How is the ice melting if it is not getting warmer?

[REASON]

How is the ice melting if it is not getting warmer?

 

Here's a Wiki article about Arctic Shrinkage that will have little to no validity to you since you proudly wear the "Denialist" moniker on the front of your t-shirt. I'm convinced there is zero scientific information that you will find remotely of interest unless it supports your established position with this topic. This is confirmed when you reference temperature readings from one source in Greenland going back to 1895, and then proceed to say, "*Global* temperatures are mostly *bullshit*; before the 1970's there was no way to actually obtain global data." Apparently "no way" apart from some remote location in Greenland.

 

Face it, you're a cherry picker, and your lack of objectivity is glaring.

 

 

But for what it's worth, from the above mentioned Wiki article, here is an image referencing the declining Arctic sea ice minimum over the last 30 years as observed by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite.

 

[img=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg[/img]

 

 

For good measure, here is a Wiki article about The Retreat of Glaciers Since 1850, which includes a lot of referenced information and photographic evidence such as this:

 

[img=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Retreat_of_the_Helheim_Glacier%2C_Greenland.jpg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Retreat_of_the_Helheim_Glacier%2C_Greenland.jpg[/img]

 

More ice melting while it's not getting warmer. Hmm? What's wrong with that statement? I submit that the notion that it's "not getting warmer" is false based on the available evidence.

[BrianG]

So, aalthough it may sound cool, a researcher actually working in the field and understanding what he is doing says that this is not usable as an anti-GW-argument.

 

I'm not anti-GW, GW is problematic, it's a trend, I can't be for or against it. If anything, I question if reducing [ce]CO2[/ce] emissions from fossil fuel use will mitigate climate change, how much, and at what cost. My default position is, no new taxes, legislation or treaties until there's sufficient evidence.

 

I posted the link because it directly addresses engineerdude's question, "How is the ice melting if it is not getting warmer?" It is a pretty cool bit of research.

 

I understand that some think I'm a denier, or anti-GW. I'll just have to work harder to make myself understood.

[Michaelangelica]

 

December 15, 2009 | 47 comments

Subcontinental Smut: Is Soot the Culprit Behind Melting Himalayan Glaciers?

Greenhouse gases alone cannot explain the warming climate in the Himalayas. New studies are pointing to soot

 

By Davide Castelvecchi

 

 

* Video

The Indo-Gangetic plain, one of the most fertile and densely populated areas on Earth, has become a hotspot for emissions of black carbon (shown in purple and white)

 

SAN FRANCISCO—The Himalaya Mountain region is warming up three to five times faster than the global trends—or about half a degree Celsius per decade—and many of its glaciers are rapidly losing mass.

Greenhouse gases alone cannot explain this warming, however, and several new studies are pointing to an old form of pollution: soot.

 

A thick cloud of soot covers most of India, produced in part by millions of small cooking stoves, which typically burn wood. Soot, also known as black carbon, is made of particles less than a micron wide resulting from incomplete, inefficient combustion. (A micron is one millionth of a meter.)

Globally, soot from sources such as forest fires and power stations is considered a major contributor to climate. The particles linger in the air, where they absorb sunlight and contribute to warming the atmosphere; they may also affect cloud formation and precipitation.

But soot also eventually falls to the ground. When it lands on snow it can significantly darken it, so that glaciers absorb more sunlight and are warmed.

Subcontinental Smut: Is Soot the Culprit Behind Melting Himalayan Glaciers?: Scientific American

[maikeru]

I think I agree with your deforestation argument, but every degree that it rises closer to freezing/melting, 0 degrees C, the easier ice will sublimate.

===

 

 

Note:

Ice has a vapor pressure and can sublimate away at temperatures well below freezing, +32 F degrees, especially with very cold, dry, fast-moving air moving over the ice. --see below:

 

I used to run the bookdryer at our library. It's a modified supermarket freezer -basically- with lots of extra fans, insulation, thermocouple thermometers, and timers (and flashing lights & alarms).

 

...

 

~

 

You reminded me of that simple but beautiful little experiment I once did in a chemistry class. Beaker of water with ice cubes, thermometer, and bunsen burner. :thumbs_up

[Essay]

Ah yes, that first-year-type experiment is a much better example of...

