Satellite images show continued breakup of 2 of Greenland's largest glaciers
August 21, 2008
A 29 sq. km. (11 sq. mi.) area of the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland (80˚N, 60˚W) broke away between July 10th and by July 24th. Petermann has a floating section 16 km (10 mi) wide and 80 km (50 mi) long, that is, 1295 sq. km (500 sq mi); the longest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. Photo courtesy Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University
Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month. They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere's longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.
A massive 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) piece of the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland broke away between July 10th and by July 24th. The loss to that glacier is equal to half the size of Manhattan Island. The last major ice loss to Petermann occurred when the glacier lost 33 square miles (86 square kilometers) of floating ice between 2000 and 2001.
Petermann has a floating section of ice 10 miles (16 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) long which covers 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers).
What worries Jason Box, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State, and his colleagues, graduate students Russell Benson and David Decker, all with the Byrd Polar Research Center, even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.
That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.
"If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers)," Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
Meanwhile, the margin of the massive Jakobshavn glacier has retreated inland further than it has at any time in the past 150 years it has been observed. Researchers believe that the glacier has not retreated to where it is now in at least the last 4,000 to 6,000 years.
The Northern branch of the Jakobshavn broke up in the past several weeks and the glacier has lost at least three square miles (10 square kilometers) since the end of the last melt season.
The Jakobshavn Glacier dominates the approximately 130 glaciers flowing out of Greenland's inland into the sea. It alone is responsible for producing at least one-tenth of the icebergs calving off into the sea from the entire island of Greenland, making it the island's most productive glacier.
Between 2001 and 2005, a massive breakup of the Jakobshavn glacier erased 36 square miles (94 square kilometers) from the ice field and raised the awareness of worldwide of glacial response to global climate change.
The researchers are using images updated daily from National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites and from time-lapse photography from cameras monitoring the margin of these and other Greenland glaciers. Additional support for this project came from NASA.
Source: Ohio State University
Oct 13, 2009 |
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Learn to read, MikeB.
Even if true this is not proof of anything other than the climate does change over time...woah newsflash. Please big daddy uncle MR. guvmint can I get some grant money too for that EARTH SHATTERING insight?
Then it got cold again.
The warmest period in the last century was the 1920s-1930s for Greenland.
And these periods of warm and cold have occurred for millions of years.
Without SUV's being the cause.
http://www.scienc...3019.htm
Alright, I'll play this game. Ready? Go.
Human total Carbon contribution to the environment is less than 1/3 of a percent.
No Greenhouse effect models include water vapor in their calculations which is relevant for one reason.
-In the desert during the day it can reach 120 degrees F. At night it drops to 10-20 degrees F.
-In Massachusetts the temperature will hit 80 degrees F. At night it will remain 80 degrees F.
-Carbon is homogenous in the atmosphere, meaning it finds "social" equilibrium by spreading out to a point where the CO2 sample in one region of the world is the same as another.
-Difference between the desert and Massachusetts, ambient water vapor in the environment.
It's really simple guy. Even more so if you're into light spectrometry. The "greenhouse effect" of CO2 is overstated. If you removed 100% of the CO2 from the atmosphere the temperature would stay the same or rise. Co2 has no room in the absorption band to cause any effect on global warming. CO2 does however, have a positive to it being that more solar enegy is reflected back out into space by CO2.
Your turn.
Even during the ice ages ice was melting at the southern edges. Ice always melts when it gets warm enough. CO2 does not make ice melt. CO2 is exhaled by man. It is a plant food. It is used in commercial greenhouses to enable plants and food to grow better and faster. Greenhouses typically have CO2 levels of 1000 to 1200 PPM. The earth's CO2 level at the moment is app 380 PPM. It is not a problem, it is a benefit to mankind. Warming has always helped mankind from the Roman warm period, to the medieval warm period to our modern warm period. What is happening now is good for man. You will not like it when the glaciers start spreading down to Chicago...
All of which is irrelevant to the issue of radiative forcing.
Are you wholly ignorant of how radiative forcing works?
Or, have you simply conveniently dismissed it?
Past is not prologue. I.e., past causes are irrelevant to present results.
The balance of your post is nothing but gibberish, and speaks volumes re. your ignorance of the sciences.
