5 ms·

2010 spike in Greenland ice loss lifted bedrock, GPS reveals

31 points by llambda 15y ago

tokenadult 15y ago
This is an interesting finding that demonstrates how sensitive instruments to measure the movement of the Earth's crust have become. Because those instruments are fairly new, it's still not certain how often movements of similar magnitude ("as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations") have occurred in the past, and what implications they have for people living in Greenland http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GRL&q=greenland+population http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#... or for people living anywhere else.
guscost 15y ago
http://guscost.com/2011/11/27/celebrity-science/ http://guscost.com/2011/11/27/celebrity-science/
- scarmig 15y ago
  tl;dr: "Keynesian economics... I’m slightly limiting my options for, ahem, 'graduate education'... wannabe environmentalist cult... junk theories... super-scary movie... in the 1970s... not have had a single clue what they were doing...cling to whatever wealth or power they can force"
  - guscost 15y ago
    (please help me bury this heathen)
DavePorter 15y ago
Given that the Antarctic ice is also melting, the bedrock under that continent can be presumed to be rising as well. Will these changes lead to more earthquakes? Have they already done so?
- bergie 15y ago
  That probably depends on how the plates are aligned around Antarctic. Post-glacial rebound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound) is lifting Finland every year, but we don't really see many earthquakes here because the edges of tectonic plates are quite far.
HilbertSpace 15y ago
If we look a little at the first sentences of that article, then we see that the writer was going for drama but actually, strictly didn't say anything at all significant: So, he starts with: "An unusually hot melting season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons -- and large portions of the island's bedrock rose an additional quarter of an inch in response." It would have been nice to have had some data in terms of temperature to be clear on the "An unusually hot melting season in 2010", but let's set that aside for now. He continues with: "That's the finding from a network of nearly 50 GPS stations planted along the Greenland coast to measure the bedrock's natural response to the ever-diminishing weight of ice above it." Of course he just says "ever-diminishing weight of ice" but gives no evidence. Here's where the drama goal really gets in the way of anything significant: "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year. But a temperature spike in 2010 lifted the bedrock a detectably higher amount over a short five-month period -- as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." Sure, the claim is of the form this year was worse then the usual. So, for the usual he has: "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year." But that says nothing about the usual for Greenland! With this statement, the usual for Greenland might be zero uplift or even negative uplift. It might be that at the same time we could replace "uplift" with "a fall" and have a correct statement. And the statement also says that it is routine for the uplift to be more than 15 mm. So, net, we don't know what the usual, 'routine', or average uplift for Greenland, or even the measuring locations, has been in recent years. So, for the part about this year, we have: "as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." So, here we have no evidence that year 2010 was different! That is, we have already been told that "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year." where the "or more" that is routine might well include the "as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." of year 2010. Moreover, the "as high as" really means that there could have been just one location with 20 mm with all the other locations less. Also the "some locations" says nothing about the overall situation for Greenland or even all the measuring locations. Indeed, there could be "some locations" where the bedrock went down by 200 mm -- we don't know. Newsies go for drama; for that they like to emphasize the extreme cases, and that is what this author is doing. But to draw a conclusion about the bedrock of all of Greenland, we need at least average figures -- extreme cases say next to nothing. There is another point: No one really cares much about 15 mm of Greenland bedrock. Instead, people might care about temperature. So in this article something about bedrock is used to suggest something about temperature. Looking at bedrock levels to measure temperature is one heck of a crude, indirect thermometer, especially when we have some very accurate thermometers. If the point is about temperature, then report temperature. They didn't report temperature and, instead, tried, crudely, to say some things about bedrock and have us draw conclusions about temperature. Why? Since they didn't report temperature and reported the bedrock data only very crudely, we have to suspect that the bedrock data didn't say much and that the temperature data would show nothing of any concern. So, they didn't have anything of concern but tried to create concern anyway. So the article was one more attempt at flim-flam, fraud, scam to use bad data to scare people about 'global warming'! I call BS.
HilbertSpace 15y ago
PG, there're a LOT of REALLY severe PC mods here on HN. Looks like HN is a safe zone for all media BS, no matter how bad.
- HilbertSpace 15y ago
  Go on mod, vote it down, down, down. Don't post a response or rebuttal. Instead just vote it down. How much are the GW and CC people paying you?

