Gray-Wolf

So things could be far worse than these conservative estimates then?

And this is also a heartening reminder that science does move on and our understanding of earth systems is increasing year on year? As the report is at bones to point out this is the latest 'significant' step forward in a study already 20yrs old! Science has done what it is supposed to and brought our 'understanding' to the point that unconnected universities are able to run the model through their systems and find they arrive at similar results and not a broad spread of results? Some day we will crack this one J', maybe not to a resolution to suit some but be able to understand it well enough to prepare regions for periods of extreme drought or deluge! No more ripping out hearts on top of meso-american monument to appease the cycle here!!! I just hope that general warming isn't going to make our growing understanding of the phenomena as redundant as an IPCC report on it's publication.........

Listening to the personal reports from folk around the Alps this summer, esp. the crippling heat they got through July, I'd guess that this years losses will top the last highest year?

I'm trying to make my own sense of a very complex 'thing' actually sparks! We all agree we see more energy 'in' the system as the gap between energy in and energy out grows. We know that in past times some of that surplus must have gone into melting ice that has not been replaced so the amount of energy used in that area can only be less than before. We currently see an acceleration in the heat being taken up in the ocean at various depths. Is this added uptake at the cost of atmospheric heating alone or do we need allow for some of the energy no longer needed to melt out the bulk of the Arctic now that it has gone? EDIT: Just seen Pete's post below. I think we are both saying that there is an 'energy cost' to ice loss. I may be pushing that forward and asking what then becomes of the energy once expended on ice melt once it has gone but we are still counting the cost of ice melt are we not? During a period of the warming of the planet a large amount of energy must be being accounted for by the cryosphere. Both from energy that never makes it into the system due to albedo properties and also the energy spent on degrading the ice cover. Once the job is done we gain the energy once lost due to albedo ( or a large portion of the total incoming compared to the trivial amount we received whist albedo was high) and also the energy once employed in the state change of ice to water. It's like needing to add in a whole other big number into the climate equation that we can currently ignore as it is 'invisible'........

I think the last nino hinted at this occurring by being able to drive global temps up to a point rivaling what it took a 'super Nino' accomplish only 12 yrs before to. If the extreme temp events intensify then there impact on global temps will also mean that shorter, more moderate Nino's can accomplish what it took longer liver , more major Nino's to achieve before. It is good to see that this area of study now show such a consensus across the global models though? The data must be becoming ever more refined for all the models to now churn out similar results? Less room for individual interpretation with more concise data fields. EDIT: The other thing i wonder about is the impact this has on the observation of east Pacific ocean temps and the links to our current temp slowdown? Does a warming world mean that the cool ocean will no longer be as cold, as time moves forward, and so the next emergence of the pattern will have a lesser impact?

The 3 other main drain glaciers are seeing overall acceleration and especially so after major calving events but not so Petermann which shows annual speed up's over the melt season and slow downs over the winter. The others may well be responding to added weight of the ice as the melt-water appears to be sinking into the snow layers and increasing their bulk. on that point the 'dry snow line' at the summit of Greenland's ice dome is rising and by around 2025 ( at current rates of advancement) will rise above the summit meaning the Arctic will have no 'dry snow' regions that survive all year round. It will also mean that the 2012 melt event will become a much more frequent event at the summit ( rather than 150yrs for the previous one and 400 yrs for the one before the 1889 one). If a proportion of the summer melt is being trapped in the snow layers then this also increases the likelihood of catastrophic down-slope movement of sections of the sheet as the added weight is overcome by gravitational forces. Such events would no doubt accelerate ice loss by dropping sections below the current 'melting zone'. EDIT: The other thing we also need mention is the thinning of the ice seaward of the grounding line. with Petermann the ice thins , due to basal melt from the warm salty Atlantic waters below, from 600m to around 200m. this means as the grounding line advances inland ( as they all are!) the floating glacier tongue places less ice against the sides of the Fjord and so reduces friction in that way.

