New study in Nature Climate Change on melt in Greenland.
Compare to our Dark Snow video from this past summer, above.
Existing computer models may be severely underestimating the risk to Greenland’s ice sheet — which would add 20 feet to sea levels if it all melted — from warming temperatures, according to two studies released Monday.
Satellite data were instrumental for both studies — one which concludes that Greenland is likely to see many more lakes that speed up melt, and the other which better tracks large glaciers all around Earth’s largest island.
The lakes study, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change, found that what are called “supraglacial lakes” have been migrating inland since the 1970s as temperatures warm, and could double on Greenland by 2060.
The study upends models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because they “didn’t allow for lake spreading, so the work has to be done again,” study co-author Andrew Shepherd, director of Britain’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, told NBCNews.com.
Those lakes can speed up ice loss since, being darker than the white ice, they can absorb more of the sun’s heat and cause melting. The melt itself creates channels through the ice sheet to weaken it further, sending ice off the sheet and into the ocean.
“When you pour pancake batter into a pan, if it rushes quickly to the edges of the pan, you end up with a thin pancake,” study lead author Amber Leeson, a researcher at Britain’s University of Leeds, explained in a statement. “It’s similar to what happens with ice sheets: The faster it flows, the thinner it will be.
“When the ice sheet is thinner,” she added, “it is at a slightly lower elevation and at the mercy of warmer air temperatures than it would have been if it were thicker, increasing the size of the melt zone around the edge of the ice sheet.”
From the paper:
Our study demonstrates that (supra glacial lakes) large enough to drain will in fact spread far into the ice-sheet interior as climate warms, which suggests that projections of the ice-sheet dynamical imbalance should be revised to account for the expected evolution in their distribution. Establishing the degree to which the inland spread of SGLs will affect future ice-sheet motion is now a matter of considerable concern.
David Appell in Yale Climate Connections:
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, DECEMBER 15, 2014 — If Arctic sea ice is the canary in the coal mines that are causing global warming, Greenland is the 800-pound gorilla that sits in the corner, quiet and ponderous, but packing a heavy wallop and ready to use it.
Scientists at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting here have been watching the gorilla carefully, and are learning things — surprising and troubling new things — about the stirring of this big beast of ice. Among them are the discovery of aquifers and buried lakes of water that are liquid year-round, unexpected dense layers of ice high on the sheet that may contribute to flooding, and that Greenland had rapid melting from 1900 to 1930 as the Earth came out of the Little Ice Age — more rapid even than today’s melting.
“New tools are allowing us to see these subsurface processes for the first time,” said Mike MacFerrin, a researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s CIRES research institute. Ground-penetrating radar pulled behind snowmobiles and systematic flyovers from NASA’s Operation Icebridge have led to vast quantities of new data that have brought quick discoveries and insights over just the last few years.
Accelerated Melting
The island of Greenland holds almost 3 million billion metric tons of ice, enough to raise sea level over twenty feet if it all warms away. It’s now losing almost 400 billion tons of ice a year, and the loss rate is accelerating, up almost 150 percent since the first half of last decade. MacFerrin said, “In the next century, Greenland melt may raise global sea level by one to three feet.”
Surprisingly, the nature of the melt has changed in recent years. When once it was mostly streaming glaciers discharging calves into the sea, surface melting and runoff surpassed discharge around 2007. This runoff, rather than ice dynamics, is expected to dominate Greenland’s ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise this century.
NASA has been bringing online some new tools that will make it much easier to detect more changes to our biosphere. Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 was also successful after the 2009 failed attempt.
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-launches-carbon-satellite-2009-failure-102005081.html
Interesting times ahead.
I much prefer Dark Snow than these “we thought we were right but we know we were wrong but we think we are right” findings
I would prefer you to write something that actually makes sense.
I’d prefer you showed signs of brain activity.
If the old models are suddenly incomplete the message home is that the new models ought be treated with caution not used to forecast catastrophe.
Catastrophy is relative. I’d like to hear what your definition of the word is, as it’s instrumental to judge all your “alarmist this and alarmist that” posts here at crocks.
*crickets*
“not used to forecast catastrophe”
“Captain, that’s an iceberg ahead.”
“What did I tell you, Ensign? Good news only! Now lets try that again.”
