From a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution News Release : Team finds subtropical waters flushing through Greenland fjord
Waters from warmer latitudes — or subtropical waters — are reaching Greenland’s glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers led by Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
“This is the first time we’ve seen waters this warm in any of the fjords in Greenland,” says Straneo. “The subtropical waters are flowing through the fjord very quickly, so they can transport heat and drive melting at the end of the glacier.”
Greenland’s ice sheet, which is two-miles thick and covers an area about the size of Mexico, has lost mass at an accelerated rate over the last decade. The ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise during that time frame doubled due to increased melting and, to a greater extent, the widespread acceleration of outlet glaciers around Greenland.
While melting due to warming air temperatures is a known event, scientists are just beginning to learn more about the ocean’s impact — in particular, the influence of currents — on the ice sheet.
“Among the mechanisms that we suspected might be triggering this acceleration are recent changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which are delivering larger amounts of subtropical waters to the high latitudes,” says Straneo. But a lack of observations and measurements from Greenland’s glaciers prior to the acceleration made it difficult to confirm.
The research team, which included colleagues from University of Maine, conducted two extensive surveys during July and September of 2008, collecting both ship-based and moored oceanographic data from Sermilik Fjord — a large glacial fjord in East Greenland.
Sermilik Fjord, which is 100 kilometers (approximately 62 miles) long, connects Helheim Glacier with the Irminger Sea. In 2003 alone, Helheim Glacier retreated several kilometers and almost doubled its flow speed.
Deep inside the Sermilik Fjord, researchers found subtropical water as warm as 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). The team also reconstructed seasonal temperatures on the shelf using data collected by 19 hooded seals tagged with satellite-linked temperature depth-recorders. The data revealed that the shelf waters warm from July to December, and that subtropical waters are present on the shelf year round.
“This is the first extensive survey of one of these fjords that shows us how these warm waters circulate and how vigorous the circulation is,” says Straneo. “Changes in the large-scale ocean circulation of the North Atlantic are propagating to the glaciers very quickly — not in a matter of years, but a matter of months. It’s a very rapid communication.”
Straneo adds that the study highlights how little is known about ocean-glacier interactions, which is a connection not currently included in climate models.
“We need more continuous observations to fully understand how they work, and to be able to better predict sea-level rise in the future,” says Straneo.
The paper was chosen for advanced online publication Feb. 14, 2010, by Nature Geosciences; it will also appear in the March 2010 printed edition of the journal. Co-authors of the work include WHOI postdoc David Sutherland (now of University of Washington), Gordon Hamilton and Leigh Stearns of the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Fraser Davidson and Garry Stenson of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Mike Hammill of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Mont-Joli, Quebec, and Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid of the Department of Birds and Mammals, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. Canadian and Greenlandic colleagues contributed valuable data on the shelf, from tagged seals.
Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation, WHOI’s Ocean and Climate Change Institute Arctic Research Initiative, and NASA’s Cryosperic Sciences Program.
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Helheim glacier
Time-lapse photographs taken every 4 minutes show calving of the front of Helheim Glacier, August 2008. In 2003 alone, Helheim Glacier retreated several kilometers and almost doubled its flow speed.
| Gordon Hamilton, University of Maine |
| » View Video (Quicktime) 56K Modem |
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R Gates said:
” This kind of massaging of the actual finding of study are every bit as serious as any other kind of data manipulation…and totally inexcusable.”
———————
You did observe that this is a headline that you’re objecting to.
You’ll notice that it’s not a sentence; there is no finite verb. You should appreciate that, since you exhibit an imperfect understanding of conjugation in your comment.
Anyhow, to continue in the same fatuous vein that you initiated, I’ll suggest that this headline could just as easily be construed as ” Greenland glaciers – a study of the melt that is due to sea current change, not air temperature” as your inferred version, which goes along the lines of “Greenland glaciers- the melt is due to sea current change, not air temperature.”
Whatever!!
I agree with Jerome’s comment that this is another two month wonder about something “we’ve never seen before” because we never looked.
What is the data that says the earth is warming?
Many independent data sets, including the GISS data and the satellite records.
From 1979 – 1998, yes. (Since then, cooling is the new warming.)
P.S., define “many”. Besides, HCN is for the birds. And GISS is for the bottom of the birdcage.
Steve Goddard (22:53:53) :
Yep. Saw that. Another good one. I’m hoping you’re right. I’m in the northwest, and for us, this year is much different than the last two (which produced the rebound from 2007). Hence, the reason for my apprehension.
