Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

[Chris Coles]

" In this latest research, Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey and his colleagues have now mapped the entire margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. They achieved this in unprecedented detail by reflecting signals off the ground using lasers aboard ICESat – a NASA satellite launched in 2002. Reporting their finding in Nature, the researchers find that the dynamic thinning of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland and has intensified on many Antarctic sites.

By monitoring these regions between 2003 and 2008, the researchers found that, in Greenland, glaciers flowing faster than 100 m/yr thinned at an average rate of 0.84 m/yr; while in the Amundsen Sea embayment of Antarctica thinning was as high as 9 m/yr for some glaciers. They attribute these high speeds to the fact that dynamic thinning now occurs deep in the interior of each ice sheet. "We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline – it's widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometres inland," said Pritchard."

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/40473

[Chris]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

is there any reliable historical data to compare this to? I read all these studies and all I can conclude is that nobody can really draw an accurate conclusion.

[c1ue]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

This article is at least somewhat balanced. Once you go past the scary headline, you see:

Pritchard cautioned that it is still too early to suggest the increasing speed of these glaciers will inevitably lead to runaway thinning. "There is still a lot of physics still to be understood," he said. "One of the big challenges is to try and untangle the varied environmental factors that influence the rate of melting where these glaciers reach the coast."
There are many researchers who are trying to build improved ice-flow models, and some are already trying to assimilate data from glacial surveys. Richard Alley is a climate modeller at Penn State University in the US. "We don't really have sea-level rise projections, because we don't understand these processes," he said. Alley is positive about the latest research. "These are great data to assimilate, and tune models, and may provide sufficient data to allow both model building and testing", he said.

Andrew Shepherd, an earth observation researcher at the University of Leeds in the UK agrees that it is important to achieve a better clarity on the processes involved in glacial melting. "The important issue is that we (IPCC) have yet to settle on a way to estimate the future sea-level contribution due to each mechanism, and so the jury is still out." Shepherd feels, however, that this latest research does not offer a compete picture. "The dataset covers a relatively short period (about 5 years I think) and we know that there is no reason to expect the changes to be linear".

The actual data?

[Starving Steve]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

This year begins the 2009-2013 El Nino cycle, and just as I had warned: the man-made global warming gang ( Hansen and his bunch at NOAA, the United Nations, Chou and his bunch at the EPA, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists in Toronto, the global warming modellers on govn't grants) all would return with their global warming, ice-melting, sea level rising, climate-forcing, end-of-the-world crap.

Happily for the west coast of North and South America, there will now be major El Nino storms which will bring welcome rainfall; drought conditions brought about by the La Nina phase of the 12-year climate cycle will be ameliorated.

Already, central and southern Baja California are soaked with rain from passing hurricanes, just as forecast. Next will come the soaking rains of a warm El Nino winter and spring, all along the west coast of North and South America..... Hardly the end-of-the-world, not unforeseen, and not anything related to anthropogenic (man-made) global warming either.

But the anthropogenic global warming gang (the AGW gang) gets the govn't grants for research, not Starving Steve..... So, for the next four or five years of El Nino, just tune-out the AGW gang.:rolleyes:

[doom&gloom]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

I say hedge your bets and buy land just inland from the coats where the ocean rise will give you waterfront property in the future. can't miss!

[GRG55]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

I say hedge your bets and buy land just inland from the coats where the ocean rise will give you waterfront property in the future. can't miss!

I think that's exactly what our Starving Steve has done with the location of his log cabin and new garage in East Sooke...

[Starving Steve]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

That last 100 feet or so, at Whiffen Spit at the end of Whiffen Spit Road, (as shown on the map which you posted), the Capitol Regional District of Victoria and the Province of BC refused to build a bridge. One hundred feet or so, and NO BRIDGE built! So we have to drive 26 miles to get to downtown Sooke, BC to buy groceries. TWENTY-SIX MILES !!!

If anyone doubts the damage that environmentalists do to the economy, just visit British Columbia and see for yourself.

And that 26 mile drive? It is at 50 KPH, or less, with speed traps galore!

[Chris Coles]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

This year begins the 2009-2013 El Nino cycle, and just as I had warned: the man-made global warming gang ( Hansen and his bunch at NOAA, the United Nations, Chou and his bunch at the EPA, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists in Toronto, the global warming modellers on govn't grants) all would return with their global warming, ice-melting, sea level rising, climate-forcing, end-of-the-world crap.

Sorry about this Steve, but may I suggest you watch Billy Connelly, Journey to the End of the World. http://www.itv.com/Lifestyle/BillyConnolly/default.html

If you click on the map you can watch all the various videos at each place he visits as he ships as a passenger through the North West Passage. Now, do not take anything I say, use your own eyes. He is where, a Century ago, we Brits lost many explorers and their ships that could not take this journey because of being held firmly in ice for more than a year at a time.... But take a careful look and tell me where you see ANY ice?

When I watched this, I expected to see fringes of ice all around, but he can only show us the odd tiny iceberg. No ice at all on shore.. Oh! - and yes, the sea is dark black. You can call me all the names under the sun, but you cannot call reality anything other than what it is. The North West Passage is free of ice three months every year now.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Apologies the video did not work, try this instead http://video.google.com/videosearch?...title&resnum=5#

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

The North West Passage is free of ice three months every year now.

Did humans cause this warming?

[Jay]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

I say hedge your bets and buy land just inland from the coats where the ocean rise will give you waterfront property in the future. can't miss!

Good idea!

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

“Adapting is a common natural way for people to adapt to their environment ... I believe that the earth’s climate is changing, but I think it’s changing for natural variation reasons, And I think mankind has been adopting, or adapting to climate as long as man has walked the earth. When it rains, we find shelter. When it’s hot, we get shade. When it’s cold, we find a warm place to stay.

“Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about.”

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)

[Starving Steve]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Did humans cause this warming?

I don't even concede that the glaciers have melted. I don't even concede that there is any global warming above the long-known rate of observed warming of 0.5 or 1.0F per 100 years, due apparently to the Ice Age ending 10,000 years ago.

And if the so-called glaciers have melted into the sea due to global warming, why are the atolls in the oceans doing just fine and remaining above sea-level? My favourite atoll, French Frigate Shoals, is still above sea-level. So is Midway Island. So is Johnston Atoll. So is Sand Island at Midway.

How come downtown San Francisco is still dry? No sea water is flooding into SF, anywhere; why is that?

Florida and the Bahama Island Republic are still dry; why is that? The Florida Keys are all above water. Even Dry Tortuga Shoals at the far end of the Florida Keys is high and dry.

Yes, sea level is rising at 6 or 7 inches per century. Hardly the end of the world, and hardly any reason for the Chairman Moon, the head of the United Nations, to go visit Spitzburgen, Norway last week to observe glaciers and global warming.

Sea level has risen 300 feet on Earth since the Ice Age ended, so our latest reading on sea-level rising of 6 or 7 inches over the 20th Century is downright encouraging..... Civilization is doing just fine, thank you.

Apparently, most all of the rise in the sea-level from the end of the Ice Age must have taken-place thousands of years ago, perhaps 10,000 years ago when the Ice Age ended in earnest. Very little is known about that period of time.

The world would do better right now worrying about raising the standard- of-living of humanity and providing affordable energy for the future, rather than wasting time with suspect hypotheses about man-made global warming and carbon in the atmosphere.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Did humans cause this warming?

Everyone knows global warming is caused by cows.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Earth's glaciers melting at an accelerated rate

Everyone knows global warming is caused by cows.

Dang. Our efforts to get humans to blame themselves are failing.