Download The State of the Cryosphere

The State of the Cryosphere
Dr Chris Fogwill
THE STATE OF THE CRYOSPHERE
Module Outline
Ice, in all its forms, plays a critical role in the Earth’s Climate System from the
equator to the Polar Regions. Recent observations point to rapid, possibly
irreversible changes in the cryosphere which may lead to catastrophic changes
for atmospheric, oceanographic and biological systems, regionally and
globally.
This course aims to examine the major issues within this diverse research area
from a geographical perspective, and themes tackled will range from
disappearing snow and ice and lessons from climates past, to Polar ecosystem
adaptation and Polar societies in a changing world.
This material is suitable for both B.Sc. and B.A. Geography students and aims
to tackle some of the major issues which have been highlighted by
governments, the media and an ever more vociferous and well informed public!
Learning Program
The support material for this course consists of the following five key themes
or sections:
Section
Topic
1.
Introduction: The State of The Cryosphere
A basic introduction to key concepts
Trapped in the Ice: The Tara and the Fram
Perspectives on Arctic Sea Ice monitoring
The Greenland Ice Sheet: The runaway ice sheet!
Non-linear ice sheet response to climate?
The Antarctic Peninsula: A canary in a coal mine?
Catastrophic ice shelf collapses
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Why worry?
The threat posed by a unique Ice Sheet?
2.
3.
4.
5.
Although each theme stands alone there are similar themes that run
throughout each section, particularly the focus on how recent cryospheric
changes have been monitored using techniques such as remote sensing. The
material in each section acts as a primer for the associated reading list outlined
below. It provides a starting point to help you assess this exciting and rapidly
developing branch of Earth Sciences. Hopefully it will help to motivate, whilst
the reading associated will educate. There are several questions for you to
think about in each section that will hopefully be easily answered by most
students with a basic science back ground. However they are designed to
make you think about important issues and basic concepts that are critical to
this subject.
THE STATE OF THE CRYOSPHERE
Guide to reading
1. Introduction: The State of The Cryosphere
As general reading the following books provide great introductions to some of
the key concepts of this course:
Knight, P.G. (1999). Glaciers. Routledge
Sugden, D.E. (1982). Arctic and Antarctic: a modern geographical synthesis.
Oxford Blackwell
Hanson, J.D. and Gordon, J.E. (1998). Antarctic Environments and Resources:
A geographical perspective. Pearson Education.
O’Hare, G., Sweeney and Wilby, R. (2005). Weather, Climate and Climate
Change: Human Perspectives. Pearson Education.
Turney, C. (2008) Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past.
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Also the following chapters of the IPPC report AR4 provide important
and up to date information on this subject:
Lemke, P., J. Ren, R.B. Alley, I. Allison, J. Carrasco, G. Flato, Y. Fujii, G.
Kaser, P. Mote, R.H. Thomas and T. Zhang, 2007: Observations: Changes
in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical
Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning,
Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)].
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York,
NY, USA.
Bindoff, N.L., J. Willebrand, V. Artale, A, Cazenave, J. Gregory, S. Gulev, K.
Hanawa, C. Le Quéré, S. Levitus, Y. Nojiri, C.K. Shum, L.D.Talley and A.
Unnikrishnan, 2007: Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea
Level. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working
Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B.
Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
Jansen, E., J. Overpeck, K.R. Briffa, J.-C. Duplessy, F. Joos, V. MassonDelmotte, D. Olago, B. Otto-Bliesner, W.R. Peltier, S. Rahmstorf. R.
Ramesh, D. Raynaud, D. Rind, O. Solomina, R. Villalba and D. Zhang,
2007: Palaeoclimate. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning,
Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)].
THE STATE OF THE CRYOSPHERE
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York,
NY, USA.
The following papers provide a starting point for both the lectures and your
Seminars.
2. Trapped in the Ice: The Tara and the Fram
Sugden, D.E. (1982). Arctic and Antarctic: a modern geographical synthesis.
