Global Warming Exposes New Islands in the Arctic

circletimessquare writes "The New York Times has a sobering article about the rapidly accelerating pace of glacial melting across the arctic, focusing on the discovery of new islands and the fact that this is occurring far faster than climate scientist's models predict. What were called Nunataks or 'lonely mountains' in Inuit, trapped in the ice, only a few years ago, are now in the open ocean by kilometers. Off of Greenland, what was known previously as peninsulas have been revealed to be islands as the ice retreats. Dennis Schmitt, a modern day explorer and discoverer of one of these new islands and fluent in Inuit, has named it Uunartoq Qeqertoq: the warming island."

Comments

Google Maps

[Xzzy]

Took a few minutes (the map in the article isn't really all that good), but I dug up a photo of the island in google maps:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=10&ll=71.476542, -21.726837&spn=0.209418,1.203003&t=k&om=1

Still shows it as connected.. but only barely.

Is it obvious yet?

[inviolet]

"The New York Times has a sobering article about the rapidly accelerating pace of glacial melting across the arctic, focusing on the discovery of new islands and the fact that this is occurring far faster than climate scientist's models predict.

Seeing as how this is the 10,000th time this sort of thing has happened, can we at least all agree that:

• global warming is real, and its consequences are mounting, but
• climate models are teh suck

Seriously. Every year there's a new twist that the models missed by a mile. Most recently, it was the 2006 quiet hurricane season. Anyone who claims to predict planetary weather by studying past correllations and making guesses at future causations, is doing the academic equivalent of hunting for venture capital.

But, nevertheless, the planet is getting steadily warmer.

Re:Islands

[smellsofbikes]

>I don't get why the "man has no effect" crowd are so vehemently against taking any action.

Easy: because they figure they stand to lose more than they gain by taking action: they either think it'll cost a lot (which it might) or that they won't be particularly affected by the result of no action.

I live in Colorado. I don't give two hoots about houses being designed for earthquake surviveability or tidal wave warning systems. Why should I pay for research into these areas? I'm in good health: why should I pay for surgery for someone who can't afford medical care? I'm young: why do I care about age discrimination? Same mindset.