From YORK UNIVERSITY and the “weather, not climate” department comes this study that adds to a previous study that suggests the Greenland surface “instamelt” of July 2012 was a short-term event that was not long-term climate change related. There was also the paper that showed that a shift in the jet stream caused warmer than normal temperatures in July 2012.
TORONTO, April 1, 2016 – A new study by researchers from Denmark and Canada’s York University, published in Geophysical Research Letters, has found that the climate models commonly used to simulate melting of the Greenland ice sheet tend to underestimate the impact of exceptionally warm weather episodes on the ice sheet.
The study investigated the causes of ice melt during two exceptional melt episodes in 2012, which occurred from July 8 to 11 and from July 27 to 28. During these exceptional melt episodes, which can be regarded as an analogue to future climate, unusually warm and moist air was transported onto the ice sheet. During one episode, the researchers measured the ice sheet melting at more than 28 cm per day, the largest daily melt rate ever documented on the ice sheet. While the two brief melt episodes only lasted six days combined, or six per cent of the melt season, they contributed to 14 per cent of the total melt.
Using the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) automatic weather station data, the researchers ranked the energy sources contributing to surface melt during 2012 at twelve PROMICE sites around the ice sheet periphery. While ice sheet melt is usually dominated by the radiant energy associated with sunlight, the researchers found that the energy associated with air temperature and moisture content, rather than radiant energy, was responsible for more melt during the 2012 exceptional melt episodes.
As Robert Fausto of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, lead author of the study, says, “When we were analysing our weather station data, we were quite surprised, that the exceptional melt rates we observed were primarily caused by warm and moist air, because ice sheet wide melt is usually dominated by radiant energy from sunlight. ”
This finding has implications for how the scientific community projects future ice sheet melt using climate models. In the study, the researchers also show that while the models presently used to project ice sheet melt can accurately simulate melt due to radiant energy, models tend to systematically underestimate melt due to the non-radiant energy processes they document.
“Glaciological instrumentation capable of automatically recording the daily rate of melting in exceptional melt circumstances, where the ice surface lowers by close to 10 m in a few months, has only emerged in the last decade or so, thanks to PROMICE. The detail of PROMICE observations is permitting new insights on brief, but consequential, exceptional melt events,” says William Colgan of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University, a co-author of the study.
Fausto adds that, “Exceptional melt episodes dominated by non-radiant energy are expected to occur more frequently in the future due to climate change. This makes it critical to better understand the influence of these episodes on ice sheet health.”
###
So Climate Scientists have now determined that snow will melt even in darkness if the temperature is above freezing? Wow, who would ever have guessed that?
Seriously, it’s worse than we thought. Not climate change, but these “scientists'” total lack of common sense and ability to grasp grade school level physics. Things like ice melts when warmed to or past the melting point should not be a surprise to anyone who claims to have even an elementary school level education. Their logical reasoning is even worse. We obviously didn’t understand what caused this event, but trust us, we know it will happen more in the future because of a tiny increase in “plant food” in the air.
It wasn’t a “surprise” (seriously do think climate experts know less than you???).
Read it again they say that it is “….. USUALLY dominated by radiant energy from sunlight.
Toneb-
Let’s review-
“When we were analysing our weather station data, we were quite surprised, that the exceptional melt rates we observed were primarily caused by warm and moist air, because ice sheet wide melt is usually dominated by radiant energy from sunlight. ”
Do you see the glaring differences there? There had been a span of “exceptional” melt. Exceptional is defined as “unusual, not typical”. This means the melt was outside of the norm. The USUAL situation is that ice wide melt is dominated by radiant energy from sunlight. BUT, there had been a period of UNUSUAL warm, moist air over the ice sheet that caused exceptional melting to occur. And, apparently something about this particular incident left the researchers “quite surprised”!
Was it that they had been UNAWARE of the warm, moist heat in that region on those days? Was it that they did know about the warm, moist air, but they simply did not anticipate it having an “exceptional” effect on the rate of ice melt? Whatever it was that these “climate experts” knew, didn’t keep them from being “quite surprised” by the results of their analysis.
Oh, and then there’s this-
“In the study, the researchers also show that while the models presently used to project ice sheet melt can accurately simulate melt due to radiant energy, models tend to systematically underestimate melt due to the non-radiant energy processes they document.”
