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Earth Science

Greenland's Glaciers Develop Stretch Marks As They Accelerate 249

New submitter dywolf writes: NASA-run Operation IceBridge has been monitoring and mapping ice sheets for the past eight years. They develop these maps in 3D using laser equipped aircraft to measure ice thickness. As glaciers reach the coast, they begin to accelerate, which causes crevasses to appear, which are essentially stretchmarks in the glacial strata. While a natural part of glaciers as they travel to sea, the glaciers of Greenland have increased in speed by 30% in the past decade. Jakobshavn Isbrae is Greenland's fastest glacier, and is now moving four times faster than it did 20 years ago.
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Greenland's Glaciers Develop Stretch Marks As They Accelerate

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  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Doug Otto ( 2821601 ) on Thursday May 14, 2015 @10:17AM (#49689007)
    When something starts to go down hill faster, stretch marks occur?

    Must resist ex-wife joke......
    • When something starts to go down hill faster, stretch marks occur? Must resist ex-wife joke......

      Yeah! Being divorced sucks! I wish I was a widower!

      • Being divorced is awesome, you just wish she would get off her ass and work so you didn't have to support her with alimony anymore.

        • Being divorced is awesome, you just wish she would get off her ass and work so you didn't have to support her with alimony anymore.

          It was actually a joke I heard on TV last night that made me laugh - "I wish I was a widower", i.e. "I wish she was dead"

  • Those glaciers look very sooty, does anyone know how much of that is man made from coal and diesel pollution?

    • Really? Coal and diesel pollution?
      Haven't you ever seen a snow-covered parking lot get the snow plowed into piles, and then watch those piles melt away, becoming more and more "sooty", as you put it?
      It's sediment gathered up in the glacier when it was forming, over a long period of time. As it melts, the sediment becomes more concentrated because it stays put while the water runs away.
      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        I think it's a valid question, we've burned enough fossil fuels to the point were the amounts of CO2 we have put out would cover the entire globe in a blanket of co2 three foot high, so why is it so hard to believe that with that 3foot of co2 was also a fair bit of soot to go with it, we are burning about 7,000,000,000 tonnes of coal every year, that's a lot of smog and soot.

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        While sediments *are* gathered up by glaciers as they move, the sediments are gathered at the bottom of the glaciers...unless you are proposing some mechanism for moving the sediments from the bottom to the top.

      • Soot (and dust) is a factor in AGW. It speeds up melting, or deposits the heat it absorbs when airborne into the ocean. Dust is thought to be a +ve feedback, more heat leads to more dust, which in turn leads to faster warming.
    • It's actually Glacier poop! It has no where to go so it drags it along with it.

    • by itzly ( 3699663 )

      Here's a study dedicated to finding that out: http://darksnowproject.org/ [darksnowproject.org]

  • Stretch marks... on a stretched material?

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