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Storms Devastate Arctic Ice And Glaciers
The Norwegian Svalbard Islands are located just few hundred miles from the North Pole. It is a unique environment for glaciers: Here glaciers can survive almost at sea level. This means that ice is constantly brushed by thick low-altitude air, which also dumps increasinlgy rain instead of snow.
As a result of high ocean temperatures and of precipitation nowadays falling as rain for months, the melting of these glaciers now occurs 25 times faster than just some years ago.
This also spells bad news for Northern Greenland's low lying glaciers, which will face increasing summertime flash floods as the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free and warms up, and as precipitation falls in the form of rain, rather than snow.
Last summer, for example, sea water west of the Svalbard reached +18C, which is perfect for swimming - but extremely bad for the cold glaciers on shore which mop up the warm moisture and rainfall from the warmed up ocean.
Flash floods falling on glacier soften the compacted snow very rapidly to honeycombed ice that is exceedingly watery and without any internal strength.
Such ice can collapse simply under its own weight and the pulverised watery ice in the basin forms a near frictionless layer of debris.
Darkening of the melting ice also hastens its warming and melting.
by Veli Albert Kallio.
28
January, 2015
The Norwegian Svalbard Islands are located just few hundred miles from the North Pole. It is a unique environment for glaciers: Here glaciers can survive almost at sea level. This means that ice is constantly brushed by thick low-altitude air, which also dumps increasinlgy rain instead of snow.
As a result of high ocean temperatures and of precipitation nowadays falling as rain for months, the melting of these glaciers now occurs 25 times faster than just some years ago.
This also spells bad news for Northern Greenland's low lying glaciers, which will face increasing summertime flash floods as the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free and warms up, and as precipitation falls in the form of rain, rather than snow.
 |
| Sea surface temperature of 17.5°C, west of Svalbard click on image to enlarge |
Flash floods falling on glacier soften the compacted snow very rapidly to honeycombed ice that is exceedingly watery and without any internal strength.
Such ice can collapse simply under its own weight and the pulverised watery ice in the basin forms a near frictionless layer of debris.
Darkening of the melting ice also hastens its warming and melting.
 |
| Aggressively honeycombed glacier ice floating on meltwater lake in nearby Iceland. Image credit: Runólfur Hauksson |
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I suspect that climatically-speaking we are currently entering a methane-driven Bøllinger warming state with the Northern Cryosphere now entering a phase of rapid warming and melting of anything frozen (snow, sea ice, permafrost and sea bed methane clathrates).
This will be rapidly followed by a HeindrichIceberg Calving event when the warmed and wet ice sheet in Greenland gives away to its increased weight (due to excessive melt water accumulation within and beneath the ice sheet).
This dislodges the ice sheet’s top due to accumulation of “rotten ice” (honeycombed, soft ice with zero internal strength) at the ice sheet’s base and perimeters.
A huge melt water pulse to the ocean ensues with Jōkullhaups and ice debris loading the ocean with vast amounts of cold fresh water.
Within weeks an immense climatological reversal then occurs as the ocean gets loaded up with ice debris and cold water.
Such events led to the Last Glacial Maximum during the Younger Dryas cooling period and to world-wide droughts.
This loading of the ocean with ice and water leads to severe climatic flop, as the ocean and atmosphere cool rapidly, and falling salinity and sea water temperature briefly reverse all of the current Bøllinger warming, until the climatic forcing of the greenhouse gases again takes over the process, in turn leading to a new melt water pulse as another ice sheet or shelf disintegrates by the next warming.
Today’s rapid melt water lake formation in Greenland and the ultra-fast melting of glaciers are suggestive of near imminent deglaciation process in the Arctic.
Germany’s and Japan’s recent decisions to remove all their nuclear reactors from the sea sides may prove their worth sooner than many think in the far more conservative US and UK where “glacial speed” still means “eons of time”. Good luck UK/US!
This will be rapidly followed by a HeindrichIceberg Calving event when the warmed and wet ice sheet in Greenland gives away to its increased weight (due to excessive melt water accumulation within and beneath the ice sheet).
This dislodges the ice sheet’s top due to accumulation of “rotten ice” (honeycombed, soft ice with zero internal strength) at the ice sheet’s base and perimeters.
A huge melt water pulse to the ocean ensues with Jōkullhaups and ice debris loading the ocean with vast amounts of cold fresh water.
Within weeks an immense climatological reversal then occurs as the ocean gets loaded up with ice debris and cold water.
Such events led to the Last Glacial Maximum during the Younger Dryas cooling period and to world-wide droughts.
This loading of the ocean with ice and water leads to severe climatic flop, as the ocean and atmosphere cool rapidly, and falling salinity and sea water temperature briefly reverse all of the current Bøllinger warming, until the climatic forcing of the greenhouse gases again takes over the process, in turn leading to a new melt water pulse as another ice sheet or shelf disintegrates by the next warming.
Today’s rapid melt water lake formation in Greenland and the ultra-fast melting of glaciers are suggestive of near imminent deglaciation process in the Arctic.
Germany’s and Japan’s recent decisions to remove all their nuclear reactors from the sea sides may prove their worth sooner than many think in the far more conservative US and UK where “glacial speed” still means “eons of time”. Good luck UK/US!
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