The New York Times is reporting that Greenland is Melting Away
You may wonder where all the water is going.
Scientists know that the melting of Greenland is accelerating. As the temperature rises, large lakes form on the surface of the ice, which in turn create a network of rivers.“The rivers melt down faster than the surrounding ice, like a knife through butter,” Dr. Smith said.The rivers then flow down into giant holes in the ice, called moulins, which drain through tunnels in the ice sheet and out into the ocean.
Its been going on since 2013 at least.
“The ice sheet is porous, like Swiss cheese,” Dr. Smith said. “We didn’t know that until this year.”
We know that the polar ice caps have been melting, but convinced ourselves it was nothing serious as yet, we expected we still have decades maybe centuries to turn things around, but lately the ice caps have been running an annual deficit large enough for researchers to be concerned.
Underneath the Glaciers is a huge lake or aquifer into which the water is draining. When the water level gets high enough it will burst through the exits to the sea.
Two Massive Lakes Under the Greenland Ice Sheet Drained Away in WeeksThe discovery signals a "catastrophic" environmental shift
Two lakes underneath the ice in Greenland that previously held billions of gallons of water were rapidly drained, probably in a matter of weeks, researchers discovered recently.
Researchers from various universities involved in a comprehensive mapping effort of the Greenland Ice Sheet discovered two craters over a mile wide that used to be sub-glacial lakes, Science Daily reports.
The findings, published separately in scientific journals The Cryosphere and Nature, signal an environmental shift that Ohio State earth sciences professor Ian Howat described as “catastrophic.”
Howat led the team that discovered the first lake, described in The Cryosphere, which previous satellite images showed had been intact for about 40 years and held 6.7 billion gallons of water. However, more recent images indicate it probably dried up sometime in 2011.
The second, even larger lake has reportedly drained and refilled twice in the last two years, indicating a sharp rise in meltwater that is affecting the glacial drainage system. The depletion and refilling of the lakes brings with it a lot of stored heat that researchers say may adversely impact the ice sheet itself.
“The fact that our lake appears to have been stable for at least several decades, and then drained in a matter of weeks — or less — after a few very hot summers, may signal a fundamental change happening in the ice sheet,” said Howat.
The sharp increase in surface melt extent (and estimated melt runoff) in July resulted in large ice mass loss rates. Although 2015 is not at satellite-era record levels (set in 2012), there was a large rate of loss overall. A combination of low snowfall in the past winter season and warm temperatures with extensive melting resulted in a large loss of ice from the ice sheet in the northwest. Some areas in the southern one-third of the ice sheet have less loss than average. Greenland typically loses mass due to melt runoff through the summer, although in recent years both low snow and runoff, and an increase in glacier outflow (not shown here) have combined to significantly shrink the thickness of the ice sheet, contributing to sea level rise.
August 10, 2015 the Huffington Post pointed out that
Arctic Ice Loss Is So Bad National Geographic Has To Keep Redrawing Its Atlas
Yet still we have all of the Republicans in Congress claiming its a Hoax.
Leading the Republican charge on Capitol Hill is Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the chairman of the House science committee, who has sought to cut $300 million from NASA’s budget for earth science and has started an inquiry into some 50 National Science Foundation grants. On Oct. 13, the committee subpoenaed scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, seeking more than six years of internal deliberations, including “all documents and communications” related to the agency’s measurement of climate change.
Any cuts could directly affect the work of Dr. Smith and his team, who are supported by a three-year, $778,000 grant from NASA, which must cover everything, including researchers’ salaries, flights, food, computers, scientific instruments and camping, safety and extreme cold-weather gear. Every scientist, Dr. Smith said, is keenly aware that the research costs “a tremendous amount of taxpayer money.”
Tue Oct 27, 2015 at 7:12 PM PT: Update to correct an error Lamar Smith is intended in the Poll rather than Lamar Alexander. My apologies, and thanks to Bush Bites for the correction.