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.

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