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Greenland Glaciers Melting Much Faster
grqb writes "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that satellite observations indicate that Greenland's glaciers have been dumping ice into the Atlantic Ocean at a rate that's doubled over the past five years. Greenland Ice Sheet's annual loss has risen from 21.6 cubic miles in 1996 to 36 cubic miles in 2005 and it now contributes about 0.5 millimeters out of 3 millimeters to global sea level increases. One theory as to why this is happening is that the meltwater, caused by increasing temperatures in Greenland, serves as a lubricant for the moving ice, hastening its push to the sea. Another study has estimated that the warming rate in Greenland was 2.2 times faster than the global norm -- which is in line with U.N. climate models."
At this point I don't care who or what is causing the meltdown. What I want are some realistic ways to mitigate the effects. Solutions, not finger pointing.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
Up until just recently, pretty much everyone (even the staunchest environmentalists) thought that the Greenland sheet was quite stable. This does not bode well for the fans of that lovable dane, Bjørn Lomberg, the skeptical environmentalist. As I recall, a good bit of his "evidence" was based on the relative stability, and even mass-increase, of the Greenland sheet - which now seems pretty much debunked by this news. Where's the ice stable now, Mr. Head-in-the-sand? Perhaps Antartica yet bears out your theory? In any case, Denmark lies pretty pretty close to sealevel, as I recall.
It's going to be fascinating watching what happens over the next few decades, and how the governments and people of the world end up dealing with it. It could go all sorts of ways.
It's nature's way of trying to cool the planet. It's called global warming in the short term, but it will cool the planet in the long term. Yes, mankind caused it.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
If all of the glacier ice on Greenland melted, worldwide ocean levels would rise 20 feet. I got this number from the history channel so I don't know how accurate they are with non-Hitlter based facts. Anyway the article says the current Greenland glacier melting accounts for a 0.5 mm rise in ocean levels per year.
1 foot = 304.8 millimeters
304.8 * 20 * 2 = 12,192
So we have 12,192 years until all the glacier ice melts in Greenland assuming the rate is constant. We still have some time.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
These do not contradict. The ice getting bigger means more ice being shed. It also in some cases will lead to the glaciers flowing faster. IANAG (I am not a glaciologist), but a heavier ice sheet may lead to more ice melting on the bottom. Overall - too early to say. More data is needed and more work to interpret it. So the jury on the overall long term balance of the ice sheet is still out.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
It's a big deal because if it's true it means we've probably passed the point of no return and Europe is at least headed for a mini ice age but the timing is right for a major one. Greenland has been viewed as the fulcrum and if it wasn't melting the situation was possibly reversable. There is no doubt we were about the enter another ice age. The question is when and how fast it happens and how severe it is. What we are doing is bringing it on faster and potentially stronger than if we hadn't been dumping hundreds of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. We might have reduced what should take thousands of years to hundreds of years. Let some one else worry about it if it's hundreds of years off? Sorry it isn't flipping a light switch and we are starting to see the backlash now. If Greenland melts we loose coastal Florida as well as any coast 22' above sea level. It'll take hundreds of years to melt but it could go up several feet in our lifetimes which would make a lot of the coast unliveable. Antartica would raise levels several hundred feet but I'm not convinced it can even melt, the bulk of it at least. Even if it did we are talking thousands of years in a worst case senerio. It's not end of the world but life is going to get tougher for a lot of people and the US is entering a period of turmoil with crippling debt. We couldn't handle Karina, how are we supposed to handle two or three Katrinas a year? How about five? Add to that the predicted droughts and such and we're in for a bumpy ride. Europe gets the worst of it. If we go full ice age the upper half of Europe is a write off. The British Isles are an ice cube. And Canada can change it's name to Iceland.
The only way to stop global warming were for the people of the world to collectively reduce their usage of energy and lower their standard of living.
