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
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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.