Ironically enough, the Antarctic gaining ice can actually be a sign of warming temperatures there, as the intense cold makes the area a desert in terms of annual precipitation, but when the temperature warms up there a bit, it's still cold enough for ice and snow to occur, but warm enough for more precipitation to occur also, thus more ice forming. In the long run though, such warming would eventually lead to shrinking ice caps as summer melt begins to exceed winter snowfall.
As for volcanic activity, yes it can melt ice in a localized area, where the activity creates enough heat for this to happen, but for the effect to be truly wide spread there would have to be a super-volcano of the magnitude of, say, Yellowstone Park, to cause effects over a very large area, or a new rift forming, such as the Rift Valley in eastern Africa, but those form very slowly over millions of years, not suddenly.
Most likely there are more forces at work melting the major ice sheets then just volcanic activity melting them from below.
yes, i just watched a tv program on yellowstone and its impact if it goes off, and they say it happens every 600,000 years and the last one was 630,000 years ago, we're over due.
if we take a look at the Arctic oceans floor, you need a map that does not show the ice, we'll see volcanoes all over the place, they especially run between Iceland and Greenland and run right to the N Pole. while watching a documentary on Arctic sea ice, a team of scientists were diving under the ice to have a look at what was going on. what they found was long upward pockets of ice being melted from warm rising waters. there were not expecting to find this. there were also methane and CO2 and other gasses built up under the ice, if you put a hole in it and ignite it, it'd catch fire real easy, flames shooting straight up. there is no land to be found, yet all these gasses were there, warm gasses melting ice from below. then i read another interesting article on how volcanologists were saying how there were a plethroa of active ones under the Arctic sea ice, it didn't take me long to deduce that the earth which also goes under changes at its poles had been warming the Arctic in places. so even if the ocean floor warms 1C, it would be enough to release the trapped gasses that are found in the ocean floor and this in turn starts the engine up, the cycle. most of the oceans floor contains a lot of methane, as we know methane is a strong greenhouse gas as they put it. there is a microbe that eats CO2 and Methane (learned that from an Antarctica article by drilling into a lake kilometers below the ice). the microbes can't ingest the rapid increase in gasses that are being released, the excess finds itself to the surface and into the atmosphere. this increase is why we're seeing the dramatic rise in CO2 gasses, even though it is still a very small miniscule number, the parts per million are LOW. of course we produce some of the gasses, but the planet is capable of flushing it out over time, and it will.
and i think why the ocean floor has warmed is due to magnetics, it allows magma to flow upwards to the earths crust, it melts it away until we see an eruption which we won't because it's on the ocean floor, now the science pics i have seen, even from David Suzuki shows how vortexs of polaric disturbances (more than one pole in the North) can give rise to changing conditions, in this case the sea warmed enough to allow warm gasses to escape the oceans floor, melt some ice and escape to our atmosphere. this is happening because the sun is doing some odd things, it's 11 years cycle has its ups and down. Al Gores melting planet was during an upward in temperatures 11 year cycle, and according to some scientists the sun can miss a cycle or two or more (known as ice ages). now we don't live long enough to honestly say we are 95% sure it's man faults for whatever it may be, if we were freezing to death they'd still say it's mans fault, because that's what people do, they for some reason can't find themselves in nature, only see death, seem to miss the point that death comes life. called self preservation, which is good but as soon as they mix money with it, you end up with billions of dollars based on fear, which is incorrect. now, i read an article yesterday how GreenPeace was using Sata Clause as a way to scare kids into being green minded, that Santa needs the snow. that has to be the worst psychological attack we could ever place on our children, i just couldn't believe what they were trying to do, they should be thrown in jail for such things. so you can see what happens when money and fear get together, it's a disaster of epic proportions on the human psyche.
do me a favour and just ask the many AGW believers, you know the every day person who does not study the planet, ask them why they believe in AGW, which i have been doing for more than 20 years now, you see 20 years ago i believed because i didn't spend the time to go through the possibilities, didn't spend time to check the psychology behind the reasons why they beleived and didn't know anything about the planet. so most who i come across only believe what they hear from the TV, some the internet, but still they have no knowledge yet they still beleive. i do not consider that a good way to come up with the correct answer. what's really weird is i asked my mom, she flat out said no i do not believe it, and said the earth will do its own thing whether we like it or not, i agree with her. she's seen warm winters, blustery cold winters and she seems to have the time factor figured out, we won't be here forever anyway, especially if yellow stone or an asteroid/comet or sun output change occurs, and it will. so all that money and protection and what not goes out the window, that was her point, and she is right.
money is not going to save the life on the planet, nature will come up with its own ideas when we're gone, it does not scare me at all
life will continue without us.
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