As WUWT readers are aware, there has been a great deal of attention paid by the main stream media to the extensive melt on the Greenland icecap that occurred during July (for example, see here, here, here, here, and here). The topic was addressed here at WUWT in two postings here and here. Anthony noted in the later posting that Andrew Revkin was almost alone in taking a more nuanced and skeptical view of the unprecedented nature of the event and has taken a fair amount of heat in comments for his effort.
I’m sure it will confirm the worst suspicions of some of Anthony’s critics, but Fox News has just posted an article on line: NASA’s claim that Greenland is experiencing “unprecedented” melting is nothing but a bunch of hot air, according to scientists who say the country’s ice sheets melt with some regularity.
A heat dome over the icy country melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet in mid-July, NASA said, calling it yet more evidence of the effect man is having on the planet.
But the unusual-seeming event had nothing to do with hot air, according to glaciologists. It was actually to be expected.
“Ice cores from Summit station [Greenland’s coldest and highest] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.
The writer of the article contacted Anthony for comment:
“It’s somewhat like the rush to blame severe weather and drought on global warming,” Anthony Watts, a noted climate skeptic and the author of the Watts Up With That blog, told FoxNews.com. “Yet when you look into the past, you find precedence for what is being described today as unprecedented.”
Read the whole article here.
I’m sure our readers don’t really need to have it pointed out that the melting event did not melt 97% of Greenland’s ice sheet, but rather occurred over 97% of the surface area of the ice sheet and that the melting event has ended. We will undoubtedly be treated to that 97% statistic for a long time to come.
H/T to commenters PRD and David L. Hagen
Solar input this summer is no different (even fractionally lower) than decade ago, what is different is the nearby SST, which is currently at peak of the 65 year natural cycle .
The SST is the trailing, while the atmospheric pressure is the leading indicator.
Greenland ice melt isn’t foretelling the future, it is a delayed reaction to the past absorbed energy.
97%? Isn’t that the same as the percent of scientists in the “consensus”?
Fox is MSM, and they frequently interview Mucho Kooky who is pro-AGW. But they are the least strident of the MSM as pertains to AGW. So, one element of the MSM who airs one doubting article isn’t a bow wave. I hope it’s a start, but none of the other media groups will pick this up.
97% of the surface area. It was not that long ago the alarmists were lecturing that it was volume, not surface area that mattered.
“melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet”
So Washington D.C. is now underwater? We’re saved!!
NPR just had a report, parroting the ‘unprecidented’ line.
In same breath, they mentioned the 150 year melt cycle. They asked the scientwit (Jason Fox) what this current melt event means in the context of that observed cycle, and instead of answering that question the jackass launched into the ‘we expect these events will be more common in the future’ warmist talking point.
We know that it is happening, because we expect it to get worse. This is ‘science’.
When journalism’s pressure to produce an “exclusive story” exceeds political pressures, the truth will appear. …except this is Fox News, where journalism already does exceed political pressures.
We wish!
I believe we will be seeing this same metric for Spring and Summer melt ponds on floating Arctic ice. And it WILL be unprecedented! If surface melt can be detected on Greenland’s icesheet, it can be detected on Arctic ice. The headline will read something like, “97% of Arctic ice surface has melted!”
Wow, “melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet in mid-July”? Just, wow. Yet another example of the pitiful state of scientific and technical journalism that fills the old-style media. One steaming pile of *bleep* stacked upon another.
Physics Major says:
July 26, 2012 at 11:37 am
Yes, it’s the climastrologists favorite number! Well, except when forecasting the future where 90% spells certain doom; OK, very likely doom.
““Ice cores from Summit station [Greenland’s coldest and highest] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.”
Kind of like a certain solar cycle.
I’m familiar with trying to engage some of my more pro-AGW aquaintances on this issue.
Here’s a post by one of them that I responded too (knowing it was a lost cause, but the post was just too much for me.
