Count me in.
Posted on 08/15/2006 2:02:32 PM PDT by rface
Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting rapidly, losing the equivalent of Lake Houston every six hours.
That's the conclusion of a study by University of Texas at Austin scientists that appears to confirm earlier, controversial research that suggests the melting of Greenland's ice has nearly tripled since the late 1990s. Greenland's ice sheet contains about 10 percent of the world's fresh water.
The findings concern climate scientists, who say that since the Industrial Revolution, and especially since the mid-1900s, carbon dioxide levels have risen by more than 40 percent. They attribute much of the increase to fossil fuel burning and say that, in the absence of increased carbon emissions, no natural factor can explain warming global temperatures.
The warming effect, scientists fear, is accelerating and could lead to rising sea levels.
"This is a good indication of global warming, that it's there," said the study's lead author, Jianli Chen, a researcher at UT's Center for Space Research. "At least, it's happening in the Arctic."
Using two satellites that measured the change in the mass of Greenland's ice sheet, the researchers, publishing last week in the journal Science, found that Greenland was losing 57 cubic miles of ice a year.
At that rate, Greenland is raising sea levels by less than a half-inch per decade. But still more rapid ice loss could accelerate that rate. If all of Greenland's ice were to melt, seas would rise by 21 feet.
"Existing ice sheet models estimate that most of the ice sheet will be removed within 1,000 years," said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., lead author of the Greenland ice study earlier this year that the new work seems to confirm.
"This is a very conservative estimate, and the time scale is at least three times too large. Whether it will happen in the next century, we do not know. But, realistically, every year we look at Greenland, we realize that things are changing faster than we thought."
One of the first scientists to study Greenland's thinning ice sheet, NASA glaciologist William Krabill, said the two new studies make a strong case that the melting of Greenland has accelerated.
"There is no question that the sign is correct, Greenland is thinning and losing mass," Krabill said.
He added, however, that there are limitations on the new research. The satellites only began collecting data in 2002, making it difficult to discern whether the recent ice loss is part of a long-term trend.
Chen said he's expecting the two satellites used in the study to continue collecting data through at least 2010.
Scientists say coastal residents shouldn't be immediately concerned about rising seas due to glacial melting in Greenland and Antarctica, where there is increasing evidence that a warming climate also is causing ice loss.
"Houston has produced much larger apparent sea level changes locally through groundwater pumping, and coastal construction contributes to receding coastlines," said Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, an atmospheric sciences professor at Texas A&M University.
"We saw in New Orleans the effect of marsh drainage and upstream damming of sediment on the height of land relative to sea level. I expect that, for the next several decades, what Texans do directly to our coast will have a much bigger effect than what global warming will do to our coast."
Even in the Winter?
The article is pure Eco-Porn.
More"Chicken Little"from The LEFT!!!I will bet that this SAME phenomenon has happened before(probably long before WE were here)!!!!!!!!!
That's really funny. I took the liberty of creating a scaled-down version that should be easier to post in the future:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/elkgrovedan/pchart1.jpg
Screwy? Same thing as losing 100 acres of rainforest every day. They never really think anyone will actually DO the math. The people they're addressing probably can't anyway.
What a boon for archaeologists ... those Viking settlements are finally going to be exposed due to receding ice. Of course, the global warmists would have us believe that sea levels are going to rise an alarming amount, but if these ancient settlements weren't under water then, they aren't going to be under water now.
It's still Bush's fault. I'm surprised that a DUmmie hasn't produced a geneology chart that shows that Dubya's descended from Leif Erickson.
I come up with only 6.1 Billion cu-ft but that amount every 6 hours is stil alot of water / ice melting.
"Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting rapidly, losing the equivalent of Lake Houston every six hours."
I'm not a scientist or a geographer. Can anyone reduce this comparison into those little paper cups at the water cooler at work? Thanks.
Kabar-
You don't understand.
Glaciers retreating in Europe? Global warming.
Glaciers advancing in Greenland? Global warming.
;-)
Good for you for doing the math! Amazing how easily these "scientists" can be proven to be charlatans.
At New Orleans, the average flow rate of the Mississippi is 600,000 cubic feet per second......
so ..... that means that in some 8333 seconds or 140 minutes or converted to 2 hours and 20 minutes of the Mississippi flowing equals how much water Greenland is losing every 6 hours....
If Greenland had a river 1/3 the output of the Mississippi river - then that's how much water they are losing from their ice.......
Awesome. Thanks! Spread the word.
Piracy for a cooler earth!
arrrrrrgh!
you probably have a worse water problem than we have in Missouri - but it's dry here too.
The usual scenario, you get some scaremonger saying "We're losing 1000 metric tons of atmosphere a day! We'are all gonna die!" But then you remember that the Earth's atmosphere weighs about 5.1x1018 kg, break out your calculator, and realize that our Sun will have died about 10 billion years before we could have finished losing atmosphere.
Global warming is responsible for everything, even a new ice age.
maybe I'll check my math ....
In the late 90s, the ice mass was growing.
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