Fox news posts climate alert

[Póg mo 1,749]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/03/22/greenland-is-literally-cracking-apart-and-flooding-world.html#

Greenland is literally cracking apart and flooding the world

Visit Greenland on the right summer day, and you could see a 12-billion-gallon lake disappear before your very eyes.

Glaciologists saw this happen for the first time in 2006, when a 2.2-square-mile (5.6 square kilometers) lake of melted ice drained away into nothing in less than 2 hours. Researchers now see such events as a regular part of Greenland's increasingly hot summer routine; every year, thousands of temporary lakes pop up on Greenland's surface as the surrounding ice melts, sit around for a few weeks or months, and then suddenly drain away through cracks in the ice sheet underneath. [Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

On a recent expedition, however, researchers saw an alarming new pattern behind Greenland's mysterious disappearing lakes: They're starting to drain farther and farther inland. According to a new paper published today (March 14) in the journal Nature Communications, that's because the summer lakes of Greenland drain in a "cascading" chain reaction enabled by a vast, interconnected web of cracks below the ice — and as temperatures climb, the web is getting wider.

"Lakes that drain in one area produce fractures that cause more lakes to drain somewhere elsewhere," co-author Marion Bougamont, a glaciologist at the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in a statement. "It all adds up when you look at the pathways of water underneath the ice."

In the new paper, Bougamont and her colleagues used 3D ice-flow models and satellite images of the Greenland Ice Sheet to study this chain reaction. The authors found that when warming weather causes a single lake to drain into the underlying ice sheet, the ice flow below that lake can accelerate dramatically — up to 400 percent faster than in winter months.

As the draining water surges away from the original lake, it can destabilize other nearby ice beds. Fresh cracks form, new lakes drain and the reaction intensifies day by day. In one incident, the researchers observed 124 lakes drain in just five days. Even lakes that formed hundreds of kilometers inland, which were previously thought to be too far removed from the ice bed to drain into it, proved vulnerable to the chain-drain-reaction as new fissures in the ice formed.

This all amounts to billions of gallons of melted ice plunging below Greenland's surface every few days. Some of this water remains trapped in the ice sheet; much of it pours into the surrounding ocean.

"This ice sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometers [650,000 square miles], was relatively stable 25 years ago, but now loses one billion tons [900 million metric tons] of ice every day," lead author Poul Christoffersen, also from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in the statement. "This causes one millimeter of global sea level rise per year, a rate which is much faster than what was predicted only a few years ago."

According to a 2017 report, ice loss in Greenland was responsible for about 25 percent of global sea level rise in 2014 — up from just 5 percent in 1993. 

If Greenland melts completely, it could result in a global sea-level rise of about 20 feet (6 meters). According to the Cambridge researchers, a total loss of Greenland's ice is "extremely unlikely in this century" — but even minor increases in sea level could have severe consequences around the world, the authors noted. According to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), if sea levels rise half a meter (1.6 feet) by 2100, many American coastal cities will experience high-tide flooding "every other day" or more.

Originally published on Live Science.

 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, Póg mo said:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/03/22/greenland-is-literally-cracking-apart-and-flooding-world.html#

Greenland is literally cracking apart and flooding the world

Visit Greenland on the right summer day, and you could see a 12-billion-gallon lake disappear before your very eyes.

Glaciologists saw this happen for the first time in 2006, when a 2.2-square-mile (5.6 square kilometers) lake of melted ice drained away into nothing in less than 2 hours. Researchers now see such events as a regular part of Greenland's increasingly hot summer routine; every year, thousands of temporary lakes pop up on Greenland's surface as the surrounding ice melts, sit around for a few weeks or months, and then suddenly drain away through cracks in the ice sheet underneath. [Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

On a recent expedition, however, researchers saw an alarming new pattern behind Greenland's mysterious disappearing lakes: They're starting to drain farther and farther inland. According to a new paper published today (March 14) in the journal Nature Communications, that's because the summer lakes of Greenland drain in a "cascading" chain reaction enabled by a vast, interconnected web of cracks below the ice — and as temperatures climb, the web is getting wider.

