Note all the backing and filling, in both this version of the article and earlier ones: turns out not to be on the ice shelf after all, things have gotten colder since the photo was taken so the melting shown in the photo has reduced, and so forth. In earlier versions it was noted that this may not be typical of general conditions, is not all that unusual in certain situations this time of year, and so forth.
The point is, the article using this lovely photograph to give a completely misleading impression. This "phenomenon" is not only quite common, it's perfectly normal. Having lived for more than a decade in the northern Canadian wilderness, I've seen it -- where water comes up over the surface of the ice in the spring -- frequently; where I was living it happened almost every year. I've seen it become much deeper than this, as high as nine or ten feet of water on top of a large ice surface -- although the situation shown in the picture, of a foot or two on top of the ice, is more common. All it takes is a rapidly rising water level underneath a softening ice surface -- just what is supposed to happen in the spring!
Once again, the NY Times tries to dupe its readers into thinking the climate-sky is falling, when it isn't -- and an amazing number of those readers seem to have no grasp of how the natural environment actually functions. Talk about "fake news"! The funny thing about the NY Times is, they keep proving Trump right. Not, it should be said, an easy thing to do!
6
This week saw other bad news: The Earth is now warmer than it has been for the past 5,000 years. And in addition to this news about Greenland and Arctic ice melt, scientists found that perma frost in Canada is melting 70 years ahead of prediction. That means methane release. One good lightening strike, and that's a lot of fire....
5
American roulette; 6 chambers, 4 loaded. Chamber 1 - nuclear weapons Chamber 2 - a virus Chamber 3 - climate change Chamber 4 - over-population
We love our weapons of mass destruction (personally, I attribute it to Protestant guilt from Hiroshima), a virus has a certain cachet, believing in climate change is nearly a crime in this ignorant political environment we find ourselves, and over-population keeps a lot of people in a job, and the profits coming.
We don't change a thing, until we change ourselves. Seems not likely.
I'd still rather have an empty chamber when the trigger is pulled - what are the odds of that happening?
The trigger is being pulled - by us - each, and everyone, of us.
1
Meanwhile, Colludy J. McTreason and his ilk are rolling back even more Obama regulations in an effort to resuscitate the never possible idea of "clean coal". It’s a shame in his infinite wisdom he can’t see economic growth from renewables, but merely sees red regarding the man who shamed him at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
4
May you be born in interesting times.
2
According to the NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot the marine sectors of both Greenland and West Antarctica’s ice sheets are now irreversibly retreating, that’s around 6 meters of sea level rise equivalent of ice.
And the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet is waking up and it has about 19 meters worth of marine-based ice.
3
The only practical solution is having China and US go back to the virtuous cycle that was fighting for global environmental leadership (the Obama years). The US backed away in 2016 and China followed suit (it’s expensive for China to push for renewables) and unlike trade wars, environmental wars are expensive to fight but everyone benefits from them.
5
I think the public does care about this, but feel powerless to do anything about it. As with any other of the woes our country, there is some special interest that will block a common sense solution.
5
When the climate shifts the wealthy and upper middle classes can afford the air conditioning, higher cost for food, medication/therapies and air filtration systems in their homes, car and body to keep living well.
The poor and lower middle classes will muddle along while some will die of diseases and poor nutrition.
Interestingly enough, what was the average income level of those Trump supporters at his rally last night?
Bread and circus.
10
As if we needed more reminding of the approaching heat storm apocalypse, this news from Greenland is singularly disheartening. humans may not know it, or be unwilling to recognize it, but we are up against the wall. Other nations are behaving responsibly, but we the number two emitter of carbon dioxide are failing in our duty. individually it is incumbent on each of us to do everything we can to reduce greenhouse emissions in our lives.
Cumulatively, the best thing we can do is get rid of Donald Trump and elect a president who really gets this stuff. Time for fiddling around is gone. We are up against it and we must act.
9
Kelly Craft, Trump's nominee for ambassador to the UN and wife of Joe Craft, whose company is the third largest coal producer in the eastern part of the US, has suddenly switch her tune about climate change. Previously, she was a "both sider," saying both climate change deniers and genuine climate scientists were right. Now she says climate change is real and humans are the cause.
