Discover Magazine caption: Greenland as seen by NASA’s Aqua satellite on June 29, 2015. (Source: NASA Worldview)
What is the price of our delay?
Greenland’s ice is melting faster than scientists predicted a few years ago. Incredibly, a sizable bloc of people work to stop action against climate change, claiming that it’s not occurring, or that it’s natural and shouldn’t be stopped, or that we can’t afford to save the planet this time.
Polar oceanographer Mark Brandon calls our attention to a good lay article in Discover Magazine’s .blog Imageo, by Tom Yulsman:
As brutal heat grips parts of Europe, Asia, North America and South America, another place is also experiencing a spike in temperatures — one that you may not have heard about.
It’s happening in Greenland, and high temperatures there over the past two weeks have caused a sudden jump in melting at the surface of the vast ice sheet (seen in that great expanse of white in the satellite image above).
Science critics argue the warming is slowing down, and will soon stop. Wish they were right. 18 years of their being wrong makes me skeptical.
Caption from ImaGeo: In the graph above, the red line traces a sudden increase in the extent of surface melting in Greenland. (Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center)
In the meantime, as Galileo might have said, “Eppure, lei si scalda!” — still, she warms.
More:
- Jeff Masters notes record heat on three continents, at Weather Underground
- National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) report on July 17, 2015, “Summer heat hits cold ice sheet”
- “The troubling reason Greenland may melt faster than expecte,” Elahi Izadi, Washington Post, July 17, 2015
- “Greenland’s ice sheet melting at a rapid pace,” The Local Denmark,, July 14, 2015
- Deutsche Welle piece on whether Greenland is close to, or passed a tipping point, reprinted in Alaska Dispatch News, July 22, 2015; or read it at Deutsche Welle
- Possible to limit sea-level rise to just 6 meters? Ice Blog at Deutsche Welle looks for good news
- Amplified melt and flow of the Greenland ice sheet driven by late-summer cyclonic rainfall, abstract of paper at Nature Geoscience, July 15, 2015
- Florida bluegrass-style band, Greenland Is Melting
Greenland is Melting, band graphic
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Even more trouble for Greenland, and @rln_nelson:
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