I think an important point, that needs to be made more often, is that via energy efficiency it is possible to reduce energy use without lowering the standard of living. Build a house with better insulation, more efficient heating systems etc. and you can dramatically reduce energy use without changing the standard of living. Yes there's a greater initial outlay in cost, but it pays itself back in saved energy costs. There are a great many trivial things that can be done (like bothering to better insulate existing homes, using more energy efficient light systems, dressing for the weather rather than according arbitrary social conditioning (and hence saving in both heating and air-conditioning of offices)) that have little or no impact on standards of living, but can make a huge difference in energy consumption if pursued on a broad scale. Reducing energy consumption can be about how to figure out how to do the same or more with less hrough efficiency rather than some blanket reduction of capability.
Jedidiah.
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Yep, seen it. Now scale that to absolute temperature...or even the average background temperature of space, since that (in addition to atmospheric transmittance and global emissivity) is the prime factor affecting heat transfer away from the earth. When you do that, you'll find the graph looks pretty darn flat. My point is not that the temperature is not changing, but the graph blows it a little out of proportion. Also, you don't directly address the parent's point, because all of the points used to generate that graph are averages taking from millions of wildly varying data points taken globally each year. This variation is what he was referring to.
You've not read either The Skeptical Environmentalist nor that study particularly well, then.
The ice is most certainly thickening in the center, something that is most peculiar considering the claims made by folks intent on assuming humans are responsible for global climate change. For heavens sake, why is everyone so arrogant to think that our species is capable of uprooting the climate cycle of a [b]planet[/b]?
We should be conserving energy and controlling emissions, but we do not need to start assuming things that are still widely debated. In fact, we should be especially hesitant to believe any claims on how to maintain the status quo. We've not been so successful at manipulating nature thus far, so better we get re-acquainted with coexisting with it.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
... taking off your sandals and striking yourselfon the head until you bleed:
http://www.physorg.com/news10978.html
Warmer than a Hot Tub: Atlantic Ocean Temperatures Much Higher - Scientists have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 107F (42C)--about 25F (14C) higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub.
Ooops.. and that was normal back then? With oceans like that how much ice do you think was floating in them?
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/vars un.html
Mike Flaugher: It is my personal belief that with the beginning of Sunspot Cycle 23, we MAY be entering into a period of climate disturbance similar to that in the early 1800's, and POSSIBLY like that of the three major disturbances of the last millennium, the Wolf, Sporer and Maunder Minimums. The latter possibility we will not know with certainty for several decades. Solar Cycle 23, however, appears at this time poised to begin a major downshift in solar levels which may well cause reactions in the stratosphere and, through mechanisms now being studied as illustrated in some of the articles above, a series of reactions in the lower atmosphere. I believe that the manifestation of these changes may soon be felt as a shifting of weather patterns of moisture, dryness, and temperature.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/i xnewstop.html
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research. Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.
"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."
Ooops. How are we going to turn down the Sun?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was an unusually warm period during the European Medieval period, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century. It has been argued a better name would be the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. The MWP is often involved in contentious discussions of global warming and the greenhouse effect.
Ooops. We've obviously already have been there - much to the chagrin of one or the other faction trying to justify social change by predicting dire climatic consequences. These factions - as the Wikipedia goes on - of course are hard at work trying to find ways to paint the current warming trend as something novel and unique even in view of literally rock-solid past evidence. The Wikipedia is another btw another good starting point for the debate between the global cooling/warming factions and the CO2 doomsday prophets.
While we're at it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_Climatic_Opt imum
Some more warming in timeframe of 9000 to 5000 years B.P (Before present, before 1950 CE that is):
The Holocene Climate Optimum was a warm period during roughly the interval 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P.. This event has also been known by many other names, including: Hypisthermal, Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, and Holocene Megathermal.
Temperature variations during the
Someone said "Nothing is constant except change." Get used to it, and learn to be a Darwinian survivor or become extinct. Is there more to say? Yup. But do not pretend that long term cycles DO NOT exist, and that those LONG TERM are so dramatically large in terms of varying solar input to the Earth's atmosphere, that they will not and can not dramatically alter Earth's climate over time. It is a fact these changes have ocurred regularly and will ocurr again.