His post:
“Fun Fact: Never in recorded history has more than 55% of Greenland’s icecap experienced summer melt. This year? 97%. But there is no global warming. ”
My Response:
“Your ‘fun fact’ is absolutely erroneous. The facts are that Greenland’s ice cap is not experiencing ‘melt’, the surface of Geenlands ice cap is (and that is what the 97% figure refers to). The two are ENTIRELY different. If 97% of Greenland entire ice cap melted it would immediately raise sea levels by about 2 feet. Has that happened? Greenlands surface melt occurs EVERY year, just in different proportions. I know the article stated “unprecedented’ surface melt, but, if you read the article, the author states, ““Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.” I’m not sure, but last time I checked, ‘unprecedented’ doesn’t mean ‘once every 150 years’. ”
His response:
“Apparently Bill, you said it occurs regularly. But in 1889, it did not reach 97%. BTW, the earth experienced a volcanic winter in 1887-1888. Can you say that didn’t affect weather patterns the next year? You’re a damned fool Bill. Sue for a refund.”
Okay then.
“melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet”
Every Manns dream… 🙂
*FAINT*
My FIRST hat tip!!
We won’t worry about how many years of reading this site it took me to learn what H/T meant.
“97% of the surface area”
Which equals what? 1% of the volume?
I can’t help but wonder about the MSM (even Fox News). While in the first paragraph the Fox News article states that the NASA claim of “Unprecedented” Melting is unfounded, it makes a very grievous error and states in the second paragraph that 97% of the ice sheet has melted.
Even the Pro-truth (skeptic) Fox News can get their facts skewed
Wow, climate alarmists love 97, and yes, it was also used in the consensus argument as well, both similar, in that they are poor statistics with little factual basis behind them, but what they lack in facts, they make up in agenda.
To the Warmistas Fox News is not MSM. They consider Fox another limb of Big Oil, Koch, and the RNC or whatever other nefarious organization the Warmers believe is paying Fox this week.
Likely if they see it at all they will just snicker and say “Faux News again” Most people that watch Fox already have a healthy amount of skepticism.
Usually it takes a few decades in Greenland for enough overburden to accumulate to seal the air bubbles in the firn layer. But events like this would quickly freeze over and instantly seal everything beneath. This might complicate the dating of ice core CO2 readings, if sometime there’s a 20 year lag, and sometime no lag at all.
The great thing is that now, whenever the doomsayers cry that the greenland ice cap is going to melt, we can say “So what? 97% of it already melted back in 2012.”
Actually, to be accurate let’s acknowledge that the contra statement by the glaciologist seems weak. She says it happens about every 150 years based on ice cores from the summit. It seems to me that if you want to claim there is melt over 97% of the icecap, you need to base this on cores from around the icecap. What she may have meant was “Ice cores from the summit indicate it gets warm enough to melt ice at the summit about every 150 years. We assume that when it is warm enough for melt at the summit that it is warm enough to cause melt over 97% of the icecap.”
Funny I keep looking at the summit base cam and so far I don’t see any water. As far as I can see the snow doesn’t look like it has melted. The outside temp is -12C. Not a whole lot of swimming going on 🙂
Bill Marsh says:
“Apparently Bill, you said it occurs regularly. But in 1889, it did not reach 97%.”
And he has the horse-drawn satellite data to prove it!
Geeze, what maroon.
Your response to him was too long, and too complex. You need to talk a lot slower and spoon feed things one at a time morons like that. Start by explaining that, when he sees any variation of the word “record” used in refrence to climate, he needs to find out what time period that refers to. “Never in recorded history” does not necessarily go back any further than last week, let alone to any period before he was born.
Please fix URL to Andrew Revkin’s post
July 25, 2012, 1:25 pm ‘Unprecedented’ Greenland Surface Melt – Every 150 Years?
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/unprecedented-greenland-surface-melt-every-150-years/
And there is this:
http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/07/greenland-ice-sheet-melting/
CBS on Sky news last night also said 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet had melted, I thought it was a dishonest if not an unusual way to phrase what actually occurred.
