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Global Warming: Glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets are collapsing, and it's unstoppable; How the planet's ice cover is being altered by climate change
Topic Started: 27 May 2014, 01:51 PM (22,664 Views)
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Breaking through the ice confusion

Roz Pidcock

Melting ice has filled the newspapers over the past couple of weeks, with a deluge of new research into how the planet's ice cover is being altered by climate change making the headlines.

Coming just a few days after research showing West Antarctic glaciers are in irreversible collapse, today's news that Antarctic ice melt has doubled in a decade was widely covered.

We've taken a look at several new papers that highlight the speed at which earth's vast ice sheets, glaciers and ice caps are diminishing. Put them all together, and it makes for a stark picture.

1. Antarctic ice melt is twice as fast as 10 years ago

'Antarctic ice losses have DOUBLED in less than a decade with 159 billion tonnes of ice melting each year', reads today's Daily Mail headline. The Guardian opts for, 'Doubling of Antarctic ice loss revealed by European satellite'. The Times says 'Antarctic melt rate worries scientists'.

All three headlines stem from a paper published yesterday in Geophysical Research Letters, which finds the volume of ice melting into the ocean from Antarctica is twice as large the average between 1992 and 2011, now raising global sea levels by 0.45mm a year.

The University of Leeds scientists study uses three years of data from the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite, launched in 2010. The satellite now sees five times as much area as before, totalling 96 per cent of the total Antarctic continent.

David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey told The Guardian why this is so important:

"Through some very clever technical improvements, [the scientists] have produced the best maps of Antarctic ice-loss we have ever had. Prediction of the rate of future global sea-level rise must be begin with a thorough understanding of current changes in the ice sheets – this study puts us exactly where we need to be."

Across Antarctica, the average height of the ice is dropping by 1.9cm per year, the data shows. East Antarctica is staying roughly the same but West Antarctica is seeing big losses, where ice melt is 31 per cent faster now than between 2005 and 2011. Ice loss from glaciers along the Amundsen coast has tripled over the past two decades, the paper explains.

2. West Antarctic glaciers are collapsing, and it's "unstoppable"

Eye-catching words like "collapse", "irreversible", "unstoppable" and "catastrophic" peppered media coverage last week of two papers charting the demise of West Antarctic glaciers.

The first paper in Science looked at how changes in wind and ocean circulations are bringing warm water in contact with the underside of the Thwaites glacier – one of the biggest in West Antarctica – melting it from the bottom up. Similar things are happening with other glaciers across West Antarctica, explained the second paper in Geophysical Research Letters.

Not only are the glaciers shrinking, but there's nothing to stop them melting completely. That's why scientists are talking about the glaciers' collapse as "irreversible" and "unstoppable".

And without the huge glaciers to prop up the interior of the ice sheet, much larger areas of West Antarctic ice will start slipping into the ocean. This would ultimately raise sea levels by three to four metres, though that would take several centuries, say the scientists.

Here are some key questions on both bits of research answered by experts.

3. The Greenland ice sheet could melt faster than scientists first thought

The Greenland ice sheet may be more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought, scientists reported in a Nature Geoscience paper on Sunday.

The team of US scientists discovered deep channels extending horizontally below the surface of the Greenland sheet, which mean large parts of the glaciers lie on land that's below sea level.

Just like in West Antarctic glaciers, warm water coming into contact with the edge of the glacier forms vast pools under the ice sheet, melting it from the bottom up, the paper explains.

4. Other ice caps and glaciers in the northern hemisphere are melting faster too

As well as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, glaciers and ice caps on land are also melting under the pressure of rising temperatures and contributing to sea level rise.

A new paper published today in the Journal of Climate looks at ice-covered areas greater or equal to 0.5 square kilometres in the Northern Hemisphere, excluding the Greenland Ice Sheet.

The researchers built a model of glacier and ice cap responses to past temperature and snowfall changes, testing it against nearly 1500 measurements from 78 locations worldwide.

The scientists estimated the total contribution to sea-level rise from ice caps and glaciers was 0.51mm per year between 1979-2009. But it's speeding up – looking just at the recent decade, 1999-2009, the contribution is 40 per cent higher, at around 0.71mm per year.

Figure 4: Surface mass balance of ice caps and glaciers in the northern hemisphere – excluding the Greenland Ice Sheet – showing a loss (dashed line) between 1970 and 2009. Annual values are marked by black circles. The solid black line is the cumulative ice loss over the period.

