Greenland's Icebergs In A Warming World (PHOTOS)

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) -- Greenland's Inuit people have countless terms in their language to describe ice in all its varieties. This gallery of photographs by AP's Brennan Linsley likewise is something of a visual vocabulary for the striking and beautiful forms ice takes on and around the giant Arctic island.

Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers are melting more and more as the world warms, sending gushing water and towering icebergs into the sea, threatening to raise ocean levels worldwide in the years and decades to come. Researchers are hard at work trying to gauge how much will melt and when.

Some of the most spectacular icebergs are calved from the 6-kilometer-wide (4-mile-wide) Jakobshavn Glacier near this town on the west central coast, icebergs that push out into the 50-kilometer-long (30-mile-long) Ilulissat Ice Fjord, and then into Disko Bay and eventually the North Atlantic.

The ice, much of it tens of thousands of years old, originates in the 1.7-million-square-kilometer (660,000-square-mile) ice sheet covering 80 percent of Greenland.

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In this July 18, 2011 photo, a boat steers slowly through floating ice, and around icebergs, all shed from the Greenland ice sheet, outside Ilulissat, Greenland. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

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In this July 18, 2011 photo, a boat steers slowly through floating ice, and around icebergs, all shed from the Greenland ice sheet, outside Ilulissat, Greenland. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

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[alteredstory]

06:34 PM on 08/25/2011

This is a parable about the nature of skepticism and science that everybody (deniers and accepters alike) would benefit from reading.

http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/the-duck/

NOT my blog, though I wish I'd written it :P

[Publicola]

04:41 PM on 08/23/2011

The preeminent science journal Nature:

--------------------
Into Ignorance

17 March 2011

Vote to overturn an aspect of climate science marks a worrying trend in US Congress.

As Nature went to press, a committee of the US Congress was poised to pass legislation that would overturn a scientific finding on the dangers of global warming. The Republican-sponsored bill is intended to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions, which the agency declared a threat to public welfare in 2009…

That this finding is scientifically sound had no bearing on the decision to push the legislation, and Republicans on the House of Representatives' energy and commerce committee have made clear their disdain for climate science. At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents…

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness, a sad state of affairs in a country that has led the world in many scientific arenas for so long.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7338/full/471265b.html

[Publicola]

04:49 PM on 08/23/2011

Que:

Heartland Institute apologist agwScam tries to smear the preeminent science journal Nature, just as he has repeatedly tried to smear the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and every other reputable scientific organizational entity that supports the scientific consensus on global warming.

When science deniers don't like what science tell us they bash the scientists.

[Publicola]

08:18 PM on 08/25/2011

Here we go again - yawn.
=============================================

Mr. Scam: "TESTIMONY OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS..­."

Patrick J. Michaels..­.

You mean this Patrick J. Michaels?

----------­----------­---------
Climate sceptic 'misled Congress over funding from oil industry'

Patrick Michaels, fellow at the Cato Institute, claimed 3% of his funding came from industry, later revealed that figure to be 40%...

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmen­tal studies at the Cato Institute, a thinktank founded by Charles and David Koch to promote their libertaria­n, anti-gover­nment views, appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009....

Michaels said 3% of his $4.2m in financial support came from the oil and gas industry. But in an appearance on CNN in August last year, and in subsequent interviews­, Michaels suggested that figure was 40%....

Michaels has also received direct funding from the Koch brothers. From their base in Wichita, Kansas, the Kochs control the largest privately held oil company in the US.... the Kochs have for years been funnelling money to organisati­ons which oppose government regulation­s and deny the existence of climate change.
----------­----------­---------
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/25/michaels-climate-sceptic-misled-congress

Why yes, you do.

[Publicola]

09:52 AM on 08/25/2011

Me: "Que: Heartland Institute apologist agwScam tries to smear the preeminent science journal Nature"

Heartland Institute apologist agwScam:

"Science and Nature magazines, nothing but global warming propaganda (statistic­ally proven)..."

lol..

Science deniers are so predictable.

Mr. Scam: "TESTIMONY OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS..."

