From the CO2Science Archive: For years we have been bombarded with reports of melting and thinning of ice in the coastal areas of Greenland and the catastrophic consequences that climate alarmists have said will follow in the wake of the dramatic sea level rise they predict to result from the mountains of meltwater they say will be released to the surrounding ocean, together with their even further-fetched story of imminent thermohaline circulation shutdown induced by the impending huge freshwater discharge to the region of North Atlantic Deep Water formation. Little, however, has been written about changes that may be occurring in the much larger interior region of the island’s famous ice sheet and what they might imply. Now, a new study rectifies that deficiency.
Paper reviewed: Johannessen, O.M., Khvorostovsky, K., Miles, M.W. and Bobylev, L.P. 2005. Recent ice-sheet growth in the interior of Greenland. Sciencexpress / www.sciencexpress.org / 20 October 2005.
What was done
Johannessen et al. derived and analyzed “a continuous satellite-altimeter height record of Greenland Ice Sheet elevations by combining European Space Agency ERS-1 and ERS-2 data, in order to determine the spatial patterns of surface elevation changes over an 11-year period, 1992-2003.”
What was learned
The researchers report that “below 1500 meters, the elevation-change rate is -2.0 +/- 0.9 cm/year, in qualitative agreement with reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins,” but that “an increase of 6.4 +/- 0.2 cm/year is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters.” Spatially averaged over the bulk of the ice sheet, the net result is a mean increase of 5.4 +/- 0.2 cm/year, “or ~60 cm over 11 years, or ~54 cm when corrected for isostatic uplift.”
What it means
In a world that has been said by many to have experienced a century of warming that is claimed to have been unprecedented over the past two millennia (Mann and Jones, 2003), the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to accumulate mass, even at the apex of the historical (but likely highly-inflated) temperature increase. This finding does not bode well for those who have cried “the ice sheet is shrinking” so vociferously and for so long a time.
Reference
Mann, M.E. and Jones, P.D. 2003. Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia. Geophysical Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2003GL017814.
A group led by some econuts from Ely MN lead an expedition to the north coast of Greenland because they were convinced that the big meltdown was concealed up there....they went in July...about 10 days later they had to call for a rescue because they were freezing to death...they found no melting! The same econuts placed a 55 gallon drum of water with a solar powered heating coil designed to keep the water from freezing, this was supposed to prove that solar panels would work in the north country all year around....the heating coil was frozen into the water within 48 hours and it was destroyed! They really do believe their own BS!
When I hear that the ice caps, specifically the Greenland ice cap, are melting, immediately I think of "Glacier Girl". During WW2, war planes manufactured in Canada and the US were flown to England which entailed flying the great circle route over Greenland. A flight had to land on the Greenland Glacier due to bad weather. The planes were abandoned sitting on the glacier at high elevation. Fast forward to 1992 when there was an expedition to recover these old warbirds. "Glacier Girl" was a P-38 Lightning fighter that was found and recovered at 82 Metres below the surface at the time! And they want you to believe that the Greenland ice cap is shrinking?
Yes, because what the slight warming means is increased snowfall which causes increases in the ice. The small temp changes aren't enough to melt anything but they are enough to increase snowfall in the northern hemisphere. What this science is showing is the process whereby we fall back into glaciation, the only existential threat we face.
Not a single catastrophic climate prediction holds up under scrutiny.
Well said