The Earth's circular to elliptical orbit changes, the Earth axis tilt off the Solar plane, and the Precession of the Earth's spin axis all cause changes which seem to be at the root of a 100,000 year cycle. This has been seen in the Vostok ice core samples going back 500,000 years in Antarctic ice by measuring CO2 variations on the repetetive 100,000 year cycles (or nearly so).
Without man's influence these cycles and the "Ice Ages" ocurred regularly and repeatedly, and I propound that they will continue again, and I see nothing man is capable of doing to stop the cycles. Man might speed a cycle up by a few years or decades or slow it down, but I see no chance to "stop it".
Believe me? No. Start with the Milankovitch cycles and other data on this page http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos100-2/clim/>
No matter what the U.N. or the U.S. or all the countries of the world do, the weather will change dramatically, the sea levels will rise and fall, as will CO2 levels, and man will make little dent in this cycle.
> For heavens sake, why is everyone so arrogant to think that our species is capable of uprooting ...because the idea that we cannot do anything at all--that humans can only sit back and watch the planet change--is scarier than the thought that we might be causing it.
>the climate cycle of a [b]planet[/b]?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Equilibrium processes?
We WERE at equilibrium. We have added a new substantial source of CO2, and we are now moving to a new higher equilibrium concentration. Tehjabsolute levels of
BTW, your volcanic CO2 numbers are very, very wrong. Anthropogenic CO2 emissins are more than two orders of magnitde heigher than volcanic emissinons. Total natural emissions of CO2 are about a norderof magnitude higher than anthropogenic inputs. Adnanthropogenic inputs are changing the equilibrium.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=160
http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.CO2rise.html
This folloing info is from the second URL
>From its preindustrial level of about 280 ppmv (parts per million
by volume) around the year 1800, atmospheric carbon dioxide rose to
315 ppmv in 1958 and to about 358 ppmv in 1994 [Battle] [C.Keeling]
[Schimel 94, p 43-44]. All the signs are that the CO2 rise is
human-made:
* Ice cores show that during the past 1000 years until about the year
1800, atmospheric CO2 was fairly stable at levels between 270 and
290 ppmv. The 1994 value of 358 ppmv is higher than any CO2 level
observed over the past 220,000 years. In the Vostok and Byrd ice
cores, CO2 does not exceed 300 ppmv. A more detailed record from
peat suggests a temporary peak of ~315 ppmv about 4,700 years ago,
but this needs further confirmation. [Figge, figure 3] [Schimel 94,
p 44-45] [White]
* The rise of atmospheric CO2 closely parallels the emissions history
from fossil fuels and land use changes [Schimel 94, p 46-47].
* The rise of airborne CO2 falls short of the human-made CO2 emissions.
Taken together, the ocean and the terrestrial vegetation and soils
must currently be a net sink of CO2 rather than a source [Melillo,
p 454] [Schimel 94, p 47, 55] [Schimel 95, p 79] [Siegenthaler].
* Most "new" CO2 comes from the Northern Hemisphere. Measurements
in Antarctica show that Southern Hemisphere CO2 level lags behind
by 1 to 2 years, which reflects the interhemispheric mixing time.
The ppmv-amount of the lag at a given time has increased according
to increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. [Schimel 94, p 43]
[Siegenthaler]
* Fossil fuels contain practically no carbon 14 (14C) and less carbon
13 (13C) than air. CO2 coming from fossil fuels should show up in
the trends of 13C and 14C. Indeed, the observed isotopic trends
fit CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The trends are not compatible
with a dominant CO2 source in the terrestrial biosphere or in the
ocean. If you shun details, please skip the next two paragraphs.
