Greenland - What Do We Know, What Is The Long Term Future And Is There Any Evidence Of A Melt Out?

[knocker]

Record melt event in mid June

Quote

Between June 11 and 20, an extensive area of the Greenland ice sheet surface melted. At its peak on June 12, thawing climbed from the western and eastern coasts to elevations above 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). High air pressure and clockwise circulation around the island brought warm air from the south and sunny conditions. While several recent years have had similar early widespread melt events, the event of June 11 to 20 reached a peak of just over 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 square miles), setting a record for this early in the melt season. Models estimate the amount of melted ice at approximately 80 billion tons for that period.

http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2019/07/a-record-melt-event-in-mid-june/

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Looks like the heat over the western Europe at the moment is on its way to Greenland.

You can track the 850hPa temp anomalies on the animation below, moving from here, crossing Iceland and arriving over Greenland during the next 5 days

 

When it arrives, it brings surface temperatures above 0C across the vast majority of the ice sheet, with plenty of >18C spots around the coastal fringes.

[cowdog]

This threat has been picked up by the World Meteorological Organization, so it could be significant.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-weather-greenland/europes-record-heatwave-threatens-greenland-ice-sheet-idUKKCN1UL14U

 

Quote

Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, said the hot air moving up from North Africa had not merely broken European temperature records on Thursday but surpassed them by 2, 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, which she described as “absolutely incredible”.

“According to forecasts, and this is of concern, the atmospheric flow is now going to transport that heat towards Greenland,” she told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva.

“This will result in high temperatures and consequently enhanced melting of the Greenland ice sheet,” she said. “We don’t know yet whether it will beat the 2012 level, but it’s close.”

Greenland’s ice sheet is a key part of the global climate system and its melting would lead to rising sea levels and unstable weather.

Greenland had not had an exceptional year until June, but its ice had been melting rapidly in recent weeks, she said, citing data from a Danish climate scientist.

“In July alone, it lost 160 billion tonnes of ice through surface melting. That’s roughly the equivalent of 64 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Just in July. Just surface melt - it’s not including ocean melt as well.”

The warmer air also had implications for Arctic ice extent, which was nearly the lowest on record as of July 15, Nullis said.

She said increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves were linked to manmade climate change.

“What we saw with this one was that temperature records weren’t just broken, they were smashed.”

She cited a study by the Britain’s Met Office which found that by 2050, record-breaking heatwaves would happen every other year.

 

[knocker]

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

A little melt water...
 

 

[Devonian]

2 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

A little melt water...
 

Ignorance truly would be bliss . To think I could have lived a life where I wasn't interested in weather and then climate and I had a open mind - and then it all would have gone away in a puff of wuwt...

Anyway, maybe the effects of this year will wake people up - otoh, countering ignorance (especially the willfull version) will take longer. Hang in there Earth, there are people who care and we're doing our damndest to help!

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

 

[Gray-Wolf]

On 02/08/2019 at 20:14, Devonian said:

Ignorance truly would be bliss . To think I could have lived a life where I wasn't interested in weather and then climate and I had a open mind - and then it all would have gone away in a puff of wuwt...

Anyway, maybe the effects of this year will wake people up - otoh, countering ignorance (especially the willfull version) will take longer. Hang in there Earth, there are people who care and we're doing our damndest to help!

And though we may differ in our solution Dev I think we both know that " More Rampant Capitalism!" is not the answer!!!

It is the cause!!!

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

 

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

 

[parrotingfantasist]

Scary.

 

Really scary...

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

"Kulusuk, Greenland (CNN)On one of the hottest days this summer, locals in the tiny village of Kulusuk, Greenland, heard what sounded like an explosion. It turned out to be a soccer field's worth of ice breaking off a glacier more than five miles away.

Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice to melting on August 2, the largest single-day loss in recorded history and another stark reminder of the climate crisis."

Full story here https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/19/weather/greenland-nasa-climate-battle-intl/index.html

[Snow phall]

On 20/08/2019 at 23:00, Kirkcaldy Weather said:

"Kulusuk, Greenland (CNN)On one of the hottest days this summer, locals in the tiny village of Kulusuk, Greenland, heard what sounded like an explosion. It turned out to be a soccer field's worth of ice breaking off a glacier more than five miles away.

Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice to melting on August 2, the largest single-day loss in recorded history and another stark reminder of the climate crisis."

Full story here https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/19/weather/greenland-nasa-climate-battle-intl/index.html

Recorded history,a tiny tiny blip in time all things considered.The Earth will make it,it always has,probably always will.Chin up.

[Devonian]

12 hours ago, Snow phall said:

Recorded history,a tiny tiny blip in time all things considered.The Earth will make it,it always has,probably always will.Chin up.

Sorry, but what climate science and climate models has foretold is coming true. Complacency and ignorance (which perhaps define humanity) will (unless by some miracle we come to our senses) WILL mean that we're only seeing the start of the warming and the changes.