Looks like all of the MSM articles have been cleaned up a little.
Everyone knows, or should know, that 42 is the correct number. Where the ‘97’ keeps coming from is a mystery. But maybe one has to be older than 42 and younger than 97 to know this. Still, the following is true:
“We will undoubtedly be treated to that 97% statistic for a long time to come.” Just remember, that is not the correct answer. (And if this made very little sense to you, search for the number 42.)
Woodworkers have a saying: “Measure twice, cut once.”
NASA and other agencies need to have a rule, maybe:
“Write, review, rewrite, get a second opinion, rewrite, wait a day, think about it, rewrite, make sure the headline writer is onboard, then okay a press release.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PRD says “We won’t worry about how many years of reading this site it took me to learn what H/T meant.
Thanks for that. It got a big laugh from me. Funny how the unexpected remarks will do that.
Fox has skeptics on their shows regularly like Joe Bastardi and Chris Horner. I like to believe that’s why they’re the #1 in cable news by a long shot.
If melting of 97% of the ice cap surface has ended, does that mean 97% of Greenland’s surface water has frozen in just the last several weeks? This rate of freezing is unprecedented!
I would not call Fox MSM, at least from the standpoint of most AGW adherents. Found the post title misleading. Got me all excited as I expected to see a link to ABC news or AP or something along those lines.
With warmer than average (like there is such a thing) water surround west and east Greenland (http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif) why would we not expect some summer melting in excess of average normal norms. More land for Ted Turner’s paranoia of an over populated world. 🙂 He, by example, could go to Oregon and volunteer his early exit.
97%, huh. They really like that figure 97%. I guess it sounds so almost-total but leaves a bit of wriggle room (just in case its needed). But, wait, they can’t hit us with a 97% melt claim (volume, not area) because where did the water go? We’re all supposed to experience massive flooding, right? So if that didn’t happen, they can hardly claim it did. Or, better fun maybe, we can say, “97% melted? It’s gone? Good! That gets rid of the ice problem. The water – what, evaporated? Okay, whatever – but we don’t have to worry about being drowned anymore.”
They can’t have it both ways. Oh, silly me, they’ll try for it all the same. Of course they will.
Here’s a fun fact: If you read the original stories (at least on NYTimes, NPR, and USA Today), NASA never said this event was evidence of global warming. This is a straw man.
highflight56433 says:
July 26, 2012 at 2:03 pm
…
Old ‘cool colours’:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
New ‘hot colours’
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
I think this has already been commented on but to re-iterate. I think this claim can be used to advantage. The claim of rising sea levels is based on ice emlt in green land and antarctica (arctic ice is over water so its melting wont change sea levels appreciably). The warmists have made claims of by how much sea levels would rise if all the ice in Greenland would melt and I think it was around 6 meters, So now they claim 97% of it has melted. I think one should ask, if 97% of it has melted then why is there not 6*0.97 meters of sea level rise. So was the claim that sea levels would rise by 6 meters if greenland ice melted a false claim or is the claim that 97% of it has melted a false claim? One has to be wrong and if false claims like this are made and not corrected how can one believe any claim made by these people.
Their answer will of course be that a reported simply got it wrong and its not what they claimed. Actually true but it will still look like a cop out, scaremongering they tried to get away with – especially if one goes on to ask, why they did not speak up to correct the error.
Editorial comment: WUWT in two postings here and here.
I humbly suggest disuse of the “here” and replace it with a linked date. It’s a link. We know it is (here-follow the link). If the hypertext actually contains content, such as a date or company name, the text is so much richer.
Based on reductionist logic a severe a toasting o’er 97% of Greenland should be extrapolated across the globe which means that: as the ice o’re green land — flows like water o’re the damn dam — the plains in Spain — are blackening as bad — as a Cajuns gone mad.
