Posted on 08/04/2015 10:30:48 AM PDT by smokingfrog
The world's glaciers are losing ice at a faster pace so far this century than at any time since record-keeping began more than 120 years ago, according to a new study that says glacial melt is a worldwide phenomenon and will continue even if the world stopped warming any further than it already has.
In the study, published last month in the Journal of Glaciology and conducted by the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich, scientists compared observations of tens of thousands of glaciers around the world with all other data available on the world's glaciers.
They used everything from satellite images and photographs taken on the ground and from the air, to drawings and lithographs made back in the 19th century and earlier. All together, the evidence paints a remarkably consistent picture of what's happening to ice around the world.
"The observed glaciers currently lose between half a metre and one metre [about 1 1/2 to 3 feet] of its ice thickness every year – this is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century," said Michael Zemp, Director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service and the study's lead author, in a statement.
That's the equivalent of "about three times the ice volume stored in the entirety of the European Alps every year," Zemp told the Huffington Post, adding that the current rate of ice loss is twice as fast as the 1990s and three times as fast as the 1980s.
(Excerpt) Read more at weather.com ...
Just think of all the neat archaeological stuff we'll find!
Oh, wait, that would mean...
Turn your globe over and see the real threat. Stop Continental Drip!!
Yes, folks, I'm just kidding and having fun with it.
Thanks for the map. I’m in northeast Kansas, at the tip of the glacier. We have some pink granite stones in the area...geologist say it is the result of ‘glacial till’...or rocks from Wisconsin that were carried here by the glacier, and left behind when the glacier receded. They are rounded, after slowly rolling (at glacial speed) a thousand miles to get here. There is no pink granite anywhere in this area, so its pretty neat to think of the journey these rocks took to get here.
It is here in North Dakota. It's nice to only have Winter six months out of the year.
I have a map from when I was in Oz and Australia is at the top with NA and associated parts on the bottom.
Both of those maps show a small glacier free island west of Chicago.
What’s with that?
Some are shrinking, and some are growing. It’s called Weather. Deal with it.
The arctic ice cover is more than it’s been in years, as is the Antarctic.
I am stealing that one !
I never noticed that before. That is curious, huh? Maybe a huge magma chamber bubbled to the surface? JK
I’ve always been more curious about the thickness above our old house in Ithaca, NY. We had glacial evidence everywhere — striations, moraines, Finger Lakes, erratics. I didn’t realize it at the time, but studying geology in Jr High was pretty cool.
If you invert a globe, it looks like the continents dripped down from Antarctica...hence ‘Stop Continental Drip!’.
Not framed exactly same but recognizable features from one year ago.
http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/clu_rd/glacierstudies/sperry.asp#phs
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