The media spin is in full wash mode over this recent paper studying a small section of Greenland. WUWT Reader “non nomen” writes in Tips and Notes:
“Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2161.html
Propaganda? Wishful thinking? Reality?
Have a look at some media headlines published about this paper:
- Greenland’s Ice Loss Triples and Raises Global Warming Awareness
- Fears of faster rising global sea levels as ‘stable’ Greenland ice sheet starts to melt
- Greenland’s ice loss nearly tripled in a decade USA TODAY A formerly stable part of Greenland’s ice sheet in the northeast has been losing ice at an accelerating rate.
- Regional warming triggers sustained mass loss in Northeast Greenland ice sheet
- Greenland Ice Sheet Loses Its Last Grip
Some are conflating regional warming with global warming, because, you know, everything is about global warming. But imagine if I used the regional cooling in the southeastern United States to make a claim about that countering “global” warming. Our friends would have a cow. Observe how the media claims fall apart on examination of the paper.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
Media claims that “Greenland’s ice loss has tripled in a decade” are CAGW propaganda
The CAGW alarmist media is awash today with claims based on a paper published in Nature Climate Change that “Greenland’s ice loss has nearly tripled in a decade” and “the Greenland ice sheet has lost it’s last grip.” As usual, the paper has been hyped by the media to portray impending doom, while examination of the actual scientific paper reveals very little of concern.
Figure 1a shows the tiny region of Greenland that the paper studied, with a blowup of this region in figure 2 below.
Figure 1: Changes in surface elevations obtained using ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data (Supplementary Section 1.0).
a–c, Ice surface elevation change rates in m yr−1 from April 2003 to April 2006 (a), April 2006 to April 2009 (b) and April 2009 to April 2012 (c).
The authors find an increase in the natural glacier calving process in this regional, relatively tiny portion of the Greenland ice sheet. According to the authors, this is due to regional warming found at the site “HKH” marked by an “X” in fig. 2a below. The key word here is regional, which indicates these processes are localized and not characteristic of global warming. In fact, the authors also looked at another nearby site “DH” marked by an “X” in fig. 2a below and found that this site cooled over the past decade.
Examination of Figure 2 from the below reveals that over the past 34 years 1978-2012:
- Annual sea surface temperature anomaly has cooled at both sites DH and HKH
- June-August summer temperatures warmed at site HGH but cooled at site DH, and are only about 2C above the freezing point
- Annual air temperatures at both sites increased, but are about 10 degrees cooler than the freezing point
These localized, regional changes were not predicted by climate models and are not supportive of the CAGW meme, and in fact suggest that other processes are responsible. For example, geothermal sources have recently been discovered under the Greenland ice sheet, which create lakes under the ice sheet and lubricate the natural slide to calving in the ocean. In addition, storm activity and winds largely control Arctic sea ice, which can act as an impediment to glacier calving.
Figure 2: Surface speed, mass loss rates and climate data.
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I can see how science challenged journalists might get the idea the study is an indicator of “global” warming (even though nearby there’s that pesky regional cooling) by just reading the abstract:
==============================================================
Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming
Abstract
The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1. A significant portion of this contribution is associated with the speed-up of an increased number of glaciers in southeast and northwest Greenland. Here, we show that the northeast Greenland ice stream, which extends more than 600 km into the interior of the ice sheet, is now undergoing sustained dynamic thinning, linked to regional warming, after more than a quarter of a century of stability. This sector of the Greenland ice sheet is of particular interest, because the drainage basin area covers 16% of the ice sheet (twice that of Jakobshavn Isbræ) and numerical model predictions suggest no significant mass loss for this sector, leading to an under-estimation of future global sea-level rise. The geometry of the bedrock and monotonic trend in glacier speed-up and mass loss suggests that dynamic drawdown of ice in this region will continue in the near future.
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The word “global” is used twice, even though this tiny area likely contributes only a small fraction of global SLR. A better choice would be to write a paper about why this area is so sensitive, in spite of the fact that nearby there’s a regional cooling.
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Why is it that the facts and information behind press releases never support the statements made about AGW / Climate Change / Whatever
Isn’t Greenland experiencing more snowfall…
..and wouldn’t that make glaciers move and calf faster?
It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. The media have already made their mark on the public consciousness. As long as the media are accomplices in the CAGW scam, then the truth does not matter. The message becomes the truth. Those who oppose message and cite the trutch are marginalized and ridiculed to the point where very few are willing to express a dissenting opinion.