Wow there goes the scientific method right there. I thought science was in part based on being able to repeat experiments and predict the results thus providing evidence for your theory.
I guess our climate is just totally chaotic then? It doesn't actually go in cycles, but rather just willy nilly from one state to another? Better yet based on your statement it might just suddenly hit a state of total equilibrium and never change again, because if we can't look at the past and extrapolate the future how can you possibly know this might not happen?
Moreover if this is the case how can you predict the Earth will get ONE NIT hotter if (as you and your ilk believe) we add more CO2 to the atmosphere? If adding more CO2 to the atmosphere in the past (which is what in part you seem to think is responsible for an increase in temperature) is irrelevant to present results then why should we worry about adding anymore CO2 to the mix?
Careful with toying with your own axioms there bud...they might come back to haunt you.
Completely irrational. That's the problem with AGW faithful, the past was natural but the present can't have the same causes.
I prefer the old saying (as a model) "what goes around, comes around". The weather, despite being chaos driven, follows certain (very long term) patterns. Nothing that is currently happening violates those patterns. Following Occam's Law you would have to conclude that what is happening now is natural variation.
"Human total Carbon contribution to the environment is less than 1/3 of a percent"
You stop short of writing that this is too small to create a tempateure change. However small, carbon dioxine volume is directly related to the earth temperature. In the last 10 years as well as in the last 650 thousand ones. So the fact that the volume is too small to influence climat is not true and is not correct. What is correct is that the changes in dioxine volumes affect temperatures.
"No Greenhouse effect models include water vapor in their calculations which is relevant for one reason."
Which calculations are you refering to?
The United Nations publications clearly takes water vapor into consideration. Who said it does not? Have you read it?
As for the argument that greenland was once green, this is correct, but so what? Writing this does not mean that human dioxine production is not causing global warming. Changes of temperatures are caused also by other means than human released dioxine. Such as solar radiance. This can cause the earth to warm up slightly enough for part of greenland to warm. However the extreme increase "today" of dioxines impacts temperatures as well. It is not because one thing cause temperatures change that another thing, in this case human produced dioxines, can't do it either. This is not a relevent argument agaisnt human caused global warming in any case. So far, you have not convinced me of anything that could pretend that global warming is not caused by human activities. Not at all.
DKA you obviously Don't Know Anything about current climate studies. Excalibur, as the earth cools perhaps you should change your moniker to Excali brrrr.
Also I hate to banter with ghosts. Some people actually use their real names. At least the people worth knowing do.
Thanks again,
Mike Bryant
http://climatesci...spencer/
Try studying the damned physics, rather than factoids that play to your pre-conceived conclusions.
As re. mention of past not being prologue, is it the case that you:
1) Deliberately choose to obfuscate; or,
2) Are clueless as the meaning of such?
And, your assuming facts not in evidence is logical? Ditto for your argumentum ad hominem.
You've just very nicely demonstrated your own lack of rationality.
You also hate dealing with those facts which rebut your pre-conceived notions, as evidenced by your non-substantive responses.
As for your "real" name, such is wholly irrelevant to issues of physical fact, and mention of such merely serves as an attempt at mis-direction.
I'm sorry I think you dropped your point somewhere...wait is it possible that you missed the "point" every bit as much as Excalibur.
Let's see if I can explain it so you'll understand. There have been natural warming and cooling cycles in the past...even within recorded history. The only difference now is that we have a bunch of self righteous twits called climatologists passing themselves off as scientists trying to blame any warming trend they can find (or manufacture) on coal fired power plants in order to stir up the masses to the point that they'll dole some more milk out of the government teat.
Now he's the one who said past causes are irrelevant to present results, which is complete nonsense on just about every level you can think of. What he MEANT to say is that past causes which might debunk the AGW argument are irrelevant because such causes might do something evil like confuse him with facts.
It recently snowed in Argentina and Malibu, CA, and China had its worst winter in 50 to 100 years depending upon who one speaks with in China. Something smells rotten in Denmark...
And, what of periods of glaciation when CO2 levels were well over 1,000 ppm? What gives if CO2 is such the nasty stuff the Gorians and his pet IPCC scientists claim it is?
