At long last! NASA has published the Antarctica ice mass data for the month of November 2022 on 1 February 20231. As such, we are now able to assess the impact of Kyrios’ year-long Antarctic intervention from November 2021 to November 2022.
Back in 2021, Kyrios’ main goal for embarking on this intervention was to preserve Antarctic ice, and even striving to increase ice mass on the continent to reduce the rate of current sea level rise.
During this period, we also had the opportunity to network, learn and share at the WCRP Sea Level Conference in Singapore with other climate scientists around the world. We learnt about the work that other climate scientists are doing in Antarctica, Greenland and more, and also shared with many participants from the CCRS, EOS, CSIRO, NORCE, MoPH and MO about Kyrios’ many interventions including the Antarctic and Arctic intervention.
Looking at the Antarctica ice mass variation data from NASA for the one year intervention period, we were in awe as it proved that against all odds, Kyrios has made the impossible happen again.
Unprecedented gain in ice mass
The Antarctic ice sheet gained a record 388 gigatons2 (one gigaton equals to a billion metric tons) of ice during Kyrios’ intervention between November 2021 and November 2022 (Fig. 1). Such extraordinary gain in ice mass has never been observed since the beginning of the GRACE mission in 2002. The only other time the same period gained mass was from 2004 to 2005, however, the increment was far less at 166 gigatons (Fig. 2).
Between January and May 2022, the Antarctic ice sheet also reached a new record for consecutive monthly gains of 451 gigatons.
Figure 1: The graph shows the amount of ice mass loss in Antarctica since 2002. Compared to the same time a year ago, Antarctica has gained 388 gigatons2 of ice. The results from the graphs shows remarkable ice growth from the time Kyrios began to restore Antarctic ice on 20 November 2021. (Source: NASA Vital Signs of the Planet)
Figure 2: The red line indicates November months since 2002, and the unprecedented mass gain during the course of Kyrios' intervention between November 2021 and 2022.
It is extremely remarkable that the Antarctic ice sheet bucked the trend and gained mass during the intervention period, because this also happened when carbon emissions reached a record high in 2022. Historically since 2002, in tandem with increasing carbon emissions, the Antarctic ice mass has also always been on a downward trend and therefore contributing to global sea level rise.
The increase in ice mass was no coincidence – it happened right after Kyrios started the intervention. Back in 2021, Kyrios also achieved such a feat against a backdrop of decreasing Arctic ice trends as part of the 2021 Arctic intervention. At that time, the formation of an unusually strong polar vortex supported strong sea ice growth and led to a much larger increase in sea ice extent and sea ice volume. Greenland also saw an unusually high rate of snowfall brought about by a rare hurricane soon after the end of an extreme summer melt season.
Ice mass increased in spite of the summer heat
It is also worth noting that when Kyrios started this Antarctic intervention, it was the peak of summer season. The ice sheet typically loses ice due to increased ice melt from the heat. The fact that Antarctica ice mass did not shrink after November 2022 – and even gained 96 gigatons the following month in December – indicates that something unusual had occurred.
Furthermore, at the end of the summer melt season in March 2022, Antarctica ice mass actually surpassed November 2021’s level for the first time ever in the Grace mission’s recorded history (Fig. 3).
Figure 3: The red and blue lines indicate months of November (beginning of summer) and March (end of summer) respectively. For the first time since 2002, March's level surpassed November's.
What’s also interesting to consider is that Antarctic summer 2021 could have been poised for intense melting as the season started off with the steepest October to November decline. In that month alone, Antarctica had lost 239 gigatons of ice, an alarming amount of ice to lose for that period, compared with an average of 44 gigatons3 in other years.
Had severe melting continued throughout summer, Antarctica ice mass could have reached devastating new lows, in line with the declining trend seen over the past decade (Fig. 4), and brought forward catastrophic consequences of sea level rise. Over the period 1992 to 2020, the Antarctic Ice Sheet had lost around 2670 Gt mass, contributing to 7.4 mm of global mean sea level rise (PDF).
Figure 4: Since more than a decade ago, Antarctic ice mass has been on a downward trend, fluctuating seasonally within the yellow zone mostly. Without intervention, it is highly likely that levels would continue into the orange zone.
Hence we are extremely grateful to Kyrios for embarking on this intervention. While Kyrios does not reveal how the intervention is carried out, we know that Kyrios spared no efforts and dedicated a lot of time and energy. Kyrios wanted to slow down sea level rise to buy us time and importantly, preserve lives. This provides humanity an opportunity to catch up with our climate mitigation plans and defend against the devastating consequences of sea level rise.
Most importantly, by demonstrating that polar ice restoration is possible, Kyrios wants to send a clear message to all of us – there is hope for our climate crisis, but only if humanity is willing to be enlightened about the truths and real reasons as to why our climate is breaking down, and why the intensity and frequency of natural disasters are on the rise. We must commit ourselves to take the right actions now in order to protect our lives and our planet!
Moving forward, Kyrios will continue to monitor the ice sheet to keep it stable. However, Kyrios mentioned that with ongoing factors such as continued deforestation, the release of Fukushima’s nuclear wastewater into the ocean, the exponential increase in energy consumption for AI, increasing space explorations and moon expeditions, and even wars – all of which stem from human greed, irresponsibility, lack of conscience, ignorance and dominance – keeping the Antarctic ice sheet stable will be much more challenging.
1The Antarctica ice mass data is from NASA’s GRACE and GRACE Follow-On satellites which have been tracking Antarctica ice mass loss variation since 2002. There is usually a delay due to the complex methods used for calculating the ice mass. 2All numbers in this article are based on the data released on 1 February 2023 for consistency in reporting. 3Average of all available same-year October less November data. Data source: HDR Wiese, D. N., D.-N. Yuan, C. Boening, F. W. Landerer, and M. M. Watkins (2022) JPL GRACE and GRACE-FO Mascon Ocean, Ice, and Hydrology Equivalent HDR Water Height RL06.3M CRI Filtered Version 4.0, Ver. 4.0, PO.DAAC, CA, USA. Dataset accessed [2023-02-01] at http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/TEMSC-3JC634.
About Kyrios’ climate interventions
Kyrios’ climate interventions across key areas on Earth aims to reduce impact of disasters on local communities through deliberate weather modifications, healing Earth’s systems and providing us time to move towards a more sustainable future. This complements existing mitigation and adaptation measures. Kyrios also intervenes in climate disasters to reduce their destructive impacts on affected communities.
For more information on Kyrios’ climate crisis interventions, please go here. If you have questions, feel free to ask them here.