“But in 1889, it did not reach 97%” They had better satellites at that time §.-)
Matt Bergin says:
July 26, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Funny I keep looking at the summit base cam and so far I don’t see any water. As far as I can see the snow doesn’t look like it has melted. The outside temp is -12C. Not a whole lot of swimming going on 🙂
Suggest you try again on Saturday, it may be melting again then.
The MSM said:
“97% of the ice sheet melted …”
===========================
Uh oh!.
It’s early!
My Ark isn’t finished yet!
Don’t just stand there!
Panic!
NOT.
Can we somehow merge those 97% with the 97% of scientists recognizing global warming as catastrophic and man made? As in “97% of scientists claiming man made global warming is catastrophic are having a meltdown”?
I think that 97% of climate scientists use a lot less than 97% of their brains at least 97% of the time!
More unprecedented news – http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/loss-of-arctic-sea-ice-70-man-made.html
Since day one, amazingly, the media up here (in Iceland) has talked to glaciologists and/or meterologists when running stories on this, every single one of whom has been hesitant to blame this on climate change. Instead, they’ve spoken of unique weather conditions coinciding with the warmest part of summer along with albedo effects of volcanic ash from Iceland and Saharan sand combined with lack of cloud cover due to said weather conditions.
As a comparison. Wikipedia says “If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (683,751 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft).” The 2,850,000 cubic km would be 2.85 * 10^18 liters, needing at least 9.5 * 10^20 kJ to melt (at 334 kJ/kg). Lake Superior has 12,000 cubic km of water, needing 2.7 * 10^19 kJ to boil away (a bit more to heat it up to boiling). So melting the Greenland ice cap needs the heat to boil 35 Lake Superiors. If the Solar energy is 173 Petawatts (10^15 watts, and each watt is a joule per second), the whole earth gets 1.5 * 10^19 kJ per day, and someone would need to focus all the suns energy on the Greenland ice cap for 63 days to melt it.
The NZ Herald the AGW/CC PR propagandist also parrotted the same Greenland melting trash today.
It’s a reprint of the UK Independent article by Steve Connor titled: The big thaw: Greenland ice cover is melting away.
The NZ Herald has changed the headline to:
Greenland’s surface melt shocks NASA.
The way to counter this BS is to say “Wow! 97% melt. Did anyone notice a rise in sea level?”
97% melted 0.00001%! Oh, noes!
How many Manhattans did we lose?
From Greenland’s icy mountains to Afric’s steaming shores
With talk of sea level rises and yards of glacial cores
The predominant fact
Is not the snows vanishing act
But the vapidity of the AGW bores.
The last severe Pakistan floods was reported by the BBC as unprecedented only to be corrected later as the worst for 80 years. The BBC forgets that Pakistan has floods every year. Inconvenient but the water does bring new soil to be planted with crops so fertilizer use is minimal.
Physics Major says:
97%? Isn’t that the same as the percent of scientists in the “consensus”?
They seem to like that number
When dealing with con-artistry one must remember it is not what the con-artist tells you, it is what they don’t tell you that is important.They tell us that open water in the arctic absorbs more sunlight than ice covered water but don’t tell us what happens when the sun don’t shine. They tell us that Arctic sea ice minimum has dropped by 40% since 2005 but don’t tell us that it has dropped 0% since 2007.Remember, it is how con-artists work. One should always point out the left out facts and that leaving out facts is what con-artists do.
@Bill Marsh
>His post:
>“Fun Fact: Never in recorded history has more than 55% of Greenland’s icecap experienced summer melt. This year? 97%…”
>My Response:
>“Your ‘fun fact’ is absolutely erroneous. The facts are that Greenland’s ice cap is not experiencing ‘melt’, the surface of Geenlands ice cap is (and that is what the 97% figure refers to). The two are ENTIRELY different. If 97% of Greenland entire ice cap melted it would immediately raise sea levels by about 2 feet.”
+++++++++++
Here is one to toss in his direction, Bill: If the Greenland Ice sheet is 3.5 million cubic kilometers (estimates vary up to 5m) then 97% melting would produce 3.5 x 10^6 x 10^9 x 0.97 tons of fresh water. Agreed?
