AP: NASA: Strange and sudden massive melt in Greenland

[OmahaBlueDog]

via Yahoo

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly all of Greenland's massive ice sheet suddenly started melting a bit this month, a freak event that surprised scientists.

Even Greenland's coldest and highest place, Summit station, showed melting. Ice core records show that last happened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years.

Three satellites show what NASA calls unprecedented melting of the ice sheet that blankets the island, starting on July 8 and lasting four days. Most of the thick ice remains. While some ice usually melts during the summer, what was unusual was that the melting happened in a flash and over a widespread area.

"You literally had this wave of warm air wash over the Greenland ice sheet and melt it," NASA ice scientist Tom Wagner said Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-strange-sudden-massive-melt-greenland-193426302.html

[Control-Z]

1. I'd like to know more about the melt in 1889.

From the article:

"Wagner said researchers don't know how much of Greenland's ice melted, but it seems to be freezing again.

"When we see melt in places that we haven't seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up and ask what's happening?" NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said. It's a big signal, the meaning of which we're going to sort out for years to come."

It is at least a little encouraging to know this might not be the hastening of global climate change that it at first appeared.

[HiPointDem]

2. "Ice core records show that last happened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years."

[democrat_patriot]

3. How do they know - 150 years hadn't happened yet. Year 2039?

It's only happened once before?

[HiPointDem]

4. the *last* time was in 1889. "ice cores" indicate there were times before that. i suspect the

cause is periodic changes in ocean currents.

at any rate, if one can believe the information in the article, it ain't global warming.

to reiterate: the "last time" implies times before that.