Greenland - What Do We Know, What Is The Long Term Future And Is There Any Evidence Of A Melt Out?

[knocker]

Greenland ice is melting -- also from below

 

Heat flow from the mantle contributes to the ice melt

 

The Greenland ice sheet is melting from below, caused by a high heat flow from the mantle into the lithosphere. This influence is very variable spatially and has its origin in an exceptionally thin lithosphere. Consequently, there is an increased heat flow from the mantle and a complex interplay between this geothermal heating and the Greenland ice sheet. The international research initiative IceGeoHeat led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences establishes in the current online issue of Nature Geoscience (Vol 6, August 11, 2013) that this effect cannot be neglected when modeling the ice sheet as part of a climate study.

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/ha-gii080813.php

Edited August 11, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Greenland 2013 melt is over the hill

 

While average sea ice minimum occurs in September, the Greenland ice albedo minimum occurs in July. This year, the albedo minimum occurred 31 July, coinciding with a record setting warm episode.

 

http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=1222

Edited August 12, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Apropos nothing really but an englacial channel melting out at the front of Nigårdsbreen, Norway. Nice photo.

 

 

 

[knocker]

2013 Greenland melt not EXTREME like in 2012 but still well stronger than previous decade

Edited August 15, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Visiting and monitoring South Greenland dark ice

 

I’m spending a week flying out of Narsarsuaq, south Greenland, with colleague Dr. Robert Fausto, to maintain climate stations equipped to monitor surface ice melt in great detail. Part of the Danish PROMICE network, the stations obtain surface energy and mass budget closure. The closure means that calculated melt matches with observed melt.

 

http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=1240

Edited August 16, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

New Approach to Reveal Function of Greenland's Ice Sheet

Aug. 15, 2013 — Findings from a large-scale ice drilling study on the Greenland ice sheet by a team of University of Montana and University of Wyoming researchers may revise the models used to predict how ice sheets move.

 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130815161541.htm#.Ug5GbE49eGo.twitter

Edited August 17, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Big snow event 17 Aug probably shuts down melting along west Greenland

 

http://polarportal.org/en/greenland-ice-shelf/nbsp/surface-conditions/

 

 

[knocker]

The surface mass balance was positive Wednesday last week  for the first time since melting took off in early June. On Saturday, a big snowfall gave solid push in the positive direction.

 

On August 14, the surface contribution to the mass balance on the Greenland Ice Sheet was +0.6 gigatons per day. One gigaton (Gt) corresponds to one cubic kilometer of water and the 0.6 Gt on Wednesday is a rather modest contribution in this context. But the surface mass contributions have remained positive since then and on Saturday, a big snowfall over West Greenland gave a positive contribution of 4 Gt. These days mark the beginning of the end of the melt season: The Sun is no longer as high in the sky and climatologically, it is typically in these weeks that the surface budget of the ice sheet changes sign. During the summer, more mass is lost to melting than is gained from snowfall. In winter, it is the other way around, and the transition typically occurs in August.

 

http://polarportal.dk/en/nyheder/arkiv/news/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-season-coming-to-an-end/

[knocker]

Professor Box comment on this.

 

headline doesn't match the study's findings, incorrectly equates ice dynamical flow with melt water, a sad mistake

 

 

Meltwater from Greenland’s ice sheet less severe for sea level rise than earlier feared, scientists say

 

The team found that accelerating ice sheet movement from increasing meltwater lubrication is likely to have only a minor role in future sea-level rise.

 

http://www.lanl.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2013/August/08.19-greenlands-ice-sheet.php

Edited August 22, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

In spite of snowfall event mid Aug, indications of mass loss at lower levels in south and west yesterday.

 

http://polarportal.org/en/greenland-ice-shelf/nbsp/surface-conditions/

[knocker]

Military mission in 1932 now helps the climate

 

Extreme photoemission in Greenland provides valuable new knowledge for climate scientists.

 

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=da&u=http://politiken.dk/klima/ECE2057572/militaer-mission-i-32-hjaelper-nu-klimaet/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMilit%25C3%25A6r%2Bmission%2Bi%2B1932%2Bhj%25C3%25A6lper%2Bnu%2Bklimaet%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DKLO%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Edited August 26, 2013 by knocker

[keithlucky]

Greenland melt no effect on so called rising sea levels http://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-greenlands-disastrous-slr-sol

Edited August 26, 2013 by keithlucky

[knocker]

Interesting The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch,^] chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries. Anyway..........

 

 

Total mass change and contribution to global sea level

 

Combining observation-based records from coastal and inland weather station temperature readings, ice cores, and regional climate modelling has enabled a reconstruction if ice sheet volume changes (4). These indicate that the contribution of the ice sheet to sea level has accelerated and amounts to a total of 28 mm since 1840, reaching a peak sea level contribution of +6.1 mm per decade during 2002 to 2010 (Fig. 5).

Since 1840, when Greenland was still in the Little Ice Age, the melt water runoff has increased by 60% (5), and the marine ice loss (calving plus underwater melting of marine-terminating ice) has increased by 44%. These losses are larger than the 12% to 20% snowfall increase over the Greenland Ice Sheet since 1840 (6). 

In short: the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass and apparently at an increasing rate.

