Greenland's glaciers melting twice as fast as 5 years ago

[Janice]

Ice on the move

Most of the computer models on which climate predictions are based did not take the dynamics of the glaciers into account.

Contrary to appearances, the monolith of ice is constantly on the move. Swiss Camp has been rafting on the ice stream toward the sea, on average, at about 1 foot every day. Since Steffen pitched the main tents, the camp has moved about a mile downhill.

When Zwally started tracking the velocity of the ice with Global Positioning System sensors in 1996, the ice flow maintained a steady pace all year.

But he soon discovered that the ice around Swiss Camp had abruptly shifted gears in the summer, moving faster when the surface ice started to melt. By 1999, the ice stream had almost tripled its speed to about 3 feet a day.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/conte ... _0625.html

[Audrey2Katrina]

This is being taken grossly out of context as it implies this 24 feet or so rise in the sea levels very rapidly... not so. While I have no compunctions about saying this is an important study, and worthy of further monitoring, it is by no means a definitive trend that will never be reversed. I found another article containing information from Zwaly et. al. at the following link. Yes, it is a "political" link inasmuch as it is as patently anti-GW as many of the media purshing GW are pro--but it does give a different perspective and places things in at least a wider context than that article from the Palm Beach Post.

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2006/03/two-articles-on-latest-melting-icecap.html

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Also found this quote by the same Zwally made as recently as this past March (The Palm Beach article cites no dates for their "scare" article. In that one all I found were what appeared to be cherry-picked quotes to push the alarmist views. I doubt seriously this article is based on anything more recently than the article of March in 2006 where Zwally is quoted as saying this (which for obvious reasons eluded the PBP writers:

here is the view of NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally: "The study indicates that the contribution of the ice sheets to sea-level rise during the decade studied was much smaller than expected, just two percent of the recent increase of nearly three millimeters a year," he said.

Personally, I think this is just another effort an invoking a panic mentality in the populace and sadly, I think it's working.


A2K

[Regit]

This is being taken grossly out of context as it implies this 24 feet or so rise in the sea levels very rapidly... not so. While I have no compunctions about saying this is an important study, and worthy of further monitoring, it is by no means a definitive trend that will never be reversed. I found another article containing information from Zwaly et. al. at the following link. Yes, it is a "political" link inasmuch as it is as patently anti-GW as many of the media purshing GW are pro--but it does give a different perspective and places things in at least a wider context than that article from the Palm Beach Post.

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2006/03/two-articles-on-latest-melting-icecap.html

A2K

That whole article has its credibility shot by talking about the ice sheets' mass growing while it thins at the edges. Anti-GW people REALLY need to stop using that argument. I really wish I could read a logical, well thought out study on why global warming is not happening that doesn't use that argument.

[Audrey2Katrina]

That whole article has its credibility shot by talking about the ice sheets' mass growing while it thins at the edges. Anti-GW people REALLY need to stop using that argument. I really wish I could read a logical, well thought out study on why global warming is not happening that doesn't use that argument.

For the record I agree with you on the worn-out sheet mass/thinning edges point; yet this doesn't address the obvious out of context implications in the PBP article to the effect that suddenly the seas will rise 21 feet--an argument the GW alarmists use all the time and they REALLY need to take a chill-pill on that line. What is needed is a calmer approach such as the one Zwally obviously appears to take, and which was conveniently omitted in the very pro GW tack of the PBP. Cuts both ways.

A2K

[x-y-no]

A2K:

I read it twice, but I can't find the part of the article which says the melting of the Greenland ice cap will be sudden or that there will be a sudden 21 foot rise in sea level. Could you point it out to me please?

[x-y-no]

Apropos this issue, I just saw that Michael Oppenheimer has written an article at RealClimate about ice sheets and sea level. I haven't read it yet, so I'll comment later, but I thought I'd pass the link on to anyone interested.

EDIT:

Quickly skimmed it - very well written. I'll post a short excerpt, but I recomment reading the whole thing:

The key question is whether the ice sheet contribution could accelerate substantially (e.g., by an order of magnitude) either in this century or subsequently. Sea levels were indeed much higher in the distant, warmer past but the timing of earlier sea level rise is very uncertain. From the point of view of societal and ecosystem adaptation, the timescale over which ice sheets might disintegrate, which may be on the order of centuries or millennia according to the two extremes posited in the literature, is crucial.

The complexity of bridging the gap between past and future trends is familiar to the climate community, which has dealt with the same issues with regard to global mean temperature. Ice sheets aside, continuation of past warming trends based on the roughly 100-year temperature record (0.05-0.1ºC/decade) would pose a significant but manageable problem for most countries. Projected future warming (0.15-0.55ºC/decade) based on increasingly reliable general circulation models, poses much more serious, even unmanageable challenges. But the state of ice sheet modeling is far different from the state of atmosphere-ocean modeling, as underscored by the recent observations. At this juncture, numerical modeling simply does not provide a credible basis for quantitative projection of ice sheet behavior in a warmer world.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Call me psychic, but I kinda knew it would be but a matter of time for you to appear, Jan. (As you might justifiably have thought the same for me.) ..

To be more accurate, I didn't say anywhere that the article "says" it will be sudden, but only that the implication is there. The typical layperson reading these articles does NOT think in terms of geological timespans... hence statements like this:

"Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world's coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate."

Are quite frequently interpreted as suggesting that such a rise could be imminent. You COULD argue that it's the readers fault if they arrive at such a conclusion, and I wouldn't necessarily argue that point--but I would point out that it is perhaps my cynical nature that makes me suspect that this was the preferred outcome of the what I consider "propagandist" who fails to put it in a more lucid context.

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Quickly skimmed it - very well written. I'll post a short excerpt, but I recomment reading the whole thing:

Did the same... and agree, very well written.

A2K