NASA Satellite Measurements Show Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Melt 411
NASA reports that measurements taken from orbiting satellites indicate the Greenland ice sheet underwent melting over a larger area than they've seen in 30 years of observations. On July 8, the satellites found evidence that about 40% of the ice sheet's surface had melted. Observations just four days later showed 97% of the surface had melted.
"This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May. 'Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one,' said Mote. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate. Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting. Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12."
Photos also surfaced last week showing the Petermann Glacier in Greenland 'calving' — some very large chunks of it broke off and started to drift away.
Interesting Caveat (Score:5, Insightful)
Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H
It's scary if you look at a trend of only 30 years. And then you compare it to data that's only around 120 years old and find out it's not so bad. I'm not saying the melting isn't bad, just seems to be presumptions to say "unprecedented" and alarmist to use such language given the number of data points.
You said it first (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how neither the article, nor the summary mention global warming - heck, it's not even in the tags! - but in the first ten posts, half are already decrying the "AGW alarmists".
Re:You said it first (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither the summary nor the article don't really try to make any points, they just report on a specific fact. It's kinda telling that this fact immediately triggers a slew of apologetic posts. To take your example, it would be as if you wrote an article giving only the raw numbers about how Detroit fares today, and I would make a first post there along the lines of, "all you people trying to blame GM here are liars, it was Fiat all along".
Re:Who needs science? I have conspiracy theories! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a different conspiracy theory: Slashdot keeps posting articles guaranteed to rehash the (mostly uninformative) debate between people who support the IPCC conclusions and those who don't, because they hope to spawn a 500-comment shitfest in the comments, and maybe some social-media links, and thereby drive up pageviews.
Re:You said it first (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I can post an whole article and summary on the decline of auto manufacturing leading by to the decline of Detroit. And I am pretty sure you're NOT going to be thinking Toyota. Just saying...
It doesn't take a moron to figure the point of a /. summary.
Actually, one of my cousins gets about 1000 mpg with his plug-in electric car, using cheap GHG-friendly hydroelectric power to charge it, at about 1/10th the price of gasoline here in Seattle.
We could always adapt. It's not that hard. He still drives to work. Just costs him less to do it.
It's "adapt OR die" not "adapt AND die".
Re:Who needs science? I have conspiracy theories! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but it keeps traffic up, which allows for increased advertising sales. ;-)
You are the alarmist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, you seem awfully confident that almost every climate scientist is plain wrong about something. You must be one of those economic alarmists, who believes that reducing carbon emissions will cripple the economy -- the same shrill alarmism that was used against acid rain and CFCs (the ozone hole). In all three cases, the economic alarmists were wrong. Taxes on sulphur, CFC and carbon emissions had a negligible negative effect at most on various economies -- sometimes a net positive, because it spurred new economic activity.
But continue with your shrill alarmism that addressing climate change will somehow destroy the economy and usher in world communist government. Ye all seem so very confident about it, that you don't even have to learn what scientists and economists have to say on the issue.
This is not time to talk about that (Score:5, Insightful)
During a time when the US is facing its most serious drought since the 1930's, its no time to talk about ice sheets melting or global warming, just like its no time to talk about gun control just after 70 people get shot in a theater. Its not the right time to talk about it! You are welcome to talk about global warming in the middle of the mild winter, or droughts in the rainy season (whenever that is), or shootings and gun control when all is peaceful. A public pandemic is no time to talk about health care, and forest fire season is no time to talk about children playing with matches! People with vested interests could have their vested interests changed. That's just not right.
Re:I'm not going to panic just yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love these kind of news posts... (Score:1, Insightful)
.... they always make me laugh.
What makes me laugh is that people from both sides are trying to take a measly two centuries(roughly) of climate data and make it mean something significant in a world with a history that is several orders of magnitude greater than humanity's entire existence.
I, for one, plan to spend my time, not freaking out or sticking my head in the sand, but instead, I plan to track down the location of the fountain of youth. There I will wait out the years, recording climate data for the next 500 millenia. When I have completed my mission, I will teleport down to the local Spacemart, purchase a "Made in Sol" time machine that was actually built from parts manufactured in the Beta Epsilon system(complete with lead paint), and I will travel back in time to let the /. community know if humanity was really responsible for global warming or not.....
Re:You are the alarmist. (Score:2, Insightful)
Some problems are large enough that they require large-scale, COERCIVE, solutions. Like taxes, a military draft, limits on how stinky or inefficient your car can be.
And some problems aren't that big. No one has established that AGW requires large-scale, COERCIVE solutions. And frankly, it's pretty obvious that we're not going to get them until China, India, and other developing countries play ball.
Re:I'm not going to panic just yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
When all exceptional wheather events point in the same direction, it stops being "wheather" to be "climate".
If you were reporting news of the eastern front for a German newspaper after Stalingrad, you could well keep saying "sure, this battle was lost, but this other one was won. In any case, you can't call any particular battle to be an indication of how the war is going!". Except, of course, you can and should. OMany of these individual event are wheather, but the point that climatologists make is that they fall on a pattern: climate is changing, and the planet is becomming hotter. We also have a mechanism for that, the greenhouse effect, and human activities contribute to it significantly.
Frankly, that this be controversial is a huge mystery to me. But then people will believe the weirdest things if it helps them fit in a group, so...
Re:I'm not going to panic just yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
"When all exceptional wheather events point in the same direction, it stops being "wheather" to be "climate"."
When ONE YEAR has a major heatwave, which happens to correspond pretty much exactly with a flurry of solar activity, it is WEATHER, and you cannot call it "climate" for a good 15 years... and even then, only if it is part of a trend.
Remember: approximately the last 10 years have NOT been increasing significantly in temperature. Now we have one that looks like it is, but it happens simultaneously with the peak of a well-known 11-year solar cycle, and physicists are saying that they had underestimated the solar activity at this peak by as much as 20 TIMES.
Yeah. That's weather. Until proven otherwise... and that will take a while, if it ever happens at all.
Re:You are the alarmist. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, do you think that China should have the same per-capita emissions as the US? We'd all be dead.
Or maybe you think that each country should emit the same (since it's China's fault for being too large), and the US should have the same *total* emissions as Canada.
Re:I'm not going to panic just yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Insolation varies by about 0.15% between the minimum and maximum of the 11 year solar cycle.
Global warming did not show one bit of slowing down during the recent deepest and longest solar minimum seen in centuries.
So don't blame the sun, it makes you look stupid.
Re:Who needs science? I have conspiracy theories! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's enough that if I meet anyone out in the real world (not on Slashdot) I can take either side of the debate and crush them with my collection of facts. All I have to do is say, "The oceans have been rising clearly for the last five years" and it will drive a Republican crazy. Or for Democrats, "Al Gore flies a private jet." They go off in a ranty cloud of confusion.
So thanks to everyone who's attacked me over the years, I hate you but I love you.
The Name "Greenland" (Score:4, Insightful)