talkpolitics | As Glaciers Melt, Science Seeks Data on Rising Seas

From a helicopter hovering over Greenland, the oceanographer Fiammetta Straneo took measurements to determine how fast the water is melting the nearby Helheim Glacier.

The New York Times on Sunday, had a great article about scientists studying the quickening pace of glacier melt in Greenland. According to climate experts, sea levels are expected to rise significantly due to melting glacial ice; estimates vary from three to six feet by the end of the century.

Climate scientists readily admit that the three-foot estimate could be wrong. Their understanding of the changes going on in the world’s land ice is still primitive. But, they say, it could just as easily be an underestimate as an overestimate. One of the deans of American coastal studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100. “I think we need immediately to begin thinking about our coastal cities — how are we going to protect them?” said John A. Church, an Australian scientist who is a leading expert on sea level. “We can’t afford to protect everything. We will have to abandon some areas.”

While snowfall for Greenland increased during the 1990s, warmer air temperatures, and warm waters penetrating glacial fjords, have accelerated glacier melt and in a significant manner. But not everyone believes global warming is responsible:

John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is often critical of mainstream climate science, said he suspected that the changes in Greenland were linked to this natural variability, and added that he doubted that the pace would accelerate as much as his colleagues feared. For high predictions of sea-level rise to be correct, “some big chunks of the Greenland ice sheet are going to have to melt, and they’re just not melting that way right now,” Dr. Christy said. Yet other scientists say that the recent changes in Greenland appear more pervasive than those of the early 20th century, and that they are occurring at the same time that air and ocean temperatures are warming, and ice melt is accelerating, throughout much of the world.

To a majority of climate scientists, the question is not whether the earth’s land ice will melt in response to the greenhouse gases those people are generating, but whether it will happen too fast for society to adjust. Recent research suggests that the volume of the ocean may have been stable for thousands of years as human civilization has developed. But it began to rise in the 19th century, around the same time that advanced countries began to burn large amounts of coal and oil.

The sea has risen about eight inches since then, on average. That sounds small, but on a gently sloping shoreline, such an increase is enough to cause substantial erosion unless people intervene. Governments have spent billions in recent decades pumping sand onto disappearing beaches and trying to stave off the loss of coastal wetlands.

Scientists have been struggling for years to figure out if a similar pace of sea-level rise is likely to continue in this century — or whether it will accelerate. In its last big report, in 2007, the United Nations group that assesses climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that sea level would rise at least seven more inches, and might rise as much as two feet, in the 21st century.

But the group warned that these estimates did not fully incorporate “ice dynamics,” the possibility that the world’s big ice sheets, as well as its thousands of smaller glaciers and ice caps, would start spitting ice into the ocean at a much faster rate than it could melt on land. Scientific understanding of this prospect was so poor, the climate panel said, that no meaningful upper limit could be put on the potential rise of sea level.

That report prompted fresh attempts by scientists to calculate the effect of ice dynamics, leading to the recent, revised projections of sea-level rise.

Climate scientists note that while the science of studying ice may be progressing slowly, the world’s emissions of heat-trapping gases are not. They worry that the way things are going, extensive melting of land ice may become inevitable before political leaders find a way to limit the gases, and before scientists even realize such a point of no return has been passed.

“The past clearly shows that sea-level rise is getting faster and faster the warmer it gets,” Dr. Rahmstorf said. “Why should that process stop? If it gets warmer, ice will melt faster.”

Recent analysis of Greenland's glacial melt.

This photo shows the “bathtub ring” above Helheim Glacier. It was created in the middle of the last decade when the glacier sped up and thinned, exposing rock that had once been covered by ice. The light-colored band of rock is about 300 feet thick. The Greenland ice sheet can be seen in the background at the top of the picture.

Summer ponds of melted water on the surface of Helheim Glacier. This kind of melting has accelerated because air temperatures in Greenland are warming.

And before of the denialists come out swinging that ice has been increasing in the Artic or Greenland, please watch this first:

The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of November 1, 2010, along with daily ice extents for years with the previous four lowest minimum extents. Light blue indicates 2010, dark blue shows 2009, purple shows 2008, dotted green indicates 2007, and dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.

Monthly October ice extent for 1979 to 2010 shows a decline of 6.2% per decade.

It's a fascinating read, extremely well written. I thought I'd pass it along to the community. One worrisome feature is that apparently due to budget constraints, several satellites used by NASA and NOAA for studying glacial ice melt, and water temperatures, etc are being retired with no immediate replacements, due to budget constraints. NASA is using airplane overflies to garner what information it can, but losing satellites at this critical juncture is not good.

I thought this article by Fiammetta Straneo is fascinating as well. It's a study of sea levels during the Roman period and the implications of rising sea levels on modern society. Another resource to check is the The National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We can trade links all day but you should at least read yours

I do, hon. I do.

Why would a Physicist publish about climatology?

Exactly. He's not an expert in the field he's whining about.

It seems Gary you have a lot to learn about the Global Warming debate. Let me give you some qualifications of media defined or self proclaimed “experts”

But then they're not the ones writing the papers about global warming in scientific literature. So what's his point?

Oh and your list of "experts"?

