Think of the Colorado River. If a lot of snow falls one winter, then six months later there will be a lot of water in the river. If the following winter there is little snow, the response six months later is a reduction in river flow.
There is no gain or loss of water, just a delayed steady state response.
Glaciers are rivers of ice. If a lot of excess snow falls in the interior of Greenland for a few years, the response will be a delayed increased flow of ice, and vice-versa.
Climate morons calculate the “mass balance” of the Greenland ice sheet (including flow) and scream that Greenland is melting down – even though it obviously isn’t. If there actually has been a reduction in net ice accumulation, this will eventually lead to a reduction in flow (like any river) and a return to equilibrium. There is no gain or loss of ice over the long term, just temporary changes in flow. Greenland is not melting down.
These people are brainless, and clueless, and lacking the most fundamental understanding of how natural processes work.
Or…they have a vested interest in perpetrating a scam.
And a credulous audience made up of the kind of low-information types that would vote for Obama.
Those poor fact-challenged “climate experts.” Damaged by too much carbon dioxide from “smoking but not inhaling.”
I think the carbon the are smoking is Carbon Monoxide. Know to cause brain damage.
I blame it on excessive choom
Reblogged this on Catholic Glasses.
I’m afraid they are products of our wonderful liberal education system. And some are teaching it it!!! ARGGGG!
Same goes for glaciers, they tell us that just because a glacier recedes to nothing, the river will dry up. I’ve read that claim many times. Fact is it still snows and rains in the water shed, it just isn’t cold enough to maintain a glacier. The river will still flow.
Climate Change, Global Warming is a scam. Politicians have invested pensions in this fraudulent business!
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386e/svalbard.pdf
“Quick, violent advance followed by long periods of retreat, at intervals of perhaps 20 to 100 years, is a normal pattern of behaviour. The only way to register shorter term variations in glacier volume, therefore, is to do mass-balance measurements.
The largest glacier surge observed was that of Bråsvellbreen, an outlet glacier from Austfonna on Nordaustlandet. The glacier advanced about 10 km along about a 30-km-wide front within less than a year (Schytt, 1969).”
AWESOME!!
Imagine sitting watching this!
“Negribreen, at the head of Storfjorden (fig. 6), advanced about 12 km within a year’s time (1935-36), which gives a minimum velocity of approximately 30 m per day. Taking into account that the surge most probably was of a much shorter duration, the velocity may have reached as much as 100 m per day at its maximum (Liestøl, 1969).”
WOW, you could actually see it move since glaciers are usually not featureless. I wonder what the sounds were like?
That’s one of the basic problems underlying this whole mess…the idea that everything moves at some sort of pace that makes snails look like cheetahs. Glaciers may sit around looking like nothing is going on, for a long time, then as shown move at what seems to be ‘warp speed’. We even have ‘glacially slow’ to shore up the fallacy that glaciers are so slow they may as well be static (or nearly so) features of the landscape.
Was watching an episode of the BBC documentary ‘Frozen Planet’ the other day. It was the I had to change after watching 30 minutes of pure propaganda with David Attenborough narrating. I was about to start yelling at the television.
I don’t even try to watch those things anymore. It’s hard to find .357 Sig rounds right now and putting 14 of them through the television gets messy and expensive.
“. . .they tell us that just because a glacier recedes to nothing, the river will dry up.”
Here is nuanced version of the issue: We live in a region that uses mountain-sourced water for irrigation. Rain, snow, and ice contribute to the available water – some being stored behind dams for all the reasons known to cost/benefit investigators.
When rain and snow have not provided sufficient flow to meet all the needs of farmers, orchardists, salmon, other wild things, and so on – then melting ice begins to play a role. If all the ice melts at some point, then the late season needs might not be met. In our area salmon are priority #1 and so the river will flow (as you say) but the irrigaters will complain. Also, our base load electric is from hydro and too low flow (rare) could incur usage restrictions.
Without enough warmth the ice will not melt. Ice accumulation results. With warmth, ice melts. Ice loss results. With natural variation such things tend to balance over time – as the host says in this post. A trend, either prolonged cold or warm, will change the time-pattern of the flow that might cause issues with the use of the river.
Historically water was taken from the rivers when natural flow was high, in the spring and early summer, when rain (overland flow) and base flow (seepage) entered the river. Choice of crops included hay, wheat, corn, and potatoes. After harvest, irrigation was not needed. Small dams and then larger dams made water available for longer periods and folks planted crops that need water for longer periods – fruit trees, hops, and grapes. With these changes came the need for season long water, not just early season water.
The historic records of rainfall and runoff seem to reflect a good period and may have contributed to expectations that will not be met all the time. Environmental concerns have become much enhanced over the last few decades and these, also, lead to conflicts.
In any case, it isn’t enough that the river flows – every year has to be above average!
I tell you what, should the glaciers all start to advance, suggest we look for a warm, safe place.
two words: Mount Kilimanjaro – same scam
A couple of links on that…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/07/kilimanjaro-glaciers-just-wont-die-nowhere-near-extinction/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/18/2595738/are-the-snows-of-kilimanjaro-returning.html
Steven, could you elaborate with some data?
