Of all the arctic ice melts that should worry the world Greenland has to be in first place. If ice floating in water melts, sea levels do not rise. If ice on land melts and that water joins the ocean — big problems.
“The rate of melting [in Greenland] is just phenomenal,” said Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an international scientific monitoring project. “We’re adding freshwater to the ocean at a much more rapid rate than predicted” by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent estimates, which are based on data through 2005.
Studies show that Greenland is undergoing a rapid meltdown, one with severe consequences for global sea-level rise and the 56,000 people who live on the world’s largest island. Scientists report that glaciers draining the ice cap are picking up speed, while Arctic sea ice shrank this summer to its smallest extent on record, defying computer models that suggested such changes would not occur for decades.
“Arctic sea ice looks like it’s reached the tipping point,” said Robert Bindschadler, a polar ice expert at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The suddenness of these changes we’ve seen in the Arctic over the past five years have really startled us, and we’ve been struggling to understand what is going on.” …
Scientists say the accelerated melt will have decidedly negative effects for the globe, as it is certain to boost sea levels. The most recent assessment by the U.N. climate change panel forecast a surge of between 8 inches and 2 feet by 2100, but scientists say the rapidly melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica have already rendered those estimates obsolete.
Correll, who was in Greenland last month, described one such effect at work on the island. Just a few years ago, scientists didn’t think meltwater could penetrate to the bottom of the ice sheet, but in recent years that’s exactly what moulins have done.
“These holes have been built by all this swirling, melting water, and they are going straight to the base, where the water lubricates the bottom,” he said. “It’s as if we put oil on the bottom of the ice, so it’s moving much more rapidly.”
As for sea-level rise, Correll said most scientists in the field would argue that it will be “the upper part of a meter” (3 feet 3 inches) this century, roughly twice the current estimates, though nobody knows exactly how the Greenland ice sheet will behave as water intrudes underneath.
“We can’t discount the possibility of an abrupt change, the equivalent of a sudden avalanche of snow,” Correll said. “We don’t think that will happen here, but there are these possibilities.”
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Greenland Ice Melting, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
A seintific common sense experiment….. One full glass of ice on kitchen table, Water to fill glass to the brim, warm room… Now sit back and relax and watch the glass run over as the ice melts….. If ice mass in the artic and anartic sea melt at the same speed as ice mass on land there may be a chance of the ocean not losing to much of it’s depth…..
Of course there is the possibility of the ice mass in the artic oceans melting and because of the very high tide from the pull of the moon in the northern hemisphere that it could cause a water spout to the moon and that would give mankind a respite place to dwell while the world dried up, because of no water left in the oceans.
Where’s beef? Everyone loves to write stories about the sky falling. After watching the movie “A Movie about Al Gore” excuse me, that’s “An Inconvenient Truth” , I deduced that if C02 was that high and temperatures were rising, that the sealevel should be rising noticably. Having spent my entire life living on the coast, I realized that I couldn’t discern any change in the sea level. So I checked with the experts in monitoring the sea level, Colorado State University. I found a graph on their website depicting an alarming rise in the sea level. Upon further review, I determined that the sea level had risen .4″ over the last 40 years according to CSU’s research(data collected by US Satellites). I contacted CSU and they did respond explaining that while .4″ is a seemingly small amount, that they were confident in their research.
My point is, that if the sea level is going to increase 1.5′ between today and 2100, as this current story suggests, then the rise should be a quite noticable .2″ per year. So how about the speculation and stories about global warming cease and desist until you can stake your reputations on some metrics that effect our daily lives? Metrics like ” according to researchers at CSU, the sea level rose .2″ in 2008″. Until then, you lack the authority to come onto major media outlets with warnings.
Common sense is being thrown out the window upon talk of rising sea levels!
Where as the real data says that the earth is DRYING out.
– Lake Superior levels down to historic lows
– Glaciers (fresh water reserves) declining to historic lows
– Northern Georgia historic drought; historic droughts increasing in frequency and severity
– Lake Chad 90% gone
– enlargement of all world’s deserts
– world wide increased consumption of water (farming, consumption, industry, )
– severe transformation of rain forests to much drier land
– population increase and economic improvements of India and China’s 2.5Billion people will consume additional vast amount of water
The water that will go first and it is going rapidly is the fresh water, the inland water. This includes underground water tables all the way up to glaciers on the tops of our mountains, this includes our major lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, the large lakes in Canada and other areas on earth. Once that water reaches a certain LOW level, then the sea levels will reduce.
When the scientists see measurable declining levels of sea levels, then and only then will most people understand that the earth is DRYING OUT.
It was warmer in the middle ages than it is now. England had a thriving wine industry which is not possible now due to it being too cold there generally. And Shanghai did not go under water then.
I poured a glass of water and put ice cubes in it so they piled above the rim. I let them melt. The cup did not overflow. Kyoto is a way for the extreme socialists to drive our economy to a point (to the brink) in which socialism is plausible (in order to save the masses).