Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

[calamity]

Ahead of schedule but following the path exactly as predicted.

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.

King said that large glaciers across Greenland have retreated about 3 kilometers on average since 1985—"that's a lot of distance," she said. The glaciers have shrunk back enough that many of them are sitting in deeper water, meaning more ice is in contact with water. Warm ocean water melts glacier ice, and also makes it difficult for the glaciers to grow back to their previous positions.

 

[Middleground]

Ahead of schedule but following the path exactly as predicted.

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

*Cue Jack Hays with Global Cooling paper featured on the WUWT website.

 

[Chomsky]

Ahead of schedule but following the path exactly as predicted.

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Very, very, sad.

 

[Jack Hays]

Ahead of schedule but following the path exactly as predicted.

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Complete, innumerate nonsense. 99.5% of the Greenland ice sheet present in 1900 is still there today. At present rate of loss it will take several thousand years just to lose half the ice sheet. This claim is a Jedi mind trick to fool the feeble-minded.

 

[Drawdown]

Cool. It will promote tourism and new construction. Now they just need some good weed shacks and cheap beer and they will become a tourist Mecca.

 

[longview]

Perhaps it is best to put such hyperbole in perspective.
Since 1992 the Greenland ice sheet has lost ~4000 Gigatons of ice.
Greenland total ice mass loss - Google Search

Altogether, the Greenland Ice Sheet has lost 3,902 ± 342 Gt of ice to the ocean since 1992,
with roughly half of this loss occurring during the 6-yr period between 2006 and 2012.Dec 10, 2019

The total mass of the Greenland ice sheet is 2,900,000 Gt of ice.
https://web.viu.ca/earle/geol305/The Greenland Ice Sheet.pdf

The total volume of Greenland’s ice sheet is about 2,900,000 km3 This 10 years of loss is equivalent to 0.05% of that volume.

Note: 1km3 of ice is about 1Gt.
So the total mass of the ice sheet is 2,900,000 Gt, and we have lost, 4000 Gt of ice, or 4000/2900000=.1379% of the total.

 

[CaughtInThe]

Cool. It will promote tourism and new construction. Now they just need some good weed shacks and cheap beer and they will become a tourist Mecca.

If climate change continues then ^ THAT is how the current Republican Party will try to sell it to the world.

 

[Jack Hays]

WUWT's customary factual report.


Claim: Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.
Continue reading →

 

[Jack Hays]

Max Planck Institute For Meteorology Director Not Worried About Climate Tipping Points…Worried About Panic

By P Gosselin on 14. August 2020
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In an interview with flagship daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ here), Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIM) Director Dr. Jochen Marotzke said predicting how many degrees of warming we need to prepare for was like reading tea leaves and that he is not worried about “climate tipping points”.
He also spoke of the wide disagreement among climate models. . . .

“I don’t see any risk with Greenland”
And not even the melting of the Greenland ice sheet worries the MPIM Director. He told the FAZ: “It’s gonna take so long – a couple thousand years. I don’t see any risk with Greenland.”. . .

 

[istodolez]

Complete, innumerate nonsense. 99.5% of the Greenland ice sheet present in 1900 is still there today. At present rate of loss it will take several thousand years just to lose half the ice sheet. This claim is a Jedi mind trick to fool the feeble-minded.

So what is causing this?

(SOURCE)

Any ideas?

Would you care to explain the bolded parts from this?

"The mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet has begun to decline. From 1979 to 2006, summer melt on the ice sheet increased by 30 percent, reaching a new record in 2007. At higher elevations, an increase in winter snow accumulation has partially offset the melt. However, the decline continues to outpace accumulation because warmer temperatures have led to increased melt and faster glacier movement at the island's edges." (SOURCE)

You know what is a "feeble minded mind trick"? One in which a person utilizes a very large number and then ignore small variances. I don't know where you get your 99.5% of the Greenland Ice Sheet but it doesn't really matter, does it? Because it is a very, very large ice sheet and the ice loss is currently very clearly visible and accelerating. So, who cares that AGW has only been able to whack out half a percent of 2,900,000 km^3? That's >14,000km^3 of ice loss!

So in your infinite wisdom: why are we seeing accelerating mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet?

 

[Jack Hays]

So what is causing this?

(SOURCE)

Any ideas?

Would you care to explain the bolded parts from this?

"The mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet has begun to decline. From 1979 to 2006, summer melt on the ice sheet increased by 30 percent, reaching a new record in 2007. At higher elevations, an increase in winter snow accumulation has partially offset the melt. However, the decline continues to outpace accumulation because warmer temperatures have led to increased melt and faster glacier movement at the island's edges." (SOURCE)

You know what is a "feeble minded mind trick"? One in which a person utilizes a very large number and then ignore small variances. I don't know where you get your 99.5% of the Greenland Ice Sheet but it doesn't really matter, does it? Because it is a very, very large ice sheet and the ice loss is currently very clearly visible and accelerating. So, who cares that AGW has only been able to whack out half a percent of 2,900,000 km^3? That's >14,000km^3 of ice loss!

So in your infinite wisdom: why are we seeing accelerating mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet?

