Record warmth at the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet
The coldest place in Greenland, and often the entire Northern Hemisphere, is commonly the Summit Station. Located at the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet, 10,551 feet (3216 meters) above sea level, and 415 miles (670 km) north of the Arctic Circle, Summit rarely sees temperatures that rise above the freezing mark. In the 12-year span 2000 - 2011, Summit temperatures rose above freezing only four times, according to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera. But remarkably, over the past week, temperatures at Summit have eclipsed the freezing mark on five days, including four days in a row from July 11 - 14. There are actually three weather stations located at the location--Summit, Summit-US, and Summit AWS. The highest reliable temperature measured at any of the three stations is now the 3.6°C (38.5°F) measured on Monday, July 16, 2012 at Summit-US. A 4.4°C reading at Summit in May, 2010 is bogus, as can be seen by looking at the adjacent station. Similarly, a 3.3°C reading from June 2004 is also bad. Records at Summit began in 1987.
Video 1. A 20-ton tractor attempting to repair a bridge washed out by the raging Watson River on July 11, 2012 in Kangerlussauaq, Greenland gets washed downstream. The driver escaped unharmed. Image taken from an article, Warm air over the ice sheet provides great drama in Greenland, at the Danish Meteorological Institute's web site.
Record heat leads to major flooding in Greenland
The record heat has triggered significant melting of Greenland's Ice Sheet. According to the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, on July 11, glacier melt water from the Russell Glacier flooded the Watson River, smashing two bridges connecting the north and south of Kangerlussuaq (Sønder Strømfjord), a small settlement in southwestern Greenland. The flow rate of 3.5 million liters/sec was almost double the previous record flow rate. The latest forecast for Summit calls for cooler conditions over the coming week, with no more above-freezing temperatures at Summit.
Another huge iceberg calves off of Greenland's Petermann Glacier
A massive ice island two times the size of Manhattan and half as thick as the Empire State Building calved off of Greenland's Petermann Glacier on Monday, July 16, 2012. According to Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment in his Icy Seas blog, the break-off point has been visible for at least 8 years in satellite imagery, and has been propagating at 1 km/year towards Nares Strait. The same glacier calved an iceberg twice as big back on August 4, 2010--the largest iceberg observed in the Arctic since 1962. The freshwater stored in that ice island could have kept the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years, or kept all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days. “While the size is not as spectacular as it was in 2010, the fact that it follows so closely to the 2010 event brings the glacier’s terminus to a location where it has not been for at least 150 years,” Muenchow said in a university press release. “Northwest Greenland and northeast Canada are warming more than five times faster than the rest of the world, but the observed warming is not proof that the diminishing ice shelf is caused by this, because air temperatures have little effect on this glacier; ocean temperatures do, and our ocean temperature time series are only five to eight years long — too short to establish a robust warming signal.”
Figure 1. The calving of a massive 46 square-mile iceberg two times the size of Manhattan from Greenland's Petermann Glacier on July 14 - 18, 2012, as seen using MODIS satellite imagery. Image credit: NASA.
Figure 2. Look familiar? Two years ago, a 100 square-mile ice island broke off the Petermann Glacier. It was the largest iceberg in the Arctic since 1962. Image taken by NASA's Aqua satellite on August 21, 2010. Image credit: NASA. I've constructed a 7-frame satellite animation available here that shows the calving and break-up of the Petermann Glacier ice island. The animation begins on August 5, 2010, and ends on September 21, with images spaced about 8 days apart. The images were taken by NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.
Related posts
Unprecedented May heat in Greenland; update on 2011 Greenland ice melt
Greenland update for 2010: record melting and a massive calving event
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Note my user name.
I do not mean to offend, I understand that I am somewhat different.
This is what I UNDERSTOOD from what you said, forgive if I understood wrong.
Anyone getting government assistance at any time is a dead beat?
It's not connected to a front...
Nothing. You stated facts, you didn't misrepresent anything. The only thing you didn't do is give excuses for those facts.
Is it OK if I take that spin from you? You didn't need it or anything...
guess nobodys talking about this wave...
it has a little spin to it if you noticed
You made an over reaching generalization about a group of people based on exceptions. The poor are not leaches. They don't all have flat screen tv's, air conditioning, etc. I would suggest reading "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol to get a good look at what poor neighborhoods are actually like.
For example here in Florida the average welfare payment is $73.41 per month. That's not flat screen tv money any way you slice it. 40% not paying any income taxes is accurate, but only because they aren't making enough money after deductions to need to pay, yet they still pay payroll and sales taxes, and in many cases, state and local taxes as well. You are misrepresenting data.
