Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing | Watts Up With That?: "Global warming alarmists have suggested that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica may collapse, causing disastrous sea level rise. This idea is based on the concept of an ice sheet sliding down an inclined plane on a base lubricated by meltwater, which is itself increasing because of global warming.The alarmists expect you to believe that ice sheets with a mean yearly temperature of -50C (Antarctica) and -25C (Greenland). Did I forget to mention that -25C is about as cold as a well functioning freezer? And you know how fast things are melting in there eh?
In reality the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets occupy deep basins, and cannot slide down a plane. Furthermore glacial flow depends on stress (including the important yield stress) as well as temperature, and much of the ice sheets are well below melting point.
The accumulation of kilometres of undisturbed ice in cores in Greenland and Antarctica (the same ones that are sometimes used to fuel ideas of global warming) show hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation with no melting or flow. Except around the edges, ice sheets flow at the base, and depend on geothermal heat, not the climate at the surface. It is impossible for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to ‘collapse’."
And Antarctica? Next subject please...
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