Greenland Ice Melting Five Times the rate it was in the mid-1990s

www.sciencerecorder.com...

A newly released study finds that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are disappearing three times faster than they were two decades ago, the latest evidence supporting the existence of global warming.

The study was published in the journal Science and is considered an extremely accurate portrayal of ice melts in these polar regions. According to the paper’s authors, the rapid polar ice melting has caused an increase in sea level that may become problematic to low coastal regions.

Perhaps the most alarming data found by the researchers was in Greenland where the ice was melting an estimated five times the rate it was in the mid-1990s. Melt from Greenland accounted for a whopping two-thirds of the polar ice melt.
...
Shepherd estimates that the data compiled in the new study is two to three times more reliable than previous studies on melting ice and rising sea-level.

This next quote is the one that gets me.

She expects sea level to move up the coast by at least 40 inches in the next 90 years.

It seems to me that they have been predicting a rise of about a meter in the next hundred years for about a decade now. If ice is melting 5 times faster than in the ninties, then wouldn't we at least be seeing a five times increase in the rise of the ocean levels? It seems that we should be expecting 200 inches in the next 90 years.

From everything I have read on the subject, the rate of global warming is actually continuing to accelerate,

We are now, where we were predicted to be in 2025 or later just a little over a decade ago,

Four years ago no one was talking about methane geysers, or thermal expansion of the oceans. In the next few years, maybe four or five, from everything I see, we are going to be seeing massive changes starting to take place.



Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.

reply to post by poet1b


Uh no. Stop falling for the propaganda. Here's a video presentation of the new ICEsat study from JPL/NASA.

Link

Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses

Zwally, H. Jay; Li, Jun; Robbins, John; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui; Brenner, Anita; Bromwich, David Abstract: During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change. The net gain (86 Gt/yr) over the West Antarctic (WA) and East Antarctic ice sheets (WA and EA) is essentially unchanged from revised results for 1992 to 2001 from ERS radar altimetry. Imbalances in individual drainage systems (DS) are large (-68% to +103% of input), as are temporal changes (-39% to +44%). The recent 90 Gt/yr loss from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier 61 Gt/yr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly, the recent 24 Gt/yr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases in the five other DS of WA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the increased losses. Alternate interpretations of the mass changes driven by accumulation variations are given using results from atmospheric-model re-analysis and a parameterization based on 5% change in accumulation per degree of observed surface temperature change. A slow increase in snowfall with climate warming, consistent with model predictions, may be offsetting increased dynamic losses.

Apparently GRACE wasn't so great at detecting mass balance changes due to extremely noisy data, and HIGHLY suspect due to one's interpretation of that data. ICE sat puts that problem to rest, and shows that there is an overall INCREASE in ice mass in Antarctica. It will be interesting to see the data from Greenland.

Also note that much of the areas that are losing ice, such as Pine Island, are in addition to the warming we saw, are likely due to an extent, to geothermal activity. The whole Western Antarctic ice sheet and peninsula have much geothermal activity.

*snip*

never mind...

reply to post by wlf15y


First of all the data you are claiming to post is about ten years out of date, while I provide a link to the latest reports.

Second of all, Vimeo is not a source, and the link does not work.

You want to bury your head in the sand, it is your choice.

reply to post by Jeremiah65


This report covers both Greenland and Antarctica.

Shepherd estimates that the data compiled in the new study is two to three times more reliable than previous studies on melting ice and rising sea-level. The current go-to report on this subject, which is used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, was created in 2007.

The study used by the IPCC covers the increasing ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica and even reports a sheet loss within the range of the new study. However, the IPCC report did not consider a crucial question answered by Shepherd and Ivans’ team: could Antarctica be growing instead of shrinking?

This is the most reliable study done to date, and does answer the question about whether or not Antarctic ice is melting, and this reports does confirm that Antarctic ice is melting at an accelerating rate.



Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.

And if you look at the Antarctic Penninsula, there is no doubt the glaciers are retreating.

www.usgs.gov...

And what is ignored more than anything is that GW continues to accelerate.

Originally posted by poet1b

And if you look at the Antarctic Penninsula, there is no doubt the glaciers are retreating.

www.usgs.gov...

And what is ignored more than anything is that GW continues to accelerate.

It almost makes one WANT this to happen just to watch the climate change deniers wear egg all over their faces. Mind you, it would end up being fried, scrambled or poached, not raw

My dad had a bet with me the Glaciers would be thinning before his hair was... He won the bet.

reply to post by poet1b

First of all the data you are claiming to post is about ten years out of date, while I provide a link to the latest reports.

Hmmm...Did you see these years?

During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change...

How is that 10 years out of date?