 

http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland-ice-shelf/rapporter/report-0/

Edited August 26, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Greenland melt no effect on so called rising sea levels http://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-greenlands-disastrous-slr-sol

Here’s your climate news scoop of the day: The highest discharge-volume glacier in the entire Northern Hemisphere—Greenland’s Jakobshavn—has grounded, which is really going to put the kibosh on the Greenlandic myth

 

 

but

 

Scientists from the University of Michigan have pointed to the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers in Antarctica and the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland as being particularly at risk of catastrophic disintegration. -

 

http://www.rtcc.org/2013/07/23/antarctic-and-greenland-glaciers-at-risk-of-catastrophic-breakup/

Edited August 26, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Great Greenland photos from Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/08/26/melting-glaciers-joe-raedles-photographs-from-greenland/6375/

[knocker]

NASA Data Reveals Mega-Canyon under Greenland Ice Sheet

 

Hidden for all of human history, a 460 mile long canyon has been discovered below Greenland's ice sheet. Using radar data from NASA's Operation IceBridge and other airborne campaigns, scientists led by a team from the University of Bristol found the canyon runs from near the center of the island northward to the fjord of the Petermann Glacier.

 

 

 

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-data-reveals-mega-canyon-under-greenland-ice/#.Uh-6AH9NapC

Edited August 29, 2013 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

This may well help explain why Peterman has retreated beyond the historical norm over the last 10yrs? With the accelerated mass loss over that period the seasonal outflow under both the ice sheet and glacier must cause both erosional pressures and physical strains on the ice above?

 

I've spoken before about the eventual flooding ( by seawater) of the interior basin of Greenland as the glacial grounding line retreats beyond the watershed into the sub sea level basin beyond. Does this canyon play an important role in that process?

[Polar Maritime]

Mega-Canyon Discovered Beneath Greenland Ice.

 

August 29, 2013:  Data from a NASA airborne science mission has revealed an immense and previously unknown canyon hidden under a mile of Greenland ice.

"One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped," said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study published in today's issue of Science. "Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover."

Hidden for all of human history, a 460 mile long canyon has been discovered below Greenland's ice sheet. Using radar data from NASA's Operation IceBridge, scientists found the canyon runs from near the center of the island northward to the fjord of the Petermann Glacier. 

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/29aug_megacanyon/

Edited August 30, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Gray-Wolf]

Maybe the canyon plays testament to the speed at which Greenland de-glaciates? Where I live we have a real 'mis-fit' landscape with flat moorlands deeply dissected by deep valleys (Calder being one of them). Our valley shows all the signs of rapid excavation with a trickle of a river in the bottom of a steep sided , over deep, valley with huge rotational slip 'spurs' where the moor above slid and rotated as the old river undercut it. Some folk point to the rapid drainage of an ice dammed lake at the end of the last major ice episode as the only way the valley could have been carved out of the tough millstone grit.

 

This mega canyon may also show us the scale of the water volume that Greenland sees whilst losing it's ice. The images, last year, of the melt water floods in SW Greenland gives me some idea of how extreme such a period would be.

[knocker]

Worth another look at the Watson River GW.

 

 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

And that is the kind of ferocity that would gouge out such an stunning physical feature esp. if primed with glacial debris as a 'cutting tool' at the base of the flow? There were multi tonne boulders being swept along in that current ( along with the odd JCB) and that kinda action has to mess up the river bed?

[knocker]

Phoenix Glacier relic ice

http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=1293

[knocker]

First-time measurements in Greenland snowpack show a drop in atmospheric co since 1950s

 

Cleaner auto combustion appears to have driven the improvement

 

A first-ever study of air trapped in the deep snowpack of Greenland shows that atmospheric levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in the 1950s were actually slightly higher than what we have today. This is a surprise because current computer models predict much higher CO concentrations over Greenland today than in 1950. Now it appears the opposite is in fact true.

 

In a paper recently published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vasilii Petrenko, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, concluded that CO levels rose slightly from 1950 until the 1970s, then declined strongly to present-day values. This finding contradicts computer models that had calculated a 40 percent overall increase in CO levels over the same period.

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/uor-fmi091713.php

Edited September 17, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

25.9 degrees on Greenland had record

 

High temperature in July is now approved as a new record for Greenland after meticulous climatological analysis and assessment.

 

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=da&u=http://www.dmi.dk/nyheder/arkiv/nyheder-2013/9/259-grader-paa-groenland-var-rekord/&prev=/search%3Fq%3D25,9%2Bgrader%2Bp%25C3%25A5%2BGr%25C3%25B8nland%2Bvar%2Brekord%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3D5Di%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Edited September 19, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Long-term data reveal: The deep Greenland Sea is warming faster than the World Ocean

 

Bremerhaven 25th September 2013. Recent warming of the Greenland Sea Deep Water is about ten times higher than warming rates estimated for the global ocean. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research recently published these findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. For their study, they analysed  temperature data from 1950 to 2010 in the abyssal Greenland Sea, which is an ocean area located just to the south of the Arctic Ocean.

 

http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/awi_longterm_data_reveal_increase_of_temperature_in_the_deep_greenland_see/?cHash=5a643361d6bacdd02e098d1c372cc1b4

Edited September 25, 2013 by knocker