DennisPTate
Gold Member
- Nov 6, 2025
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Sounds like you need something to do ... something to address these concerns and help work to correct and/or prevent tragedy ...
Use less energy in your everyday life ... and use money as the measure ... it costs less to walk to the store than it is to warm up the Ford F-150 ... ditch your air conditioner ... don't let children open the refrigerator ... use the money you save to buy PIZZA PIES !!! ...
Seriously, why would anyone worry about the solar energy striking the Greenland ice sheet? ... sunrise there isn't until February ... too little sunlight reaches so far away from the equator ... it won't make any difference to ocean currents ... none at all ...
We multiple our average irradiation values by the cosine of latitude ... and the cosine of 75º is very small ... so on average, the polar regions experience a net loss of heat energy due to convection ...
Those are truly good questions. Here are some answers from Google that are rather impressive:
"Is the land based Greenland ice sheet warming?"
Yes, the land-based Greenland ice sheet is warming and has been continuously losing mass every year since at least the late 1990s. This warming and resulting ice loss are accelerating due to human-caused climate change, with the Arctic region warming at a rate of nearly four times the global average.
Key Observations of Warming and Melt
- Continuous Mass Loss: Since 2002, the Greenland ice sheet has lost an average of about 266 billion metric tons of ice per year. The year 1996 was the last time it experienced a net annual gain in mass.
- Accelerating Rate: The rate of ice loss has accelerated significantly, melting seven times faster now than it did in the 1990s.
- Above-Average Temperatures and Melt Events: The ice sheet's temperatures have been the highest in the past millennium, about 1.5°C (2.7°F) warmer than the 20th-century average. This has led to an increase in both the extent and duration of surface melting, including unprecedented late-season melt events.
- Impact of Warming Air and Ocean Water:
- Surface Melt: Warmer air temperatures cause increased surface melting and rain events at high elevations, which can damage the ice sheet.
- Oceanic Melt: Warming ocean waters also play a significant role by melting the fronts of marine-terminating glaciers from underneath, leading to faster ice flow and increased iceberg calving.
- Feedback Loops: As the ice melts, it exposes darker bare rock and promotes vegetation growth, which absorbs more solar energy than reflective ice and snow. This phenomenon, known as the ice-albedo feedback, further accelerates local warming and melting.