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Watching Greenland ice melt
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This image provided by the Byrd Polar Research
Center, Columbus, Ohio, taken July 25, 2008,
shows a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile
chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a prominent glacier
in northern Greenland. The crack, at center, right,
is seven miles long and about half a mile wide.
It is about half the width of the 500 square mile
floating part of the glacier. If the cracking
continues, the floating part of the glacier could
lose up to one third of its size.
(AP Photo/Byrd Polar Research Center)
I noted an article today showing more of Greenland’s glaciers fracturing and melting. Satellite images are showing a giant crack growing in a major glacier and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice sliding into the ocean.
Currently our ocean levels are rising about 2 tenths of an inch per year. About half of that is due to thermal expansion from warming ocean waters world-wide. The other half comes from the melting of glaciers world-wide. At the current rate ocean levels will rise about 1 inch in 5 years or 1 foot in about 60 years.
The rate of thermal expansion should remain fairly constant. The oceans are so big and deep that it takes a long time for that huge mass of water to warm up. Thermal expansion could continue for thousands of years. The melting of glaciers may not however, be at a constant rate.
If all the ice in Greenland melted, ocean levels would be expected to rise about 20 feet. Many major cities around the world would be either fully or partially submerged. Whole countries could disappear. Think the flooding problem in New Orleans was bad!
Red shows areas along the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States that would be flooded by a 10-meter rise in sea level. Population figures for 1996 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data, 1998) indicate that a 10-meter rise in sea level would flood approximately 25 percent of the Nation's population.
The melting of ice in Greenland may not melt at a steady rate. There is a chance that the melting is non-linear. It could accelerate to a very fast rate. On the other hand it may stop melting altogether. We may find that ice starts to build up again and Greenland starts to accumulate ice and work to lower sea levels. [U.S. Geological Survey]
I really don’t know what will happen in Greenland. Scientists are all over the place in their analysis. I have seen some scientists that claim the melting in Greenland will be so slow that it will only continue to raise ocean levels 1 tenth inch per year. The ice sheet is miles thick and will only warm up slowly because of its huge mass. Other scientists see the ice sheet moving and sliding into the ocean at ever faster rates. Some scientists expect that snowfall with accelerate and the Greenland ice mass will actually increase over time.
The short history we have to date is that glaciers have been receding at an increasing rate in Greenland. It follows the same pattern as other glaciers in the world. We should at least be concerned by what we are seeing.
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