The Ghost Plumes - 5

Totten

I. Background

In this series I have written about the difficulty of calculating plume volume:

"Thus, at this time I am not able to report on any specific tidewater glacier's plume width or, therefore, any specific glacier's plume volume.

At this point I am left with the meta-level computations which I am blogging about at this time." - The Ghost Plumes - 2
...
"That melting of the tidewater glaciers is taking place is not debatable, however, the amount of melt water in hypothetical thermodynamic plumes ... is quite debatable since the concept is "embryonic" at this point ... The object of the use of that paper's ["by R. Bindschadler et al."] conclusions is to determine a ball-park figure for thermodynamic plume flow volume along the world's longest wall of ice ..." - The Ghost Plumes - 4

(etc., etc.). The experimental numbers I have calculated by using the data of that paper were way too high, so I changed them (explained below).

Assuming the data and calculations in that paper ["by R. Bindschadler et al."]  are correct in substantial degree, I changed plume flow timespan.

NOTE that the Appendices (A, B, C, D, E, and F) now contain values required to raise sea level by 1 mm in each Area and each zone within each Area.

Those figures are quite accurate and show that this could be a significant undertaking.

This approach also explains why I am interested in being able to calculate the actual ghost plume melt water volume with the best precision we can derive.

But, until I can find the sea level and changes in it caused by tides around Antarctica, I can't calculate the vertical distance from the grounding line to the mean sea level, i.e. the middle level between high and low tides.

I need that to zero in on actual plume flow volume.

II. Focus

The current idealized plume height value (p^H) is obviously not the real world value because not all grounding lines are at the same depth.

Even glaciers that are next to each other can have significantly different grounding line depths (A Tale of Two Glaciers).

Furthermore, the fact that the plume height (p^H) varies from year to year in the Appendices is due to at least two factors:

1) that value is calculated from in situ measurements taken in a zone at different times, in different years, at different depths, by different research crews, in different ice, weather, and ocean conditions,

2) those in situ values are only used if the TEOS-10 toolkit indicates (using "CT", "SA", and "P" values calculated from the in situ measurements) that an ice face section will be melted by those conditions.

Thus, this is a beginning point like "A New Mersenne Prime Discovery" which will be honed by a search for the missing depth and width measurements of Antarctic tidewater glaciers (confirmed search clues gladly accepted).

The p^H variation can be zeroed in on a bit better by the new Appendices values (A, B, C, D, E, and F) based on a 1 mm sea level rise.

Plume flow changes are influenced by the flow of the substantial current that reaches completely around Antarctica (Mysterious Zones of Antarctica - 3).

They will not be able to be accurately ascertained until the distance between the grounding line and the ocean surface is known more accurately.


And don't forget p^H (plume height) is not the same as glacier ice face height.

The variable p^H is only the span of melt that generates a plume.

III. Purpose

My ultimate intent is to find alternate sources to replace the "missing" water when the erroneous (thermal expansion as "the major" or "a major" cause of sea level rise) hypothesis is no longer advocated  (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38).

If calving, thermal plumes (ghost plumes), and basal melt plumes can make up the difference, that will balance the sea level change "budget" which is about 3.4 mm per year (global mean average) at this time.

IV. New Developments

Since acquiring the Bindschadler database and starting this new approach, I can see that the research is worthwhile.


The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

A Tale of Two Glaciers

Fig. 1 Where The Money Melt Is

I. Background

There was a conversation between a lawman and a lawless man.

It went something like this: "Why do you rob banks?" asked the lawman, to which the lawless man replied "That is where the money is!"

Readers of Dredd Blog may wonder why I care about a minority class of glaciers (tidewater glaciers) and a minor section of those glaciers (their terminus) which are found in tidewaters along the coasts of Greenland and Antarctica (e.g. The Ghost Plumes, 2, 3, 4; In Pursuit of Plume Theory, 2, 3).

The answer to that wonder is illustrated in Fig. 1, which shows two glaciers in Greenland.

One of those glaciers is melting rapidly, the other one which is next to it, is melting very slowly by comparison.

