Greenland update for 2010: record melting and a massive calving event
No humans were present on the morning of August 4, 2010, in a remote fjord in Northwest Greenland, when the air vibrated with a thunderous crack as one of the largest icebergs in world history calved from the Petermann Glacier, the island's second largest ocean-terminating glacier. Where the glacier meets the sea, a 43 mile-long tongue of floating ice existed at the beginning of 2010. On August 4 2010, a quarter of this 43 mile-long tongue of floating ice fractured off, spawning a 100 square mile ice island four times the size of Manhattan, with a thickness half that of the Empire State building. According to Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, the freshwater stored in this ice island could have kept the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years, or kept all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days. There was speculation that the ice island could find its way into the open Atlantic Ocean in two years, and potentially pose a threat to oil platforms and ships. However, as the ice island made its turn to get from the narrow Petermann Fjord to enter Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada, the mighty iceberg split into thousands of small icebergs that will not pose an unusual threat to shipping when they emerge into the Atlantic.
Figure 1. The 100 square-mile ice island that broke off the Petermann Glacier heads out of the Petermann Fjord in this image taken by NASA's Aqua satellite on August 21, 2010. Image credit: NASA. I've constructed a 7-frame satellite animation available here that shows the calving and break-up of the Petermann Glacier ice island. The animation begins on August 5, 2010, and ends on September 21, with images spaced about 8 days apart. The images were taken by NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.
Petermann Glacier spawned smaller ice islands in 2001 (34 square miles) and in 2008 (10 square miles). In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf, about 60 miles to the west of Petermann Glacier, disintegrated and became a 34 square-mile ice island. The August 2010 Petermann Glacier calving event created the largest iceberg observed in the Arctic since 1962, when the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf on the north coast of Canada's Ellesmere Island calved off a massive 230 square mile chunk. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf also calved off a huge 21 square mile ice island a few days after the August 2010 Petermann Glacier calving event. According to an article in livescience.com, "Driftwood and narwhal remains found along the Ellesmere coast have radiocarbon dates from roughly 3,000 to 6,800 years ago, implying that the ice has been intact since those remains were deposited." All of the these calving events are evidence that the ice sheets in the Arctic are responding as one would expect to significantly warmer temperatures.
Warmer ocean temperatures cause significant melting of Greenland's glaciers
At a talk last December at the world's largest conference on climate change, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, glacier expert Eric Rignot of UC-Irvine implicated ocean warming as a key reason for the calving of the Petermann Glacier's ice island. The ocean waters near the glacier have warmed by 1 - 2°C over the past three years, he said, and all of the periphery of Greenland has seen ocean heat increases in recent years, with the result that 20 - 80% of all the mass lost by Greenland's glaciers in recent years could be attributed to melting of the glaciers by warmer waters attacking them from beneath. Ocean temperatures along the southwest coast of Greenland (60N to 70N, 60W to 50W) computed from the UK Hadley Center data set during 2010 were 2.9°C (5.2°F) above average--a truly remarkable anomaly, and far warmer than the previous record of 1.5°C above average set in 2003. Sea surface temperature records for Greenland began in the 1920s. A study earlier this year published in the journal Science (Spielhagen et al., 2011) found that ocean temperatures on the east side of Greenland are now at their warmest levels in at least 2,000 years. The researchers studied a sediment core containing fossil remains of planktic foraminifers, which vary as a function of water temperature. The study noted that not only have the waters flowing northward on the east side of Greenland warmed significantly, the volume of water flowing north has also increased, resulting in a large transport of heat into the Arctic. "Such an increased heat input has far-reaching consequences," they wrote.
Figure 2. Departure of sea surface temperature from average for 2010 from the NOAA Daily Optimum Interpolation SST Anomaly data set for October 2010. Areas colored red are warmer than the 1971-2000 average, areas colored blue are cooler than that average. A large region of record warm water temperatures extended along the west coast of Greenland, leading to record warm air temperatures and record melting along the western portion of Greenland in 2010. Ocean temperatures along the southwest coast of Greenland (60N to 70N, 60W to 50W) computed from the UK Hadley Center data set during 2010 were 2.9°C (5.2°F) above average--a truly remarkable anomaly, surpassing the previous record of 1.5°C set in 2003. Sea surface temperature records for Greenland began in the 1920s. Image credit: NOAA Visualization Lab.
