Guest post by David Middleton
Like a zombie, this island keeps resurrecting itself in the gullible press. Problem is, its been on the maps for 50+ years. From the Guardian yesterday:
New atlas shows extent of climate change
The world’s newest island makes it on to the map as the Arctic Uunartoq Qeqertaq, or Warming Island, is officially recognised
- John Vidal, environment editor
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 September 2011
In Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, Greenland has lost around 15% of its ice cover between 10th edition (1999) (left) and 13th edition (2011) (right). Photograph: Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
If you have never heard of Uunartoq Qeqertaq, it’s possibly because it’s one of the world’s newest islands, appearing in 2006 off the east coast of Greenland, 340 miles north of the Arctic circle when the ice retreated because of global warming. This Thursday the new land – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in a new edition of the most comprehensive atlas in the world…
[…]
Uunartoq Qeqertaq is not a new island. Pat Michaels debunked this particular Warmist myth back in 2008…
March 31, 2008
“Warming Island”—Another Global Warming Myth Exposed
In our continuing theme of exposing ill-founded global warming alarmist stories (see here and here for our most recent debunkings), we’ll examine the much touted discovery of “Warming Island”—a small piece of land that has been “long thought to be part of Greenland’s mainland”—but that turns out to have been known to be an island back in the early 1950s.
Another good story out the window.
As was the case of the previous two scare stories we examined that turned out to be untrue (global warming leading to amphibian decline in Central and South America, and the Inuit language lacking a word for ‘robin’), the story of “Warming Island” was also prominently featured in the New York Times. On January 17, 2007, The Times dedicated an article to “The Warming of Greenland” and described the recent “discovery” of islands that were exposed as such when the ice connecting them to the mainland melted away.
[…]
Uunartoq Qeqertaq was already an island back in 1957…
Figure 5. The map from the Preface of Hofer’s Arctic Riviera, zooming in to show the existence of “Warming Island” and its characteristic three-fingered shape (source: Arctic Riviera).
Dr. Motl wrote an article about the sea level dropping within about 1700 km of the center of mass of Greenland should all its ice melt.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-greenland-melted-sea-level-in.html
Well, I ask the question again. What was artic ice extent in September of 1925? Anyone?
What’s new? Greenland has repeatedly lost ice, and then come back with a vengence. The last major occasion it did the Vikings decided to leave as the Little Ice Age kicked in and farming and habitation became too difficult to endure or attempt, similarly other Inuit civilisations came to the same conclusion on multiple occasions in the hundreds of years before the Viking’s arrival.
Warming Island, Schwarming Island.
This reminds me of a somewhat larger island that used to be covered in ice, which then significantly receded during the Medieval Warm Period, such that the Vikings came and settled there and named this lovely place Greenland.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, it then got much colder again, the ice advanced, and they had to get the hell out of Dodge – before they froze their knackers off.
I wonder what caused that cooling – a global drive towards windmills and less cooking fires, perchance? An early, ancestral precursor to The Gore Effect, maybe? Or was it a quiet Sun?
Hmm, makes you think…., for a nanosecond (or less).
Sorry, but all of this reminds me of a different island:
Maybe the name should be AGW Fantasy Island…
Perhaps a good name for it would be Krakatoa “According to the legend, a visiting ship’s captain asked a local inhabitant the island’s name, and the latter replied, “Kaga tau” (Aku nggak tau)—a Jakartan/Betawinese slang phrase meaning “I don’t know.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
Brian H says:
September 16, 2011 at 3:08 pm
So now it needs a name change.
I suggest Liars’ Island.
In honour of the Guardian I would call it “Shutter Island” – after people so indoctrinated by AGW that their minds are shuttered against any real data from the real world.
Beesaman says: Or are the warmists really stupid enough to believe a new ICE AGE would be a good thing?
JK: Yes.
Thanks
JK
DMI has an article on their homepage in danish that the map is wrong. The ice has not been reduced by 15 % and the likely reason for the mistake is that the ice edges have a lot of dirty ice that looks like rock from a sattelite so when you compare previos maps with sattelite images things look realy bad….
Anything is possible says:
Thousands of the worlds top climate scientists scouring the globe in an effort to find evidence of AGW, and the only person to notice that Greenland has lost 15% of its ice cover is a humble map-maker…..
+++++++
Thanks for pointing out that it is 15% of ice cover and not 15% of ice mass. KR provides the calculation. Thanks KR.
The albedo does change with the ice gone, at least for part of the year. This provides an opportunity to test the idea that an albedo change will cause significant warming. As the ice loss was definitely caused by the AMO and not warming (see temps) then the effect of ice loss from warm ocean currents should show up, seasonally, and soon.
If there is no detectable change in the temperature in the area it is important this this be noted and the ‘albedo effect’ be consigned to its proper place.
The total heating effect of an albedo change for a couple of months at a high latitude is going to be small in my view.
The temperature should also be affected by the drop in CO2 that is being caused in the vicinity by the open water than used to be capped by ice, right? If CO2 is influential, then the regional level should be falling as the ice tends to zero in summer and the temperature reflect this CO2-effect by dropping.
Sounds like negative feedback to me. The water was previously insulated by the ice. Now it will be exposed and sucking up CO2 like crazy. I hope everyone noticed that the temperature in the Arctic has not risen a whit even with all that melting. Just further evidence that it was (mainly) caused by warm water ingress, maybe some cloud cover changes, but not higher temperatures. I am disappointed. I was hoping the air temp at sea level was rising at least a bit.
