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

[BornFromTheVoid]

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/vikings-could-navigate-colonize-the-arctic-during-medieval-times/#ixzz2sZZYYuko 

 

Need a bit more than that for some proof, surprised it took WUWT so long to find though! Some interesting creationist theories in there

 

"Why, during the last geological period, the Arctic countries were suddenly frozen after very likely a large flood. The fact that the action was sudden is sufficiently proved by the preserved bodies of fossil animals found with flesh and hair, as, for instance, the pre-glacial elephant called Mammoth, of which thousands and thousands are found in Siberia.

If the phenomenon had not been of a sudden character, we should find only the bones of them: the other part would have been destroyed by putrefaction"

[knocker]

Well this is different.

 

How does melting in #Greenland sound ? Discover our sonifications here http://www.polarseeds.org/sonified-annua

[knocker]

NASA Data Sheds New Light on Changing Greenland Ice

 

 

Research using NASA data is giving new insight into one of the processes causing Greenland's ice sheet to lose mass. A team of scientists used satellite observations and ice thickness measurements gathered by NASA's Operation IceBridge to calculate the rate at which ice flows through Greenland's glaciers into the ocean. The findings of this research give a clearer picture of how glacier flow affects the Greenland Ice Sheet and shows that this dynamic process is dominated by a small number of glaciers.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-data-sheds-new-light-on-changing-greenland-ice/#.Ux5TSs6cSpB

[knocker]

Greenland 2012 Surface Melt Revisited

 

http://mallemaroking.org/greenland-2012-surface-melt-revisited/

[knocker]

New Greenland Ice Melt Fuels Sea Level Rise Concerns

 

Stability in the rapidly changing Arctic is a rarity. Yet for years researchers believed the glaciers in the frigid northeast section of Greenland, which connect to the interior of the country’s massive ice sheet, were resilient to the effects of climate change that have affected so much of the Arctic.

 

But new data published Sunday in Nature Climate Change reveals that over the past decade, the region has started rapidly losing ice due to a rise in air and ocean temperatures caused in part by climate change. The increased melt raises grave concerns that sea level rise could accelerate even faster than projected, threatening even more coastal communities worldwide.

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-greenland-ice-melt-fuels-sea-level-rise-concerns-17187

[knocker]

Majestic shots of Greenland's icebergs

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/04/04/simon_harsent_photographs_icebergs_in_greenland_and_newfoundland_in_his.html

[knocker]

At last, Camp Dark Snow 2014 has a date (17 June) and a location; 42 nautical miles east of Kangerlussuaq on the southwestern Greenland ice sheet, at an elevation 1250 m above sea level.

 

http://darksnow.org/

[knocker]

Dr. Jason Box is interviewed at length on the Greenland ice by Vice Media, part of HBO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fpEPyhqjRGg

[Gray-Wolf]

When you look at presentations like that , and choose to hear what the 'experts' are saying, how can you maintain any belief other than it (climate change) is "a crime scene with man's fingerprints all over it" ?

 

We who accept the science are often accused of using climate shift as a 'religion'. To me it appears that those in denial of the changes line up with the fundamentalists denying all the evidence available to them in favour of myths and stories which have no scientific bases? How odd.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations

 

 

The rapid melting of Greenland glaciers is captured in the documentary “Chasing Ice.†The retreat of the ice edge from one year to the next sends more water into the sea.

 

Now University of Washington atmospheric scientists have estimated that up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and surrounding areas may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. Still, at least half the warming remains attributable to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions. The paper is published May 8 in Nature.

 

http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/05/07/greenland-melting-due-equally-to-global-warming-natural-variations/

Edited May 7, 2014 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

I do have to wonder about just how 'natural' the Pacific warm pool is? With the papers noting increased trades over a similar period could impact the warm pooling in the west Pacific also?

 

If every time we see global temp rises 'slow down'  we also see this 'warm pooling in the Pacific then we may see AGW impacting , in different ways, across all natural forcings in the future?

 

In the past they brought balance between warm and cool but now we have a novel forcing making warming permanent what will these 'natural oscillations in climate' mean to global weather impacts in future?

[knocker]

Deeply incised submarine glacial valleys beneath the Greenland ice sheet

 

The bed topography beneath the Greenland ice sheet controls the flow of ice and its discharge into the ocean. Outlet glaciers move through a set of narrow valleys whose detailed geometry is poorly known, especially along the southern coasts^{1, 2, 3}. As a result, the contribution of the Greenland ice sheet and its glaciers to sea-level change in the coming century is uncertain⁴. Here, we combine sparse ice-thickness data derived from airborne radar soundings with satellite-derived high-resolution ice motion data through a mass conservation optimization scheme⁵. We infer ice thickness and bed topography along the entire periphery of the Greenland ice sheet at an unprecedented level of spatial detail and precision. We detect widespread ice-covered valleys that extend significantly deeper below sea level and farther inland than previously thought. Our findings imply that the outlet glaciers of Greenland, and the ice sheet as a whole, are probably more vulnerable to ocean thermal forcing and peripheral thinning than inferred previously from existing numerical ice-sheet models.

