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Greenland ice canyon filled with melt water
A Greenland ice canyon filled with melt water in summer 2010. Although snow has dammed outflow from the lake, nearby melt streams continue to fill sections of the canyon where snow has not accumulated.
Research by Qinghua Ding, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington (UW), and colleagues estimates that up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and neighboring parts of the Canadian Arctic may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific Ocean and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. The other portion is likely due to global warming. However, at least half the warming remains attributed to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions.
The researchers used observations and advanced computer models to show that a warmer western tropical Pacific Ocean has caused atmospheric changes over the North Atlantic that have warmed the surface by about a half-degree per decade since 1979. The research was funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
To learn more, see the UW news story Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations. (Date of Image: July 2010)
Credit: Ian Joughin, University of Washington APL Polar Science Center
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