From the Arctic

An update on methane, climate and Arctic ice - 18 August, 2019

This is the latest update from Margo

Methane, Climate & Arctic Sea Ice Update with Margo (Aug. 18, 2019)

I'm sure that readers of this blog understand this, perhaps leaving only those who do not WANT to understand.

This is what most people point to when they claim that a blue sea event is impossible (or unlikely).

What folk misunderstand is that although the sea ice extent is tying with the 2012 melt year conditions are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

Note, the above defines sea ice extent as the "area of ocean with at least 15 per cent ice.

What that means is you could have ice that is 6 inches thick and it is defined as "sea ice extent".

This is far - removed from 2012 when there was plenty of ice that was several meters thick.

When the ice is in such a condition the sea ice extent data can go up and down like a yo-yo but this is not really a predictor of what might happen.

Have a look at the data below from the US Navy site.

There are now NO areas where the sea ice concentration is at 100%- and it has changed quickly, as shown by the .gif.

Particularly alarming, the following shows that ice in the Central Arctic Basin is between 0.5 and 1 metre thick and the tiny area of thicker ice, north of Greenland is only 2 meters thick. Now, that old ice has completely disappeared.

Here you can see the rapid changes over 30 days.

Notice the area of very thin ice close to the North Pole.

And another source of data on ice concentration

It is difficult to say in these conditions what might transpire during the remaining weeks of sunlight (and beyond)  but those people who are claiming to know whether there might be a BOE or not do not know what they are talking about.

Finally, this video from CNN is in equal parts information and propaganda.  What it does (while completely overlooking sea ice because it has a far more short-term effect on the climate than the Greenland ice sheet.

They are correctly panicking over the rapid rate of melt which could happen over a lifetime while they ignore a phenomenon that could bring very rapid changes (as in months and years, not decades).  That does not fit into their narrative (see the second half of the video).

They do, however, acknowledge, perhaps for the first time, the role of the much warmer waters in melting ice far more rapidly than the mainstream ever contemplated.

Scientists find troubling signs under Greenland glacier

Existing models on underwater glacial melting are ‘wildly inaccurate’

Underwater glacial melting up to 100 times faster than thought, study finds

Existing models are ‘wildly inaccurate’ and significantly underestimated extent of melting, scientists say

theIndependent,

25 July, 2019

Underwater glacial melting is happening up to 100 times faster than previously thought, a major study has found.

For the first time, researchers directly measured the melting of tidewater glaciers below the waterline.

They found existing models were “wildly inaccurate”.

Study co-author Rebecca Jackson, of Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the US, said: “We found that melt rates are significantly higher than expected across the whole underwater face of the glacier – in some places 100 times higher than theory would predict.”

Until now, scientists did not know how fast these glaciers – which are found in Greenland, Alaska and Antarctica – were melting under the surface.

Researchers previously used water and air temperature, as well as ocean currents, to measure the melt speed. 

But the latest study, published in the journal Science, found that ocean salinity and the shape of the glacier was also important. 

“We have opened the door to correcting these models and allowing other researchers to use our method to explore other tidewater glaciers around the world," lead researcher Dr David Sutherland told The Independent.

LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay (NOAA)

The oceanographer, from the University of Oregon, added that his team's data “provides a new constraint for improving those models and points to the ocean as an important trigger for ice loss”.

Scientists studied the underwater melting of LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay in south Juneau in Alaska between 2016 and 2018. 

They used sonar to scan and profile the underwater face of the glacier. They also measured the speed of currents, temperature and salinity of the meltwater flow. 

Iceberg calving was detected using time-lapse photography, and weather station data measured surface melt. The team believe their approach could be used to study melting rates at other types of glaciers. 

This latest study adds to research that suggests assumptions about underwater melting at glaciers need to be revisited – because of the alarming effects of the phenomenon on rising sea levels.

Dr Sutherland added: “Future sea-level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets. We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost.

