bay.

They are gone due to sea level rise (SLR):
Noah Bradshaw knows what the rising waters of the Chesapeake Bay can do to a community.

The 68-year-old city inspector grew up in a house in town that had been moved from nearby Holland Island a century ago.
Bay Bridge: Access point inundation by SLR

“Holland Island is gone,” Bradshaw said. “It’s underwater.”

The last house disappeared into the bay two years ago, marking the demise of an island once 5 miles long and home to a fishing community of 300 residents.

Now, rising sea levels and sinking land, the same forces that doomed the island, threaten Crisfield, its seafood industry and its 2,710 residents. And a newly discovered tidal pattern puts them in greater peril than previously known.

“This is our home, and eventually, this will be underwater,” said Bradshaw, a bespectacled, balding man with a white beard. “We know that, because the sea level is rising.”
(Sea level, sinking land). Like everywhere else on the east coast, SLR puts Maryland’s waterfront shoreline and island communities at risk.

At risk yesterday:
ALL OVER LOW-LYING DORCHESTER COUNTY, residents are living on
"the high water isn't just coming. It's already here"
the edge. One skid off the road puts a car in a marsh. Parking in the wrong place during the wrong arc of a tide cycle can lead to a flooded car. Water that used to just graze residents' yards now comes up to the porches; it's just a matter of time, they know, before it comes into the houses.

Here, in the land of narrow marshes and proud working waterfront towns, the high water isn't just coming. It's already here.
...
And more high water is coming. A scientific panel concluded in 2013 that sea level on Maryland's coasts is likely to rise over the next century by 3.7 feet and as much as 5.7 feet.
(Chesapeake Quarterly). Do you think, like Senator Inhofe and his cadre of deniers, that "God is punishing these people," and if so punishing them for what?

That is a strange view of "God is Love," a strange view which some Texans also have:
"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love."
(Butch Hancock). My view is that Oil-Qaeda is the villain who is responsible for AGW and SLR (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

A view which is gaining some official traction lately  (Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 2).

BTW, a previous post also discussed the Chesapeake Bay area (Will This Float Your Boat - 10).



Monday, November 2, 2015

The Extinction of Houston

Fig. 1 High Rise
The Northern crescent of the Gulf of Mexico is a place that is destined to go extinct, in terms of sea ports (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 44, The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports).

The vulnerability of that gulf area is consequential because of fossil fuel ports, refineries, and the like:
The oil and gas industry, with its many coastal refineries, ports and pipelines, is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, as well as to rising sea levels and higher temperatures, according to reports from the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Fig. 2 It doesn't get better
Much of the nation’s refining capacity lies along the Texas coast ...

The energy industry is a driver of the Texas economy, accounting for more than 8 percent of the gross state product in the year ended Aug. 31, according to the state Comptrollers Office. Oil and gas production taxes provided $4.5 billion in state revenue. (Reporting Texas, emphasis added).

"Texas would have to get funding from Congress and support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the go-to federal agency for coastal protection."

Fig. 3 Contrasting Projections
"But the corps has been sidelined by new spending limits, and Texas’s advocates in Congress [climate change deniers] have been silent.

Major local powers – the city of Houston and the oil and petrochemicals industries – have yet to weigh in on Merrell’s plan or a competing idea pushed by Rice University."

“It’s absurd it’s been so slow,” Merrell said.

"The paralysis in Texas reflects a troubling truth: The United States lacks a unified national response to the threat posed by rising sea levels. The policy vacuum leaves vulnerable communities to come up with their own self-defense plans and then hope to snag federal dollars before the next big storm."

Without some sort of national perspective on this, it pits parts of the country against each other … And Houston is stuck right in the middle of it,” said Richard
Fig. 4 The Whole Area Is Endangered
Luettich Jr, a marine scientist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and chairman of a National Research Council panel on coastal risk. The panel in July said U.S. government agencies have “no central leadership or unified vision” on reducing coastal risk – a failure that extends even to towns that are literally washing into the sea (see related article)." (Reuters)

"The instrumental record for Galveston’s Pier 21 has recorded a 0.60 meter [600mm, ~2 ft.] increase in relative sea level over the last 100 years." (Env. Defense Fund, PDF).
That coastal area is very endangered, and is not responding to the danger because of
Fig. 5 Sea level rise will not stop for a century
intense agnotology generators in that area in particular (Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).