II. What Is And What Is Not Questioned

The melt-rate difference between the two side-by-side glaciers is not questioned:

"Tracy and Heilprin, marine-terminating glaciers that drain into the eastern end of Inglefield Gulf in northwest Greenland, exhibit remarkably different behaviors despite being adjacent systems. Losing mass since 1892, Tracy Glacier has dramatically accelerated, thinned, and retreated. Heilprin has retreated only slightly during the last century and has remained almost stationary in the most recent decade. Previous studies suggest that Tracy’s base is deeper than Heilprin’s at the calving front (over 600 m, as opposed to the 350 m depth at Heilprin), which exposes it to warmer subsurface waters, resulting in more rapid retreat. We investigate the local oceanographic conditions in Inglefield Gulf and their interactions with Tracy and Heilprin using data collected in 2016 and 2017 as part of NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland mission. Based on improved estimates of the fjord geometry and 20 temperature and salinity profiles near the fronts of these two glaciers, we find clear evidence that fjord waters are modified by ocean-ice interactions with Tracy Glacier. We find that Tracy thinned by 9.9 m near its terminus between 2016 and 2017, while Heilprin thinned by only 1.8 m."

(Willis et al. 2018, Oceanography, Volume 31, No. 2, emphasis added). But the explanation for the contrast in melt-rate between the two glaciers is questioned.

The authors of that paper adopt basal melt plume theory (BPT) to try to explain the phenomenon.

They do so even when the basal melt water volume of Heilprin is much larger than that of Tracy:

"Heilprin Glacier has a much larger runoff catchment [than Tracy], resulting in higher peak subglacial discharge [but less ice melt and grounding line retreat]"

(ibid). Furthermore, the BPT theory is not robust.

Nevertheless, it is currently in practically universal use when researchers try to explain tidewater basal glacial melt.

Using BPT alone, they are evidently unaware of the hypothesis of thermodynamic forcing (ghost plumes).

They also resort to BPT even though the following statement is found in the literature:

"However, without direct observations of subglacial channels/outlets or their upwelling plumes, the geometries used in these [BPT] plume models are unvalidated ... Although [BPT] plume theory is idealized, it is currently the primary (almost exclusive) tool for tuning or parameterizing plumes in numerical models."

(Surveying subglacial discharge plumes, emphasis added). There is no consideration that I am aware of for the thermodynamic forces I have set forth in previous Dredd Blog posts outlining the hypothesis of the ghost plumes, or Ghost Plume Theory (GPT).

III. Look For The Ocean Heat

The essence of general "ocean heat" or specific "tidewater heat" and its impact on tidewater glaciers is not properly addressed by analyzing atmospheric-temperature-caused glacial surface melt, mixed with basal friction melt, as is typically done in current research papers (In Pursuit of Plume Theory, 2, 3; The Ghost Plumes, 2, 3, 4).

Those basal melt dynamics produce fresh basal melt water that exits at the glacier's grounding line, but IMO that is not sufficient to explain the contrast between Tracy and Heilprin.

When we search for "ocean heat" the place to look and analyze is ocean water instead of basal melt water (In Search Of Ocean Heat, 2, 3).

The specific thermodynamic property to look for in ocean water is potential enthalpy (Patterns: Conservative Temperature & Potential Enthalpy, 2).

The specific quantity of potential enthalpy to look for in seawater that comes in contact with tidewater glaciers is the amount of potential enthalpy required to melt the glacial ice.

IV. Conclusion

The proper tool to use in order to determine the potential enthalpy amount (the heat content) is the Thermodynamic Equation Of Seawater - 2010 (TEOS-10).

When basal melt, calving, and the thermodynamic melt of the ghost plumes are added together, then we are where we need to be.

The Ghost Plumes - 4

Fig. 1 The Long Ice Wall

I. Background

Scientist R. Bindschadler, along with several other authors, detailed the coastline (or should I say "iceline") of Antarctica (Getting around Antarctica: new high-resolution mappings of the grounded and freely-floating boundaries of the Antarctic ice sheet created for the International Polar Year, The Cryosphere, 5, 569–588, 2011).