"Lakes that drain in one area produce fractures that cause more lakes to drain somewhere elsewhere," co-author Marion Bougamont, a glaciologist at the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in a statement. "It all adds up when you look at the pathways of water underneath the ice."

In the new paper, Bougamont and her colleagues used 3D ice-flow models and satellite images of the Greenland Ice Sheet to study this chain reaction. The authors found that when warming weather causes a single lake to drain into the underlying ice sheet, the ice flow below that lake can accelerate dramatically — up to 400 percent faster than in winter months.

As the draining water surges away from the original lake, it can destabilize other nearby ice beds. Fresh cracks form, new lakes drain and the reaction intensifies day by day. In one incident, the researchers observed 124 lakes drain in just five days. Even lakes that formed hundreds of kilometers inland, which were previously thought to be too far removed from the ice bed to drain into it, proved vulnerable to the chain-drain-reaction as new fissures in the ice formed.

This all amounts to billions of gallons of melted ice plunging below Greenland's surface every few days. Some of this water remains trapped in the ice sheet; much of it pours into the surrounding ocean.

"This ice sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometers [650,000 square miles], was relatively stable 25 years ago, but now loses one billion tons [900 million metric tons] of ice every day," lead author Poul Christoffersen, also from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in the statement. "This causes one millimeter of global sea level rise per year, a rate which is much faster than what was predicted only a few years ago."

According to a 2017 report, ice loss in Greenland was responsible for about 25 percent of global sea level rise in 2014 — up from just 5 percent in 1993. 

If Greenland melts completely, it could result in a global sea-level rise of about 20 feet (6 meters). According to the Cambridge researchers, a total loss of Greenland's ice is "extremely unlikely in this century" — but even minor increases in sea level could have severe consequences around the world, the authors noted. According to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), if sea levels rise half a meter (1.6 feet) by 2100, many American coastal cities will experience high-tide flooding "every other day" or more.

Originally published on Live Science.

 

Nope , not happening, not caused by man, been going on for eons. Fox news is arrogant for even reporting on this.

[bcking 3,157]

Greenland hasn't always been covered in ice. I think I remember reading an article once suggesting that the ice formed about 3 million years ago. That's not that long ago for our 4 billion + year old earth.

[Póg mo 1,749]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

Greenland hasn't always been covered in ice. I think I remember reading an article once suggesting that the ice formed about 3 million years ago. That's not that long ago for our 4 billion + year old earth.

HELLO! Why do you think they called it Greenland?

[bcking 3,157]

8 minutes ago, Póg mo said:

HELLO! Why do you think they called it Greenland?

The name was an ad campaign to convince people to settle. Viking age ad campaign.

 

But seriously - Greenland was bound to melt again eventually. Are we moving it along faster? Probably. But it was still likely inevitable.

[Póg mo 1,749]

32 minutes ago, bcking said:

The name was an ad campaign to convince people to settle. Viking age ad campaign.

 

But seriously - Greenland was bound to melt again eventually. Are we moving it along faster? Probably. But it was still likely inevitable.

I have the same philosophy with medicine. Why bother going to a doctor, sure we are all going to die anyway

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

My work is done

11 minutes ago, Póg mo said:

I have the same philosophy with medicine. Why bother going to a doctor, sure we are all going to die anyway

Not sure why we even invest all this money in pharmacy, research at medical university and all that. Leaches and blood letting was good enough for our ancestors.

[Boiler 45,673]

30 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

My work is done

Not sure why we even invest all this money in pharmacy, research at medical university and all that. Leaches and blood letting was good enough for our ancestors.

That is of course your choice.

 

Actually Greenland was Green and then was hit with Global Cooling which wiped out the settlers, sometime in the 1300's I think.

 

Anyway back then of course they were not woke to the situation, should have been producing more CO2.