Oxford Blackwell
Schiermeier, Q. (2007) The new state of The Arctic. Nature. Vol. 446. 133-135
Bamber, J.L., W. Krabill, V. Raper, and J. Dowdeswell, 2004: Anomalous
recent growth of part of a large Arctic ice cap: Austfonna, Svalbard.
Geophys. Res. Lett., 31(12).
Armstrong, R.L. and M.J. Brodzik, 2001: Recent Northern Hemisphere
snow extent: A comparison of data derived from visible and microwave
satellite sensors. Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 3673–3676.
Shy, T.L., and J.E. Walsh, 1996: North Pole ice thickness and association
with ice motion history. Geophys. Res. Lett., 23(21), 2975–2978.
Bamber, J.L., W. Krabill, V. Raper, and J. Dowdeswell, 2004: Anomalous
recent growth of part of a large Arctic ice cap: Austfonna, Svalbard.
Geophys. Res. Lett., 31(12).
Armstrong, R.L. and M.J. Brodzik, 2001: Recent Northern Hemisphere
snow extent: A comparison of data derived from visible and microwave
satellite sensors. Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 3673–3676.
Dumas, J.A., G.M. Flato, and A.J. Weaver, 2003: The impact of varying
atmospheric forcing on the thickness of arctic multi-year sea ice. Geophys.
Res. Lett., 30(18), 1918–1921.
Exploring Arctic Transpolar Drift During Dramatic Sea Ice Retreat Eos
TRANSACTIONS, AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOLUME 89
NUMBER
3,
2008,
P
21–28.
(Available
On-line
at
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Gas2008a.pdf)
Serreze, M.C. et al. Perspectives on the Arctic's Shrinking Sea Ice Cover.
Science 315, 1533 (2007).
Serreze, MC, JA Maslanik, TA Scambos, F. Fetterer, J. Stroeve, K. Knowles, C.
Fowler, S. Drobot, RG Barry, and TM Haran (2003), A record minimum arctic
sea ice extent and area in 2002, Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 30,
Issue 3
A good web site is that of the Arctic Council and the International Arctic
Science Committee (IASC), to evaluate and synthesize knowledge on climate
variability, climate change: http://www.acia.uaf.edu/
3. The Greenland Ice Sheet: Non-linear dynamics and The Zwally Effect!
Truffer, M. and Fahnestock M. Rethinking Ice Sheet Time Scales, Science.
Vol 315, 1508-1510.
THE STATE OF THE CRYOSPHERE
Joughin, I., W. Abdalati, and M. Fahnestock, 2004: Large fluctuations in
speed on Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbræ glacier. Nature, 432, 608–610.
Zwally, H.J., et al., 2002: Surface melt-induced acceleration of Greenland
ice-sheet flow. Science, 297(5579), 218–222.
Zwally, H.J., et al., 2006: Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets and shelves and contributions to sea level rise: 1992-2002. J. Glaciol.,
51, 509–527.
Rignot, E., and R.H. Thomas, 2002: Mass balance of polar ice sheets.
Science, 297(5586), 1502–1506.
Rignot, E., and P. Kanagaratnam, 2006: Changes in the velocity structure
of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Science, 311, 986–990.
Alley, R.B., P.U. Clark, P. Huybrechts, and Joughin, I. 2005: Ice-sheet and
sea-level changes. Science, 310, 456–460.
Howat, I. M., I. Joughin, S. Tulaczyk, and S. Gogineni (2005). Rapid retreat
and acceleration of Helheim Glacier, east Greenland. Geophysical Research
Letters, 32,
Charbit, S., D. Paillard, and G. Ramstein (2008), Amount of CO2 emissions
irreversibly leading to the total melting of Greenland, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35.
A good web site on this topic is that of the GLIMPSE Project lead by Prof.
Tavi
Murray
at
the
University
of
Swansea:
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/glimpse/
4. The Antarctic Peninsula, A canary in a coal mine?
Hanson, J.D. and Gordon, J.E. (1998). Antarctic Environments and Resources:
A geographical perspective. Pearson Education.
