The warming of Greenland progressing more rapidly than predicted

[Toddsterpatriot]

You’re making a basic category error by treating “ice has existed somewhere on Greenland” as equivalent to “the Greenland ice sheet has never retreated.” Ice cores only tell you that snow kept accumulating at the specific drill site; they do not measure total ice sheet extent. You can have continuous ice in central Greenland while the margins retreat hundreds of kilometers, and that is exactly what the geological evidence shows. We have direct physical evidence, not models, not CO2 theory: marine sediments beneath present ice margins, cosmogenic isotope dating of exposed bedrock, and soils and plant material found under today’s ice.

These independently show that large parts of southern and western Greenland were ice-free during warm periods like the Eemian (~125k years ago) and parts of the early Holocene.

The 2 million year DNA finding proves Greenland was once green, not that it has been continuously ice covered since. In fact, it implies massive changes in ice extent over time.

Your argument only works if you redefine retreat to mean “every last molecule of ice on the entire island disappears” which is not how glaciology works and never has been. Ice sheets advance and retreat at their margins while cores persist in the interior; regional asynchrony is normal in glacial systems. So the claim “there is ZERO evidence of retreat” is simply false. The evidence exists in the field, in the rocks, in the sediments, and it has nothing to do with climate models or CO2 narratives.

Now you've done it.

EMH will now claim you're Mossad.

 

[Frankeneinstein]

The warming and melting of Greenland, in fact, of the whole Arctic, is progressing much more rapidly than the scientists predicted. Evidence from the ice cores and ground underneath the ice show that in the past there was major ice loss at lower GHG levels than we have today. And as the warming Arctic makes the jet stream Rossby waves more extreme, southern areas are seeing colder winter storms, while the Arctic sees brief periods of above freezing temperatures in the dead of winter.

"A rapidly warming Arctic that feels unfamiliar even to experts​

The changes in Greenland are part of a broader pattern across the Arctic, where warming is proceeding at roughly four times the global average. Long term assessments like the annual Arctic Report Card have documented how sea ice, snow cover, and permafrost are all shifting in ways that would have been hard to imagine a generation ago. One recent installment described how the region now looks dramatically different than it did 20 years ago, noting that it is the continuation of a long term pattern and that the Arctic has shifted into a new state of being. That new state includes more rain on snow, more open water in autumn, and more frequent episodes of extreme warmth.


Some of those extremes have stunned even veteran researchers. Earlier this month, temperatures near the North Pole spiked more than 36°F above average, briefly pushing conditions above the melting point in the heart of winter. Scientists who work in Svalbard, Norway, in the high Arctic have described how the signs of rapid climate change are unmistakable, as documented in a detailed Transcript of their observations. When I hear glaciologists and sea ice experts say that the Arctic they study today barely resembles the one they first encountered in their careers, it becomes clear why the word “terrifying” is no longer considered hyperbole."

MSN

when did all this happen rocks? is it too late to throw a gazillion dollars at it? I suspected something was wrong when we had record setting cold here on the Island, should have known the planet was heating up...anyway, Greenland wants nothing to do with us and europe wants us to take a "hands off" approach so we should just be content with by-stander status I guess.

 

[Anomalism]

Now you've done it.

EMH will now claim you're Mossad.

I hope he does. That would be funny.

 

[ding]

No, 120 ppm of CO2 alone doesn’t automatically push the climate past a point of no return.

Then you are arguing against climate sensitivity. That even if emissions stopped today, thermal inertia would cause global temperatures to continue to rise for years due to the current, already-realized climate sensitivity. Which could trigger crossing irreversible, self-reinforcing tipping points, such as melting ice sheets or thawing permafrost, which could accelerate warming regardless of future emissions cuts. Or could trigger the collapse of the Amazon or the AMOC creating a, "point of no return".

So are you saying you don't believe these are risks?

 

[ding]

What matters is the rate of change, the existing baseline, and the cumulative forcing from all greenhouse gases combined.

You keep saying that like it's gospel, but it isn't. First of all it's idiotic to believe today's warming trend - which actually began 400 years ago after the little ice age ended - is worse than when glacial periods or interglacial periods began. These were abrupt climatic events. Sea levels abruptly changed. I'm talking about 5 to 8C swings over a period of a few decades. Secondly, I don't see anything that has been threatened over the last 400 years. If you want to see what that looks like wait until the AMOC collapses. That will be catastrophic to mankind in parts of three continents. But everywhere else will be just fine.