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2167.html

[knocker]

No black magic, Dark Snow really matters

 

The new study, independent of the Dark Snow Project, validates our hypothesis, that black carbon can be an accelerate Greenland Ice sheet melt.

The study, in Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences (Keegan et al. 2014) finds that black carbon from wildfires facilitated widespread Greenland ice sheet surface melting in just two years since the end of the 19th century: 1889 and 2012. They argue convincingly that not just warm temperatures, but the positive feedback with black carbon and surface solar heating can push the surface energy balance into net heating and ice melt. Further, the likelihood for future increases in air temperature and wildfire boosts the probability of high altitude former “dry snow area†surface melting by end of century to every few years, if not even more frequently, they conclude.

[Polar Maritime]

Scientists Now Suspect More Sea Level Rise from Greenland’s Glaciers
 

Greenland’s glaciers may contribute more to future sea level rise than once thought, despite earlier reports that their steady seaward advance is a bit slower than expected. This is just more sobering news on the current state of Earth’s ice from the same researchers that recently announced the â€œunstoppable†retreat of West Antarctic glaciers.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/112002/scientists-now-suspect-more-sea-level-rise-from-greenlands-glaciers/#ixzz32D4GpvJ0

[Gray-Wolf]

I know it's after the report but surely, in a glacial epoch, folk realised that the feed glaciers would have exited into an ocean with far lower sea levels in it's more active interglacial phases? We can see from our glaciated valleys just how good glaciers are at carving out such features on around the edges of a near permanent ice sheet this process must be massively enhanced? not only that during the interglacials where Greenland was partially uncovered the runoff must have been amazing ( not just the trickle that washes away JCB's!!) so all the detritus from previous episodes must get rapidly swept away?

 

With the valleys running into the inland , below sea level, basin we have all the ingredients for rapid collapse of sections of the ice sheet and with such collapse comes the lowering of the surface and so lower elevations for surface melt? 

 

So many folk seem content in thinking that this is a process for far into the future but i carry concerns that we are on the cusp of a period of rapid deglaciation instigated by mechanical collapse of valley sections ( and the enhanced melt this brings with it) due to warm water erosion at the base of the glacial outlets? This is a process measured in decades not centuries.

[Polar Maritime]

Deeply incised submarine glacial valleys beneath the Greenland ice sheet.

 

The bed topography beneath the Greenland ice sheet controls the flow of ice and its discharge into the ocean. Outlet glaciers move through a set of narrow valleys whose detailed geometry is poorly known, especially along the southern coasts^1, 2, 3. As a result, the contribution of the Greenland ice sheet and its glaciers to sea-level change in the coming century is uncertain⁴. Here, we combine sparse ice-thickness data derived from airborne radar soundings with satellite-derived high-resolution ice motion data through a mass conservation optimization scheme⁵. We infer ice thickness and bed topography along the entire periphery of the Greenland ice sheet at an unprecedented level of spatial detail and precision. We detect widespread ice-covered valleys that extend significantly deeper below sea level and farther inland than previously thought. Our findings imply that the outlet glaciers of Greenland, and the ice sheet as a whole, are probably more vulnerable to ocean thermal forcing and peripheral thinning than inferred previously from existing numerical ice-sheet models.

 

 http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2167.html

 

And more here..

 

 

Greenland Glaciers More Susceptible to Melt Than Thought.

 

Greenland’s glaciers are more vulnerable to melting by warm ocean waters than previously thought, a new study of the topography of the bedrock under the ice finds. This clearer picture of the underpinnings of the miles-thick ice sheet, along with other recent studies that suggest parts of Earth’s polar regions are not as stable as once thought, could mean that current projections of future sea level rise are too low. 

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/greenland-glaciers-melt-sea-level-rise-17457

Edited May 25, 2014 by Polar Maritime

[knocker]

The melt season has started on the Greenland Ice Sheet at the usual time. However, the so-called ablation season, where net mass is lost from the surface of the ice sheet as a whole, has not yet begun.

 

There is no clear definition of when the melting season starts. Is it when melting first occurs somewhere on the ice sheet? When a certain fraction of the ice sheet area sees melting? Or when net mass starts to be lost from the surface of the ice sheet as a whole?

