Rinks Glacier, West Greenland
[image credit: NSIDC]
Estimates are always uncertain to some degree – that’s why they’re called estimates. So an uncertain estimate can’t be all that useful. They admit ‘there are still key deficiencies in the models’ — but these are usually ignored when alarmist climate predictions are headlined. As ever, ice-related sea level claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Estimates used by climate scientists to predict the rate at which the world’s ice sheets will melt are still uncertain despite advancements in technology, new research shows.
These ice sheet estimates feed directly into projections of sea-level rise resulting from climate change, says Phys.org.
They are made by measuring how much material ice sheets are gaining or losing over time, known as mass balance, to assess their long-term health.
Snowfall increases the mass of an ice sheet, while ice melting or breaking off causes it to lose mass, and the overall balance between these is crucial.
Although scientists now have a much better understanding of the melting behaviour of ice sheets than they did in previous decades, there are still significant uncertainties about their future melt rates, researchers found.
The new study, published in the scientific journal Earth Science Reviews, shows that despite recent advances in computer modelling of ice sheets in response to climate change, there are still key deficiencies in the models used to estimate the long-term health of ice sheets and related global sea-level predictions.
Improving these estimates could prove vital to informing the scale of response needed to mitigate the potential impacts of climate change.
Edward Hanna, Professor of Climate Science and Meteorology at the University of Lincoln, UK, co-ordinated the research in co-operation with a leading international group of glaciologists.
Professor Hanna said: “The ice sheets are highly sensitive indicators of climate change, but despite significant recent improvements in data and knowledge, we still don’t understand enough about how rapidly they are likely to lose mass during and beyond the current century.
“Enhanced observations of ice sheets, mainly from satellite data fed into improved computer simulations, are vital to help refine predictions of future sea-level rise that will result from continued global warming. They are urgently needed to assist climate adaptation and impact planning across the world.”
Continued here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
December 19, 2019 at 08:03AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 