Posted on 10/20/2005 6:25:11 PM PDT by Pharmboy
Greenland's ice-cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming, a team of scientists said on Thursday.
The 3,000-meter (9,842-feet) thick ice-cap is a key concern in debates about climate change because a total melt would raise world sea levels by about 7 meters. And a runaway thaw might slow the Gulf Stream that keeps the North Atlantic region warm.
But satellite measurements showed that more snowfall was falling and thickening the ice-cap, especially at high altitudes, according to the report in the journal Science.
Glaciers at sea level have been retreating fast because of a warming climate, making many other scientists believe the entire ice-cap was thinning.
"The overall ice thickness changes are ... approximately plus 5 cms (1.9 inches) a year or 54 cms (21.26 inches) over 11 years," according to the experts at Norwegian, Russian and U.S. institutes led by Ola Johannessen at the Mohn Sverdrup center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography in Norway.
However, they said that the thickening seemed consistent with theories of global warming, blamed by most experts on a build-up of heat-trapping gases from (32.00F).
And the scientists said that the thickening of the ice-cap might be offset by a melting of glaciers around the fringes of Greenland. Satellite data was not good enough to measure the melt nearer sea level.
ICE SHEETS
Most models of global warming indicate that the Greenland ice might melt within thousands of years if warming continues.
Oceans would rise by about 70 meters if the far bigger ice-cap on Antarctica melted along with Greenland. Antarctica's vast size acts as a deep freeze likely to slow any melt of the southern continent.
The panel that advises the United Nations has predicted that global sea levels might rise by almost a meter by 2100 because of a warming climate.
Such a rise would swamp low-lying Pacific islands and warming could trigger more hurricanes, droughts, spread deserts and drive thousands of species to extinction.
Still, a separate study in Science on Thursday said sea levels were probably rising slightly because of a melt of ice sheets.
"Ice sheets now appear to be contributing modestly to sea level rise because warming has increased mass loss from coastal areas more than warming has increased mass gain from enhanced snowfall in cold central regions," it said.
"Greenland presently makes the largest contribution to sea level rise," according to the report by scientists led by Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in the United States.
Halliburton did it.... oh, wait.... i mean....
Bush's fault!
Some people think we're headed for another ice age.
It's the Bush/ Rove Ice Machine in action!
Global cooling and global warming are Bush's fault!!!!
However, they said that the thickening seemed consistent with theories of global warming ...
More Global Warming gibberish and hysteria.
LOL
Global cooling is going to kill us all! Repent!
Yep...his environmental poilicies are finally working! But, they'll prolly blame him since the Greenlanders will now have to auger the holes in the ice that much deeper to go ice fishing.
EVERYTHING seems consistent with theories of global warming to these nuts.
Snow cones for everyone!! Forever...
Lol. Gobbledygook.
Frankly it sounds like some of these scientists don't know what the hell they are talking about.
ping
While listening to npr the other day (I needed a few chuckles) I learned that global warming is supposed to trigger a new ice age. I think the wackos are just making this stuff up to get interviewed on npr so they can tell their friends.
My Lady Wife (the science major) insists that changing the mean temperature either way will trigger an ice age.
This is how the earth's climate has remained stable for millions of years, allowing life to exist.
And humans have (obviously) survived at least the last couple ice ages just fine.
The sea levels will rise and fall, and ice caps will advance and retreat, creating some instability (and opportunities) in the global real estate market over the next dozen centuries or so.
And I was going to make a joke saying the same thing.
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