That is 3.4 x 10^15 tons and is as you say, enough to raise the oceans 2 feet. Seawater (or any water) is (depending on who you ask) about 600 ppm CO2 at (for example) the Molokai Reef
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2007/01/ Cold water as more, around deep volcanic vents it is much more.
As ice contains no CO2, the freshly melted ice would absorb (let’s say) 450 ppm CO2 from the atmosphere . If the Greenland ice sheet had indeed melted, it would have pulled
3.5 x 10^15 x 0.00045 = 1.53 x 10^12 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, or about 1.53/3.16 = 48% of all atmospheric CO2.
Did your friend happen to notice a (392 ppm x 48% =) 189 ppm drop in CO2 lately, like, during this past month? Probably not.
Crispin;
It’s all just tricky wording. 97% of the surface melted 1mm. Big whoop.
@Brian H
“It’s all just tricky wording. 97% of the surface melted 1mm. Big whoop.”
Would that warmists would believe it. It seems the number ‘97%’ is going to be even more popular.
Incidentally I have not had a single ‘bite’ on my water-asborbing-CO2 story, here or elsewhere. It seems kind of an obvious (very large) error in the hand-waving calculations about temperature and melting and sea level and CO2.
I have been provided a high resolution data set for a Greenland ice core and will try to make an analysis of the CO2 and the effect of accumulating or melting ice. I will call it Crispin’s Climate Conjecture. When a lot of ice melts continuously, eventually the CO2 goes down and fresh water is the sink. It is visible when the melting is large scale. With orbital factors as a background forcing, it looks like a CO2 cycle may drive the ice ages as there are two quasi-stable conditions that both have a changing temperature, one rising, the other falling. At the top and bottom ends, CO2 in ice or water turns it around. It works because we have the right balance of water, ice and CO2. If CO2 goes up enough, it might kick the ice age condition but there are no guarantees because the effect of CO2 is only large at low concentration – a condition reached when Antarctica melts quite a bit. It does not necessarily recreate hothouse Earth with 20 deg C polar seas, but it could lead to a temperate climate on Greenland, for example with remnant ice caps in places like the South Pole.
All models that include melting should include CO2 draw-down from that fresh water, not just CO2 out-gassing from a ‘warmer ocean’. Might not be much warmer at all. If it melts, it absorbs. And quickly.
John F. Hultquist says:
July 26, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Woodworkers have a saying: “Measure twice, cut once.”
NASA and other agencies need to have a rule, maybe: “Write, review, rewrite, get a second opinion, rewrite, wait a day, think about it, rewrite, make sure the headline writer is onboard, then okay a press release.”
NASA’s is “Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil, cut it with an ax.”
Crispin in Waterloo says:
July 27, 2012 at 7:33 am
As ice contains no CO2, the freshly melted ice would absorb (let’s say) 450 ppm CO2 from the atmosphere . If the Greenland ice sheet had indeed melted, it would have pulled
3.5 x 10^15 x 0.00045 = 1.53 x 10^12 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, or about 1.53/3.16 = 48% of all atmospheric CO2.
Did your friend happen to notice a (392 ppm x 48% =) 189 ppm drop in CO2 lately, like, during this past month? Probably not.
But we notice a sharp drop in CO2 concentration at Pt Barrow in the spring as the ice melts.
On Wednesday, PBS Newshour had an excellent (7 minute) piece which set the record straight.
It glossed over one point, but it is very important. Most of the melt was in place and stayed between the ice particles. This “melt” can be seen with sensors, but is hard to detect by just looking. The often mentioned lakes and streams are mostly in the lower elevations, but definitely not everywhere.
I just thought I had to post this for posterity. It is vintage Susie Goldberg. Ignorance and incompetance of climate reportorting at its best:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa
<>
Doesn’t “recorded history” go back rather a long time , like a tad more than the satellite era?
