Key Greenland glacier growing again after shrinking for years, NASA study shows
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — A major Greenland glacier that was one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again, a new NASA study finds.
The Jakobshavn glacier around 2012 was retreating about 1.8 miles and thinning nearly 130 feet annually. But it started growing again at about the same rate in the past two years, according to a study in Monday’s Nature Geoscience . Study authors and outside scientists think this is temporary.
“That was kind of a surprise. We kind of got used to a runaway system,” said Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland ice and climate scientist Jason Box. “The good news is that it’s a reminder that it’s not necessarily going that fast. But it is going.”
Box, who wasn’t part of the study, said Jakobshavn is “arguably the most important Greenland glacier because it discharges the most ice in the northern hemisphere. For all of Greenland, it is king.”
A natural cyclical cooling of North Atlantic waters likely caused the glacier to reverse course, said study lead author Ala Khazendar, a NASA glaciologist on the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project. Khazendar and colleagues say this coincides with a flip of the North Atlantic Oscillation — a natural and temporary cooling and warming of parts of the ocean that is like a distant cousin to El Nino in the Pacific.
The water in Disko Bay, where Jakobshavn hits the ocean, is about 3.6 degrees cooler than a few years ago, study authors said.
While this is “good news” on a temporary basis, this is bad news on the long term because it tells scientists that ocean temperature is a bigger player in glacier retreats and advances than previously thought, said NASA climate scientist Josh Willis, a study co-author. Over the decades the water has been and will be warming from man-made climate change, he said, noting that about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the oceans.
“In the long run we’ll probably have to raise our predictions of sea level rise again,” Willis said.
Think of the ocean temperatures near Greenland like an escalator that’s rising slowly from global warming, Khazendar said. But the natural North Atlantic Oscillation sometimes is like jumping down a few steps or jumping up a few steps. The water can get cooler and have effects, but in the long run it is getting warmer and the melting will be worse, he said.
Four outside scientists said the study and results make sense.
University of Washington ice scientist Ian Joughin, who wasn’t part of the study and predicted such a change seven years ago, said it would be a “grave mistake” to interpret the latest data as contradicting climate change science.
What’s happening, Joughin said, is “to a large extent, a temporary blip. Downturns do occur in the stock market, but overall the long term trajectory is up. This is really the same thing.”
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I'll take it!
I will continue the fight against all polluters.
Pollution is one thing, but Carbon Dioxide is not pollution as it is essential for plants to exist.
I totally agree.
Too much of a good thing can be bad. We just don't know.
Yes, we do know from the geological record and ice cores. We have not even reached anywhere near past levels of Carbon Dioxide nor have we reached anywhere near the hottest points of the Earth since complex life began.
Yes, plants do breathe in CO2 but at night it's the opposite, they breathe in O2 and breathe out CO2, this is why algal blooms occur over night.
And.....they keep cutting down the trees in the rain forest our biggest uptakers of CO2 will be gone
Tru dat!
So we just go ahead and chop down all the trees?
In the last 800,000 years this is the period of the highest Co2.
Actually scientists know just how much is good and how much is bad. Do the research.
Actually, we are not losing plants that clean up CO2. Remember, in 1900, Pennsylvania had almost NO trees. By 1990, PA was 2/3rds forest. Secondly, trees are not the only plants that turn CO2 into O2, only 1 square yard of grass is needed to supply a human with a lifetime of O2.
The last 800,000 years and you are claiming panic. Yet, when the CO2 levels were over 1000 ppm in the Cretaceous Period, the planet was mostly tropical forest and dinosaurs were one of the prime life forms. Life was teeming then, and humans were not even a glimmer of an idea.
Humans can survive in those conditions, since many do so already.
First of all, I am hardly panicked. You seem to forget that I am the one who posted this article. If I was a person devout to AGW (btw different from global warming), I wouldn't be posting this, right?
I'm sorry, but where are those dinos today? Oh yes, extinct.
Each major climate change came with an extinction, Tom. Just because humans are clever doesn't mean they can't go extinct. Heck, AI could do us in before the next major shift. But we are harming the planet with our activities that we know of, like plastic in the oceans, and radioactive zones that no one is allowed to enter. We are over fishing species of fish while cutting down the rain forest, which is our protection from Co2.
So yes, I am concerned. Panicked no. Concerned and cautious, yes.
You need land for that. We are at the breaking point with that with human population.
Humans didn't even exist back then. Let's talk about the last 200,000 years when we developed.
Yet, what does it really mean with regard to global temperatures?
Our temperatures are no where near the hottest of past interglacials, nor that of our current interglacial when the CO2 levels were much lower.