[bcking 3,157]

1 hour ago, Póg mo said:

I have the same philosophy with medicine. Why bother going to a doctor, sure we are all going to die anyway

Well medicine helps us directly, not just the human population as a whole. Another defining characteristic of humanity is selfishness, so we tend to focus more on what can improve things now, rather than in 100 or 200 years.

 

Don't take my comments the wrong way. I completely support efforts to research alternate sources of energy, and support trying to make changes to reduce our impact on climate and our planet in general. But for the most part all the "alternative" sources have their own associated costs, and they all consume resources from the planet. They may trade one problem for another. That's why I said at the end of the day the reality is we either leave the planet eventually, or we accept that with or without human influence there will come a time where the earth will not be compatible with human existence on the scale that it is existing now.

 

The efforts to "slow down" that progress, to me, or mostly just to buy us more time to advance to the point where we can create a more permanent solution. By that I mean a way off the planet and (more importantly) the means to travel to other planets that we can identify as hospitable to our survival.

Edited March 23, 2018 by bcking

[bcking 3,157]

1 hour ago, Boiler said:

That is of course your choice.

 

Actually Greenland was Green and then was hit with Global Cooling which wiped out the settlers, sometime in the 1300's I think.

 

Anyway back then of course they were not woke to the situation, should have been producing more CO2.

Greenland has been covered in mostly ice for pretty much all of human existence. There was some green areas that were more hapitable but the majority has been icey for awhile.

 

The name was given to make it seem like a great place to settle, so the story goes. It was Viking propaganda, of sorts.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

3 hours ago, bcking said:

Greenland has been covered in mostly ice for pretty much all of human existence. There was some green areas that were more hapitable but the majority has been icey for awhile.

 

The name was given to make it seem like a great place to settle, so the story goes. It was Viking propaganda, of sorts.

Greenland is Viking for "Reykjavik" is too damn crowded, I need to find my own ice clogged hellhole

[Póg mo 1,749]

5 hours ago, Boiler said:

That is of course your choice.

 

Actually Greenland was Green and then was hit with Global Cooling which wiped out the settlers, sometime in the 1300's I think.

 

Anyway back then of course they were not woke to the situation, should have been producing more CO2.

Sure, then explain Iceland? What's your big theory that explains what happened there? 

[Boiler 45,673]

http://icelandmag.is/article/what-happened-viking-settlement-greenland-new-research-shows-cooling-weather-not-a-factor

 

Why were the Norse colonies abandoned?
Historians have assumed the primary reason for the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland was the onset of the “Little Ice Age”, a period of colder weather which succeeded the “Mediaeval War Period.” This created a very neat narrative of the Norse settlement of Greenland as it seemed to coincide with the period of warmer weather: Good weather drew the Vikings to Greenland, and cold weather either killed or drove their descendants out again. The new research suggests this narrative does not hold up.

However, other explanations have also been offered. These include clashes with the Inuit population, soil erosion due to overgrazing, and the effects of the Black Death. As the plague swept over Europe large areas of prime agricultural lands were left abandoned, including in Iceland and Scandinavia. The Norse inhabitants of Greenland could simply have returned to their lands of origin. Another explanation is the decline in demand for walrus ivory in the mid-13th century, as elephant ivory became available in Europe once again.

Most likely the real story behind the end of the Norse colony in Greenland is a complex interplay of all of these factors.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

9 hours ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Nope , not happening, not caused by man, been going on for eons. Fox news is arrogant for even reporting on this.

I know you and Pog are just trying to scare the rest of us into giving up our guns before they rust, but it ain’t a-gonna happen.  No way.

 

Imagine if you had been around about 50 million years ago, when sea levels were between 100-200 metres higher than they are today?

 

 

In other news, Antarctica ice mass is growing.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Also, the global sea level has risen about 6 inches in the past 120 years.  I think it may be a bit too soon to start advertising open front property in Arizona.  Maybe have your great great great great grand kids do it for ya in 300 years or so?  (Didn’t really do the math, it’s just a SWAG).