Gagged NASA scientist warns: Ice Caps 'Melting Fast'

Climate change: On the edge

Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.

This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance...

OMG! :shk: It may already be too late.

And the GOVERNMENT didn't want to tell you. :


[edit on 20-2-2006 by loam]

Strange.....I just found this article on cnn and it doesn't mention NASA at allllll

www.cnn.com...

It's in the second paragraph of your article:

...said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Don't worry, I do that all the time...(I'm an abusive skimmer. )

[edit on 16-2-2006 by loam]

None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth's history and my own eyes.

Sounds like a renegade scientist to me. I think I'd do some research on this person and their credibility before having a panic attack about what was said. If he is credible; what's a NASA scientist doing going to a foreign newspaper. Also consider the source. Is it reliable? Even if the sea level rises 30 meters over the next hundred years; would that really be an insurmountable problem? We are talking a third of a meter a year or less here. And if the real models based on hard data are correct it's more like an inch a year. Either way the impact would be negligable. Any cities impacted were built in a stupid location in the first place. What kind of a fool builds at or near sea level. Even worse are the geniuses that built entire cities below sea level. We've see where that leads.

LOL ooops....thanks loam

As for sea side cities......ick, in New Zealand almost everywhere is near the sea lol can't get away from it!

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Sounds like a renegade scientist to me. I think I'd do some research on this person and their credibility before having a panic attack about what was said.

From the article.

Jim Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, is President George Bush's top climate modeller.

I know we try not to Wiki, but there are external links to follow on this page.
James Hansen

If he is credible; what's a NASA scientist doing going to a foreign newspaper. Also consider the source. Is it reliable?

If for whatever reason you don't like The Independent there is plenty of other news sources running the story.
Google News Links

here some pictures of how fast the ice caps are melting, the effect this water will have is not simply explained by saying the water level will rise. This will have more far reaching effects on the entires planet climate.

The satellite photo at far left shows the Larson B ice shelf on Jan. 31, 2002. Ice appears as solid white. Moving to the right, in photos taken Feb. 17 and Feb. 23, the ice begins to disintegrate. In the photos at far right, taken Mar. 5 and Mar 7, note water (blue) where solid ice had been, and that a portion of the shelf is drifting away. Photos: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

It will be a shame if we destroy this rock we call home, nevertheless we will survive.

Originally posted by Blaine91555

Sounds like a renegade scientist to me.

Forget Bin Laden. Forget Hussein. We have a new boogeyman!

Renegade Scientists Attack!


Where are all those threads on dead microbiologists?

The point about the issue of the melting caps is that is nothing we can really do about it.

What it seems like a bad thing is actually a natural cycle of earth, it happen before and will happen again.

Mankind survived the last one and is plenty of humans inhabiting earth right now to make sure that our species will survived.

I saw this on BBC yesterday. They say "If the Greenland ice sheet melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by about 7m."

I wonder what else would happen when the ice melts? Some interesting new (or old) vira and stuff perhaps? ATS: Big Thaw Could Unleash Ancient Plague.

And don´t forget the Gulf stream. SCI/TECH: Significant Weakening Of Gulf Stream Detected (by Indy)

I know we have been down this road before. Is there a potential for "The Day After Tommorrow" type stuff? We've so far seen some wild weather. Maybe not as extreme as in the movie... Could we be progressing toward such destruction? And perhaps in a quick manner.

Troy



[edit on 16-2-2006 by cybertroy]

there is a big debate betwene real scientists that if the ice caps melt the water leval would rise 2-3in or 4-5in that is the MOST it would rise the "water world" senario will NEVER happen there is not that much water on earth. those pictures are not acurate b/c the same reason if you measure the amount of ice on a pond in MI in Dec and Jan and then in june there is the same difrence the ice cpas change along with the season.

Australian scientists are also being gagged. So we have NASA and the CSIRO any more arround the world?

That is why some of us - believe in Disclosure Project...Cause atleast it give us some hope.

Yeah - big picture isn't it?


smart cars driving to and from work - every day.
Money money money..

A working class hero is something to be..

The last time we had dramatic "global warming" was 14,000 years ago, of 3 degrees. In that time 'til now we are supposed to believe the air has been pristine, no volcanoes, no forest fires?

I don't see how anyone can make definitive statements of "fact" with the small amount of historic information we actually have. This person, Jim Hansen, is more about alternative fuels than anything else. He's a single issue person and I don't believe him when he makes statements like "explosive thaws", etc.

He works at NASA but looks to me he's trying to be THE "expert" on global warming, a niche career while it lasts. This is scare tactics and some of us are too willing to believe it. Man has been around a long time, global warming notwithstanding. If some have to move back from the coast lands, so be it. Living along the coasts is dangerous as we've seen with the recent tsunami disaster. How many millions would die in a tsunami on our west coast?

Originally posted by soficrow

Originally posted by Blaine91555

Sounds like a renegade scientist to me.

Forget Bin Laden. Forget Hussein. We have a new boogeyman!

Renegade Scientists Attack!


Where are all those threads on dead microbiologists?

threads? i thought members posting this stuff immediately, umm

disappear

www.geocities.com...

[edit on 17-2-2006 by Long Lance]

good find once again loam, and well said Alikospah. It does seem like a natural process to me. Ice ages come and go. It is not like it was just starting to melt and the ice streams were just starting to move. Getting way out of the box for a moment.....maybe it was unnatural for the ice to be there to begin with. Maybe it is going back to normal. Either way, the earth is constintly changing. Whos to say what is "normal".

weather it's caused by man, or a natural event.....it's happening, we can expect sea levels to rise, we can expect wacky weather playing havoc. the question is.....do we want to be ostriches hiding our head in the sand till the ocean washes that sand away, or can a little preparation now save a few million lives.
my bet is that bush and company will continue trying to silence the scientific community, and fema will continue to be blindsided by natural disaster after natural disaster.. we make great ostriches...

Once again, good found, Loam.

BTW, today the person of the Weather Forecast in Spain (on A3 Tv) mentioned it too.

Seems as if it is starting to become something really serious...

Originally posted by loam
It's in the second paragraph of your article:

...said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Don't worry, I do that all the time...(I'm an abusive skimmer.

)

[edit on 16-2-2006 by loam]

This Jim Hansen seems to have an agenda behind his post. Whether or not he is really a NASA scientist.

Stopping the emission of greenhouse gases will not stop this problem, and to see any changes, it would take decades for the Earth to get back to normal.

We also do know that the Earth has gone through these drastic changes in the past, when men were supposedly not as technologically advanced as we are now.

I think the article from the "Independent" is just being used as a tool against the Bush administration for their own political agenda.

10,000 years ago there was such a drastic change, and the little Ice age in the middle ages is the latest drastic change we had for a while. Yet in the middle ages there were no greenhouse gases being released from factories and cars, or chemicals being released into the oceans.