Political Cortex: Ecology Watch: Daunting Report on Greenland's Melting Surface

Ecology Watch: Daunting Report on Greenland's Melting Surface

By Bill Hare
04/25/2008 03:47:14 PM EST

Andrew C. Revkin in a New York Times in a January 8, 2008 article reveals a daunting reporting on the melting surface of Greenland.

As stated by Revkin:

"For a lengthening string of warm years, a lacework of blue lakes and rivulets of meltwater have been spreading ever higher on the ice cap (cloaking Greenland). The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the sun as unmelted snow, which reflects sunlight. Natural drainpipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock. The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice toward the sea."

Glaciologists report the breakup of huge semi submerged clots of ice "where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fjords as they meet the warming ocean. As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated, frozen rivers."

According to Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, a veteran of Greenland and Antarctic studies, such changes have left many glaciologists "a little nervous" and "shell-shocked".

The changes seen in Greenland may turn out to be self-limiting in the short run as glaciers can flatten out and slow. The more fearful prospect, however, is that these activities could be a sign that the island's ice is poised for a rapid discharge.

Revkin's conclusion contains a bleak future warning:

"(T)here is no significant debate on the long-term picture anymore. Should greenhouse-gas emissions follow anything close to the `business as usual' rise, the resulting warming and ice loss at both ends of the earth would cause coasts to retreat for centuries. While it was circumspect about near-term changes, the intergovernmental panel was confident about that long view."

In the view of Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while it is too early to reassure stabilization and there is no way to predict a "catastrophic collapse ... things are definitely far more serious than anyone would have thought five years ago."