5. Soot from forest fires contributed to unusually large Greenland surface melt in 2012

Finally, a new study published today explores the reasons for why an unusually large amount of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet melted in 2012. This exceptional summer saw more than 97 per cent melt away, far more than the next biggest event almost a century before in 1889.

The team of US scientists examined the layers of ice and snow in six ice cores, concluding that a combination of exceptionally high temperatures and soot from northern hemisphere forest fires, known as black carbon, drove unusually extensive surface melt in both cases.

Surface melting doesn't contribute to sea level rise because the water percolates back into the snow and refreezes. But it does reduce the reflectivity of the ice, known as albedo, with consequences for how much sunlight the Arctic region absorbs, and how much ice stays frozen.

Together, with soot which also decreases reflectivity, the ice albedo was pushed below a certain threshold in 1889 and 2012, making it vulnerable to rapid ice loss, say the authors. Lead author Kaitlin Keegan explains such big surface melting events won't be out of place by 2100:

"With both the frequency of forest fires and warmer temperatures predicted to increase with climate change, widespread melt events are likely to happen much more frequently in the future."

Read more: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/5/27/science-environment/breaking-through-ice-confusion
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Investor888
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Holy crap, when the Forum Admin is a man-made global warming nutjob.
Glaciers are alos growing world-wide, just google growing glaciers. Cherry picking anyone.

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Across Antarctica, the average height of the ice is dropping by 1.9cm per year, the data shows.



East Antarctic has an average ice thinkness ~ 2220m , so at 1.9cm/yr, in 100yrs, it will be 2m of the 2220m.
The next overdue ice-age will be long here, long before any NORMAL climate patterns now melt away any significant ice.
And East Antarctica makes up 90% of the volume of Antarctica ice. West Antarctic makes up 10%.


Quote:
 
Together, with soot which also decreases reflectivity, the ice albedo was pushed below a certain threshold in 1889 and 2012, making it vulnerable to rapid ice loss, say the authors.

In fact, NOAA and other measuring institutions record record Nothern Hermisphere ice-cover at 24million sqkm. This included the Arctic sea-ice being only 0.5million sqkm below 1980-2008 average, but record cover in Alaska, North America, etc.

Fruitloops :re:
It's like a meeting of inbreds on the forum. See ya :bye:



Edited by Investor888, 27 May 2014, 02:41 PM.
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szokolay
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Investor888
27 May 2014, 02:25 PM
Holy crap, when the Forum Admin is a man-made global warming nutjob.
Glaciers are alos growing world-wide, just google growing glaciers. Cherry picking anyone.
Is this sort of response supposed to make me disbelieve global warming is occuring at an ever increasing rate? It's no wonder they call you crowd global warming deniers, you never offer any scientific evidence of your own, you simply attack those posting stories. In this case, the forum's admin.

I often ask skeptics why they disbelieve in GW and oddly enough they dan't have an answer outher than "its a conspiracy to increase taxes" I say to them that is a motive for politicians, not a reason why YOU dont believe. At this point their mental limits are reached and they have no further answers. I think they disbelive it because at some unconcious level the thought of giving up driving cars is beyond them. They also probably have this image in their head of the world as a huge, really HUGE place and what could a little tailpipe gas and coal power station gas emmissions possibly do to it.

Funny thing is though the atmosphere of earth is really quite thin.

Posted Image

The bulk of it only extends about 20km above the surface, three quarters of which is within about 11 km. Not a lot of air to trash if you think about it. Now the ozone hole business was proven and is now excepted fact, no one disputes it, and why should they, the solution was a minor change in areosol spray packs and airconditioner gases. But think about that for just a moment. The earth was threatened by our underarm spray cans and our leaky airconditioners, yet many people insist it is not threatened by billions of tons of toxic gases released by our burning of oil and coal?

Global warming opinion is not so much about science I am afraid. It is all about peoples desire to not see their lifestyles inhibited by measures that would prevent it. As it turns out though it no longer matters. Anyone up to date on the science is well aware that we have passed the tipping point and even stopping all emmissions now would have little effect on the ramifiations we are soon going to experience. There is a lag effect you see, and the pollution that is causing all this ice melt is up there now and cannot be removed. So now we just sit back and wait for the consequences. Facinating when you think of it.

