Wyatt earp
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2012
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Holy shit, breakout the champagne!!!! the scientific break through since the AGW cult figured out the earth changes climates.............................
Scientists just found an unexpected factor that could be driving Greenland’s ice loss
Scientists just found an unexpected factor that could be driving Greenland’s ice loss
A UCLA-led study reported that melt-prone areas on Greenland's ice sheet use a drainage system of streams and rivers that carry meltwater into the ocean. However, the the study also found that measurements at the ice's edge show that climate models alone can overestimate the volume of meltwater flowing to the ocean because they fail to account for water storage beneath the ice.
There’s been another breakthrough in the study of the Greenland ice sheet, whose increasing melt rate and growing contribution to global sea-level rise has captured the attention and concern of climate scientists in recent years. While changes in air temperature, water temperature and precipitation are known to influence melting events on the ice sheet, a new study has identified another, perhaps less obvious culprit: clouds.
It’s a finding that should be reflected in current climate models to help scientists make more accurate predictions about future Greenland melt — and could become even more important in the coming years if cloud cover over the ice sheet were to increase as a result of climate change.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, concludes that cloud cover can actually increase the amount of meltwater that runs off the surface of the glacier. Clouds have the effect of trapping heat on Earth; they can cause local temperatures to be warmer, so one would imagine that clouds might increase the amount of ice that actually melts during the day. But it turns out that the influence of cloud cover is strongest after the sun goes down. At night, the clouds actually prevent temperatures from cooling as much as they would on clear nights and keep already-melted ice from refreezing. This liquid water then pools on the surface of the ice and can be lost as runoff.
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Scientists just found an unexpected factor that could be driving Greenland’s ice loss
Scientists just found an unexpected factor that could be driving Greenland’s ice loss
A UCLA-led study reported that melt-prone areas on Greenland's ice sheet use a drainage system of streams and rivers that carry meltwater into the ocean. However, the the study also found that measurements at the ice's edge show that climate models alone can overestimate the volume of meltwater flowing to the ocean because they fail to account for water storage beneath the ice.
There’s been another breakthrough in the study of the Greenland ice sheet, whose increasing melt rate and growing contribution to global sea-level rise has captured the attention and concern of climate scientists in recent years. While changes in air temperature, water temperature and precipitation are known to influence melting events on the ice sheet, a new study has identified another, perhaps less obvious culprit: clouds.
It’s a finding that should be reflected in current climate models to help scientists make more accurate predictions about future Greenland melt — and could become even more important in the coming years if cloud cover over the ice sheet were to increase as a result of climate change.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, concludes that cloud cover can actually increase the amount of meltwater that runs off the surface of the glacier. Clouds have the effect of trapping heat on Earth; they can cause local temperatures to be warmer, so one would imagine that clouds might increase the amount of ice that actually melts during the day. But it turns out that the influence of cloud cover is strongest after the sun goes down. At night, the clouds actually prevent temperatures from cooling as much as they would on clear nights and keep already-melted ice from refreezing. This liquid water then pools on the surface of the ice and can be lost as runoff.
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