Record warmth and melting in Greenland during 2010
Greenland's climate in 2010 was marked by record-setting high air temperatures, the greatest ice loss by melting since accurate records began in 1958, and the greatest mass loss of ocean-terminating glaciers on record. That was the conclusion of the 2010 Arctic Report Card, a collaborative effort between NOAA and European Arctic experts that comes out each year. Was 2010 the warmest year in Greenland's history? That is difficult to judge. We know it was also very warm in the late 1920s and 1930s in Greenland, but we only have two stations, Godtahab Nuuk and Angmagssalik, with weather records that go back that far (Figure 3.) Godtahab Nuuk set a record high in 2010, but temperatures at Angmagssalik in 2010 were similar to what was observed during several years in the 1920s and 1930s. Marco Tedesco of the City College of New York's Cryosphere Processes Laboratory remarked that last year's record warmth and melting in Greenland began when an unusually early spring warm spell reduced and "aged" the snow on the surface of the ice sheet, so that the snow became less reflective, allowing it to absorb more heat from the sun. This accelerated snow melt even further, exposing the bare ice, which is less reflective than snow and absorbs more heat. This feedback loop extended Greenland's record melting season well into the fall.
Figure 3. Historic temperatures in Greenland for the six stations with at least 50 years of data, as archived by NASA. Three of the six stations set record highs in 2010. However, only two of the six stations (Godtahab Nuuk and Angmagssalik) have data going back beyond the 1930s, which was a period of warmth in Greenland similar to the warmth of the current decade. Godtahab Nuuk set a record high in 2010, but 2003 still ranks as Angmagssalik's hottest year on record.
Figure 4. The 2010 summer melt season was lasted more than 40 days longer (purple colors) than the mean melt season from 1979 - 2007. Image credit: Arctic Report Card.
Why Greenland matters: sea level rise
The major concern with a warming climate in Greenland is melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which currently contributes about 25% of the observed 3 mm/year (1.2 inches per decade) global rise in sea level. Higher sea levels mean increased storm surge inundation, coastal erosion, loss of low-lying land areas, and salt water contamination of underground drinking water supplies. Greenland ice mass loss is accelerating over the long term, according to independent estimates using three different techniques (Figure 5), with more mass being lost each year than the previous year. According to Rignot et al., 2011, ice mass loss is also accelerating in Antarctica, and "the magnitude of the acceleration suggests that ice sheets will be the dominant contributors to sea level rise in forthcoming decades, and will likely exceed the IPCC projections for the contribution of ice sheets to sea level rise in the 21st century." As I discussed in a 2009 blog post, How much will global sea level rise this century?, the IPCC in 2007 estimated that global sea level would rise 0.6 - 1.9 feet by 2100, but several studies since then predict a higher range of 1.6 - 6.6 feet.
During the warm period 125,000 years ago, before the most recent ice age, roughly half of the Greenland ice sheet melted. This melting plus the melting of other smaller Arctic ice fields is thought to have caused 7.2 - 11.2 feet (2.2 - 3.4 meters) of the 13 - 20 foot (4 - 6 meter) sea level rise observed during that period. Temperatures in Greenland are predicted to rise 3°C by 2100, to levels similar to 125,000 years ago. If this level of warming occurs, we can expect sea levels to rise 13 - 20 feet several centuries from now. There's enough water locked away in the ice sheet to raise sea level to rise 23 feet (7 meters), should the entire Greenland ice sheet melt.
Figure 5. Loss of mass from Greenland's ice sheet in gigatons per year from 1992 through 2009, as computed from satellite gravity measurements from the GRACE satellites (red line) and from a mass balance method. The mass balance method computes the amount of snow on the surface, the amount of ice mass lost to wind and melt, and the amount of ice lost computed from glacier velocity and ice thickness. Adding together these terms gives the total amount of ice lost or gained over the ice sheet. The acceleration is given in gigatons per year squared. Another paper by Zwally et al. (2011) used a third method, laser satellite altimetry, to determine Greenland mass loss. Between 2003 to 2007, the ice sheet lost 171 gigatons of mass per year. Between 1992 to 2002, Greenland was only losing only 7 gigatons per year. Image credit: Rignot et al., 2011, Geophysical Research Letters.
References
Rignot, E., et al., 2011: Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets to sea level rise, Geophysical Research Letters, in press, doi:10.1029/2011GL046583.
Spielhagen, et al., 2011, Enhanced Modern Heat Transfer to the Arctic by Warm Atlantic Water, Science 28 January 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6016 pp. 450-453 DOI: 10.1126/science.1197397
Zwally, J., et al., 2011, Greenland ice sheet mass balance: distribution of increased mass loss with climate warming; 2003 - 07 versus 19922 - 2002, Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 57, No. 201, 2011.
