By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent 14 May 2019
European satellites have detailed the abrupt change in behaviour of one of Greenland’s most important glaciers.
In the 2000s, Jakobshavn Isbrae was the fastest flowing ice stream on the island, travelling at 17km a year.
As it sped to the ocean, its front end also retreated and thinned, dropping in height by as much as 20m year.
But now it’s all change. Jakobshavn is travelling much more slowly, and its trunk has even begun to thicken and lengthen.
“It’s a complete reversal in behaviour and it wasn’t predicted,” said Dr Anna Hogg from Leeds University and the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).
“The question now is: what’s next for Jakobshavn? Is this just a pause, or is it a switch-off of the dynamic thinning we’ve seen previously?”
The glacier is sited in southwest Greenland. It’s famous for its spectacular production of icebergs – colossal blocks calve from its terminus and drift down its fjord, out into Disko Bay and onwards to the North Atlantic.
More than likely, it was Jakobshavn that spawned the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
Scientists’ interest in the glacier lies in its role as a drainage outlet for the Greenland Ice Sheet. It’s a key channel for the export of ice that can then raise global sea levels.
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The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)is transitioning from its warm phase to its cool phase. In other words, the North Atlantic sea surface temperatures are cooling, like they do every 25 to 30 years or so. The glacier sped up during the warm phase of the AMO. It will now tend to be slower in the cool phase.
It’s natural. It’s expected, except by the natural climate change deniers, who are currently running the climate science asylum.
Tony Heller flagged this up back in 2017!
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/09/greenlands-other-famous-glacier-growing-too/
Accelerated in the 30s early 40s … expanded during the “Ice Age Cometh” period and then shrunk again with 90s warming….termination was about at the same place as 1946 in 2001..now its growing again. Analysis: almost all warming to the present took place before 1946. There was a steep worrying cooling that the climateers erased. The Pause is unequivocally real and the hard braking of the glacier a cooling period in progress.
This Jakobshavn is better than all the proxies that have been used in climate science but the Clime Syndicate won’t use it. Indeed it isnt behaving according to debunked theory.
The only palpable proof of man caused climate change is the “Great Greening^тм” and it is alm8st taboo to mention it. They come out swinging every decade to say the greening is real bad and then clam up again.
FTA:
“Scientists’ interest in the glacier lies in its role as a drainage outlet for the Greenland Ice Sheet. It’s a key channel for the export of ice that can then raise global sea levels.”
Q1. So where does the mass of water in the glacier come from that, when it ends up in the Atlantic Ocean, raises global sea levels?
A1. From the atmosphere, from whence the snowfall that builds glaciers emanates.
Q2. So where does the water in the atmosphere come from that produces snow that builds glaciers?
A2. From the oceans.
Closed loop … conservation of matter … what goes up, must come down.
“It’s a complete reversal in behaviour and it wasn’t predicted,” said Dr Anna Hogg from Leeds University and the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM). –
Poor thing! Probably can’t even predict which way the wind blows, either. Get her bundled into a parachute, give her a couple of MREs and a few bottles of water and drop her off. She might learn something if she got outside once in a while. When she gets an understanding of how ice and the world really work, she can go back to her nice warm office and warm up again.
Maybe we’ll see glaciers rebuilding in Montana, Wyoming and Utah, too. That would be too cool!
If this keeps up, lol for ‘science studies’ that would
explain the rise of sea levels slowing or even stopping.
For example, the ocean floor may be spreading resulting in deeper depths. Anything to possibly hide that the warming may have stopped.
When CACC predictions fail to occur, the predictor can always say as per Alexandra
Cortez : “Oh you silly billies, it was just a joke”