Looks like the “climate experts” who design the “models presently used” are going to be “quite surprised” too…since they apparently ALSO did not anticipate “exceptional rates of melting” could be caused by non-radiant energy processes.
But you gave it your best shot. 🙂
What is with all the anger?
[Please make it clear which comment you’re referring to. Thanks. ~mod]
Given that the instrument capability to do these measurements has only become available in the last decade, then I think maybe the determination of “usual” needs to be left a while…….
Looking at those side-by-side graphics a layman, like me, would get the impression that the Greenland ice sheet disappeared in 4 days. Exactly what percentage of the ice sheet melted in those few days??? 1 percent??? 2 percent??? more? less?
The Neem core (north central GIS) reached bedrock at about 2430 meters. So if 28 cm/day for two days about 0.6/2430 or 0.02%. But much of the surface meltwater simply turned surface snow into wet firn, did not run off, and then refroze in a denser state onnthe way to glacier ice. So this example calculation is still a gross overestimate.
The ” ice ” that I see these guys, and their gizmo standing on, looks more like ” snow ” to me.
If it was real ice, it would transmit with not a lot of scattering, so radiation energy would go quite deep.
Snow is much lower density than ice and is a better insulator (it’s mostly air).
So 28 cm of air filled snow, melts to not a whole lot of water, which is a lot harder to melt after refreeze.
Snow traps a lot of EM radiation by TIR so it melts a lot faster than ice.
Anyhow it is interesting the satellite machinery they have available.
But I didn’t see just how many cm of SOLID ICE actually melted and is KNOWN to have run off into the ocean, rather than refreeze at some new depth.
G
As an inhabitant of Western Canada I have seen some pretty crazy transitions from winter to spring. 28 centimeters of ice melt? I don’t believe that’s possible. Warm and windy over snow could easily be true. Like the Chinook winds in Alberta that the natives called “snow eaters”. Why wouldn’t winds like this be common coming off the North Atlantic throughout the past?
Daveandrews-
The article could be a lot clearer. The images indicate “surface melt” only, not total ice sheet melt. Basically image 1 shows (in red) the area of the ice sheet’s surface that was not frozen solid (was slushy or liquid) on that date, and image 2 shows that all of the frozen surface (white) in image 1 has melted as well by the second date.
“Melting” in this observation technique detects even a thin water film of 1 millimeter. So this picture does not say anything.
Multiyear mass balance is what we need, So I’like to see “cubic km ice balance” numbers, not “area covered by meltwater” numbers.
That ice sheet is 2,400 km long and 1,100 km wide, and up to 10,000 feet thick. It’ll take a lot of ‘non-radiant’ heat to melt that ice block.
And the top of the ice is typically below freezing due to its topographic elevation being so high. Oh sure, you could take video of lower elevations melting rapidly, but it didn’t get that high via being prone to melting quickly.
And it’s been a lot warmer, for a lot longer, just 1,000k years ago, a period in which being a Real Estate agent in Greenland would have paid fairly well.
daveandrews723
lt does not really matter, because that’s rather missing the point.
What the weather does is provides you with “snapshots” into climate change. This one has provided us with a snapshot into why there was large swings in temperature in Greenland during the ice age.
More green house gas-tardation
FROM the ARTICLE:
“When we were analysing our weather station data, we were quite surprised, “
Fixed minor typo in the lead article.
I love this excerpt:
‘Fausto adds that, “Exceptional melt episodes dominated by non-radiant energy are expected to occur more frequently in the future due to climate change. This makes it critical to better understand the influence of these episodes on ice sheet health.”’
“Ice sheet health?” Yes, we must be concerned about maintaining healthy ice sheets. When the Laurentide ice sheet becomes healthy and robust once again, we will be well on our way to another 100,000 years of glaciation in North America.
Aren’t they covered by Obamacare?
There’s a vaccine for that!
Educated idiots strike again! Now we only need to wait for the useful idiots to parrot them!
Educated idiots strike again!
As an educated senile prat I wish we had a more analytic approach here. As Willis says:
Thanks for considering this.
I’m guessing the “exceptional melt episode” was followed sometime after by an “exceptional freeze episode” when the air dropped below freezing and the Sun angle decreased later in the season. No headlines for this?
And so the heat in the warm, moist air from the sub tropics was absorbed by the melting and the modified air continued on to Europe where it caused some other anomalous weather event, like rain in Spain (that fell mostly on the plain).
