From the eurekalert.org link:
"Intense melting on the surface
During the warm Eemian period, there was intense surface melting that can be seen in the ice core as layers of refrozen meltwater. Meltwater from the surface had penetrated down into the underlying snow, where it once again froze into ice. Such surface melting has occurred very rarely in the last 5,000 years, but the team observed such a melting during the summer of 2012 when they were in Greenland.
"We were completely shocked by the warm surface temperatures at the NEEM camp in July 2012," says Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen. "It was even raining and just like in the Eemian, the meltwater formed refrozen layers of ice under the surface. Although it was an extreme event the current warming over Greenland makes surface melting more likely and the warming that is predicted to occur over the next 50-100 years will potentially have Eemian-like climatic conditions," she believes."
And, there was bad news to go with the good news:
"...Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and adds that the bad news is that if Greenland's ice did not disappear during the Eemian then Antarctica must be responsible for a significant portion of the 4-8 meter rise in sea levels that we know occurred during the Eemian."
And, in passing:
"This new knowledge about past warm climates may help to clarify what is in store for us now that we are facing a global warming."
Due to Yahoo Comment's limitations on space, I could not go into much detail with the mothgerjones.com link But, there is this:
"As an expert on Greenland who has traveled 23 times to the massive, mile thick northern ice sheet, Box has shown an uncanny ability to predict major melts and breakoffs of Manhattan-sized ice chunks. A few years back, he foretold the release of a "4x Manhattans" piece of ice from Greenland's Petermann Glacier, one so big that once afloat it was dubbed an "ice island." In a scientific paper published in February of 2012, Box further predicted "100 % melt area over the ice sheet" within another decade of global warming. As it happened, the ice sheet's surface almost completely melted just a month later in July—an event that, in Box's words, "signals the beginning of the end for the ice sheet."
"I'm not sure but this might be a factor: "Rather than waiting on funding agencies, he (Jason Box, Ohio State University glaciologist) teamed up with Greenpeace on a series of expeditions"
If you're talking about Balog's documentary, that wasn't funded by Greenpeace. It was funded by Nat. Geo., NASA, the NSF, and companies involved with providing the equipement (esp. the photographic equipment they needed to create).
It's not really clear to me that you can simply say that the GIS will respond the same way in a linear fashion as it did during the Eemian. For starters the ice sheet was several hundred meters higher then than it is now, which the paper shows. If it's already starting to see Eemian-style surface melt, without yet reaching +8?C warming, what does that mean for the ice sheet down the road? The two figures (~1.5?C global temperatures spelling the end of the GIS, and 8?C during the Eemian only melting it such that it contributed ~1.5 meters) aren't really contradictory, considering that Greenland will warm by more than the global average, and differences between the ice sheet then and the ice sheet now.
Either way what the study suggests is that Antarctica made up a large portion of the high stand from the Eemian. I don't know why it's reassuring to know that the water came from the South rather than the North.
The statement "there's no doubt that if climate continued like in 2012, Greenland's gone." is true regardless of any other factors. How much do the global temperatures have to up before it is all gone, I have no idea. Do you?
It seems the warming was not even across the globe, Kaspar et al. (GRL, 2005) perform a comparison of a coupled general circulation model (GCM) with reconstructed Eemian temperatures for Europe. Central Europe (north of the Alps) was found to be 1–2 °C warmer than present; south of the Alps, conditions were 1–2 °C cooler than today. The model (generated using observed GHG concentrations and Eemian orbital parameters) generally reproduces these observations, and hence they conclude that these factors are enough to explain the Eemian temperatures.
Quotes by Sagebrush (a self proclaimed Christian and ardent AGW denier) :
"Execute all those who voted for OBAMA"
"Hire the handicapped, they are fun to watch!"
Well it is their country so it stands to reason they will need to respond, as the more melting, the more their coastal may rise. OMike I bet you were a real fun guy back 115K years ago but the rest of us are focused on the hear and now with actual temperature readings and physical evidence. Too bad you aren't one of us.
you know r=the ice core samples are not written in stone. I really don't understand why you keep posting all the useless info. Is it a virus or some type of defect???????????????
Xi...Your comment would make sense if you were talking about just Arctic ice, because it is a little more than a big iceberg. the Greenland is over land so it increases ocean volume and will raise levels. The sooner it melts the sooner ocean levels rise. Greenland ice sheet is melting much faster than ever and much faster than expected.
In July 2012 97% of the surface of ice showed some melting over a 4 day period, an event that has happened before but occurs at a 150 year interval. Here and now info, well 6 months ago better than hundreds of thousands of years. What I found even more interesting is that this article appeared in the Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/07...
It is the same old con game. Put out authentic sounding propaganda. Never tell people the truth. Put in there, "Greenland ice sheet" may be melting faster than anyone expected." That always terrifies everyone. Then always pooh pooh the truth. After that go to the UN and ask for money to prove your point. They are willing dupes and will enact several tyrannical rules. Then do it all over again.
In this way people's bank accounts are slowly eroded and liberties are slowly taken away. But they have plenty of time. They have been doing this for decades and are not done lying yet.
Sure there is a discrepancy between the reports. But with useful idiots, Stalin's words, not mine, like you see on this site which add no scientific value and just name calling, in truth hauling water for tyrannical powers they are slowly winning. They follow Goebbels' principle, "Keep repeating the lie and it will become the truth."
Chris Mooney is guilty of lies of omission on a variety of environmental topics, Charles Manson would be a more reliable source of information.
Eemian maximum consider; sea level was 4 to 6 metres higher than today.
That was when the feedbacks reached equilibrium.
Carbon dioxide wa less than 300ppm. It is now 395ppm.
A few days ago, I read about a report on the Greenland ice sheet using data from ice cores. Here are some quotes:
"... the climate in Greenland was around 8 degrees C warmer than today during the last interglacial period, the Eemian period, 130,000 to 115,000 thousand years ago."
"But despite the warm temperatures, the ice sheet did not disappear and the research team estimates that the volume of the ice sheet was not reduced by more than 25 percent during the warmest 6,000 years of the Eemian."
"The good news from this study is that the Greenland ice sheet is not as sensitive to temperature increases and to ice melting and running out to sea in warm climate periods like the Eemian,as we thought"
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/uoc-gic012213.php
Well that sounds like good news to me. However, Chris Mooney has written a somewhat different report:
"... it "Greenland ice sheet" may be melting faster than anyone expected, including most scientists. And what's more, we may be blowing past a point of irreversibility ..."
"One recent scientific prediction suggested that 1.6 degrees Celsius (just under 3 degrees Fahrenheit) of temperature rise above pre-industrial levels might be enough to lock in Greenland's complete melting."
"there's no doubt that if climate continued like in 2012, Greenland's gone."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/greenland-ice-melting-climate-change
Both reports can't be correct. So what's going on?
NOTES:
(I'm not sure but this might be a factor: "Rather than waiting on funding agencies, he (Jason Box, Ohio State University glaciologist) teamed up with Greenpeace on a series of expeditions to document, and also dramatize, the ice sheet's melting.")
(Apparently, Box figures that cutting CO2 is going to save Greenland: http://climatedesk.org/2013/01/climate-desk-live-12813-can-greenland-be-saved/ )