Patrick J. Michaels...

You mean this Patrick J. Michaels?

-----------------------------
Climate sceptic 'misled Congress over funding from oil industry'

Patrick Michaels, fellow at the Cato Institute, claimed 3% of his funding came from industry, later revealed that figure to be 40%...

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a thinktank founded by Charles and David Koch to promote their libertarian, anti-government views, appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009....

Michaels said 3% of his $4.2m in financial support came from the oil and gas industry. But in an appearance on CNN in August last year, and in subsequent interviews, Michaels suggested that figure was 40%....

Michaels has also received direct funding from the Koch brothers. From their base in Wichita, Kansas, the Kochs control the largest privately held oil company in the US.... the Kochs have for years been funnelling money to organisations which oppose government regulations and deny the existence of climate change.
-----------------------------
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/25/michaels-climate-sceptic-misled-congress

Why yes, you do.

[jimboy71]

06:28 PM on 08/25/2011

Sigh. More deliberate smearing by noted Heartland apologist Scammer. Note that this poster has never published a credible bit of research in his life. Note also that he isn't on the editorial board of a long and storied science journal.

Only the truly fanatical would suggest that the entire corpus of both Science AND Nature is "nothing but propaganda" and this statement ITSELF is propagandizing. What empirical proof does the poster offer?

None. Just a qualitative meta study masquerading as statistics given not in publication, but as opinion to congress.

[Publicola]

03:45 PM on 08/23/2011

Debunked: SPPI Global Warming "Skeptic" Bob Carter

Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) "skeptic" uses Trick to Hide The Incline in global warming, as statistician Tamino demonstrates.*

SPPI global warming "skeptic" Bob Carter is a leader of and/or contributor to other prominent organizations that are "skeptical" of man-made global warming as well, including:

* The Heartland Institute

* The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

* The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)

* The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

The ICSC's Executive Director repeatedly refused to address SPPI global warming "skeptic" Bob Carter's de facto fraud here on HuffPo, despite the fact that the SPPI global warming "skeptic" is also the ICSC's Chief Science Adviser.**

Dear Orkeneygal,

Isn't Bob Carter committing de facto global warming fraud by representing increasing global temperature trend data as flat?* Isn't that like a global warming scam, a climate science hoax, a blantant deception, an indefensible lie, an inexcusable misrepresentation, outright fraud, etc.?

SPPi global warming "skeptic" Bob Carter is also a founding leader of the "skeptical" New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC). You have indicated that you live in New Zealand - what relationship do you have with the NZCSC, if any?

----------
* http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/bob-carter-does-his-business/

** http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/social/Publicola/climate-change-denial_b_896543_97738177.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Publicola/climate-change-impacts-water-resources_n_911152_101378826.html

[sawdustking]

12:33 AM on 08/21/2011

Greenland is losing a little over 50 cubic miles of ice every year, which sounds like quite a bit until you take into consideration that the entire Greenland Ice Sheet is 680,000 cubic miles and 75% of the ice loss is limited to coastal glaciers. Add to that the facts that 120,000 years ago during the last interglacial period of the Pleistocene Ice Age the whole thing nearly disappeared, what with the global temperatures being 6-10 degrees warmer than today (more in the higher latitudes, less in the lower). Heck, half a million years ago it was still a forest!

So, once again, what are we worried about?

[Publicola]

06:11 PM on 08/21/2011

sawdustking: "120,000 years ago... the whole thing nearly disappeared, what with the global temperatures being 6-10 degrees warmer than today... 

...what are we worried about?"

Yeah man, 

Just because the ice mass loss in Greenland is currently hundreds of billions of tons per year and accelerating, and just because unchecked global warming could raise global temperatures 6-10 degrees warmer than today, and just because a "nearly disappeared" Greenland ice sheet would raise global sea levels by over 20 feet and thus flood and destroy coastal urban metropolises all over the world, what is there to worry about?

/sarcasm

[sawdustking]

10:57 PM on 08/21/2011

So the worst case scenario is that the ice melt in Greenland becomes as serious as it was during the last interglacial period? And at the current rate of ice loss that won't be for another 12,000 years or so anyway? Do you think all those people in Florida can get out of the way in only 12,000 years?

