We often hear climate change alarmists say that a warming planet means higher sea levels, which could lead to catastrophic flooding of coastal areas.
However, a new study in the journal Science China Earth Sciences says that the Antarctic ice sheet, a glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, has gained ice due to increased snowfall. Previous research showed that from 2002 to 2020, there was a loss of ice, but the new research shows that in 2021-2023, ice increased.
Dr. Bonner Cohen is a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow or CFACT, and said sometimes the ice has melted due to underwater volcanoes, which warms the water and melts the ice.
"You have expanding ice cover, both of the polar regions at the North Pole, and in Antarctica in the South Pole. And then you have those same ice caps shrink. This has been going on since time immemorial. There's nothing really surprising about this."
Dr. David Legates is a climatologist at Cornwall Alliance. He said there can be an increase in snowfall even with slightly warmer temperatures, which could add more ice.
"That rising temperature means the air can support a little bit more moisture when it's saturated, so more moisture can be infected in. If you get the rising convective motion, you get condensation, and you can actually have an increase in snowfall with an increase in air temperature."
Legates said there are ways to lose ice in the polar regions: It can melt or evaporate (a process known as sublimation), there can be less snow fall, which would mean less ice, and the movement of ice sheets could mean more ice lost to the oceans.
He said the alarmists will most likely say the long-term trend is for the ice to diminish due to increased carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures.