Omnologos – I do not get your point at all, all the latest findings strongly suggest that the current models and predictions tend to be very conservative, Peter does not post latest findings as alarmist propaganda. Both the Arctic and Antarctic regions are increasing in melt activity, processes that may well have happened before in Earth’s history, are happening now but speed-ed up in time by mankind’s release of ancient locked greenhouse gas. The purpose of the news is to warn and spur authorities to use safer energy and rethink lifestyles, much planning and change is necessary to deal with the inevitable sea level rise.
The carbon balance and Earth systems had been fairly settled between glacial and interglacial periods in recent history, suddenly we have given it a rude jolt and it is responding.
Like you, I too prefer the Dark Snow project, it is documentary, we can see the altered albedo and rapid ice melt for ourselves, rather than just reading remote satellite observation data.
Redskylite –my objection is to the PR style that seems to be forcing new studies to literally upend all previous knowledge.
There’s an inflation of these announcements and frankly they add to the confusion. Maybe next year another upending will tell us Greenland is growing /sarc
I’m actually genuinely fascinated by how you see these underpredictions as good news: “oh, reality is worse than our understanding – we’re gonna be ok!”. In what world is that a sensible way of looking at things? Maybe you’re just casting around for reasons to believe your crusade hasn’t endangered the lives of your children? I really wish I understood what was going on up there.
let me thank JP for adding his name to the long list of climate discourse idiots, who discuss the person and not the topic – I think he’s forced to do that as he’s understood not a word I have written. Maybe there is just not enough time in the school’s mid-morning recess to say anything useful.
Ah, and Borges never wrote about new cartographers popping out saying all previous maps would be upended by their work.
David – I haven’t said it’s “good news”.
redskylite – presumably sea level will rise disruptively in your view but gently so, not catastrophically. In fact it’ll be the nicest heavy wallop in the history of 800 pound gorillas. Good to know /sarc
Only in Omnoland does a refinement of previously uncertain knowledge, “literally upend[s] all previous knowledge.”
It isn’t that I have so much trouble understanding the words you’ve written, maurizio, as much as you put them together in such a vague and ambiguous manner that the resulting statements are trivial, inconsequential and inane.
Thusly, your topical arguments are interesting only insofar as they reflect your mental state, maurizio.
That’s why I am forced to keep asking WHAT?
You could start by defining what you mean by “we”.
No, Omno is correct. For him, that is.
Because the reliability of his mental faculties are chaotic – he never knows when he opens his mouth and says something, whether it will be trenchant or completely stupid. He believes the same is true of Dr Jason Box, his research, and the scientific method. It’s all just a giant crapshoot to Omno.
But using best available evidence at a particular time – to measure and predict a condition that is changing, and even accelerating! – which produces a model or numerical result that needs reanalysis or refining using updated evidence is how science works.
But Mr Universe-in-a-Pebble doesn’t have a scientific mind. He could be wrong, he could be right – which way is the wind blowing? Which is why he says such incredibly stupid things like characterizing the important work of able, qualified PhD’s as:
” “we thought we were right but we know we were wrong but we think we are right”
This isn’t analysis. It’s projection.
How very stupid of you Ginger. Once again talking the person and not the argument. Qed for the millionth time.
“projections of the ice-sheet dynamical imbalance should be revised to account for the expected evolution in their distribution.”
That’s science. This isn’t:
“Greenland is the 800-pound gorilla that sits in the corner, quiet and ponderous, but packing a heavy wallop and ready to use it.”
It’s just pop soft climate p*rn. Not difficult to tell. Now go back to your telepsychology course, it ain’t working.
Good grief.
What does: “Greenland is the 800-pound gorilla…”
have to do with:
“we thought we were right but we know we were wrong but we think we are right””??
Answer: Absolutely nothing.
You simply can not even keep your own thought process straight for even two minutes, can you?
And ya gotta love the exquisitely pathetic irony of you whining about me “talking personal” by opening your last post talking about how stupid I am!!
Seriously – you literally can not keep a cogent thought from one sentence to the very next!
You are an entire Universe of maroons within a single pebble.
“You are an entire Universe of maroons within a single pebble”.
Well said! If you recall the iconic pic of the Tea Party idiot holding up the “Morans” sign, Omno is an “entire universe” of those in a pebble also.
