The media spin is in full wash mode over this recent paper studying a small section of Greenland. WUWT Reader “non nomen” writes in Tips and Notes:
“Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2161.html
Propaganda? Wishful thinking? Reality?
Have a look at some media headlines published about this paper:
- Greenland’s Ice Loss Triples and Raises Global Warming Awareness
- Fears of faster rising global sea levels as ‘stable’ Greenland ice sheet starts to melt
- Greenland’s ice loss nearly tripled in a decade USA TODAY A formerly stable part of Greenland’s ice sheet in the northeast has been losing ice at an accelerating rate.
- Regional warming triggers sustained mass loss in Northeast Greenland ice sheet
- Greenland Ice Sheet Loses Its Last Grip
Some are conflating regional warming with global warming, because, you know, everything is about global warming. But imagine if I used the regional cooling in the southeastern United States to make a claim about that countering “global” warming. Our friends would have a cow. Observe how the media claims fall apart on examination of the paper.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
Media claims that “Greenland’s ice loss has tripled in a decade” are CAGW propaganda
The CAGW alarmist media is awash today with claims based on a paper published in Nature Climate Change that “Greenland’s ice loss has nearly tripled in a decade” and “the Greenland ice sheet has lost it’s last grip.” As usual, the paper has been hyped by the media to portray impending doom, while examination of the actual scientific paper reveals very little of concern.
Figure 1a shows the tiny region of Greenland that the paper studied, with a blowup of this region in figure 2 below.
Figure 1: Changes in surface elevations obtained using ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data (Supplementary Section 1.0).
a–c, Ice surface elevation change rates in m yr−1 from April 2003 to April 2006 (a), April 2006 to April 2009 (b) and April 2009 to April 2012 (c).
The authors find an increase in the natural glacier calving process in this regional, relatively tiny portion of the Greenland ice sheet. According to the authors, this is due to regional warming found at the site “HKH” marked by an “X” in fig. 2a below. The key word here is regional, which indicates these processes are localized and not characteristic of global warming. In fact, the authors also looked at another nearby site “DH” marked by an “X” in fig. 2a below and found that this site cooled over the past decade.
Examination of Figure 2 from the below reveals that over the past 34 years 1978-2012:
- Annual sea surface temperature anomaly has cooled at both sites DH and HKH
- June-August summer temperatures warmed at site HGH but cooled at site DH, and are only about 2C above the freezing point
- Annual air temperatures at both sites increased, but are about 10 degrees cooler than the freezing point
These localized, regional changes were not predicted by climate models and are not supportive of the CAGW meme, and in fact suggest that other processes are responsible. For example, geothermal sources have recently been discovered under the Greenland ice sheet, which create lakes under the ice sheet and lubricate the natural slide to calving in the ocean. In addition, storm activity and winds largely control Arctic sea ice, which can act as an impediment to glacier calving.
Figure 2: Surface speed, mass loss rates and climate data.
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I can see how science challenged journalists might get the idea the study is an indicator of “global” warming (even though nearby there’s that pesky regional cooling) by just reading the abstract:
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Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming
Abstract
The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1. A significant portion of this contribution is associated with the speed-up of an increased number of glaciers in southeast and northwest Greenland. Here, we show that the northeast Greenland ice stream, which extends more than 600 km into the interior of the ice sheet, is now undergoing sustained dynamic thinning, linked to regional warming, after more than a quarter of a century of stability. This sector of the Greenland ice sheet is of particular interest, because the drainage basin area covers 16% of the ice sheet (twice that of Jakobshavn Isbræ) and numerical model predictions suggest no significant mass loss for this sector, leading to an under-estimation of future global sea-level rise. The geometry of the bedrock and monotonic trend in glacier speed-up and mass loss suggests that dynamic drawdown of ice in this region will continue in the near future.
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The word “global” is used twice, even though this tiny area likely contributes only a small fraction of global SLR. A better choice would be to write a paper about why this area is so sensitive, in spite of the fact that nearby there’s a regional cooling.