The problem is your woefully inappropriately scaled graphic. Here's some perspective.

Alarmists Gone Wild: Greenland losing 400 cubic km ice cubes per year!!!

[FONT=&quot]. . . Using The Economist ratio of 400 km3 to 375 gigatonnes, 2,600,000 km3 works out to 2,437,500 gigatonnes. When some actual perspective is applied, it is obvious that “the ice sheet goeth” nowhere:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

The ice sheet goeth nowhere.​

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Despite all of the warming since the end of Neoglaciation, the Greenland ice sheet still retains more than 99% of its 1900 AD ice mass.[/FONT]

 

[istodolez]

The problem is your woefully inappropriately scaled graphic. Here's some perspective.

Alarmists Gone Wild: Greenland losing 400 cubic km ice cubes per year!!!

LIke I said: very large numbers and moderate change can easily be "negated" if one ignores the fact that there is a very real signal being seen. Your "small numbers" feeble mindtrick isn't all that impressive in light of the actual data.

So, again, what is causing the last 50 years or so of ice loss and why is it accelerating?

If you think it is merely noise then support your claim.

Because virtually no real earth, atmospheric, oceanic or glaciology expert seems to think it is noise.

ALSO: beware your possible lack of understanding of what is going on in Greenland. There is additional accumulation in other parts of the ice sheet. It is not as if the entire thing is just statically decreasing (although net it is). This is to be expected. This will moderate some of the overall loss, but loss at the edges (where a glacier is expected to be most likely to lose mass) is very signficant and accelerating.

 

[Jack Hays]

LIke I said: very large numbers and moderate change can easily be "negated" if one ignores the fact that there is a very real signal being seen. Your "small numbers" feeble mindtrick isn't all that impressive in light of the actual data.

So, again, what is causing the last 50 years or so of ice loss and why is it accelerating?

If you think it is merely noise then support your claim.

Because virtually no real earth, atmospheric, oceanic or glaciology expert seems to think it is noise.

ALSO: beware your possible lack of understanding of what is going on in Greenland. There is additional accumulation in other parts of the ice sheet. It is not as if the entire thing is just statically decreasing (although net it is). This is to be expected. This will moderate some of the overall loss, but loss at the edges (where a glacier is expected to be most likely to lose mass) is very signficant and accelerating.

It grows, it shrinks -- always. Nothing to see here. And the "acceleration" is inconsequential.

 

[istodolez]

It grows, it shrinks -- always. Nothing to see here. And the "acceleration" is inconsequential.

So you are saying you can't really use any science to support your position, only how pretty pictures appear to you? You see a line and think it is inconsequential but you can't actually tell us how inconsequential it is other than to wave your hand at the pretty picture?

You wave your hand about "it's always changing" but that's precisely where science operates. If there's change then there is likely a reason. If change is happening outside of an expected range then we have a SIGNAL.

This is why the majority of the earth's climate scientists are concerned with Greenland. It is showing a signal. A rather strong signal. Just because you want to integrate it across the entire mass means that you don't really want to deal with the real signal.

If 0.5% of my body started to develop gangrenous rot and drop off, would I simply shrug and say "hey, it's on 0.5% of my body! Besides I'm losing skin cells all the time anyway!"

No. I'd investigate to see if I had leprosy.

 

[istodolez]

The problem is your woefully inappropriately scaled graphic. Here's some perspective.

Alarmists Gone Wild: Greenland losing 400 cubic km ice cubes per year!!!

[FONT="]. . . Using [I]The Economist[/I] ratio of 400 km[FONT=inherit]3[/FONT] to 375 gigatonnes, 2,600,000 km[FONT=inherit]3[/FONT] works out to 2,437,500 gigatonnes. When some actual perspective is applied, it is obvious that “the ice sheet goeth” nowhere:[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#404040][FONT="]

The ice sheet goeth nowhere.​

[/FONT]
[FONT="]Despite all of the warming since the end of Neoglaciation, the Greenland ice sheet still [URL="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/30/greenland-retained-99-7-of-its-ice-mass-in-20th-century/"]retains more than 99% of its 1900 AD ice mass[/URL].[/FONT]
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]

Just curious if you know how to use Google Scholar to find actual primary resources in the sciences?

 

[Jack Hays]

So you are saying you can't really use any science to support your position, only how pretty pictures appear to you? You see a line and think it is inconsequential but you can't actually tell us how inconsequential it is other than to wave your hand at the pretty picture?

You wave your hand about "it's always changing" but that's precisely where science operates. If there's change then there is likely a reason. If change is happening outside of an expected range then we have a SIGNAL.

This is why the majority of the earth's climate scientists are concerned with Greenland. It is showing a signal. A rather strong signal. Just because you want to integrate it across the entire mass means that you don't really want to deal with the real signal.

If 0.5% of my body started to develop gangrenous rot and drop off, would I simply shrug and say "hey, it's on 0.5% of my body! Besides I'm losing skin cells all the time anyway!"

No. I'd investigate to see if I had leprosy.

Hmmm. That's perhaps the most inapt analogy ever. Regardless, the science supporting my position is simply that miniscule fluctuations in ice mass are not alarming.

