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Earth Science

Greenland is Melting Away Before Our Eyes (rollingstone.com) 321

Amid an ongoing heat wave, new data show the Greenland ice sheet is in the middle of its biggest melt season in recorded history. It's the latest worrying signal climate change is accelerating far beyond the worst fears of even climate scientists. From a report: The record-setting heat wave that sweltered northern Europe last week has moved north over the critically vulnerable Greenland ice sheet, triggering temperatures this week that are as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal. Weather models indicate Tuesday's temperature may have surpassed 75 degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of Greenland, and a weather balloon launched near the capital Nuuk measured all-time record warmth just above the surface. That heat wave is still intensifying, and is expected to peak on Thursday with the biggest single-day melt ever recorded in Greenland. On August 1 alone, more than 12 billion tons of water will permanently melt away from the ice sheet and find its way down to the ocean, irreversibly raising sea levels globally.

[...] Even just a few decades ago, an event like this would have been unthinkable. Now, island-wide meltdown days like this are becoming increasingly routine. The ongoing melt event is the second time in seven years that virtually the entire ice sheet simultaneously experienced at least some melt. The last was in July 2012, where 97% of the ice sheet simultaneously melted. In the 1980s, wintertime snows in Greenland roughly balanced summertime melt from the ice sheet, and the conventional wisdom among scientists was that it might take thousands of years for the ice to completely melt under pressure from global warming. That's all changed now. With a decade or two of hindsight, scientists now believe Greenland passed an important tipping point around 2003, and since then its melt rate has more than quadrupled.

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Greenland is Melting Away Before Our Eyes

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01, 2019 @03:52PM (#59024920)

    When we can predict with 100% accuracy that one political party (of the mere 2) will come into this discussion to lie, obfuscate, FUD and distracto-dance away from this important realization, because they are so politically full of dogshit...

    That they consider lying their job.

    • But her emails!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"...Bill Hicks.

        Bill Hicks is Alex Jones.

  • Quick... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01, 2019 @03:53PM (#59024922)

    ... Everybody should get on a jet or a cruise ship to go see it before it all melts away.

    • Re:Quick... (Score:4, Funny)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @04:11PM (#59025050) Journal

      I reject your suggestion and condemn your frivolity. I plan to fly to several conferences in the next few months for the purpose of formulating plans to thwart your activity.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blindseer ( 891256 )

      Or, we can all take our private jets to discuss the problem of our CO2 emissions at a seaside resort, all while enjoying large air conditioned spaces and steak dinners.

      https://pagesix.com/2019/07/30... [pagesix.com]

      Then when we are done with this three day vacation... I mean debate and discussion, we can all fly home again in our private jets and tell everyone else how they need to reduce their CO2 output.

      • Or, we can all take our private jets to discuss the problem of our CO2 emissions at a seaside resort, all while enjoying large air conditioned spaces and steak dinners.

        And here's the thing that's going to really get your goat, when those very rich people do that it actually works. The movement to reduce CO2 is really ramping up, but it's not going to really stick without very influential people pushing it. Those people can affect literally millions, so if they merely use 100x carbon per person their lavish

    • by trolman ( 648780 ) *
      I blame the mega data centers needed to store our comment history.
  • by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @03:56PM (#59024958)

    If this is true, part of me is ashamed to admit that I am very curious what a ice-free greenland would look like. I bet its going to be some amazingly fertile soil once the chlorides are dealt with. Oh the Irony that Eric Torvaldson named it Greenland out of spite. Some 1000yrs later it may come to be true.

    • Filled with humans (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @04:00PM (#59024990)
      Well, as humans continue to flee the equatorial regions of the planet, I assume that Greenland and other northern places will start rapidly filling up with humans over the next few decades.
      • by kenh ( 9056 )

        Greenland and other northern places will start rapidly filling up with humans over the next few decades.

        Decades? From the story it seems clear that Greenland will be ice-covered for hundreds more years.

      • Quick! If you act now, you can get free agricultural land in the Yukon! Have at it and think of the fortune that you can reap when the masses start migrating there! https://yukon.ca/en/apply-agri... [yukon.ca]
    • I am very curious what a ice-free greenland would look like

      The wildest part will be all the old cold war Air Force bases that get uncovered.

    • You can find out [smithsonianmag.com] if you want [wikipedia.org].

      It will have a ginormous lake in the middle of it (due to the weight of the ice pressing it down, spring back will take millenia though), and most of the rest will be barren mountains. Not a lot of "amazingly fertile soil".

    • curious what a ice-free greenland would look like

      It will look exactly like the Yuma Proving Ground, but with seagulls instead of tanks.

    • by amorsen ( 7485 )

      It is going to be mostly under water. Greenland is really a bunch of small islands that just happened to trap a huge ice sheet.

    • Well,
      they named Iceland as well out of spite.
      Anyway, when Greenland was reached/discovered by the Vikings, they found the south tip.
      Which was as green as it is now since 30 years again, which means: very green.

  • XKCD # 1732 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01, 2019 @04:09PM (#59025040)

    https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

    Hindsight being 20/20, why do I feel like "Current Path" was the "Optimistic Scenario"?

  • So obviously climate change and global warming is farce, amirite?
    • So obviously climate change and global warming is farce, amirite?

      And tomorrow New York could fry or get hit by a hurricane or the Hudson could freeze solid next winter. The models of what is happening to the weather are spot on. The aberrations that cause wild swings in weather is what is more concerning. Global warming simply means that the frequency of swings in temperature in both directions will increase as the atmosphere heats up globally. However the overall trend will be toward hotter with the amplitude of the graph increasing accordingly. If you believe that noth

  • by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @04:24PM (#59025134)

    At this rate, Greenland will soon become as icy as Iceland.

  • by OYAHHH ( 322809 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @04:24PM (#59025136)

    Last night said it was too late. I agree with his premise that people should start migrating away from the coast.

  • Now we'll have somewhere to go when the sea levels rise. Hooray!
  • Looks like there will be one more significantly sized patch of land, then, which becomes hospitable to humans living there.
  • We have to invite Thanos to Earth.
  • ... coming up with technological solutions. Because posturing and name calling don't seem to be helping.
  • This isn't news for anyone paying attention. Natural ice is melting around the globe, and buffering off the hothouse state we're headed for in a decade or so.

    The data is conclusive. The climate change rate along with a sixth exciting is in full tilt now and the Earth's climate zones are most likely to experience a large scale shift and contraction within our lifetime.

    Germany had 3 never-before heat peaks this year alone and when the ice still chilling is now will have completely melted away the party will r

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