MikeB, I don't see any rational argument in your message but mainly emotional complains, which I would not recommend anyone to rely on to build a case agasint the United Nation publication. I can't see anything here, in your message "you don't know anything about climat", that is scientific. While the United Nation publication is full of scientific facts. Can you provide facts?
Anyone can say this, but do you have fact at hand against the best researchers of all countries around the world? just provide only one fact, only one fact that will be reliable. So far I have not seen any in all the comments above that made it close to this. it is proven that dioxine/Co2 exausts cause temperature change in 100% of the scientific studies (of course I do not include in these studies comments made above by MikeB or dachpyarvile which are only vague and unreliable words.
Here you go:
http://www.junksc...enhouse/
In simple terms, so that the ill informed and illogical might understand, the fact that man once cooked by open flame alone is irrelevant to determining how a contemporary dish was prepared.
The question, then, is whether those who cling to past causes as necessarily being present ones as well speak from sheer ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.
If I slapped you in the face when we first met at 3 years old, then again the second time we met at 9 years old, to assume I'm not going to slap you at 21 years old when we meet for a third time will leave you with a bruised cheek.
What you're saying is if I drop a coin and it lands heads or tails a thousand times but the last time it lands on edge, I should throw away all of my past data on a coin landing heads or tails and assume it will always land on edge because that's what my most recent observation states.
You have no right to post here, and thanks for the 1 when I posted the site you can't intellectually refute due to the accuracy of it's data.
To repeat, STUDY the UNDERLYING PHYSICS of RADIATIVE FORCING, the application of which toward an understanding of what is today called "greenhouse warming" began over a century ago!
The relationship between cause and effect is NOT commutative.
While "A" may cause "B," it is fallacious to say that "B" must be caused by "A."
In short, they engage in sophistry.
And, my understanding of Logic serves to allow me to observe that you too, as noted by Excalibur, fallaciously take the relationships between cause and effect to be commutative.
I'll presume to do what I like bro, especially when it's blatantly obvious I wasn't trying to speak for you, but rather to ridicule you. Sorry if you couldn't tell the difference.
So then in simple terms the fact that C02 put in the atmosphere a hundred years ago might have caused some warming it's irrelevant to determine what is actually causing contemporary warming.
After all as Mr. Spock said up the thread while "A may cause B it's fallacious to say that B must be caused by A". In this case "A" being more Co2 in the atmosphere and B being warming of the Earth. So, according to your own logic, AGW may be a complete lie.
So then your entire argument for AGW is completely invalid.
Perhaps you'd like to throw in a straw man and a red herring to round out the fallacies you here employ.
Absent such, they are but the noise of ignorance.
Ipcc - The radiative forcing of the surface-troposphere system due to the perturbation in or the introduction of an agent (say, a change in greenhouse gas concentrations) is the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus long-wave; in Wm-2) at the tropopause AFTER allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values. [2]
Which isn't wholly accurate. Actually radiative forcing is loosely defined as the change in net irradiance at the tropopause. "Net irradiance" is the difference between the incoming radiation energy and the outgoing radiation energy in a given climate system and is thus measured in Watts per square meter.
You should also know that according to actually radiative forcing equations (when done properly) CO2 has a logarithmic relationship, not exponential. Meaning for every equal increase of a CO2 in the atmosphere it takes an exponential amount more on the next addition to affect the same delta in change.
IPCC won't tell you that between radiative forcing and spectroscopic banding that we're basically at the level of null delta with CO2, where it cannot affect any greater change or even match the proposed change that the IPCC blames it for.
Let's go further with this, the IPCC has an arbitrary and changing figure for the actual temperature change over the past 10 years. Why is it when examined, the actual measure of change is far less than the IPCC states, or why there really isn't a way to perform a proper measure of change in temperature according to IPCC standards?
I would say it's far more ignorant to not be able to measure a temperature change BY YOUR OWN STANDARDS correctly.
http://scienceand...tem.html
Even your own aren't convinced of radiative forcing.
Radiative forcing is a physical process, not an artifact of observational data.
To repeat, explain how it is that CO2 plays no role in radiative forcing. Or, alternatively, how it is that radiative forcing plays no role re. climate.
Yes your response was that.
That too..