“To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

NZ glaciers have lost a huge amount of ice in just 42 years

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12220542&fbclid=IwAR2nFYbP6Kz4m9mdsHemGRRD3qULl6o_ZPFiYqtQ2PfzoYrN8FoG4RjpltE

New Zealand's glaciers have experienced a "huge loss" of ice in little more than four decades, under a trend only worsening with climate change.

A new paper, led by climate scientist Professor Jim Salinger, showed a third of the country's glaciers had melted and flowed into rivers since the late 1970s.

It comes as another global study, out today, reveals glaciers here and worldwide have been having a larger impact on sea level rise than scientists first thought.

As glaciers were extremely sensitive to shifts in temperature, scientists regarded them as useful coalmine canaries for climate change.

This is the paper by Jim Salinger cited in the article

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.6072?fbclid=IwAR2bIoO0jT7s9XcfWoMOGyE98MZSS9nNylamxA5n-8TGBqkc2OHMAn7IMQ8&

NZ's glaciers receding at alarming rate

Glaciers gone after record hot summers

NZ Herald,

20 April, 2019

Some of the southern region's smaller glaciers have disappeared, following two of the hottest summers on record.

The discovery was made by Niwa climate scientists and glaciologists last month, during the annual long-term aerial Snowline Survey of the South Island's glaciers.

Niwa scientists take to the skies every March to record the snowline altitude of up to 50 glaciers, using specialised cameras from a light aircraft, reports Otago Daily Times.

Thousands of photos are taken from different angles to build 3-D models of glaciers that can be compared year on year, to give an accurate depiction of how much of the previous winter's snow remains to contribute to long-term glacial ice accumulation.

The information gathered over the past four decades has produced a unique and valuable data set that provides an independent measure of how climate change and variability are affecting New Zealand's water resources.

Although Niwa scientists are still piecing together data from the latest survey, project leader Andrew Lorrey said it was not hard to miss the fact that some of the smaller glaciers at lower altitudes had now disappeared.

"It's really sad to see that some of our smaller glaciers - particularly on the fringes of the Southern Alps, that are a little bit lower in altitude like North Canterbury and as you go south out of Queenstown - are reducing to nothing.

"There's no reason for me to go to Caroline Peak [near Lake Hauroko] anymore.

"There used to be a snow patch and glacier on the spine of that peak, and based on what we saw last year, there was no real reason for us to go back there this year. There probably wouldn't have been much of anything left there."

He said a glacier on Mt Wilson in North Canterbury was also gone.

"It's now down to two very small snow packs, or remnant glacial pieces, that are like the size of a couple of dining room tables.

"It's looking pretty grim.

"One of the pilots said, `There's no need to come back here anymore'. And he's right.

"There's not really anything we can tell from those glaciers anymore because they're gone."

Dr Lorrey said it was the sad reality of the changing climate of the region.

"For anyone who says global warming is a farce, I would say let's have this conversation in front of a disappearing glacier in New Zealand.

"It's very hard to argue against physical evidence like this, where these glaciers are so acutely attuned to what's going on with temperature.

"The fact that they are disappearing, and they are largely driven by fluctuations in our temperature, speaks volumes about what's going on."

Calving at New Zealand's Tasman Glacier

New Zealand is busy bickering about petrol prices while the world burns

Large chunks of ice break from Tasman Glacier in South Island

ANTHONY HARRIS/FACEBOOK

Stuff.co.nz

8 February, 2019

Photos have emerged of huge chunks of ice which have broken off the Tasman Glacier.

The photos were posted to Facebook by two local guides who were alerted to the event in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park early on Wednesday morning.

"Glacier Explorers called us about the event so we got there after they had cleaned up some of the chaos," Anthony Harris, a guide at Southern Alps Guiding, said.

Large chunks of ice have come off the Tasman Glacier on the South Island's west coast.

"Luckily the kayaks were racked and above the height of the waterline."

A tidal surge up to 2 metres high smashed the jetty about and lifted a boat trailer upside down onto another trailer, Harris said.

The process is known as glacial calving.