 

[ding]

The modern system is sensitive because the CO2 increase is rapid and global, unlike the slower natural rises of the past. “Catastrophic” is subjective; what physics shows is that continued rapid CO2 increases will produce far faster warming than ecosystems and human systems can adapt to, which carries risk, not inevitability. This is where I seriously diverge from most left wingers on this issue. I have no doomday narrative.

I don't see anything wrong with the "rapid" rise of CO2. We need more atmospheric CO2, not less. The last glacial period came close to extinguishing all life on the planet because CO2 got too low.

I also don't agree that all warming that has occurred over the last 400 years is due to CO2. I believe less than 30% of that is due to CO2. And because of the logarithmic relationship between atmospheric CO2 and associated surface temperature future increases will have less and less of an impact.

You claim you see no doomsday narrative but you preceded that by saying you believe the rate of warming will exceed the ability of ecosystems and humans to adapt (also something I disagree with). So you seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

[ding]

Regarding the geologic record: it is incorporated into climate science. Paleoclimate reconstructions cover hundreds of thousands of years, and climate models are tested against them. The history matching you mention isn’t ignored; it’s used to constrain climate sensitivity and feedbacks. The difference today is that humans are injecting CO2 externally, at rates far beyond natural variability, which is why modern warming can’t be explained by post-little ice age trends alone.

If that were even remotely true then why didn't they history match the climate record from before 1750. When they didn't need to consider CO2. So they could establish a sound model for natural variation? And then compare that baseline to the post 1750 data to see how that matched. And then tweak the anthropogenic parameters to get a match. That I would accept as sound reasoning. I don't accept what they did in reality.

 

[Anomalism]

If that were even remotely true then why didn't they history match the climate record from before 1750. When they didn't need to consider CO2. So they could establish a sound model for natural variation? And then compare that baseline to the post 1750 data to see how that matched. And then tweak the anthropogenic parameters to get a match. That I would accept as sound reasoning. I don't accept what they did in reality.

The issue isn’t whether models could or should be history matched in a way that isolates pre industrial variability; that’s exactly what climate scientists already do. Attribution studies routinely run simulations with only natural forcings over the pre-industrial period to see how much variability those mechanisms produce. The results show that natural variability alone reproduces short term fluctuations but cannot account for the rapid warming observed after ~1950. That’s why anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases are treated as an independent forcing. It’s not a matter of tweaking to get a match, it’s a residual that remains after natural contributions are accounted for. Paleoclimate evidence is incorporated into model constraints to make sure sensitivity and feedbacks are realistic, including the slow orbital driven changes over glacial interglacial cycles.

Regarding your points about rate, magnitude, and impact, the modern CO2 rise is rapid and global, unlike post little ice age warming or glacial interglacial transitions, which occurred over centuries to millennia. That doesn’t make every warming scenario doomsday, but it does mean the system is responding faster than ecosystems or human infrastructure can adapt, which carries risk. The logarithmic relationship of CO2 to temperature doesn’t eliminate that risk; it just moderates incremental warming per additional ppm. And yes, less than 30% of the post little ice age warming may be from CO2 alone, but what matters is the added cumulative forcing from all anthropogenic greenhouse gases combined, and the speed at which it’s being imposed. Models aren’t perfect, but their results aren’t arbitrary. They are constrained by physics, tested against past climate events, and evaluated across multiple independent datasets. The modern warming is therefore best explained by human emissions, not by natural variability or deglaciation cycles alone.

 

[EMH]

You’re making a basic category error by treating “ice has existed somewhere on Greenland” as equivalent to “the Greenland ice sheet has never retreated.”

No, you are trying to lie and claim there is not clear documentation that the Greenland continent specific ice age started at the north and moved south. There is documentation, posted over and over, and you can't refute one word of it. Hence, your words on the subject are meaningless BS.

Ice cores only tell you that snow kept accumulating at the specific drill site

That's another big lie. The ice cores show the entire ice sheet grew another ice layer, and pushed further along with the extra weight. You have zero evidence to the contrary. Greenland's ice sheet grew, and you have no evidence it ever retreated.

The 2 million year DNA finding proves Greenland was once green, not that it has been continuously ice covered since. In fact, it implies massive changes in ice extent over time.

Lie, it is a 100% validation of 600 miles to a pole. There the annual snowfall ceases to fully melt, and it starts to stack.


Can you find one piece of land inside of 600 miles to a pole not in ice age? NO

Can you find one piece of land outside of 600 miles to a pole in ice age? NO


100% correlation

your BS means nothing

 

[EMH]

I hope he does. That would be funny.

Mossad or not, you are completely refuted by the actual data on all issues.