The quote from Goldberg that got chopped by wordpress, and should have read:
The Greenland ice sheet melted at a faster rate this month than at any other time in recorded history, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of thaw.
@Phil
>But we notice a sharp drop in CO2 concentration at Pt Barrow in the spring as the ice melts.
Thank you thank you thank you. I have been looking at the Greenland ice core plots and the NH CO2 numbers for a while and I think the anual ‘breathing of the Earth’ (Hawaii-noted CO2 cycle) is the CO2 being picked up as the total mass of NH snow and ice melts, and then in winter it expells the CO2 again. I have been unable to find a quantification (mass) for teh annual cycle of all snow and ice for the NH. That plus the CO2 concentration should account for the variation between summer and winter readings (plus the background rise, of course).
When ice melts the CO2 is absorbed. That is my point. The snow and ice cover in the SH is not nearly as variable which is why the CO2 is relatively constant there.
BTW is anyone measuring atmospheric mercury on an hourly basis in your area?
The assumption is that the warm Greenland temperatures are caused by an increase in the greenhouse effect due to CO2 emissions.
The greenhouse effect, defined as the difference between the surface and top of atmosphere temperatures, has not increased in the Arctic as shown in this graph,
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arctic_GHE.jpg
and explain in my article,
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/The_Melting_North.htm
Using the best available satellite data, there has been no increase in the greenhouse effect in the far north.
Greenland temperatures were higher in the 1930 and 1940 than in recent times.
97% —- where have I heard that previously? 1 is an anomoly; 2 is a coincidence; 3 is a trend
On a TV side note: There are no big coincidences and small coincidences, there are only coicidences….
97% – once is ‘usually’ and twice is ‘always’.
P. Solar says:
July 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I just thought I had to post this for posterity. It is vintage Susie Goldberg. Ignorance and incompetance of climate reportorting at its best:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa
Doesn’t “recorded history” go back rather a long time , like a tad more than the satellite era?
____________________________
Yes it goes back to when the Vikings started colonizing Greenland in the summer of 986 at least. (snicker)
http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/norse.html
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/
Bill Tuttle says:
July 27, 2012 at 9:38 am
….NASA’s is “Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil, cut it with an ax.”
______________________________
You forgot the most important step. Pass it by a Jim Hansen or equivalent to make sure it has the greatest MSM splash in favor of scaring the masses about CAGW.
Ken Gregory says:
July 27, 2012 at 10:00 pm
The assumption is that the warm Greenland temperatures are caused by an increase in the greenhouse effect due to CO2 emissions….
___________________________
My assumption is the jet stream has gone from zonal to more meridional (link) in the summer (more loopy) and is sucking more warm air up from the tropics. see link for an in the works explanation.
Unless otherwise stated, “recorded history” means “since writing was invented” – about 5,000 years ago.
A miracle of the modern age:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/FourDay.gif
how many ppm’s of CO2 there were in 1889 ?
300
that is
300 ppm = 393 ppm (as far as the melting of Greenland surface is concerned)
conclusion ?
Don’t care to diminish CO2 ppm’s… Greenland’s ice surface is going to melt anyway (next 150 years)
CO2 doesn’t govern climate.
Those reading her might find this of interest.
http://www.gpsdaily.com/reports/GPS_Can_Now_Measure_Ice_Melt_Change_In_Greenland_Over_Months_Rather_Than_Years_999.html
Hmmm – Maybe this means that the 97% of scientists only agree on global warming on the surface? Perhaps we had this wrong all the time and the AGW crowd is always only referring to superficial agreement.
/sarc
The thing that makes me sad is that many of these articles contain with in themselves content that directly contradicts the conclusion of the article, yet the general public seem incapable of sufficient reading comprehension to see those contradictions and swallow the head line conclusion without any critical thought.
If I had written a paper like this news article in 5th ot 6th grade it would have come back with lots of red circles on it and questions like posted above regarding the poor and misleading phrasing that is obviously intended to mislead superficial readers.