"All in all, this is the most significant event I've seen in the last five years on the Tasman.

"The present SE [southeasterly] is holding these bergs in the northern section of the lake and will do so for at least another day or two.

"Once we get a NW [northwester] they will begin to fill the lake with bergs of all sizes ... some of these are really big."

Glaciologist Heather Purdie says large calving events happen about once every two years at the Tasman Glacier.

The breaking of ice chunks from the edge of glaciers is known as glacial calving.

University of Canterbury glaciologist Heather Purdie said large calving events like this one happened about once every two years on the Tasman Glacier.

They were caused by glacial ice above the water melting, putting pressure on the ice beneath it still under the water.

The photos were taken by two guides who operate in the area.

When the pressure became too much, the ice eventually snapped off.

"The water gets in underneath the ice and sort of jacks it up, and it snaps off.

"Large calving events are less frequent but the icebergs that come up are really big."

The calving was caused by ice above the water melting, putting pressure on ice still under the water.

The calving was not necessarily the result of global warming, although the glacier retreating and becoming smaller was attributable to warming, Purdie said.

"Not necessarily because of global warming". Yeah, right!

This is from last year

NZ glaciers shrank significantly in hot summer
The summer heatwave has massively affected New Zealand's glaciers, resulting in the largest annual ice loss on record.

Radio NZ

10 May, 2018

The meltback was observed by the annual Glacier Snowline Survey, a collaboration between NIWA and Victoria University.

Survey founder Trevor Chinn said it was one of the largest glacier meltbacks since he began the survey in 1977.

"A glacier is the best climate change indicator you can use," he said.

New Zealand glaciers have lost 30 percent of their ice, in the 40 years that the annual snowline survey has been running.

Whether these dramatic results could be directly attributed to climate change "is the $64,000 question", Niwa climate scientist Andrew Lorrey said.

Niwa said it was embarking on formal testing in collaboration with Victoria University and the University of Melbourne to see if a definitive correlation could be found.

"Can you actually get a natural event like this, or is it something where climate change has loaded the dice and it's pushed us over some sort of threshold?" Dr Lorrey said.

"Those are the questions we're looking to answer."

• Ground to be broken for Climate Change Centre

• NZ's summer the hottest on record - Niwa

• Climate change committee members announced

• $30b gain in becoming a low carbon economy - report

• Heatwaves 'cook' Great Barrier Reef corals

• Cyclones and record-breaking summer highlight climate change

• NZ temperatures haven't fallen below average in 14 months

Demise of Himalaya glaciers "faster than previously expected"

Global warming predicted to melt massive Himalayan glaciers, disrupt food production

The Khumbu Glacier in Nepal, pictured in 2009, is one of the Himalayan glaciers threatened by global warming, a new report suggests. (Photo: ICIMOD/ALEX TREADWAY HANDOUT, EPA-EFE)

USA Today,

February 4, 2019

Antarctica and Greenland aren't the Earth's only frozen places threatened by human-caused climate change: The Himalayas are also at risk, scientists announced Monday.

In fact, a whopping two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2100 if global warming continues, according to the new report. 

Such a catastrophic melt would disrupt the flow of Asian rivers, which are a crucial resource for crops for billions of people in China, India and six other countries.

"This is the climate crisis you haven't heard of," said Philippus Wester, a scientist with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, which released the report. “Global warming is on track to transform the frigid, glacier-covered mountain peaks ... to bare rocks in a little less than a century," he said in a statement. 

The glaciers are now a critical source of water for about 250 million people in the mountains and an additional 1.65 billion others who live in the river valleys below, the report said.  

Water from the melting glacial ice could lead to floods along such major rivers as the Ganges and the Indus, potentially destroying crops.

According to the report, the region is known as the world’s “Third Pole” for its huge store of ice, and it is also home to Mount Everest, K2 and other iconic peaks

Prepared over a five-year period with contributions from more than 350 researchers, the report is the first "to lay down in definitive detail the region’s critical importance to the well-being of billions and its alarming vulnerability, especially in the face of climate change,” said David Molden, director general of the development group that published the study.