I am having a hard time believing her.
2
Congress needs to act to push wind and solar farms immediately and do away with coal and nuclear. Time is of the essence.
5
@Jacquie
But why nuclear?
6
@Jacquie - what christalbel said.
We have an awful lot of work to do to replace the fossil-fuels in our electrical generation, while increasing generation to be ready for the transition to electrically-powered transportation that's just begun.
Shutting down well-run nuclear plants right now just makes things that more difficult.
Leave them be, decarbonize the economy, finally do site-selection and construction for a long-term waste nuclear waste repository, THEN figure if nuclear needs to go or not.
Why make a big job harder when you don't have to?
2
@christalbel The waste "disposal" (burial) and other potential hazards.
Maybe they'll soon be able to open coal mines on the island.
Kinda sad to admit it but 15 years ago we became super concerned about the CO2 going into the 6 mile thick thin blue line known as Earth's atmosphere. We put rooftop solar on the house, stopped our air travel, reduced our driving distances... basically dropped our Carbon Footprint by a factor of 6. Come to find out, we were branded as "those rich elites" who can afford to have solar and were blamed for forcing the less fortunate to pay more for their electricity even though we added generating capacity to the grid at our own expense. Our rooftop solar system has quietly generated about 70 MWhr in 7 years avoiding many tons of CO2 from going into the atmosphere. Today a similar system can be installed for half our cost.
Nonetheless, most people really don't care and ignore the situation. In hindsight, why bother? Unless we all get serious it just won't matter. If you or your off-spring are under, what 40?, they are going to see the full effects... We won't... too old already. Good luck humans. The really sad part falls on the animals who had very little to do with it.
40
@Taoshum
I understand. Went back to school 35 years ago to learn engineering so I could help with the solutions. When I graduated, nobody cared, and only now do many Americans think it is important.
I changed my career for people who still don’t know, or are willingly ignorant or in denial, or deliberately trying to confuse the issue.
The last sands in that hourglass appear to be falling. Time’s almost up.
14
This is so bad. This is so, so bad.
What strikes me most about the oncoming train that is climate change is its speed.
We are constantly being reminded by scientists that things that were supposed to happen in 50 or 70 years (like permafrost melting) are happening now. Today.
Most people are oblivious. It’s easier to ignore it. It’s definitely scary but it’s still mostly remote. For how much longer I ask myself? Kudos to the NYT for their championing of this cause and for highlighting it frequently and loudly.
23
It's mid-June for god's sake.
1
@Ryan How is the date relevant?
7
The hottest months are still to come.
3
Even at 35 thousand feet from a commercial aircraft you can clearly see the melt water while flying over Greenland.
8
Please post an enormous version of this photo of sled dogs walking on water, NYT.
9
There is only one way this will play out. We can know with great certainty that temperature will increase more than publicly predicted, and it will do so more quickly than any policy-making document is willing to suggest. The public is simply not going to act. Even if we knew things were going to hell in 10 years time, it would be too slow. Individuals are barely able to avoid poor decisions in their personal lives when repercussions are 5-10 years out. There simply is not enough collective judgment to avoid a train wreck that plays out in decades or even less than a single decade. It is the slow and gradual death that is humanity’s Achilles heel. Time will be better spent figuring out how life will be lived under the new and inevitable conditions. One might say that I am a pessimist. But with humanity’s willingness to shoot itself in the foot (see Trump’s recent rally), who can argue I’m wrong without appearing to be a pie-in-the-sky idealist?
28
@Tough Call
"Time will be better spent figuring out how life will be lived under the new and inevitable conditions."
Alternate energy sources need to be harnessed with or without climate change. That is one of the really ironic issues in AGW. The possibility that climate will change faster than food chains can adapt is a very real probability that cannot be fixed with re-engineering of any type. Adaptation on a global scale with infrastructure changes would take a minimum of 100 years if there was a full on effort.
Unfortunately, the term "musher" seems to make more sense now....
The experiment continues with empirical data just being ignored. The consequences will hit the planet long before homo--not so sapiens figure this out. The planet's energy issues is just too *difficult* for most people to realize. Stagnation will continue.