/sarcasm

[Publicola]

11:39 PM on 08/21/2011

So what part of "the ice mass loss in Greenland is currently hundreds of billions of tons per year AND ACCELERATING" did you not understand, Sawdust?

Science denier rhetoric is stupefying.

[mamacat]

03:56 AM on 08/17/2011

I was reading that the plan to tow icebergs to a few locations that are naturally short of drinking water has been revived.
Seems to me that we should be able to do it, at least to a few locations.

[alteredstory]

06:28 PM on 08/25/2011

that energy and money would be better spend setting up solar/wind/tidal powered desalination plants.

[This American]

08:34 AM on 08/27/2011

Can you share with us the calculations behind that assumption, or is this something that you just "know"

[Drew Puli Wolf]

08:49 PM on 08/16/2011

What is strange with the climate change deniers is that they are soo last decade. With the evidence so overwhelming the major oil companies decided it was in their best interest to admit to climate change and try and control the debate on how to deal with it. To continue to try and discredit it, only made them look like the tobacco companies in the debate about lung cancer, and left them out of the discussion on what should be done to solve it. The only one who haven’t got the message that the argument has been decided is Fox News. Here are some links from the radical environmentalist at Exxon, Shell, and Chevron about climate change; all admit it is a problem caused by increase emissions of CO2 gas:
http://www.shell.com/home/content/environment_society/environment/climate_change/
http://www.texaco.com/trust-texaco/chevron-corp.aspx
http://www.chevron.com/globalissues/climatechange/

[Publicola]

02:22 PM on 08/17/2011

Great links for Shell and Chevron showing exactly what you say they do, Drew - thanks.

Your third link however isn't to Exxon but to a Texaco/Chevron page - did you have a link for Exxon too?

[Drew Puli Wolf]

02:38 PM on 08/17/2011

I thought I put it in, any way here it is:

http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/safety_climate.aspx

Not that I like the oil companies, but its hard for deniers to claim they are a bunch of left wing terrorist planing to take over the world.

[Carol Gebert]

03:25 PM on 08/24/2011

I guess you did not see today's announcement of the result of the CERN cloud experiment. It all but confirms that the sun modulates climate, not CO2. To be published in Nature this week.

[Drew Puli Wolf]

08:00 PM on 08/24/2011

I did and you are wrong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14637647

[Drew Puli Wolf]

08:10 PM on 08/24/2011

PS don't link me to some story by Faux News saying you are right.

[John Mainstream]

01:13 PM on 08/16/2011

The Earth has been warming as part of its natural cycle resulting in sea level rise of about 390 feet over the last 20,000 years. Currently, sea level is rising at a rate of about 1 foot per century. NASA has been measuring sea level rise for the past 20 years, but has detected an increase in the rate. There is no hard evidence that mankind is contributing to the Earth's warming trend.

[Katmandu01]

02:21 PM on 08/16/2011

Nobody is disputing that the earth has and continues to go through variations in the climate including periods of cooling and warming. The problem is the RATE at which the climate is changing and never before in human experience has it warmed this quickly, not during the warming periods that ended the ice age and not even during the onset of the Medieval Warming Period. The last time the earth's climate changed more rapidly was after the Toba eruption about 70,000 years ago when volcanic ash brought about widespread cooling and the human population was probably reduced to about 10,000 breeding pairs. I don't think anyone would want to have been around then. Even though the climatic changes that ended the ice ages were probably pretty disruptive for humans, those that were affected simply had to take up their few simple belongings and move or rather, migrate. There were probably no more than a million of us then. Now there are more than six and a half billion of us and we don't do so well with just the few things that we might be able to carry with us.

[Katmandu01]

02:24 PM on 08/16/2011

You can't name one single national scientific academy anywhere in the world that disputes the reality of anthropoge­­­­­­nic global warming or the threat that it poses for us and for future generation­­­­­s. This is supported by the research done by every credible scientific body in the world that has studied the issue including NASA, NOAA, the American Associatio­­­­­­­n for the Advancemen­­­­­­­t of Science, the American Geophysica­­­­­­­l Union and the Royal Meteorolog­­­­­­­ical Society. Check what they have to say; there is your "...hard evidence that mankind is contributi­ng to the Earth's warming trend."

