'Heat Dome' Linked to Greenland's Biggest Melt in 30 Years

[Hissyspit]

Source: NPR

'Heat Dome' Linked To Greenland's Biggest Melt In 30 Years

Published: July 25, 2012
by Mark Memmott

Last week there were the pictures of an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan breaking off Greenland's Petermann Glacier.

Now there are NASA images showing that in four days earlier this month, "Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations."

The space agency adds that "nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists." The changes happened from July 8 to July 12.

NASA says "this extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May."

Read more: http://www.npr.org/story/157343661

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NASA

In these illustrations NASA produced from satellite data, the melt in Greenland on July 8 (at left) and July 12 are shown. According to NASA, "the areas classified as 'probable melt' (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as 'melt' (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting."

[Berlum]

1. The 8th Fire

say some...according to understandings long held...

[Hubert Flottz]

2. The same people who say there's nothing to the global warming reports.

Said it was a great idea to Drill baby Drill in 5,000 feet of saltwater in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Oil "Experts" only believe in the science of making more money for themselves.

[dipsydoodle]

3. See post in Environment Forum too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112720516

[nanabugg]

4. Greenland might be the next best place to retire once the ice is gone. nt

[Overseas]

5. K&R. Awful news.

[DaveJ]

6. It's not like they didn't warn us

Politicians, media, movies, and most scientists say we're in big trouble with the climate, yet we go on living our hunky dory lives until the moment the earth becomes uninhabitable.

[JayhawkSD]

7. The parts of the article left out:

From the New York Times, "While scientists described it as an “extreme event” not previously recorded from space, they hastened to add that it was normal in a broader historical context."

From the BBC, "He said that, because this Greenland-wide melting has happened before - in 1889 - scientists are not yet able to determine whether this is a natural but rare event, or if it has been sparked by man-made climate change."

I not only agree that global climate change is occurring, I am convinced it is happening faster then we know. But no single event is proof, or even evidence of that, and to keep jumping up and down over one event is nonsensical and makes us look like idiots. Deniers are going to look at this and point out that our "proof" given here is bogus because it not only happened before, it happened as far back as 1889.

Every time we make some claim that can be shown to be bogus, we give deniers ammunition to claim that we are nutcases rather than serious people who are concerned about our planet. Every time we take some little thing and blow it up into something which it is not, we weaken our cause. Stop acting like children, and get serious about this issue.

[Uncle Joe]

8. 1889 is just a few years after Krakatoa exploded in Aug of 1883.

An 1889 melting event is probably a result of glaciers retreating after having advanced during a short period of global dimming as soot which had a cooling effect in the atmosphere gradually fell to the surface and warmed the glaciers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krackatoa

Krakatoa (Indonesian: Krakatau) was a volcanic island made of lava[2] in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island (also called Rakata), and the volcano as a whole. The volcano exploded in 1883, killing 36,417 people. The explosion is considered to be the loudest sound ever heard in modern history, with reports of it being heard nearly 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from its point of origin. The shock wave from the explosion was recorded on barographs around the globe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Particulates and soot

Global dimming, a gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface, was observed from 1961 until at least 1990.[70] The main cause of this dimming is particulates produced by volcanoes and human made pollutants, which exerts a cooling effect by increasing the reflection of incoming sunlight. The effects of the products of fossil fuel combustion – CO2 and aerosols – have largely offset one another in recent decades, so that net warming has been due to the increase in non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as methane.[71] Radiative forcing due to particulates is temporally limited due to wet deposition which causes them to have an atmospheric lifetime of one week. Carbon dioxide has a lifetime of a century or more, and as such, changes in particulate concentrations will only delay climate changes due to carbon dioxide


(snip)

Soot may cool or warm the surface, depending on whether it is airborne or deposited. Atmospheric soot directly absorb solar radiation, which heats the atmosphere and cools the surface. In isolated areas with high soot production, such as rural India, as much as 50% of surface warming due to greenhouse gases may be masked by atmospheric brown clouds.[77] When deposited, especially on glaciers or on ice in arctic regions, the lower surface albedo can also directly heat the surface.[78] The influences of particulates, including black carbon, are most pronounced in the tropics and sub-tropics, particularly in Asia, while the effects of greenhouse gases are dominant in the extratropics and southern hemisphere

[RainDog]

9. Thanks for the context, Uncle Joe

[truebrit71]

11. +1

Very good find...the deniers have been using this as a push-back all day..

[Uncle Joe]

13. Thanks for the thanks, Raindog,

peace to you.

[OmahaBlueDog]

10. Also NASA says core samples show this event occurs about every 150 years

I (unknowingly) posted a different article on the same subject in GD.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-strange-sudden-massive-melt-greenland-193426302.html

[truebrit71]

12. Teh stupid runs strong in the comments on that link...

...but then again it is yahoo afterall...