David Legates: Legates is a senior scientist of the Marshall Institute, a research fellow with the Independent Institute[, and an adjunct scholar of the Competitive Enterprise Institute], all of which have received funding from Exxon-Mobil.

John Christy: John R. Christy was a co-drafter of the American Geophysical Union's December 2003 position statement on climate change, which concludes that:

"Human activities are increasingly altering Earth's climate, and that natural influences alone cannot explain the rapid increase in surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century."

Patrick Michaels: Writing in Harpers Magazine in 1995, author Ross Gelbspan noted that "Michaels has received more than $115,000 over the last four years from coal and energy interests. World Climate Review, a quarterly he founded that routinely debunks climate concerns, was funded by Western Fuels. Patrick Michaels was quietly paid $100,000 by an electric utility, Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), which burns coal to help confuse the issue of global warming.

Robert Balling: Balling was mentioned as a fossil fuel industry - funded scientist in Ross Gelbspan's 1997 book The Heat is On. Balling "acknowledged that he had received $408,000 in research funding from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade (of which his University takes 50% for overhead)."

Amazing that you use arguments based on your subjective appeals to authority and can call yourself a skeptic?"

You really should learn the real meaning of logical fallacies based on appeals to authority.

No one has ever said "You know there isn't one scientist out there that disagrees with AGW." An that also doesn't mean, you can't find a single expert that disagrees with the concept of AGW. When big tobacco was fighting against the research establishing the link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking and the use of tobacco products, they were able to fund doctors and scientists to challenge the research. Tobacco industry internal documents that have come to light show precisely the tactic to be used: create doubt and get experts to challenge the research. Quite a few of the lobbyists used by big tobacco eventually became part of the fossil fuel industry's attempts to deny human based global warming in the 1990s.

In peer reviewed literature, the overall gist is that global warming is caused by increased co2 levels due to the use of fossil fuels. There isn't a single scientific body anywhere in the world that disagrees with that.

Edited 2010-11-18 20:58 (UTC)

"He's not an expert in the field he's whining about."

Did you notice that Rajendra K. Pachauri, Ph.D. Industrial Engineering (IPCC Chairman), is not exactly in the field too but he's the IPCC chairman?

"Oh and your list of "experts"?"

Of course energy companies, when attacked and demonized by the government funded scientists, have to fight back. Do you really think they would employ scientists that would oppose them?

And the one that apparently changed sides to sign the petition, John Christy may have begun to realize that the fight against AGW is no longer science but politics.

"You really should learn the real meaning of logical fallacies"

You're commenting on a statement made by the first commenter to the article, not my words.

"There isn't a single scientific body anywhere in the world that disagrees with that."

I don't know. I try not to use absolute words or statements like that but sometimes I fail. That aside, don't you think that 31000+ scientists comprise a sizable body? At least in the context of the Webster definition, (5: a group of persons or things:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/body

"In peer reviewed literature"

True but the peers declined to review such pieces (maybe for deny-ability?) as:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

which makes the statement, "Just how much of the "Greenhouse Effect" is caused by human activity?

It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account-- about 5.53%, if not."

The 5.5% figure is what most computer models conclude and the 'peer reviews' accept. The link explains in detail how that is wrong.

It is one of the main reasons many of us 'evil deniers' don't trust the government sponsored 'consensus'.

I too believed AGW blindly until I saw this article. That sent me on the path of rooting out other articles which helped steer my beliefs until the 'climategate' fraud at Manchester was revealed. Now I know it is a simple, yet complex fraud,(what kind of fallacy is that?) probably government sponsored.

Of course energy companies, when attacked and demonized by the government funded scientists, have to fight back. Do you really think they would employ scientists that would oppose them?

No, I don't and that is why they are not considered credible.

Re: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

2003, meet 2008: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html

"No, I don't and that is why they are not considered credible."

Then why are the government supported scientists creditable? The government doesn't support scientists with the other view.

I read your link. Point 1. It's not just a government supported entity, it's a government agency.
Point 2. With all their scientific knowledge and resources, why did it take them 5 years to come up with an argument? Could it be that the AGW thing was going so well they simply didn't see a need before then?

I don't have the answer, just more questions. Every argument I hear just produces more questions. It seems never ending.

I fear we'll never know the answer but in 100 years, if the predicted sea level rise doesn't happen, they'll figure out some other man-caused impending disaster to scare the people into supporting the new 'thing' or there will be worse than horrible consequences.

why did it take them 5 years to come up with an argument?

AIRS launched in 2002, they collected data from 2003 on and published some findings in 2008. Why is this suspect?

Could it be that the AGW thing was going so well they simply didn't see a need before then?

So, NASA launched AIRS to satisfy this conspiracy theory?

The government doesn't support scientists with the other view.

Richard Lindzen's work at MIT and with the National Academy of Sciences was all government funded.

As Glaciers Melt, Science Seeks Data on Rising Seas

Re: And speaking of fossil fueled based anti-global warming links....

Re: And speaking of fossil fueled based anti-global warming links....

Re: And speaking of fossil fueled based anti-global warming links....

Re: And speaking of fossil fueled based anti-global warming links....

Re: And speaking of fossil fueled based anti-global warming links....