Greenland Ice Sheet Melts At Record Rate In 2010 654
RedEaredSlider writes "A study using satellite and ground-based data is showing the Greenland ice sheets are setting a record for the areas exposed to melting and the rate at which they are doing so. NASA says 2010 was a record warm year, and temperatures in the Arctic were a good 3 degrees C over normal."
Big Deal (Score:0, Interesting)
so? (Score:0, Interesting)
its a cyclic system, does it all the time.
The new abortion (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who don't remember the Abortion debate in the 80s , it was a lot like Gw. Both sides really intense. Finally you just learned not to bring it up. Both sides too strongly belief in their own POV, no possibility of rational debate. Sex, religion, politics - not possible to discuss in public
Re:The meaning of random (Score:4, Interesting)
While I don't have a clue on whether his data is true or not, it certainly concerns me that someone who makes such unfounded statements is doing this research in the same way I would be concerned about a paramedic performing a neurosurgical procedure.
Personally I think the guy should be congratulated for trying to communicate some pretty complex stuff to a lay audience. The research paper looks fine, it is where the work is documented, and that is where credibility will be decided. If you want to criticise the science or the scientist go review the paper and then say something a little more substantive.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:5, Interesting)
As others have pointed out, rising based on what? How do you know what the co2 and methane levels were 1000 years ago? 2000 years ago? 100,000 years ago?
Ice cores [wikimedia.org] how do they work?
When we can't predict the weather accurately three hours from now, how exactly am I supposed to believe they can tell me precisely what effect we're having on the environment?
When you don't know the difference between weather and climate, how do you know what you're talking about?
Doesnt matter if it is a cycle or not. (Score:5, Interesting)
i assure you, those who are opposing the measures will not be there, to spend money to save anything, when the time comes. its better to ignore them entirely now, rather than having to blame them and not being able to find them anywhere when the clock hits the hour.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:2, Interesting)
30 years is too short a period to be drawing conclusions. Looking at all of the current interglacial--back 10,000 years--makes more sense: http://smpro.ca/crunch/GISP2Civil.png [smpro.ca]
On that scale, these guys' record years are chump change. If the Mann Hockey Stick is an indicator that we're leaving the current cold spell and going back to normal temperatures, we can expect lots of "record years" for the next 200-500 years before it turns around again.
Having walked my dogs in -20C weather this morning, it can't get warmer fast enough.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a climate scientist dumbing statistics down for the International Business Times.
Instead of all this qualitative bullshitting and clear lack of understanding of statistics (500k data points?), you should have made a quantitative statistical argument. If you have a 30-year period and random variability (such that any year is equally likely to be the Nth hottest), what is the probability that a 12-year span contains the 5 hottest years?
You qualitatively make it sound like the probability is high. "That's just how random numbers work."
I figure it to be about 0.5%.
That means that it's very likely that it's not simply random variability.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:2, Interesting)
How can you be so sure that there is little we can do to stop it?
How do you know that there is something we can do to stop it? I can point out that this has happened before - indeed on a far greater scale. Where's your data?
While it's sensible to make the best possible use of resources and protect the environment, if we pervert and corrupt science in the process then we take a step backwards.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:5, Interesting)
CO2 and methane are gasses that prevent thermal energy from escaping into space
The CO2 and methane levels have been rising
Human activity generates CO2 and methane
Thus, there's nothing we can do about it?
Yeah; that sounds about right. We're pretty good at raiding and using resources, but in general we don't give a damn about the waste products of our depredations. Much like most other species, except that we have the intelligence to understand what we're doing. But we don't have the intelligence (or social capabilities) to organize the solutions to the problems that we cause.
History is full of examples of this sort of failures. Thus, historians and archaeologists tell us that the "Fertile Crescent" in the Middle East was a major agricultural land 3000 years ago. The people who built the irrigation systems back then understood how salinification worked. They knew that you have to slightly over-water the land to prevent salt buildups. But in the short term, it was more profitable to maximize the land that was irrigated by using the minimum water required by the crops. The result is the devastated, barren landscape that we see over most of that area now. It was done knowingly, and the humans who did it couldn't organize to stop the process (though they could organize to engage in major wars).
