Community | June 29, 2011 | 20 comments

Greenland's ice sheet melted the most it has in over a half century last year

source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jE_Zh3AdpeTWxC1NSCTqvugYKvPg?docId=CNG.90...

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JanforGore
Greenland's ice sheet melted the most it has in over a half century last year, US government scientists said Tuesday in one of a series of "unmistakable" signs of climate change.

"The world continues to warm," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a briefing paper for reporters.

"Multiple indicators, same bottom-line conclusion: consistent and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the oceans."

An annual climate survey, which includes work by scientists from 45 countries, said that ice sheet in Greenland melted at its highest rate since at least 1958, when similar data first became available.

Arctic sea ice shrank to its third smallest area on record, while the world's alpine glaciers shrank for the 20th straight year, the study said.

In line with previous studies, the survey said that 2010 was also one of the hottest years on record.

Last year was either tied for the hottest or the second hottest on record, depending on methodology. But all methodologies used showed the temperature to be at least 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 Celsius) above the average recorded in the three decades through 1990.

The survey noted that 2010 was exceptional for its extreme events, including a deadly heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan that displaced more than 20 million people and record snowfall in several US cities.

A series of studies have voiced alarm at the rapid pace of melting in the Arctic Ocean, which could lead to a rise in sea levels that threatens low-lying coastal areas and islands.

The Oslo-based Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program said in May that warming in the Arctic was on track to lift sea levels by up to 5.3 feet (1.6 meters) by 2100, a far steeper jump than predicted a few years ago.



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20 comments // Greenland's ice sheet melted the most it has in over a half century last year

  • tommic
    • +3
      tommic  

    • The rate of ice melt in Greenland has grown exponentially faster than any research done previously ever predicted. There is debate by a distinct minority who would claim it is not happening or is not made induced by use of fossil fuel by mankind. A greater percentage of researchers both climate and scientific and physics all agree that climate change is happening. Some may call it a natural cycle, others claim fossil fuel induced. Either way they agree on the one salient point. A minority never rules the majority in a democracy despite what the GOP is trying. So rational deductive reasoning dictates we do act in any way possible to mitigate what could turn out to be a very difficult situation for many parts of the world that impacts the rest of the world. In no good way. Should we fail to take measures that may help alleviate what is being predicted soon it may be too late. After all the rate of change in Arctic sea ice, Greenland ice cap are both accelerating faster than they predicted before, so who is too say they have not underestimated again? It's like buying Insurance, except its to save tens of trillions of dollars and millions of lives.

    • 11 months ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • 0
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • Perhaps it's going to take a massive march on Washington and the Capitol against carbon emissions and demand a massive planting of trees throughout the U.S. as well. Very late baby steps, but it's the first thing to do.

    • 11 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -5
      IceKat  
    • Image

    • ""The world continues to warm," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a briefing paper for reporters."

      The world did warm, but as this graph shows (using NOAA's own data) global ocean heat content doesn't look like it's on an upward spiral.
      Lower tropospheric temperatures reached a peak in 1998 - maybe CO2 took a break for a while!!!

      The good news from this article is that carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010. As this will have absolutely no impact on global temperatures, this can only be seen as a good thing. But for those of you who believe it does cause the world to warm; in a cooling world, why would anyone want to curb (or make people pay for) CO2 emissions? How cold do you want this planet to be before you'll be happy?

    • 11 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -5
      IceKat  
    • Image

    • "...warming in the Arctic was on track to lift sea levels by up to 5.3 feet (1.6 meters) by 2100, a far steeper jump than predicted a few years ago."

      It never fails to amaze me when the data shows a completely different picture from the accompanying article.
      Multi-agency data shows a fall in sea level rise - see graph. Why didn't the models predict that? What does that say about future predictions? And if the ice is melting faster than ever(!!!) why are sea level rises slowing down?

      Reference to the heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan and record snowfall in several US cities just shows that this is a politically-driven article. All the weather events were well understood and none were attributable to the mythical man-made Global Warming.

    • 11 months ago
  • traveler501
    • 0
      traveler501  
    • IceKat:

      so call it "Climate Change"... I applaud your attempts to uncover the truth. Let me suggest that you consider this from a more systemic perspective (since you did use the word "global" after all) and allow a few dozen extra variables into the equation.

      Now if your predictive model ends up indicating an Ice Age after all this shakes out (and I see your name is icekat)...then we agree.

    • 11 months ago
  • IceKat
  • traveler501
  • SamuraiDave
    • +5
      SamuraiDave  

    • Unfortunately this kind of important news gets sidetracked by the short-attention spanned - "This is boring! When's Jersey Shore on? You know important stuff!"

    • 11 months ago
  • artemis6
  • Gravity_Man
    • +1
      Gravity_Man  
    • artemis6:

      You are not alone. The world is filled with people wanting some Peace and Security, or Safety. Point of fact even though the world has many small ongoing skirmishes it hasn't had a "real war" in 66 years as of this past June 26... that marked the anniversary of the UN Charter being signed in 1945.

    • 11 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  

    • More moisture in the air.... Moisture many times the greenhouse gas CO2. Wonder how much H2O gets in the air before it makes ONE BIG MAGNIFYING GLASS and all the elements being hot melt? I wonder where all the Rich are hiding from it => CAVES?

      Are they hiding in the caves? Are the caverns dug out from under Washington DC and under the big Denver airport where they're hiding? Smart people have plans. Smart people don't die the death of a polar bear. That's what we do. The Not Smart out here drowning our faces in TV shows.

    • 11 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • Gravity_Man
  • JanforGore
  • cwebbpt4
  • Milieu
    • +5
      Milieu  

    • I do NOT know why you keep bringing this stuff up, JfG.

      You know, perfectly well, that Science is just Liberals showing off their ability to read and think. ^+

    • 11 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • Milieu
  • haberzet
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