By Steve Goddard
Readers will surely recall when WUWT was the first climate news outlet to publish this story:
Oh no! Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan
In it, an admonition: “Watch the media now as this story is only about an hour old.” So far the media (and foot in mouth politicians) haven’t disappointed in their zeal to make this “business as usual” for a glacier into a poster child.
Image from The Arc
Professor Andreas Muenchow became a media celebrity this week with his quote about an iceberg in Greenland being “four times the size of Manhattan.” This iceberg has become a poster child for global warming, even though a much larger one broke off the same glacier 50 years ago.
From the Kansas City Star
Researchers last week spotted a 100-square-mile chunk of ice that calved off from the great Petermann Glacier in Greenland’s far northwest. It was the most massive ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation. The huge iceberg appeared just five months after an international scientific team published a report saying ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet is expanding up its northwest coast from the south. Changes in the ice sheet “are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated,” said NASA’s Isabella Velicogna.
Others took the misinformation one step further:
In what he calls ‘a manifestation of warming’, Dr Richard Bates who helps monitor the Greenland ice said he was ‘amazed’ to see such a huge area of ice break off the Petermann glacier. Reported in the Telegraph a team from the University of St Andrews said that a huge 106 square mile chunk of ice had broken away at the start of August. This is the largest ever seen to come from Greenland. The US National Ice Center has named the iceberg the ‘Petermann Ice Island’. They also report that the Petermann glacier, which is located in North West Greenland to the East of the Nares Strait and one of the largest in the Northern hemisphere, has retreated back to a level not observed since 1962.
What the press is not widely reporting is that Professor Muenchow also said :
years of data on the glacier itself show that after this month’s event, the mass of ice is still, on average, discharging about the same amount of water it usually does – some 600 million cubic meters a year, or about 220,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. “Even a big piece like this over 50 years is not that significant. It’s just the normal rate,” he said. Muenchow warns people not to jump to conclusions. “An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, ‘Oh, let’s explain this by global warming.’ I cannot support that,” he said.
So what we know is that the glacier is where it was 50 years ago, a bigger chunk broke off 50 years ago, and the rate of ice moving to the sea has not changed. There is absolutely no story here. Our warming friends get more desperate by the day. It is pathetic.
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geo
What’s up with Revkin? I haven’t been following that thread.
More Ice Islands…including mention of one 60 miles by 40 miles!
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-ice-islands.html
RACookPE1978 says:
August 13, 2010 at 4:35 pm
… does it represent the level of knowledge and real-world experience of today’s “average” CAGW-spouting glaciologists…
yes
Too bad the continental US doesn’t calve off that festering cesspool known as D.C.
SSam @ur momisugly 6:20. Ding ding ding ding! We have a thread winnah!
I have to ask a really dumb question. Isn’t it only ADVANCING glaciers that calve? I would think a retreating glacier wouldn’t calve but rather melt back from whence it came. This may, indeed, be an omen…but it seems as though it is a harbinger of advancing glaciers. Of course it might also be that’s it’s freakin’ AUGUST in the northern hemisphere!
Professor Muenchow’s scientific honesty and integrity….comes at a price:
From the Guardian:
“Muenchow told the briefing that over the last seven years he had only received funding to measure ocean temperatures near the Petermann Glacier for a total of three days.”
“He was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic.”
Well there you have it.
He can’t get the funding?
Must be a good scientist.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Changes in the Arctic are happening fast, with Greenland pumping out vast quantities of glacial ice. The snow precipitation factor must really be hitting high gear, as that ice front that broke off was 15km further south just 3 years ago.
5km/year glacier flow indicates it was shoved much more than merely flowing.
Do the math on the 2 pics in the origininal thread here. Tell me my math is wrong.
And, if the frantic shoving of ice tongue isn’t enough, just this week, temperatures north 0f 80N fell below zero in what is turning out to be the coldest year on the DMI 80N record.
Look at the both of these quotes, from different news sources.
You decide for yourself, what is going on here:
Muenchow warns people not to jump to conclusions. “An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, ‘Oh, let’s explain this by global warming.’ I cannot support that,” he said.
[BLASPHEMY!! How dare he say that!!!]
AND
“Muenchow told the briefing that over the last seven years he had only received funding to measure ocean temperatures near the Petermann Glacier for a total of three days.”
[THREE DAYS!!]
“He was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic.”
[I’ll bet Michael Mann never has to pay his own airfare.]
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Curious @ur momisugly 2:58 color film !
If you haven’t already recreated that to digital now would be a good time.
oMan says:at 4:18 pm “ . . . plus Greenland is seeing all sorts of ponding of water on the ice cap which cuts its way through the several kilometers of cap. . .”