 

http://polarportal.dk/en/nyheder/arkiv/nyheder/smeltesaesonens-begyndelse/

[knocker]

map is red where ice is darker than norm; Greenland surface melt above norm last week on SE ice sheet

 

[knocker]

Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one

 

Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the difference between May 7th and June 1st (red circle added by me):

 

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2014/06/jakobshavn-calves-another-big-one.html

[knocker]

Contribution of light-absorbing impurities in snow to Greenland’s darkening since 2009

 

The surface energy balance and mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet depends on the albedo of snow, which governs the amount of solar energy that is absorbed. The observed decline of Greenland’s albedo over the past decade^{1, 2, 3} has been attributed to an enhanced growth of snow grains as a result of atmospheric warming^{1, 2}. Satellite observations show that, since 2009, albedo values even in springtime at high elevations have been lower than the 2003–2008 average. Here we show, using a numerical snow model, that the decrease in albedo cannot be attributed solely to grain growth enhancement. Instead, our analysis of remote sensing data indicates that the springtime darkening since 2009 stems from a widespread increase in the amount of light-absorbing impurities in snow, as well as in the atmosphere. We suggest that the transport of dust from snow-free areas in the Arctic that are experiencing earlier melting of seasonal snow cover⁴ as the climate warms may be a contributing source of impurities. In our snow model simulations, a decrease in the albedo of fresh snow by 0.01 leads to a surface mass loss of 27 Gt yr^−1, which could induce an acceleration of Greenland’s mass loss twice as large as over the past two decades⁵. Future trends in light-absorbing impurities should therefore be considered in projections of Greenland mass loss.

 

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2180.html?utm_content=bufferacd11&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[knocker]

Further to the above.

 

Dark Snow, the dust factor and the 2014 melt season onset

 

A new study[1] finds that the snow albedo feedback by snow grain growth alone is insufficient to explain the observed decrease in the springtime Greenland ice sheet reflectivity. They propose a theory that “recent warming in the Arctic has induced an earlier disappearance of the seasonal snow cover, uncovering large areas of bare soil and thus enhancing dust erosionâ€. The vigorous late winter wind would take the dust to Greenland.

 

Year 2014 Greenland upper elevations ice reflectivity has been at record low values much of 2014 so far, and in recent years, consistent with the conclusions of Dumont et al. (2014). See the blue line; year 2014.

[knocker]

Study: Melting and refreezing of deep Greenland ice speeds flow to sea

 

Beneath the barren whiteness of Greenland, a mysterious world has popped into view. Using ice-penetrating radar, researchers have discovered ragged blocks of ice as tall as city skyscrapers and as wide as the island of Manhattan at the very bottom of the ice sheet, apparently formed as water beneath the ice refreezes and warps the surrounding ice upwards.

 

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/06/study-melting-and-refreezing-deep-greenland-ice-speeds-flow-sea

[knocker]

Melt widening and more extensive across whole West coast #Greenland sig sublimation losses too http://polarportal.dk/en/groenlands-indlandsis/nbsp/isens-overflade/ â€¦ pic.twitter.com/Nmyo9wsXSZ

 

[Gray-Wolf]

current forecasts appear to be nudging toward quite a large amount of Greenland's surface suffering melt over the coming days?

[keithlucky]

current forecasts appear to be nudging toward quite a large amount of Greenland's surface suffering melt over the coming days?

Not according to Masie amounts of sea ice have increased overall over the last few days.

June 17 2014  MASIE Update - According to MASIE Arctic Sea Ice is up 28,401 over the last 3 days

 

7 regions have a net gain for last 3 days. Greenland Sea is the big gainer.

Region Start End Last 79 Last 28 Last 14 Last 7 Last 3 Last 1 Baffin Bay Gulf of St. Lawrence 1,688,530 872,963 -815,568 -342,840 -172,753 -51,216 -28,850 5,785 Hudson Bay 1,260,903 1,140,749 -120,154 -90,558 -80,991 -47,516 -32,539 7,709 Bering Sea 697,324 52,799 -644,525 -92,626 -50,482 -41,676 -16,162 0 Chukchi Sea 966,006 846,814 -119,192 -67,648 -37,922 -18,060 16,608 0 Kara Sea 933,859 840,006 -93,854 -76,631 -34,108 -13,967 1,559 0 Sea of Okhotsk 853,240 16,272 -836,967 -77,483 -32,293 -9,492 -3,419 -5,020 East Siberian Sea 1,087,137 1,005,353 -81,784 -23,042 -25,952 -8,627 -1,563 0 Canadian Archipelago 853,214 785,240 -67,974 -48,285 -22,230 -7,658 1,926 3,421 Baltic Sea 15,337 0 -15,337 0 0 0 0 0 Yellow Sea 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Barents Sea 645,917 275,816 -370,101 -230,008 -101,902 171 11,868 0 Central Arctic 3,221,921 3,243,659 21,738 -3,161 3,853 1,703 -39 0 Beaufort Sea 1,070,445 1,039,609 -30,836 -12,967 -16,747 5,347 8,047 9,199 Laptev Sea 897,845 704,210 -193,634 -181,040 -39,909 18,180 13,055 0 Greenland Sea 603,416 680,576 77,161 -31,751 58,656 46,977 57,910 12,906                   Northern Hemisphere (Total) 14,805,115 11,505,595 -3,299,520 -1,277,718 -552,395 -125,448 28,401 33,999                   NH (Average Loss per Day)     -41,244 -45,633 -39,457 -17,921 9,467 33,999

Edited June 19, 2014 by keithlucky