Greenland Ice Melt: See if this don't scare you!

This is a long article, and I've lifted some of the most disturbing sentences... I urge you to read the whole thing...

Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away: The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet.


Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted...

...By all accounts, the glaciers of Greenland are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago, even as the ice sheets of Antarctica — the world's largest reservoir of fresh water — also are shrinking, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February...

...Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world's coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate...

...By 2005, Greenland was beginning to lose more ice volume than anyone expected — an annual loss of up to 52 cubic miles a year — according to more recent satellite gravity measurements released by JPL...

...The amount of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade...

...There was even a period of melting in December..."We have never seen that," ...

...Most of the computer models on which climate predictions are based did not take the dynamics of the glaciers into account...

...In all, 12 major outlet glaciers drain the ice sheet the way rivers drain a watershed, setting the pace of its release to the ocean. If they all slide too quickly, there is a possibility that, perhaps decades from now, they could collapse suddenly and release the entire ice sheet into the ocean...

By far the most disturbing article I have read in a long time...


[edit on 26-6-2006 by loam]

Wonderful post....





so this could mean a serious weather effect by or before 2012?



just curious becuz i swear we are gonna see effect of global warming in ways we never could of imagined....



[edit on 25-6-2006 by Tranceopticalinclined]

oh bugger...

there goes New York, London, LA, you name it!! Didnt something fall off Antartica the size of Texas or something recently???

not good news at all. I agree that it is quite disturbing.

I guess if we all keep saying there is no such thing as global warming, the problem will dissappear or at least we can fool ourselves until it's too late Not like we can get a billion people worldwide to give up their coastal homes or change their lifestyles or anything like that.

sigh...

wAUW! That´s amazing!

Good work, Loam

BTW, Loam, do you think the data is true, I mean, would it be possible that this event is worse than what they say? They might already know - more or less - when the ice will have molten and the sealevel increased...

We are getting some news from time to time... I would say someone does not want us to be shocked... And gives the information step by step...

Or do you think they had no idea this was going to happen?
I am sure I am not the only one on ATS that thought glaciers were going to slip quicker than we had been told...

True or not, the bad news is that it is taking place NOW and as mentioned by Tranceopticalinclined by 2012 or before, we will have to expect floodings, because of sea level increase, strong hurricanes, etc.


Not a good news.

(I wonder how the environment of Groenlandia is changing, as well as the Antartica)

I find it laughable, that everyones so sure what the cause is for the climate changing, yet, they can't explain what caused other climate changes in the earths history. We're looking at a brief snapshot of time, literally a sliver compared to the age of the earth.

Noone was measuring water levels on our coasts 400 years ago, noone was counting hurricanes that hit the states 400 years ago. Can anyone even give me an average temp for every year for the past 1000 years so I can take a look myself? Give me proof, not flashy videos, or gores crap, or psudoscience, but actual NUMBERS over the course of many years, that's what it'll take to convince me.

Everytime humans try to "change the world" we just screw it up 10x worse. We use cat converters on our cars to "save the world" years later, we find out that what comes out of a cat converter is worse for the environment than what goes into it. But hey, we still have to use them, law requires it, even though it damages the air more than open headers.

Environmentalism is big business, a huge money maker, remember that.

My city opens fire hydrants for kids in the summer, yet I'm forced to have to buy "low flow" faucets and shower heads cause someone says it's bad for mother earth. And people wonder why I drill em out to make them "high flow".

Oh yeah, and since alot of you believe in global warming, well, do you realize how destructive to the earth manufacturing a computer is? To make the chip board your using RIGHT NOW they dipped it in a OPEN AIR BATH of FREON before and after soldering. So please, quit screwing with my water, and my car, and worry about yourselves. Think about how much freon evaporating into the atmosphere it took make the servers this site uses, or to make your TV, ect. Every environmentalist in the world has a computer, mmm the sweet sweet smell of hiprocracy.

I used to find it laughable, but what's so wrong about planting trees and treating OUR environment better? What's wrong with conservation?? What's wrong with coming up with better industrial means to reduce damage to the environment??Environmentalism is the BETTER business.

