UK Glaciations – Source: Western Washington University
Just prior to Copenhagen, there was a flurry of news stories about Greenland melt accelerating and sea level rising up to seven meters, like this one from Spiegel.
11/13/2009
A Warming Arctic
Greenland’s Ice Sheet Melting Faster than Ever
By Christoph Seidler
Everyone knows that the ice sheet on Greenland is melting. But new research shows it is disappearing much faster than previously thought. The findings could mean that ocean levels are also rising more quickly.
As a corollary, some climatologists have speculated (as recently as this week) that cold water pouring into the North Atlantic from Greenland melt will cause the Gulf Stream to collapse and an ice age to set in across Europe.
‘Glaciers on Snowdon’ warning by climate expert
Jan 12 2010 by Rhodri Clark, Western Mail
THIS winter’s prolonged cold spell could be a taste of things to come for Wales – with glaciers a possibility within 40 years. That’s the chilly message from a leading Welsh climate expert who has warned that global warming could paradoxically trigger a collapse in temperatures in western Europe.
It is simple enough to show how unlikely these claims are. If the Greenland ice sheet was melting at an accelerated rate and pouring cold water into the North Atlantic, we would necessarily see two side effects:
- Increased rate of sea level rise
- Cold water around Greenland
In fact, we see neither of these things happening. Over the last four years sea level rise has slowed, and over the last fifteen years sea level has been rising at an average of only 32cm per century. This is an order of magnitude less than the predictions of alarmists.
Source: University of Colorado Sea Level Lab
The Spiegel article further claims:
In the period between 2000 and 2008, the dwindling glaciers have been responsible for the sea level rising by an average of about half a millimeter per year. However, during the last three years of observation, the value rose to 0.75 millimeters per year. According to the researchers, these results could indicate that the sheet of ice is melting at an accelerated rate.
These claims are not supported by the University of Colorado data. Since 1900, sea level has been rising at about 20cm per century, and hasn’t changed much recently – as seen in the graph below.
Is there evidence of cold water around Greenland pouring into the North Atlantic? No, quite the opposite. Sea Surface Temperatures around Greenland have running consistently above normal. Below are SST maps for the end of July (peak melt season) for 2007-2009. Maps from Unisys.
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-070729.gif
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-080727.gif
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-090726.gif
How about winter? Same story – warmer than normal temperatures around Greenland at the end of December 2007-2009.
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-071230.gif
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-081228.gif
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-091227.gif
Even if all this speculation was true and the Gulf Stream did slow down and colder weather started to set in – Greenland would stop melting, causing the whole process to reverse. In other words, don’t book any glacier climbing vacations in Wales quite yet.
h/t to Steve Goddard
Seems like the feedback to warming that would cause the “collapse” of the Gulf Stream would happen much faster than the warming itself. Thus there is no real danger of a “collapse” happening and swinging to a sudden glaciation.
The dangers of a sudden collapse would only be possible if the feedback mechanism of shutting down the thermohaline exchange was delayed and slow to respond to a warming and decreased salinization of the polar waters.
This suggestion that warming would drastically outpace feedback is completely unsupported.
I thought everyone knew Global Warming causes Global Cooling? Isn’t it settled science? Like everything else needed to raise taxes and control other people’s lives?
Seems to me that the easiest way to keep watch on it is to monitor salinity.
Does such data exist?
As a german I am sorry to say this, the “spiegel” is in behalf of the climate an alarmist organ mostly read green left people.
seems to me that the upwelling of cold water off the eastern coast of Greenland is an integral part of the thermohaline conveyor (Gulfstream included) and the decrease in it’s presence is a sign that the GS is diminishing. That said, lower temps in Europe would be forthcoming. Measurements since the late ’80s show that the GS is diminishing in heat transport so….
Hard to believe that Wales will get much ice before Iceland refreezes. I believe the Little Ice Age freeze was West to East (opposite the melt from East to West). Thought the same happened in the Far East, West to East to freeze and East to West to melt. Kind of a continental thing?
Furthermore, some other research, discussed here
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/teia-crr012203.php
and
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forget-about-the-gulf-stream-britain-is-really-kept-warm-in-winter-by-the-rocky-mountains-597214.html
for example, questions the idea that the gulf stream is primarily driven by differences in salinity.
And I should have added — or that the gulf stream is primarily responsible for relatively mild weather (for the latitude) in western europe.
“Everyone knows that the ice sheet on Greenland is melting.”
Ah, the simple world of Der Spiegel. How refreshing. That was the original reason i started to get my news from the BBC… before they turned into Gordon’s goons.