Wunderground's climate change section has a Greenland web page with detailed information and references.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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"Ocean temperatures along the southwest coast of Greenland (60N to 70N, 60W to 50W) computed from the UK Hadley Center data set during 2010 were 2.9C (5.2F) above average--a truly remarkable anomaly, and far warmer than the previous record of 1.5C above average set in 2003." That's simply incredible.
how do we know this is just not a natural cycle the Earth goes thru... we do NOT have the data to prove otherwise do we? Does the data available not also support the group that says we are actually going into an ice age?
"During the warm period 125,000 years ago, before the most recent ice age, roughly half of the Greenland ice sheet melted. This melting plus the melting of other smaller Arctic ice fields is thought to have caused 7.2 - 11.2 feet (2.2 - 3.4 meters) of the 13 - 20 foot (4 - 6 meter) sea level rise observed during that period. Temperatures in Greenland are predicted to rise 3C by 2100, to levels similar to 125,000 years ago. If this level of warming occurs, we can expect sea levels to rise 13 - 20 feet several centuries from now?
Part Duex.
Would not a shift in the The West Greenland Current account for this, and its been show to shift in anomalies apparently occurring on a decadal time scale
I suggest a slight tutorial into the er,,data available as to the Warming.
All data sets show a warming World.
No data sets show a cooling Planet in any sense.
Save for "Non-sense",or non science.
Period.
All of the these calving events are evidence that the ice sheets in the Arctic are responding as one would expect to significantly warmer temperatures.
This kinda ties into an e-mail I received the other day about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Much of it had good documentation, some contained a few ideas I hadn't seen. Kinda fringe stuff but it can be fun to keep an open mind to the ideas & research if it's total bunk or if that's possibly how it went down. The point was the spill was intentional to to force climate change to occur faster. As the new big profit maker is mega-disasters. One point that is pretty well confirmed is mad amounts of methane was released...A report in Nature Geoscience recently tried to estimate the amount of methane released -- 260,000 to 500,000 tons. The other & this I haven't had a chance to look at in depth...is that the use of millions of gallons of dispersant (against the wishes of the govt even) was supposed two fold in motivation..one the profits for the company that made it, the other was the homogenizing & subsequent slowing of the gulf stream.. which in turn delayed the freeze of Greenland & caused excessive melting while plunging Europe in a winter freeze for the winter (causing them to need more fuel). Was their a big drop in the speed of the gulf stream this year?
Fair questions.
1) "How do we know this is just not a natural cycle the Earth goes thru... we do NOT have the data to prove otherwise do we?
Yes, we do. From every available proxy record, scientists (paleoclimatologists) have been able to determine that, while the earth has had numerous ups and downs in temperature due to factors such as the Milankovich cycle, every previous increase or decrease in temperature and CO2 concentrations has taken place over a period of 5,000 to 20,000 years. We're now "accomplishing" the same thing over the course of a few centuries. IOW, there's every indication that we have speeded up the warming process by a factor of at least ten. In short, could current changes be part of a natural cycle? Very likely not. No natural cause has been identified; there's no climatological theory in which CO2 does not drive temperature. And previous natural cycles haven't exhibited the same extreme changes we're now witnessing.
2) "Does the data available not also support the group that says we are actually going into an ice age?"
Temps have been rising. Seasons are getting shorter. Ice is melting all over the globe. 2010 was the warmest year on record. Shouldn't the planet at least start cooling for a few decades before folks start positing a new ice age? To me, this is like a guy who eats 5,000 calories a day, but looks at himself in the mirror every morning and says, "The weight's gonna start coming off any day now." :-\ The fact is, every single time in the past two decades there's been a very warm year followed by one that, while still above average, isn't quite so warm, there have been proclamations that warming has ended and cooling has begun. And those proclamations have been wrong. Every. Single. Time.
One thing about those predicting a pending ice age: the science simply doesn't back them up. Short of a nuclear war or cometary impact--something that would blanket the sky for a lengthy period and block out the sun--there's nothing to suggest realistically that the ice caps will start expanding any day now. Absolutely nothing.
Thats ludicrous at best.
13 Lives were lost in a instant on the Drill floor,,and greed was the final straw as the Liner casings were not installed properly and a failed BOP all contributed to a disaster of monumental proportions.
A Tragedy yes, but no deliberate conspiracy,,the Liability alone is staggering,and a nightmare for PR as well.
I'd say "fringe" is a tad underplayed as well.