31 points by llambda 15y ago

This is an interesting finding that demonstrates how sensitive instruments to measure the movement of the Earth's crust have become. Because those instruments are fairly new, it's still not certain how often movements of similar magnitude ("as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations") have occurred in the past, and what implications they have for people living in Greenland http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GRL&q=greenland+population http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#... or for people living anywhere else.

guscost 15y ago

http://guscost.com/2011/11/27/celebrity-science/ http://guscost.com/2011/11/27/celebrity-science/

scarmig 15y ago
tl;dr: "Keynesian economics... I’m slightly limiting my options for, ahem, 'graduate education'... wannabe environmentalist cult... junk theories... super-scary movie... in the 1970s... not have had a single clue what they were doing...cling to whatever wealth or power they can force"
- guscost 15y ago
  (please help me bury this heathen)

DavePorter 15y ago

Given that the Antarctic ice is also melting, the bedrock under that continent can be presumed to be rising as well. Will these changes lead to more earthquakes? Have they already done so?

bergie 15y ago
That probably depends on how the plates are aligned around Antarctic. Post-glacial rebound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound) is lifting Finland every year, but we don't really see many earthquakes here because the edges of tectonic plates are quite far.

HilbertSpace 15y ago

If we look a little at the first sentences of that article, then we see that the writer was going for drama but actually, strictly didn't say anything at all significant: So, he starts with: "An unusually hot melting season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons -- and large portions of the island's bedrock rose an additional quarter of an inch in response." It would have been nice to have had some data in terms of temperature to be clear on the "An unusually hot melting season in 2010", but let's set that aside for now. He continues with: "That's the finding from a network of nearly 50 GPS stations planted along the Greenland coast to measure the bedrock's natural response to the ever-diminishing weight of ice above it." Of course he just says "ever-diminishing weight of ice" but gives no evidence. Here's where the drama goal really gets in the way of anything significant: "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year. But a temperature spike in 2010 lifted the bedrock a detectably higher amount over a short five-month period -- as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." Sure, the claim is of the form this year was worse then the usual. So, for the usual he has: "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year." But that says nothing about the usual for Greenland! With this statement, the usual for Greenland might be zero uplift or even negative uplift. It might be that at the same time we could replace "uplift" with "a fall" and have a correct statement. And the statement also says that it is routine for the uplift to be more than 15 mm. So, net, we don't know what the usual, 'routine', or average uplift for Greenland, or even the measuring locations, has been in recent years. So, for the part about this year, we have: "as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." So, here we have no evidence that year 2010 was different! That is, we have already been told that "Some GPS stations around Greenland routinely detect uplift of 15 mm (0.59 inches) or more, year after year." where the "or more" that is routine might well include the "as high as 20 mm (0.79 inches) in some locations." of year 2010. Moreover, the "as high as" really means that there could have been just one location with 20 mm with all the other locations less. Also the "some locations" says nothing about the overall situation for Greenland or even all the measuring locations. Indeed, there could be "some locations" where the bedrock went down by 200 mm -- we don't know. Newsies go for drama; for that they like to emphasize the extreme cases, and that is what this author is doing. But to draw a conclusion about the bedrock of all of Greenland, we need at least average figures -- extreme cases say next to nothing. There is another point: No one really cares much about 15 mm of Greenland bedrock. Instead, people might care about temperature. So in this article something about bedrock is used to suggest something about temperature. Looking at bedrock levels to measure temperature is one heck of a crude, indirect thermometer, especially when we have some very accurate thermometers. If the point is about temperature, then report temperature. They didn't report temperature and, instead, tried, crudely, to say some things about bedrock and have us draw conclusions about temperature. Why? Since they didn't report temperature and reported the bedrock data only very crudely, we have to suspect that the bedrock data didn't say much and that the temperature data would show nothing of any concern. So, they didn't have anything of concern but tried to create concern anyway. So the article was one more attempt at flim-flam, fraud, scam to use bad data to scare people about 'global warming'! I call BS.

HilbertSpace 15y ago

PG, there're a LOT of REALLY severe PC mods here on HN. Looks like HN is a safe zone for all media BS, no matter how bad.

HilbertSpace 15y ago
Go on mod, vote it down, down, down. Don't post a response or rebuttal. Instead just vote it down. How much are the GW and CC people paying you?