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."
I come up with about 37 trillion gallons in Lake Houston.
Greenland is losing 37 trillion gallons of fresh water every 6 hours......it wouldn't take to long for this total of water to equal a gazillion gallons!!!
Maybe I did some math wrong - but ....is something screwy here?
Fear-pimps!
I'm thinking there's a new real estate market waiting to open up in Greenland.
And just where is all the water going? I mean it's not lost, is it? It's gotta be somewhere.
Water is never lost
... more hyper-short-term claims from GRACE. Are their PGR models any good? Don't know but we do note with raised eyebrow that a patch of open sea in the North Atlantic also "got shorter" with an anomaly of -90Km3/year in the region around 52N, 40W (areas in the Davis Strait & the Norwegian Sea also showed "losses" of -40Km3/year and -50Km3/year, respectively) while the North Sea south of Reykjavik actually got taller (+40Km3/year). Some mighty funny goings on in the North Atlantic -- or not.
I'll worry about global warming when the Greenland ice has retreated to where it was 1000 years ago, when GREENLAND got its name.
"Greenland's Thawing ice alarms scientists"
These "scientists" should have been around when the ice sheet over Michigan melted! Would they have been "alarmed"!
Hell I can't wait......waterfront property....Yeehaaa!
I thought the same thing,only I have a math disability. :o) Then I thought, "yeah, yeah, yeah, the freakin' sky is falling again. Next!"
So in summary:
Even though we're completely full of shiitake, you should continue fantasizing about the global warming myth.
Greenland`s lost water is at my house but don`t tell anybody
So Greenland will return to the state it was in when the vikings first ran into it back about 1000 years ago. It didn't get its name for its gigantic glaciers.
We could use that water in Texas - a helluva drought going on here now.
It went back to where it came from 50,000 years ago. The earth is in a temperature cycle. It's been doing this for millions of years. Yes, we are in a warming trend, probably caused by a cycle of the sun and somewhat unrelated to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Where do they suppose the carbon dioxide on the floor of the oceans came from? Atlantis? This is Chicken Little scientists waving their hands in the air over something they need to learn to live with.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.