"Processes such as enhanced basal lubrication due to increased surface runoff are likelycontrolling the observed seasonal variation in velocity of Petermann Glacier" http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~fpattyn/papers/Nick2012_JGLAC.pdf

It's not only that knocks but it highlights the accelerated rate at which Peterman is now moving downstream. It appears as though the poster knows little about the subject? With the upsurge in melt across the ice sheet the amount of waters reaching the base of the sheet has also increased and so the outflow from the major 'drain glaciers' steps up. The last major calve from Peterman may have been instigated not from the fjord in front ( and tidal forcings) but from a melt water pulse from below that both lifted and dragged forward the section of the Glacier most vulnerable.

to be honest i'm still reeling from the realisation of how much ice has gone from the arctic since the turn of last century never mind the shock that was 07'! The small wriggles that we have we have seen the ice make ( volume) since 07' does not fill me with hope for the future of the Arctic ice at all. Some times I think some of our posters have forgotten just how much of the sea ice has disappeared and just what a 'recovery' would mean ( a recovery to levels from the early 1900's ). The other thing has to be what becomes of the energy that went into destroying the 70% + of the sea ice now there is so little left for it to work on? That energy must go somewhere. Come the next period of positive forcings from Mother N. what would you honestly see occurring? 07' saw off the last of the ice in the basin that could endure a perfect melt storm ( as it did in 87' and 97' ) so what happens when we run into the next one of those ( somewhere from 2017 to 2027 )? And what of the mixing that we have seen in the Arctic ocean. We have papers galore looking at what is happening to the Atlantic deep waters over recent years and the havoc this is causing up the east coast of Greenland. we have studies ongoing into the extension of the N.A.D. into the Arctic basin and the impacts this is having. I cannot move away from the fact that open water means a mixing out of the one thing that allowed Arctic ice to weather those recurrent 'perfect melt storms', apart from ice masses the size of four storey buildings, was the halocline that the ice sat in. Forgive me for doing no more than accept a cold summer across the Arctic. Until we see plenty more of the same , back to back, and ice that survives the next 'perfect melt storm' I will not allow myself to get my hopes up only to have them dashed.

Can you see the beauty of my outlook now four? I've said many times before that I'll be more than happy to find myself wrong and this whole summer melt season has given me reason to happily be proven wrong. Every summer that slows our current direction is one in the bank for me and an extra for my kids! I suppose it's how we chose to lay out our stall? Do we want a life full of pleasant surprises or one fraught with explaining our errors? When Natural forces push back and bring us reprieve do we embrace it for what it is or do we try and make it into something that will have us feeling foolish/gutted when Nature releases it's negative impacts and allows our current Energy imbalance to again rule the roost? We have seen 1 summer of high melt forcings ( 07') a run of 'average' years and one cool summer. Since 07' this has lead to 3 mins of 07' levels or below ( of which 07' was one) so how many of the next 5 years will be 'cool', how many 'average' and how many 'warm' ? This 1 season of 'cool' leaves us 6th lowest in ice levels and the last 'average' dropped us 18% below the last 'warm' season's low ( 07'). Across the whole of the climate debate I see the same occurring. As far as I know there is still an energy imbalance and nature still swings between positive and negative forcings. How much longer can Nature remain in a conflagration that allows for a slowing in the rate of atmospheric temp warming?

I'm sure we have 'sunset' opportunities prior to it's encounter with the sun? The fact that it is so close should mean it's losing mass into it's corona/tail at this time?