Back in the 1970s and 80s, some researchers did an interesting experiment in that area: They leased a few dozen 2-3 square km plots scattered around the landscape, built goat-proof fences around them, and sat back to watch what happened. A year later, they reported that all these small protected areas were covered with grasses and other herbaceous plants. They suggested that if the grazing animals could be kept penned up for a year, there would be no more deserts in southwest Asia. Did the governments jump on this and eradicate their deserts? You all know the answer to that; you can see it every day in news photos from the area. There's no way humans will ever organize to do that, even when they know the story. (Also, most of the literature is in French, which limits its availability to most of us. ;-)
More recently (and close to home here in the US), back in the 1990s the Corps of Engineers did a series of studies on the levee system in the Mississippi delta. They also did a major simulation (google for "Hurricane Pam") of the effect of a major hurricane on New Orleans. Their reports listed all the points of failure that in fact failed when Katrina hit. Their requests for funding to repair and reinforce the levees were turned down by Congress. Then Katrina hit, and people pretended it was an Act of God. But in fact, they knew in great detail exactly what would happen, and it did happen. They couldn't organize to do what was easily within our abilities to prevent the disaster that they knew was coming.
This is human nature. Oil, coal, and natural gas are resources that we can organize to exploit. The side effects of burning all those hydrocarbons is something that we can't organize to control, even when we understand it. All we an do is debate the issue until the disaster is upon us. And, as in the above examples, it'll be too late then to do what we could have done to prevent what we knew was coming.
Actually, in the salinification/desertification example, it's not too late. It can be done any time, and on any scale from a few square km up. But we can't and won't do it on a large scale. Research proceeds on a small scale. Google for "bocage" plus other agriculture-related terms. The information is there, but it's mostly academic, with no local governments getting involved in solving the problem. And note the two meanings of that word "academic", which explains a lot about our attitude toward big problems that we can't organize to solve.
Re:The meaning of random (Score:4, Interesting)
In the last 100 years, Tokyo has sank relative to the sea by 19 feet. Has anyone noticed?
Actually, the opposite effect has happened in Scandinavia. There, they've long had the problem that the land is still rebounding from the loss of the glaciers, and has been rising at the rate of about a meter per century in recent centuries. This means that seaports (which is where most of the people live) have to migrate downhill over time. There are archaeological sites 5, 10 or 20 km from the shore that were active ports 400 or 1000 years ago. But in the last half century, this rising has slowed down due to the rising sea level.
So far, this hasn't fully compensated for the loss of established ports; it has merely slowed the process a bit. But Scandinavians are looking forward to their shoreline being much more stable over the next century or two, and the sea rise accelerates.
Some parts of the world will benefit from the change. Some parts have already benefited. But it's not clear that this makes up for the problems caused at lower latitudes (and altitudes).
Re:The meaning of random (Score:4, Interesting)
Reasonable Model (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone like me can reasonably propose that the previous 50 years of warming mean nothing since the next 50 will be cooling.
Since you mentioned that you reasonably propose this prediction, I must ask you to explain your reasoning. What makes you believe the next 50 years will be cooling? What are the mechanisms? Please explain your model - I am genuinely interested in hearing about it.
Albedo change? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Melting in 2010 started exceptionally early at the end of April and ended quite late in mid- September," Tedesco said in a statement. "This past melt season was exceptional, with melting in some areas stretching up to 50 days longer than average."
It so happens that this correlates with the volcano eruptions [wikipedia.org] in Iceland which were particularly intense in mid to late April. Looking at the map of the ashfall [wikipedia.org], it appears that the southern tip of Greenland got a heavy dose of ash and it's likely (IMHO, of course) that the rest of Greenland got at least a dusting. My take is that ash, despite its typically light color, absorbs more sunlight than ice and snow does. So is it a coincidence that the albedo of Greenland collectively changed in a way that absorbed more sunlight at the same time that increased melting was observed?
Re:The meaning of random (Score:2, Interesting)
How do you reach that conclusion?
Water's capacity to absorb CO2 increases with temperature [anl.gov].
It generally works that way. You can trivially test that you can dissolve more sugar in hot than in cold water.