“How very stupid of you Ginger. Once again talking the person and not the argument.”
….and yet again Maurizio fails at self awareness with mind-numbing hypocrisy.
This post is very timely – NASA have today (17/12/2014) announced that satellite instruments have observed a marked increase in solar radiation absorbed in the Arctic since the year 2000, and NOAA have remarked on the Arctic’s drop in reflectivity in their latest climate report card.
Even our own local climate specialists are now talking of disruptive sea level rise in the near future, (close enough to affect today’s children). It has arrived and is staring us in the face, ask any resident of the Sundarbans or Kiribati.
No one here has mentioned the word “catastrophe” except for Omnologus, some may be thinking about it, but we hold on to the hope that “catastrophe” can be avoided and the good news is that the current U.S president is on the same page.
Computer modelling may not have predicted the current rates exactly (they are just human programmable machines – limited to our current understanding of physics, after all), but they are pointing in the right direction make no mistake, and knowledge, programs and technology is improving all the time.
“A decline in the region’s albedo – its reflectivity, in effect – has been a key concern among scientists since the summer Arctic sea ice cover began shrinking in recent decades.”
http://www.nasa.gov/press/goddard/2014/december/nasa-satellites-measure-increase-of-sun-s-energy-absorbed-in-the-arctic/
The Arctic’s drop in reflectivity is crucial because “it plays a role like a thermostat in regulating global climate,” Jeffries said, in an interview. As the bright areas are replaced, even temporarily, with dark heat-absorbing dark areas, “That has global implications.”
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-arctic-ice-absorbs.html
“One major limitation of most climate models is that they don’t give a complete picture of the physics that governs interactions between sea ice, the ocean and the atmosphere.”
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/12/why-arent-climate-models-better-at-predicting-arctic-sea-ice-loss/
“Getting data beyond 15 years will allow scientists to better assess if recent trend falls outside the realm of natural variability, said Jennifer Kay, an atmospheric scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Science at the University of Colorado.”
I’d say this is very important to determining whether or not this is beyond the realm of natural variability, Ms. Kay’s own words! You’re trying to read too much into this article.
Good old Fletch! Just like Skritch the squirrel in the Ice Age movies, Fletch mindlessly pursues one acorn while the whole oak tree falls on his head. In this case it’s a single quote lifted out of context and labelled “very important” by our Skritch clone.
Fletch is again trying to read “not enough” into this article so that he can justify his ignorance and denialism. The point is that we have constructed models that are UNDER-predicting ice loss and we need to fine tune them. Dr. Kay is not implying that the present drastic melting may be due to natural variability (unless, of course, you are a fletch and NEED to have her say that).
Of course, your models have done such a good job of predicting future climate, that each new year shows temperatures below the lowest climate model prediction.So, why don’t you work on those for a while?
Dear dumb old guy,
in case you have not figured it out, here are the models I was referring to,
http://cbsprt.co/1wOr0no
they look very accurate don’t they?
Good one, Richard! Perhaps you should try to speak more clearly so that Dragon will send us something on climate change rather than Gordie Howe’s health problems?
Careful now or he will link some of the fantastic scientific pages of Daily Mail on the “recovery” and “global warming stopped in N years”…
Of course, your models have done such a good job of predicting future climate, that each new year shows temperatures below the lowest climate model prediction.In fact,quoting Roy Spencer, who said “Over 95% of climate models agree:, So the observations must be wrong, http://bit.ly/1EiGeXW . So, you’re so smart,why don’t you work on those for a while?
maurizio,
The question on the table is, “Why is Omno such a raving nutcase?”
I realize you are reluctant to engage in a meaningful dialogue aimed at resolving this issue, but every inane non sequitur you utter adds to the mountain of evidence that this is a question that needs to be addressed.
Just want to point out that if Greenland has 300 million billion (10^15 or 300 quadrillion) tons of ice and it’s losing 400 billion (10^9) a year then that’s 750,000 years (10^7/4) until it’s all gone if the rate of loss remains stable (which of course it isn’t). And that would be even longer (75 million years) if he is using the English billion (10^11)
can you redo the math, and figure a 5 year doubling time for mass loss?
