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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“So I wonder what Svend Hendriksen (A Nobel Peace Prize Winning Glaciologist, who lives in Greenland) thinks about this research. ”
The Nobel Prize for 1988 was awarded to “UN Peacekeepers.” I sincerely hope Mr. Hendriksen does not puff himself up in the manner being done on his behalf here.
Speaking as a winner of Time’s “Person of the Year” (2006), I think that calling Mr. Hendriksen “Nobel Peace Prize Winning” is extremely silly, even if it’s technically true.
George E. Smith (13:27:39) :
“Svend is a very nice chap;…”
Mr. Smith
I have no doubt, as I would like to think, is anyone interested in the fine art. I just found his art sideline personally very interesting (I often hang around art galleries). Searching for articles on the matter of glaciers by Mr. Hendriksen (after reading your post, being myself interested in the ‘polar effects’) I came across this website
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/Greenland_ice_cap.html
showing some fascinating photos of Greenland and glaciers (reminding me of time when I was for a short period in possession of a minor painting from a North Pole expedition).
Came across a website of comic posters but no articles. Any ideas?
kim (05:09:33) :
I once told a distinguished engineering professor who was an expert at Greenland icecap radar imaging that the icecap sits in a bowl and can’t slide precipitously into the sea, and he had the gall to try to tell me that the topography of Greenland’s land surface was poorly known. He’d just finished pooh-poohing the 800 year lag of CO2 to temperature in the ice core record, too. This was for an audience being challenged about the hysteria by you know who.
=============================
The ice is also heavy enough to make its own topology – which is probably more important over larger areas.
It’s a bit like lying in bed. If you notice, everything is uphill from where you’re lying. Even if you move.
Spooky…
michel (00:02:17) :
Agreed.
The obvious and most likely hypothesis is, however, that the loss of sea ice is a strongly negative feedback as the warmer (it has to be – it’s not frozen) sea can radiate heat that would otherwise be trapped by the ice. Ice is a good insulator – ask any igloo-dweller.
The angle of incidence at polar latitudes also makes the sunlight absorption argument a bit weak, I feel.
I’m not sure how that goes on land ice. Does a darker body radiate more? Beyond my area of dabbling.
Cadae (02:01:38) :
The IPCC are using neural networks to prove Al Gore warming? priceless!
(I did my degree project on those little babies – a waste of time for future benefit, but I really did think they were going somewhere)
“The question is whether the increased warming by radiation absorption at those latitudes is a significant contributor either to ice melt or to the warmth of the planet. And the answer is probably no.”
Actually, the hypothetical I was responding to was: what if currents are delivering warmth to the ice, melting it. Doesn’t that by definition mean it is colder somewhere else, and hence the net impact is zero?
And my response, in part, was: not necessarily (of course, it might net to zero if ice is growing elsewhere), because the ice melting contributes to warming.
“”” Robert (14:17:13) :
“So I wonder what Svend Hendriksen (A Nobel Peace Prize Winning Glaciologist, who lives in Greenland) thinks about this research. ”
The Nobel Prize for 1988 was awarded to “UN Peacekeepers.” I sincerely hope Mr. Hendriksen does not puff himself up in the manner being done on his behalf here.
Speaking as a winner of Time’s “Person of the Year” (2006), I think that calling Mr. Hendriksen “Nobel Peace Prize Winning” is extremely silly, even if it’s technically true. “””
Wow ! who would ever have imagined that; fancy the Nobel Peace Prize committee actually awarding that prize to “UN Peacekeepers”.
Much better of course that they award such a prize to the Commander in Chief of US military forces; who held up acting on the request from his Commanders in the field to send reinforcements to Afghanistan in the ongoing WAR there; until the Norwegian Committee had made their well reasoned selection; a candidate who in fact hasn’t raised a finger to assist those innocent victims of a cruel war in Africa; the very people I believe that in 1988 those Nobel Peace prize winning “UN Peacekeepers” were sent to aid. How many US troops perished while the CIC was awaiting his annointment; after serving a whole month in his new job ?
