Extreme Melting on Greenland Ice Sheet, Reports CCNY Team

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/advancement/news/Extreme-Melting-on-Greenland-Ice-Sheet.cfm

Extreme Melting on Greenland Ice Sheet, Reports CCNY Team

Glacial Melt Cycle Could Become Self-Amplifying, Making it Difficult to Halt

The Greenland ice sheet can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don’t hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt.

“We are finding that even if you don’t have record-breaking highs, as long as warm temperatures persist you can get record-breaking melting because of positive feedback mechanisms,” said Professor Tedesco, who directs CCNY’s Cryospheric Processes Laboratory and also serves on CUNY Graduate Center doctoral faculty.

Professor Tedesco and his team collected data for the analysis this past summer during a four-week expedition to the Jakobshavn Isbræ glacier in western Greenland. Their arrival preceded the onset of the melt season.

Combining data gathered on the ground with microwave satellite recordings and the output from a model of the ice sheet, he and graduate student Patrick Alexander found a near-record loss of snow and ice this year. The extensive melting continued even without last year’s record highs.

…

http://greenland2011.cryocity.org/

[hatrack]

1. No one could have forseen this!

:woohoo:

[XemaSab]

5. .

[kestrel91316]

2. Is this perhaps happening faster than expected??

[jimlup]

3. If you want to make a true scientific name for yourself these days...

Do a study that attempts to show that APG is worse than predicted - it will almost certainly be successful.

On the other hand if you want to make a republican political name for yourself - advocate to ignore it.

[XemaSab]

4. Positive feedback mechanisms?

Say it ain't so! :cry:

[The Croquist]

6. That explains the record breaking sea level increase!!!!

Oh wait. Sea level is actually falling.

That explains the sea level decrease!!!!

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. I wouldn’t say that sea level is falling, any more than I would say the temperature is falling

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=570

The red line in this image shows the long-term increase in global sea level since satellite altimeters began measuring it in the early 1990s. Since then, sea level has risen by a little more than an inch each decade, or about 3 millimeters per year. While most years have recorded a rise in global sea level, the recent drop of nearly a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter, is attributable to the switch from El Niño to La Niña conditions in the Pacific. The insets show sea level changes in the Pacific Ocean caused by the recent El Niño and La Niña (see http://sealevel/science/elninopdo/ for more information on these images). Image credit: S. Nerem, University of Colorado

[Celefin]

9. But it's snowing outside my window!! AGW is a hoax!!

Now, there you go and introduce bothersome longterm averages when it's so much easier to look at just here and now.

Current sealevel = weather
Longterm average sealevel = climate

[hatrack]

11. But gosh, it sure was a vigorous, spirited attempt to wish away reality, wasn't it?

:rofl:

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. “E for Effort” and all that

Sigh…

[Viking12]

13. Given his history, I'd say "E" =

EPIC. FAIL.

[Dover]

8. But it's soooo much easier to drill without all that bothersome ice in the way...n/t

[Bill USA]

10. we don't have 20 years to achieve appreciable reductions in CO2 emissions. We must get

GHG reductions faster than that!