Shh… remember that humanity has an inability to understand the exponential function – unless its one that exponentially grows their wallet.
A 5 year doubling time?
In your dreams mate.
Between 1997 and 2003 Greenland was losing ice at 83 cubic kilometres a year.
From 2003 to 2009 it was up to 153 cubic kilometres a year.
Last year, using 14.3 million data points across Greenland collected by CryoSat, a research team were able to show it was up to an extraordinary 378 cubic kilometres per year – nearly 5 times faster than just a decade ago.
Extrapolate that!
Wow!
Less than a century. Twenty doublings of 400B = 419,430,400B net loss.
And Greenland represents 20 feet of SLR.
New York City is going to look like Venice, Italy.
Imagine a Cat. 5 hurricane with a forty foot storm surge on top of that + 20 foot SLR. That’s five stories tall.
No one survives below the sixth floor. Nothing electrical survives below the 6th floor. Nothing made of iron or steel and perhaps even rebar-strengthened concrete below the 6th floor is reliable after a decade.
They are going to have to change the building codes, and begin retrofitting every building in the city now. Sandy almost flooded the subway. The next big one is going to flood every basement and perhaps every first floor in Manhattan. The sublevels are where they put all the heating, some of the cooling, most of the electric and electronic controls and pumps. NYC is going to grind to a halt for months. And the U.S. economy is going to commit suicide.
In case he needs any help, a 5 year doubling time is 14% per year.
Recap: study is presented by NBC as “upending” previous knowledge. Somehow I’m to blame for that choice of words.
Appell talks of a 800 pound gorilla. I consider such an expression as describing a catastrophe. Somehow I’m wrong, there’s no catastrophe, only. New York looking like Venice, and the US economy committing suicide.
The usual suspects bypass my argument and get down to their rubbish remote telepsychology. When I point that out, somehow I am the one at fault.
Who needs TV when the clowns are in the Internet town uh?
There you go again with the talk of catastrophe. I think you must be what used to be described as a “Tommy opposite”. Sea level rise is happening gradually almost imperceptible, although it is beginning to gain momentum. We will not all be swallowed up by a giant towering wave one night. We will have time (and hopefully the budget) to plan, relocate and adjust. I described it earlier as disruptive, meaning relocating a city airport to higher ground is disruptive (so I see no reason for your sarc). NOAA nicely describes it as nuisance flooding in a new NOAA study, published today in the American Geophysical Union’s online peer-reviewed journal Earth’s Future.
NOAA establishes ‘tipping points’ for sea level rise related flooding.
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-noaa-sea.html#jCp
Redskylite you’ve ve missed Gingerbaker’s comment before. Maybe it’s not about a catastrophe, just about a massive destruction followed by a national economic disaster.
“The next big one is going to flood every basement and perhaps every first floor in Manhattan. The sublevels are where they put all the heating, some of the cooling, most of the electric and electronic controls and pumps. NYC is going to grind to a halt for months. And the U.S. economy is going to commit suicide.”
Nobody survives in a room with a 800 pound gorilla.
Gorillas .. don’t look them in the eye and grunt and you’ll be O.K, take a tip from David Attenborough. If two great storms merge and converge at the height of a big tide , get out of basements quickly, these days we get enough warnings. Economy is subjective, life is more important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pYWt6jBUZDc
9/11 screwed up the American economy for months. A few buildings went down, and the economy went nuts.
Sandy barely brought enough water to trickle into the subways. The next one which is bigger is going to do a lot more damage. In the latter half of the century, it is going to get exponentially worse. And you think that that won’t be devastating? What planet do YOU live on? Narnia?
Droughts and increased demands are causing ancient aquifers to be drained. In the bread basket of the U.S. You think continued drought won’t be disastrous when those aquifers are gone? Are you nuts?
Just what evidence do you have that these, and many other sequelae of AGW are NOT going to cause disaster? Anything past a gut feeling? Anything more than a vague petulent distress caused by your worldview not being validated?
Actual qualified scientists – guys who don’t spend their energies writing trollish comments on the internet – are writing published studies on exactly how catastrophic +1, +2, +3, +4, +6C are going to be. It’s fucking bleak, is what it is. The entire scientific community is scared as hell.
But not you. Not exactly another sterling recommendation for your powers of rationality.