Well since you didn't respond to anything at all it's hard to accuse you of this one. You'd actually have to be saying something or making some kind of argument, which you aren't hand haven't been.
Is your little lip quivering?
Alternatively you could explain how more Co2 in the atmosphere (A) MUST be responsible for higher temperatures (B).
Because, and AGAIN I'll reiterate until you actually do respond to the point, according to you while A MAY cause B, it is fallacious to say that B MUST be caused by A.
Won't be holding my breath...
I've already done it, and used your own organization against you. Read the actual papers on radiative forcing. You aren't using an appropriate definition simply because an accurate definition wrecks your argument.
Either you are being deliberately obtuse or your mental skills really do fit my low estimates. He didn't say it plays NO role he said the nature of the role it does play is in doubt, EVEN BY THE IPCC.
Why don't you actually try reading one of his links instead of sitting in the corner with the other kids who color outside the lines and stomping up and down on that shoddily constructed straw man you're so proud of.
The question asked is regarding the underlying physical process itself; i.e., it is about the the principle, rather than interpretations of observations.
You can't have it both ways.
From your question re. radiative forcing it appears that you don't even understand what such is.
But you'd also know that true radiative forcing also has a negative feedback mechanism that increases with decreased transparency.
A lot of things in the atmosphere reflect more as they become less transparent, for example high altitude cloud cover. Which has been at an all time low.
The problem with the IPCC use of Radiative forcing is that they ignore all factors that have a negative wattage effect on radiative forcing, like aerosols and increases in cloud cover.
Enjoy physorg guys. I hope the great expense you're causing by not reading the information for yourself is worth it. The price you pay for intellectual laziness is going to be much higher than any of you realize.
Radiative forcing has NO INTRINSIC FEEDBACK. There can, however, be a feedback loop created by the interaction of the resulting temperature change and the body in question.
In this case, there is in fact a very strong positive feedback loop, wherein rising temperatures cause additional melting of ice and white snow, thus reducing Earth's albedo, with the result that a greater portion of supra-IR radiation is absorbed, rather than being reflected, and re-radiated as IR.
As for any changes in reflectivity of clouds, such occurs mainly at visible & IR wavelengths, with little to no effect on UV; and, as the affected wavelengths are well below those of the absorption bandwidth of CO2, such has virtually no effect on the radiative forcing induced by CO2 itself.
Non sequitur. It's impossible to prove the absence of something that may not exist.
The normal practice of physics (and any other of scientific field) is that the makers of a theory (such as AGW) must prove their theory. Not the other way around.
From the point of view of falsifiability (if I give you false data can you prove it?) AGW fails. Nobody can prove that the data is pertinent (to a valid solution) or complete (have we forgotten something important to the correct solution.)
You mean like the IPCC?
Accurate but the key thing you're missing is this, when the heat rises water evaporates creating more cloud cover, thereby reducing the earth's albedo. The part you're ignoring is the fact that there is no increase in trapped IR by CO2. It reached maximum capacity at 0.0038ppm. So no extra IR trapped means no more heat energy increase.
CO2 cannot trap more heat as it's convected away into the stratosphere with the water moisture that crowds out CO2 at it's non-saturated wavelengths. As the precipitation falls the energy is lost to the ionosphere where it is carried by high energy ions off into space.
Bingo.
What? Reality always trumps physics theories!
Lord Kelvin said:
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement."
Radiative forcing is a simple physical process, one that is well and long understood, easily derived from the fundamental Laws of Physics.
Therefore, the burden of proof lies with those who claim that either 1) radiative forcing does not exist, or 2) it functions in a manner quite different from that described by classical Physics.
"Heat" does not rise, any more than "cold" sinks. IR is RADIATION; it is mediated by photons, which are without mass or charge, and travel in a straight line in the direction in which they were first impelled.
Duh! Cloud cover, being composed of H2O 1) is transparent to short wavelengths, and 2) translucent to IR. Therefore, cloud cover INCREASES radiative forcing!
Pure hogwash.
RADIATION is NOT CONVECTED or CONDUCTED!
H2O "crowds out" CO2? More meaningless claptrap.
Precipitation emits "energy" which is transferred to "high energy ions?" Shades of Buck Rogers!
To repeat, where DO you get this junk "science" from.