Our local NWS was saying the same thing with highs anywhere from 100-110 degrees from KC to Indy and that was just the EURO. MEX was even higher. Heat Indexes could be over 120 in spots.
Today could be my first day below 90 in a streak of 24 days where I have seen 90 plus, with 7 of those days being over 100, and several more falling just shy of a hundred, and its only July.
Unfortunately I still believe we are far from seeing the worst of this drought, it could be one of the worst of all time. I believe by the time September rolls around we could be looking at D-3 and D-4 conditions stretching from Denver to Detroit ranging from the Canadian border down into the heart of Texas. Southeast may be the only spot in the US that escapes the worst of this disaster.
not buying your kool-aid
Would that be Bush who was the one ending the shuttle?
www.spaceweather.com has more on this incredible pic:
Astronaut Joe Acaba photographed these Southern Lights from the International Space Station on Saturday, July 14th. He was 400 km above Earth's surface, immersed in the fringes of the auroras themselves.
"It was absolutely incredible," says Acaba. "I was working out and in between sets I noticed that we were heading south during a night pass. So I decided my workout could be postponed for a few minutes and I turned out all of the lights in Node 3. Within a couple of minutes, I could not believe what I was seeing. I enjoyed the show for a few minutes [then alerted my crewmates to look].. Even Gennady, with all of his time on orbit, was amazed. Of course I took some obligatory pictures, but then I just sat in the dark, in the peace and quiet of this incredible man made, orbiting laboratory and just looked out the window in awe. What a truly magnificent planet we live on and solar system we live in."
Edit to add a little good news on Denver:
14.40 (7.40) Reports that the three-month-old-baby wounded in the attack has been released from hospital.
Morning Pat...saw the news..
makes me want to throw up..
please tell me about the stopping of posting on the 25th?
Is that a reality?
I'm afraid you may be correct ILwthr. Unless a big pattern change occurs. How about a big trop depression recurving thru the midwest.
G' morn to you,
Its a possibility and was mentioned on the Day we got the news. That's the July 2nd entry around the first 5 pages if someone wants to look.
TY...will do..
BTW, what do you mean no more comments on this blog after the 25th?
EDIT: just saw the new posts.
It's bad that is for sure. I don't think a tropical system would make it up the Mississippi that far before it would "Don" out. It could take two or three of them just to moisten up the environment enough so that the next system could make it a little farther north before the dry air kills it.
Given your commenting frequency (Comments: 107122) on this site, it will no doubt represent a change for you as well.
And yes, I learn important news topics from the comments too. If they cut the comments, this blog won't be worth checking every day since it will be dead between postings. Hope that isn't true.
You stated that half of all Americans pay no income tax, misrepresenting this fact as if this is due to a handout culture... when this half is almost entirely due to senior citizens, the truly poor and unemployed, and children... and given a mature, demographically healthy first world country, you would expect about half of all Americans to fall into those categories, ideally with fewer poor. Trying to squeeze the poor is a truly futile endeavor; you'll waste more money trying to make them pay out their $50 or whatever their ultimate tax burden is than it is worth, and in the meantime inflict further pain on them. I mean, we could also tax senior citizens on their social security and add yet more bureaucracy to the process, but for what purpose? What possible social function would that serve? As for children, if you'd like, we can try to impose a 5% income tax or whatever on lemonade stand sales; have fun explaining to the soccer moms why Breanna is being audited to find out if she owes $2 or $3 for her proto-capitalist endeavors.
Of course, the real kicker is that in truth, in almost every state, the poor and middle class have a much more onerous tax burden than the rich. It isn't even close.
Now, for the forty percent of Americans who receive some form of public assistance. Let's go on friendly ground for you; the Heritage Foundation. They, too, ignore climate science and are ideologically right wing, and they're the source of the original claim. Would it surprise you to note that even they admit that most of these unproductive, handout-seeking welfare leeches... are in fact people on Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Social Security, food stamps, and other such literally lifesaving programs? That's not creating a culture of dependency; that's ensuring that seniors and the poor can eat and live. The hilarious part is that the Heritage Foundation wants to count Pell Grants - the grants that have made it at all possible for the poor to go to school - as something that induces dependency instead of something that breaks the cycle of poverty... but sure, whatever floats your boat.
So, there are your misrepresentations.
Suspect it's linked to the brilliant "educational" scheme of severing "self-esteem" from personal achievement.
Ignorant little narcissists all over the place, demanding their entitlements, benefits, whatever they feel entitled to. Nice work, NEA members too dumb or lazy to teach maths, science and English at school; much better to have focused for 30+ years on "self-esteem" rather than personal achievement. Thanks
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