Antarctic Peninsula climate variability: historical and paleoenvironmental
perspective. Domack, Eugene. American Geophysical Union, 2003.
Scambos, T., C. Hulbe, M. Fahnestock, and J. Bohlander, 2000: The link
between climate warming and break-up of ice shelves in the Antarctic
Peninsula. J. Glaciol., 46, 516–530.
Domack, E. et al. (2005) Stability of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic
Peninsula during the Holocene epoch. Nature, 436, 681-685.
Vaughan, D.G., et al., 2001: Climate change – Devil in the detail. Science,
293(5536), 1777–1779.
Vaughan, D.G., et al., 2003: Recent rapid regional climate warming on the
Antarctic Peninsula. Clim. Change, 60, 243–274.
Shepherd, A., D. Wingham, T. Payne, and P. Skvarca, 2003: Larsen Ice
Shelf has progressively thinned. Science, 302, 856–859.
5. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Why worry?
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet: behavior and environment Alley, Richard B.
American Geophysical Union, 2000.
THE STATE OF THE CRYOSPHERE
Shepherd, A., D.J. Wingham, and J.A.D. Mansley, 2002: Inland thinning of
the Amundsen Sea sector, West Antarctica. Geophys. Res. Lett., 29 (10), 1364.
Shepherd, A., D. Wingham, and E. Rignot, 2004: Warm ocean is eroding
West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Geophys. Res. Lett., 31(23), 1–4.
Fricker, H.M. et al. (2007); An Active Subglacial Water System in West
Antarctica Mapped from Space Science 315, 1544
Wingham, D. Shepherd, A. Muir and Marshall. Mass balance of the Antarctic
ice sheet, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2006) 364 (Available on-line at
http://www.cpom.org/research/djw-ptrsa364.pdf)
Shepherd, A. and Wingham .D. (2007); Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the
Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets Science 315, 1529
Seminar Ideas
The design of this course is such that you will develop the knowledge and
skills to communicate many of the key concepts covered to an educated but
non-specialised audience. Ideally this can be done in groups of three and will
therefore be required to read the papers individually before discussing the
work as a group and developing your presentations. You should aim to
introduce the topic to a non-specialised audience, and it should be between
20-30 minutes in length. The aim is to introduce the topic and describe the
key discussions, techniques and/ or findings from one of the key areas covered.
Topic 1 ‘What is Sea Ice, and why is it important?’
Topic 2 ‘Are all glaciers in the world receding?’
Topic 3 ‘Is Atlantic thermohaline circulation changing due to disappearing
glaciers?’
Topic 4 ‘How can we monitor Sea Ice Changes through time’
Topic 5 ‘Will the Arctic be ice free by 2013?’
Topic 6 ‘What do glaciers and ice sheets contribute to sea level rise?”
Topic 7 ‘Climate change and permafrost: what are the implications?’
Topic 8 ’Is there really less snow than there used to be?’
Topic 9 ‘How can we measure the ‘health’ of glaciers worldwide?’
Topic 10 ‘Are all the glaciers in the world shrinking?’
Topic 11 ‘Helhiem, a hotspot of change in the Greenland Ice Sheet.’
Topic 12 ‘The Zwally effect…what’s that about?’
Topic 13 ‘Why are all the Ice Shelves collapsing?’
Topic 14 ‘How do we monitor ice sheets and ice shelves?’
Topic 15 ‘Pine Island Glacier, the beginning of the end for the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet?’
Seminar Guidelines
As mentioned, each group should present a twenty minute presentation on
their title. All of the key references are included in the guide to reading section,
but this is a starting point and you are expected to research your topic
within your group. During your presentation as well as an accessible
introduction and the ‘facts’ from the key articles, please try and include
research opinions and discussions from the various web forums on these
topics, which have some interesting and often quite disturbing views on these
subjects!
The presentation should be based around a power point presentation in
which each member of the group should contribute to. This will be uploaded
at the start of each session. Each member of the group is expected to talk
during the presentation!