Climate Change: Hot Air or Hot Earth

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Climate Change Hot Air or Hot Earth?
Compton Tucker NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland

• Ice Core data analysis
• Tropical glacier work
• Gravity work (coworkers)

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Tropical Glaciers of Peru Bolivia
Compton Tucker, Dan Slayback, and Tim
Killeen GSFC Code 614.4
90 of worlds tropical glaciers are in Peru
(70) and Bolivia (20) 5500-6500 m elevations,
summer growth/winter recession
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Tropical Air Temperature
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Measured Surface Temperature the past 150 years
6 warmest years 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006
.
0.4 C
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Tropical Tropospheric Temperature
UAH Christy and Spencer of Univ. Alabama
Huntsville
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Study Area and Landsat Scenes Used (WRS-2)
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Cordillera Blanca Peru 2006
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Cordillera Blanca22-Jul-2006 / TM5 / 543
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Amapto Glacier Peru 2007
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Ampato14-Oct-2006 / TM5 / 543
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Landsat-4/5 TM Data Used
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Landsat-4/5 TM Data Used
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1980s-2007 Summary
40 reduction in area in 20 years
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Milankovitch TheoryAstronomical Theory of
Climate Change
The Serbian astrophysicist, is best known
for developing one of the most significant
theories relating Earth motions and long-term
climate change. Born in 1879 in the rural
village of Dalj (then part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, today located in
Croatia), Milankovitch attended the Vienna
Institute of Technology and graduated in 1904
with a doctorate in technical sciences. After a
brief stint as the chief engineer for a
construction company, he accepted a faculty
position in applied mathematics at the University
of Belgrade in 1909a position he held for the
remainder of his life. Milankovitch
dedicated his career to developing a mathematical
theory of climate based on the seasonal and
latitudinal variations of solar radiation
received by the Earth.
Milutin Milankovitch 1879-1958
It was not until 1976 that the orbital theory
became much more widely accepted because Hayes et
al. Nature, 1976 demonstrated the statistically
significant ice volume fluctuations at all the
orbital frequencies.
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Orbital DynamicsFg G( m1m2)/r2
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Milankovitch TheoryAstronomical Theory of
Climate Change
Precession Earth wobbles on it axis as it
spins, complete a full wobble every 23,000 years.
The Earth gets all its energy from the Sun. But
the amount of energy Earth receives is not always
the same. Changes in the Sun and changes in the
Earths orbit affect the amount of energy
reaching the Earth.
Tilt (Obliquity) The angle of the Earths axis
relative to the plane of its orbit changes about
three degrees every 41,000 years.
Eccentricity The shape of Earths orbit around
the Sun becomes slightly more and then less oval
every 100,000 years.
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Huang, Norden E. et al. (1998) The empirical mode
decomposition and the Hilbert spectrum for
nonlinear and non-stationary time series
analysis, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A., 454, 903-995.
(cited 517 times, 2008)
Hilbert-Huang Transformation and Empirical Mode
Decomposition A New Method for Nonstationary and
Nonlinear Time Series Analysis
Intrinsic Mode Functions Sinusoidal wave
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Ice core dataAntarctica 440k 800k year
records Greenland 120k year record
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Proxy Surface Temperaturesfrom corals,
sediments, and ice cores using 18O/16O
d18O (18O/16O)sample - (18O/16O)SMOW x 103

(18O/16O)SMOW SMOW Standard Mean Ocean
Water
The vapor pressure of H216O is gt than that of
H218O conversely H218O passes into the liquid
state more readily. Because condensation is the
result of cooling, the greater the fall in
temperature the lower the 18O concentration in
H2O will be. Isotope concentration can thus be
considered a function of temperature.
18O 0.20 17O 0.04 16O 99.76
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Equilibrium Climate from Ice Core Data
385 ppm
J. Hansen
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c8 10k year periodicity
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c12 400,000 year periodicity
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Insolation Eccentricity
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Insolation Obliquity
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Insolation Precession
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Sum modes 10 to 13 40k, 100k, 400k, 400k
years
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S modes 9 to 13 20k, 40k, 100k, 400k, 400k
years
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Data and Sum CKY 1 7 lt 10,000 years
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Present Inter-Glacial Period(very stable)
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Sea Level Rise from thermal expansion water
from melting glaciers
60 thermal expansion 40 glacial melt
20 cm (7 inches) in a century
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Sea level rise from thermal expansion and melting
glaciers
60 thermal expansion 40 glacial melt
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Sea level rise from thermal expansionV1 V0 (1
b D time)
0.6o to 1.0o C D temperature 5 to 8 cm
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Gravity Recovery Climate Experiment
500 km orbit 220 km separation Distance accuracy
?0.001 mm
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Greenland Ice Mass Flux from GRACE mascon
solution
Ann. Amp. 162 ? 14 Gt
NASA GSFC mascon solution, update to Luthcke,
S.B., H.J. Zwally, W. Abdalati, D.D. Rowlands,
R.D. Ray, R.S. Nerem, F.G. Lemoine, J.J. McCarthy
and D.S. Chinn, Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss
by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity
Observations, Science 314, 1286 (2006)
(10.1126/science.1130776).
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Greenland Ice Mass Flux from GRACE mascon
solution
Losing 154 Gt of ice per year ! (update to
Luthcke et al. Science 2006) 154 Giga-ton
154,000,000,000 metric tons 1 metric ton
2,205 lbs. 154 Giga-ton 168 km3 of ice or 40.3
mi3 of ice Nearly 2.5 times the amount of water
in the Chesapeake bay ! Nearly 10 times the
average annual flow of the Colorado river ! 0.43
mm/yr to global sea level rise.
NASA GSFC mascon solution (update to Luthcke et
al. Science 2006)
Photo Credit Roger Braithwaite
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gt Streaming, gtEarthquakes
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Alaska Glacier Hi-Res Mascon Solutionmascon time
series
West
East
Significant loss starts in April and ends in
September-October.
Ann. Amp. 121 ? 12 Gt
Trends noted have been corrected for GIA
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Antarctica Hi-Res Mascon Solution Strategy

• Equal area mascons approximately the same size as
  a 2x2 deg block at equator (50,000 km2).
• Mascon groups by elevation dependent drainage
  system
• Estimate mass for each mascon every 10-days.
• Spatial and Temporal constraints applied
• 30-day
• 200-km per each region type

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Antarctica Ice Sheet Hi-Res Mascon Solution
Spatial pattern of trend
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Luthcke et al. Ice Mass Summary Future Work

• Alaska hi-res mascon solutions
• Good qualitative agreement with independent data
• St. Elias glacier region validation experiment
  good agreement with airborne laser altimeter
  data
• Good agreement with SMB modeling
• Mascon solutions do not show evidence of leakage
  problems
• Mascon Solution Trends (Apr03-Apr07)
• Greenland -154 10 Gt/yr
• Alaska -84 9 Gt/yr
• Antarctica -105 50 Gt/yr WAIS -120 50
  Gt/yr
• Contribution to GSLR 0.9 0.1 mm/yr
• If above is 55 of land ice contribution to GSLR
  (Meier et al 2007) then total eustatic
  contribution to GSLR from land ice loss is 1.7
  0.8 mm/yr
• Apply and refine hi-res mascon solutions to
  Greenland and Antarctica and other glaciated
  regions of the globe
• Contribution to GSLR
• Improved understanding of land ice evolution to
  improve modeling and prediction