Mainly
“As Robert Fausto of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, lead author of the study, says, “When we were analysing our weather station data, we were quite surprised, that the exceptional melt rates we observed were primarily caused by warm and moist air, because ice sheet wide melt is usually dominated by radiant energy from sunlight. ”
Amazing. They were surprised? Can someone explain how albedo works to these people? Maybe take them on a field trip to Antarctica and show them how little effect the radiant energy from sunlight has on ice when the air over it is cold and dry??? Or as Josh G insinuated….have them attend a grade school science class demo or two?
I have always said that when it comes to AGW theory, there are really only two choices, agenda driven liars or ineptitude. This is a point for the ineptitude argument.
“I have always said that when it comes to AGW theory, there are really only two choices, agenda driven liars or ineptitude. This is a point for the ineptitude argument.”
No, actually there is a 3rd LOGICAL alternative.
They know more than you
Plenty of astrologers “know more” about astrology than you, don’t you figure Tone? But that does not mean their greater quantity of knowledge in that field makes them authorities you cannot rightly criticize/ignore when considering physiological aspects of real people you encounter, right?
Large numbers of young(ish) people are being trained in this “climate science” field under the assumption that “the science is settled” regarding CO2s hypothetically large role in various climatological phenomena, obviously . . so if that assumption is wrong, then their knowledge is actually counter-productive in terms of them understanding real world climatological phenomena, right? They will literally be prone to misunderstand BECAUSE of that “more” knowledge, right?
Toneb-
“No, actually there is a 3rd LOGICAL alternative. They know more than you”
And yet it did not come as a “surprise” to me that warm, moist air melts ice faster than just solar radiation. It did THEM.
“When we were analysing our weather station data, we were quite surprised, that the exceptional melt rates we observed were primarily caused by warm and moist air, because ice sheet wide melt is usually dominated by radiant energy from sunlight. ”
And there can only be a 3rd “LOGICAL” alternative if those who profess AGW theory are ever accurate on something that I actually disagreed with. 🙂
I pity students who are smart enough to see through this AGW-CO2 global-fear(TM) but still must attend lectures and pass exams in professional subjects taught by doctrinaire associate-professors with their prim useless consensus citations about nothing testable, or else already implicitly falsified. As that’s when the global higher-education circle-jerk shows its true colors, i.e. black with a skull and cross-bones. As all they “know more” about is how to raid the public cookie jar via deception and faked ‘data’, then utilize media propaganda techniques to hoist a facade of pseudo-science scare-campaigning in the public domain and then pretend they’re being ‘scientific’, rather than just venal, corrupt and inimical to the public-interest or of ‘informing’ choice.
Toneb
April 3, 2016 at 10:57 am
No, actually there is a 3rd LOGICAL alternative.
They know more than you
That’s impossible since this is the simplest phase of matter,
and the people purporting the scam got caught lying about incredibly important things:
Your scam daddy Phil Jones admitting he fabricated every tenth degree temp rise 12 years running –
Your other scam daddy Angry Bird Mikey lied about that insipid hockey stick scam, then sued a guy who said he’s a liar,
lying in the filing he’d won a Nobel Prize and the guy was therefore calling a
Nobel Prize winner a liar,
Your other scam daddy Rowboat Hansen who told you – that the laws of gas thermodynamics don’t work when you try to calculate the temperature of Venus because of a ‘runaway green house effect’ there – when there’s none at all.
They can’t know more than everyone else or even him, if he already knows that much about their being liars, and simply flat-out scammers.
There is the logical alternative you’re some kind of authority worshipping troll, who can’t read a thermometer while claiming to be a meteorologist. Hey people who are doctors will point to charts saying pot’s like heroin – we here at WUWT have you.
Go figure.
The LOGICAL alternative is that your leadership got caught confessing, lying, cheating, and stealing. Some 20 + people have been put in jail over carbon credits scamming alone.
So your claims that anybody you believe in, knows more than someone who reads here, are as fragile and thin as your own intellectual credibility. Which is basically zilch.
Allow me to translate. “Most days the sun comes up. Some days are sunny and some are cloudy. These important facts were incorporated into the model. We didn’t realize that sometimes the wind blows or that warm air melts ice and SNOW!
the largest daily melt rate ever documented on the ice sheet.