The 20th century saw the biggest increase in the world's population in human history. The Earth's population reached 6.5 billion on Saturday, February 25, 2006. In line with population projections, this figure continues to grow at rates that are unprecedented prior to the 20th century. I don't need to see numbers from 400 years ago to know that WE have some influence on current environmental changes.

[edit on 6/25/2006 by aecreate]

Originally posted by aecreate
I used to find it laughable, but what's so wrong about planting trees and treating OUR environment better? What's wrong with conservation?? What's wrong with coming up with better industrial means to reduce damage to the environment??Environmentalism is the BETTER business.

Precisely!

In fact, what I find laughable are those who ignorantly ridicule the notion of resource management, in a belief that such a concept could only come from long-haired, granola-eating hippies. And I also find laughable those who fail to acknowledge that unfettered environmental abuse by business is nothing more than a socialist entitlement principle whose beneficiaries are predictably but for a select few. Leaving the impact on people aside, such businesses hurt businesses around them and affect businesses of the future. Cost is not a concept rooted in fantasy, and as long as we continue to ignore how the environment factors into the equation, we do so at our own peril.

If in life there is no free ride, why is it then, where the environment is concerned, we've institutionalized the notion of a "free ride" for business?

It's no mistake that conservation and conservative share the same root term. Too bad the meaning of BOTH has been twisted beyond all recognition.

:shk:

[edit on 26-6-2006 by loam]

Ptolomeo

I don't know the answer to any of your questions, but I think if I were to try a guess, I would lean heavily towards the "we don't know what the hell we're doing" camp.

[edit on 25-6-2006 by loam]

Excellent answer, loam.
what the hell are we doing? or not doing...?

I believe that we must not relax and distract from what is really important.
The events mentioned by loam are happening already and it will have a negative effect on the planet, our home.

In the event of not being able to avoid it being worse, why not, at least, take the suitable measures to get the less harm?

Wouldn´t it be a good idea to determine the areas that will be flooded in order to (if we cannot prevent it) start working to adapt to the new situation?
What about changing the town´s locations?

Yes, a difficult task, but what will we do when it happens and nothing has been done beforehand?
How much time do we have to do something? 10 years? 20 years?
Not enough time to study how the future will be and adapt to it?

This might well be our future...


[edit on 25-6-2006 by Ptolomeo]

[edit on 25-6-2006 by Ptolomeo]

They are discussing the possibility that a huge chunk could go at once.

It sounds so similar to volcanic landslides I saw a show about. Sounds like it would have the same effect, which in the case of the volcanic landslide in the western atlantic would cause a massive tsunami impacting the entire east coast of the American continent to the tune of what happened in Indonesia, except they were talking the entire east coast.

All I can say is YIKES!

Originally posted by WithoutEqual
I find it laughable, that everyones so sure what the cause is for the climate changing, yet, they can't explain what caused other climate changes in the earths history.

Can anyone even give me an average temp for every year for the past 1000 years so I can take a look myself? Give me proof, not flashy videos, or gores crap, or psudoscience, but actual NUMBERS over the course of many years, that's what it'll take to convince me.

Here ya go, heres the proof. The temp chart goes back to 1850...As you can see we are getting much warmer.


www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 25-6-2006 by brykc14]

I should have probably first searched the internet for the answer, but I am hoping somebody alrady did...this is what I would like to know: Most of the Ice is under the water anyway. The volume of ice is bigger than the volume of water it is made of. When ice melts, some of that volume will be gone, right? Or wrong?

Originally posted by swimmer

Most of the Ice is under the water anyway. The volume of ice is bigger than the volume of water it is made of. When ice melts, some of that volume will be gone, right? Or wrong?

You're right about ice that is already in the water. That's why the concern about Arctic ice melting is not necessarily quite as big as the concern about Greenland and Antarctica ice melting. This is assuming that most folks are primarily concerned with global flooding instead of the possible extinction of polar bears. I heard recently that sea levels would rise 21 feet if the ice on Greenland melts and around 214 feet if the ice in Antarctica melts. This ice is on land. Arctic ice is already in the water.

I believe most people are in agreement that global warming is occurring. The question for the US and the world should be are we going to do anything to help slow it down or stop it? I have heard many concerns that it would hurt the US economy but so would losing the state of Florida and having many coastal cities flooded. Instead of a threat to the economy there may be some real economic benefit in developing a better and cleaner energy distribution system. I think the threat of global flooding is a strong incentive to encourage laws to require clean burning coal and/or promote clean alternative energy strategies if enough people agree to do it.