* The unstable carbon isotope 14C or radiocarbon makes up for roughly
1 in 10**12 carbon atoms in earth's atmosphere. 14C has a half-life
of about 5700 years. The stock is replenished in the upper atmosphere
by a nuclear reaction involving cosmic rays and 14N [Butcher,
p 240-241]. Fossil fuels contain no 14C, as it decayed long ago.
Burning fossil fuels should lower the atmospheric 14C fraction (the
`Suess effect'). Indeed, atmospheric 14C, measured on tree rings,
dropped by 2 to 2.5 % from about 1850 to 1954, when nuclear bomb
tests started to inject 14C into the atmosphere [Butcher, p 256-257]
To suggest that global warming is going to change the environment is the same as suggesting that there will be no future ice ages. Since there have been around 20 in the past 2 million years on something like a 110,000 year cycle - this would mean that the last has come and gone. Please note that 5 million years ago there were trees north of the Arctic circle.
If we believe in irreversable Global Warming, then we can expect the planet will revert to the warm phase which is about 20 degrees F (10C) on average warmer than now and which the planet enjoyed for oh about +85% of the last 500+ million years. This will melt the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
There is no evidence to suggest this will happen. Most likely we are simply in an interglacial and there will be another glacial cycle just as there has been in the past.
If we reject the idea of the Global Warming, then this senerio - if the planet warms up a little for a short while then it will just delay the onset of the next ice age.
During the last ice age there were glaciers as thick as the Matterhorn in Switzerland is high. Toronto was covered by more than a mile of ice. That is a lot of ice and it wouldn't be very nice to live in a world like this.
The thing is that whoever is correct, there is little that mankind can do about it. If we have a warming trend for a while then some islands may be flooded and Florida might need to hire some Dutch engineers. Britain may once again be able to tend vinyards. If we have global cooling for a while as occured during the little ice age then we may find that we won't have enough food to eat.
A far more pressing problem is that mankind is buring fossil fuels at a totally unsustainable rate. IMHO we are going to be facing the peak of world oil production within a couple years and when this happens, $70 oil is going to look real cheap.
So I would suggest that rather than worry about global warming, we should instead prepare for a world with less oil and gas. This will probably have the side effect of reducing CO2 emissions. If anyone considers this a positive outcome then fine.
North America peaked in natural gas production in 2001. Since that time - what has the population of North America done to cope?
The answer is pretty much nothing. A huge part of the fertilizer industry has been shut down. Now part of the plastics industry will follow suit. The price of Natural Gas goes up and up (and temporarily down for now - yes I DO know about gas in storage levels) and still people talk about building more gas fired electricity stations. Ontario is still thinking there is no issue and they can have all the gas they want and I read New York State is also imbued with a high level of polyanna thinking.
The last major company to think this way was Calpine. They are in bankruptcy now. If we look at their history we will find that a few years back their shares were trading at $45 bux. They had more gas turbines on order than could be built in the USA. They were planning on burning most of the North American gas supplies all by themselves. The market LOVED THEM.
I do not subscribe to the fears of Global Warming. However I will say again - those who do should get off their butts and do something about it. Insulate your homes. Shut off your furnaces. Stop driving your cars.
Do something that counts, something that will reduce your demand for fossil fuels. If you want to justify it by citing Global warming then be my guest. But however you justify it - DO SOMETHING. Tear a wall down in your house and use some spare time to put R50 insualtion into it. That alone will accomplish far more than wasting your time worrying about something you can do nothing about.
"Solar powercells require platinum which is a quite scarce and finite resource. While there are research into eliminating both of these limitations its not expected to be dealt with anyday soon. "
The principle raw materials used to manufacture Solar cells/panels are glass (Si02), Si, Al, Cu and some HC based resins. All of which are available in large quantities(Sand) and recyclable.
There is NO Platinum or Palladium used in the manufacturing of Solar cells and/or panels.
...H2 based fuel cells are different story, they require an effective catalyst in order to split H2's covalent bond.
However there are alternatives to H2 fuel cells.
...Current generation of NG combined cycle power plants can be adapted to burn H2 at fairly high efficiency, ~63%.