Cross Posted by the Washington Post
Nearly all of Greenland’s massive ice sheet suddenly started melting a bit this month, a freak event that surprised scientists.
Even Greenland’s coldest and highest place, Summit station, showed melting. Ice core records show that last happened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years.
Three satellites show what NASA calls unprecedented melting of the ice sheet that blankets the island, starting on July 8 and lasting four days. Most of the thick ice remains. While some ice usually melts during the summer, what was unusual was that the melting happened in a flash and over a widespread area.
“You literally had this wave of warm air wash over the Greenland ice sheet and melt it,” NASA ice scientist Tom Wagner said Tuesday.
The ice melt area went from 40 percent of the ice sheet to 97 percent in four days, according to NASA. Until now, the most extensive melt seen by satellites in the past three decades was about 55 percent.
Wagner said researchers don’t know how much of Greenland’s ice melted, but it seems to be freezing again.
“When we see melt in places that we haven’t seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up and ask what’s happening?” NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said. It’s a big signal, the meaning of which we’re going to sort out for years to come.”
About the same time, a giant iceberg broke off from the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland. And the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Tuesday announced that the area filled with Arctic sea ice continues near a record low.
Wagner and other scientists said because this Greenland-wide melting has happened before they can’t yet determine if this is a natural rare event or one triggered by man-made global warming. But they do know that the edges of Greenland’s ice sheets have already been thinning because of climate change.
Summer in Greenland has been freakishly warm so far. That’s because of frequent high pressure systems that have parked over the island, bringing warm clear weather that melts ice and snow, explained University of Georgia climatologist Thomas Mote.
He and others say it’s similar to the high pressure systems that have parked over the American Midwest bringing record-breaking warmth and drought.
Ohio State University ice scientist Jason Box, who returned Tuesday from a three-week visit, said he ditched his cold weather gear for the cotton pants that he normally dons in Nevada.
“It was sunny and warm and all the locals were talking about how sunny it was,” Box said after getting off a plane. “Beyond T-shirt weather.”
Reblogged this on NonviolentConflict.
We as free people must not pull back from seeking the truth and consistency in any plans concerning our race, the planet and its species.
If we look at the world, we are all sharing it as the whole, the one, and, at present, there is no other.
The bottom line is, you cannot get off.
It is each and everyone’s responsibility to ensure that industry, Governments and corporate’s do not destroy the environment and species any more.
There are no excuses for the wanton destruction of the planet, it’s species and habitats to date.
You/we/I have only to look to see the massive environmental damage that big companies and governments have already created with their insatiable greed and their need for cash, control of people, energy and resources.
The truth is they must be stopped from destroying any further.
Alternative energy is not a fantasy, there is an inexhaustible amount of information readily available.
Conservation of energy must also be fully realized, utilized and practiced.
Do not be fooled into thinking bio fuels, or hydro electric dams are an answer.
They serve no sustainable purpose, resulting once again in the destruction of habitats and the displacement of wildlife and indigenous people’s.
As a race, we must not allow any to destroy our environment.
We must not allow corporate, industry, or regimes to force us to be separated from interacting with our environment.
Nuclear power is a demon seed with nuclear waste having a half life of 25,000 years.
This means that it will still be 100% toxic to all forms of cellular life in 25,000 years time.
Chernobyl in Russia and Fukushima in Japan has shown that no nuclear power plants are 100% safe, and once an accident happens, the species and environmental impact is both far reaching and devastating.
People must pluck the sickness of greed and corruption from their Nations
You only get one chance, make that chance, one of a future for all People, species and planet.
People must oppose tyrants, regimes and oppressors and those who commit crimes against peace, genocide, and ecocide. Everyone is on the same Planet, we need to acknowledge that we are also on the same page in our History and Future.