Lot of questions and no clear magic bullets.
Yeah....I'm gonna need proof of that. I grew up in Western PA and there were a helluva lot of trees everywhere I looked. Old trees, too, like oak, hickory, and maple.
And I studied biology. I know that all plants transpire CO2
Good point. And you need water
You were alive in 1900? I highly doubt that. Have you ever been to Wellsboro in Northern PA? There is a nice park near there called The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which has historical pictures of the area being completely denuded of trees along with historical articles that state that there were almost no trees in PA in 1900. By the way, how old were those trees in reality? You see, I grew up a little more than an hour south of the PA Grand Canyon. My family moved there in 1979 and the trees were old then. Heck, I even learned about PA being denuded of forests in 8th grade in my PA history class. So, there are multiple sources out there about PA being almost treeless in 1900.
George Carlin put my view of the climate into better words:
Did I say I was alive in 1900?
No, what I said was I needed proof from that you that were no trees in PA at all in 1900. And yes, I have been to the PA Grand Canyon numerous times, I lived in Mansfield for about 3 years. I can see the area around the Grand Canyon being completely denuded because at one time that area was logged pretty heavily.
Ever been to Elk County? I seriously doubt that was completely denuded.
You can talk all you want about what you learned in PA History in 8th grade but doesn't prove your theory.
How about the Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Resources website talking about the Pennsylvania Desert of 1886:
Look, this is how it works, you make a claim you back it up. I don't know why you people can't get that.
And your link must not work very well since it's showing in black and not blue
The reason it is in black is because during all the changes to the site, it stopped putting hyperlinks in automatically at least when using Microsoft Edge as the browser and I forgot to fix it as a link.
Thank you XDm9mm for posting the hyperlink as a link for me.
EDIT: By the way, nothing stops you from copying and pasting the link in another browser window. And, frankly, you should probably do that as a hyperlink can actually be to a spoofed page or a virus instead of to an actual webpage.
Oh, so the only history we need is relatively recent history. Despite the fact that humans are supremely adaptable and there were many life forms at the time of those high CO2 concentrations and much higher temperatures that were MUCH BIGGER than humans and many far more numerous than humans? Heck, insects FAR outnumber humans currently, but only humans count and nothing else matters despite everything, including this report, pointing to climate being cyclical and humanity having very little effect on the world's climate overall? We are not in a runaway system, even if we are, we still have many, many years before we would actually know it since we have yet to even get close to what Earth was like when dinosaurs were on the planet. Once we surpass those levels, then and only then, can we claim to be affecting the Earth far more than nature, itself.
Water Vapor is the single most potent greenhouse gas in existence. But, no one is calling for the regulation of that. In fact, the IPCC excuses Water Vapor from their Greenhouse gas potential calculations due to the fact it does not decay.
EDIT:
Water Vapor makes up 72% of the greenhouse effect, depending on location. So, why are we focusing on the stuff that makes up at most 1/4th of the greenhouse effect?
Global warming sure is a weird thing, isn't it.
Especially when what we claim are the signs of global warming are also the signs of a coming ice age.
We will all die of heat long before the next ice age.
and taxing energy was the solution then as well... LOL
like magic...
it seems taxing energy can fix global cooling, global warming, and today's climate change as well
Please, no political figures in this. My bad for not posting it in the beginning.
No actual scientists thought that. Just a few writers from the NY Times were looking to make money.
All of us scientists knew the planet was warming.
For the atmosphere to lift that much water to cover the northern hemisphere with a mile deep layer of ice down past the 45th parallel, it takes heat not cold.
Meanwhile, people like AOC think it is from cows and people breathing too much!
I tried holding my breath.....
aoc is a moron who just had her green new deal shot down in the senate
not a single democrat voted in favor of her stupidity. simply too funny
"Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Democrats were being hypocritical by refusing to vote for their own plan. “I’ve never seen a bill sponsored by a dozen people who don’t want to vote on it,” he said."
s-force-a-vote-on-green-new-deal/
Actually, too many cows and too many people play a large part in AGW.
I'm not giving up my bacon cheeseburgers but I will try to stop farting as much
"Change" is not a "One-Way" street. Never has been, although some
, will try to "manipulate" you to think "One-Way" ONLY !
That's called irony. Some also will say there is no man-made global warming. Both are wrong since both can't be proved scientifically. The issue is whether or not to err on side of caution or not, and to watch for changes, hence why I presented this as the morning news.
Err on the side of caution....sure.
Going full blown Nutz about it (Green deal)….. Not so much !