Well, ponds beget trickles, and they become streams, and then rivers and then they produce a Moulin. Because of the noise made (the sound of a busy grain mill) such a melt-water cascade into a glacier is called “moulin” – using a French term.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_(geology)
“A moulin or glacier mill is a narrow, tubular chute, hole or crevasse through which water enters a glacier from the surface. The term is derived from the French word for mill.”
A great old map.
Ice chart of Southern Hemisphere [cartographic material] : compiled from the voyages of Cook, 1772-5, Bellingshausen, 1819-21, Weddell, 1822-4, Foster, 1828-9, Biscoe, 1830-2, Balleny, 1839, D’Urville, 1839, Wilkes, 1839, and Ross, 1841-2-3. ; from the papers on Icebergs in the Southern Ocean, by Mr. Towson, 1855-59 ; from 12th no. Metereological papers (Board of Trade), 1865, and documents in the Hydrographic Office / prepared for publication by Staff Com. F.J. Evans, and G.E. McDougall, Staff R.N. Great Britain. Hydrography Dept. , London : Published at the Admiralty under the superintendence of Captn. G.H. Richards, R.N. Hydrographer, [1870]
View at: http://ll01.nla.gov.au/show.jsp?rid=000040974761
click “show” to view
A report at the link below mentions the previous ice island (with photo) and the comment that:
“Scientists are however bracing themselves for a monster berg five times bigger that could break away from the same source this summer. If that breakaway chunk remains whole it would form a huge mass. Bigger by far then most islands in the area. Currently it has a massive crack about one kilometre wide and 12 kilometres long.”
The story is about 1/3 rd of the way down the page:
http://waterwaysnews.com/ARCHIVE/25JUNE09/NEWSMAINPAGE/NEWSMAIN.html#BILLIONTONNEICEBERGSUM
The previous one lost half its mass in the first 2,000 km.
So, what’s up with the new (current) one? any pictures or maps?
So let me get this straight , climate scientists must cross every “t” and dot every “i”.
But you get to post pictures of birds that don’t live in Greenland , when writing about Greenland ?
I assume you mean the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in 1962 which is located at Baffin Island , Canada , not Greenland.
Nice, mix ice shelves and outlet glaciers from different countries .
By the way the Ward Hunt is still breaking up ……
Baffin Island Ice Caps Shrink By 50 Percent Since 1950s, Expected To Disappear by Middle of Century
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128113831.htm
Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, Largest In Northern Hemisphere, Has Fractured Into Three Main Pieces
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080415205350.htm
REPLY: before you go into an accusatory tizzy (oops too late) read the ORIGINAL PRESS RELEASE from the scientists that made the discovery and 1962 reference here:
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/aug/greenland080610.html
“1:40 p.m., Aug. 6, 2010—-A University of Delaware researcher reports that an “ice island” four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962.”
– Anthony
Steve–
Oh, I just picked Revkin as an example of the MSM for my jape –substitute any byline from the heavy-breathing articles on this subject that you care to for the same intended effect.
Colorado Bob
Ummm…it is called a joke.
Anyway, haven’t you seen the Coke commercial with the Polar Bears and Penguins partying together?
University of Delaware –
You guys –
This would make this whole post a work of fiction.
REPLY: Yes there’s a lot of fiction flying around about this iceberg, mostly in the media and from clueless politicians, but I don’t see you complaining about things like this gem. Since you made no comment against this, I suppose you agree then? – Anthony
All I know is you guys said that the Peterman calved an ice berg ” 50 years ago ” , it didn’t. So “What’s Up With That” ?
We’re not discussing what some congressman said, we’re discussing the fact that you folks got a basic fact wrong, and I have the screen shots to prove it.
Why not use it rather than let it melt.All we need to do is add some sawdust and engines etc we could make the biggest cruise liner ever. Look up Pykrete and ice ships known as project Habbakuk. Fit it with a Thorium reactor to power the cooling plant and it would last for years, they don’t melt very quickly even in warmer seas!
And the whopper here about the Peterman calving a 230 sq. mile ice berg in 1962 when it didn’t.
I wonder if the glacier chunk breaking off might have more to do with an as yet unreported drop in sea level.
New description of AGW behaviour: “jumping on the
bandwaggoniceberg”starzmom: August 13, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I particularly like the Arctic penguins. A new species perhaps?
Relict of the Pleistocene megafauna, no doubt. That thar berg is the size of four Manhattans, so each of those beasts must be the size of three-point-six Chrysler Buildings…
“Could, would, should, may…”
The only word real scientists use in their statements is “IS”!
Anything else is bogus.