melt water – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Northern hemisphere losing last dry snow region, says CU study

By Guest PostJune 8, 2013Environment60 year record, air temperature, Arctic sea ice, boulder, dan mcgrath, dry snow region, greenland ice sheet, ice per year, mass balance, melt water, northern hemisphere, surface, university of colorado, warming at summit

Last July, something unprecedented in the 34-year satellite record happened: 98 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s surface melted, compared to roughly 50 percent during an average summer. Snow that usually stays frozen and dry turned wet with melt water. Research led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences now shows last summer’s extreme melt could soon be the new normal.

“Greenland is warming rapidly, and such ice-sheet-wide, surface-melt events will occur more frequently over the next couple of decades,” said Dan McGrath, a University of Colorado Boulder doctoral student who works at CIRES. McGrath is lead author of a paper published online May 20 in Geophysical Research Letters and which reports a significant warming trend on the Greenland Ice Sheet. (more…)

Scientists Discover Huge Phytoplankton Bloom in Ice Covered Waters

By Guest PostJune 13, 2012Environmentalaska, aleutian islands, alga phaeocystis, arctic algal boom, arctic circle, arctic summer, arctic waters, beaufort seas, bob pickart, chlorophyll, climate change, continental shelf, ecosystem, emily peacock, healy, heidi sosik, ice free waters, icebreaker, icescape program, imaging flowcytobot, kevin arrigo, magnifying lenses, melt water, microscopic marine plants, NASA, optical measurements, phenomenon, photosynthetic, phytoplankton, polar chukchi, pools of water, rob olson, sam laney, sea ice, skylights, stanford university, thalassiosira, us coast guard, whoi

A team of researchers, including scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), discovered a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath ice-covered Arctic waters. Until now, sea ice was thought to block sunlight and limit the growth of microscopic marine plants living under the ice.

The amount of phytoplankton growing in this under-ice bloom was four times greater than the amount found in neighboring ice-free waters. The bloom extended laterally more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) underneath the ice pack, where ocean and ice physics combined to create a phenomenon that scientists had never seen before. (more…)

Water Flowing Through Ice Sheets Accelerates Warming, Could Speed Up Ice Flow, Says New Study

By Guest PostNovember 7, 2010Environmentclimate change, climate warming, conventional thermal models, crevasses, fractures, greenland, ice flows, ice sheet, ice sheets, konrad steffen, melt water, moulins, thermal models, thomas phillips

Melt water flowing through ice sheets via crevasses, fractures and large drains called moulins can carry warmth into ice sheet interiors, greatly accelerating the thermal response of an ice sheet to climate change, according to a new study involving the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The new study showed ice sheets like the Greenland Ice Sheet can respond to such warming on the order of decades rather than the centuries projected by conventional thermal models. Ice flows more readily as it warms, so a warming climate can increase ice flows on ice sheets much faster than previously thought, said the study authors. (more…)

Tag Archives: melt water

Northern hemisphere losing last dry snow region, says CU study

Scientists Discover Huge Phytoplankton Bloom in Ice Covered Waters

Water Flowing Through Ice Sheets Accelerates Warming, Could Speed Up Ice Flow, Says New Study