Massive Ice Melt In Greenland

Last week, we spoke about an ice shelf fragment — twice the size of Manhattan — that broke off of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier and slipped into the sea.

NASA satellites showed that this month, the ice that blankets all of Greenland melted at an unprecedented rate.

These images show the extent of surface melt over Greenlands ice sheet on July 8, left, and July 12, right. (AP /Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory)

Christian Science Monitor: Greenland Ice Melt Baffles Scientists

Guest:

Jason Box, climatologist, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Charles

I could be wrong, but I think there is a lot of misunderstanding around this story. Listening to Robin on the radio she makes it sound as if 97% of the ice is gone from Greenland. Someone please correct me, but I think the story is that 97% of the ice has experienced some degree of melting (and we don’t even know to what degree. Perhaps it was just a few snowflakes.). Greenland is still, as per usual, covered in ice.
- Robin
  
  Well I know I intended to say “ice melt” as a specific thing. Not ice melting or melted!
  
  So apologies if I didn’t convey that!
  
  R
  - Charles
    
    NP Robin – You have a great show! Maybe I just misunderstood you. My point is that every blurb and headline about this story seems to exaggerate it a bit more with every telling. For the most part it isn’t even intentional. Even the color coded pics seem to indicate ice in one image, and none the next. Now that really would be scary.
Ryan

Robin announced the address for this website as ‘hearandnow.org’, that is actually some baby website. The actual address for this website is ‘hearandnow.wbur.org’.
- Richardbeattie
  
  hereandnow.org not “hear” Also, hereandnow.org will re-direct to hereandnow.wbur.org
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1795467330 Frank Erickson

The images are plainly labeled “surface melt”. This isn’t baffling any scientists; it’s global warming.
Lindahaasmerrill

Heard the same news from eminent scientists on the BBC it seems that there are many people who are still in denial about global warming. What will it take to perceive the reality?
- Andreas Muenchow
  
  Real data and careful analyses. Global warming this is not, it is not even climate change. Rare weather, that’s all we got here … as NASA’s Dr. Wagner told NPR’s “All Things Considered” at http://www.npr.org/2012/07/25/157382548/greenland-ice-sheet-melts-at-abnormal-blazing-speed or Andy Revkin of the New York Times expounds eloquently at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/unprecedented-greenland-surface-melt-every-150-years/
  
  The public perception is in deep trouble when activist scientists with a political agenda fail to correct public mis-perceptions that do not fit the GreenPeace agenda.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KJA3MDOHTBR677EOUA4TSB4H3A Alan

As the caption under the photo states, the 97 per cent refers to surface melt. The linked article from the Christian Science Monitor states that around half of Greenland’s surface ice normally melts during the summer, but this current melt of the surface ice is unprecedented and a record for the more than 30 years of satellite observations – more than just a few snowflakes.
- Charles
  
  OK, but how much? My only point is that the story is being very poorly presented and even intelligent people like Robin are misrepresenting the study’s findings to the many people who trust her show. Even your above comment is trying to mix apples (melt melt) and oranges (surface melt). On the one hand you say ‘around’ half of Greenland’s surface ice melts each year in the same breath as you say this year its 97%. Yeah – that’s a big story. People assume 97% of normally ice covered Greenland is now ice free when this is absolutely untrue.
  
  I’d like to understand this melt in terms of volume. Much of the surface ice that melts like clockwork each year is probably quite thin, while the thicker ice that is apparently undergoing some level of surface (?) melt is much thicker. How much is it? In terms of volume, how much more? You could experience 100% more surface melt (as seems to be the case) while only adding a few hundredths of a percent to the overall melt volume.
  
  The fact that these objective numbers are left out makes the story compelling, but misleading.
MToffgrid

All previous events of melting has coincided with time when the tilt and orbit of the earth crated more melting but that is not the case this time and the melting this time is all due to global warming and will cool the Atlantic Current which will affect us all very soon. To say it is normal is just being a pollyanna. We are in deep trouble and we need to consider our survival in a new earth environment, not what is causing it. We cannot fix the last 100 years of industrialization and fuel use in the next few years. It’s all over, really. When jet airline travel worldwide is spewing over 300 billion gallons of unburned fuel annually into the atmosphere, we have nowhere to hide. Somebody better get a clue that our use of this planet has been unwise and we are now painted into a corner.
- Mark Edens
  
  The tilt of the Earth didn’t contribute to this melting? It’s the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. And the story stated that this extent of melting happens about every 150 years on average. It was last observed in the 19th Century, when we were coming out of “the Little Ice Age.”
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Oregon-Stream/100002120209443 Oregon Stream
    
    Extent is only part of the story. Thickness and mass are more telling. And the tilt this time is in the wrong direction by a modest margin:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32675876/ns/us_news-environment/t/warming-arctic-should-be-cooling-study-finds/#.UBIPXkwylAW
Mark Edens

The host clearly implied at least twice that 97 % of the ice had melted or was melting (“Greenland is green”), when in fact what happened is that some surface melting was observed over 97 % of the Greenland ice sheet. The ice averages about a mile in thickness: if the top inch melts in a particular location, that would count as part of the 97 %. When Jason Box was standing at Summit in his cotton clothes, there was over a mile of ice underneath his feet. He should have pointed out the host’s error — or perhaps he did, and it was edited out.

The worst thing about the media in general is that they constantly report about things they have no knowledge of, and don’t take the time to inform themselves about.
http://profile.yahoo.com/CSWIPJNCVMOMLQMUYE4E33JU74 LeQuickBrownFox

For a little balance, could we do a story about how icebergs are growing at a rapid rate in the southern hemisphere off the coast of Argentina?
Bfgpgalvan

I love your show. Please try to come back to Chicago. George!!!