Larry
Entropic man says:
July 29, 2012 at 5:11 am
Those reading her might find this of interest.
http://www.gpsdaily.com/reports/GPS_Can_Now_Measure_Ice_Melt_Change_In_Greenland_Over_Months_Rather_Than_Years_999.html
Hmmmmmm.
I suspect a whole lot of homogenization went into that — GPS signal drift alone will give you errors of a full half-meter, and it’s not a constant value. I’m also curious about how they determined how much less effect summer air had on isostatic compression and rebound than winter air…
Run for your lives!!
It hasn’t been this bad since, um….the last time it was this bad….
As usual, you people have no clue of what you speak about.
These events do NOT occur every 150 years. They happen on an AVERAGE of 150 years. And included in that average is from a time when the sun on the Arcitc was much hotter, and a series of melts happened closer to each other.
The 1889 melt was the first one in 700 years.
The melt this year is unprecedented, in that since humans have had the ability to actively monitor the melt, this is the largest it ever has been.
Research it for yourself, [SNIP: Really, now, why spoil a good explanation with this kind of stuff? -REP]
[SNIP: If you have an explanation, give it, but drop the insult. -REP]
[SNIP: Drop the insult. Last warning. -REP]
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100173120/97-per-cent-of-the-world-to-be-destroyed-tomorrow/ Where do you go for the truth when the BBC is going nuts? Well to Watts of course!
Greenlandic media aren’t reporting any floods at all, of course. There was a flood in the early spring in one location, many months ago now. The media ARE reporting Richard Muller recanting, and misrepresenting the new paper in Science about increased glaciation in Greenland and the cyclical nature of the glaciers there.
glen martin says:
July 26, 2012 at 11:52 am
“melted a whopping 97 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet”
So Washington D.C. is now underwater? We’re saved!!
We wish! –D. J. Hawkins
Ballpark the amount of energy necessary to melt that much ice: 2.85 million sq km…Assume 30% incorporated rock by volume…I got 2.6 quintillion kg…The energy required to melt 1 kg of ice from 0 C is 334,000 J…Most of that ice is much colder than 0 C…It’s also denser than the cubes in your martini…All of which doesn’t begin to account for the necessity to deliver that energy effectively to the ice in question, net all subsequent radiative heat. Even so, I get a minimal expenditure of 6e+20 J…
Did old Sol recently go nova? Are there still enough thermonuclear bombs left in the combined nuclear arsenals to get the job done? I mean, without blowing chunks of ice into next Tuesday.
I get that most of the talking heads and other members of the chattering classes are innumerate, much less hopelessly on the other side of C. P. Snow’s cultural divide of the intellect and that Al Gore is just making good on his obligations for the parting gifts which came his way in consequence of his so-called ‘public service’. I get that we are plagued by careerists, be they scientists or science journalists, whose devotion to truth takes a decided back seat. I even get that much or most of the public hasn’t the capacity to ferret out even some of the broader lies.
Still, must the rest of them be so udderly complacent as our Lords and Masters use such patent nonsense to put bells around their necks?
Bill Marsh posted the following (way) above:
“His response:
‘Apparently Bill, you said it occurs regularly. But in 1889, it did not reach 97%. BTW, the earth experienced a volcanic winter in 1887-1888. Can you say that didn’t affect weather patterns the next year? You’re a damned fool Bill. Sue for a refund.’
Okay then.”
Bill’s friend maybe isn’t aware that volcanic winters cause (temporary) global COOLING are roughly as likely to benefit from education as adult chimpanzees are from a corrective spanking by their keepers. Best just to back away, close and bar the cage, and find another job. Before you find yourself shaking hands with his new third arm.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate!” You’re talking science and he’s talking religion. Cultish religion. While one can reason with Jesuits or Maimonides, doing the same with Tom Cruise or Bill Maher is a lost cause.
Moon is made of green cheese, BBC reports.
The Pakistani feminists on BBC International announced the moon is made of green cheese. That settles the matter for millions around the world.