I’m ashamed that our decedents will know we were on board this ship of fools!
CH
“…32cm per century.”
Type: Either a missed decimal point, or that should be millimeters.
The only flurry was the blizzard that was Copenhagen: The catastrophic melting of wax figures occured in that little shop of horrors.
Call up the Caitlin Team: We must mount an expedition to Greenland immediately, to survey the winter melting that nobody in thier right mind would step foot in that awful place to ascertain.
Pen should be sufficiently thawed by now.
The graphs and schematics makes Mr. Watts’ argument easy to follow.
The historical slight sea level rise, “Over the last four years sea level rise has slowed, and over the last fifteen years sea level has been rising at an average of only 32cm per century.”, and the current slowing of sea level rise, suggest that sea level rise at present does not pose a significant issue.
In geologic time scales, millions of years ago, there is evidence of sea levels receding — and rising — for instance receding from the North American continent, where evidence exists of an “inland sea” present running North and South, East of the Rocky Mountains.
Other evidences point to the possible receding of sea levels in more recent times.
It seems to me that this whole thing about the Gulf stream warming the British Isles is just another Myth. What really causes us to have mild winters or cold winters is the Jet Steam as has just recently been proven.
When the Jet Stream went further South we had a very cold period even though the Gulf stream was still working, and now the Jet Steam has regained it’s more normal flow it’s turned milder.
I’m not saying the Gulf stream does not have any effect but it’s not the main driver of our winter climate.
We don’t know the trigger and we don’t know the timing, but we do know that we are in an ice age with regular stable periods of glaciation and warmer interglatial periods. The glaciation lasts about 100,000 years and the warm interglatial period lasts about 20,000 years. This cycle has repeated about 20 times over the last 2.5 million years.
So it isn’t a question of whether rather it is when. Considering its been about 20,000 years since the last glatial maximus, it doesn;t seem to me to be too early to start anticipating the potential consequences of an abrupt climate change to very stable cooling.
what is this about point 5 and point 75 MM/year that is only 2 and 3 inches per century. normal sea level rise is 2 to 3 MM/year or 8 to 12 inches per century.
“In the period between 2000 and 2008, the dwindling glaciers have been responsible for the sea level rising by an average of about half a millimeter per year. However, during the last three years of observation, the value rose to 0.75 millimeters per year. According to the researchers, these results could indicate that the sheet of ice is melting at an accelerated rate”
The Arctic Circle will be ice free in 100 minutes unless we do something about it. Forget about it. Send me your cash now, I need climate compensation because I’m two feet below sea level and it’s your fault.
Yours sincerely,
A Bather
the 32cm is correct – 320mm = approx 1 ft.
Funny that everything in “Der Spiegel” is side-inverted, as it should be, but in the “Daily Mirror” it is not.
The Guld Stream doesn’t collapse. It diminishes and kinda gets sucked into the Bermuda Triangle; just kidding. Now the North Atlantic Drift takes a hit from all the cold arctic weather and when that happens Europe freezes.
Since it’s all rotten ice, maybe it becomes warm water when it melts… 🙂
And BTW, Anthony seems to be about right with 20 cm /century; Jasper Kirkby also mentioned a number like that – 1.9 mm/year IIRC – in his presentation about the CLOUD experiment.
The Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, MWP and Modern Warm Period all form a slope…downwards. The next warm period may be slightly less than the Modern Warm Period, or it may be 1/3 the way down to the Next Ice Age.
No need to hit the panic button, think of all that continental shelf just waiting to re-emerge when the sea levels drop. The Sahara will be a grasslands again, as well as the American Southwest.
What’s an Alarmist to do?
A marvelous computer scientist at my church, clued me into his observation that the DOCKS at Pompei are located about 3/4 mile INLAND from the current Medditeranian shore. The elevation difference is about 50′.
THUS when Mount Vesuvius went off in something like 70 B.C., the Medditeranian was up 50′ from where it is now.
HUM, that seems like a HELL of a lot more water in the oceans (assume Straigths of Megellan were NOT closed!) than now.
Whence comes this water? Did the land around Pompei elevate 50′ in 2000 years? (A possibility!)
Or are we talking massive “climate cycles”. Was Greenland completely green?
Was Antartica very diminished?
These are now important questions.
” In other words, don’t book any glacier climbing vacations in Wales quite yet.”
True, but you can still book mountain climbing vacations in Wales, while studying the evidence of the glaciations of the various ice ages, and the ancient rock formations (Ordovician, Silurian).
You might even find the odd trilobite here and there …