Record polar ice loss should spur action in Doha!
Eis vom Grönlandeisschild fließt am Equi-Gletscher ins Meer
Not a day seems to go by without another new revelation about the state of the polar ice, which we once though was such a normal, permanent feature of our planet. Now an international team of satellite experts has produced what they say is the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Greenland AND Antarctica to date and the result is devastating.The combined rate of ice sheet melting in both hemispheres has increased over time. Altogether, Greenland and Antarctica are now losing more than three times as much ice as they were in the 1990s. The findings are published in the journal Science on 30th November.
There have been a lot of different estimates about the state of the ice and its implications for global sea level. This one claims to reconcile the differences. It uses the latest satellite technology and combines observations from ten different satellite missions. The study was led by Professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds and Dr. Erik Ivins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Greenland’s massive ice sheet is melting faster than expected, contributing to rising sea levels.
Surely it is getting harder to ignore the increasingly visible impacts of a warming climate? The global sea level is rising 60% faster than previously predicted. (See my article on that, written just this week). The permafrost is melting across the Arctic. Scientists have been telling us for a long time that not only is global warming melting the ice – the melt in turn is intensifying climate change, whether it’s the darker water absorbing more heat from the sun or the permafrost releasing the greenhouse gases stored there.
How many more scientific reports do we need for the politicians and industry to grasp the need for large-scale, short-term reductions of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels?
