For the second year in a row, Greenland’s surface is gaining well above normal amounts of ice.
Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI
Meanwhile, the propaganda organization known as the “Voice of America” is claiming that Greenland is melting down.
Greenland is melting | VOA Special Report
This is what the Greenland Country Club looks like this morning at -22C. The warmest temperature they have had for months.
Greenland’s most famous glacier, the Petermann Glacier, has grown about 10 feet per day over the past six years.
Facts and data have no meaning to climate alarmists. They have an agenda, and nothing else matters.
I flew over southern Grenland yesterday. Aside from seeing Greenland’s many coastal coves where throngs of vacationing Europeans enjoy snorkeling (sarc), it looked quite…well…icy and savagely cold and windy. The volume of ice being pushed south between its western coast and Baffin Island was mind-boggling.
*Greenland, not Grenland; cursed iPhone keyboard!
The person who invented the first usable “autocorrect” algorithms passed away early last week.
His funfair was holed on Friday, and many hundreds of miners attended the cervix. May he restaurant in peace.
Ha!
A heatwave! Global warming! It was -52C several weeks ago; the ice is melting! The sea leveling will rise and we’re all doomed! Send money to Al Gore, that might save us …. ?
I sliced my drive on the third hole. Looked for 30 minutes, couldn’t find it, and then my backhoe ran out of gas.
When they tell us about Greenland or Antarctica “melting” what they are talking about is the ice sheet mass balance. It snows in the interior and several decades later ice bergs are calved into the sea. Temperature doesn’t have anything to do with it. In Greenland and Antarctica, temperatures are well below freezing nearly everywhere, nearly all of the time. The ice isn’t melting.
The headline “Greenland is Melting” is a canard and a complete lie.
https://news.sky.com/story/sea-level-warning-as-scientists-find-larger-part-of-massive-totten-glacier-floating-11298094
‘Antarctica’s Totten Glacier could increase sea levels by about three metres (9.8ft) IF it all melted, scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division warned.
After spending the southern hemisphere’s summer on the glacier, scientists discovered more of the ice IS FLOATING on the ocean than initially thought.’
So how exactly can already floating ice make sea level rise?.
That’s why they don’t want an educated population.
Climate science=the fake news of science
or how to keep a lie alive by any means for the sake of the creation of a world wide tax invented by the global elite
(just as hate crime(+his little brother=climate denier)
This past weekend was the 80th anniversary edition of Birkebeinerrennet – the epic cross country ski race in Norway! Race conditions…sunny but extremely cold, -22 C, greeted the skiers of Birkebeinerrennet when they started their 54 km pursuit from Rena to Lillehammer.
And these winter athletes had been told they need to get politically active to “save their snow”!
In the Arctic region it is getting seriously cold again at the moment:
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Screenshot:
yes…extraordinary, isn’t it? Has done that no more than twice in last 60 years…
So why exactly you prefer cold over warm?
Is it melting anything though Grif? Because that is the claim and I believe, the reason for the criticism on this oft reported point. Moreover, as you’ve noted yourself, it did happen (at least) one other time in the past 60 years and we have no idea about the number of times it might have gotten to w/i 10 degrees of the freezing mark in the decades, centuries, or millennia past.
It is so extraordinarily average!! Well not really, it is just mean. How can something hitting the mean not do so more than twice in the last 60 years, when the mean is the middle of the measurements, half below, half above the mean.
Extreme averages! Aaaaaahhhh!!! Panic and raise taxes!
The website DMI has been averaging the ice losing mass and has a 10 year running average which the warmist keep repeating.
“Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.”
However last year instead of losing a mass of 200Gt/yr, it actually gained 200 Gt/yr which is a 400 Gt/yr trend swing for one year. Which actually makes the loss only 140Gt/yr, 10 year running average. Even if you use an 11 year running average its not 200 Gt/yr. the DMI has adjusted the budget mass in 2014,2015 and 2017.
Between 2002 and 2016, Antarctica lost 125 gigatonnes of ice annually, causing global sea levels to rise by 0.35mm a year, NASA found.
https://news.sky.com/story/sea-level-warning-as-scientists-find-larger-part-of-massive-totten-glacier-floating-11298094
0,35mm a year . So 35cm in 1000 years so in 14000 years would be 490 cm so less than 5 meter.
Humanity handled 120 meter the last 14000 years so where is the problem?
Sounds about right. Sea Levels have been going up about a foot per century and this should rise slowly.
We should be ok this century and at some point fossil fuel usage will decline as it is replaced by substitutes.
So this probably is not a huge problem unless you live near the oceans. The learned about that in Boston. But one does not shut down economies in a vain effort to prevent sea level rise which may be partly due to continent subsidence. You have to address the issue with land use and engineering.
Hi Tony,
I’ve checked the DMI site out a few times and have a question that perhaps you can help explain. Two straight years of ice growth (w/last year the 5th highest on record), yet in the text of the page is says that overall, the balance of the ice sheet is still losing more than gaining.
