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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so jason how many names you going too make this year??? has far has i no you are a name spamer i still have 9 of your names on my Ignore ueser from last year
We have been warming, humans do contribute to the warmth of the planet, and humans are at least partially responsible for the current warming trend, so hopefully people will refrain from debating these topics.
Far from it.
Thats a assumption.
NOAA
Global Climate Change Indicators
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
Many lines of scientific evidence show the Earth's climate is changing. This page presents the latest information from several independent measures of observed climate change that illustrate an overwhelmingly compelling story of a planet that is undergoing global warming. It is worth noting that increasing global temperature is only one element of observed global climate change. Precipitation patterns are also changing; storms and other extremes are changing as well.
How do we know the Earth's climate is warming?
Thousands of land and ocean temperature measurements are recorded each day around the globe. This includes measurements from climate reference stations, weather stations, ships, buoys and autonomous gliders in the oceans. These surface measurements are also supplemented with satellite measurements. These measurements are processed, examined for random and systematic errors, and then finally combined to produce a time series of global average temperature change. A number of agencies around the world have produced datasets of global-scale changes in surface temperature using different techniques to process the data and remove measurement errors that could lead to false interpretations of temperature trends.
The warming trend that is apparent in all of the independent methods of calculating global temperature change is also confirmed by other independent observations, such as the melting of mountain glaciers on every continent, reductions in the extent of snow cover, earlier blooming of plants in spring, a shorter ice season on lakes and rivers, ocean heat content, reduced arctic sea ice, and rising sea levels.
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.
LOL pat your falling be hide you need too make 11,000 commets be for the end of the hurricane seasone too make it up too where i am
Excellent!!!!! Thanx!
U still da man.
thanks
'Fracking' Disposal Sites Suspended, Likely Linked To Arkansas Earthquakes
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Two natural gas companies have agreed to temporarily suspend use of injection wells in central Arkansas where earthquakes keep occurring.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy and Clarita Operating of Little Rock told the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission on Friday that they've stopped operation of the wells near Greenbrier and Guy pending the panel's next regular meeting on March 29.
Clarita's parent company is True Energy Services of Ada, Okla.
The commission says there is likely a link between the wells and the earthquakes. There have been more than 800 quakes in the area in the past six months and a magnitude 4.7 quake – the strongest in Arkansas in 35 years – hit there Sunday.
The high-pressure wells are used to dispose of waste water from natural gas drilling.
Plenty of snow, and I mean plenty. Like I said, I can't wait to get back to Florida. I heard we got rain.
It was obviously a waste of money! Good job, need many more wasteful cuts!
Republicans try to defund NOAA’s satellite program -- just as climate change is making the weather much more extreme.
February 18, 2011
By Michael Conathan, CAPAF’s new Director of Oceans Policy
Weather predictions were once a frequent punchline but have improved dramatically in recent years. More often than not you’ll need an umbrella if your local television channel or website of choice tells you to take one when you leave the house. But we could take a huge step back to the days when your dartboard had a reasonable chance of outpredicting Al Roker if House Republicans have their way with the 2011 federal budget.
The House of Representatives is debating the Full Year Continuing Resolution Act (H.R. 1) to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. The Republican leadership has proposed sweeping cuts to key programs across the climate change, clean energy, and environmental spectrum. They have also decided that accurate weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America can no longer afford.
The GOP’s bill would tear $1.2 billion (21 percent) out of the president’s proposed budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. On the surface, cutting NOAA may seem like an obvious choice. The FY 2011 request for the agency included a 16 percent boost over 2010 levels that would have made this year’s funding level of $5.5 billion the largest in NOAA’s history.
Even this total funding level, however, is woefully insufficient for an agency tasked with managing such fundamental resources as the atmosphere that regulates our climate, the 4.3 million square miles of our oceanic exclusive economic zone, the ecological health of coastal regions that are home to more than 50 percent of all Americans, response to environmental catastrophes including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and fisheries that employ thousands of Americans and annually contribute tens of billions of dollars to the national economy.