 

[Anomalism]

No, you are trying to lie and claim there is not clear documentation that the Greenland continent specific ice age started at the north and moved south. There is documentation, posted over and over, and you can't refute one word of it. Hence, your words on the subject are meaningless BS.





That's another big lie. The ice cores show the entire ice sheet grew another ice layer, and pushed further along with the extra weight. You have zero evidence to the contrary. Greenland's ice sheet grew, and you have no evidence it ever retreated.









Lie, it is a 100% validation of 600 miles to a pole. There the annual snowfall ceases to fully melt, and it starts to stack.


Can you find one piece of land inside of 600 miles to a pole not in ice age? NO

Can you find one piece of land outside of 600 miles to a pole in ice age? NO


100% correlation

your BS means nothing

What you’re calling a law is not a physical principle; it’s something you invented. Ice sheets are governed by mass balance, not latitude. What matters is whether accumulation exceeds melt, not how close a continent is to a pole. There are glaciers well outside your 600 mile zone (Himalayas, Andes, Alps, New Zealand) and there are regions inside the Arctic circle that lose ice when summer melt exceeds snowfall, which is exactly what is happening on modern Greenland, measured by satellites. So your “100% correlation” is already falsified by basic geography.

And you keep misrepresenting what ice cores mean. An ice core only proves that ice persisted at that specific drilling site. It does not tell you the areal extent of the entire ice sheet. An ice sheet can shrink dramatically at the margins while continuing to accumulate in the interior. That’s exactly what the independent geological evidence shows for Greenland, exposed bedrock, marine sediments, cosmogenic isotopes, and geomorphology all indicate repeated major retreats during warm periods. The 2 million year DNA finding proves Greenland was once largely ice free, not that it has been in a single uninterrupted non stop ice age ever since. You’re confusing “some ice existed somewhere” with “the ice sheet never retreated,” which is a basic category error, not evidence.

 

[ding]

The issue isn’t whether models could or should be history matched in a way that isolates pre industrial variability; that’s exactly what climate scientists already do.

That's not what they did. That's not what you said they did.

 

[ding]

Regarding your points about rate, magnitude, and impact, the modern CO2 rise is rapid and global, unlike post little ice age warming or glacial interglacial transitions, which occurred over centuries to millennia.

I disagree. Abrupt glaciation and deglaciation events are orders of magnitude faster than than the temperature rise of the past 400 years. Climatic tipping points that swing temperatures 5 to 8C over a few decades are much much faster.

 

[EMH]

Ice sheets are governed by mass balance, not latitude

With 100% documented correlation between 600 miles to the pole and land in ice age, we get this BS.

Ice sheets, ice ages, start when land gets to within 600 miles to a pole.

Either refute that or STFU.... and since you can't refute it, STFU you sick liar....

 

[Anomalism]

That's not what they did. That's not what you said they did.

I disagree. Abrupt glaciation and deglaciation events are orders of magnitude faster than than the temperature rise of the past 400 years. Climatic tipping points that swing temperatures 5 to 8C over a few decades are much much faster.

Now you’re asserting a narrative that directly contradicts the data. Yes, that is what they did, attribution studies explicitly separate natural forcings solar, volcanic, orbital from anthropogenic ones and run counterfactual simulations with only natural inputs. Those runs reproduce pre industrial variability and fail to reproduce the post 1950 trend. That residual is the entire basis of detection and attribution science. If you remove greenhouse forcing from the models, the modern warming disappears. That’s a falsifiable result that’s been replicated across independent model families and observational datasets.

And the “5–8C in a few decades” claim is simply false at the global scale. There is no evidence anywhere in paleoclimate that the entire planet warmed or cooled by that amount over a few decades. What you’re referencing are regional or proxy specific events being misrepresented as global averages. Globally, glacial interglacial transitions unfold over centuries to millennia. That’s not debated. It’s constrained by ice cores, ocean sediments, and isotopic records from multiple continents. So no, past climate change was not orders of magnitude faster than modern warming. Modern warming is one of the fastest global temperature increases in the entire Quaternary record, and the difference is that this time the forcing is external, rapid, and cumulative rather than orbital and slow.

 

[Anomalism]

With 100% documented correlation between 600 miles to the pole and land in ice age, we get this BS.

Ice sheets, ice ages, start when land gets to within 600 miles to a pole.

Either refute that or STFU.... and since you can't refute it, STFU you sick liar....

