Greenland Glaciers Melting Much Faster

grqb writes "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that satellite observations indicate that Greenland's glaciers have been dumping ice into the Atlantic Ocean at a rate that's doubled over the past five years. Greenland Ice Sheet's annual loss has risen from 21.6 cubic miles in 1996 to 36 cubic miles in 2005 and it now contributes about 0.5 millimeters out of 3 millimeters to global sea level increases. One theory as to why this is happening is that the meltwater, caused by increasing temperatures in Greenland, serves as a lubricant for the moving ice, hastening its push to the sea. Another study has estimated that the warming rate in Greenland was 2.2 times faster than the global norm -- which is in line with U.N. climate models."

Comments

Haw! Where's the Skeptical Environmentalist now?

[imrdkl]

Up until just recently, pretty much everyone (even the staunchest environmentalists) thought that the Greenland sheet was quite stable. This does not bode well for the fans of that lovable dane, Bjørn Lomberg, the skeptical environmentalist. As I recall, a good bit of his "evidence" was based on the relative stability, and even mass-increase, of the Greenland sheet - which now seems pretty much debunked by this news. Where's the ice stable now, Mr. Head-in-the-sand? Perhaps Antartica yet bears out your theory? In any case, Denmark lies pretty pretty close to sealevel, as I recall.