Archives par mot-clé : Glaciers

better to know...?, climate-debate

Major Greenland Glacier Is Growing

by NASA (Earth Observatory), June 6, 2019 in NASA.E.Observ.

Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland is notorious for being the world’s fastest-moving glacier. It is also one of the most active, discharging a tremendous amount of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into Ilulissat Icefjord and adjacent Disko Bay—with implications for sea level rise. The image above, acquired on June 6, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows a natural-color view of the glacier.

Jakobshavn has spent decades in retreat—that is, until scientists observed an unexpected advance between 2016 and 2017. In addition to growing toward the ocean, the glacier was found to be slowing and thickening. New data collected in March 2019 confirm that the glacier has grown for the third year in a row, and scientists attribute the change to cool ocean waters.

“The third straight year of thickening of Greenland’s biggest glacier supports our conclusion that the ocean is the culprit,” said Josh Willis, an ocean scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and principal investigator of the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission

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climate-debate

False Alarm: Glacier National Park Changes ‘Gone By 2020’ Signs

by Chris White, January 9, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Officials who manage Glacier National Park are swapping out signs warning visitors that climate change would cause the park’s glaciers to disappear by 2020.

The U.S. Geological Survey told the park in 2017 that the complete melting off of the glaciers was no longer expected, park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told CNN.

Forecast models over the years show the glaciers were no longer at risk of disappearing by that date, she noted.

Placards at the St. Mary’s Visitor Center, located in Montana’s mountain ranges, were reportedly changed in 2019. The park is waiting for budget authorization to update the park’s full set of signs, Kurzman noted.

The signs will be changed to say: “When they will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”

SEE ALSO: National Park Stealth Removes Warning That All Glaciers Will Be Gone By 2020

SEE ALSO: Himalayan Glacier Loss Caused By Many Factors, Not Just Warming

USGS noted in a report to the Daily Caller News Foundation in 2019 that recent harsh winters had significantly changed forecasts from years past.

“Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park speeds up and slows down with fluctuations in the local climate,” a representative with the USGS told the DCNF at the time. The agency is responsible for managing the park.

“Subsequently, larger than average snowfall over several winters slowed down that retreat rate and the 2020 date used in the NPS display does not apply anymore,” the representative said.

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Also : National Park Stealth Removes Warning That All Glaciers Will Be Gone By 2020

climate-debate

If “Greenland is catastrophically melting”, how do alarmists explain NASA’s growing Greenland glacier?

by A. Watts, June19, 2019 in WUWT

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It turned out to be a weather event, unrelated to “climate change”. The next year, there was no “insta-melt“.

In fact. we’d not even know about the melting in Greenland before satellites came on the scene. So how many times in the history of the Earth has Greenland has a quick melt spike? I’m guessing hundreds of thousands of times.

Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland is notorious for being the world’s fastest-moving glacier. It is also one of the most active, discharging a tremendous amount of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into Ilulissat Icefjord and adjacent Disko Bay—with implications for sea level rise. The image above, acquired on June 6, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows a natural-color view of the glacier.

Jakobshavn has spent decades in retreat—that is, until scientists observed an unexpected advance between 2016 and 2017. In addition to growing toward the ocean, the glacier was found to be slowing and thickening. New data collected in March 2019 confirm that the glacier has grown for the third year in a row, and scientists attribute the change to cool ocean waters.

June 6th, 2019 Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland . Image acquired on June 6, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows a natural-color view of the glacier.

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climate-debate

PATAGONIA ICE SHEETS THICKER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

by GWPF, June 05, 2019

After conducting a comprehensive, seven-year survey of Patagonia, glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine and partner institutions in Argentina and Chile have concluded that the ice sheets in this vast region of South America are considerably more massive than expected.

hrough a combination of ground observations and airborne gravity and radar sounding methods, the scientists created the most complete ice density map of the area to date and found that some glaciers are as much as a mile (1,600 meters) thick. Their findings were published today in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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climate-debate

Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs

by Roger I. Roots, May 30, 2019 in WUWT

Founder, Lysander Spooner University

May 30, 2019. St. Mary, Montana. Officials at Glacier National Park (GNP) have begun quietly removing and altering signs and government literature which told visitors that the Park’s glaciers were all expected to disappear by either 2020 or 2030.
In recent years the National Park Service prominently featured brochures, signs and films which boldly proclaimed that all glaciers at GNP were melting away rapidly. But now officials at GNP seem to be scrambling to hide or replace their previous hysterical claims while avoiding any notice to the public that the claims were inaccurate. Teams from Lysander Spooner University visiting the Park each September have noted that GNP’s most famous glaciers such as the Grinnell Glacier and the Jackson Glacier appear to have been growing—not shrinking—since about 2010. (The Jackson Glacier—easily seen from the Going-To-The-Sun Highway—may have grown as much as 25% or more over the past decade.)

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Montana Glacier National Park Mountains Cracker Lake

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climate-debate

Greenland Glaciers Growing Again

by P. Homewood, May 22, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

European satellites have detailed the abrupt change in behaviour of one of Greenland’s most important glaciers.

In the 2000s, Jakobshavn Isbrae was the fastest flowing ice stream on the island, travelling at 17km a year.

