Greenland's Rapid Ice Melt Persists Even in Winter, Study Finds
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
by Common Dreams
Greenland's Rapid Ice Melt Persists Even in Winter, Study Finds
"Greenland is a bit like a sleeping giant that is awakening. Who knows how it will respond to a couple of more degrees of warming?"
by Julia Conley, staff writer
New research finds that Greenland's ice sheet is melting even in the middle of winter. (Photo: Patrick Robert/Corbis)
In the latest troubling study regarding how the climate crisis is affecting the world's iciest regions, a new report by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) found that the second-largest ice sheet in the world is currently melting even in winter.
The study follows a report released earlier this month showing that Greenland's ice melt rate is currently faster than it's been in about 7,000 years. The island's 650,000 cubic miles of ice is melting 50 percent faster than it did in pre-industrial times.
"Greenland is a bit like a sleeping giant that is awakening," Edward Hanna, a climate scientist at the University of Lincoln, told Inside Climate News this week. "Who knows how it will respond to a couple of more degrees of warming? It could lose a lot of mass very quickly."
The ice sheet's persistent melting even in winter has come about because huge waves below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, created by unusually strong winter winds, are pushing warm water up to Greenland—creating an environment that's hostile for the country's icy ecosystem, explains SAMS.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/26/greenlands-rapid-ice-melt-persists-even-winter-study-finds
= new reply since forum marked as read
MaGGA!
"What would at140 think?"
hopefully there isn't a monument under there w a placard that says, "You've gone too far. Prepare to meet your makers."
