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Philippe Terrier
Switzerland
http://scholar.google.ch/citations?hl=fr&user=GL1rd30AAAAJ&pagesize=100&view_op=list_works
Recent Activity
" expect most of you will not be surprised by Arctic collapse dramatically increases global warming.
I was pleased to hear about it on BBC Radio 4. "
Link to the original article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11392.html
Why Arctic sea ice shouldn't leave anyone cold
The sea ice is leaving us a bit more every year. It's time to start contemplating its absence, which is why I teamed up with Kevin McKinney to write an extended version of the shorter piece you might see pop up here and there. Because you know, disappearing sea ice isn't without consequences. An...
"I do not think that the graph shows minimum extent.
Putting the near minimum value of 2012 in, is not correct."
Yes, Kinnard's extent is for August (probably average). The 20th century data are a combination of a russian reconstruction, and the well known "crysophere" reconstruction ( http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png )
Record dominoes 8: NSIDC daily sea ice extent
There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...
"I don't know why, but that actually made me laugh, so thanks, Alexander. Coincidentally I'm using the Kinnard graph for the piece that will be published tomorrow. But I might use yours too for a separate blog post in coming weeks. So thanks again!"
It is a very good Idea to complete de Kinnard's figure with the 2012 record. However, I think that it deserves a better method than just adding the 2012 value.
Here is the supplementary materials of the Kinnard's article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/extref/nature10581-s1.pdf
figure S1 shows the recent values. It seems that the "late summer" values (August) are a little bit higher than NSIDC record for the corresponding year. We should try to match the 1979-2000 NSIDC data with the Kinnard's data and then show the 2012 record with the appropriate scaling.
All the Kinnard's data are available online:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10581.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111124#/supplementary-information
Record dominoes 8: NSIDC daily sea ice extent
There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...
I see differences between the new "SMI index" figure
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b0167694a8ba3970b-pi
and this old one published in 2011:
http://www.greenlandmelting.com/uploads/1/3/0/5/13056389/7577718.jpg?1343568281
2007 was the second highest melting years, but not in the new figure...
Change in methods ?
Greenland melting breaks record 4 weeks early
There already was a suspicion that this year would become a record year for Greenland ice melt, after all the real-time information we received from Dr. Jason Box with regards to the reflectivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet (see Dark side of Greenland), the extremely high temperatures in much of...
Relevant publications
Polar lows as arctic hurricanes
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0870.1989.tb00362.x/abstract
À hurricane-like polar low fuelled by latent heat flux
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.1876/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Arctic storm part 1: in progress
This is what I meant when I said 'flash melting' yesterday: Now it's there on the Uni Bremen sea ice concentration map, the next day, poof, it's gone. Mind you, not all of it is gone, the sensor is thrown off a bit due to that crazy cyclone downstairs, but it ain't exactly good for the ice if ...
"An excellent temperature graph provide by Chris Shuman, NASAfrom the Greenland Summit puts 2012 in perspective versus other years."
The graph has been updated with the end-of-july "heat wave" event:
http://jcet.umbc.edu/2012/07/nasa-72412-press-release-green.html
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
Summit, top of Greenland Ice Sheet (3199m), reports O°C / 32°F.
http://www.summitcamp.org/status/webcam/
Actually, temperature is constantly above -4C/25F since about 36 hours:
http://www.summitcamp.org/status/environmental/?period=week
A new massive melting event ?
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
@Glacierchange
Thank your for the data !
Is the plot regularly updated ?
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
"The melt reported by NASA this week was a rare weather event, as Dr. Wagner explains rather well."
We will see tomorrow
Last GFS weather forecast continues to see all Greeland above 0°C:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/19/rtavn3654.png/
IMHO, such global melt event should be analyzed in the context of positive trends in the surface melt. As reported in this study:
http://www.igsoc.org:8080/journal/57/204/j11J003.pdf
The authors observed that "After 1972, the maximum melt extent increased significantly (p < 0.01) by 22% (~3.7x10^5km^2)of the GrIS area". The figure 4 is also very informative.
With a constant increase in melt surface since 1972, the probability of occurence of a global melt event should also increase.
In fact, it was already predicted by J. Box:
"In the 12 years beginning in 2000, the reduced albedo combined with a significant increase in downward solar irradiance yielded an accumulation area net radiation increase from 0:9 to 0:2Wm2. Another similar decade may be sufficient to shift the average summer accumulation area radiation budget from negative to positive, resulting in an abrupt ice sheet melt area increase. The ice sheet mass budget deficit is therefore expected to become more sensitive to increasing temperatures via the ice albedo feedback, especially in negative summer NAO index conditions. Future work should therefore be concerned with understanding potential tipping points in ice sheet melt regime as the average radiation budget shifts from negative (cooling) to positive (heating), as it seems the threshold of this has just been reached. It will take some time, perhaps years for the cold content of the firn to be sufficiently eroded to allow continuous summer melting and an ice sheet surface characterized by 100% melt extent. Further warming would only hasten the amplification of melting that the albedo feedback permits."
http://bprc.osu.edu/~jbox/temp/Box%20et%20al.%202012%20-%20TCD%20-%20resubmitted%20after%20review%20round%202.pdf
Tom Wagner of NASA explains
Hat-tip to Climate Denial Crock of the Week: He's good!
" Well, this melt may prove to be not very exceptional after all. In fact, based on the forecast it may happen again this weekend."
Indeed, last GFS forcasts all greenland above 0°C:
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/3793/rtavn6052.png
Wunderground forcast for Summit: +1 max on Saturday:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=Summit+greenland
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
I found a relevent reference from Dr Keegan:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFM.C33C0661K
The reference to previous melting events probably comes from this study, not yet published (only a congress abstract)
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
"I second that opinion.
The Greenland ice sheet cores record more than 100,000 years of climatic history from the summit.
Did nobody analyse melting lines in these cores earlier than 1750 ?
If not, why not ?"
An hypothesis could be that "melting lines" are only visible in fresh, not fully transformed ice, i.e. only at the top of ice cores...
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
Here is the last GFS temperature forecast for Saturday afternoon:
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7664/rtavn905.png
New global melt event ?
Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
This just in from NASA (hat-tip Apocalypse4Real): Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt July 24, 2012: For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire...
I'm a big fan of this blog, but only a silent reader, because of my difficulty to write in english, as a non-native english speaker...
However, I think this article is very interesting in the context of the Watson River flooding:
Large surface meltwater discharge from the Kangerlussuaq sector of the Greenland ice sheet during the record-warm year 2010 explained by detailed energy balance observations
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/6/199/2012/tc-6-199-2012.pdf
See fig. 8:
"After passage through and underneath the
ice sheet, meltwater collects in the proglacial melt river that runs past Kangerlussuaq. The freshwater discharge as measured at the bridge over Watson River in Kangerlussuaq is also illustrated in Fig. 8."
Maybe someone could contact the authors to ask whether recent (2011-2012) data are available
The dark side of Greenland
Last January Dr. Jason E. Box. research scientist at Byrd Polar Research Center, reported on his Meltfactor blog that the Greenland ice sheet was getting less and less reflective. Albedo, the reflecting power of a surface that is defined as the ratio of reflected radiation, is high when the ice...
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Jul 13, 2012
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