…and they had what……2 – 3 to compare it to
A thousand years ago when the Vikings were farming on Greenland the ice sheet there must have been very unhealthy indeed. God save the ice.
Where did I read an alarmist article on the thousands cubic kilometers of Greenland’s ice which have melted during the last century?
Once this huge volume was related to the total volume of the Greenland inlandsis, the true melting was found to be only a tiny… 0,3 per cent.
Does anyone remember?
Mmmm, interesting – however….
“Analysis of gravity data from GRACE satellites indicates that the Greenland ice sheet lost approximately 2900 Gt (0.1% of its total mass) between March 2002 and September 2012. The mean mass loss rate for 2008–2012 was 367 Gt/year.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
oh my God!……there was too much ice in 2002…..we could have all died!
GRACE used to say the Antarctic was losing mass..
OOPS !!
Looks like Toneb just found out that warmer and moister the air becomes over Greenland, the faster the ice on the ice sheet melts! I’ll bet he was quite surprised!
So 0.1% of the Greenland ice cap melted/sublimated/calved icebergs more than was added as fresh snow, in 10 years. At that rate it will take 10,000 years for it all to go. OMG
The GRACE satellites also measured ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, see this link (note – no units on the vertical axis – it starts off at about +200 things in 2003 and ends at about -400 things in 2011, and if the things are Gt, the loss is much smaller than the reported Greenland loss)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/multimedia/chart20121129.html#.VwGw-_krJhE
Haven’t we read elsewhere in WUWT about the Antarctic ice cap increasing in overall mass? Perhaps there is room for alternative interpretations of the data? Or perhaps there’s a reason why the graph stops in 2011?
Smart Rock
“Or perhaps there’s a reason why the graph stops in 2011?”
All graphs must come to an end. The DMI arctic extent has stopped at 30th March, and it hadn’t even become inconvenient. What a waste of a new algorithm.
TonyB:
Looks to me like the mean loss rate 2002-2015 is about 230 Gt/yr, according to the graph. Also looks like its slowed recently. Also GRACE has numerous problems, and should be quoted with the margin of error, which is probably around =/- 60 Gt/yr.
The good news is that it will be easier to get to the lost squadron. How did all that ice pile up during all this man-made global warming?
A simple following of the Jet Stream in the 2 weeks prior would have shown the source of the warm blob of air that settled over Greenland during the melt period. Snowstorms in the 2 months succeeding negated the melt!!!
Those who really want to understand what went on and how unusual it was might like to read ….
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/report12/greenland_ice_sheet.html
Those who assume they already know it all and the experts are wrong, of course needn’t bother.
But FYI the GIS summit is at 10,500ft and the published graph shows that from 1996 until that event it had never risen above OC.
That summer (9 July through 2 August) there were 3 events that did (just) and a few that were a tad below.
The events must have involved saturated air (bound to be the case as moist air from the Atlantic advecting over the snow/ice field – and would be chilled well below it’s dew point (~2C @ 700mb) – so rain/drizzle too aiding the melt (actually rain is a greater snow-eater than a high temp at that alt as usually the air would be dry and the wet bulb depressed well below 0C, causing a freezing effect despite the super-zero temp.
Now, can you tell us this has never happened before, and if it has, when, and what was the cause, and why is the icecap still there?
ClimateOtter
No fear!! its happened before alright, back during the last ice age.
This is why there was big swings in temp in Greenland during the ice age
how unusual it was….from 1996
/snark
And none since.
Of course it was unusual! That’s kind of the POINT Toneb. We all knew it was freaking unusual, and that this type of event HAD to be caused by something UNUSUAL, atypical, “exceptional”. How did we know that? Because there is ZERO EVIDENCE that the amount of incoming solar radiation (you know…the stuff that USUALLY melts the ice) suddenly increased freakishly between July 9th and August 2nd and then came back down to normal….so we are NOT surprised AT ALL to learn that the air, which was warmer and moister than USUAL during that time period, is responsible for the incredible rate of ice melt!!!
But apparently the “experts” were “quite surprised” to learn that!!!
I tried it is, ” Cannot be reached ” hmmmm. And to base one observation on C02 driven CC is a joke by itself ( I did check the date, it was after all April 1 2016)
Spoken like a true weatherman.
I don’t even know where to begin
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/scientists-to-freeze-a-ship-into-the-arctic-icepack/ar-BBrhgI6?ocid=spartandhp
And they want $65 million to do so. I am sure there are many better uses for that money. Unless, of course, the ship sinks and takes these ‘scientists’ with it.