Further, from your own source:

However, the IPCC report did not consider a crucial question answered by Shepherd and Ivans’ team: could Antarctica be growing instead of shrinking? Shephard thinks that without answer this question and others like it, scientists would not be able to announce, with confidence, how the ice sheets have changed for certain.

So, once again, nothing concrete...

reply to post by totallackey


Data from 2003 is almost 10 years old, it will be 2013 in less than a month.

And you still have yet to provide an actual link to the source of the study. Your quote talks abut snow and elevation measurements, that prove nothing about ice. It reads like some cherry picked info that almost says something.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by totallackey

 

Data from 2003 is almost 10 years old, it will be 2013 in less than a month.

And you still have yet to provide an actual link to the source of the study. Your quote talks abut snow and elevation measurements, that prove nothing about ice. It reads like some cherry picked info that almost says something.

The published reports include data from 2008, also. Do not try any mathematical crapola. You are wrong. Period. Popeye, I did not provide any source. You did and so did wif15y. Your source does not provide an actual link to any study either, so is lacking spinach. The quotes I provided is from your OWN SOURCE and wif15y!!!

reply to post by poet1b


The link for the NASA vid works for me. Anybody else? And it's not "outdated," it's the most up to data sat data we have, from a better source. Again, GRACE was very noisy. As far as my source goes, it's a presentation FROM NASA, posted at Vimeo. If it doesn't work for you, search it:

Mass Balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 1992-2008 from ERS and ICEsat: gains exceed losses

Edit, here's a different link:

www.climate-cryosphere.org...

I like your thread, thanks for this. I have a problem with all these certain individuals on forums and internetradio, who take every chance they get, to naysay about Dec 21st 2012. I do NOT believe in "the end of the world" on that date, rather, I believe the constant/consistent jumping on that, is a straw man psyop. A straw man psyop, so that after that time on into 2013, everyone will have been made soundly securely undisruptive. The PTB believe that any kind of truth telling, whether it's Marst-intelligence-disclosure, JFK, catastrophy, < especially ) even possibly so, will make disruption to the human factory farm routine.
I was listening to a certain 'Ufologist' on his internet radio show, press into that particular psyop, which he regularily does. An odd digression for him, from "the ufo government cover up".
But we are all children, of course, and need to be lead by those who know better than we, and of course, always have. That is why they are called, the Elites.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by totallackey

 

Data from 2003 is almost 10 years old, it will be 2013 in less than a month.

And you still have yet to provide an actual link to the source of the study. Your quote talks abut snow and elevation measurements, that prove nothing about ice. It reads like some cherry picked info that almost says something.

Um...so where the link to the SOURCE of your study?

reply to post by wlf15y


And if you go to the report you are claiming back up some point, which you try to prove by posting the abstract, and then go to the conclusion, which is where you find results of said study, you will find you are wrong.

Our modification of the
outflow changes the balance estimate by ?282 Gt/year (15% of the annual output) and
modification of the IOM input value changes the balance estimate by -159 Gt/year (8% of
Surv Geophys
123
the annual input), which together bring the net balance for overall AIS to a loss of 13 Gt/
year.
Comparison between two ERS-based estimates shows that the difference between the
preferred estimate for overall AIS of -31 ± 12 Gt/year for 1992 to 2001 given in Z05 and
the preferred estimate of ?27 ± 29 Gt/year for 1992 to 2003 given in W06 are mainly due
to different treatments of firn/ice density, corrections for the rate of upper firn compaction,
differences in areal coverage, and IEP. The methodology in Z05 included an important
correction for elevation changes caused by changes in the rate of firn compaction driven by
changes in surface temperature, covered more AIS area with crossover analyses, and
estimated the uncovered areas with optimal interpolation compared to the other analyses.
Nevertheless, the difference between the two ERS estimates is only 3% of the annual mass
input.
For all of the AIS, the IOMMd estimate lies within the range of the two ERS estimates,
which along with the GRACE-based estimate of Raimillen et al. (2006) gives a narrowed
range of ? 29 to -40 Gt/year that is only about 3.5% of the annual mass input. Our
preferred estimate for 1992–2001 is -47 Gt/year for WA, ? 16 Gt/year for EA, and -31
Gt/year overall (?0.1 mm/year SLE), not including part of the AP (1.07% of the AIS area)
as taken from Z05. However, this narrowed range of estimates leaves the more negative
GRACE-based estimates as outliers. Regarding the trend toward an increasing mass loss in
some GRACE estimates, we also find that the evidence presented in R08, supporting an
increase in mass loss from the IOM analyses, is insufficient as published.
A change of approximately 5% of the annual mass input or output to the AIS is
approximately 100 Gt/year, which is 0.3 mm/year SLE and 10% of current sea level rise.
Therefore, for the purpose of closing the sea level change budget to 10% or better,
obtaining estimates of the AIS mass balance to an accuracy of several percent is required.
Considering the state-of-art for determining the input and output fluxes, it is difficult to see
how the IOM can achieve the required accuracy even for a snapshot in time. Furthermore,
the problems with the IOM are even more difficult for determining trends.
Although the published GRACE estimates of mass change have a wide range and
relatively large estimates of error, the methodology for deriving mass changes from
GRACE data and correcting errors is improving significantly with time. The convergence
of results from ICESat and GRACE within estimated errors for the recent mass loss from
Greenland is a significant advance. However, the GIA is significantly larger in the Antarctic
and the uncertainty of the modeled GIA is also larger, mainly because of uncertainty
in the history of the glacial unloading and the sparsity of data for model calibration. The
expansion of Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements of crustal motion in the
Antarctic in recent years is providing new data that are being used for improving the
modeled GIA estimates (e.g. King et al. 2010). Applying these improvements to GRACE
data analyses, the recent improvements applied to the ICES at data analyses for Greenland,
and the joint analyses of GRACE and ICESat data for the same time periods should
significantly improve not only the estimates of the current mass balance of Antarctica, but
also of its changes over time.
Acknowledgments This research was supported by NASA’s ICESat Project Science funding. We thank
Scott Luthcke for providing his insights on GRACE methodology, issues, and developments, and two
anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and corrections.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial
License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Surv Geophys
123

