Antarctic Ice Cap Growing (20 Jan 2002)
A new paper published in Science (Joughin & Tulaczyk, vol.295, p.476, 18 Jan 2002) reports that radar studies show the West Antarctic Sheet to be growing, not shrinking as previously believed. They measured a net growth of +26.8 gigatons of ice per year instead of the -20 gigatons shrinkage estimated from older studies.

The authors also found that the retreat of ice following the end of the last ice age has now all but ceased and that the current positive mass balance of this ice sheet (i.e. a sheet which is accumulating ice faster in its accumulation zone than it is losing it at its melt zone near the coast) may indeed represent a reversal of the ice retreat which has been going on for thousands of years since the end of the last ice age.  With accumulating ice in spite of `global warming' predictions, there is now little chance of the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsing, contrary to some of the scare stories being peddled by environmentalists.  BBC story here.

This new finding comes on the heels of another Antarctic study published a week ago in Nature to show that the Antarctic continent has been cooling in recent decades instead of warming as predicted by the climate models and basic greenhouse theory.   Taken together, these two studies show there is something seriously wrong with current theory and the models which embody that theory.