And yes Svend was one of those.
Of course, once the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner had gathered up his Norwegian booty; he then chose to finally order those much needed US “peacekeepers” into battle in Afghanistan.
No Svend is quite circumspect about his role; but I find your comment to be sillier than his award.
Perhaps the similar award to a pompous goofball like Al Gore is more deserved and less silly than awarding that prize to actual “peacekeepers.”
“”” vukcevic (15:19:29) :
George E. Smith (13:27:39) :
“Svend is a very nice chap;…”
Mr. Smith
I have no doubt, as I would like to think, is anyone interested in the fine art. I just found his art sideline personally very interesting (I often hang around art galleries). Searching for articles on the matter of glaciers by Mr. Hendriksen (after reading your post, being myself interested in the ‘polar effects’) I came across this website
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/Greenland_ice_cap.html
showing some fascinating photos of Greenland and glaciers (reminding me of time when I was for a short period in possession of a minor painting from a North Pole expedition).
Came across a website of comic posters but no articles. Any ideas? “””
Well I’m familiar with that particular site; and I am also familiar with some contacts between those CO2 enthusiasts and Dr Hendriksen. Doesn’t mean he endorse their views.
He actually works for A Danish Climate/Weather research agency; sorry I don’t keep its official title in my head.
if I can retrieve one of his personal e-mails to me, i will see if I can contact him.
So far as I know he isn’t employed in academia; so I suspect he is busy getting data, rather than publishing papers for publicity.
It is really fascinating to watch here the process of ad hominum attack on someone; who has yet to say word one about the subject of this thread.
I conclude that the trolls have a real fear of hearing from someone who really knows what is going on.
But those are some interesting ice photos.
Maybe, you can reach Svend yourself through DMI, so you can discuss art with him.
“Robert (14:17:13) :”
Please address me as “Former Time’s Person of the Year, Robert.”
According to NSIDC in the case of the iconic Jakobshavn glacier (Greenland); (fastest retreating glacier in the world); there is extremely poor correlation between NH average temperatures and retreat rate. Most notably, retreat was at the slowest between 1964 and 2001, that being 37 years of rapid warming according to HADCRUT:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2573/3775490997_b6e8c91f72_o.jpg
Robert (16:58:42),
[this was uncalled for Smokey ~ ctm]
OK, I get it: click
It’s everyone.
IF this has been mentioned before-I’m too tired to check I just came back from
a 300mi round-trip in my old van in need of attention..
Ok what about the AMDO and the apparent cooling of the Gulf stream is that
happening as some in Europe have been speculating, and if so, that would change this warming scenario..
Dr A Burns (21:50:34) :
“While melting due to warming air temperatures is a known event …”
They obviously don’t understand glacier dynamics :
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/OllierPaine-NoIceSheetCollapse-AIGNewsAug.2009.pdf
Many thanks, Dr . I don’t understand glacier dynamics very well, but that reference seems to give a good schematic mechanism upon which to start, especially in relation to “collapse”.
JER0ME (15:49:51) :
Cadae (02:01:38) :
O/T – Neuralgate ?
The IPCC are using neural networks to prove Al Gore warming? priceless! (I did my degree project on those little babies – a waste of time for future benefit, but I really did think they were going somewhere)
I read a study back in the early 1980’s about the a US military attempt to train a neural network to discriminate between NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks. They used photographs. When the system was tried in the field it failed. After some analysis, the researchers concluded that, because the pictures of NATO tanks were almost always taken in bright sunshine while the soviet tanks photos were almost always taken in cloudy weather, the neural net was distinguishing between tanks with shadows vs. tanks w/o shadows.
The project was abandoned.
Mike Ramsey
Savethesharks writes a common misconception, “when the temperature rises above freezing, ice melts”, that isn’t exactly the case, and it’s very important to know about this one.
Quoting from “How could we melt enough ice for a 20ft rise in sea levels?” (http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/02/22/how-could-we-melt-enough-ice-for-a-20ft-rise-in-sea-levels).