More than $700 million of the president’s proposed 2011 increase in NOAA funding would be tagged for overhauling our nation’s aging environmental satellite infrastructure. Satellites gather key data about our oceans and atmosphere, including cloud cover and density, miniscule changes in ocean surface elevation and temperatures, and wind and current trajectories. Such monitoring is integral to our weather and climate forecasting and it plays a key role in projections of strength and tracking of major storms and hurricanes—things most Americans feel are worth keeping an eye on.
In fact, NOAA has been making great strides in hurricane tracking. The average margin of error for predicting landfall three days in advance was 125 miles in 2009—half what it was 10 years prior. This data translates into a higher degree of confidence among the public in NOAA’s forecasts, which means individuals will be more likely to obey an evacuation order. Further, since evacuating each mile of shoreline costs approximately up to $1 million, greater forecasting accuracy translates to substantial savings.
The United States needs these satellites if we’re to continue providing the best weather and climate forecasts in the world. The implications of the loss of these data far exceed the question of whether to pack the kids into snowsuits for the trip to school. The concern here is ensuring ongoing operational efficiency and national security on a global scale. In some cases it can literally become a question of life and death.
Consider the following numbers:
* The $700 billion maritime commerce industry moves more than 90 percent of all global trade, with arrival and departure of quarter-mile long container ships timed to the minute to maximize revenue and efficiency. Shipping companies rely on accurate forecasts to set their manifests and itineraries.
* Forecasting capabilities are particularly strained at high latitudes and shippers have estimated that the loss of satellite monitoring capabilities could cost them more than half a billion dollars per year in lost cargo and damage to vessels from unanticipated heavy weather.
* When a hurricane makes landfall, evacuations cost as much as $1 million per mile. Over the past decade, NOAA has halved the average margin of error in its three-day forecasts from 250 miles to 125 miles, saving up to $125 million per storm.
* Commercial fishing is the most dangerous profession in the country with 111.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. A fisherman’s most valuable piece of safety equipment is his weather radio.
* When disaster strikes at sea, polar-orbiting satellites receive emergency distress beacons and relay positioning data to rescuers. This resulted in 295 lives saved in 2010 alone and the rescue of more than 6,500 fishermen, recreational boaters, and other maritime transportation workers since the program began in 1982.
* Farmers rely on NOAA’s drought predictions to determine planting cycles. Drought forecasts informed directly by satellite data have been valued at $6 billion to 8 billion annually.
* NOAA’s volcanic ash forecasting capabilities received international attention last spring during the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The service saves airlines upwards of $200 million per year.
* NOAA’s polar-orbiting satellites are America’s only source of weather and climate data for vast areas of the globe, including areas key to overseas military operations. Their data are integral to planning deployments of troops and aircraft—certain high-atmosphere wind conditions, for example, can prohibit mid-air refueling operations.
All of these uses will be compromised if the Republicans succeed in defunding NOAA’s satellite program. At least an 18-month gap in coverage will be unavoidable without adequate funding for new polar-orbiting satellites this year. More troubling, taking an acquisition program offline and then restarting the process at a later date would lead to cost increases of as much as three to five times the amount the government would have to spend for the same product today.
So here’s the choice: Spend $700 million this year for continuous service or $2 billion to $3.5 billion at some point in the future for the same equipment and a guaranteed service interruption.
Environmental satellites are not optional equipment. This is not a debate about whether we should splurge on the sunroof or the premium sound system or the seat warmers for our new car. Today’s environmental satellites are at the end of their projected life cycles. They will fail. When they do, we must have replacements ready or risk billions of dollars in annual losses to major sectors of our economy and weakening our national security.
That’s an ugly forecast. Tragically, it’s also 100 percent accurate.
– Michael Conathan is Director of Oceans Policy at American Progress.
ACK!!!!!
Glad to see your ready for change in the current President........!!!!!!
Don't wanna think about that.
..."sure as the dust blows High in June,,when moving thru Kashmir",
Well, Pat, I guess what fruit tree blossoms the hail didn't get yesterday, the 32 degress should get tonight.....another fruitless season......