Dunkirk spirit wont cut it. Attacking people who see what we are doing wont cut it either. We (humanity) need to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Atm there is NO chance of that - like I say, we're going to see what climate models predict. It's an awful prospect for Earth. I do agree, tho, that Earth will make it - but at what cost and that cost is not in my name...

Edited August 23, 2019 by Devonian

[kold weather]

The danger for Greenland is once you start to get temperatures that can reach above 0c even at highest points you begin a slowelting process that in a warming world will be tough to switch.

Reason being your going to be losing height across the sheet, meaning that by itself will lead to warming temperatures regardless if surrounding dynamics (as lower heights generally relate to higher maxes, at least in summer) and it starts to become a feedback loop.

Of course such a situation on its own would likely take a very long time...but we keep on increasing temperatures by 0.5c every 25 years (imo probably the best case scenario) and that will enhance melting, especially at the fringes of the sheet which will naturally be thinner anyway.

 

[Methuselah]

14 hours ago, Snow phall said:

Recorded history,a tiny tiny blip in time all things considered.The Earth will make it,it always has,probably always will.Chin up.

Aye. Right you are!   

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Dev!

Sadly i think humans are hard wired only to respond to 'clear & present danger' ( Fight or flight response?) so many will need to feel personally 'threatened' by our climate shocks before they suddenly 'flip' & & need to know ALL about the dangers facing us?

Until then you ( & I ?) will be universally ignored in our warnings in favour of what domestic trauma is currently besetting them?

The immense heat now making it to the base of the Greenland ice sheet, via meltwater penetration, and the tunnels this forms via the pressure of supercooled water jets hammering the basal ice will bring its own issues?

We have seen what happens when this water jets out of the front of ocean terminating glaciers but what is turning the base into swiss cheese doing to the structural security of that near 2 miles of ice above?

I think most folk ( wilfully?) forget that 'Gravity' is the biggest remover of ice in a 'rapid collapse' of any ice sheet with ice collapsing into 'melt zones' lower down? (saddle & lobe melt)

So when do we see mega tonnage of ice slump down the sides of the Greenland ice sheet? When does the weight of all that water stored in the snow pack become too great & so overcomes its inertia?

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-49483580

[knocker]

Guest post: How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-the-greenland-ice-sheet-fared-in-2019

[Aleman]

On 04/09/2019 at 13:48, Kirkcaldy Weather said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-49483580

Fig 3 in this link shows a positive trend in surface mass balance until 2003, before a negative balance which has yet to accumulate enough to overcome those gains - although the two do seem to be nearing overall balance. Did Greenland gain ice between 1960 and 2003? Are this and the above article measuring the same things?

http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2018/10/

 

 

 

 

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

12 minutes ago, Aleman said:

Fig 3 in this link shows a positive trend in surface mass balance until 2003, before a negative balance which has yet to accumulate enough to overcome those gains - although the two do seem to be nearing overall balance. Did Greenland gain ice between 1960 and 2003? Are this and the above article measuring the same things?

http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2018/10/

Surface mass balance, while important, is a feature that makes up just part of the overall ice sheet mass balance. Much of the ice loss comes from areas away from the surface, such as increased glacier flow and calving, and increased melting where there's contact with water due to rising sea levels and SSTs.
So while the SMB may have been generally positive until the last 2 decades, the overall ice sheet mass balance has been negative for longer and losing mass at a significant rate since about the 80s.

[Aleman]

6 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Surface mass balance, while important, is a feature that makes up just part of the overall ice sheet mass balance. Much of the ice loss comes from areas away from the surface, such as increased glacier flow and calving, and increased melting where there's contact with water due to rising sea levels and SSTs.
So while the SMB may have been generally positive until the last 2 decades, the overall ice sheet mass balance has been negative for longer and losing mass at a significant rate since about the 80s.

Thanks. Forgive my ignorance, aren't those two variables ultimately derived from surface mass balance? If SMB is persistently positive, over time they will increase, and vice versa. Thus SMB would be a good measure of where the others will go in future?

Edited September 15, 2019 by Aleman

[BornFromTheVoid]

10 hours ago, Aleman said:

Thanks. Forgive my ignorance, aren't those two variables ultimately derived from surface mass balance? If SMB is persistently positive, over time they will increase, and vice versa. Thus SMB would be a good measure of where the others will go in future?

The surface is where all the accumulation happens, but not where all the loss happens. A lot of the ice sheet mass loss comes from areas that are not included in the SMB.
Also, large losses at the surface, such as from melting, can cause infiltration of melt water to the base of the ice sheet and glaciers. This melt water provides lubrication and increases the sliding towards the sea, increasing calving and thinning the glacier/ice sheet. This is a way that surface processes can increase overall mass loss in ways separate from the SMB too.

One of the most recent articles on Greenland: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/19/9239

"Even in years of high SMB, enhanced glacier discharge has remained sufficiently high above equilibrium to maintain an annual mass loss every year since 1998."