Sure… if the Ice Mass gets greater it could cause increased “flow” of the Glacier… same if the Temp gets warmer… the ice melt will allow the Glacier to “flow” easier because its not so frozen up…
On Huff Po they insist Greenland is melting, losing mass… I’ve seen a couple of your posts on here which highlight the incredible cold up on the Ice Mass.. but it will melt and lose mass along the edges.. so what is happening??
Is Greenland losing mass?
Has the Air/Ocean Temp increased around Greenland, causing melt along the edges?
Could Volcanic Activity be melting the Glacier??
On Huff Po they insist Greenland is melting, losing mass
And Huff-n-Puff Post is a reliable source?
Temps haven’t increased enough to induce the kind of melt being claimed…in fact melt wouldn’t be the correct term, because to do that you need to have a temp above the freezing point.
Melting from the bottom, by way of geothermal heating…yes, some of that is going on.
But probably the greatest source of ice loss is calving. And in order to calve, the glaciers must be ‘pregnant’, in the first place (lots of new material being deposited on them).
But the biggie is…they just don’t really know how much ice is there to begin with. The mass balance figures are derived from the elevation maps…which basically have a 30m error range (one cubic meter of ice comes in at about 900 kg)….and the areas that they are most unsure of are the edges. One ‘spot’ (70m footprint for the instruments) being 15m low basically means about 53,000 tons (metric ton 1000kg) less mass. The other problem with the mass calculations…there isn’t a very good picture of the geological features under the ice. With rock being much denser and heavier than ice, a rock incursion can really skew the calculations (so can hollow areas, ice caves, fissures, etc). So mass of ice measurements without error bars are not worth the electrons used to display them.
Steve is oversimplifying the glacier processes.
The surface mass balance is snow less surface melting (minus refreezing of this surface water in a place lower down), and it excludes the glacier flow itself (which in a steady state also equates to the mass of ice bergs calving off the glacier where it meets the sea). You can see this definition in the paper Steve cites elsewhere : http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ says :
“For an ice sheet that neither grows or shrinks, there is at all points averaged over the year a balance between
– the amount of snow that falls and is compressed to ice
– the amount of snow and ice that melts or evaporates (sublimates) and
– the amount of ice that flows away due to the ice motion
The two first contributions make up the surface mass balance. For the ice sheet as a whole, there is a balance between the surface mass balance and the amount of ice that calves into the ocean as icebergs.”
One thing that is obvious is that if the surface mass balance is negative (more melting than snow or refreezing), then there will be no glacier in summer – although perhaps a frozen river in winter. There is no possibility of a new equilibrium.
Assume the surface mass balance starts out a healthy positive but then reduces somewhat while still staying positive. Whether the glacier will find a new equilibrium is up for grabs – it depends on factors like the shape of the terrain underneath. If the glacial flow is not reduced much by a reduced total mass then it will melt away. If the glacial flow is reduced considerably by a reduced mass then it will find a new equilibrium.
In the case of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets another factor comes into play – analysis of RADAR measurements indicates channels below sea level running from the ocean itself up to 100km into the inland body of the ice sheets. If the ocean warms too much then this can melt the coastal portions of the glacier from beneath. See http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n6/full/ngeo2167.html – “Deeply incised submarine glacial valleys beneath the Greenland ice sheet”.
So there is no certainty increased temperatures and a reducing surface mass balance will lead to a new equilibrium without significant ice sheet mass loss. You need to look into it at some detail to determine this.
Peter (scientist, but not climate scientist)
4 Sept 2014 16:10
Given that most of Greenland is mountainous, that process can’t affect much of the ice sheet. And as soon as the ice sheet starts losing mass, glacial rebound will push the land up to higher elevations, making it even less relevant.
Once melting from the bottom penetrates inland, glacial ice flows increase significantly.
Glacial rebound is complicated, and probably more dependent on what happened thousands of years ago, rather than what happens in the next few hundred years.
Even if glacial rebound over the relevant time period was as high as 1 cm of mantle raised for 10cm of ice lost (around 1/3 of the difference in densities), channels 50m deep are closed only when you have lost 500m of ice from most of the ice sheet area. More likely the rebound would not happen until hundreds of years after it was too late.
The area of the Greenland ice sheet is 1.7m sq km, and of the earth’s oceans is 360m sq km. So, after factoring in 0.9 for the lower density of ice, 500m of ice loss translates into a rise of around 2m in sea level. 2m sea level rise wipes out Miami and most of the Florida coastal towns.
Peter
4 Sept 2014 23:20
“Peter (scientist, but not climate scientist)”
Which around here initially lends you a deserved level of credibility that is significantly superior to that of the unmentionable shysters. So Peter are you a Geologist?
I am a physicist – with access to paywalled papers on most subjects including most climate science journals. Plus a certain ability to do maths.
Peter you forgot a couple.
One is sublimation the major source of loss of snow at temps below freezing.
The second is geothermal.
Geothermal heating thought to cause thin spot in Greenland ice:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/hotgreen.htm
Volcanoes have been found beneath Antarctic glaciers
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/131118-antarctica-volcano-earthquakes-erupt-sea-level-rise-science/
http://www.livescience.com/15006-underwater-volcanoes-discovered-antarctica.html
and in the Arctic sea
Arctic Volcanoes Found Active at Unprecedented Depths
Not to mention the active volcano doing a melt job in Vatnajökull.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/
http://www.veooz.com/news/aHUGU04.html