Why do you have an issue with that, freezing in that boat is a brilliant idea? You do understand that the boat will not be static and travel an incredible year long journey.
saul-
You do understand that ships trapped in ice undergo enormous forces of nature, from wind and storms and icebergs to fantastic amounts of pressure against their hulls, and being dragged forcefully across rocks and reefs and other things that can rip rivets out of their joints? Of course, if she takes 90 scientists down with her, maybe it actually is a brilliant idea…
I am always shocked that nobody did actually read Marcel Leroux who could have explained this phenomena easily : the melt was due to the simultaneous descent of two still powerful (for the date) Polar Mobile Highs (MPH) originating from the pole and moving southward at each side of Greenland. Thus, warm are was sucked up north on top of Greenland along both eastern and western corridors of the 2 MPHs. Such moves and coordination are quite rare at this that of the year.
http://i67.tinypic.com/169kh3q.png
…and weather is chaotic and random
Paul Maxit
Yes and this is the very reason why it turned up during the ice age. Where there would have been blocking highs in the right places.
Paul thank you for mentioning Leroux.
Deutscher Wetterdienst for July 10, 2012 0 UTC shows a 1025 hPa MPH anticyclone over Greenland while Environment Canada 6 UTC for the same day shows the same anticyclone to be up to 1029 hPa and
a 991 hPa depression over Labrador was associated to a large MPH anticyclone of 1021 hPa centered on the Great Lakes, covering the entire continent, which front was at about the latitude of Philadelphia.
So Deutscher Wetterdienst satellite IR imagery shows the warm air advection was only touching the southern tip of Greenland, the Cape Farewell area but not the rest of the island.
So it is likely the anticyclonic conditions and a drop in wind under such stable pressure, coupled with some surface layer effect are at the root of the melt.
The new paper is simply showing models are yet poorly reflecting the true physical conditions during such an event as meteorological conditions were well established.
Why was there big swings in temperature in Greenland during the ice age.?
Because at times there were large highs over the north Atlantic. Which extended all the from the mid Atlantic right up into the Arctic. So driving warm moist air from the mid Atlantic right up into Greenland.
When certain claimed statistics seem a little outrageous I think that even lay people are justified in questioning them. Doesn’t 28cm of melting from the top of the Greenland ice sheet – in one day – sound a little extreme?
Icebergs are classified as such at about 5 meters above sea level. A very large, monster, iceberg would be 75 meters high by 200 meters long. Typically, icebergs are twice as deep below the sea’s surface as they are long. So, that monster 75 meter x 200 meter iceberg would yield an overall depth, top to bottom, of 475 meters. That monster iceberg would have come from?…Greenland? So, I think it’s a reasonable subject of comparison with the 28cm/day ice sheet melt claim.
That monster will travel 1,800 miles; as far south as Newfoundland. The great mass of that ice, buoyant but under the surface, will reach the Grand Banks where the seawater temperature in the coldest month of March averages at 0.7 degrees Centigrade above freezing, and in August at 15 degrees C. At that time, 3 years after its journey began it’s just about melted and gone. But, not quite entirely – about 85% is gone. It’s still got to hit the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to entirely disappear.
And, that same ice; insulated below by?…ice? and warmed above by air that’s still considerably colder than that of Newfoundland; if it disappeared at the rate of 28cm per day would take about 4 years and 7 months to completely disappear: not that much slower than an iceberg version – far from home – which is being warmed throughout its entire surface.
I’m not a scientist. I stand ready to be corrected. But, the claim of a 28cm/day ice loss doesn’t seem plausible.
Oops. That iceberg would actually measure 675 meters top to bottom, not 475. So, the melt time would be 6 years and 7 months at 28cm per day. I guess I may have defeated my own argument. My bad.
That 28 cm per day jumped out at me, too … about 11 inches a day. I would say it’s a preposterous exaggeration! Ice on our lake won’t melt at anywhere near that rate when it’s 60 degrees F out!!!
I’m not a scientist either but I say it’s not possible Surface snow yes, solid ice no!
OMG! An unbeliever! Stone the heretic!
