Buchanan falsely suggests stable Antarctic ice proves CO2 doesn't cause warming

From Buchanan's December 18 column:

When you slice through the blather about marooned bears and melting ice caps, oceans rising and cities sinking, global warming is a racket and a crock. It is all about money and power.

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Is the Arctic ice cap melting? So we are told. But what harm has befallen mankind other than to have a Northwest Passage opened up to maritime traffic in the summer?

The Antarctic ice sheet is nine times as large as the Arctic, and here is what the British Antarctic Survey wrote last April:

"(D)uring the winter freeze in Antarctica this ice cover expands to an area roughly twice the size of Europe. Ranging in thickness from less than a metre to several metres, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above. Satellite images show that since the 1970s the extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade."

One hundred thousand square kilometers a decade?

This would mean Antarctic sea ice expanded by 300,000 square kilometers since the 1970s, or 116,000 square miles, which is an area larger than all of New England.

How can the Antarctic ice cap grow for three decades as the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has steadily increased, unless carbon dioxide has little or nothing to do with global warming?

Buchanan: Eastern Antarctic ice “undercut[s] the argument” for man-made global warming. Buchanan repeated the claim on the December 18 edition of MSNBC's Hardball. After saying it's a “fraud and a scam and a hoax” that humans cause climate change, he said: “Let me give you one fact. The Arctic, there's no doubt about it: The polar ice cap is diminishing. Antarctica is nine times as large. Eastern Antarctica is four times as big as Western Antarctica. It is growing by 100,000 square kilometers every decade; 300,000 square kilometers since 1979. It's not even mentioned, because it would undercut the argument.”

British Antarctic Survey: Ozone hole delays impact of greenhouse gases

BAS lead scientist: Ozone effect on ice “will not last.” According to the April 21 British Antarctic Survey press release Buchanan cited in his column, "[S]cientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA say that while there has been a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice, Antarctic sea ice has increased by a small amount as a result of the ozone hole delaying the impact of greenhouse gas increases on the climate of the continent." BAS lead author Professor John Turner further stated that “this will not last, as we expect ozone levels to recover”:

Our results show the complexity of climate change across the Earth. While there is increasing evidence that the loss of sea ice in the Arctic has occurred due to human activity, in the Antarctic human influence through the ozone hole has had the reverse effect and resulted in more ice. Although the ozone hole is in many ways holding back the effects of greenhouse gas increases on the Antarctic, this will not last, as we expect ozone levels to recover by the end of the 21st Century. By then there is likely to be around one third less Antarctic sea ice.

Recent study suggests ice in East Antarctica is showing signs of melting

Buchanan: East Antarctica ice sheet “thickening and expanding.” In his column, Buchanan also wrote: “Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is a continent, and while chunks of ice are cracking off in Western Antarctica, in Eastern Antarctica, four times larger, the ice sheet is thickening and expanding. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research reported last April that the South Pole had shown 'significant cooling in recent decades.' ”

But recent study suggests once-stable East Antarctica may be losing ice. According to a November 24 NASA news release about a study of Antarctic ice mass between 2002 and 2009, “a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has found that the East Antarctic ice sheet -- home to about 90 percent of Earth's solid fresh water and previously considered stable -- may have begun to lose ice.” It continued: “Their results, published Nov. 22 in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that the East Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at an estimated rate of 57 gigatonnes a year. A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds. The ice loss there may have begun as early as 2006. The study also confirmed previous results showing that West Antarctica is losing about 132 gigatonnes of ice per year.” The NASA news release further stated:

“While we are seeing a trend of accelerating ice loss in Antarctica, we had considered East Antarctica to be inviolate,” said lead author and Senior Research Scientist Jianli Chen of the university's Center for Space Research. “But if it is losing mass, as our data indicate, it may be an indication the state of East Antarctica has changed. Since it's the biggest ice sheet on Earth, ice loss there can have a large impact on global sea level rise in the future.”

IPCC: Warming is linked to increase in greenhouse gases

“Changes in the atmospheric concentrations of GHGs ... are drivers of climate change.” Contrary to Buchanan's suggestion that “carbon dioxide has little or nothing to do with global warming,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found, according to its 2007 Synthesis Report, that greenhouse gases are “drivers of climate change” and asserted with “very high confidence” that “the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.” From the IPCC report:

Changes in the atmospheric concentrations of GHGs and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the climate system and are drivers of climate change. They affect the absorption, scattering and emission of radiation within the atmosphere and at the Earth's surface. The resulting positive or negative changes in energy balance due to these factors are expressed as radiative forcing, which is used to compare warming or cooling influences on global climate. {WGI TS.2}

Human activities result in emissions of four long-lived GHGs: CO2, methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and halocarbons (a group of gases containing fluorine, chlorine or bromine). Atmospheric concentrations of GHGs increase when emissions are larger than removal processes.

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There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W/m2 (Figure 2.4). {WGI 2.3, 6.5, 2.9, SPM} [emphasis in original]