In response to the cherry-picked GISS data from April 2010, here is the GISS data from the prior decade. Looks like the globe is about 0.6C warmer over 40 years. We were told that would accelerate. It didn’t. In fact, it “paused”. Color me alarmed.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2000&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
But according to the climate scientists at Los Alamos National Labs
“we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The rate of warming from 1995 to 2005 was in fact lower than the warming that occurred from 1920 to 1930.”
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/78283826.jpg
2001-2002: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=1970&year2=1979&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
2005-2006: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=1980&year2=1989&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
2009-2010: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=1990&year2=1999&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
2012-2013: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2000&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
REPLY: LOL! Still stuck on
stupid, er 1200km GISS smoothing. – AnthonyThe paper might be focused on the details of a smaller portion of Greenland, but stop and consider ‘Figure 1: Changes in surface elevations obtained using ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data’ for a moment. The changes between 2003-2006, 2006-2009, and 2009-2012 show elevations decreasing at faster rates around the majority of coastal Greenland — the entire west coast, the south east coast, and most recently now in the north east.
What’s going on in Greenland isn’t localized, unless you call most of coastal Greenland ‘local’. It’s also not a “relatively tiny part” of the Greenland ice sheet if the North East ice stream and basin is the largest in Greenland.
I love how the people think the 1200km smoothing means a whole lot.
It’s like saying if the thermometer in Death Valley ever goes out, then we can use the one in Hells Gate State Park (Lewiston ID), since it’s within the 1200km smoothing range…
1200 km = ~750 miles
Go 750 miles from me….and you go through 6 different agriculture zones
The irony is that the MWP and the LIA were local, (or so they say) and yet somehow this is global. AGW has the ability to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time. So, um, I have a question for them, how is it that ice will melt when the temperature is below, and sometimes well below, freezing? (I’m not talking about artic ice were they can explain it away by warmer seawater).
JimS says: “Well, in my country of Canada, global warming is rising to the roof-tops.”
Instead of a few millimeters of ocean rise, what we should be worried about is interior spring flooding from heavy snow packs in Canada and the northern midwestern states. Are the Dakotas going to need more sand bagging this spring?
Riddle me this:
Since, “According to the authors, ………..regional warming found at the site “HKH” …. another nearby site “DH” ……..cooled over the past decade.”
If a paper in 10 years shows a reversal with cooling at HKH and warming at DH.
What will that mean?
Answer:
It will mean exactly the same thing as today’s paper, very little.
And that jai enjoys being obtuse.
The abstract begins
The sea level data from the University of Colorado shows this 3.2 mm yr−1 per year to be constant for the last 20 years. So here is a problem. If the amount of ice melt is accelerating, why is it not showing up in the rate of sea level rise?
Also, as the Greenland is losing ice at a far greater rate than Antarctica, where does the rest of the global sea level rise come from? Before anyone says “thermal expansion of the oceans”, try working out how much 3km of average ocean depth would need to increase in temperature to raise levels by 1mm, then check against the estimated warming of the oceans per annum. The alleged causes of sea level rise do not reconcile with the measured sea level rise.
Nantony,
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2014&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2010&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
see that small fleck of higher temperature on the west coast of Australia? the width of that region is 100Km across. so tell me again how there is 1200km of smoothing???
To: kwinterkorn
I suggest you re-read my post and review the link to the GRACE data. You seem to be confusing ice mass with ice extent.
.
You posted, “Those models predicted that there would be less ice over all” which happens to be exactly what NASA’s GRACE is showing.
There are too many probablys and perhaps in the paper, for my taste. Their findings aren’t verified by others or replicated; in fact as one of the news reports states, there is doubt about the findings. People might believe that peer review means replication, verification, duplication; but it doesn’t, at least not in this field.
These kinds of papers often spawn more confusion and errors than they are worth. They remind me of the many papers in paleontology and archaeology that trumpet yet another new but alas, extinct hominid species, every time a new tooth or fragment of tibia is unearthed. At least in that field, there has been concerted effort in the past decade to sweep clean.
Right now,
People live in Death Valley, the middle of the Sahara desert, below sea level in the Netherlands, the sinking City of Venice, the deepest darkest rainiest jungles on the planet, Acapulco where it is 32C every day, the coldest parts of the Arctic at Eureka Canada, the coldest parts of Siberia, on top of 4 km high glaciers at the South Pole at -80C, on all of the oceans and lakes, and 370 kms into space.
