August 16, 2020
More on Melting Greenland
Timothy Birdnow
As I recently reported the media is once again making dire warnings about global warming melting the Greenland ice cap. It's melting away faster than Joe Biden's sanity, we are told.
Well, here are two more reasons why it 'taint so.
I think the real key here is how warm the air is around the Greenland ice cap, or rather how warm it isn't.
I would direct everyone's attention to this from the National Snow and Ice Data Center about why we had a big melt last year.
So, it was lack of cloud cover that has driven this recent ice melt, not warm temperatures. And it was caused by high pressure in the Arctic, something that has nothing whatsoever to do with carbon-dioxide caused warming.
It should also be pointed out that the Arctic is sensitive to volcanism, and Greenland's sheet is subject to ice melt as a result.
In 2010 Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland. While this was ten years ago, it may well have triggered a good deal of the ice melt we see now. It takes a long time for ice to melt, and new ice melts far more easily than old. And certainly it lead to years of weak ice growth in winter.
Mt. Merapi also erupted in 2010, leading to a major decline in the arctic ozone in 2011.
So what? Doesn't that suggest an overall greater radiation insolation? (It should be pointed out that UV levels have risen globally over thirty years; interesting, no? Especially in light of the fact that our very modest global warming started about the same time.)
One wonders at how this affects the Greenland ice sheet.
Volcanoes can and do accelerate ice loss in the arctic. See this article too.
How long does it take for the effects to be witnessed? That is unclear, but what is clear is Greenland's ice loss may or may not be tied to it. But that makes more sense than global warming when temperatures haven't been all that anomalous.
So, there are multiple factors that help explain what is happening in Greenland, and few of them are tied to carbon dioxide.
As I recently reported the media is once again making dire warnings about global warming melting the Greenland ice cap. It's melting away faster than Joe Biden's sanity, we are told.
Well, here are two more reasons why it 'taint so.
I think the real key here is how warm the air is around the Greenland ice cap, or rather how warm it isn't.
I would direct everyone's attention to this from the National Snow and Ice Data Center about why we had a big melt last year.
"The key factors for surface mass loss and melting for Greenland in 2019 included: 1) exceptional persistence of anticyclonic conditions (high pressure) during the 2019 summer, promoting dry and sunny weather that enhanced the surface melt thanks to the melt-albedo feedback, and 2) low snowfall in the preceding fall-winter-spring, particularly in the high-melt areas of western Greenland.
High pressure was dominant along the northwestern side of Greenland and Baffin Bay for the core of the melt season in June, July, and August this year, driving warmer air toward the northern region of the ice sheet and leading to clear sky conditions that promoted solar-driven surface melting (Figure 4). As the thin winter snow cover melted away early in the summer, darker older ice was exposed. Clear sunny weather led to a very high run-off rate, resulting in large mass losses. Persistent high pressure over Baffin Bay drove some downsloping wind events along the southwestern coasts. Melting along the northern coast as simulated by MAR was the highest recorded since 1978.
The summer months were only moderately warmer than average relative to 1981 to 2010, roughly 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher along the western coast. This confirms that the main driver of surface melt in 2019 was above average cloud-free days, not warm air temperatures as in the 2012 summer melt. This also explains the exceptional dry and sunny conditions at the south."
High pressure was dominant along the northwestern side of Greenland and Baffin Bay for the core of the melt season in June, July, and August this year, driving warmer air toward the northern region of the ice sheet and leading to clear sky conditions that promoted solar-driven surface melting (Figure 4). As the thin winter snow cover melted away early in the summer, darker older ice was exposed. Clear sunny weather led to a very high run-off rate, resulting in large mass losses. Persistent high pressure over Baffin Bay drove some downsloping wind events along the southwestern coasts. Melting along the northern coast as simulated by MAR was the highest recorded since 1978.
The summer months were only moderately warmer than average relative to 1981 to 2010, roughly 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher along the western coast. This confirms that the main driver of surface melt in 2019 was above average cloud-free days, not warm air temperatures as in the 2012 summer melt. This also explains the exceptional dry and sunny conditions at the south."
So, it was lack of cloud cover that has driven this recent ice melt, not warm temperatures. And it was caused by high pressure in the Arctic, something that has nothing whatsoever to do with carbon-dioxide caused warming.
It should also be pointed out that the Arctic is sensitive to volcanism, and Greenland's sheet is subject to ice melt as a result.
In 2010 Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland. While this was ten years ago, it may well have triggered a good deal of the ice melt we see now. It takes a long time for ice to melt, and new ice melts far more easily than old. And certainly it lead to years of weak ice growth in winter.
Mt. Merapi also erupted in 2010, leading to a major decline in the arctic ozone in 2011.
So what? Doesn't that suggest an overall greater radiation insolation? (It should be pointed out that UV levels have risen globally over thirty years; interesting, no? Especially in light of the fact that our very modest global warming started about the same time.)
One wonders at how this affects the Greenland ice sheet.
Volcanoes can and do accelerate ice loss in the arctic. See this article too.
How long does it take for the effects to be witnessed? That is unclear, but what is clear is Greenland's ice loss may or may not be tied to it. But that makes more sense than global warming when temperatures haven't been all that anomalous.
So, there are multiple factors that help explain what is happening in Greenland, and few of them are tied to carbon dioxide.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:49 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 602 words, total size 4 kb.
1
Buy weed uk,we have the best cannabis and cannabis products in our online that will help you with all your needs,Over the years we have help thousands of patients from anxiety,cancer,pains,chronic headache etc which have been of great benefit to them a great deal and make them more productive and of help to their various countries and to the world at large making DARKNET WEED STORE one of the best online stores operating 24/7 and our great staff that are always of help any time and answers all your questions
Posted by: buy weed uk at August 18, 2020 09:04 AM (fDBkd)
27kb generated in CPU 0.0158, elapsed 0.4909 seconds.
37 queries taking 0.4854 seconds, 172 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
37 queries taking 0.4854 seconds, 172 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