Robert (22:32:14) :
You’ve made some (apparently) good points, but I have a minor grammatical quibble. When referring to any warming or cooling trend the tense can only be past, because that’s all we know about. To say the planet is warming is begging the question, as, for instance, just at the moment, it is quite clearly cooling. In fact, of course, it must be doing one or the other and has been throughout the last 4500000000 years, minimum.
Yes, your arguments are sophistry, as illustrated by your willful misunderstanding of (the rather clumsily constructed) paragraph “Your arguments seem to be sophistry. The burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise.” It should be evident to anyone on this site that the object of the second sentence is the meanings of your arguments, not the acusation of sophistry.
(Sorry, chaps, I had to feed him, he was looking so hungry and pathetic).
Now, back to the glaciers.
This latest from Bjorn Lomborg is worth reading. It covers ClimateGate, GlacierGate, HurricaneGate, AmazonGate and AfricaGate.
IPCC scaremongering is destroying its credibility:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/ipcc-scaremongering-is-destroying-its-credibility/story-e6frg6xf-1225831116193
Hmm, couple of things. I don’t dispute that southern Greenland has warmed in the last 20 years and it could well be ocean currents which have instigated this. But there’s no doubt that the area also warmed in the 1920-30s and also in the Viking period. And lets not forget that the Helheim Glacier’s retreat stopped in 2006 – http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/greenland-redux/ – scientific / media reports of the galciers’s current status are rare – I wonder if that is because it is still advancing?
Southern Greenland temperature from recently released data.
The numbers, if true are indeed alarming, if they are ‘value added’, than someone was rather generous with the ‘value’ added.
Here are graphs showing 6 locations, up to mid 1990’s, there is no great deal of excitement, the east coast warming, west coast cooling, and the southern tip more or less unchanged. Suddenly around 1994-5, whole hell gets loose at the two west coast locations, and in the short time of 10 years, while elsewhere world is cooling, average annual temperatures go up by almost an incredible +3 degrees in location of Egedesminde (68.7N, 52.8E), and a somewhat more modest +2C in
Nuuk /Godthaab (64.2N, 51.8W), a bit further south.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC10.htm
It is an ironic coincidence, that the line indicating these sudden temperature changes goes trough a town aptly named Alert!
Same issue of Nature Geoscience has a related paper:
“Rapid submarine melting of the calving faces of West Greenland glaciers”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo765.html
Conclusions are similar. Warm water is important to the rate of glacier melt.
“Besides, HCN is for the birds. And GISS is for the bottom of the birdcage.”
So you say. Between you and the GISS, I’ll take the GISS.
“From 1979 – 1998, yes. (Since then, cooling is the new warming.)”
I’m sorry, no. The last decade was the warmest on record.
@ur momisugly Stevegoddards link above Monthly Weather Review:-
See extract and note the water temperatures?
“There were few seal in Spitzbergen waters this year, the catch being far under the average. This, however, did not surprise the captain. He pointed out that
formerly the waters about Spitzbergen held an even summer temperature of about 3degrees. Celsius; this year recorded temperatures up to 15degrees and last winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitsbergen.
With the disappearance of white fish and seal has come other life in these waters. This year herring in great shoals were found along the west coast of Spitsbergen, all the way from the fry to the veritable great herring.
OT, but after again engaging with a warmist online, I’m left wondering that warmists need courses in how to think. Maybe it is just me, but warmists seem to be swallowing ever more convoluted speculations in order to shore up their hypothesis. Of course I could be wrong… that’s the point.
evanmjones (00:20:27) :
“Robust” is the new “gravitas”.
And apropos of not a lot, I notice that “nuanced” is the new “get out of jail free” card.
The Warmists have a strong tendancy to ignore other factors causing Arctic ice melt, some of which are caused by humans. Many of them are begining to realise that the recent late 20th century warming might just be natural as Arctic ice recovers, Antarctic ice hits record levels and the snow line moves south etc.
They do use models though! :o)
They also like to ignore that there is nothing unusual in Arctic ice melt if you bother to do research and look into what history tells us.
And just for fun Crocodiles roamed the Arctic 55 million years ago! WUWT?
And 4 degree Celsius is warm?
Did you ever take a dive in 4 degree Celsius water!
You will need a first aid team to get your heart beating again.
Savethesharks/Chris
Your italics work fine on Google Chrome, just not in MS IExplorer.