Well, in my country of Canada, global warming is rising to the roof-tops.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/giant-snow-drifts-reach-rooftops-in-delta-beach-1.2568867
The largest vertical acceleration was 2.10 mm.yr^-2. Supposing that the clock started with zero vertical velocity in 2006.0, then by 2007.0, the vertical velocity would reach 2.10 mm/yr, by 2008.0 it would be 4.20 mm/yr. By 2014.0 it should be about 15.8 mm/yr. By 2022 it would be about 31.6 mm/yr. By then there would have been 16 year with the surface falling at an average rate of 15.8 mm/yr, = 252.8 mm total loss. Crikey, at that rate, in 10 000 years the ice cap may have gone!
@WUWT
But global warming is a cash cow for activist governments, who demand monetary indulgences from those humans blamed for causing it.
So they would do the same for global cooling too, if they could just figure out a way to blame it on humans. And a Nobel Prize to the “climatologist” who figures out a way to blame simultaneous global warming and cooling on those pesky one-percenters (who actually create wealth for the rest of us 99-percenters).
😐
@Jim Stevens – We are more fortunate. It just keeps coming at us down here, just not feet at a time!
because, you know, Greenland warming is a “regional” phenomenon. . .
http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/sites/default/files/GHCN_GISS_1200km_Anom04_2010_2010_1951_1980.gif
REPLY:LOL! GISS and 1200KM smoothing, you’ll bite on anything supporting your belief system. And how do you explain that cooling right next door that GISS smoothed into non-existence? – Anthony
Great Lakes still iced over?…
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/deep-freeze/deep-freeze-no-match-coast-guards-ice-breakers-n53286
“an under-estimation of future global sea-level rise”
Sea level rise has been claimed to be accelerating countless times before, despite it overall, for instance, being less in the second half of the 20th century than the first half (Holgate study). Sea level outright fell in 2010-2011 (e.g. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/24/nasa-notes-sea-level-is-falling-in-press-release-but-calls-it-a-pothole-on-road-to-higher-seas/ ). While there is an attempt to spin that as just weather, in reality, for instance, I can predict it will go negative again within a decade, as there has been a pattern over the decades (and centuries) as illustrated in http://tinyurl.com/nbnh7hq .
Will Khan et al go to prison?
‘Lawrence Torcello – assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, writes in an essay at The Conversation that climate scientists who fail to communicate the correct message about “global warming” should face trial for “criminal negligence”.’
Khan et al appear to have failed.
Of course, a warmist can’t be wrong. Never mind.
Their own figure shows that over most of Greenland the ice surface is *rising*. The areas shown in green have elevation change > 0. There may be a net loss averaged over the whole thing, but only a very small fraction of the area is actually losing ice.
“The authors find an increase in the natural glacier calving process in this regional, relatively tiny portion of the Greenland ice sheet.”
Differentiation between issues caused by man and naturally occuring events, and local vs global effects seems to be a weakness in most of the published papers and media spin regarding climate today.
In this vane the book “The Worst Hard Times” is an historical documentary of the Dust Bowl with hard data as well as anecdotal and biographical information regarding those living in the three corners area of Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado as well as other areas where the Dust Bowl was most severe. It is well worth a read by anyone interested in climate/weather, as it points out how man can, indeed, have an effect upon local conditions. I say “local” since even though these conditions spread across the country at times, they were not truly global in nature. It is also very informative regarding the cyclical nature of weather/climate irrespective of man’s activities and the degree to which people must go to have any real impact upon their environment. In reality, and someone correct me here if there is data to the contrary, the effects were not really upon the weather or climate of the region, but were secondary results of the destruction of the 12,000 year old grasses which protected the soil. All in all, a very interesting read.
The government at the time was a significant contributor to the origination of the problem and then very weak in it’s attempts to mediate the effects that the situation had upon the people and the environment.
“The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1.”
With an error margin of a couple of meters …
… where is the logic (and the brains) …?
Greenland over 4000 years.
“High variability of Greenland surface temperature over the past 4000 years estimated from trapped air in an ice core”
“The record indicates that warmer temperatures were the norm in the earlier part of the past 4000 years, including century-long intervals nearly 1°C warmer than the present decade (2001–2010). Therefore, we conclude that the current decadal mean temperature in Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability over the past 4000 years, a period that seems to include part of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Notwithstanding this conclusion, climate models project that if anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue, the Greenland temperature would exceed the natural variability of the past 4000 years sometime before the year 2100”
nothing to see , move along.
apart from the dreaded models, they even see things that will not happen.
