Greenland is now melting at a potentially catastrophic pace

a reply to: Discotech

In America, the government funds billions to get the answers they want from climate scientists. I'm with you, if it was really a big deal, more would be done. This was never a big issue until the current administration took over in America. They have an agenda to end coal and oil so they blame this warming trend on it.

a reply to: Mianeye

They are hunters, and what they are telling me is, what was once hunting ground, is now swamp land, almost impossible to traverse, the perma frost is melting leaving the ground flooded and the animals that once roamed these grounds are migrating further north or to more dry land, making hunting a bitch.

Good thing that modern day man has a better way of moving (following the heards) . Imagine the receding Ice age that really wasn't that long ago and how now we have people where before all you had was ice .

The animals know they need to move away from conditions to the new land and I suspect that people know that as well .Hard to fight mother nature and all the turns and twists it shows us . next frontier is mars I guess .

When I read this stuff the word potential means they need to extrapolate the numbers out farther in the direction they want to finish at.

We are halfway through the calculating period for Greenland's land ice, and the end of the cycle.

Annual mass balances are calculated from 1 September to 31 August, the cut off being the end of August since the land ice tends to accumulate again around that time, in fact last year it started much earlier.
So you could say any comments thrown out at this time of the year are just pot boilers.
However what they do know from ice core studies in the interglacial period, (Eemian) it was a deal warmer that present, but also that global sea rise had little to do with Greenland land melt, and mostly to do with the Antarctic ice mass, not what the IPCC had proposed at some time. So you can expect a report on 2015-16 after September for the overall picture, but not now.
It's not all hunky dory, but it's not armageddon either and there is all sorts of scary stuff that gets thrown out, usually followed by some counter or the other.

a reply to: LSU0408

This was never a big issue until the current administration took over in America. They have an agenda to end coal and oil so they blame this warming trend on it.

So they want to end coal and oil, and what exactly are they going to replace it with.

Wind isn't going to do it, sun is also not going to do it, so what is their plan, that you seem to know about.

a reply to: Mianeye

Right, I'm not arguing that Greenland is uninhabitable or one big sheet of ice, but roughly 450,000 years ago, it was mostly green according to some scientists finding spruce trees in 2 miles of ice. Imagine all the things that could be discovered if the ice formed elsewhere and Greenland and Antarctica's ice melted.

Oh noes!
We must run and tell the king!

a reply to: Mianeye

Solar, water, and wind energy. Their motto is "Go Green." Yeah I know it won't work.

a reply to: lostbook

Is this fresh water ice or sea salt ice? If it's fresh water ice, environmental engineers could turn a catastrophe into a life savor. If it was possible, they could create a system to siphon off melting ice and redistributing it to areas of the world who need fresh water. Since it's a threat to a lot of countries, engineers from all over could offer their talents to help create a pipeline system or an on going tanker system to transport the melted ice. I know it would be a huge undertaking, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

a reply to: WeRpeons
Greenland's ice sheet is built up from thousands of years of compacted snowfall. So, it's fresh water.

Viz eg Quick Facts on Ice Sheets at the National Snow and Ice Data Center site:

Together, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice. The Greenland Ice Sheet extends about 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles), covering most of the island of Greenland, three times the size of Texas.

How do ice sheets form?

Ice sheets form in areas where snow that falls in winter does not melt entirely over the summer. Over thousands of years, the layers of snow pile up into thick masses of ice, growing thicker and denser as the weight of new snow and ice layers compresses the older layers.

ETA: your suggestion to redirect some of the melt is not impossible, but it would cost big. They could use very large tanker ships for starters. 1/2 million tons each, say. It'd be a question of who would be willing to pay the costs of chartering the ships and then offloading into storage facilities. Heck, parts of California could sure use an extra few millions tons of water per day. In the medium term, bringing it in by tankers might be cheaper than trying to obtain other sources within the US or build new catchments to collect whatever mountain snow melt they might still get.

a reply to: WeRpeons

I am pretty sure the reason they do not transport ice or fresh water from the polar regions to drought areas would be because it is cheaper for them to get it from areas closer to them.