In 2016 a paper by Pollard and DeConto, which was widely reported at the time, incorporated new mechanisms into a numerical ice sheet model which indicated that sea level rise over the next 100 years could be several meters under BAU. (1)
But as DeConto said, to be conservative they set an arbitrary speed limit (2) based on observations at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. That glacier has an observed calving rate up to 13km/year, so they told their model not to exceed 5km/year, less than half the observed rate at Jakobshavn.
Now as Richard Alley pointed out to DeConto, Jakobshavn Glacier is 50km up a narrow fjord, is less than 10km wide, and has a marine-terminating ice cliff 100m high.
By contrast, Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica fronts the ocean where there are very strong winds and currents, is 120km wide, and when it backs up it is going to try to make marine-terminating ice cliffs higher than El Capitan (1000m).
As Alley noted, “the wider glaciers and deeper beds of Antarctica will likely allow faster or much faster retreat than has been achieved in Greenland”.
So while we think that sea level rise will be slow, small and expected, we don’t have an upper end as to how fast it could rise when Thwaites collapses and the rest of the WAIS follows, raising sea level globally averaged around 3.3 meters and over 4 meters in the North with its more heavily populated coast.
1. https://youtu.be/9z_oFDoQTXE?t=1418
2. https://youtu.be/aqVPlBf4ydo?t=3381
7
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report [published] yesterday... Reports … point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Washington Post, November 2, 1922
2
@Rebes
Here’s a graph of Arctic sea ice over the last 1,450 years, which doesn’t include the last decade, if you tried to put recent years on there it would blow off the bottom of the chart a long ways.
http://static.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Kinnard_2011_sea_ice_med.jpg
4
@Rebes No link …
2
@Rebes
You appear to offer a variant of the "climate has always changed" meme popular with deniers of anthropogenic global warming. It has multiple weaknesses. Rebuttals can be drawn from the 2014 joint publication of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of the UK, titled "Climate Change: Evidence and Causes" (nas-sites.org/climate-change/summary.html). Here are a couple of easy ones:
For one thing, climate has always changed for a reason. The current warming is anthropogenic. It's been going on for about 200 years, with a mid-20th century cooling trend partly caused by increased industrial particulate emissions following WWII, until they were abated by legislation in the early 1970s. It's not surprising that WaPo would report melting Arctic ice in 1922. It's still happening!
The "climate has always changed" denialist meme also ignores the unprecedented rate of current warming. The fastest known natural warming was at the end of the last "ice age": up to 5 °C in 7000 years. The recent CO2-driven warming of 0.8 °C in 200 years, accelerating to the current rate of 0.2 °C per decade, is already costing the homes, livelihoods and lives of people around the world yearly. Those costs will multiply until the global economy decarbonizes.
You are, of course, free to contradict the NAS and the Royal Society. There's an obvious credibility gap, however.
9
This is the best photo, absolutely amazing.
12
It is unfortunate that if Trump says something stupid (as always) it gets hundreds or even thousands of comments in few minutes, but if a more important issue as this one shows up not even a dozen of readers made a comment. We have zero hope of creating the inertia required by the public to tackle climate change.
34
@LAP unfortunate is an understatement. More like heartbreaking
8
What is there to say that hasn’t been said by the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists for decades now as well as the overwhelming majority of critically thinking and intellectually honest leaders and lay people for many years. I guess we could talk about solutions that would work like comprehensive energy taxation that would incentivize ways for humanity to reduce energy consumption and how to make this burden not be born by those who already have little but even a hint of this in even progressive countries is political suicide as witnessed in France recently.
2
I read article, didn't comment because I'm not well-versed in this science. Silence doesn't necessarily mean indifference.
4
From the Nobel Laureate Yale economist William D. Nordhaus: ”A target of 2½ °C is technically feasible but would require extreme virtually universal global policy measures." https://www.scribd.com/document/335688297/Nordhaus-climate-economics
"The NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot told me: ‘‘You can fiddle around and say, ‘It’s going to take a long time’ or ‘We don’t know.’ But even the most conservative people in our community will tell you: ‘We warm the climate by two or three degrees C? Greenland’s ice is gone.’" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?_r=0
18