Though the mountains are tens of millions of years old, their glaciers are extremely sensitive to the changing climate. Since the 1970s, when global warming first set in, these huge masses of ice have steadily thinned and retreated.

Man-made climate change, aka global warming, is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil, which release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane into the atmosphere. This extra CO2 causes temperatures of the atmosphere and oceans to rise to levels that can't be explained by natural causes.

In addition to the warming effects from those invisible greenhouse gases, the area is also plagued by punishing levels of air pollution. Black carbon and dust pollution can exacerbate and amplify the effects of greenhouse gases, further accelerating ice melt, the report said.

The polluted air also changes monsoon and rainfall patterns all across Asia. 

Besides China and India, the other six most threatened Asian nations are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.

“We need to start thinking of mountain regions as climate hotspots worthy of urgent attention, investments and solutions,” concluded Dasho Rinzin Dorji of Bhutan, a board member of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

The Lirung Glacier is 37 miles northwest of Kathmandu, Nepal. Two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2100 if global emissions are not reduced, scientists warned in a major study released Feb. 4, 2019. (Photo: SAM TAYLOR, AFP/Getty Images)

Climate change is roasting the Himalaya region, threatening millions

The rapid retreat of New Zealand's glaciers: a personal view

“The 1890s extent of ice volume in New Zealand’s Southern Alps was 170 km3, compared to 36.1 km3 now. That disappearance of 75-80% of Southern Alps ice is graphic evidence of the local effects of global warming”

It is a matter of shame that there has been so little in New Zealand media (count on the fingers of ONE hand) on the demise of ice in the Southern Alps in New Zealand and the rapid retreat of our main glaciers.

About a week ago Radio NZ featured the following interview with Dave Bamford, a lifelong mountain climber.  It was unscheduled and labelled by "Nghts Sport"  (there are no details as to what is being discussed in the interview, and yet it gave one of the best first-person  accounts of what is happening to our Alps.

Judging from what Dave is saying it would be hard to find a climate sceptic amongst the climbing fraternity because they have to live with the consequences.

Already many places have become unaccessible and passes over the mountains are in essence closed because of the danger of landslides from the collapse of the morraine wall on the sides of the ice river.

Listen to the interview. It is worth your time.

Mountaineer, Dave Bamford , describes the rapid retreat of New Zealand's glaciers

Listen to the interview here.

You can see 2 years of glacier retreat illiustrated here.

It is a matter of considerable shame that I have to report that some of the main reporting on this has been in the foreign media.

This piece of research was carried by Australia's the Conversation and not by New Zealand media.

 

The largely bare Southern Alps at the end of summer, 2018.

New Zealand’s Southern Alps have lost a third of their ice

A third of the permanent snow and ice of New Zealand’s Southern Alps has now disappeared, according to our new research based on National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research aerial surveys.

A NASA satellite photo of the Southern Alps, stretching along New Zealand’s South Island, shown here capped with snow in 2002. Jacques Descloitres/NASA/Wikimedia Commons

Since 1977, the Southern Alps’ ice volume has shrunk by 18.4 km3 or 34%, and those ice losses have been accelerating rapidly in the past 15 years.

The story of the Southern Alps’s disappearing ice has been very dramatic – and when lined up with rapid glacier retreats in many parts of the world, raises serious questions about future sea level rise and coastal climate impacts.

The Southern Alps’ total ice volume (solid line) and annual gains or losses (bars) from 1976 to 2014 in km3 of water equivalent, as calculated from the end-of-summer-snowline monitoring programme.

Glaciers are large-scale, highly sensitive climate instruments, which in an ideal world we would pick up and weigh once a year, because their fluctuations provide one of the clearest signals of climate change. A glacier is simply the surplus ice that collects above the permanent snowline where the losses to summer melting are less than the gains from winter accumulation. A glacier flows downhill and crosses the permanent snowline from the area of snow gain to the zone of ice loss. The altitude of this permanent snowline is the equilibrium line: it marks the altitude at which snow gain (accumulation) is exactly balanced by melt (ablation) and is represented by the end-of-summer snowline. <image id= Authors, CC BY

In 1977, one of us (Trevor Chinn) commenced aerial photography to measure the annual end-of-summer snowline for 50 index glaciers throughout the Southern Alps.

