Blue Blob Close to Iceland May Have Contributed to Island's Slowed Glacial Melt

Researchers are still trying to figure out what caused the Blue Blob situated south of Greenland and Iceland. Winter of 2014-2015 saw a sea surface temperature roughly 1.4 degrees Celsius colder than typical, which was the peak of the chill. 

Models and field data in the new study suggest that the cold water patch above Iceland chilled the air enough to slow ice loss beginning in 2011.

The model indicates that the North Atlantic will remain milder for at least another half-century, which will spare Iceland's glaciers. Melting is expected to accelerate between 2050 and 2100 due to rising ocean and air temperatures, as per Phys.org. 

In the short term, Iceland's glaciers can take comfort from the North Atlantic's milder waters, but without action to combat climate change, they might lose a third of their present ice volume by 2100 and disappear by 2300.

Sea levels will rise by 9 millimeters if the country's 3,400 cubic kilometers (about 816 cubic miles) of ice melts.

Considering the Arctic's rapid transformation, it's critical to have a concept of the probable feedback in this region,a climate modeler who specializes on polar ice sheets and glaciers at Utrecht University, Brice Noel, explained. 

Also Read: Melting Glaciers Due to Global Warming is Slightly Warping Earth's Crust, Scientists Warn

Investigation into the Slowed Decline in Glaciers 

The Arctic has warmed faster than any other place on Earth. The area is warming at a rate four times greater than the global average, according to recent studies. An average of 11 Gigatons of ice a year was lost from Iceland's glaciers between 1995 and 2010.

Iceland's ice loss has decreased by half, or around 5 gigatons per year, since 2011, when its melting rate slowed. Greenland and Svalbard's larger glaciers, however, did not show this pattern. 

From 1958 through 2019, Noel and his colleagues calculated the glaciers' mass balance-how much they increased or melted each year.

A high-resolution regional climate model that works at the glacier scale in Iceland was used to determine how much snow fell on the glaciers in winter and how much ice was lost to meltwater discharge during the summer on the island.

Since 2011, glacial melting in Iceland has slowed, according to the researchers, because of the cooler air temperatures surrounding the Blue Blob. 

Many scientists believe that the Blue Blob represents a typical variation in Arctic sea surface temperatures. However, in 2014 and 2015, particularly frigid winters led to record cooling and an upwelling of cold, deep water despite rising ocean temperatures, according to Eurekalert. 

There was an Atlantic Warming Hole before the Blue Blob that dropped sea surface temperatures by around 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Celsius (0.72 to 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last century and may continue to cool the region in the future.

If the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which carries warm water up from the tropics to the Arctic, has slowed due to climate change, this would explain the Warming Hole.

The Future Climate of Iceland 

Using the same regional climate model and a worldwide climate model, Nol predicted how the North Atlantic Ocean's temperatures would affect the glaciers' fate until 2100 in the event of rapid warming.

Models indicated that by the mid-2050s, the North Atlantic near Iceland will remain cool, slowing-and potentially even temporarily stopping-ice loss from glaciers. 

It was determined that the models accurately predicted the mass of glaciers using almost 1,200 measurements of snow depth collected between 1991 and 2019 by researchers at the University of Iceland, and satellite measurements of glaciers' elevation and extent taken from 2002 to 2019 by co-authors at Delft University of Technology. 

Related Article: Study Shows How Glacier Actually Holds Less Ice than Experts Previously Believed

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