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Greenland's Fastest Glacier Sets New Speed Record
vinces99 writes "The latest observations of Jakobshavn Glacier show that Greenland's largest glacier is moving ice from land into the ocean at a speed that appears to be the fastest ever recorded. Researchers from the University of Washington and the German Space Agency measured the speed of the glacier in 2012 and 2013. The results were published Feb. 3 in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union. Jakobshavn Glacier, which is widely believed to be the glacier that produced the large iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912, drains the Greenland ice sheet into a deep-ocean fjord on the west coast of the island. This speedup of Jakobshavn means that the glacier is adding more and more ice to the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise. 'We are now seeing summer speeds more than four times what they were in the 1990s, on a glacier which at that time was believed to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, glacier in Greenland,' said lead author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW's Polar Science Center. The new observations show that in summer of 2012 the glacier reached a record speed of more than 10 miles (17 km) per year, or more than 150 feet (46 m) per day. These appear to be the fastest flow rates recorded for any glacier or ice stream in Greenland or Antarctica, researchers said."
the glacier will break Mach 1 by 2016 when Hillary is president and Al Gore is secretary of state.
Greenland has experienced (like Antarctica) some very heavy snowfalls in the past few years, which increases the thickness of the glaciers. Glacial flow is fairly well understood, as the glacier gets thicker it causes faster movement.
The calving of large glaciers is often touted by alarmists as proof of their claims, but this phenomenon does not actually support the alarmist position at all.
Does this mean that in a few years they will have to re-define the term "at glacial pace"? :)
How much do I have to pay in taxes to make it stop?
If anyone thinks you're working at a glacial speed, you are now 4x as fast as you were in the 1990's. Now THAT is progress!
You know I don't really care about the number of humans the impeding environmental crisis will kill off, the more the better, as long as its not me of course, and it will take at least 50 years, by which time I will be dragged to my grave by my fat ass. In all probability it will be some brown nobody that cooks his food over a dung fire in Asstonia, and who gives a fuck about that ? What concerns me more is the sterile wasteland the survivors will create. I mean its nice to "conserve" some splatter of greenery somewhere out of town siting in front of your TV in your underpants, drinking craft beer, but I'll wager not much will stop you bulldozing that shit down to feed your starving kids.
I'm still a bit confused on those speeds. Can someone convert them to coincide with the viscosity of tar pitch or the rate by which bills get passed through congress?
For over a decade the Slashdot poster has brought ignorance, libel, and the most inestimable repetitive motion, face-palming injuries to have afflicted the general public. With Medea-like intensity, this mass trauma began rising sharply four years ago, reflecting new and unexpected ravages by the keyboards of tens of thousands of monkeys and/or basement dwellers. A 2009 Department of Commerce report projected that 51,000 persons would be rendered eternally speechless by Slashdot posting atrocities in 2025. That figure will probably be reached in 2015, a decade ahead of schedule.
And you're an AC that doesn't know shit, either. You don't have any numbers either, either. People who spew bullshit with nothing to back it up often post AC, but sometimes they don't, sometimes you can't really tell. You'd never post such nonsense logged in either cause your poor or awesome karma would suffer for it. This applies to this AC as well.
Slow news day ./?
But I think you meant to ask from 1998, which was an outlier year that, in 1998 and 1999 was touted by deniers and lukewarmer do-nothings as "an anomoly not to be taken as proof of AGW". Of course, 15 years later, it's no longer an outiler to those same people.
Which is why "Skeptic" doesn't apply to them.
"If this glacier goes slower than one miles a year, we're all dead!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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In the case of basal sliding, the entire glacier slides over its bed. This type of motion is enhanced if the bed is soft sediment, if the glacier bed is thawed and if meltwater is prevalent.
It's the FASTER melting that causing the increase of speed.
You do understand this is about increased melting, right?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The glacier is moving a record speeds. This is due to massive accumulation of ice putting pressure on the glacier. Ice....wait.....
I thought ice was only growing in the Antarctic region, NOT the Arctic. But now you tell me it is increasing there too.
(And darn, if it ain't increasing on my home as well.)
He had the right answer, but most of his proofs had been disproven by contemporary scientistis. He was too egotistical to accept their theories (which history later proved correct), and thus was an unabashed ass in many ways. Who felt that he was beyond the need for the peer review / publication process of his day.
Who's computer models have yet to predict anywhere close to accurately.
Creating a model that predicts the past is easy. Creating one that predicts the future....that's scientific.
Ironically, only a few hundred million years ago, my house would have been at the bottom of a shallow sea. Apparently there used to be more water than there is now.
You're assuming your elevation and/or geography is the same as it was millions of years ago. I live near the Great Lakes which are inland freshwater seas, roughly 500-600 feet above sea level. Lake Erie is actually quite shallow, particularly on the western third. Just because it was a shallow sea doesn't mean it was part of the world ocean necessarily.