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Greenland is melting way ahead of schedule

by AntwanLeslie874 Posted on April 13, 2016

Greenland is melting way ahead of schedule

By on 13 Apr 2016comments

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

To say the 2016 Greenland melt season is off to the races is an understatement.

Warm, wet conditions rapidly kicked off the melt season this weekend, more than a month-and-a-half ahead of schedule. It has easily set a record for earliest melt season onset, and marks the first time it’s begun in April.

Maps show the current melt area centered around southwest Greenland. The graph shows the current melt season in blue and the average in black.

Polar Portal

Little to no melt through winter is the norm as sub-zero temperatures keep Greenland’s massive ice sheet, well, on ice. Warm weather usually kicks off the melt season in late May or early June, but this year is a bit different.

Record warm temperatures coupled with heavy rain mostly sparked 12 percent of the ice sheet to go into meltdown mode (hat tip to Climate Home’s Megan Darby). Almost all the melt is currently centered around southwest Greenland.

According to Polar Portal, which monitors all things ice-related in the Arctic, melt season kicks off when 10 percent of the ice sheet experiences surface melt. The previous record for earliest start was May 5, 2010.

This April kickoff is so bizarrely early, scientists who study the ice sheet checked their analysis to make sure something wasn’t amiss before making the announcement.

“We had to check that our models were still working properly,” Peter Langen, a climate scientist at the Denmark Meteorological Institute (DMI), told the Polar Portal.

But alas, the models are definitely working and weather data and stories coming out of West Greenland have borne that out. According to DMI, temperatures at Kangerlussuaq, a small village in southwest Greenland, set an April record for that location when they reached 64.4 degrees F (17.8 degrees C) on Monday. That’s just a scant .4 degrees F (.2 degrees C) off the all-time Greenland high for April. Heavy rains have also inundated local communities.

The summit of the Greenland ice sheet has also been record warm. On Tuesday, it reached 20.3 degrees F (-6.5 degrees C) which while obviously below freezing, is still record mild for this time of year and is roughly 40 degrees F above normal. And the warmth isn’t over yet.

Temperatures could reach as high as 57 degrees F above normal this week. It’s distinctly possible more temperatures records could fall before the week is out.

Temperatures anomalies for Wednesday afternoon forecast by the Euro model. In Greenland, the temperature could reach as high as 57 degrees F above normal.

Weatherbell

And while normal temperatures are expected to return, the impacts of this warm stretch will remain with the ice sheet. Energy of all that melting ice is expected to wend its way a bit deeper into the ice pack, making it easier for continued melt later in the season.

The Greenland ice sheet represents one of the most massive stores of ice on the planet. If it were all to melt, it would raise oceans about 20 feet. Melting ice is also affecting ocean circulation and even the drift of the North Pole.

Climate change has been cutting into Greenland’s icy reserves, with warm air and water temperatures leading to the loss of millions of tons of ice each year. Dust and soot from forest fires in Canada and Siberia have also expedited the ice sheet’s melt.

But how this melt season progresses depends a lot on the weather. Last year, a cool spring kept Greenland mostly solid before a summer heat wave led to a rapid meltdown of the ice sheet. And in July 2012, a record-setting 95 percent of the ice sheet experienced surface melting due to high temperatures and soot from wildfires in Siberia.

It remains to be seen how the weather plays out in the coming months. But regardless of this year’s weather, it’s increasingly clear the planet’s ice is in for a rough ride. By 2100 the entire Greenland ice sheet could experience melting every year if temperatures continue to rise.

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Greenland is melting way ahead of schedule

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Greenland’s ‘extraordinary’ summer ice melt may have been caused by tundra fires

by Myrna Posted on December 7, 2012

Greenland’s ‘extraordinary’ summer ice melt may have been caused by tundra fires

By Philip Bump

Last July, over the course of a week, 97 percent of Greenland’s ice surface melted. The response from scientists can be summarized as: “Um, shit.” Or, by way of a direct quote: “This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?”

It was real. And it’s one of the things that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2012 Arctic report card cites as an unexpected anomaly in a season full of them.

Researchers now think they know why it happened. Like so much of what’s happening in the Arctic, the melt likely stems from another aspect of climate change: fire.

From the Guardian:

Satellite observations, due to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Friday, for the first time tracks smoke and soot particles from tundra wildfires over to Greenland.

Scientists have long known that soot blackens snow and ice, reducing its powers of reflectivity and making it more likely to melt under the sun.

But the satellite records, due to be presented by the Ohio State University geographer Jason Box, go a step further, picking up images of smoke over Greenland at the time of last summer’s extreme melt.

Byrd Polar Research

Click to embiggen.

The study, from a team centered at Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, works backward from the presence of smoke over Greenland (seen above) to possible sources. A series of tundra fires in Alaska and Western Canada and wildfires in Labrador earlier in the summer appear on this June 25 thermal map.

Byrd Polar Research

Click to embiggen.

Analysis of barometric pressures in the week preceding the start of the melt suggests that winds passing over the areas of wildfire could have carried the smoke seen in the image at top.

Byrd Polar Research

Click to embiggen.

Along with the smoke came soot, particulate matter of the type that’s also prompting concern over Arctic air travel. Such pollution demonstrably contributes to ice melt.

And, in yet another feedback loop, those tundra fires themselves are exacerbated by and contribute to climate change. From NPR:

Tundra fires have become more common over the past two decades as average temperatures in the Arctic have risen and sea ice has receded. And according to scientists, there has been a marked increase in lightning activity on the North Slope in the last two decades. Warmer temperatures may allow more vegetation to grow — which, in turn, makes it more of a fire risk when lightning strikes.

Normally, the tundra in this region of Alaska, near the Anaktuvuk River, takes up more CO2 from photosynthesis than it gives off every year from natural decomposition. …

Overall, the amount of carbon released — about 2.1 terragrams — is comparable to what comes from forest fires in warmer parts of the planet, according to Dr. Mack. “But what’s surprising to me,” she says, “is that forests have huge trees, and tundra has six-inch-tall, tiny little plants. All that extra carbon is coming from the soil.”

And the extra carbon heads into the atmosphere. In school kids learn about the water cycle. Maybe the carbon circle should be added to the curriculum.

The link between these fires and the Greenland melt is still circumstantial. So the team behind the initial research has launched Dark Snow, a proposed 2013 expedition to Greenland for which they are soliciting contributions. Once there, they plan to analyze the extent to which soot affects the melt.

If they raise the money for the trip, a bit of good news: They can probably leave the ice cleats at home.

Source

Smoke from Arctic wildfires may have caused Greenland’s record thaw, Guardian

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Greenland’s ‘extraordinary’ summer ice melt may have been caused by tundra fires

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