Steve Goddard (21:28:42) :
“It was considerably warmer in Greenland 70 years ago than it is today.”
Agreed, at least as warm as is now. Here I’ve plotted summer and winter temps for both the east and west South Greenland’s coast:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC11.htm
Interesting article that may reveal one reason why it was warm in Arctic during the 1930’s and today:
“The influence of the lunar nodal cycle on Arctic climate”
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/63/3/401
“This is the first time we’ve seen…”
How often has this statement been made in relation to weather (not climate) events.
The authors then assume that it has never happened before, and then extrapolate this event the be the norm for the future.
Am I alone in thinking that “North Atlantic Current” is in the wrong place?
Impossible. Greenland ice is growing.
O/T – Neuralgate ?
Reading through chapter 9 of the AR4 http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf – I got a shock to see they’ve referenced 2 climate models based on Neural Networks. One of them is on page 690:
“Consistently, a neural network model is unable to reconstruct the observed
global temperature record from 1860 to 2000 if anthropogenic
forcings are not taken into account (Pasini et al., 2006).”
The other neural net model is referenced throughout the text – see the references to “Knutti et al.(2002; 2003)” or “Knutti et al (2003)”.
Artificial Neural Networks were popular in the 1980’s when I was doing my Computer Science Masters degree, but the hype around them has long since been discredited. They can be used successfully for a very narrow range of problems, but proving AGW is an extremely dubious use of them. They should not be featured in an IPCC report which can influence a significant portion of the world’s economy.
“A research team led by Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, found that subtropical waters are reaching Greenland’s glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss. Melting ice also means more fresh water in the ocean, which could flood into the North Atlantic and disrupt a global system of currents, known as the Ocean Conveyor. ”
That sounds like a self correcting mechanism to me.
John M Reynolds
Climate change machine falling apart faster as BP deals blow to Obama fight on climate
The Obama administration’s faltering efforts to pass climate change legislation suffered another blow on Tuesday when BP and ConocoPhillips abruptly pulled out of the leading business group lobbying for curbs on US greenhouse gas emissions.
By withdrawing from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), the oil groups, together with Caterpillar, the heavy machinery company, signalled that they would take a more focused approach to the issue by pushing for specific policies that would benefit them, rather than the principle of reducing emissions.
“It’s really important that we get climate change legislation…but it’s about what’s in the bill, not just about getting a bill,” Red Cavaney senior vice-president of government affairs at Conoco, said. “We need to spend time addressing the issues that impact our shareholders and consumers.”
BP and Conoco on Tuesday said the proposed energy legislation that has stalled in the Congress would impose an unfair burden on the oil industry. “We will continue to work for passage of federal legislation that…is environmentally effective, reduces emissions across the US economy in a measured and affordable way and which treats all energy consumers and producers in a fair and equitable manner,” BP, Europe’s biggest oil company, said. “We don’t believe legislation currently pending in the Congress achieves these objectives.”
The two oil majors have been working together to propose a “linked fee” – something between a tax and a full-blown cap-and-trade system for reducing carbon emissions – that they say would provide more predictability for consumers.
The House of Representatives has passed a cap-and-trade bill but efforts to get similar legislation through the Senate have ground to a halt as healthcare reform and jobs have taken priority. The Obama administration has instead increasingly turned to regulation to impose limits on carbon emissions.
Royal Dutch Shell is now the only large oil company still a member of USCAP, which was founded in 2007 to set out a plan for a limit on greenhouse gases and tradeable emissions permits. The group played down the departures, saying that its membership was constantly changing. Three companies – AES, Alstom and Honeywell – joined in October.
Daniel Weiss, a climate change analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, said the companies’ were now more interested in lobbying for policies that affected them directly. “They are now at the stage where they are interested in cutting deals that benefit their specific companies, rather than supporting the overall architecture,” Mr Weiss said.
So warmer water doesn’t heat the air above it? I must have missed when the ocean decoupled from the atmosphere.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_agw_smoking_gun.html
So – the glacier/ocean interaction is not considered in global climate models.
WHAT?
Considering how much scaremongering there has been by the fantasists, over the impact of melting glaciers on sea levels I find this statement truly extraordinary. The fantasists whitter on about feedbacks and tipping points and don’t bother to include the interaction between 2 of the most significant, and therefore critical, components in the system?
Just what DO they include in their models?
Unbelievable.
I reckon I could produce a better GCM in Excel in less than a day (well maybe 2 or 3 days, then)