You're adding important context but I would like to clarify something to highlight just how complex climate change really is. I also am going to make a few related comments, as I do most of my research on melt in Greenland. Full disclosure: I do know some of the people in this article but I have never been to eGRIP specifically. I will be in Greenland in a week nearby though.
No matter what the far future holds, the near future holds more violent storms as storms are powered by the temperature differentials of the air, land, and sea.
This is true, sort of. There's a lot nuance needed for this broad statement. In particular, "Arctic amplification" means that the pole-to-equator temperature gradient is actually weakening. If you were inclined to believe the covid lab leak theory you would also be inclined to jump on this and say "then the extreme storms are nonsense". However, what's really happening is that the waves in the upper atmosphere ("Rossby waves") are getting more wave-y. Which is really saying that additional energy from CO2 warming is resulting in stronger transport and more significant variability. It's not resulting in larger gradients. Although sometimes the gradients are also extreme.
Climate is a question of two things, time scales and spatial scales. Dumping a bunch of CO2 in the atmosphere messes with both.
I also want to point out that this isn't the first time a core has been dug to the bed of the Greenland ice sheet. It's also not the second. Some comments seem to be implying this. I have a bad taste for science reporting/announcements like this that fail to provide context. Of course this is important work but it's following up and improving on several previous deep core drilling experiments. We still have many samples from these previous cores. This is still a very good thing to research and will hopefully provide important new insight. But there is significant previous work it builds on [1]. And the title kind is vague enough that outsiders/the public might not understand that.
Also also, to be a little vitriolic, the IPCC Matlab code is a crime against humanity and fuck Mathworks.
Also work on ice, though not with cores. Just 2nd'ing this as being a great point. Arctic amplification is fascinating and IMO understudied relative to its importance.
The distinction I believe the article is trying to make around the "first-core-to-ground" sentiment, is that this is the first time a core has been drilled through the full thickness of an ice *stream*. These are regions of an ice sheet with very rapidly moving ice. Ice loss from ice streams may have a larger and more immediate impact on sea level than other regions in Greenland and Antarctica. However, I do not actually know whether this is the first core drill ed through an ice stream, but I'm assuming that was the article's intent.
I'd add that although the intergrated yearly average pole-to-equator gradient is indeed weakening, in terms of extreme storms this probably doesn't matter since the gradient is still very strong in winter months in the Northern Hemisphere, and if you pump the atmosphere with more water vapor from the tropics, then intense seasonal storms and extreme flooding can be expected for at least half the year in the Northern Hemisphere - and in midlatitudes, the east-west motion of frontal systems complicates the issue further (though it seems increased water vapor is driving that engine more than anything else).
The Artic amplification effect appears to be having a big effect in the summer months as the decreased gradient allows the polar jet stream to meander southwards, resulting in random persistent blocking events (responsible for recent spate of heat waves) related to Arctic amplification effects on the jet stream (in both hemispheres). Good discussion here:
> If you were inclined to believe the covid lab leak theory you would also be inclined to jump on this and say "then the extreme storms are nonsense".
What does the "COVID lab leak theory" and the "belief" in it have to do with this? conflating these two does only one thing, it further polarises and politicises the already heavily polarised and politicised debate around (anthropogenic) "climate change". It is already nearly impossible to have an objective discussion on this subject without conflating it with other similarly polarised subjects so adding this trip wire does not improve things, at all.
Climate is a question of two things, time scales and spatial scales. Dumping a bunch of CO2 in the atmosphere messes with both.
I also want to point out that this isn't the first time a core has been dug to the bed of the Greenland ice sheet. It's also not the second. Some comments seem to be implying this. I have a bad taste for science reporting/announcements like this that fail to provide context. Of course this is important work but it's following up and improving on several previous deep core drilling experiments. We still have many samples from these previous cores. This is still a very good thing to research and will hopefully provide important new insight. But there is significant previous work it builds on [1]. And the title kind is vague enough that outsiders/the public might not understand that.
Also also, to be a little vitriolic, the IPCC Matlab code is a crime against humanity and fuck Mathworks.
[1]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210315165639.h...