Sorry for the Loss.
in 36 hrs
Except them there Liberals that are now so few, as many have opened dat eye! Nite ED!
Used to bad weather here this time of year, and blossoms are just a minor thing compared to loss of lives and property. La took the hit this time and was sorry to hear of the damage and death of the mother who saved her child. Ty Keeper for all the visuals....I watch them intently.
Paul Goss, director of emergency management for Daviess County, said no homes have been affected, just farmland and nearby county roads.
“Nobody lives out in that area,” said Goss, “but the farmers just won’t have access to their fields.”
The break is in a levee on the White River near county roads 650 North and 375 West, about three miles west of Indiana 57. It was reported at 4:15 p.m. Sunday by a conservation officer.
The break is about 25 feet wide. The cause is unknown, Goss said.
Goss said the river was 23.2 feet on Sunday at 7 p.m. and is expected to rise slightly before returning to that level Thursday. Flood stage is 15 feet, Goss said.
“It’ll have to get back to about five feet before we can get heavy equipment in there," Goss said. "So, it’ll be present for quite a while.”
Sun Mar 6, 8:44 pm ET
VOLCANO, Hawaii – A new vent has opened at one of the world's most active volcanoes, sending lava shooting up to 65 feet high, scientists at Kilauea volcano said Sunday.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the fissure eruption was spotted shortly after the floor at the Pu'u O'o crater collapsed around 5 p.m. Saturday. It occurred along the middle of Kilauea's east rift zone, about 2 miles west of Pu'u O'o.
Link
AWESOME video...sound and all...you could almost feel the heat....
Oh yea, I noticed the avatar...lol..."a face only a mother could love"....but I do Believe my dizzy head is getting better and better ~~~~.....
Surprise surprise. Almost as surprising as the attack on teachers and education. Or environmental regulation. Or financial regulation. Or healthcare. So on and so forth.
LOL.....good one Taz..:)
thanks
China's 'Two Suns' Video Unexplained By Science
Space.com space.com Sat Mar 5, 12:15 am ET
Weeks after a story shot across the Web claiming that the imminent explosion of a nearby star would result in the appearance of a second sun in the sky %u2013 a story that was later debunked %u2013 two suns were caught on camera yesterday in China. The suns %u2013 one fuzzy and orange, the other a crisp yellow orb %u2013 appeared side-by-side, one slightly higher than the other.
What's going on? Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to Space.com, asked Jim Kaler, the University of Illinois astronomer who squelched the excitement over the aforementioned exploding Betelgeuse and who has written books on the day and night sky. The double sun image is an effect of optical refraction, Kaler said, but it's a "pretty darn rare" one, and one not fully explained by science...
I'll vote YEA.....
He's on top of the stats.....quick-draw..:)
Yep. Journal of Cosmology. A "peer-reviewed" journal, that's been around since September - October, 2009 (vol 1).
Interesting chart. First time I saw that was here:
IPCC 2007 WG1 AR4, page 11, Fig SPM.4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
Of course, back then, it was being used to show anomalies in degrees C.
Amazing how the science has advanced in just a few years:
Back then (2007), this was the caption:
Figure SPM.4. Comparison of observed continental- and global-scale changes in surface temperature with results simulated by climate models using natural and anthropogenic forcings. Decadal averages of observations are shown for the period 1906 to 2005 (black line) plotted against the centre of the decade and relative to the corresponding average for 1901–1950. Lines are dashed where spatial coverage is less than 50%. Blue shaded bands show the 5–95% range for 19 simulations from five climate models using only the natural forcings due to solar activity and volcanoes. Red shaded bands show the 5–95% range for 58 simulations from 14 climate models using both natural and anthropogenic forcings.
I don't have a horse in this race, but I am interested in the outcome. Here are:
Dr. Hoover's "CV" - he doesn't look like a crazy guy
and:
Editorial Guidelines at J. Cosmology
This research has some deep implications if it survives the current peer review process (which is underway, not completed). It's worth watching, but not worth getting excited over yet.
There is nothing to see here either way ... yet. Let's wait it out.
WTO
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