The agnotology is especially intense in congress among neoCon Republicans who are supposed to represent the people of that area.

The denialism of those congress members, and their supporters, is a danger to everyone else in the area.

Unfortunately.

The next post in this series is here.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 52

Antarctic Ice Streams (from Dr. Rignot video below)
I. Introduction

This is the first time that Dredd Blog has posted two "Weekend Rebel" types of posts in one weekend.

I am doing so because a paper published on Friday, October 30, 2015, by NASA employees and contractors, is contrary to the general scientific consensus concerning ice sheet loss @ Antarctica.

It is also looks like a clone of a paper by the same title, written over three years earlier by the same lead author (Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses, PDF Version).

It appears that the author is doubling down on opinions held for a long time that fly in the face of current consensus science, and even the IPCC conservative consensus.

II. Current Consensus

For several years scientific papers have indicated that Antarctica is losing more ice from ice sheets (ice mass on land) than is replaced by annual snow fall:
Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat mission have been used to map the height of the huge ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica and show how they are changing. New results reveal combined ice volume loss at an unprecedented rate of 500 cubic kilometres a year.
...
The resulting maps reveal that Greenland alone is reducing in volume by about 375 cubic kilometres a year.
...
The researchers say the ice sheets’ annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009. [Table 1 type contribution - i.e. thermal sea level rise (additional) is not included in that doubling]

Glaciologist Angelika Humbert, another of the study’s authors, added, “Since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by a factor of three."
(ESA Cryosat, emphasis added). As to East Antarctica, there are indications that the largest ice stream, the Totten, is acting up too:
There is also a bigger picture than West Antarctica. The Amundsen sea sector is not the only vulnerable part of the continent. East Antarctica includes marine-based sectors that hold more ice. One of them, Totten glacier, holds the equivalent of seven metres of global sea level.
(Climate Rocks, quoting Dr. Eric Rignot). More recently a paper published in Nature supports the notion of the East Antarctica Totten ice stream initial demise:
Totten Glacier, the primary outlet of the Aurora Subglacial Basin, has the largest thinning rate in East Antarctica. Thinning may be driven by enhanced basal melting due to ocean processes, modulated by polynya activity. Warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water, which has been linked to glacier retreat in West Antarctica, has been observed in summer and winter on the nearby continental shelf beneath 400 to 500 m of cool Antarctic Surface Water. Here we derive the bathymetry of the sea floor in the region from gravity9 and magnetics data as well as ice-thickness measurements. We identify entrances to the ice-shelf cavity below depths of 400 to 500 m that could allow intrusions of warm water if the vertical structure of inflow is similar to nearby observations. Radar sounding reveals a previously unknown inland trough that connects the main ice-shelf cavity to the ocean. If thinning trends continue, a larger water body over the trough could potentially allow more warm water into the cavity, which may, eventually, lead to destabilization of the low-lying region between Totten Glacier and the similarly deep glacier flowing into the Reynolds Trough. We estimate that at least 3.5 m of eustatic sea level potential drains through Totten Glacier, so coastal processes in this area could have global consequences.
(Nature Geoscience, 2015, emphasis added). The ongoing reality has been detected in terms of loss of mass / gravity as well:
The onset of such rapid loss “came as a surprise to us," says Bert Wouters, a fellow at the University of Bristol in England, who led the analysis, published in the May 22 Science. In just a few years, he says, the dynamics of the region “completely shifted."

The surface of some of the glaciers is dropping by as much as four meters each year, as measured by remote-sensing instruments on the CryoSat 2 satellite. The ice loss is so great it is also causing changes in Earth’s gravitational field, which have been detected by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites.
(Scientific American). Ok, so there is a consensus that Antarctica is showing massive ice sheet mass / gravity loss.

But, that could be happening even if the annual snowfall was in fact increasing the ice mass in other places on Antarctica.

IMO, that would only mean that sea level change (SLC) in the form of sea level rise (SLR) would eventually take place for a longer period of time, a longer duration:
I even push it to the point that I am not sure I even care about precipitation patterns any more, as opposed to what the glaciers are doing at this point, caused by climate forcing. Precipitation is low on these ice sheets. They are deserts by, you know, Earth standards. The average precipitation on Earth is about a meter, here it snows ten times less in Greenland and Antarctica.
(Dr. Rignot, video below @ 04:00). The issue of SLR or sea level fall (SLF) is not properly addressed by measuring how much snowfall Antarctica has.