Latitude alone does not dictate ice sheet formation. Ice sheets grow or shrink based on mass balance, the difference between accumulation and ablation. Being within 600 miles of a pole does make conditions potentially favorable for ice, but it’s not deterministic. You can have high latitude land that never forms a major ice sheet because snowfall is low or temperatures fluctuate enough to limit accumulation. Conversely, lower latitude regions with high snowfall and persistent cold can sustain ice year round. The onset of ice ages involves orbital variations, greenhouse gas feedbacks, and ocean circulation changes, all of which influence mass balance globally, not just latitude.

Your claim about “600 miles to the pole” being the universal trigger for ice ages is not science; it’s a comforting story you’ve latched onto.

Your insistence that I STFU because you feel your 600 mile correlation can’t be refuted isn’t debate; it’s an emotional defense mechanism. You’re lashing out at anyone pointing out nuance. Science isn’t about moral victory or gut level conviction; it’s about evidence, mechanisms, and testing ideas. Clinging to a simplistic rule while attacking anyone who disagrees is a textbook example of arguing from psychological security rather than reasoning. You’re angry because complexity undermines the neat pattern you’ve convinced yourself exists.

 

[ding]

Now you’re asserting a narrative that directly contradicts the data. Yes, that is what they did, attribution studies explicitly separate natural forcings solar, volcanic, orbital from anthropogenic ones and run counterfactual simulations with only natural inputs. Those runs reproduce pre industrial variability and fail to reproduce the post 1950 trend. That residual is the entire basis of detection and attribution science. If you remove greenhouse forcing from the models, the modern warming disappears. That’s a falsifiable result that’s been replicated across independent model families and observational datasets.

And the “5–8C in a few decades” claim is simply false at the global scale. There is no evidence anywhere in paleoclimate that the entire planet warmed or cooled by that amount over a few decades. What you’re referencing are regional or proxy specific events being misrepresented as global averages. Globally, glacial interglacial transitions unfold over centuries to millennia. That’s not debated. It’s constrained by ice cores, ocean sediments, and isotopic records from multiple continents. So no, past climate change was not orders of magnitude faster than modern warming. Modern warming is one of the fastest global temperature increases in the entire Quaternary record, and the difference is that this time the forcing is external, rapid, and cumulative rather than orbital and slow.

I'm telling you that the only thing that can cause abrupt climate changes are abrupt climatic events like ocean currents changing. Orbital changes are not abrupt. Orbital changes are what people like you use to avoid addressing that the ocean - not the atmosphere - is what drives the climate on earth.

 

[Anomalism]

I'm telling you that the only thing that can cause abrupt climate changes are abrupt climatic events like ocean currents changing. Orbital changes are not abrupt. Orbital changes are what people like you use to avoid addressing that the ocean - not the atmosphere - is what drives the climate on earth.

You’re conflating the mechanisms of amplification with the ultimate forcing and global signal. Abrupt ocean circulation changes, volcanic eruptions, or ice sheet collapses can cause regional or short term anomalies, but they cannot account for the sustained, planet wide warming observed over the last century. Attribution studies explicitly separate natural variability, including ocean driven events, from anthropogenic forcing. Counterfactual simulations that remove greenhouse gas increases fail to reproduce the observed post 1950 warming. That’s the core of detection science. Oceans redistribute heat, but they don’t create it. The modern trend exists because energy is being added to the system from an external source, human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, not because of internal ocean variability alone.

If you want abrupt events, the past shows they are punctuated and regional, not sustained and global. Modern warming is continuous, measurable across land, ocean, and atmosphere, and replicable in independent models. The oceans are part of the conveyor belt that spreads energy, but they aren’t the power plant. Saying “it’s all ocean-driven” ignores the energy budget and the falsifiable evidence that removing greenhouse forcing eliminates the trend.

 

[ding]

You’re conflating the mechanisms of amplification with the ultimate forcing and global signal.

I'm not. I'm doing just the opposite. Heat disruption to the Arctic from the Atlantic leads to colder temperatures (that's the event, that's the forcing). Colder temperatures lead to glaciation which increases albedo (that's the feedback) which amplifies the climate event which led to glaciation.

 

[Anomalism]

I'm not. I'm doing just the opposite. Heat disruption to the Arctic from the Atlantic leads to colder temperatures (that's the event, that's the forcing). Colder temperatures lead to glaciation which increases albedo (that's the feedback) which amplifies the climate event which led to glaciation.

You’re still mixing scales, and it's starting to seem like it's intentional, not just ignorance. The Atlantic Arctic disruption is a regional, proximate trigger; it doesn’t create the global energy imbalance. Albedo feedback amplifies the local response, but the global climate system’s temperature is set by integrated forcings, including greenhouse gases. Your event explains a regional pulse, not the long term global trend we see in the paleoclimate record or today. Trigger versus background forcing remains a key distinction.