You can try to claim this is “regional” however.
..
1) GRACE says otherwise….
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/news/grace20121129.html
.
2) Direct GPS measurements say otherwise.
https://www.unavco.org/science/snapshots/cryosphere/2012/bevis.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/30/11944.full
…
So this new study just confirms what we already know about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
I have been searching for a global sea level acceleration by examining groups of data sets from regional PSMSL data. If such an acceleration exists, then finding it is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
My series of posts has 10 parts so far. You can see an index with links here…
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/the-search-for-acceleration/
if we are in an inter glacial warming period in which the sea has already risen 150m then why is it a munch scream if 1 location has melting? as long as the inter glacial warming period exists then we should expect such data. The problem for the munch screamers is proving it has anything to do with co2.
This is more an issue about reporting than it is about global warming. Have you ever read a headline that underplayed the content of the story? Have you ever read a headline that said ‘The Price of Bananas Climbs 2 Cents/Pound’, then read the story revealing a massive explosion and fire at the banana processing plant in Miami that killed 3 people? No! The headline would more likely be ‘Radioactive Bananas Go Up in Massive Fireball, Killing 3 and Threatening the City of Miami’. Press releases and headlines are specifically grafted to squeeze as much drama out of the story as possible without being a complete fabrication.
In a 4 second tease to the local news, a TV station in Cleveland reported to viewers that war with the Soviet Union was imminent! Viewers watched the newscast in panic, but nothing was said about war with the USSR until the final story, which described a study by the Pentagon in which war with the Soviet Union would become imminent if a series of highly unlikely events were to occur. The tease worked. It was designed to get viewers to watch the local news, and they did. Yet, that type of embellishment loses its effectiveness if it is over used, and it has certainly been over used concerning global warming. It has been over used so much, that it would be harder than ever to convince the average Joe of a global warming crisis even if there was one. Thank goodness there isn’t.
Jim Clarke says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:42 am
I worked in Cleveland for many years and nothing would surprise me regarding what those folks might believe. The “news” that is reported there is some of the most inaccurate and twisted that one can find.
To Chuck:
Whether limited to a tiny part of Greenland or the whole of Greenland one is still talking “regional”, not “global”. Any “global” discussion must include the southern as well as the northern hemisphere.
Inconvenient for those peddling the catastrophic version of AGW is the record level of sea ice in the Antarctic, and the continued coverage of most of Antarctica with ice. The current net effect of global ice coverage on Earth’s albedo is contrary to the climate model predictions of catastrophic global warming due to anthropogenic CO2 production. Those models predicted that there would be less ice over all, resulting in less reflection of heat back into space, providing part of the positive feedback that would change a little bit of warming due to CO2 into a catastrophic process.
Sadly for the Warmists, the real “global” results on Earth are refuting their models. So far no real evidence of a “catastrophic” process exists. (Computer model-generated “data” is not evidence. It is simply part of the prediction generated by the model. Only measurements made in the real world constitute evidence.)
The word “global” is used twice, even though this tiny area likely contributes only a small fraction of global SLR. A better choice would be to write a paper about why this area is so sensitive, in spite of the fact that nearby there’s a regional cooling.
The first use is: “The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1.” So that’s about one-sixth of the global sea-level rise which seems a reasonable usage.
The giant bathtub (our ocean) is not filling up any faster that now than is was 150 years ago. No acceleration in rate means there is no net increase in rate of melting of non-floating ice around the world.
Just means some spots may be melting a little faster at various times, but somewhere else it is freezing up a little faster than before. Nothing alarming what-so-ever at this point. These guys act like they are shocked to discover that not every little place in the world is doing the exact same thing as every other little place in the world and go into panic mode. If they weren’t trying to destroy modern industrial society because of this “sceince” it would be down right hilarious,
Phil. says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:34 am
T”he first use is: “The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1.” So that’s about one-sixth of the global sea-level rise which seems a reasonable usage.”
Phil, actually I think the tide gauges are a much better and most important measurement of sea level rise. They are right there at the scene., They show about 1.8mm per year of sea level rise, thus even if it is contributing 1/6 to global sea level rise, that is 0.3mm/yr… really scary stuff.