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Investor888
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szokolay
28 May 2014, 01:41 AM
Is this sort of response supposed to make me disbelieve global warming is occuring at an ever increasing rate? It's no wonder they call you crowd global warming deniers, you never offer any scientific evidence of your own, you simply attack those posting stories. In this case, the forum's admin.
No it's not the response.

The response was discussed at length in the 22 page thread. You can read through that whole thread.
Climate Change: No evidence that man has caused global warming
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Idiot
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Investor888
28 May 2014, 08:55 AM
No it's not the response.

The response was discussed at length in the 22 page thread. You can read through that whole thread.
Climate Change: No evidence that man has caused global warming
Do you realise the forum admin posted that thread, the same forum admin you claim is a man-made global warming nutjob???
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peter fraser
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Investor888
28 May 2014, 08:55 AM
No it's not the response.

The response was discussed at length in the 22 page thread. You can read through that whole thread.
Climate Change: No evidence that man has caused global warming
People who don't believe the overwhelming body of scientific evidence just amaze me.
Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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derp
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Quick someone better go up and tell the Great Lakes. They don't seem to have gotten the memo.

Great lakes have most ice in the history of satellite imaging: http://iceagenow.info/2014/05/greatest-ice-cover-great-lakes-satellite-records-began/
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Dave
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peter fraser
28 May 2014, 09:16 AM
People who don't believe the overwhelming body of scientific evidence just amaze me.
I agree Peter, I agree, the science is clear, no global warming for almost 20 years, we could be headed for a new ice age IMHO if this cooling keeps up!

Quote:
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/05/16/record-polar-ice-extent-debunks-antarctic-global-warming-scare/

Alarmists try to scare people into believing a “Catastrophic collapse of Antarctic ice sheet [is] now underway” at the very time that the Antarctic ice extent is setting record after record.

It’s not just the Antarctic, either. Precise satellite measurements of both polar ice caps show absolutely no decline in polar ice since the satellite instruments were launched in 1979. Not only is total polar ice extent currently greater than the long-term average; polar ice extent has been greater than the long term average for nearly all of the past 16 months.
Quote:
 
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/12/global-cooling-antarctic-sea-ice-coverage-continues-to-break-records/

Someone let Al Gore know the South Pole isn’t melting. Antarctic sea ice coverage reached record levels for April, hitting 3.5 million square miles — the largest on record.

It was a cold summer down in Antarctica, with sea ice coverage growing about 43,500 square miles a day, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSDC). April 2014 beats the previous sea-ice coverage record from April 2008 by a whopping 124,000 square miles.

But even with autumn in full swing in the South Pole, “record levels continue to be set in early May,” reports the NSDC. Sea ice levels have been “significantly above” satellite data averages for 16 consecutive months.
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szokolay
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Dave
28 May 2014, 09:41 AM
peter fraser
28 May 2014, 09:16 AM
People who don't believe the overwhelming body of scientific evidence just amaze me.
I agree Peter, I agree, the science is clear, no global warming for almost 20 years, we could be headed for a new ice age IMHO if this cooling keeps up!
A typical GW denier retort. No air temperature changes to speak of for 20 years and you use that to claim the earth has been cooling? There is no evidence for cooling, certainly none that would lead to an ice age. Now lets discuss why the antarctic glaciers are melting away, they are doing so from their bases btw, which implies warmer water not warmer air. That is your clue. The heat trapped by greenhouse gasses has gone into the sea, warming of the earth has occured in the oceans which are massive heat sinks.
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peter fraser
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szokolay
28 May 2014, 10:22 AM
A typical GW denier retort. No air temperature changes to speak of for 20 years and you use that to claim the earth has been cooling? There is no evidence for cooling, certainly none that would lead to an ice age. Now lets discuss why the antarctic glaciers are melting away, they are doing so from their bases btw, which implies warmer water not warmer air. That is your clue. The heat trapped by greenhouse gasses has gone into the sea, warming of the earth has occured in the oceans which are massive heat sinks.
APF is living proof that you can be 100% correct but still lose the argument by a wide margin.

As a rule I try to stay out of climate threads and anything that has an element of racism. I've stayed the course in the past and it did me no good at all. You cannot educate anyone whose preferred state is ignorance, and stupidity is their right after all. The use of our intelligence is not compulsory behaviour, otherwise at least half of our world class entertainers would be wrapping big Macs right now.

Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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