[Carol Gebert]

03:26 PM on 08/24/2011

Did you see the results of the CERN cloud experiment? It all but debunks AGW. To be published this week in Nature.

[Orkneygal]

08:47 AM on 08/16/2011

Global Warming Devasatition in The Land of the Long White Cloud

WELLINGTON—Delays persisted on New Zealand roads and at airports, power lines were damaged and businesses disrupted for the third day running as heavy snow continued to fall across the island state.

The freak weather, described as the harshest to hit some areas in 40 years, has affected the South Island and swept up through the North Island as far as Dargaville in the Northland region.

"A strong and extremely cold southerly flow, with polar origins, continues to affect much of the country," the meteorological service Metservice said in a statement on Tuesday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903392904576511214055411054.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[qwert1234]

10:44 AM on 08/16/2011

Heavy snowfall in New Zealand proves global warming wrong?

[Exusian]

11:22 AM on 08/16/2011

No, it proves it's late winter in the Southern Hemisphere and that the now warmer atmosphere holds about 4% more water vapour than it used to, which means there is more to precipitate out as rain and...,wait for it...., snow.

[holapapi]

06:12 PM on 08/16/2011

It's not "global warming" it's climate change. That means that the weather will behave more erratically as it continues to destabilize due to changing atmospheric conditions.

Warmer, dryer summers and cooler, wetter winters (hence the record snow in New Zealand AND in the U.S. in case you don't remember the last couple years).

[lbsaltzman]

11:02 AM on 08/16/2011

It is winter and their is increased moisture in the air. So indeed Aoetorea can have a bigger snow storm thanks to global warming.

[Orkneygal]

08:17 PM on 08/16/2011

What truly hilarious, warmist drivel. When it is warm it rains, when it is COLD it snows.

[Exusian]

08:29 PM on 08/16/2011

This begs the question: if it's cold how, exactly, does Ork think moisture can get into the air in the first place?

Anti-science fanatics say the darndest things.

[dave194119451947]

10:17 PM on 08/15/2011

In 1942, a squadron of American P-38 fighter planes made an emergency landing on a Greenland icecap. The crews were rescued but the planes were abandoned. In 1992, one of the planes was recovered from under 268 feet of ice. It was restored to flying condition and named, "Glacier Girl". Googling the phrase "Glacier Girl" will bring up the story. Was snow falling and turning to ice instead of melting from 1942 to 1992, but since has it been melting? If the other planes in the squadron were recovered, would they be found at 268 feet or a greater or lesser depth? Is Greenland still getting more ice in the interior but losing it at the coast? If so what is the balance? I hear a lot about Global Warming, and I think it exists, but the solutions I hear are attacks on USA warming. I believe closing American factories that make things for Americans, then exporting these things from factories in China or other far places that have a larger carbon footprint, on ships and planes spewing out carbon dioxide for thousands of miles, adds to rather than decreases Global Warming.

[lbsaltzman]

11:25 PM on 08/15/2011

I don't even know where to start on your post. Snow still falls in Greenland and buries things, but the glacier is melting faster than it is being replaced due to warming temperatures.

I have not heard anybody just attack "USA warming". You are making a strawman argument. We all have to pitch and fight this problem. However, it remains a fact that up to very recently we have been the main contributor to global warming. China for all the bad it is doing, and by the way who do you think buys the stuff they make, is moving way ahead of us in developing renewable sustainable energy.

[simonsez2]

05:56 PM on 08/16/2011

You just ignored a fact from Dave and came back with a theory or opinion.

Your fact is not a fact at all ... it's a concensus.

[trumphent]

05:35 AM on 08/17/2011

Look up GRACE (gravity recovery and climate experiment) and Greenland. Greenland has a net annual loss of 220 cubic kilometers of ice, probably more by now. The flight of P38s landed in a peculiar spot It's snowing more in some areas but, the net change in ice mass is negative. And it's understood why it's snowing more in some areas. The air is warmer thus wetter than before.