Don't forget, there has been Climate warming/heating/cooling/disruption/burnt to a crisp and die/cities will be ravaged by tsunamis and floods/fiery hellhole incapable of supporting human life Change... (whatever)…... waaaaay before man....that wiped out entire species ! "WE", man/women, sure didn't do it then !
Butter or Margarine ?
Even that simple little eatable, changes from good to bad waaay to often !
That is true, but it took us humans to put a hole in the ozone layer, so we do know our activity does cause problems.
Do we know for sure that there was NEVER a hole in the layer....before man ?
It's like hurricanes. We know what we know since we've been alive.....from a certain starting point that is.
Hell, we can't even agree on what REALLY wiped out the dinosaurs. There are theories though.
I was just in Houston during the processing plant fire. I could smell the chemicals in the air driving on the highway.
We do poison the earth.
At times !
Like they say ……. "Shit happens" !
Ya, Ya, Ya....I know.....the children. That's been said for last few hundred years.....YET …… The children are still here too....and growing, unless "Taken" by medical procedure that is.
Weird, how this planet has been around for billions of years, hit by everything imaginable and unimaginable, and yet it only takes 200 or so years of industry for little old people like us to wipe it out ?
Honest ?
The planet will be around, not so sure about life upon it.
We can wipe it out and turn it into a wasteland.
In a couple of billion years the sun will grow too. Then the earth will be burned to a crisp.
Time to throw caution to the wind.
How is it that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were there and suddenly were not... done by little old people like us who wiped them out.
We can be very destructive.
There are things we can stop and things we can do other than saying fuck it.
Deregulation and letting companies pollute the environment is not a great way to go.
Yes, we do since we know how it happens. It has to do with HFC's and they are man made. There is a chemical reaction between them and the ozone layer around the earth that protects us from the sun's radiation.
and yet...
both hiroshima and nagasaki thrive today.
we can be constructive as well.
cheers
Yes, we scientists know about ozone and what killed the dinosaurs. Only science deniers are in doubt.
So because another country is worse than us we should say screw it and do nothing?
If a neighbor has a crap pile in his yard, we should all not care about any yard because of his?
That is not thinking at all and just shrugging ones shoulders and saying oh well.
Just by the push of a trigger.
By then we will have been long dead or found another planet somewhere else to live.
Earned a few college degrees back in the day. Did you?
With the new space force leading the way.
Do tell !
Ozone Recovery to Warm Antarctica?
Meanwhile, some scientists say the environmental triumph of a recovering ozone layer could have a troubling side effect: boosting global warming, at least in the Antarctic region.
Ozone itself is a greenhouse gas. A thinner ozone layer not only reduced heat trapped over the region, it helped stir circumpolar winds, which in turn created sea spray that formed reflective, cooling clouds.
"It's very difficult to quantify the impact on a global scale, but I think the evidence suggests filling the hole will have a regional effect on the Antarctic, possibly leading to more warming for the bulk of the Antarctic," Shanklin said. "That could drastically change predictions about global sea level change."
They've been all over the place.
It "IS" good.... It "ISN'T good...….ummmmmm …. Butter/Margarine...Margarine/Butter....let's throw some "I can't believe it's not butter" in there too ! (shoulder shrug)
But they ARE there !
I think they call it ….. "Cleaning up" !
Maybe humanity should STOP trying to make humans "Live Longer" than they used to ?
Still need to address overpopulation
The elephant in the room.
Nature might do that itself.
The sun has begun to enter a cooling stage. This will affect the temps here on earth.
Milankovitch cycles are puny in comparison to the effects of AGW. What used to occur over thousands of years is now happening in just decades. Planet Earth will not likely cool off for thousands of years. We screwed the pooch!
Always wanted more hair on my balls.
agreed
Soylent green.
It may come to that eventually.
perhaps one day everyone who supports eugenics will lead by example and jump off this rock on their own accord... then and only then will people follow.
its a dream of mine
the sad reality is people are only willing to forfeit "other" peoples lives when saving the planet.
You didn't say if it worked.
because a changing climate contradicts "climate change?
what a fukin moron.... LOL
let me help ya out here kids...
we are now seeing solar cooling... and therefore global cooling
yet, they are surprised by more ice? seriously, too damn funny.
but please, pay carbon taxes so al gore can run the AC at his beach house.
cheers
Not so fast, there is something about the earth's upper atmosphere that makes it opposite or at least negates the sun's output, it's call the thermosphere, when the sun warms the thermosphere expands protecting the earth from the extra heat and when the sun cool's it contracts allowing the heat further down into the atmosphere.