These annual end-of-summer surveys have been continued by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). We then use the NIWA results to calculate the annual glacier mass balance and hence volume changes of small to medium sized glaciers in the Southern Alps. Small to medium glaciers respond quickly to annual variability of weather and climate, and are in balance with the current climate.

Not so the twelve largest glaciers: the Tasman, Godley, Murchison, Classen, Mueller, Hooker, Ramsay, Volta/Therma, La Perouse, Balfour, Grey, and Maud glaciers. These have a thick layer of insulating rocks on top of the ice lower down the glaciers trunk. Their response to new snow at the top is subdued, and take many decades to respond.

Up until the 1970s, their surfaces lowered like sinking lids maintaining their original areas. Thereafter, glacial lakes have formed and they have undergone rapid retreat and ice loss.

The Rolleston index glacier in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, showing the accumulation area where fresh clean snow gain occurs above the end-of-summer snowline, and the area of melting ice below. Here, a negative balance year in 2009 shows a higher end-of-summer snowline revealing underlying old snow. Trevor Chinn, CC BY

To come up with our calculations, we have used the snowline survey data plus earlier topographic maps and a GPS survey of the ice levels of the largest glaciers to calculate total ice-volume changes for the Southern Alps up until 2014.

Over that time, ice volume had decreased 34%, from 54.5 km3 to 36.1 km3 in water equivalents. Of that reduction, 40% was from the 12 largest glaciers, and 60% from the small- to medium-sized glaciers.

These New Zealand results mirror trends from mountain glaciers globally. From 1961 to 2005, the thickness of “small” glaciers worldwide decreased approximately 12 metres, the equivalent of more than 9,000 km3 of water.

Global Glacier Thickness Change: This shows average annual and cumulative glacier thickness change of mountain glaciers of the world, measured in vertical metres, for the period 1961 to 2005. Mark Dyurgerov, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CC BY

Martin Hoelzle and associates at the World Glacier Monitoring Service have estimatedestimate the 1890s extent of ice volume in New Zealand’s Southern Alps was 170 km3, compared to 36.1 km3 now. That disappearance of 75-80% of Southern Alps ice is graphic evidence of the local effects of global warming.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013, CC BY

Further large losses of ice in the Southern Alps have been projected by glaciologists Valentina Radic and Regine Hock, suggesting that only 7-12 km3 will remain by the end of the 21st century. This is based on regional warming projections of 1.5°C to 2.5°C. This represents a likely devastation of ice cover of the Southern Alps over two centuries because of global warming.

And where does all this melted glacier ice go? Into the oceans, thus making an important contribution to sea level rise, which poses a serious risk to low-lying islands in the Pacific, and low-lying coastal cities from Miami in the US to Christchurch in NZ.

In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated mountain glacier melt has contributed about 6 to 7 centimetres of sea level rise since 1900, and project a further 10 to 20 cm from this source by 2100.

This excellent piece camed from the New York Times

New Zealand Glaciers Ebb and Tour Guides Play Catch-Up

But a local tour operator, Fox Glacier Guiding, has been unable to take tourists onto the ice on foot since April, when glacial retreat caused a river to change course, blocking access to a popular hiking trail. And at another glacier about 14 miles down the road, the operator Franz Josef Glacier Guides lost hiking access in 2012, also because of retreating ice.

Now, air landings by helicopter are the only way to set foot on the glaciers, which lie at the confluence of the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. As a result, both companies have made helicopter tours their primary product, increasing business for local helicopter operator.

Finally, earlier this year the gap was filled by this article in stuff.co.nz

New Zealand is busy bickering about petrol prices while the world burns