KR @ur momisugly September 16, 2011 at 3:20 pm , I repeat your observation in part, with your bold:
And, I repeat a post I made earlier nearby in WUWT concerning the era BEFORE satellite observations, and the recent alarmism/amnesia:
Any comments KR?
A well known example of a real “new” island is Blomstrandhalvøya in Svalbard (halvøy = “half island” = peninsula) just off Ny-Ålesund. It was settled by English miners 100 years ago and later abandoned, and it remained a peninsula until the 1990’s when a glacier retreated and revealed that it’s really an island. Its name is still Blomstrandhalvøya even though Blomstrandøya would be more accurate today.
Peter Sørensen says:
September 16, 2011 at 11:01 pm
“DMI has an article on their homepage in danish that the map is wrong”
http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/times_atlas_tegner_indlandsisen_for_lille
Well now you know why this article was not open to comment , becasue it was BS and you have to say with John Vidal that really is no surprise as that seems to be his area of expertise .
“Tilo Reber says:
September 16, 2011 at 7:01 pm
So, Greenland lost about 15% of it’s ice cover between 1999 and 2011. In that 12 years we gained about an inch and a quarter of sea level. So, if that 15% figure is true, then Greenland could lose all of its ice cover and we would only gain around 8 inches of sea level rise. Either we have nothing to fear from all of the Greenland ice melting or the 15% number is pure BS.”
Spot on – that was my first thought. They can’t have it both ways.
I do think that is is the area of ice that is referred to, and not the mass of the ice. Ocean levels are dropping about 5 mm per year lately, and that is because the depth of ice is growing. Great calves of ice breaking from glaciers are signs of advancing glaciers, not retreat of glaciers.
What ever happened to the teaching of the fundamentals of the various sciences in high school since about 1955? Biology, physics and chemistry. Even the teaching of the fundamentals of arithmetic has declined greatly.
Dennis Schmitt’s rebuttal of Michaels seems pretty reasonable. The ’57 map is far from conclusive. A sceptic wouldn’t rely on it. Things are rarely as they seem.
In the North Atlantic is not so much ‘global warming’ as the redistribution of the available heat energy. The N. Atlantic warm drift current splits into 2 branches; http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ocp07_fig-6.jpg?w=600&h=473
higher the Atlantic inflow across the Greenland-Scotland ridge warmer the Arctic.
In contrast the Arctic’s cold waters overflow will eventually cool US Atlantic coastline.
It is to do with strength of the Subpolar gyre, complex system of currents located to the south of Greenland, that circulates anticlockwise between 50°N and 65°N.
Subpolar gyre is the engine of the heat transport across the North Atlantic Ocean, and is the essential component of the northern Atlantic basin’s climate system.
This is clearly shown in the dataset (I assembled just over a year ago)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-NAP.htm
and goes back to 1650
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CDr.htm
If correct, it shows that the N. Atlantic area will cool in forthcoming decade or two.
From the DMI article:
“Between 2003 and 2008 around 168 to 268 billion tons of ice (4-6 meters water spread over the whole of danmark – 43.075 km2) has melted around Greenland.
Inland ice area (latest) greenland 2,3 million km3 (PS Antartica 30 million km3)
Assuming 1 metric ton = 1 Kbm is:
Between 168,000 and 268.000 km3 of inland ice has melted between 2003 and 2008.
Between 6,8% and 10,4% of inland ice has melted over 5 years.
Also from the DMI article:
“There is no scientific evidence that the area of the Greenland ice sheet since 1999 has shrunk by 15% as the latest edition of the ‘Times Atlas shows,” says climate researcher Ruth Mottram, DMI.
In the latest edition of the British ‘Times Atlas’ is the area of Greenland’s ice sheet decreased by 15% during the period from 1999 to 2011. It must reflect the effects of global warming. But there is no scientific evidence for the claim that is overrated and not based on robust measurements.”
(Google translate)
The Engineer: You are wrong by a factor of 1000. One billion tons of ice corresponds roughly to one km3. At the current rate less than 11% of inland ice will disappear in 5000 years.
Wikipedia claims that the volume of the Greenland icesheet is around 2,850,000 km^3.
10% of that would rise the global see level 72cm (2’4″) That certain didn’t happen.
DMI are claiming up to 268 “milliarder ton” ice loss; one km^3 of water weighs one billion (milliard) ton, so they’re talking about 268km^3 of water (or 300km^3 of ice).
Not 10%, rather 0.01% of the ice sheet was lost between 2003 and 2008.
eyesonu says:
September 16, 2011 at 6:47 pm
John B says:
September 16, 2011 at 5:37 pm
DJ says:
September 16, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Next Looming Catastrophe…
Warming Island Flooded as Sea Level Rises
…
Oddly enough, the opposite will happen.
…
Really? That sure is strange. You seem to know everything.
————
Nope, I just read a lot of mainstream science. The link Gary Mount posted addresses this:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-greenland-melted-sea-level-in.html
I wathed a wonderful lecture on the subject on youtube, but now I can’t find it. Anyone know the one I’m talking about?
And just to complicate matters, melting of the Antarctica ice sheet will cause sea level rise around Greenland.
Now lets see, the word “Greenland” was so named because it was all white ?
The Vikings settled the land because their animals lived under the snow ?
and they stayed put because it was all frozen and a lousy place to live ?
`When will it warm back up to where it was a long time ago` is more to the point.
then we could realy call it Greenland and our children would not be so confused.