The authors of that paper stated that "[t]he grounded ice boundary is 53 610 km long; 74 % abuts to floating ice shelves or outlet glaciers, 19 % is adjacent to open or sea-ice covered ocean, and 7 % of the boundary ice terminates on land" (ibid, Abstract).

The 74% of "53,610 km long" and "27,521 km and is discontinuous" are figures in the paper that I want to focus on in this post (among other things).

II. Where The Action Is

The object of the use of that paper's conclusions is to determine a ball-park figure for thermodynamic plume flow volume along the world's longest wall of ice (Fig. 1).

Fig. 2 Where The action Is

Therefore the 74% of 53,610 km, which equals 39,671.4 km, is used for the hypothetical maximum length of the wall of ice, and the 27,521 km is used as the hypothetical minimum length of the wall of ice.

For "ball-park" (hypothetical) calculations I consider the "39,671.4 km" to be the cumulative maximum glacier widths, and the "27,521 km" to be the cumulative minimum glacier widths. [NOTE: I have more exact values now since I downloaded Bindschadler's  data]

That is an enormous amount of ice from which the seawater around Antarctica can continuously generate melt water plumes, caused by heat flowing from warmer seawater into colder glacial ice.

III. Where The Research Is

The fact that melting of the tidewater glaciers is taking place is not debatable, however, the amount of melt water in hypothetical thermodynamic plumes (Fig. 2) is quite debatable since the concept is "embryonic" at this point.

Fig. 3 Areas A-F

What I have done, with the benefit of the awesome help of Bindschadler et. alia (2011) is to make more accurate ball-park calculations than those which were done in previous posts of this series (The Ghost Plumes, 2, 3).

The calculations as to a 1 mm global mean sea level (GMSL) rise due to ghost plumes are now stored in Appendices A, B, C, D, E, and F.

Those appendices relate to the areas shown in Fig. 3.

The calculations are based on actual in situ measurements taken over the years then stored in the World Ocean Database (WOD), and then converted into TEOS-10 values.

Those measurements are stored in the WOD to be used by researchers like you and me.

IV. The Organization of The Appendices

The calculations depicted in the appendices are now based on values required to raise GMSL by 1 mm due to ghost plumes in Antarctica.

The reason for the change is that I have not found a database of sea levels around Antarctica for the Areas and Zones, even though the grounding line lengths and geoid heights are recorded.

I am working on acquiring data so I can relate the grounding line heights to sea level in order to derive the glacial ice heights that are exposed to tidewater.

I will update this series when that is accomplished.

I am sorry if this has disrupted any reader's efforts ... but the dearth of data about some Antarctica characteristics required a reconstruction of plume dynamics working backwards toward a much more certain set of values.

V. Conclusion

It would seem that a potential annual average of each Area (A-F), and all Zones in those Areas, in terms of what volume in cubic meters of melt water would be required to raise sea level 1 mm, is a more accurate way to determine plume melt water volumes.

Since so much is yet to be learnee, there is little wonder that scientists are taking "way down under" seriously (The Race).

Further explanation will be presented in the next post of this series (and see The Ghost Plumes - 6).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

West Indian Ocean (Area A)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

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RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

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West Indian Ocean (Area A)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(14.1758%; 51293.9 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
3603	948062 m	14.093	7228.84 m3 yr
3604	1.07035e+06 m	15.9108	8161.27 m3 yr
3605	1.23595e+06 m	18.3725	9423.95 m3 yr
3606	1.09032e+06 m	16.2077	8313.54 m3 yr
3700	714801 m	10.6256	5450.26 m3 yr
3701	858463 m	12.7611	6545.66 m3 yr
3702	809244 m	12.0295	6170.38 m3 yr

East Indian Ocean (Area B)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

---

RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

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East Indian Ocean (Area B)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(16.6161%; 60123.7 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
3607	930701 m	11.8031	7096.47 m3 yr
3608	650146 m	8.24512	4957.28 m3 yr
3609	771646 m	9.78598	5883.7 m3 yr
3610	761075 m	9.65192	5803.09 m3 yr
3611	1.32574e+06 m	16.813	10108.6 m3 yr
3612	846227 m	10.7318	6452.37 m3 yr
3613	707331 m	8.97034	5393.3 m3 yr
3614	969389 m	12.2937	7391.46 m3 yr
3615	922960 m	11.7049	7037.45 m3 yr

