The Jakobshavn glacier, which was once considered one of the fastest-retreating masses of ice and snow on the planet, has reversed its fortunes in recent times and is actually growing back! Unusually cold currents in the ocean have caused it and other glaciers situated in western Greenland to grow, not melt.
Until recently, it had been the biggest source of periodic ice mass loss in the past two decades, and it has created a tenth of the country’s icebergs. The study attributes the glacier’s growth spurt to a cycle of cooler water to the south of the glacier in the North Atlantic. The water there is now 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit colder than it was a few years ago.
A study that was published in Nature said that the glacier has been “re-advancing, slowing and thickening.” Interestingly, the researchers identify cooler temperatures as the reason for these surprising changes, stating: “We link these changes to current cooling in ocean waters in Disko Bay that spill over into Ilulissat Icefjord. Ocean temperatures in the bay’s upper 250 meters have cooled to levels not seen since the mid-1980s."
Not only has this fact been largely ignored by the mass media, but those outlets that have admitted it are trying to paint it in a negative light. For example, CNN used the headline, “Greenland’s most critical glacier is suddenly gaining ice, but that might not be a good thing.” No matter how they try to portray it, one fact remains: Those gloom and doom predictions that it would continue to shrink were wrong, and that means that many of their other hysteria-inducing predictions could be equally flawed.
Incredulous scientists resisted the news at first, with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ala Khazendar saying: "At first we didn’t believe it. We had pretty much assumed that Jakobshavn would just keep going on as it had over the last 20 years."
Jakobshavn has become somewhat of a poster child for climate change alarmists, who used its thinning as evidence that global warming exists. In 2012, it was reportedly thinning by 130 feet per year. It’s also famous for being the source of the legendary iceberg that sank the Titanic.
Not wanting this news to hurt the climate change narrative, some scientists are claiming this somehow will be bad news in the long run. It is incredible how they can paint glaciers melting and the direct opposite action – glaciers growing – as both being signs that catastrophic climate change is occurring. It really doesn't matter what happens in the real world; they'll find a way to twist it to support their narrative. This should erase all doubts that the concept of climate change is not just scientific – it’s also quite political.
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