Wait wait wait. Firstly, H2O is not translucent to IR on all bands. Second, if H2O was transparent to shortlength energy and translucent to IR then H2O would have zero effect in Radiative forcing, not greater effect. Truth is H2O shares absorption bands with CO2 but atmospheric water vapor (read: clouds) reflect the sun's light thereby reducing the amount of Black body radiation for CO2 to absorb.
Do the math yourself. No, but the heat can be. And the material that absorbs the radiation is before it re-radiates the energy at a higher altitude, readily conducts and convects energy. Besides re-radiation would occur further away from the earth, where more can escape as re-radiation is onmidirectional and not affected by the Earth's relatively weak gravity. Yes, there's a lot more H2O than CO2 in our atmosphere, which means in terms of radiative forcing, there is less absorption potential due to the lack of ambient IR for CO2 to capture. Ok looks like you missed Earth Science in elementary school. Water is heated, meaning energy is added to it, which causes the water to become water vapor. It rises in the atmosphere where it releases the captured energy and turns back into water. The captured energy now radiates out in all directions, some of it returning to earth, most of it escaping to higher atmospheric shells. Once the energy makes it's way to the ionosphere (probably the most energetic shell of our atmosphere) it can escape into space, as either UV, Visible light, IR, Microwave, Radio, or ionized gasses, and probably many other things that aren't fully understood at this time.
A better source than you get your lack of understanding from.
It is still yours to explain how radiative forcing does NOT work as the Laws of Nature demand that it work.
To be specific, you must explain how it is that any compound which can absorb IR does 1) absorb such at a low altitude, 2) does NOT re-radiate such at low or intermediate altitudes, 3) does re-radiate such at high altitude, and 4) does NOT absorb such at high or intermediate altitudes.
In short, by what mysterious force does a compound absorb or re-radiate IR depending on the altitude?
And, the IR is constantly re-radiated, half of it downward.
So what? H2O, CO2, CH4, etc. are neither transparent nor opaque to IR; therefore, by definition, they are translucent.
Only if one ignores the prevailing shorter wavelengths which penetrate, are absorbed by Earth, re-radiated as IR, absorbed by atmospheric H2O, CO2, CH4, etal., and re-radiated downward.
Clouds do not stop UV. Again, ignores the prevailing shorter wavelengths which penetrate, are absorbed by Earth, re-radiated as IR, absorbed by atmospheric H2O, CO2, CH4, etal., and re-radiated downward.
So, a finite amount of CO2 can absorb an infinite number of photons? I don't think so.
RADIATION is NOT CONVECTED or CONDUCTED!
Irrelevant to the issue of RADIATIVE forcing.
H2O "crowds out" CO2?
What the hell kind of double-speak is this?
Precipitation emits "energy" which is transferred to "high energy ions?" Shades of Buck Rogers!
Again, most is NOT re-radiated OUTwards; the re-radiational pattern is omni-directional, with half being directed back toward the body in question.
And, this transformation into other wavelengths, or from energy into mass, happens how?
Not understood by whom?
So basically you have no idea what you're talking about and hedge this bet by waiting a few weeks after a post to respond.
Radiation certainly does convect. Thermal radiation is radiation.
As for the CO2 can trap an infinite amount of photons comment it's rather obvious you're completely missing the point. No, it can't. I stated it can't which is exactly why there won't be a net increase in trapped IR. Because it's already all been trapped. Unless you add more IR, which you can't because there is only one source for it, then there will not be an increase in trapped IR energyu on the bands in which CO2 has saturated.
In your diatribes on radiative forcing you ignore 1/2 of the equation because heat loss on a warming world is anathema to your talking points on AGW.
Try doing this: alter the experiment by filling one jar with air from a house (houses contain more CO2 on an order of magnitude than outside air, some as high as 5000 ppm!) and another with air from the outside away from the house but not too close to the road.
Add to this controls to ensure that both jars receive equal heating by placing thermometers behind the jars. If the thermometer behind one jar is higher than the other, subtract the data from the other to equalize the control results outside the other jar receiving more heat due to inequalities in the heat lamp glass, and so forth.
Document the methodology and the results and make them available to the public so that your observations may be tested and the experiment repeated by others.
Let us know how that goes. :)