Tuesday, February 28, 2017

OMG: Oceans Melting Greenland

Fig. 1  Greenland WOD Zones (red square)
In a recent post mentioned that I was looking at a new source of data on a NASA site (Databases Galore - 17).

Fig. 2 All Greenland Zones (mean avg)
The OMG project is very new with only a couple of years of data (OMG: Oceans Melting Greenland).

Fig. 3 Zone 7602
The datasets have several formats, but only one dataset has consistent latitude, longitude values attached to the depth, temperature, salinity, etc. data values.

Fig. 4 Zone 7603
Without the latitude, longitude attachment to data I can't isolate it to a particular zone (Fig. 1).

Fig. 5 Zone 7605
The data that has consistent latitude, longitude attachment to that data so far comes only from the year 2016.

Fig. 6 Zone 7701
Thus, I was left with having to blend the OMG data with the WOD data in order to have enough data to make presentable graphs.

Of today's graphs, Fig. 7 has the least number of measurements.

That zone is a harsh environment, so only a few research missions have gone there over the years.

The OMG mission is focusing on areas where ice streams flow into the ocean in locations where deeper, warmer water is making contact with the termini of glaciers near their grounding lines.

I am working on a "day of year" software module for the OMG data, like the one I made for the polar sea ice areas (Polar Sea Ice Trend At Both Poles - 3).

Perhaps that will allow a look at the OMG data even though so far it is not robust in quantity.

It is very robust in quality though, exceeding even the quality of WOD datasets so far.

This data is important because, as with Antarctica, the textbooks were not realistic in several areas.

Mr. Moody at the Washington Post gives us a heads up as to the importance of the OMG project: "The subject is actually extremely serious. OMG amounts to a comprehensive attempt, using ships, planes, and other research tools, to understand what’s happening as warm seas creep into large numbers of fjords that serve as avenues into the vast ice sheet — many of which contain large and partly submerged glaciers that are already melting and contributing to sea-level rise."

"Greenland is, in fact, the largest global contributor to rising seas — adding about a millimeter per year to the global ocean, NASA says — and it has 7.36 potential meters (over 24 feet) to give. The question is how fast it could lose that ice, and over five years, OMG plans to pull in enough data to give the best answer yet" (NASA launched an unprecedented study of Greenland’s melting. Now, the data are coming in).

Fig. 7 Zone 7801
I used all of the OMG and WOD data I have to do a zonal mean average for all of the Greenland zones outlined in Fig. 1.

That data is graphed and shown in Fig. 2.

The other graphs (Fig. 3 - Fig. 7) are of zones that have enough data to graph.

Gotta put my lab coat back on and get out on the watchtower to keep you informed of what I see approaching.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Happy Trails by Quick Silver MESSENGER SERVICE:



2 comments:

  1. "It's a curious fact that should you find yourself at the bottom of the ocean almost anywhere on the planet, the water temperature will be uniformly near zero degrees.

    That hasn't always been the case. Tropical seabeds 65 million years ago were about 15 degrees when temperatures were higher, says Ian Simmonds, a professor at Melbourne University's School of Earth Sciences."

    Interesting article on what's happening in the Antarctic


    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/huge-experiment-the-continent-that-climate-change-has-not-forgotten-20170302-gupeq8.html

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    Replies
    1. Mark,

      "It's a curious fact ... "

      It is curious that they would think temperatures are "near zero" degrees without specifying "F" or "C" ... or depth ("at the bottom" - bottom depth varies greatly).

      I suppose that Australians think that Fahrenheit is alt-facts.

      The WOD data I have presents shows otherwise, and even specifies "F" or "C" ... ;)

      There was a curious quote in that article: "Sea ice is a canary in the coal mine ..."

      I had used that assertion in a recent (Polar Sea Ice Trend At Both Poles - 3, 2/21/2017) post about a half-month prior to the article dated "March 4 2017" in your link.

      It is an apt assertion.

      Anyway, I am doing beta testing on the "new Day of Year" modules (after building the SQL tables).

      Today's post is an update on the progress, with some beta graphs, etc. to ponder.

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