This news is alarming but so is the news that if all countries agreed to curb the increase in greenhouse gases, global warming would still continue. It might not be as fast so that would help. Perhaps we will have enough time before the ultimate disaster strikes. Perhaps strategies to remove carbon from the environment need to be put into action as well. my two cents.

Not sure how this ties in since I can't find the report. I remember either reading or hearing recently about the Antarctic Melt compared to the amount of new snow laid down and it was pretty much a net even exchange. It impied, if I remember it correctely, that the amount of water trapped in the Antarctic region is staying pretty much the same.

Well since CO2 [Carbon Dioxide is supposed to be one of the main contributors to Global warming] I wonder if any one has studied the effect of 6 billion people breathing? Just how much CO2 are we putting into the eco system? I bet its a lot!

Recently I was following a post here on the earthquakes in Alaska, particularily Rat Islands. It seemed like it was panic time 40 to 50 quakes a day as high as 6.2.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well read the thread. It has cool links to the earthquake monitoring centers updated daily. But when things calmed down a little, and you look at the data since 1973, you suddenly see that this is NORMAL for the region

Environmental concern is good, its smart and just plain right thing to do . But lets not panic. Like the big hurricanes, the weather cycles. Like the ozone layer scare, that "hole" over the pole was always there... has to be if you understand the ozone cycle and how its created.

You know when to panic? When the government moves all its naval bases to higher ground!!


On second thought... we have a Coast Guard station here near Laughlin, in the desert. Maybe they know something? [checking my elevation... nope 2434 above sea level... I'm good]

Perhaps if the end is near a good idea would be to get off the computer and go live a little in the outside world, before its all gone

[edit on 26-6-2006 by zorgon]

Originally posted by pavil
Not sure how this ties in since I can't find the report. I remember either reading or hearing recently about the Antarctic Melt compared to the amount of new snow laid down and it was pretty much a net even exchange. It implied, if I remember it correctly, that the amount of water trapped in the Antarctic region is staying pretty much the same.

The source article mentions this, but here is what they have to say about it:

The ice sheet seemed such a stolid reservoir of cold that many experts had been confident of it taking centuries for higher temperatures to work their way thousands of feet down to the base of the ice cap and undermine its stability.

By and large, computer models supported that view, predicting that as winter temperatures rose, more snow would fall across the dome of the ice cap. Thus, by the seasonal bookkeeping of the ice sheet, Greenland would neatly balance its losses through new snow.

Indeed, Zwally and his colleagues in March released an analysis of data from two European remote-sensing satellites showing the amount of water locked up in the ice sheet had risen slightly between 1992 and 2002.

Then the ice sheet began to confound computer-generated predictions.

By 2005, Greenland was beginning to lose more ice volume than anyone expected — an annual loss of up to 52 cubic miles a year — according to more recent satellite gravity measurements released by JPL.

Moreover, what was not anticipated by these models was the structure beneath the ice.

In an influential paper published in Science, Zwally surmised that the ice sheets had accelerated in response to warmer temperatures, as summer meltwater lubricated the base of the ice sheet and allowed it to slide faster toward the sea.

In a way no one had detected, the warm water made its way through thousands of feet of ice to the bedrock — in weeks, not decades or centuries.

So much water streamed beneath the ice that in high summer the entire ice sheet near Swiss Camp briefly bulged 2 feet higher, like the crest of a subterranean wave.

The article continues:

At the same time, University of Texas physicist Ginny Catania pulled an ice-penetrating radar in a search pattern around the camp, seeking evidence of any melt holes or drainage crevices that could so quickly channel the hot water of global warming deep into the ice.

To her surprise, she detected a maze of tunnels, natural pipes and cracks beneath the unblemished surface.

"I have never seen anything like it, except in an area where people have been drilling bore holes," Catania said.

No one knows how much of the ice sheet is affected.

In other words, we may have gotten it wrong on several levels.

[edit on 26-6-2006 by loam]

WHAT ????
where was this ?

Didnt something fall off Antartica the size of Texas or something recently???