 

"How is the ice melting if it is not getting warmer," isn't it?

 

...on the difference between heat and temperature....

 

~ ;)

[HydrogenBond]

If I am not mistaken, something that floats in water, such as a ship, will displace its weight in water. Something that is submerged will displace its volume in water. As such, much of the arctic ice, that floats on the Arctic ocean will displace its weight in water. This means the sea level already reflects the weight of the ice, even if part of ice is above the ocean. This is why the melting of arctic circle, which is floating on ocean, has had little impact on ocean level at your local beach.

 

The reason this occurs is water expands when it freezes by about 10%. So it looks like we have 10% more water, which would raise the oceans. But once its melts, the volume drops by that same 10%, and we lose the extra volume.

 

If we froze all the oceans, they would rise by about 10%. A deep trench that is 30,000 feet deep would rise about 3000 ft above sea level. The ocean would look like an icy elevated continent. If we melted this high ocean ice terrain, one might expect water to spill onto the land, since this ice terrain is taller. But it would lose 10% volume, when it melts, to reform the old sea level.

 

I am not worried about flooding from ice floating on the arctic ocean or any ocean, since its weight (liquid water volume) is already reflected in the current sea level. But ice on land will add 90% of its volume to the oceans. Luckily the Antarctic has a large land mass and that land ice is getting thicker in many spots as an offset.

[lemit]

There's quite a bit of land close enough to the North Pole to make a difference. All of those northern glaciers are on land. In fact, unless I've missed something somewhere, all glaciers are on land, or at least form there. Am I missing something? Are there undersea glaciers, or maybe glaciers that inch their way down seaborne ice floes?

 

My basic premise, which probably doesn't always show, is that I really am missing something somewhere, so I'll be interested in seeing how Greenland, the Nordic countries, Siberia, Alaska, and Canada don't figure into concerns about the North Pole's ice cap.

 

Come to think of it, there used to be at least a half dozen glaciers here. They're all gone now. No more summer skiing in the Medicine Bow or the Mummy or even in the Never Summer range.

[Essay]

If I am not mistaken, something that floats in water....

....

Luckily the Antarctic has a large land mass and that land ice is getting thicker in many spots as an offset.

 

HB, you are not mistaken about the effect of melting ice on sea-level rise; although the topic has been about melting ice and temperature (not sea level), but all your points are correct -- except for the last point about increasing Antarctic land ice acting "as an offset."

===

 

Although, as you say, some areas in East Antarctica are gaining ice, the net balance for all of Antarctica is a loss of about 100-150 billion tons of ice/year.

 

A similar, additional loss has been measured for Greenland (minus 100-150 billion tons/year)...

...and all landed glaciers account for close to another 100 billion tons/year of net ice loss.

...for a total net loss of ice over 300 billion tons each year (well, for that first year).

===

 

That's what I recall of the initial GRACE data, but maybe you have some updates or other sources?

~SA

[HydrogenBond]

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered • The Register

 

YouTube - Change in Arctic Ice mid-August 2007 - 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKLiHWRaJU4

[Essay]

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

Yes, it's still far ahead of "schedule," according to the scientist's "orders" (predictions).

===

 

HB, what's your point? Why do you post something about "ice extent," that everybody already knows about? What does this have to do with the "net melting" of ice in the Antarctic, Greenland, or from landed glaciers?

 

What does this have to do with the topic? Are you talking to me; or just talking like BrianG -avoiding responses, only to post diversions? ....Are you talking to me? :)

[HydrogenBond]

If I look at 2007-2008 the new ice in the Arctic is forming very fast. Glaciers take centuries to form, so they will not reform over night. If we hypothetically started global cooling today, it would takes decades or centuries to see glaciers reform since it is slow building process. In a place that gets 1 in of rain (snow) per year, one warm day can cancel that out and appear 360 times stronger.

 

The Arctic ice responds quickly to temperature changes and is a better barometer of what is happening in real time. Instead of thousands of years to make a glacier, in an arid place, one year is fast enough to alter the Arctic either way. This allows us to compare melting and freezing using a level playing field.