From what I have discovered the 'snow patch' archaeology takes place in patches of snow that have historically remained year around. Only recently have we seen them melt out completely. The fact that large game has utilised these patches suggests that they have been around for vast stretches of time and like some creatures pass on knowledge of 'water holes' in warmer climes, have become part of the herds annual migration route. The hunting artefacts we find there also confirm this with our ancestors utilising the knowledge that big game will congregate there at certain times of year? Spear and arrows would not have been 'left' without an extensive search for them seeing the trouble folk went to to make them in the first place. This would suggest the object became buried, and hidden, during the hunt ( they were fired into the snow and not just left on the surface). As we all know the northern lands had past max heating for this interglacial and had begun cooling up until a sudden reversal around 100yrs ago. This means that even through the thermal max these patches endured yet in this period where temps ought to be falling they have now begun to melt out completely. To recognise this is occurring means we can better coordinate attempts to recover these artefacts before they are lost forever. It has nothing to do with 'pushing a message' but everything to do with living within the reality. Would folk demand we lose this opportunity because it also appears to confirm the global changes that we are amidst?

Maybe there are some 'certainties' that we can agree on from what 'Science' has measured for us? Surely if we know the planet is accruing energy then we should confidently expect to see that drive 'change' as that difference grows? I'm pretty much aligned with the Lovelockian view of how the planet ( Mother N.) deals with change. I think that to keep things broadly 'stable' the system has a number of fail safes that 'soak up' forcings over the short term but that if a forcing in one direction maintains then the system flips to the next 'stable' point. That said maybe the current 'slowdown' is showing us one of the ways Mother N. has for trying to fend off change? The worry ( for me) is that the imbalance is continuing even while the rate of change has slowed in global temps. What will Mother N. do when she has exhausted the current attempt to fend off change and she realises that the current energy imbalance remains? Will it result in a rapid shift to a climate state that better matches the extra energy that we measure in the system? My way of understanding the workings of the system would demand that at some point we will 'flip up' to a climate state that utilises all of this extra energy. When I look at the past 60 years I see Mother N. spending some of this imbalance in the energy budget in ice melt. Sadly this process cannot continue indefinitely. When the bulk of ice has gone then the energy that was able to be 'hidden' on that task again becomes surplus energy. To me the massive bulk loss of ice across the Arctic is now at an end and all that remains there is thin skim of near seasonal ice ( the bulk being below 3m thick come winters end) with the massive'ice islands' and Paleocryistic ice now confined to history. With the thaw of the Permafrost now underway the last 'energy sink' is now being used up. This 'sink' is a double edged blade with further GHG's being released by the energy being spent on melting the resource. When natural forcings again turn positive not only have we got a larger energy imbalance than the last phase of atmospheric warming but we also have a depleted reserve of materials that can 'soak up' this energy. To make it easier to visualise maybe we take 2 bath tubs. We fill them half full with water and add 40kg's of ice into bath 1 and 10kg's of ice into bath 2. We then add equal amounts of boiling water into each tub and after 1/2 an hour take the temp of the air above the water surface. Would we expect to see difference in both temps? To me more energy will have been used up in melting the bigger amount of ice and so less heat will have been left for the warming of the rest of the water ( and so lessen the temp over that tub compared to the other tub). Tub 1 was the last period with positive natural forcings, tub 2 is the next period of natural positive forcings we have to come?

This year has turned into a glorious extension of the late spring " Look we've reached average" fest! Are some folk are really setting themselves up for a fall come the next series of losses across the basin or can we comfortably say that the trend of losses we've witnessed over the past 60 yrs has reversed?

Well my Nan was convinced the Moon shots messed with the weather in the late 60's! I wonder if the flights over the pole come closer to the tropopause with the thinner blanket of atmosphere there?

I know we have a restrictions on various ivory producing regions but the fact that Paleo ivory now makes up the majority of sales cannot be the only reason we see so much today? The Tundra regions show measured ablation and river cliffs are doing the excavation work for the collectors. In some regions the herders make nearly all there disposable income from collecting and selling such relics. We cannot but accept the fact that our permafrost is melting and along with it the deep frozen contents are now emerging at accelerating rates. These are the bare bones of the matter, no spin. If we are losing ice then that entrapped within it becomes free. The evidence stands witness if folk chose to ignore the science.

