Greenland cools as world warms

BBC ^

[chance33_98]

Greenland cools as world warms

By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff

Greenland is significantly cooler now than it was 40 years ago.

Data taken from eight stations

While scientists report warming trends in many parts of the globe, it seems this northern polar region has been moving in the other direction.

The finding is based on an analysis of historical meteorological data collected by Danish researchers.

It shows that during the period 1958 to 2001 average temperatures in the southern part of the island fell by 1.29 C. Sea-surface temperatures in the Labrador Sea also fell.

Globally, temperatures have risen over this period (+0.53 C) and in Greenland itself scientists have recently reported fairly dramatic thinning of the island's ice sheet.

But Dr Edward Hanna, from the Institute of Marine Studies at the University of Plymouth, UK, said that, as with all climate science, a fuller picture emerges when long-term data are taken into account.

Climate phenomenon

"It really depends on what timescale you are looking at," he told BBC News Online.

"Certainly in the late 1990s, there was some warming but that's just over a very short period. There are a lot of natural cycles in regional climate and if you take a longer trend over the last 40 or 50 years then there has been a statistically significant cooling, particularly in south-western coastal Greenland."

Greenland is central to climate studies

Dr Hanna together with Dr John Cappelen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, present their Greenland analysis in the journal Geophysical Review Letters.

It looks at data collected at eight stations. The cooling trend, they believe, is associated with an increased phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that has been observed over the past 35 years.

The NAO is a natural and recurring pressure pattern that has a profound impact on the weather experienced in the North Atlantic region - at the moment bringing milder, wetter winters to Northern Europe.

Hanna and Cappelen believe the NAO is likely linked with temperature reductions along the Greenland coast and is responsible for slowing the island's ice melting rate, in contrast to evidence of global warming.

Plane study

"And in fact, I've just been looking at the 2002 data and that appears to show a tailing off of the recent warming," Dr Hanna said.

He added: "I think the message from all this is that global warming is not a uniform process and you do get regional disparities."

Nasa measured the profile of the ice in the 90s

Greenland covers more than two million square kilometres and 85% of the island is covered by ice, some of which is over three kilometres thick.

Concerns about warming in the region during the 1990s first came to the public's attention with a US space agency (Nasa) study which flew aircraft equipped with laser altimeters over the island to measure the profile of the ice.

Nasa found the ice had lost up to five metres in thickness over a five-year period. Other, more recent studies have continued to document a rapid thaw.

Greenland is important to climate studies because, having grounded ice, any significant melting would raise sea levels - by 6-7 metres if it were all to go.

[AlaskaErik]

I wish those eco-terrorists would make up their minds! Is it global warming or global cooling? Maybe they should take a poll.

[Salman]

Finally a reasonable explanation of global warming.

Warming is caused by lack of coldness, right? Greenland is sucking out all the coldness from the rest of the world.

See you in the World Court, Greenland.

[1tin_soldier]

No doubt some double-speaker will say with a straight face that this is a result of global warming. And the uninformed will eat it up with a spoon.....

[southernnorthcarolina]

As I recall from history classes eons ago, Greenland was an early example of creative marketing. The Vikings wanted to encourage settlement of what we now know as Greenland, and discourage further settlement of what we now know as Iceland, so the two were assigned names which were more or less opposite of the climatologiocal facts.

Of course, my memory of events so far back may be impaired. Back when I was in school, history was a lot easier, because there was so much less of it.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Technogeeb]

As I recall from history classes eons ago, Greenland was an early example of creative marketing. The Vikings wanted to encourage settlement of what we now know as Greenland, and discourage further settlement of what we now know as Iceland, so the two were assigned names which were more or less opposite of the climatologiocal facts.

Your memory isn't impaired, but the fact itself (even though it is commonly "taught" by the school system) is false. At the time of colonization by the Vikings, Greenland really was quite pleasant (although that situation didn't last long).

[AFPhys]

Who publishes this tripe?

The statement that the temperature has risen by 0.53C is faulty data, with the stations that report that being affected by the "heat island" effect --- more concrete and less trees around the reporting stations than 50 years ago. There is no certain evidence of global temperature rise. Period. The data from Greenland, in fact, are as likely to be representative of true global data as the other stations.

Your recollection of the Vikings is somewhat accurate. However, the core evidence indicates that temperatures were 4-5 degrees warmer then (900-1100AD) than it is now. In fact, grapes were being grown in Ireland, something which is impossible nowadays. This was another reason for the success of the colonization of Greenland.