As it sped to the ocean, its front end also retreated and thinned, dropping in height by as much as 20m year.

But now it’s all change. Jakobshavn is travelling much more slowly, and its trunk has even begun to thicken and lengthen.

“It’s a complete reversal in behaviour and it wasn’t predicted,” said Dr Anna Hogg from Leeds University and the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).

“The question now is: what’s next for Jakobshavn? Is this just a pause, or is it a switch-off of the dynamic thinning we’ve seen previously?”

The rapid flow, thinning and retreat of Jakobshavn’s front end in the mid to late 2000s were probably driven by warm ocean water from Disko Bay getting into the fjord and attacking the glacier from below.

The phase change, scientists think, may be related to very cold weather in 2013. This would have resulted in less meltwater coming off the glacier, which in turn might have choked the mechanism that pulls warm ocean water towards Jakobshavn.

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climate-debate

Greenland Has Been Cooling In Recent Years – 26 Of Its 47 Largest Glaciers Now Stable Or Gaining Ice

by K. Richard, May 20, 2019 in NoTricksZone

A new analysis of recent trends for the Greenland ice sheet reveals that since 2012 there has been an abrupt slowing of melt rates and a trend reversal to cooling and ice growth.
• In 2018, 26 of Greenland’s 47 largest glaciers were either stable or grew in size.
• Overall, the 47 glaciers advanced by +4.1  km² during 2018.  Of the 6 largest glaciers, 4 grew while 2 retreated.
• Since 2012, ice loss has been “minor” to “modest” due to the dramatic melting slowdown.
• Summer average temperatures for 2018 were lower than the 2008-2018 average by more than one standard deviation.
• Since 2000, the extent of the non-snow-covered areas of Greenland has increased by 500 km² per year.

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climate-debate

Inconvenient: NASA says a Greenland glacier did an about-face – growing again

by Anthony Watts, March 25, 2019 in WUWT

“…scientists were so shocked to find the change.”

From NASA JPL: Cold Water Currently Slowing Fastest Thinning Greenland Glacier

NASA research shows that Jakobshavn Glacier, which has been Greenland’s fastest-flowing and fastest-thinning glacier for the last 20 years, has made an unexpected about-face. Jakobshavn is now flowing more slowly, thickening, and advancing toward the ocean instead of retreating farther inland. The glacier is still adding to global sea level rise – it continues to lose more ice to the ocean than it gains from snow accumulation – but at a slower rate.

The researchers conclude that the slowdown of this glacier, known in the Greenlandic language as Sermeq Kujalleq, occurred because an ocean current that brings water to the glacier’s ocean face grew much cooler in 2016. Water temperatures in the vicinity of the glacier are now colder than they have been since the mid-1980s.

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See also here in NBS

climate-debate

Greenland’s Glaciers Expanding Again

by P. Homewood, March 11, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

As I reported last  September, Greenland’s ice sheet mass balance had grown at close to record levels for the second year running.

To clarify again, the mass balance calculation accounts for:

1) Snowfall

2) Ice melt

3) Ablation

 

In other words, it does not include calving.

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http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/#

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climate and geology, climate-debate

Geological ‘Hotspot’ Melting Pine Island And Thwaites Glaciers, Not Global Warming

by J.E. Kamis, February 25, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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SUMMARY

Research study after research study has now proven beyond any doubt that the 350,000-square-mile subglacial Marie Byrd Mantle Plume and its associated geological features that are emitting massive amounts of ice melting heat and heated fluid onto the base of the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glaciers.

Failure of the media to include in their numerous articles this telling scientific evidence which substantiates the significant and likely dominant role of this subglacial geologically induced heat flow in melting of West Antarctic glaciers is difficult to reconcile with proper scientific methodology.

A methodology which states that new and relevant data should be used to review old supposedly 100% settled theories.

Most of these research studies have been released one by one during the last three years which has led to minimizing their collective importance.  Numerous previous Climate Change Dispatch articles written by this author beginning in 2014 have inexplicably been ignored by mainstream media outlets.

It’s time for the media to inform the public that by tying all this information together that a clear picture emerges concerning the significant impact of Antarctic subglacial geologically induced heat flow.

climate-debate

Observing glaciers in “real time”

by Anthony Watts, August 20, 2018 in WUWT

From ETH Zurich and the “slow as molasses in winter” department.

Hot summers cause glaciers to melt. That not only changes the makeup of the landscape and hence the maps of Switzerland, it also affects every area of society. A new, dynamic glacier inventory makes the impact of climate change and the changing landscape visible.

The last time Swiss glaciers managed to grow at all was in 2001. Since then, the country’s 1,500 glaciers – as well as others elsewhere – have been suffering a slow but inexorable death. Until now, though, we have understood only partially how quickly they are really disappearing, and what effect that has on the landscape, people and animals. That is about to change, thanks to the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) project. GLAMOS is working on behalf of various Swiss federal offices to put together a comprehensive inventory of the country’s glaciers – at an unprecedented level of detail.

Glacier observation under the spell of several Valais four-thousand-metre peaks. (Photograph: GLAMOS)

The coloured lines show where the edge of the Aletsch glacier once was (red line 1850, green=1973, blue=2010). (Graphic: Swisstopo/GLAMOS)