“Over the year, it snows more than it melts, but calving of icebergs also adds to the total mass budget of the ice sheet. Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.”
To my mind, this doesn’t add up. I suppose if more gigatons of ice are added, it would force more calving simply because it would exert a greater downward force, thereby pushing the ice outward toward the edges. However, the way it’s written is that this was happening before these past two years of gain.
So, as someone who’s spent much more time on these topics that I, I’d appreciate your insights.
Thanks.
-FBB
The surface mass gained is precipitation – snowfall.
Preciptitation was well above average last year.
But the majority of mass loss is from calving ice and water run off the ice sheet…
The ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance.
https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
You have NO DATA for calving loss.
GRACE satellites cannot accurately measure ice loss over a volcanic region.
Greenland ice area is very close to the MAXIMUM it has been in over 8000 years., so stop your moronic chicken-little bed-wetting.
applause
https://youtu.be/IxAKFlpdcfc
The acc. SMB curve ends above zero year after year after year. I have never seen it ends below zero.
This means, the gaining of ice in Greenland is higher than the melt (and sublimation) year after year after year.
The surplus of ice flow to the coast, where it breaks off forming icebergs.
Now, if the gain is really high for some years, the pressure to the coast goes up, and there is more calving of icebergs. If the gain goes down, the pressure to the coast goes down, but it takes time, before the calving goes down to balance the gain, as it takes time for the ice to flow all the way to the coast.
The ice in Greenland is not melting. It is a false claim.
If the acc. SMB ends below zero one year, then and only then you can say, that the ice is melting.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the elucidation John. Do you happen to know of any timeline for the response of calving to gain? For example, when might extra calving from last year’s huge gain be seen? I understand that were talking about very slow moving responses and that this doesn’t happen in a vacuum and that every year (or month, or week, or day etc.) introduces new variables, but it would be interesting if there was a reasonable way to guesstimate this. Also, I’ve read about thermal heat from below on Greenland in the N/NW region. I should think that this flow of meltwater below would have a pronounced affect on the flow of ice to the sea and subsequent calving.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/tuom-ghc040616.php
Some information:
Modelling the ice flow
http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/flowofice/modelling_ice_flow/
Ice sheet models
http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/flowofice/modelling_ice_flow/ice_sheet_models/
It is an area of research. I don’t know the answer to your question, or if an answer has been tried. It is an interesting question, so maybe it is worth searching the publiched articles. I am interested in the answer aswell.
Wish there was a site showing the Barnes Ice Cap mass balance/budget. Based on the satellite images, it doesn’t appear to have changed since year 2000.
It’s significant in that it is the last remnant of the ice sheet covering most of North America during the last glacial period.
Joe–I’ve thought the same thing, and I’m frankly really surprised no one measures/posts regular assessments of the ice balance in the BIC.
Given that the region from Baffin Island across Hudson Bay is believed (depending on one’s sources) to be the major point of ice accumulation in the last glacial epoch, the BIC would *seem* to be a possible bellweather for any initiation of the ‘next’ glacial epoch.
The issue that vexes me is, how does one accumulate so much snow over that particular area that through the force of gravity it can expand across so much of North America? The rates of accumulation–sustained accumulation, to enable the relentless marching of a mile-deep body of ice–are just mind-boggling (even acknowledging low melt rates). While most discredit the Ewing-Donne theory, I would like to see us truly revisit every assumption about the proxies we’re using. I have a bias toward a warm(er), moisture-laden river of air rising over Baffin Island and depositing–inexorably–more and more snow over hundreds/thousands of years. What would cause that? Could the airflow have been from east-to-west, hitting Baffin’s steep eastern coast?
Could it have been crossing a warm Arctic Ocean? Could water have been warmed by other geological forces (undersea vents)? And finally, what would terminate that warmer, moist airflow? Oh I forgot…It’s CO2 wut done it. (sarc)
The whole Climate community could use a re-adjustment from its ridiculous ‘current CO2 certainty’ to more Lygometry–focusing on what we don’t know: http://iwbc.ru/watch/nwRJLa0igmQ/the-things-we-know-we-dont-know-an-introduction-to-lygometry-amin-toufani-tedxsanfrancisco.html
Theyouk- Thank you, it is great to know there is interest out there for the BIC.
Yes, I too am surprised it is hardly mentioned anywhere, even on skeptic sites. Wouldn’t it be wise for scientists to know if the remnant of the Laurentide ice sheet is expanding?
The problem, I think, is most scientists studying glaciers are too caught up with global warming, and the effect large ice sheets would have on sea level rise. I haven’t done the math, but I can’t imagine the Barnes Ice cap would contribute much if it melted.
But you’re probably right, lots of snowfall will let it expand, like any glacier. At that point though there would probably be new glaciers appearing/forming all over the Arctic. They would eventually join together to form an ice sheet. I’ve read somewhere that’s probably how it will go down.