Global warming will mean nothing to us. We have adapted with no problem to every place possible except under the ocean.
Whatever happens anywhere on the planet, the people who live there will have no issue with adapting to very small changes that takes more than 100 years.
Their “after a quarter of a century stability” line in the abstract is the money line, i.e. this has happened before.
I am surprised there is not even a hint of atmospheric circulation analysis in the abstract… It’s been known that along the warm air advection corridors, regional warming will reflect the increased dynamics of circulation prompted by cooler, more powerful MPHs during a transitional phase toward a global cooling.
As for the geothermal sources, it’s nice but why its influence only now? This is a tad like the warmists explanation for the pause.
Alcheson says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:37 am
The giant bathtub (our ocean) is not filling up any faster that now than is was 150 years ago. No acceleration in rate means there is no net increase in rate of melting of non-floating ice around the world.
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Sorry, we don’t know that. The ocean basins, unlike your bathtub, are not a fixed size. We do not know their size. We don’t know if they are getting smaller or larger. Changes in sea level might not be related to ice melting/freezing at all.
Leo Geiger says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:52 pm
“The paper might be focused on the details of a smaller portion of Greenland, but stop and consider ‘Figure 1: Changes in surface elevations obtained using ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data’ for a moment. The changes between 2003-2006, 2006-2009, and 2009-2012 show elevations decreasing at faster rates around the majority of coastal Greenland — the entire west coast, the south east coast, and most recently now in the north east.”
In 1942 a squadron of P-38’s and B-17’s bound for Scotland was forced to ditch on that same southeast coast of Greenland that you say is losing ice at an accelerating rate. Fifty years later (1992), one of those P-38’s was extracted from under 260 feet of ice from accumulated snow. I would say, we have a long way to go to get back to the ‘normal’ ice elevations of 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl
@alcheson
>The first use is: “The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1.” So that’s about one-sixth of the global sea-level rise which seems a reasonable usage.”
>Phil, actually I think the tide gauges are a much better and most important measurement of sea level rise. They are right there at the scene., They show about 1.8mm per year of sea level rise, thus even if it is contributing 1/6 to global sea level rise, that is 0.3mm/yr… really scary stuff.
+++++++
Noticing the same thing, my approach is slightly different. If the Greenland ice sheet contributes 0.5mm (based on ice mass loss) and the total is 1.8mm, then there is only 1.3mm contributed by everything else.
Calculated from Trenberth’s missing deep ocean heat causing thermal expansion, that takes care of most of the rest, based on his numbers. So what is left for Antarctica and the Himalayas and Kilimanjaro and Bolivia and Chile and…
The 0.5 and the 1.8 are based on measurements, right? It seems things are on a cooling trend, then.
researchers say “a self-perpetuating feedback process may have been triggered” – Obviously! More alarmist predictions = more grant money = more alarmist predictions….
Nature Climate Change magazine …. with a title like that, what else could they say?
Location polar vortex that makes currently arrives the ice between America and Greenland.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=16.97,93.01,635
This is sure to confuse the Pakistan representative to the UNFCCC’s annual shindigs. Didn’t Greenland melt away completely in the space of a few days in July 2012? 😉
Ockham57 says:
The observation that some aircraft lost in 1942 were under 260 feet of ice 50 years later doesn’t mean the surface of the ice sheet somehow became 260 feet taller since 1942 and will take a long time to “get back to ‘normal'”.
Perhaps this is a difficult concept, but the southeast coast of Greenland has a very high annual accumulation rate that is roughly balanced by compaction and outflow. That’s why even with a large 1m/year water equivalent accumulation rate, the ice sheet surface isn’t getting hundreds of metres taller every century. In fact, quite the opposite is now occurring — the measurements cited in the paper show the ice surface elevation is currently getting lower.
But if you parked an aircraft there today, it would still disappear under the snow.
Stadium Wave hypothesis?
This whole Greenland melt ‘thingey’ is ‘unprecedented’. We must act then!!!
It’s worse than I imagined.