 

[Jack Hays]

Just curious if you know how to use Google Scholar to find actual primary resources in the sciences?

I've used it before, but WUWT is a very handy aggregator and I knew that post included the graphic I wanted.

 

[Jonsa]

Cool. It will promote tourism and new construction. Now they just need some good weed shacks and cheap beer and they will become a tourist Mecca.

interested in some ocean side property?

 

[Drawdown]

interested in some ocean side property?

Very well might be if the price is right and the polar bears sparse. America is a lost cause anyway.

 

[istodolez]

Hmmm. That's perhaps the most inapt analogy ever. Regardless, the science supporting my position is simply that miniscule fluctuations in ice mass are not alarming.

Like I said: your primary error is integrating the loss over the entire mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

If your finger fell off it would amount to only a small fraction of your total weight. So it's no big deal, is it?

Let's put it differently: let's say for a moment that you were a real scientist and asked to look at the Greenland Ice Sheet for "thermally induced changes". Where, specifically, would you go on the ice sheet?

Let's make it more real: let's say your friends at the ISGS asked you to figure out how the nearly 1 mile ice sheet that once covered Champaign-Urbana disappeared. Do you think it disappeared all across the northern hemisphere uniformly at all latitidues? Or do you think maybe, just maybe, the edges melted back? (I'll give you a hint...you can go to a large number of places in east central Illinois and see the recessional moraines from when the ice sheets RECEDED (meaning the edges melted away).

So OF COURSE the edges of Greenland are going to be the ones showing the LARGEST CHANGE...meanwhile the central parts of the ice sheet may actually show some modest accumulation!

That's how glaciers work.. The "movement" of a glacier is driven by accumulation vs loss.

At the end of the Wisconsinin Glacial Advance which covered 1/3 to 1/2 of Illinois, when the ICE AGE WAS ENDING the edges of the continental glaciers were what was receding. Yes the overall ice sheet decreased but the largest signal was still on the edges. And it would have been miniscule compared to the overall mass of the Laurentide Ice Sheet.

 

[istodolez]

Cool. It will promote tourism and new construction. Now they just need some good weed shacks and cheap beer and they will become a tourist Mecca.

Well.....As the Greenland Ice Sheet melts it dumps tons of fresh water into the North Atlantic, very close to the upper branch of the Thermohaline Circulation in the Atlantic (the "Gulf Stream"). It's already measurably altered the Meriodonal Overturning in that area...meaning there's a possibility it could dramatically reorganize or even shut down the Thermohaline Circulation!

And since the Gulf Stream is responsible for pumping vast amounts of heat from the low latitudes to the high latitudes it is probably going to be a very, very cold walk from bars to the week shacks there in Narsasuaq. Even as the globe warms on average.

Fun times in store!

 

[Jonsa]

Very well might be if the price is right and the polar bears sparse. America is a lost cause anyway.

no sea ice, no bears. fully unserviced lots, low HOA, low taxes. Act fast 86.4% sold.

only 90% down secures your bright warm and fuzzy future.

transportation extra.

 

[Drawdown]

... low HOA...

....and that is where you lost me. I would rather deal with polar bears than an HOA.

 

[Jack Hays]

Like I said: your primary error is integrating the loss over the entire mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

If your finger fell off it would amount to only a small fraction of your total weight. So it's no big deal, is it?

Let's put it differently: let's say for a moment that you were a real scientist and asked to look at the Greenland Ice Sheet for "thermally induced changes". Where, specifically, would you go on the ice sheet?

Let's make it more real: let's say your friends at the ISGS asked you to figure out how the nearly 1 mile ice sheet that once covered Champaign-Urbana disappeared. Do you think it disappeared all across the northern hemisphere uniformly at all latitidues? Or do you think maybe, just maybe, the edges melted back? (I'll give you a hint...you can go to a large number of places in east central Illinois and see the recessional moraines from when the ice sheets RECEDED (meaning the edges melted away).

So OF COURSE the edges of Greenland are going to be the ones showing the LARGEST CHANGE...meanwhile the central parts of the ice sheet may actually show some modest accumulation!

That's how glaciers work.. The "movement" of a glacier is driven by accumulation vs loss.

At the end of the Wisconsinin Glacial Advance which covered 1/3 to 1/2 of Illinois, when the ICE AGE WAS ENDING the edges of the continental glaciers were what was receding. Yes the overall ice sheet decreased but the largest signal was still on the edges. And it would have been miniscule compared to the overall mass of the Laurentide Ice Sheet.

I used to drive past a recessional moraine every day.
In Greenland, the ice loss is not enough to matter.

Max Planck Institute For Meteorology Director Not Worried About Climate Tipping Points…Worried About Panic

“I don’t see any risk with Greenland”
". . . And not even the melting of the Greenland ice sheet worries the MPIM Director. He told the FAZ: “It’s gonna take so long – a couple thousand years. I don’t see any risk with Greenland.”. . . "

 

[Tim the plumber]

Ahead of schedule but following the path exactly as predicted.

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

That's a lot of distance, well no, and so what?

The edges have melted back a bit because it has got a bit warmer.

So?

The middle of it has gained lost of ice mass.