That seems like it would be the common sense reason.

a reply to: lostbook
When I read these replies to what would cause Massive Disruptions to our food supplies, commerce, residences and resultant forced migrations, I despaired.

Moronic replies abound by folks who have no conception at all as to what is taking place.

In less than a century, the entire coastlines of major industrialized nations will be destroyed. The changes are happening now
and will wreck havoc on geo-politics perhaps causing another effect, extinction wars.

Then these folks talk about bottling the runoff and shipping it to where it is needed. It's so incredibly stupid I have no response except the education system has failed TOO many.

a reply to: lostbook

So? If we hover in orbit over the earth for 10,000 years and watch down from above, nature would do what it does to mother earth: change. Change is normal, natural and supposed to happen.

Its only a big deal because we are here in it, next to it, affected by it...even cause it...but its not un-natural for it to evolve, erode, grow and weaken, move, explode, drift, sink, form ice ages, heat waves and famines....etc.


I know someone who lives 20 feet from a river and whines every year when it crests normal or a bit higher...and flood insurance for them is non-existent.

When I ask "Why did you build your house so close to the water if you knew every year...EVERY YEAR...there is a flood season aka: high water potential...and you can..and will...lose everything you own. Family photos, electronics, furniture, cars, clothes etc....?"

The answer was revealing: "Because its SO PRETTY here by the water!".

Sorry...The tectonic plates will continue to move, hurricanes will come, tornados will destroy, tsunamis will flood, famines will deaden the land, people will die.

But for all its life...this is how the earth carves out its shape, shorelines, forests, mountains. The most ridiculous thing to worry about is climate change. Because, yes even if its due to us and our abuse of the resources...it will change anyway. Whether we are here or not.

So because we are here its something to worry about? Perhaps...but then...if we are here or not...its gonna happen. It always has, always will and will not stop whether its a coming ice age or rising sea levels.

So what? Because you think like my whining friend "Its so PRETTY here!"? Move to somewhere nature and climate wont change the earth. And where is that? Thats no-where.

You get my "drift"?

originally posted by: LSU0408
FWIW:

The oldest ever recovered DNA samples have been collected from under more than a mile of Greenland ice, and their analysis suggests the island was much warmer during the last Ice Age than previously thought.

The DNA is proof that sometime between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, much of Greenland was especially green and covered in a boreal forest that was home to alder, spruce and pine trees, as well as insects such as butterflies and beetles.

From the genetic material of these organisms, the researchers infer that Greenland’s temperature once varied from 50 degrees Fahrenheit in summer to 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in winter—the temperature range that the tree species prefer.

In other words, this won't hurt anyone and is the same changes the Earth has been going through for million and billions of years. I highly doubt factories and V8 engines and electricity and buying appliances in excessive packaging was a part of the warming trend 450,000 years ago. Worst case scenario, people move a little further inland, and residence can be taken in more parts of Greenland again.

Uh it doesnt mean it won't hurt anyone just because it happened in the past.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: lostbook
So? If we hover in orbit over the earth for 10,000 years and watch down from above, nature would do what it does to mother earth: change. Change is normal, natural and supposed to happen.

Its only a big deal because we are here in it, next to it, affected by it...even cause it...but its not un-natural for it to evolve, erode, grow and weaken, move, explode, drift, sink, form ice ages, heat waves and famines....etc.

I know someone who lives 20 feet from a river and whines every year when it crests normal or a bit higher...and flood insurance for them is non-existent.

When I ask "Why did you build your house so close to the water if you knew every year...EVERY YEAR...there is a flood season aka: high water potential...and you can..and will...lose everything you own. Family photos, electronics, furniture, cars, clothes etc....?"

The answer was revealing: "Because its SO PRETTY here by the water!".

