lightblueline

The National Geographic News reported on April 8, 2004, that research was forthcoming about the imact of global warming on the Greenland ice shelf. Reporting on a just published study in the journal Nature, the article points to a future where Greenland ice melts entirely in a thousand years:

"The study considered the climate sensitivity of a range of climate models and a range of carbon dioxide scenarios, from 450 parts per million, the lowest level considered by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to a thousand parts per million, or four times the pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration.

The British Antarctic Survey website offers a concise description of the science questions surrounding the West Antarctic ice sheet:

"The West Antarctic ice sheet is unique in that it rests of on rock that is, in places, thousands of metres below sea level, and over large areas, the present ice sheet would not need to thin by much in order of the ice to begin to float. This means that the West Antarctic ice sheet may be uniquely capable of rapid deglaciation, and is the focus of considerable concern. A decade of satellite measurements of the ice sheet surface in West Antarctica have shown that the portion of the ice sheet that drains into the Amundsen Sea is thinning at rates of several centimetres to several metres per year. Several neighbouring glacier basins appear to be behaving in a similar fashion, and thinning is most concentrated on the fast-moving parts of those glaciers, suggesting that this is the result of a dynamic change in the ice sheet itself rather than a change in snowfall. All the glaciers effected drain into the same part of the Amundsen Sea, and so it is likely that the change in the ice sheet across this region has its root cause in those waters. At present, the timescales of the changes in the sea condition, that might be driving the ice sheet, are not clear, and there are too few measurements to establish whether any change is on-going. Since ocean temperature and circulation is linked to atmospheric climate, the oceans provide plausible connection between anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and the changes we are seeing in this part of the Antarctic ice sheet. However there are other, competing theories as to why this change may be taking place; for example, it is possible that this is part of a longer-term retreat of the ice sheet has been going on for millennia.

The San Francisco Chronicle (February 18, 2007) has published a set of maps detailing how even one meter of sea-level rise will impact the entire bay:

"New maps show that neighborhoods and roads in many cities near the San Francisco Bay shoreline would be under water if global warming causes tides to rise as much as 3 feet in the coming decades, and officials say regions face key decisions about where people will be able to live and build.

The maps, which the Bay Conservation and Development Commission prepared for The Chronicle, offer a detailed look at how a changing shoreline would affect life around the bay.

Goddard Space Flight Center's science visualization studio has taken NASA studies of Greenland's ice sheet and produced a wealth of graphics for classroom and student use! Also great for press use.

Greenland's Receding Ice

"Less ice, more ocean. That's the troubling conclusion emerging from new NASA research to study the condition of Greenland's ice sheet. Using a laser altimeter repeatedly flown across the surface of Greenland, experts say the edges of the ice found there may be thinning at the rate of nearly one meter per year.

Observation of change is one of the most sophisticated methods for understanding the nature of something. In complex systems like the Earth's climate, researchers examining specific features or processes can often extrapolate broader understandings of the larger whole. The changing conditions surrounding Greenland's ice cap are a good example of this. By measuring fluctuations, experts look for clues into broader subjects like global warming and atmospheric changes over time."

Check out the text and the great graphics here:

Greenland's Receding Ice

This online collection has several articles that outline current scientific research efforts to understand ice sheet melt dynamics:

"In the 24 March 2006 Science: A special report on what's happening to the world's ice sheets. Recent research papers in Science and elsewhere are pointing to a major acceleration in the loss of mass from the world's great ice sheets. That means that the sensitivity of these giant storehouses of water to climate warming may be far greater than expected -- with potentially dire sea level implications during the next several centuries. Science examines the state of this research, and its sobering implications, in an Editorial, a special News Focus, Perspective articles, and cutting-edge research papers in this week's issue -- as well as several segments in our 24 March podcast. We've also included links to selected review and research articles on the topic from previous issues of Science over the past several years."

lightblueline has been trying to access US Government elevation data for months, only to be told that the data is being held back until a report is published by the US Climate Change Science Program office.

A recent (February 7, 2007) article in Wired Online notes that that office has several reports which never seem to get published:

"The [US Senate] committee hoped to hear from representatives from the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, which advises the White House on science issues, but none showed up, leaving William Brennan, acting director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, to defend the administration.

Kerry saved his most withering comments for Brennan, expressing outrage over the amount of progress on climate change achieved by Brennan's program, which seeks to integrate research on climate change from 13 federal agencies.

'I think this is the most serious dereliction of public responsibility that I've ever seen,' Kerry said. 'This is a disgrace. You're turning your backs on future generations in this country and potentially inviting a global catastrophe.'

The Harvard University Gazette (February 28, 2007) reports on a talk given by James McCarthy, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography. Professor McCarty noted that the Arctic region would be among the earliest, and most affected areas due to climate change. His talk covered the recent IPCC report, mentioning some difficulties he saw in their sea-level rise predictions:

"One glaring omission in the [recent IPCC] report, McCarthy said, is that the IPCC's projections of sea-level rise are based merely on the expansion of existing seawater due to warmer temperatures. Left out because the data was too recent, he said, was additional information that melting glaciers and land-based ice would likely significantly contribute to rising seas. McCarthy cited one study that projected a sea level rise of between a half a meter and 1.4 meters by 2100.

The Ventura County Star (February 8, 2007) covered James Hansen's UCSB talk with an eye to it's own local vulnerability to sea-level rise:

"Much of Hansen's presentation was old news to those who've been following the science and politics of climate change over the past decade. And to those without some grounding in the subject, the very technical material probably was just baffling. But he did make a couple of points about the latest IPCC findings that were largely overlooked or incompletely explained in last week's media coverage of the report. And the most significant of these relates to sea level rise — a subject of particular interest in low-lying coastal regions such as western Ventura County.

SB Independent reporter and photographer Nick Welsh and Paul Wellman cover the local events surrounding the talk by James Hansen at UC Santa Barbara. The story involves several issues that are worthwhile examining, including the IPCC report and new scientific data and thinking on the non-linear process of the large ice sheets (Greenland and the West Antarctic) melting over the next hundred to a thousand years.

Nick still calls this the "Global Warming Debate," although IPCC may have just taken the "Debate" out of the picture. Like the "Earth Rotates Around the Sun Debate," after a while even the fringe groups and the media get the concept.

What we do have is an "Ice Melt Science" debate, which is centered on the lack of scientific models that can predict how large ice sheets actually melt, and what happens when they start to melt. The other question is this: can we afford to wait for the scientists to agree on everything before we start working to keep the water as ice on Greenland and off our beaches, freeways, and airport.

Hansen clearly thinks we do not have the luxury of certainty, given the potential danger of these ice sheets melting more rapidly than we have previously considered.

Lightblueline uses Greenland as the basis for its seven meter (actually 23 feet... not 21 feet) contour line. We do this for simplicity: Greenland is our symbolic climate change poster child. The lightblueline public awareness art project is not predicting when Greenland would melt, or even if Greenland would be the first ice sheet to melt: some scientists are more concerned about the West Antarctic ice sheet which holds 6 meters of sea-level rise water.

You can read the entire Independent story here:

The Scariest Man on the Planet

NOTE: these links requre that you create a FREE account with the New York Times...

sorry about the hassle!

lbline admin

HOWEVER... they are interesting!

Here's a link to the video clip:

Climate Report Predicts Rising Seas

In a previous editorial, The New York Times looks at the sea level rise predictions of the February 2, 2007 IPCC report:

Even Before Its Release, World Climate Report Is Criticized as Too Optimistic