If we accept that the Greenland ice cap is losing ice, one wonders how the Lockheed P38 Lightning “Glacier Girl” managed to get buried 268 feet deep in the ice after 50 years…
http://p38assn.org/images/p38s/gg/ontheglacier.jpg
http://p38assn.org/glaciergirl/recovery.htm
Well that was in 1992….apparently all of that ice melted in 2012 during a surprising and exceptional ice melt. (grinning madly)
It sank into the melting icecap? /sarc
An airplane can be heated quickly as it is metal, and could be expected to melt into the ice.
Only for maybe 10 ft. , then it gets covered in snow !!
Donald Kasper: “An airplane can be heated quickly as it is metal, and could be expected to melt into the ice.”
Melted by what?
Not the sun at that latitude, that is for certain, plus it was made of polished aluminium, so wouldn’t heat up much – if at all – even if there was any significant sunshine.
It was buried by the ongoing snowfall, that is not at issue.
I noticed that a while back, true enough that.
“Winds blowing 10-15 knots and temperatures around -45 made early spring work near Thule Air Base a challenge.”
http://polarfield.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/GrIT-Situation-report-3-7.bmp
But that’s irrelevant it’s just cold weather, a hot week in June tho..
Catweazle666. Wonder no more. This is logically possible since the Lockheed is only in one very, very small part of greenland. This area could be gaining ice whilst the continent as a whole is losing ice. Does this sound reasonable?
“Does this sound reasonable?”
Knowing what I know about the weather conditions on the Greenland plateau, in a word – NO.
An “exceptional and rare” melt event in winter is worth putting a paper out on the event, but a melt in the middle of summer is a “common and expected” event.
Imagine watching as an outside advanced civilisation, viewing these humans scurrying around worrying about and trying to save ice from melting.
This is beyond lunacy, pure parody.
If it is settled Science that:
1. The Late Wisconsin Glacier (LWG) covered much of Long Island with ice up to 3,300 feet thick at 18,000 years BP when it stopped advancing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Sound
2. Via sea level proxies (see graph below) the LWG started to quickly melt at 21,000 years BP. http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/439/43917.png
3. The accepted start of the warm Holocene Interglacial Period (HIP) began at 11,700 years BP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
4. The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) is up to 4,688 feet thick with the lowest level dating back to roughly 9704 BC (11,704 BP). http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/papers/pdfs/219.pdf
Then would someone please answer my following questions which are:
1. How thick was the GIS at 21,000 years BP?
2. Did the GIS also start quickly melting at 18,000 years BP or at 15,000 years BP?
3. How much of the current GIS is a remnant of the LWG of 18,000 years BP: all, part, or none of it?
4. If all or part of the current GIS is a remnant of the LWG then does the lowest level actually date much farther back than the settled Science date of 11,704 BP?
5. If the settled Science date of 11,704 BP for the lowest level of the GIS is correct then is it a scientific fact that the GIS had completely melted away prior to the accepted start of the HIP and has since reformed to its current 4,688 feet thickness?
6. If the GIS completed melted prior to 11,704 BP then did the earth experience a much more pronounced period of warming prior to the accepted start of the HIP than it is currently experiencing?
If it is settled Science that:
1. The Late Wisconsin Glacier (LWG) covered much of Long Island with ice up to 3,300 feet thick at 18,000 years BP when it stopped advancing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Sound
2. Via sea level proxies (see graph below) the LWG started to quickly melt at 21,000 years BP. http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/439/43917.png
3. The accepted start of the warm Holocene Interglacial Period (HIP) began at 11,700 years BP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
4. The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) is up to 4,688 feet thick with the lowest level dating back to roughly 9704 BC (11,704 BP). http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/papers/pdfs/219.pdf
Then would someone please answer my following questions which are:
1. How thick was the GIS at 21,000 years BP?
2. Did the GIS also start quickly melting at 18,000 years BP or at 15,000 years BP?
3. How much of the current GIS is a remnant of the LWG of 18,000 years BP: all, part, or none of it?
4. If all or part of the current GIS is a remnant of the LWG then does the lowest level actually date much farther back than the settled Science date of 11,704 BP?
5. If the settled Science date of 11,704 BP for the lowest level of the GIS is correct then is it a scientific fact that the GIS had also completely melted prior to the accepted start of the HIP and has since reformed to its current 4,688 feet thickness?
6. If the GIS completed melted prior to 11,704 BP then did the earth experience a much more pronounced period of warming prior to the accepted start of the HIP than it is currently experiencing?