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NASA Scientists Reveal Unsettling New Melting Source on Greenland

posted by janrinok on Monday May 15, @05:32PM   Printer-friendly

upstart writes:

Fact: Earth's colossal ice sheets are melting:

Pay attention to Greenland.

The land's colossal ice sheet — around three times the size of Texas — is melting some 270 billion tons(opens in a new tab) of ice into the sea each year as Earth warms. And the inevitable sea level rise could be worse than scientists calculated: Researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) found that warmer ocean water is seeping underneath and amplifying melting of Greenland's mighty Petermann Glacier, which ends in a great ice tongue floating over the sea. The scientists recently published their research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The glacier lies in northern Greenland, a realm of the high Arctic. But that frigid location can no longer protect it. Scientists found the glacier is vulnerable to the incessantly warming seas. It's another whammy for melting Greenland, which is melting from above (warmer air) and below (warmer water).

Until 2015, satellite observations showed Petermann, a major ice outflow on Greenland, was in solid shape. Not anymore.

"Something changed during the last decade. Petermann was supposed to be a place where the ice was still stable," Enrico Ciraci, a NASA postdoctoral fellow and an Earth system scientist at UCI, told Mashable.

Ice loss is now ramping up.

"Warming oceans are accelerating the mass loss of this glacier," Ciraci, who led the research, said.

Not even the coldest glaciers are immune.

"It's surprising even Petermann isn't escaping the impacts of global warming," Josh Willis, a NASA oceanographer who researches melting in Greenland and had no involvement with the new research, told Mashable.

[...] For some of us, sea level rise might not be nearly as apparent or poignant as the increase in inferno-like Western wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, vanishing Arctic ice, and historic deluges. But it's happening, and it's speeding up.

Since the late 19th century, global sea levels have already risen by some eight to nine inches. Sea level rise each year more than doubled from 1.4 millimeters over most of the 20th century, to 3.6 millimeters by the early 21st century. From just the years 2013 to 2018, that number accelerated to 4.8 millimeters per year.

Yet, crucially, most sea level rise simulations and predictions don't take into account what's happening under Petermann and the many glaciers like it. This means we might be underestimating sea level rise over the coming decades and beyond. In the study, the researchers noted that such ocean melting "will make projections of sea level rise from glaciers potentially double."

"This process is not accounted for in many models today for sea level rise," Ciraci explained. "The potential contribution is significant."

Journal Reference:
Enrico Ciracì, Eric Rignot, Bernd Scheuchl, et al., Melt rates in the kilometer-size grounding zone of Petermann Glacier, Greenland, before and during a retreat [open], PNAS, 2023 120 (20) e2220924120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2220924120

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @07:43PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @07:43PM (#1306443)

    My neighbours will soon start to lose land in winter storms due to rising sea levels

    We've been hearing doom and gloom like this for (at least) 50 years now, and it still hasn't happened. I'm old enough to remember when the "drop dead" date was 1980. Then, when 1980 passed without disaster, the drop dead date was moved to 1990. Then 2000. Then 2010. Now, it's still, according to the climate cultists, going to happen "real soon now".

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday May 15, @07:56PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday May 15, @07:56PM (#1306445)

    I hesitated to comment on this, but since you've broken the ice: we keep seeing articles like this, and as a scientist at heart, I'm very concerned. I'll explain:

    And the inevitable sea level rise could be worse than scientists calculated:

    These kinds of statements are self-undermining. The natural conclusion in most people's heads and hearts: the scientists told us, unequivocally, that they knew everything about X thing. But then some time later they tell us about something they didn't know and are just now finding and recalculating.

    The only thing most people will (naturally) conclude: what else don't they know? No point in taking them at their word. They might mean well, but there might be gigantic unknowns. So why should I (anyone) bother to change my life, add expenses to my life, live more efficiently, do without, etc., only to find out the experts were wrong?

    To be clear, I'm not advocating this, just writing what I observe seems to be human nature.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @09:01PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @09:01PM (#1306452)

    I'm old enough to remember people repeatedly claiming "they said" in very definitive terms without noting ANY sense of nuance, when "they said" turns out to be a newspaper or magazine headline (oh, look, it is still being done today!). My favorite is the "they said there was going to be global cooling and look how wrong they were!" They will take a Newsweek article that talks about the buildup of aerosols in the atmosphere and how that could tip the energy balance towards cooling, completely and conveniently (or ignorantly) ignore the Clean Air Act and Montreal Protocols that went into effect afterwards and the effect that had on reducing the amounts of aerosols in the atmosphere, then claim "all the scientists were crying wolf!" That's like me noticing that the trashcan next to your garage is on fire, I tell you "hey, your house is going to burn down," a fireman comes by and puts out the trashcan, then you telling me what an alarmist I am and how wrong I am about your house burning down.

    So please inform us with a little more detail where and what these deadlines were. Were they worst case scenarios? Did anything change between predictions? Because as it stands now, not only have the large international models been pretty darn good with their predictions, so were the models done by those well known corporate Exxon "cultist" scientists back in the 70s and 80s. I presume you still don't think there is any connection between regular smoking and lung cancer, or did the internal RJ Reynolds documents finally change your mind? The same PR firms have been working this issue as well. So why don't you at least believe the Exxon scientists?