[lemit]

About the video, it's kind of hard to tell anything from a single year's change. Satellite photos from 1979 to 2007 show a fairly dramatic change in the perennial ice:

 

YouTube - Arctic Ice from Sept. 1979 to Oct. 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr4CKJ4kH5U&feature=player_embedded

[Essay]

If I look at 2007-2008 the new ice in the Arctic is forming very fast. Glaciers take centuries to form, so they will not reform over night. If we hypothetically started global cooling today, it would takes decades or centuries to see glaciers reform since it is slow building process. In a place that gets 1 in of rain (snow) per year, one warm day can cancel that out and appear 360 times stronger.

 

The Arctic ice responds quickly to temperature changes and is a better barometer of what is happening in real time. Instead of thousands of years to make a glacier, in an arid place, one year is fast enough to alter the Arctic either way. This allows us to compare melting and freezing using a level playing field.

Yes, hypothetically...

...the Arctic is a good barometer (predictor), though I wouldn't call it a perfectly "level" playing field.

 

Are you saying this shows some sort of trend (that we'll see in the glaciers eventually)?

I agree with Lemit that one year is a fairly short trend.

HB, did you read all of your own link to the Register? :)

===

 

This might help with the *Editor's Note, from that Register article.

National Ice Center Marks 2009 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum [u.S. International Polar Year]

10/16/2009

 

The National/Naval Ice Center (NIC) has concluded that the 2009 sea ice minimum occurred between Sept. 16 and 23. According to available NIC data and analysis, the lowest 2009 extent was estimated to have covered 5.84 million square kilometers.

 

[Data from IMS estimated the 2009 sea ice minimum to have covered 4.88 million square kilometers. IMS does not include areas of water surrounding ice in its calculation, so the number represents area covered by ice rather than total extent. This figure closely mirrors NIC’s 100% ice boundary (8/10ths or more sea ice), estimated at 4.6 million square km.]

 

Although not as low as 2007 and 2008, NIC’s calculations identify 2009 as being the third-lowest sea ice minimum since 1979.

 

p.s.

As a joint interagency organization of the U.S. Navy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and U.S. Coast Guard, the NIC runs NOAA’s Interactive Multi-sensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS). Relatively new to the NIC, this system also applies multiple source (Visible sensors, Passive Microwave instruments, Scatterometry instruments, Synthetic Aperture Radar) imagery, and Ship Observations, but produces an ice edge product with a constant resolution of 4km. Because of this constant resolution, the IMS product is presently used as an operational input into several NWS computer weather prediction models as well as several other governmental agencies.

[Michaelangelica]

See

http://hypography.com/forums/science-news-elsewhere/21776-antarctica-ice-melt-gives-0-25-a.html

Antarctica ice melt c. 100 billion tonnes fresh water PA

Arctic c. 120 billion tonnes water per year

Thus giving an annual sea level rise of c. 0.5mm per year + glacier melts.- +- give or take a bit for the ice already in the sea.

[BrianG]

...

The Arctic ice responds quickly to temperature changes and is a better barometer of what is happening in real time. Instead of thousands of years to make a glacier, in an arid place, one year is fast enough to alter the Arctic either way. This allows us to compare melting and freezing using a level playing field.

 

Do you think there is a romantic, or arcane attraction to polar research? No one lives there or visits in the winter. I like to watch ice and snow melt outside my window, but visiting the poles would be fantastic.

[Michaelangelica]

No one lives there or visits in the winter.

Not even remotely true, like many of your posts.

I like to watch ice and snow melt outside my window, but visiting the poles would be fantastic.

45,000+ tourist visitors to Antarctica last year.

Cheapest/quickest to go via S. America or you can go via Hobart.

http://current.com/items/89979088_new-tourism-limits-for-antarctica-less-cruise-ships-and-visitors.htm

Glad to see you have a few romantic bones in that thick skull of yours.

[REASON]

45,000+ tourist visitors to Antarctica last year.

Cheapest/quickest to go via S. America or you can go via Hobart.

New tourism limits for Antarctica... less cruise ships and visitors // Current

 

A few years ago, my sister went on a six week cruise down the Eastern coast of South America to Antarctica. She documented her entire trip on line. She took some of my mother's ashes and spread them there. We also had spread some in the ocean when we were in Hawaii. Her remains are all over the planet. :eek_big: