Claim: Air Bubbles Sound Climate Change’s Impact on Glaciers #ASA181

Melting causes accelerated ice loss at tidewater glaciers, releasing pressurized bubbles

Reports and Proceedings

ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Tidewater glaciers and air bubbles
IMAGE: AS THE WORLD’S TEMPERATURES RISE, TIDEWATER GLACIERS ARE RECEDING AND MELTING, RELEASING AIR TRAPPED IN THE ICE. SCIENTISTS CAN LISTEN TO THE RELEASE OF THE AIR AND POTENTIALLY USE THE SOUNDS TO HELP THEM GAUGE THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE ICE FLOES. view more 
CREDIT: JOHNSON, VISHNU, AND DEANE

SEATTLE, December 3, 2021 — As the world’s temperatures rise, tidewater glaciers are receding and melting, releasing air trapped in the ice. Scientists can listen to the release of the air and potentially use the sounds to help them gauge the impact of climate change on the ice floes.

During the 181st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held Nov. 29-Dec. 3, Hayden Johnson, from the University of California, San Diego, will discuss how sound can be used to estimate glacial melting induced by climate change. The talk, “Spatial variation in acoustic field due to submarine melting in glacial bays,” will take place Friday, Dec. 3, at 11:45 a.m. Eastern U.S. at the Hyatt Regency Seattle.

Hari Vishnu, from the National University of Singapore, Grant Deane, from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and their research team investigated glacial ice melting that releases acoustically distinct pressurized underwater bubbles.

Air trapped with ice below the glacier surface becomes a compressed bubble-ice mixture that builds pressure during the long passage to the glacier terminus. The glacier ice holds ancient bubbles of air that can be up to 20 atmospheres of pressure and generate detectable sounds when they are released as the ice melts.

“We observed that the intensity of the sound generated by a melting terminus tends to increase as the water temperature increases,” said Deane. “This makes sense, because we expect the terminus to melt faster in warmer water, releasing bubbles more rapidly into the ocean and generating more sound.”

The team found as the recording array was moved further from the glacier, the variation in the acoustic melting did not follow a uniform trend.

Moreover, the acoustic intensities at different glaciers clustered in different levels. These observations indicate that the geometry of the glacier-ocean interface, the temperature and salt composition of the underwater sound channels, and the presence of floating ice impact the recorded acoustic measurements.

Their experiments will permit the monitoring of climate change’s impact on glaciers.

“Recording the underwater sounds from a melting terminus will open the door to long-term acoustical monitoring of ice loss, and how it is linked to water temperature,” said Deane. “The endgame here is to establish long-term recording stations for underwater sound around glaciers such as those in Greenland and Svalbard, to monitor their stability over time.”

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———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–

USEFUL LINKS

Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/ 
Technical program: https://eventpilotadmin.com/web/planner.php?id=ASAFALL21 
Press Room: http://acoustics.org/world-wide-press-room/ 
Follow conference highlights with social media hashtag #ASA181

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Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 2:03 am

They can’t be serious. How about listening to grass grow.

Reply to  Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 2:11 am

How about listening to brain cells dying?

Eda Rose-Lawson
Reply to  JeffC
December 4, 2021 2:59 am

Sounds like a nice way to justify a nice big grant whilst contributing absolutely nothing to scientific progress.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Eda Rose-Lawson
December 4, 2021 7:53 am

Exactly Eda! This is best understood as Acoustical Society of America Identifies Pot of Gold in Climate Change Attribution Studies

fretslider
Reply to  Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 2:43 am

Already done by The Move

Dave Fair
Reply to  Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 8:01 am

If the government (taxpayers) pays for it, it will happen. Don’t give profiteers ideas.

Sara
Reply to  Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 8:18 am

I can listen to ice bubbles emitting air in my glass of iced tea, too. Sounds like a tea kettle with a whistle included. Kind of fun.

Rick C
Reply to  Alexy Scherbakoff
December 4, 2021 10:03 am

Translation: “We’ve figured out a way for acousticians to get in on the climate change funding bonanza.”

mikee
December 4, 2021 2:10 am

If global warming is an issue, why are Russia, USA, England and others etc., building new bigger and more powerful ice breakers?

John Tillman
Reply to  mikee
December 4, 2021 2:37 am

Arctic Sea ice extent at this point is above average for the whole 20th century. It’s way above 2011-2020 and slightly above 2001-10.

The current decade might be headed back to the 20th century, as predicted by observations of prior sea ice cycles.

Those ice breakers could be busy.

John Tillman
Reply to  John Tillman
December 4, 2021 6:30 am

Meant 21st century of course. But might be true, given low ice of 1921-50.

Reply to  John Tillman
December 4, 2021 8:24 pm

Arctic Sea Ice Extent:comment image

Phil.
Reply to  ATheoK
December 5, 2021 10:49 am

They’re talking about glacier ice not seaice.
Here’s the Greenland glacier mass change.

DMI+GRACE- SMB, Gross and Net MASS Balance GRAPH-2.png
Abolition Man
Reply to  mikee
December 4, 2021 10:04 am

C’mon, mikee!
You know that Dread CO2 is the great and powerful Molecule of Evil! Not only does it cause unstoppable runaway warming, but that very warming also causes more snow and ice!
Next they’ll be modeling events where CO2 causes simultaneous droughts and floods, as well as extreme heat and cold on th same day! That’s why alarmists are so concerned about the sixth mass extinction occurring; all the animals will be so confused by the weirding climate that many will forget to eat or procreate!

Reply to  Abolition Man
December 4, 2021 8:27 pm

“all the animals will be so confused by the weirding climate that many will forget to eat or procreate!”

“all the animals will be so confused by the weirding climate weird alarmists pretending to conduct field research that many smarter animals watching them will forget to eat or procreate!

There. Helped your message a bit.

Ed Zuiderwijk
December 4, 2021 2:22 am

‘As the worlds temperatures rise’….. Stopped there.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
December 4, 2021 11:38 am

Me too, went directly to comments.

Reply to  K. McNeill
December 4, 2021 8:30 pm

Smart people!.

December 4, 2021 2:25 am

The sound of cognitive dissonance when it finally sinks in that its getting cooler.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Martin Clark
December 4, 2021 8:04 am

Do you mean the sound of heads popping, Martin?

saveenergy
December 4, 2021 2:27 am

“As the world’s temperatures rise, tidewater glaciers are receding and melting, releasing air trapped in the ice”

So that explains where all the cold wind is coming from.

nothing to do with Hadley Cells, Coriolis Effect or Differential Pressures; its the ice …
… aint sly-ence wunduful !

lee
Reply to  saveenergy
December 4, 2021 8:35 pm

releasing air trapped in the ice” Here there be dragons.

December 4, 2021 2:30 am

Glacier farts. Who knew? How about equipping cattle with portable sound monitors to gauge climate change?

Reply to  Pflashgordon
December 4, 2021 2:40 am

Great! I was thinking just the same.

Reply to  Pflashgordon
December 4, 2021 9:22 am

More than enough fart sniffers in the climate Scientology field already

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Pat from kerbob
December 4, 2021 9:54 am

Funny, since I got a Prius a couple days ago, my farts no longer smell!

PaulH
Reply to  Pflashgordon
December 4, 2021 3:55 pm

Are these farting glaciers gender-neutral?

fretslider
December 4, 2021 2:39 am

I’ve never heard – geddit – such a load of bolleaux

Are they frustrated musicians?

December 4, 2021 2:48 am

And so a reason, as if any were needed, for acoustic engineers to board the gravy train. Plenty of funding to go around! What next? Parfumiers for the Planet? I’m sure if they try hard enough they can claim elevated CO2 levels make perfumes smell sour. Or maybe I shouldn’t give them ideas..

Abolition Man
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
December 4, 2021 10:11 am

RHS,
Something about CAGW causing changes in pheromones should do the trick, or maybe an increase in human body odor! Kah-ching!!
At least we know their ideas stink!!

niceguy
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
December 4, 2021 3:22 pm

Climate makes French fruits tasteless according to TF1!

Des chercheurs ont trouvé une explication, le dérèglement climatique. Avec le réchauffement des températures, les récoltes ont tendance à être plus sucrées et moins acides

Climate makes fruits too sweet, less acidic.

https://www.lci.fr/environnement-ecologie/video-les-fruits-ont-ils-perdu-leur-gout-2203581.html

griff
December 4, 2021 2:55 am

Are all the articles where research supports climate science to be dismissed as ‘claim’, where all the articles on research supporting the skeptic view to be puffed as ‘study’?

They should all be judged on science and headlined the same.

fretslider
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 3:10 am

Should they use AKG or Neumann, griff?

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 3:59 am

Show the ‘Science’ in this one, and I’ll entertain your objection.

Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 4:33 am

Yep, because invariably the alarmist papers are always claiming we’re about to die in a whirling thermal doom.

joe
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 4:42 am

griff, if i invented a solar powered guillotine, would you be the first in line to try it out?

Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 4:59 am

claim: state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof

The authors claim something to bolster their position that isn’t supported in their study or did you not read the study?

Rory Forbes
Reply to  Redge
December 4, 2021 10:06 am

In this modern linguistic utopia words have whatever meaning the user chooses. If you insist of using a dictionary in a debate, it’s likely you’re racist.

Dave Fair
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 8:13 am

The twisted science of CliSciFi should not be supported by rational people. If they are proposing a system to help monitor glacial dynamics, fine. If they are proposing a system to engender fear with propaganda to support existing governmental policy, no. I get the impression, Griff, that you don’t read or understand UN IPCC CliSciFi documents and reports. You seem to regurgitate unscientific Leftist media memes and ignorantly assert that they are “the science.”

Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 9:19 am

Griff, be truthful, aren’t you embarrassed and ashamed at times as to what gets passed off as peer reviewed science by your people?

Surely you must realize that things like this destroy the legitimacy of the term peer review and make even some of your tribe roll their eyes, which is the start of collapse of any faith based system, when average believers begin to doubt.

When will your day come? Being on here has to hasten it

SxyxS
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 10:02 am

Can any official stupid shit be too stupid and too shitty that it makes you pull your head out of your butt?

Where is your limit in terms of bullshit or will you take whatever Guano they throw at you and call it chocolate just because they call their Guano chocolate?

Is there no inch of critical thinking and integrity left in your rotten corpse after 35 years of failed predictions and climate gate and farting cows and fake alarmism that can take you into a human being,mr Troll?

Rory Forbes
Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 10:10 am

Except most of the papers from the wide eyed Alarmunist true believers aren’t science, they’re begging the question.

Reply to  griff
December 4, 2021 9:00 pm

Are you an acoustics engineer, giffie?

As is typical of you, you cast aspersions and insults without citing a single fact of science.

The study in the article above is junk science, no matter what they allege.

“We observed that the intensity of the sound generated by a melting terminus tends to increase as the water temperature increases,” said Deane.”

Glacier sized block of ice in water in a glacial bay with sea ice from calving glaciers floating around.
Anyone here can tell you what the water temperature will be where the ice is melting, 32°F or 0°C.

Note that the researchers don’t bother to identify how warmer water reaches the glacier.
While keeping in mind, glaciers tend to calve, not melt from warm water.

It doesn’t take rocket science to realize that large vertical cracks noisily spreading through the glacier are strong hints the glacier is calving.

Reply to  griff
December 5, 2021 3:37 am

griff: the rocks in your scotch melt, they do not calve!

BUT!…

If you have a glass with room temperature scotch and you add to it an ice cube comming straight from the deep freeezer, it will calve! And make an audible cracking sound!

Astonishing, isn’t it? Just think a bit about the physics behing the two phenomena…

Zig Zag Wanderer
December 4, 2021 4:07 am

Air trapped with ice below the glacier surface becomes a compressed bubble-ice mixture that builds pressure during the long passage to the glacier terminus. The glacier ice holds ancient bubbles of air that can be up to 20 atmospheres of pressure and generate detectable sounds when they are released as the ice melts.

“We observed that the intensity of the sound generated by a melting terminus tends to increase as the water temperature increases,” said Deane. “This makes sense, because we expect the terminus to melt faster in warmer water, releasing bubbles more rapidly into the ocean and generating more sound.”

OK, so if water is warmer, bubbles make more sound when ice melts. Warmer water causes more ice to melt so that’s pretty obvious to me.

The team found as the recording array was moved further from the glacier, the variation in the acoustic melting did not follow a uniform trend.

OK, so it’s not linear. Got it.

Moreover, the acoustic intensities at different glaciers clustered in different levels. These observations indicate that the geometry of the glacier-ocean interface, the temperature and salt composition of the underwater sound channels, and the presence of floating ice impact the recorded acoustic measurements.

Wow! So the density of the medium and the surrounding geometry affect these sounds. There may be a Nobel (Peace) Prize in this!

Their experiments will permit the monitoring of climate change’s impact on glaciers.

Now this is amazing. Seriously, there are Olympian leaps of conjecture in this simple sentence. Go fo gold!

Honestly, I have rarely read so much bollox in so few paragraphs. It’s exemplary.

Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
December 4, 2021 9:09 pm

“The team found as the recording array was moved further from the glacier, the variation in the acoustic melting did not follow a uniform trend.

OK, so it’s not linear. Got it.

Sounds are waveforms. Different frequencies and different volumes make waves that conflict each other and waves that amplify effects where waveforms temporarily overlay each other.

Of course the variation over distance is not uniform!
And these characters are supposed to be acoustical engineers? They seem to miss what acoustics actually are in natural settings.

joe
December 4, 2021 4:33 am

coming soon…mp3 called THE SOUNDS OF MOTHER NATURE CRYING. 30 minutes of of ice melting

Dave Fair
Reply to  joe
December 4, 2021 8:16 am

Please don’t give them ideas, Joe.

December 4, 2021 4:34 am

Iceberg farts.
Have we hit peak stupid yet?

SxyxS
Reply to  Andrew Wilkins
December 4, 2021 10:09 am

Now cows are not the only ones to fart our climate into oblivion
( though it makes me wonder why Bisons who were estimated to be up to 150 mio were not harmful to climate while 100 mio cows now are)

Reply to  SxyxS
December 4, 2021 3:01 pm

Ah yes, but cows are evil because we bred them. Bison are cool because they lived in harmony with the noble native warriors of the Americas (or something like that, I’ll have to look it up in the “Guidebook of Woke Virtue Signalling”)

SxyxS
Reply to  Andrew Wilkins
December 4, 2021 3:49 pm

Cows are obviously man made just like Co2 and therefore evil,
while the non man made Co2 and Bison Cows were climate neutral.

And the noble indians who originate from those asians who killed hundreds of millions of people (Dschenghis khan alone 70 mio, + all other mongole storms + the golden hordes + perpetual wars against the chinese + or the estimated 100mio++ killed during their muslim-turk rule in india)
were for sure superfriendly and peaceful (after they wiped out their own = pre clovis) as nomads who are used to harsh life usually are ( at least inside the heads of academics)
– or they were as peaceful as their indian namesakes from the subcontinental peninsula who have an amazing history of millenias of war among themselves with ashoka

Reply to  SxyxS
December 5, 2021 3:15 am

Raysisss

joe
December 4, 2021 4:35 am

or how about this…IF ICE MELTS AT THE NORTH POLE, DOES ID MAKE A SOUND?

joe
December 4, 2021 4:38 am

or how about this…IF YOU LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF ICE MELTING BACKWARDS DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS, MAN MADE CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX?

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  joe
December 4, 2021 9:58 am

I thought it was “Paul is a dead man, miss him miss him”

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
December 4, 2021 9:58 am

And yes, I actually listened to some Beatles songs backwards in the 70s.

Doug D
December 4, 2021 5:17 am

I believe the purpose is to record this onto a CD so that alarmists can listen to it when ever they lose spirit and need a boost to their resolve

Reply to  Doug D
December 4, 2021 3:03 pm

CD? You’re showing your age Doug (it’s probably close to mine).
These days the young whippersnappers download their sounds of iceberg farts from Spotify.

Rick K
December 4, 2021 6:10 am

ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA???

I can’t hear a word they’re saying…

BallBounces
December 4, 2021 7:08 am

Alternatively, there’s renowned climate scientist Don Ho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muEFD_odvUg

Rory Forbes
Reply to  BallBounces
December 4, 2021 10:16 am

Are you suggesting they can hear glacier farts in Hawaii?

… ‘tiny bubbles’ ….

December 4, 2021 7:27 am

Those Dancing Angels get simply everywhere – what are they like 😀

Alan
December 4, 2021 7:31 am

Are they going to listen for sounds air makes when it’s trapped and freezes into the ice? Seems to me their research wouldn’t be complete unless they listened for the sound of freezing air bubbles. But I’d guess that wouldn’t support AGW.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Alan
December 4, 2021 10:00 am

The sounds of air screaming until it suffocates.

Dave Fair
December 4, 2021 7:59 am

I thought it was impossible to top “Feminist Glaciology.” Now an additional field of study, acoustics, has discovered the CliSciFi government gravy train. I hope that intersectionality will hasten the destruction of the CAGW meme. If climate change affects everything, it affects nothing.

December 4, 2021 8:47 am

Why use a proxy when the water temperature an be measured?

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Steve Keohane
December 4, 2021 10:00 am

Not scary enough.

Tom Abbott
December 4, 2021 8:52 am

From the article: “will discuss how sound can be used to estimate glacial melting induced by climate change.”