Maybe we need rename what we are seeing as 'global energy Imbalance' then? Would we see less contention were it named around what science measures?

All i know that what we measure going in is as same as ever but that exiting has become less over time so it has to be somewhere or the 'energy can neither be created nor destroyed' looks doubtful?

If we see the current level of energy imbalance between the energy we measure arriving at the top of the atmosphere and that leaving the planet I would be very concerned should we still see a reduced level of change in global temps over another 10 year period! If we thought 98' was a hot year then the next big Nino will have that looking like a dwarf!!! If 2010's small Nino already challenged 98's record then what will a big Nino' do? Remember that we have seen a run of Nina's with only 2010 as a release valve for that warming so we are surely building up to either a run of Nino's ( and their impacts on global temps) or one Mother of a Nino ( and a huge spike in temps). Where do you think all of this measured imbalance of extra energy stuck in the climate system is being hidden?

I do not think you can remove one from the other Pete? All the prog's/reports I've ever seen on this push to save artifacts is because they are now melting out at a rapid rate. As soon as they hit the air they begin to degrade and so any organics are lost over 1 season so the 'push' is now on to recover as much as we can before it is lost for good. As for the 'tunic's' it would appear the best reason for them being discarded into Glaciers was that the victim had been caught short in a winter storm and so was suffering from the final stages of Hypothermia as the victim suddenly feels very hot and strips off to cool down......

I think the major action occurs with the opening up of ocean basins? were we to wait a few odd lifetimes we'd see the African Rift valley opening into a new ocean and that would involve a little uptick in volcanic activity in the region as the crust collapsed into the earth and molten rock filled the fissure.... or something along those lines. I think what these guys are looking for is an event like that which filled the Deccan traps with km's of lava back in the day??? I somehow think we'd notice a change on that scale....don't you?

I think we have two main ingredients that give us these special clouds. Water vapour and something for that vapour to condense around. Extreme Volcanic activity will place ejecta into the stratosphere and incoming space debris will place dust into the Stratosphere. Storms that punch through into the stratosphere will add water vapour into the stratosphere and methane seeping up from the troposphere will degrade, via interactions with the ultra violet, leading to water vapour. An increase in Noctilucent cloud activity must mean a change in the things going into forming such high level clouds. With the absence of recent major eruptions any increase in condensation nuclei is more likely to be extra terrestrial. The increase in moisture is probably a mixture of both increases in global methane outputs and the fact that more storms have the energy to punch through the tropopause and into the Strat. ( as we saw with the Boscastle storm)

I think there have been geological periods were rapid changes in plate tectonics have lead to atmospheric forcings but we do not see any such impacts from the constructive and destructive plate margins at this time in the earths history. We have spent the past ice ages under similar conditions and not seen any great departure from this 'norm' over those tens of thousands of years. It is a similar story with our Sun. We have seen no great departures from it's 'average functioning' over a similar time period. Why a sudden interest now in such 'average' situation?

When we look at the uptick in noctilucent clouds over the past 100yrs it would be nice to find such answers? The rise in atmospheric methane means that we are seeing extra moisture in the Stratosphere so is this why we see such an uptick in stratospheric weather? Do we know the impacts such high level clouds have on the troposphere below and the weather that forms there? Would increases in condensation nuclei lead to more noctilucents or are we already at saturation point? Was the noctilucent season different this year? did it begin earlier or were there more sightings of clouds than other years? The past spring saw bursts of high level methane over the northern land masses so has this lead to an earlier start to the season or an uptick in cloud amounts that coincide with these anomalous 'bursts' of atmospheric methane?

In Alaska and Canada we've been finding stuff from up to 12,000yrs ago. This would indicate not only that we were in those areas at that time but also the snow patches were used by the large herbivores to cool off over the summer months ( as we see them doing in 'regular' snow patches today) so made excellent ambush spots for our ancestors. It does beg the question as to why they are melting out today and not in the roman or medieval warm periods?