“When ice melts, it absorbs as much heat energy (the heat of fusion) as it would take to heat an equivalent mass of water by 80 °C, while its temperature remains a constant 0 °C.”
WOW! That’s a serious amount of energy required and a big speed bump in the simplistic statement that “when the temperature rises above freezing, ice melts”.
“When you heat a material, you are adding kinetic energy to its molecules and usually raising its temperature. The only exception is when the material reaches its melting or boiling points. At those two temperatures, the heat energy goes into changing the state of the material. After the state has changed, the temperature will rise again with added heat. The rate temperature changes is the specific heat of the material. The amount of heat required to melt the material is called the latent heat of melting.”
It takes a lot of energy to melt ice. Melting the antarctic [or Greenland] will take a huge amount of [heat] energy. It has to come from somewhere.
Ok, what about the full melt? Could we melt all the ice on Earth, well at least as much to raise the ocean levels by Al Gore’s and Jim Hansen’s favorite ~20 feet doomsday scenario? Could we actually create Hansen’s Gorey doomsday if we wanted to?
Read the linked article (http://wp.me/ps3dI-J) to find out.
pwl
http://PathsToKnowledge.net
Finally. Field research. And with seals, which is way, way, cool. Funny that. How come we didn’t get the whole meal deal with this expedition? I wanted to see their heart rate, when they peed, and all that. I wanted to see the day to day treacherous trek to the land of ice! I wanted daily updates by the insurance company! I’ve been robbed. Where’s the PR man?!?!?!?
It’s not the first time it has happened in the Arctic and this one may still be influential:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1754
“It’s as if the planet became warmer in a single day,” Polyakov said. Interested in the pulse of warm water, Polyakov contacted oceanographers from around the world to backtrack the water on its path to the high Arctic. Norwegian scientists have moored stations in the Norwegian Sea, and German scientists monitor stations in Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard.
Using information from those stations and others, Polyakov and his co-workers found that the warm water passed Norway in 1998 and took about six years to reach the mooring station north of the Laptev Sea. That warmer water now resides in the Arctic Ocean, where it will remain for years caught up in currents that swirl counterclockwise in several giant basins north of the world’s landmasses.
DennisA (07:40:17)
WOW – hadn’t seen that before. Another excerpt:
The warming of the Arctic Ocean has happened before, in a pattern that scientists call multidecadal variability. Since Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen first recorded Arctic Ocean temperatures in the late 1800s, the temperature of the Arctic Ocean has been higher than average during two periods: from the 1920s to about the 1950s, and from the early 1980s to the present.
If this were a neutral, just-the-facts news-delivery site, it would be improper to draw an inference from the finding of a paper. Or at least the inference would be couched in such a way as to plainly distinguish it from the finding of the paper itself.
OTOH, this is not a site whose motto is, “we report, you decide.” This, like other sites on both sides of this issue (and middle-of-the-roaders) treats its readers as sophisticated enough to recognize that what makes many papers on this topic newsworthy is what they imply, even if they don’t plainly state it. For instance, if a paper came out finding (for instance) that a software bug had substantially misstated CO2 levels or global temperature levels in an alarmist direction, it would not be improper for a site devoted to this topic to include the plain implication of the finding at the end of its headline, thus: “Levels miscalculated; case for warmism weakened.”
Well, in the current political environment, the Woods Hole team isn’t going to rub the noses of warmists in the implications of their finding by explicitly saying, “You can’t blame global warming, nyah, nyah.” They’ll let their finding that the cause of the “accelerated” melting — which is what was being attributed to global (air temperature) warming — was instead due to water-warming “speak for itself.”
So the headline here was not misleading “period,” or misleading at all. It was accurate as regards “accelerated” melting. Your attempt to implicitly reframe the matter as any melting is a diversion. Here are the first two sentences of the press release.
This obviously implicitly excludes warming air temperatures as a cause.
Read what I’ve said above. And read this:
…………………
I urge you to visit https://www.Intrade.com and put some money on the line about the future global temperature trend.