They claim they can tell something was induced by climate change from listening to bubbles.

They may be able to estimate glacial melting listening to bubbles, but they are just assuming the melting is being caused by CO2, without any evidence this is the case. This is not very scientific.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 4, 2021 9:14 am

“ This is not very scientific.”

Climate Scientology 101

IanE
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 4, 2021 10:44 am

Yeah – they need to get Greta in to check for CO2 molecules.

Carlo, Monte
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 5, 2021 7:42 am

They need lots and lots of $$$$ to plant microphones everywhere it gets cold.

dk_
December 4, 2021 9:45 am

Faith-based cause-effect fallacy. Noise does not imply signal, but it you look hard enough you’re probably going to think you see what you were looking form. More quackery is sure to come from this source.

Jeff Alberts
December 4, 2021 9:53 am

I guess they would prefer glaciers advancing? The only two options are advancing and receding, nothing else.

Abolition Man
December 4, 2021 10:16 am

Apparently the ACA is well versed in making useless noise; they don’t just measure it!

IanE
December 4, 2021 10:41 am

Makes a change from all the usual hot air!

Mickey Reno
December 4, 2021 11:10 am

I’m guessing that the feminist glaciers screech the loudest.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Mickey Reno
December 5, 2021 5:35 am

I remember that silly claim from yesteryear.

skiman
December 4, 2021 11:13 am

So assuming the observations(?) are correct what is the mechanism to connect any of this to climate change/GW. I dont understand. Money????

Tom Abbott
Reply to  skiman
December 5, 2021 5:36 am

Money has a lot to do with it.

December 4, 2021 2:46 pm

great, another useless proxy that can be statistically manipulated to enhance the “fear and funding” cycle. I wonder what sort of error bars a local school of farting fish would introduce to the measurements. I am sure there is some research somewhere to link increased CO2 in the atmosphere to an increase farting fish.

Just another pack of useful idiots. Climate science is full of them

Tom Bakewell
Reply to  diggs
December 4, 2021 3:01 pm

I wonder if the sounds of tiny bubbles can be picked up by SOSUS arrays and used to ‘infer’ the temperature of the sea along the acoustic path? Just kidding……

Christina Widmann
Reply to  diggs
December 5, 2021 12:41 pm

Exactly. What happened to thermometers, that we now have to measure water temperature by proxy?
Or maybe they’re trying to measure the amount of melting and then compare it to temperature, which does sound at least a tiny bit interesting: After all, glacier calving and melting depends not just on temperature but also on how much new snow accumulates at the glacier’s origin and pushes the tongue further into the sea where it melts. But (my own conjecture) this should be measurable by satellite: Stick a flag into the glacier and watch how fast it moves.

December 4, 2021 4:20 pm

“… will open the door to long-term acoustical monitoring of ice loss …”

ie. “My pay check/cheque will be safe for years.”

December 4, 2021 8:20 pm

Ice acoustics…

  • Not just the size of the bubbles.
  • Not just the pressure of the air in the bubble.
  • Mass of the glacier matters.
  • Mass of the glacier’s adjoining solid section be it square mm or square km it contributes to the frequency.
  • Size of the echo chamber; i.e., the size and shape of the water immediately below the glacier, where the bubble is catastrophically expanding. All, contribute to the sound’s frequency and volume.

An infinitely variable ice orchestra comprised near infinite amount highly varying sound generators, without standard distribution of instruments and types, infinitely variable size sound chambers, different sound boards (reflective or vibrating surfaces), different air surface tensions…

Unsurprisingly, different gas combinations change the sound vibrating air emits. As the common joke of people inhaling helium frequently prove.

“The endgame here is to establish long-term recording stations for underwater sound around glaciers such as those in Greenland and Svalbard, to monitor their stability over time”

There is an ocean of difference between gauging glacier stability and measuring amount of glacier melting.

Bruce Cobb
December 5, 2021 2:15 am

14 years ago, NSIDCs Mark Serreze proclaimed that “the arctic is screaming”. Heh. Now that’s what I call science. He meant that figuratively, but now, the sound of escaping air bubbles could, in a literal sense be the sound of the arctic screaming. Geeze. The planet’s on fire. Imagine what noises it must be making!

michael hart
December 5, 2021 1:10 pm

A curious mix of “this is what we’re going to do and we’re sure it will work” and “here are the problems we’ve identified so far [which probably means that it won’t]”.

I can add at least one more confounding variable I didn’t see mentioned: salinity.