Summit Voice: Week in review & most-viewed stories

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
Atmospheric CO2 now at 400 parts per million - how high will it go?

Atmospheric CO2 now at 400 parts per million – how high will it go?

Oil spill, climate and weather stories top the list

FRISCO — Out story on lingering Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacts to Gulf of Mexico aquatic ecosystems got a lot of social media love to become the most-viewed story of the week, while local weather, marked by a series of wet spring storms, also garnered reader attention. Also of note, two Summit Voice photo essays, as well as a guest post by Stan Wagon, also cracked the top 10 list:

A few more stories worth reading from the past week:

 

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Cloud cover a factor in last summer’s Greenland meltdown

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
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Researchers are gaining new insights into the role of clouds in the climate of the Arctic.

New study highlights need to get a better handle on the role of clouds in changing climate

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Widespread melting of the Greenland ice sheet last summer were triggered by an influx of unusually warm air from North America, but the melting was intensified by a layer of clouds that were “just right” for driving surface temperatures there above the melting point.

 

The thin, low-lying clouds allowed the sun’s energy to pass through and warm the surface of the ice, while at the same time trapping heat near the surface of the ice cap, according to a new study published this week in Nature that took a close look at Greenland’s summer heat wave.

“Thicker cloud conditions would not have led to the same amount of surface warming,” said Matthew Shupe, research meteorologist with NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado and the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. “To understand the region’s future, you’ll need to understand its clouds. Our finding has implications for the fate of ice throughout the Arctic.” said Shupe, part of a team that included scientists from NOAA and the Universities of Wisconsin, Idaho and Colorado. (more…)

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Greenland runoff may be a big source of iron

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
Runoff from melting Greenland glaciers may be a significant source of iron in the North Atlantic.

Runoff from melting Greenland glaciers may be a significant source of iron in the North Atlantic. Bob Berwyn photo.

Arctic meltdown may have consequences besides raising sea level

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Melting Greenland glaciers may have an unforeseen side effect on ocean biology, as the surging runoff adds iron to the water, potentially fueling more plankton growth.

Glaciers have just recently been identified as a significant source of iron in a study by biogeochemists and glaciologists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The findings suggest that the influx of iron could increase as melting of the Greenland ice sheet escalates under a warming climate.

It’s long been known wind-blown dust and river runoff are source of iron, but meltwater runoff from glaciers and ice sheets was considered too dilute to carry much iron, although previous research has shown a strong correlation between the plankton blooms and the runoff from Greenland ice sheet. (more…)

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New website to report on Greenland’s melting ice cap

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
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The Greenland ice sheet is becoming less reflective, according to NASA measurements.

Portal to feature daily updates on melting episodes and analysis of conditions

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — Climate scientists have long been keeping a close watch on Greenland’s ice sheet, a key indicator of global warming impacts. This month, the National Snow and Ice Data Center launched a new website to help track the changes on an continual basis.

The new site, Greenland Today, will present images of the widespread melt on Greenland during 2012 and scientific commentary on the year’s record-breaking melt extent, which far exceeded all previous years of satellite monitoring, and led to significant amounts of ice loss for the year.

Satellite images updated daily, with a one-day lag and a daily melt image shows where the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet experienced melt on that day.

“The Greenland melting last year was just tremendous … about 600 to 700 billion tons of ice melted and ran off,” said NSIDC glaciologist Ted Scambos, explaining that, as recently as the 1990s, scientists estimated the rate of melt at anywhere from zero to 30 billion tons. Just in the past few years, that number jumped dramatically, from 100 billion to 500 billion tons or more, Scambos said. (more…)

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New ice core data from Greenland offers chilling clues about the direction of Earth’s climate

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

‘Our kids and grandkids are definitely going to look back and shake their heads at the inaction of this country’s generation’

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For several days in July 2012, the surface of the Greenland ice sheet melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. An estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12, with satellite data providing a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Graphic courtest Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Last summer’s unusual melting at the surface of Greenland’s ice cap has a historic precedent, but you have to go back more than 100,000 years, to an extremely warm interglacial period of Earth’s history, to find it, according to an international science team’s  analysis of ice core samples spanning millennia of climate history.

The new study, published this week in Nature, offers clues about where the planet is headed in terms of increasing greenhouse gases and rising temperatures, according to CU-Boulder ice core expert Jim White — another researcher whose detailed knowledge of climate science has led him to advocate for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“Unfortunately, we have reached a point where there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere it’s going to be difficult for us to further limit our impact on the planet,” White said. “Our kids and grandkids are definitely going to look back and shake their heads at the inaction of this country’s generation. We are burning the lion’s share of oil and natural gas to benefit our lifestyle, and punting the responsibility for it.” (more…)

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Climate: ‘Today’s flood is tomorrow’s high tide … ‘

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

‘The ocean is rising and it’s going to keep rising for quite some time’

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A NOAA aerial photo shows damage caused by superstorm Sandy along the New Jersey shoreline. Click on the photo to see before and after images on the NASA EO website.

By Bob Berwyn

FRISCO — What until recently was a mostly academic discussion about sea level rise is starting to hit home — literally —as Americans watch devastating storms like Katrina, Irene and Sandy engulf cities and fundamentally alter the shape of coastal areas.

“What is very clear is, the ocean is rising and it’s going to keep rising for quite some time. The difference from last time is, now, there are a lot of people living on the coast,” said Margaret Davidson, acting director of NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. Davidson’s powerpoint presentation is online here, and a video of her presentation should also be posted at the same place soon.

The consequences of rising sea level are likely to be enormous, given that the majority of the country’s population lives along coastlines, and those coastal cities generate a huge percentage of the country’s economic wealth.

“How do we begin to think about that? We’ve never had to think about relocating large populations,” Davidson said, addressing an audience of broadcast meteorologists and climate scientists during the annual Glen Gerberg Weather and Climate Summit in Breckenridge. (more…)

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Global warming research eyes ‘runaway’ ice melt

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Sea level forecasts may be way off

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Will there be runaway ice sheet melting? Bob Berwyn photo.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Most climate models are probably underestimating the rate of sea level rise expected during the next few decades, according to some of the latest research that tries to quantify how much ice may melt off the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.

A Dec. 26 update by James Hansen and Makiko Sato warns that melting of those ice sheets could increase sea level rise exponentially higher than most existing forecasts, potentially inundating coastal cities around the world with several feet of water by the end of the century.

The short paper discusses the linearity assumptions in most existing climate models and suggests that, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, “the climate forcing will be so large that non-linear ice sheet disintegration should be expected and multi- meter sea level rise not only possible but likely.” (more…)

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Global warming manifests in documented Arctic changes

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

New Arctic report card documents ongoing climate change impacts

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Temperatures across the globes high northern latitudes during the first decade of the 21st century were well above the 1971 to 2000 average. Graphic courtesy NOAA.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with the widely reported weather extremes that affected the mid-latitudes were most people live, the remote Arctic also continued to show the effects of climate change in 2012.

Steadily rising global temperatures manifested in the lowest sea ice extent on record in mid-September, dropping nearly 20 percent lower than the previous record set in 2007; the Greenland ice saw a rare widespread melting event and the northern hemisphere snow cover extent also dropped to record low during the spring, according to NOAA’s Arctic Report Card. (more…)

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Environment: Study tracks historic changes in atmospheric acidity in Greenland ice sheet

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Bob Berwyn
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A NASA satellite photo shows Greenland’s ice sheet.

Fossil fuels leave clear fingerprint

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Researchers find all sorts of climate clues in Greenland’s ice sheet, and now, a new study of isotopes shows a distinct fingerprint of the long-term increase in atmospheric acidity.

The research by University of Washington researchers shows a decrease in levels of the isotope nitrogen-15 in core samples from Greenland ice starting around the time of the Industrial Revolution.

The decrease has been attributed to a corresponding increase in nitrates associated with the burning of fossil fuels. But the new evaluation links the decline increased acidity in the atmosphere — primarily from sulfur dioxide, which in the atmosphere is transformed to sulfuric acid, according Lei Geng, a UW research associate in atmospheric sciences. Following the Industrial Revolution, sulfur dioxide emissions increased steadily because of coal burning. (more…)

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Climate: Wildfire soot darkening Greenland ice sheet

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Bob Berwyn
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Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right). Measurements from three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In the image, 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. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. As a whole, they provide a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory

Researcher planning Dark Snow field expedition to measure impacts

By Summit Voice

FRISCO —Southwestern dust that darkens Colorado’s snowpack has clearly been implicated as a key factor in speeding up snow melt, and similar issues may be affecting other snow-covered parts of the planet, including Greenland.

Ohio State researcher Jason Box, a Colorado native, says his analysis of satellite data offers the first direct evidence that smoke from wildfires in the Arctic region is drifting over Greenland, where it may tarnish the ice sheet and make it even more vulnerable to melting.

Box presented his findings at this week’s American Geophysical Union conference in San Franciso, showing images from NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite, which captured smoke from Arctic fires billowing out over Greenland during the summer of 2012.

“Soot is an extremely powerful light absorber,” said Box, an associate professor of Geography at Ohio Srate. “It settles over the ice and captures the sun’s heat. That’s why increasing tundra wildfires have the potential to accelerate the melting in Greenland.” (more…)

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