Instead, the issue is properly addressed by measuring how much SLC is taking place caused by the Antarctic ice sheet mass / gravity loss.

III. The 2015 Version of the 2012 Paper

A paper published, on October 30, 2015, has the same title as the one published in 2012 by the same lead author (doubling down?).

Both papers argue that Antarctica is gaining more land ice due to snowfall than is being lost to melt and calving:
Mass changes of the Antarctic ice sheet impact sea-level rise as climate changes, but recent rates have been uncertain. Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) data (2003–08) show mass gains from snow accumulation exceeded discharge losses by 82 ± 25 Gt a–1, reducing global sea-level rise by 0.23 mm a–1. European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS) data (1992–2001) give a similar gain of 112 ± 61 Gt a–1. Gains of 136 Gt a–1 in East Antarctica (EA) and 72 Gt a–1 in four drainage systems (WA2) in West Antarctic (WA) exceed losses of 97 Gt a–1 from three coastal drainage systems (WA1) and 29 Gt a–1 from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). EA dynamic thickening of 147 Gt a–1 is a continuing response to increased accumulation (>50%) since the early Holocene. Recent accumulation loss of 11 Gt a–1 in EA indicates thickening is not from contemporaneous snowfall increases. Similarly, the WA2 gain is mainly (60 Gt a–1) dynamic thickening. In WA1 and the AP, increased losses of 66 ± 16 Gt a–1 from increased dynamic thinning from accelerating glaciers are 50% offset by greater WA snowfall. The decadal increase in dynamic thinning in WA1 and the AP is approximately one-third of the long-term dynamic thickening in EA and WA2, which should buffer additional dynamic thinning for decades.
(Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses). The paper, as did the older version, cites to older studies prior to the 2013 IPCC consensus report.

In its analysis, it does not even mention the more recent Cryosat - 2, or GRACE, satellite projects.

The author admits that his paper, written before the IPCC released its 2013 consensus report, is contrary to that scientific consensus, as is his current paper released on Friday:
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
...
"The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away," Zwally said. "But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for."
(Science Daily, emphasis added). The latest paper, like the original, does not mention the work of Mitrivica et al. (see 2nd video below) concerning the ability to fingerprint SLC, including where the ice or melt water causing that SLC came from.

That fingerprinting is being done by using global tide gauge station records from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL).

Errors in Dr. Zwally's latest paper begin from about the 2nd sentence:
In Greenland, surface melting in the ablation zone causes water runoff from the grounded ice and acceleration of the ice flow as meltwater propagates to the ice-sheet base to enhance basal sliding. In contrast, surface melting on the grounded ice of Antarctica is very small, and subject to refreezing in the firn, with negligible mass loss.
(ibid). Two papers reveal that statement is not an up-to-date observation either (Antarctic floods, Greenland floods).

IV. Conclusion

Dr. Zwally had this upside down
In the first video below, which records a presentation that was given to scientists at JPL by Dr. Rignot, the basis for the scientific consensus is presented.

Among other things, Dr. Rignot provides graphs made from historical records, including satellite records from the very beginning of the Antarctica exploration.

The data are used  to show clearly and convincingly how ice mass loss exceeds snow fall mass increase over long periods of time, as well as intermittently over short periods of time.

He also points out that mistakes (such as Zwally's) are typically made by selecting too short of a time frame (e.g. typical denier inordinate cherry picking of segments of records) from which to gather data:
27:17 Totten glacier area (a S.E. Antarctica drainage basin) alone has the potential to generate as much SLR / SLF as all of W. Antarctica

27:35 ice-mass loss Antarctica (segment begins)

28:00 the ice mass loss pattern must be observed with data taken over a long period of time or it can completely fool you
(Dr. Rignot, paraphrased).

Dr. Zwally, get out of the past, and while you are at it lose the stubbornness too, or I am telling Dr. Zbeaver that you are full of it.

Previous post of this type is here.


"Ice streams are not like ice cubes." - Rignot




"They didn't have a clue." -Mitrovica