Look up the actual report yourself.

Typically someone uses a bad link because either they are lazy, or only here to spread disinfo.

The ice is melting: thewatchers.adorraeli.com...

The water is rising: www.spacedaily.com...

reply to post by SeekingDepth


Aw darn seekingdepth, now you've done it. You have made the water all muddy with ................................facts


second

The simple solution:
Move inland.

Here is probably the best study. The problem I see is, people want studies such as these to spin their own narratives.

Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Melt

In this study, NASA/JPL scientists used three different satellites to collect data. They estimate that on July 8th, approximately 40% of Greenland's ice sheet was showing thawing. Please note here that the ice sheet was thawing, not thawed. It didn't melt away, just was showing signs of thawing.

Where it gets interesting was the thawing event increased to over 97% of Greenland's ice sheet in just 4 days. This was due to the "heat dome" that naturally occurs over Greenland. The article does make a note though, that such melting occurs about every 150 years when they studied the ice cores.

The main point here is Greenland is experiencing a natural change in its environment and further study is needed before we jump the gun screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!".

Quantifying ice loss vs gain in Antarctica has always been a tricky thing. The IPCC said as much in their last report in 2007 by declaring it was just too uncertain.

However, the aggregate of methods and data used to determine all this over the years has come to show quite clearly now that Antarctica has lost ice overall.

That's essentially what the Shepherd paper put together.

The international team of 47 experts led by Shepherd analysed data collected by these methods from almost 30 previous ice-sheet studies, including 20 years of data from 10 different satellite missions and 32 years of model data on surface mass balance — the difference in the weight of the ice sheet gained through snowfall and lost through melting of the ice sheets.

The result is an estimate “two to three times more accurate than that in the last IPCC report”, says Shepherd.

The latest study “moves Antarctica from a position of relative uncertainty in terms of its ice loss to one where we are now certain that it is losing ice”, says Andrew Shepherd, first author of the study and professor of Earth observation at the University of Leeds, UK.

Also take note they didn't simply cherry-pick one source like GRACE, but a multitude of different techniques:

Scientists use four techniques to gauge whether the ice caps are gaining or losing mass. Two techniques involve using either lasers or radars on satellites to measure changes in the surface elevation of the ice; another uses a method known as input-output modelling to represent regional changes in snowfall and ice melt; and the fourth measures changes in ice-sheet mass from space using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission satellites.

Those quotes all come from the Nature article here: Grim picture of polar ice-sheet loss


That article is honest enough to also mention the Zwally paper, but juxtaposes it against no less than 3 contradictory studies (not counting the new Shepherd paper) which show the exact opposite conclusions of Zwally et al.



...
But I love how the WUWT drones show up immediately and declare this all "propaganda", and demand that you focus on the one, cherry-picked survey that agrees with their pre-disposed beliefs.

Because you know - the vast majority of peer-reviewed science is just propaganda, but any outlier hyped up by a BLOG run by a TV weatherman who is funded by the Heartland Institute - a long-ago proven lobbyist mouthpiece for Big Oil and Big Tobacco - well that must be the accurate one, because that's brought to you by real honest, integrity-driven journalism right there.


Honestly do not bother getting sucked into totally useless back and forth debates with fake denierbots. Just point at their unbridled hypocrisy and marvel at how much they make a total, utter foolish mockery of the very idea of "skepticism".