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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."
This sounds like Greenland's problem, not ours. We need to start litigation to force Greenland to stop this harmful dumping of ice into the ocean.
Let's invade Greenland for insulting our state religion by allowing science to accurately predict events in their country.
1) The fact that we need to do something now to save the world before its too late!
To them I say.. its useless. Your puny little voices will not be heard. The only way to stop global warming were for the people of the world to collectively reduce their usage of energy and lower their standard of living. Its not happening. It simply is not going to happen.
2) The fact that it cannot be proven that it is human's causing this global warming, and that we know very little about the climate and have been measuring it for a very very short time.
To them I say.. Sure. Fine. But just remember that our great and global civilization wont be the first to have underestimated their effect on nature. History has shown that civilizations CAN affect the environment around them to the point that their civilization becomes unsustainable. Look up the end of the Mayan civilization. Actually even the Easter Islands belong to this category.
Bottom line. I dont think we are hurtling toward the point of no-return.. I believe we are PAST the point of no return.. at this point we might as well just try to find ourselves another planet, or work on technologies that make sure our civilization can survive the future.
- Tempestdata
It's a scary read. Some evidence seems to support that global dimming might be the cause of famine in Africa.
There's a lot about the subject on google.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Islands like Kiribati and Tuvalu in the Pacific ocean have already been experiencing rising sea-levels over a period of 13 years according to a tide-gauge project run by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.
The rate of about 6mm (0.236 inches) per year is quite slow, but it is significant for low-lying islands like these ones.