[banana republican]

09:13 PM on 08/15/2011

There is some good news for polar bears hidden away in all this. Their food sources have actually increased as more and more researches travel into their habitat to do their work. Preliminary reports indicate the researchers are easy to catch and high in protein.

[jimboy71]

10:30 PM on 08/16/2011

Typical anti-intellectual ludditism.

[StephenBP]

07:28 PM on 08/15/2011

Two NASA studies last year showed that that " carbon dioxide accounts for about 20 percent of the greenhouse effect, water vapor and clouds together account for 75 percent, and minor gases and aerosols make up the remaining five percent. However, it is the 25 percent non-condensing greenhouse gas component, which includes carbon dioxide, that is the key factor in sustaining Earth’s greenhouse effect. By this accounting, carbon dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that sustains the Earth’s greenhouse effect."

In other words, without carbon dioxide the world would be an ice ball, because water vapor doesn't work when it falls to the ground as snow or ice. During the neoproterozoic period, when carbon dioxide levels were low, this actually happened.

So, knowing that a key factor of planetary temperature has been identified, wise humans discuss this knowledge and work with it, and other ...people.... on the planet throw mud at them and hoot.

[Greatest Darthfruit]

06:45 PM on 08/15/2011

full of skeptics this page is...

[alteredstory]

04:17 PM on 08/17/2011

There are some skeptics. There are also some denialists who like to pose as skeptics.

[StephenBP]

06:13 PM on 08/15/2011

Well,l 17 high temp records were tied or broken across much of the US on Sunday; however, 45 Hi Minimum records were tied or broken... generally those are the night time low temps. Bottom line- not only is it getting hotter, but it is taking longer to cool off. I am waiting for the paid fossil fuel pom pom boys to explain why those pesky night time lows are getting higher. This is not just a short term problem, either. This has been going on for some time, and it is considered one of the proofs of "greenhouse" gas heat entrapment.

Only two lowest max temps were tied or broken yesterday, and no lowest minimum temperatures for the day were tied or broken. No surprise there.

Bottom line: The long term trend is for daily highest minimum temps to be getting hotter. Just like the climatologists have predicted. Once the sun is out of sight, the earth is not shedding heat like it used to. This is a problem.

No need for undue concern, as they say, but there are certain signs that can no longer be ignored.....

[Cayce58]

03:41 PM on 08/15/2011

We don't have time to let the scientists formulate a stronger case. Here is the situation now. We will get 2 degrees warmer wuith the CO2 already in the atmosphere. The problem is, feedbacks no one anticipated. Scientists studying ice forgot water. Meltwater on ice reflects heat back into the ice and speeds melting. Their estimnates of arctic ice disappearance was off because of that and now the water is bare. Bare water absorbs 80% of the suns heat, ice reflects 80%. The water is warmer, less ice forms in winter. Feedback 2...9 billion tons of carbon in melting permafrost. 1% a year turned into methane doubles the extra carbon output. Feedback 3...Methane hydrate...Methane from the ocean mud freezes and is kept on the bottom by pressure and cold. The arctic is heating up. A 10 square mile bubble of methane rose last year. Feedback 4...8 studies in 3 countries. As the earth heats up vegetation releases less oxygen and bacterial action in the soil increases. There are 9 gigatons of carbon in soil and if we get to 3 degrees too warm the carbon cycle will be reversed and we will go to 6 degrees too warm. Nothing could stop it. 6 degrees is an extinction event.

[fumes]

04:15 PM on 08/15/2011

omg..

that sounds like..

runrunrunrunrunaway melting!

[alteredstory]

04:19 PM on 08/17/2011

Among other things, yes. It's called positive feedback.

[Cayce58]

03:23 PM on 08/15/2011

5th warmest July on record. 2010 ties 2005 as warmest year ever. Some sections of the country were cooler in summer but the winter lows were 3 to 5 degrees too warm in North central and Northeast.