...well,except for 2007,,were gonna pin that one on you Guys fer sho.
You might want to read Jeff's blog, or do some self study Pat.
From todays posting... look up... way up.
"During the warm period 125,000 years ago, before the most recent ice age, roughly half of the Greenland ice sheet melted. This melting plus the melting of other smaller Arctic ice fields is thought to have caused 7.2 - 11.2 feet (2.2 - 3.4 meters) of the 13 - 20 foot (4 - 6 meter) sea level rise observed during that period. Temperatures in Greenland are predicted to rise 3C by 2100, to levels similar to 125,000 years ago".
There was a warm period prior to the last ice age.
If you increase the level of the ocean... ocean currents change.. dramatically. I don't think anyone will disagree with that?
A shift of a couple hundred miles could bring on an ice age very rapidly (less then 10 years)
Do I think we are going into an ice age...I doubt it.
What I am trying to say is... Climate Changes... our data base for making world altering decisions is minuscule for the period of time.
Has the Climate Changed before.. YES.
Was it caused by man.... NO.
I agree we are part of the problem... I disagree to the proportion of the problem some on here think man is responsible for.
Can we stop it... NO.
Till den,,nada much matta's as to them.
Again, you seem to be having problems with linking. Allow me to help:
Global Warming Alarmists Flip-Flop On Snowfall
More denialist blathering. More rehashing of the same tired old contrarian talking points. More kowtowing to the author's Big Energy masters. More, more, more...
Thats all Im saying skye.
Maybe Dr. Masters can weigh in on that here.
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs /Tietsche_GRL_2011.pdf
Posted by: yourgardenshow, 2:01 PM CST on February 20, 2011
Nature Three Weeks Ahead of Schedule
Citizen Scientists
Dr. van Vliet started his online network 10 years ago. After speaking about it on a Sunday morning Dutch naturalist radio broadcast, Vroege Vogels (“Early Birds”), within weeks some 2000 volunteers signed up to help monitor, analyze, predict and communicate recurring annual cycles in nature in their own communities. By now he has thousands more volunteers. They, their friends and the children at participating schools are “citizen scientists” – and have contributed over 120,000 observations to this important database.
It’s through Dr. van Vliet’s Natuurkalender network that news comes of the arrival of “early spring” in the Netherlands – which now begins 17 days earlier than in 2001. Observations by Natuurkalender volunteers also reveals that winter is beginning 9 days later than 50 years ago.
30% Less Winter
In a season that lasts 90 days, 2011’s 26-day shift means that winter is almost 30% less of a season. Because of the high temperatures of the last decade since the project began, the growing season in the Netherlands is now measuring one month longer than normal. What does THAT mean? More questions – that we, as citizen scientists, can help to answer! So get outdoors, watch, and tell us what’s happening in your neighborhood show!
I'll help you, too:
Recovery mechanisms of Arctic summer ice
I don't presume to answer for Dr. Masters, but I will tell you that this particular article has been linked to a number of times--WUWT made a big deal out of it, so many contrarians latched on to that sliver of hope--so some of us have looked at it in depth. Bottom line, it states that, at least for the next 90 years, it's not likely that things will warm to the point that Arctic ice that's lost in summer won't be able to rebound by the following summer, even if one of those summers happens to be completely ice-free. That is, the Arctic gets cold in winter, so water freezes.
Gulf stream velocity
4-20-10
9-20-10
1-20-11
source
Wrong question: better question: What chance is there that all this is caused by man? What are the consequences? Can we stop it? what are the consequences of stopping it/trying to stop it?
Your question is like "My child is playing on the railroad tracks. The rails are vibrating, it sounds like a train is coming.. but before I do something, I wanna know: is this a diesel or electric train?"
Seems the Glory Mission "Splash downed" early as well.
NASA's Glory spacecraft crashes
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
NASA's Glory spacecraft, intended to track the atmosphere's aerosol content, failed to reach orbit Friday morning.
Glory mission decal
CAPTION
NASA
"Telemetry indicated the fairing, the protective shell atop the Taurus XL rocket, did not separate as expected about three minutes after launch," said a space agency statement. the spacecraft likely landed in the South Pacific, says the space agency.
A similar failure of the clam-shell-like fairing on a Taurus rocket to open doomed the 2009 Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which was aimed at tracking carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
All data suggests the planet has been warming [theorectically] for the last 10,000 years. So why the freakout? warming trends are what human civilizations are used to.
embrace the heat and thank your lucky stars our home modifies itself constantly. The wu servers would be hard to maintain on a cold-cored, immobile plate tectonic planet with a weak magnetic field. Thank you Mother Sun.