Sorry...The tectonic plates will continue to move, hurricanes will come, tornados will destroy, tsunamis will flood, famines will deaden the land, people will die.

But for all its life...this is how the earth carves out its shape, shorelines, forests, mountains. The most ridiculous thing to worry about is climate change. Because, yes even if its due to us and our abuse of the resources...it will change anyway. Whether we are here or not.

So because we are here its something to worry about? Perhaps...but then...if we are here or not...its gonna happen. It always has, always will and will not stop whether its a coming ice age or rising sea levels.

So what? Because you think like my whining friend "Its so PRETTY here!"? Move to somewhere nature and climate wont change the earth. And where is that? Thats no-where.
You get my "drift"?

There's no doubt that this will happen with or without us. For me the worrying thing is the speed at which it's happening. That speed seems to be building up like a snowball rolling downhill. It's only getting faster and more severe as time marches on. I don't know what humans can do at this point-if anything.

a reply to: lostbook

On the other hand, the ice sheet had bigger growths in the past winters.

The Danish Meteorological Institute reports that Greenland’s ice sheet has seen more growth so far this year than in the last four years. Greenland’s growth in 2015 is also higher than the mean growth for 1990 to 2011. Read more: dailycaller.com...

dailycaller.com...

originally posted by: LSU0408
a reply to: lostbook

Then it will be green like it's supposed to be and people go on with their everyday normal lives like always.

People would not go on with their every day lives. For millions upon millions of people, their lives would be under many feet of water.

Take a look yourself...

World Under Water

Just set it to 6 meters. That's pretty close to 20feet. It would be devastating for miles and miles inland all around the world. My small hometown would be history and all of it's people either drowned dead or displaced to who knows where.

You're from Louisiana and it blows my mind that you would say that crap. Well... I'm from Cajun land, SW Louisiana and I remember what Katrina and Rita did to us on both sides of the state. That's not even counting what it did to Miss and East Texas as well as other places... You would be a damned fool for not remembering yourself.

Oh wait... You're from NW Louisiana... No wonder why you don't know. You weren't in the middle of it. I was living in Abbeville at the time, dead center of both. I didn't have a drop of water on my property but a mile down the road, they were under 4 feet and I couldn't drive anywhere for a couple of weeks because I was surrounded by water. People lost lives... MANY lives. Food and water was brought in. Electricity was down all over the place for a month and more, for some, many, many months! People lived in poisoned trailers. People were displaced in cities hundreds of miles away. Crime was rampant in those cities! Hell... that was just from the levy breaking on one side and coastal flooding on another. It was HELL for me and I wasn't even directly affected. I imagine what everyone else around me who lost houses, clothing, property, vehicles, their whole lifes work, who had plenty and ended up with absolutely nothing....

Man.... And you say everything will just go on as usual? It would be a disaster of unheard of levels. It would be worst than the bloodiest world war and all wars combined. It would be the end of the world for many, many people. ...and that's only 20' of water.


For shame man... You of all people should know, being close to home.

a reply to: Grimpachi

I am pretty sure the reason they do not transport ice or fresh water from the polar regions to drought areas would be because it is cheaper for them to get it from areas closer to them.

I'm sure it would be expensive, but in this case they may not have a choice. Also, since more parts of the world also need fresh water not just California, other countries could pitch in on the costs. It would benefit more than just the United States.

originally posted by: DutchMasterChief
a reply to: lostbook

On the other hand, the ice sheet had bigger growths in the past winters.

The Danish Meteorological Institute reports that Greenland’s ice sheet has seen more growth so far this year than in the last four years. Greenland’s growth in 2015 is also higher than the mean growth for 1990 to 2011. Read more: dailycaller.com...

dailycaller.com...

You do realize the ice sheet doesn't have any effect on sea level right?

a reply to: WeRpeons

Currently that isn't economical. Our government could build pipelines to transport fresh water to arid lands, but instead of that we have politicians pushing to build oil pipe lines across fresh water aquifers.