2010 2006
2010 was an exceptional year for Greenland’s ice cap. Melting started early and stretched later in the year than usual. Little snow fell to replenish the losses. By the end of the season, much of southern Greenland had set a new record, with melting that lasted 50 days longer than average.
A few observations
- Looks about the same as 2006
- The number of days with melting tells you nothing about the amount of melt or the net change in ice over the year
- The vast majority of the ice sheet never got above freezing.
“little snow fell to replenish the losses..” – like the decline in snow cover here in the USA?
Here’s a cool picture showing Greenland as if it had no ice sheets. I had heard that the interior was below sea-level – very interesting. It’s going to take a lot of Man-Made Global-Warming to melt this ice any time soon.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F1_large2.JPG
The number crunchers would need to figure out how much isostatic rebound would occur. The glacier, based on a Laurentide Ice Sheet example, would melt quicker than the rebound would occur. If I remember the Laurentide Ice Sheet was in retreat and was pretty much toast by around 8000 yrs BP. Northern Canada, Ontario, Quebec are still rebounding. The 0 mark, where sea level rise equals subsidence is in north – central New Brunswick.
So with ice sheet retreat there would be rapid marine transgression followed by isostatic uplift and a prograding shore line (seaward).
What would be really neat would be to find out what critters, if any, were living in deep subglacial lakes. A food chain that wasn’t based on photosynthesis. It would probably be an analogy for the moon of ….. is it Jupiter or Saturn, the moon covered by ice with water underneath. That would make a great movie. A stunned geologist, a muscle clad hero, a couple of geeky engineers, and of course, a real hot babe, drilled down under the ice and fighting person eating critters. Everyone would get eaten except the babe. Of course …… though they could leave the geologist alive if they wanted.
I think I saw that last week!!!!! 😉
Greenland and past melts / temperatures. Nothing to see here move along folks.
“The temperature and renewal of these waters indicate that they currently cause enhanced submarine melting at the glacier terminus.”
Straneo et. al.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n3/abs/ngeo764.html
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“Waters from warmer latitudes — or subtropical waters — are reaching Greenland’s glaciers, driving melting…”
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=69134&ct=162
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“…the rate of warming in 1920–1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995–2005.”
Petr Chylek et. al.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026510.shtml
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“The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”
Jason E. Box et. al.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2816.1
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“We found that northern hemisphere temperature and Greenland temperature changed synchronously at periods of ~20 years and 40–100 years. This quasi-periodic multi-decadal temperature fluctuation persisted throughout the last millennium, and is likely to continue into the future.”
Takuro Kobashi et. al.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n567324n1n3321h3/
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“The warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature record is 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades.”
B. M. Vinther et. al.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/greenland/vintheretal2006.pdf
[pdf]
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1937
“Particulars are given regarding the big rise of winter temperatures in Greenland and its more oceanic climate during the last fifteen years.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49706327108/abstract
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hehehe .. you gotta be kidding me .. what the hell does it matter how many “melt days” .. that means absolutely nothing
If they say it’s melting, it’s melting! You deniers have no right to confuse people with your cherry picked facts!
That is why farms are being discovered under the glaciers where farming is not possible today!