No....thank you ancient aliens....
It's happened before so it's not problem... no, it has never happened before. The final result may have been achieved but no one knows at what rate it happend: over thousands of years perhaps.
Man isn't causing it, or not all of it... Take your pick of which of these two scenarios seems more likely: 1) the world has been puttering along changing at a glacial pace (pun intended) and then all by itself it starts changing drastically all by itself with no outside influence. or 2) The world has been puttering along and suddenly it starts changing more or less in line with all the models that show that man is destroying his environment, there si a reason and outside influence: man.
We can't do anything about it... Give up a lot? Or just when it's easier to pretend the problem doesn't exist.
The models do not readily converge on same solution...with the NAM
suggesting onset of stronger storms earlier than GFS. In both
models strong convection is prognosticated by Saturday...as the southerly
850 mb jet of about 35 to 45 kts extends into southern states and
250 mb jet maximum pushes across southern Louisiana from 18z to 00z
sun. The trough will continue to dig and become more amplified as
it works east. The cold front will slowly work into the County Warning Area from
the northwest late Saturday...with a weak surface wave developing
along the front. By early Saturday evening...both models indicate
a developing surface low over southern MS. Therefore...Saturday
and Saturday night will be active over the p/cwa. After 06z...only
the eastern portion of County Warning Area will remain in right rear quadrant of
upper jet...as the surface low pushes east into Alabama.
Juicy and muggy here,,scattered showers developing.
I have an even better one. Why is it that NASA was so interested in finding water on the moon or Mars. So,we could send a manned spacecraft to mars and set up an Outpost,to make energy to get back to Earth. They didn't say a word about oil ! Well,we have water here. What are we waiting for? To burn every last drop of oil!
Sorry to add to the factual denial that seems prevalent around these parts. How about these tidbits
Human caused warming I presume DR.?
Greenland Ice Core Analysis Shows Drastic Climate Change Near End Of Last Ice Age
ScienceDaily (June 19, 2008) — Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation.
The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago. Startlingly, the Greenland ice core evidence showed that a massive "reorganization" of atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with each temperature spurt, with each reorganization taking just one or two years, said the study authors.
Link
Mysteriously Warm Times in Antarctica
ScienceDaily (Nov. 22, 2009) — A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
The findings, recently reported by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Open University and University of Bristol in the journal Nature could help us understand more about rapid Antarctic climate changes.
Previous analysis of ice cores has shown that the climate consists of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods roughly every 100,000 years. This new investigation shows temperature 'spikes' within some of the interglacial periods over the last 340,000 years. This suggests Antarctic temperature shows a high level of sensitivity to greenhouse gases at levels similar to those found today.
Lead author Louise Sime of British Antarctic Survey said,
"We didn't expect to see such warm temperatures, and we don't yet know in detail what caused them. But they indicate that Antarctica's climate may have undergone rapid shifts during past periods of high CO2."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/0911 19141039.htm
Link
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." ~Isaac Asimov
It got warm all by itself without Western Civilization
guilt for creating a modern world.
800,000 Year Record of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Concentrations
Carbon dioxide concentration (parts per million) for the last 800,000 years, measured from trapped bubbles of air in an Antarctic ice core. More information: Climate Change Impacts on the U.S.
Over the last 800,000 years, natural factors have caused the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration to vary within a range of about 170 to 300 parts per million (ppm). The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by roughly 35 percent since the start of the industrial revolution. Globally, over the past several decades, about 80 percent of human-induced CO2 emissions came from the burning of fossil fuels, while about 20 percent resulted from deforestation and associated agricultural practices. In the absence of strong control measures, emissions projected for this century would result in the CO2 concentration increasing to a level that is roughly 2 to 3 times the highest level occurring over the glacial-interglacial era that spans the last 800,000 or more years.
;-)
Climate Model Indications and the Observed Climate
Simulated global temperature in experiments that include human influences (pink line), and model experiments that included only natural factors (blue line). The black line is observed temperature change.
Global climate models clearly show the effect of human-induced changes on global temperatures. The blue band shows how global temperatures would have changed due to natural forces only (without human influence). The pink band shows model projections of the effects of human and natural forces combined. The black line shows actual observed global average temperatures. The close match between the black line and the pink band indicates that observed warming over the last half-century cannot be explained by natural factors alone, and is instead caused primarily by human factors.
unabashed and unashamed to greet my friend.
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