Ross Sea (Area C)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

---

RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

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Ross Sea (Area C)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(20.3385%; 73593.1 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
3616	61040.3 m	0.632429	465.424 m3 yr
3716	4.32396e+06 m	44.7999	32969.6 m3 yr
3717	237006 m	2.45558	1807.14 m3 yr
3816	1.05052e+06 m	10.8843	8010.07 m3 yr
3817	257695 m	2.66994	1964.89 m3 yr
5715	1.11934e+06 m	11.5973	8534.82 m3 yr
5815	1.21178e+06 m	12.5551	9239.66 m3 yr
5816	896480 m	9.28829	6835.54 m3 yr
5817	493901 m	5.11723	3765.93 m3 yr

Amundsen Sea (Area D)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

---

RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

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Amundsen Sea (Area D)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(8.04768%; 29119.8 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
5711	1.16371e+06 m	30.4711	8873.13 m3 yr
5712	411150 m	10.7657	3134.96 m3 yr
5713	483060 m	12.6487	3683.27 m3 yr
5714	1.76114e+06 m	46.1145	13428.5 m3 yr

Bellingshausen Sea (Area E)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

---

RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

---

Bellingshausen Sea (Area E)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(31.2306%; 113005 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
5606	5.02076e+06 m	33.8769	38282.6 m3 yr
5706	3.22357e+06 m	21.7506	24579.3 m3 yr
5707	2.36998e+06 m	15.9911	18070.8 m3 yr
5708	1.9667e+06 m	13.27	14995.8 m3 yr
5709	889963 m	6.00491	6785.85 m3 yr
5710	1.34962e+06 m	9.10638	10290.7 m3 yr

Weddell Sea (Area F)

This page is an appendix to Dredd Blog post The Ghost Plumes - 4

---

RE: Assumed Plume Sea Level Rise (PSLR)
(1 mm yr due to Antarctica Plume Meltwater)

RE: Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL)
Melt Water at 361,841 m³ yr raises GMSL one millimeter
(current total GMSL is 3.4 mm yr)

RE: Relevant Antarctica Grounding Line (AGL)
(length: 47,455,400 m)

---

Weddell Sea (Area F)

Area's Percent of AGL (APGL)

(9.5913%; 34705.3 m³ yr)

Zone #	Zone GL Length (m)	Zone% of APGL	Zone's Plume Volume
5605	789264 m	17.3404	6018.03 m3 yr
5700	1.01235e+06 m	22.2417	7719.03 m3 yr
5701	1.32577e+06 m	29.1276	10108.8 m3 yr
5702	833240 m	18.3066	6353.34 m3 yr
5703	573334 m	12.5963	4371.59 m3 yr
5705	17640.5 m	0.387568	134.506 m3 yr

Season's Greetings

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The Christmas Eve West Wing Fire of 1929

Tsunami Stops Concert

This morning, according to presidential historian Jon Meacham, speaking on Morning Joe:

On xMass eve in 1929 president Hoover was heading up a White House Dinner of elites.

During that celebration fire alarms went off as the Oval Office in the West Wing caught fire.

The President, smoking a cigar, watched the firefight as it burned.

The First Lady wanted the band to continue playing xMass music.

(Paraphrased, see also this). It reminded me of the movie "Titanic" where the ship of that state was going down but the band kept playing.

Like the days daze just prior to the "Great Depression" when a popular economist Irving Fisher gave an "everything is ok, don't worry, be happy, the stock market and economy are the best ever" type of speech:

"The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression cost Fisher much of his personal wealth and academic reputation. He famously predicted, nine days before the crash, that stock prices had 'reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.' "

(Irving Fisher). When the government sleeps not every eye is closed, but some eyes are closed (U.S. Geological Survey Unable To Provide Indonesia Tsunami Data Due To Government Shutdown).

Is there a metaphor which is instructive in these premises?

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