Wires, dailies, etc: Laser readings show Greenland, Antarctic ice caps thinning fast, heading for the sea
Glaciers don’t lie. At least, glaciologists like to say that when asked whether global warming is a fluke, a fad, or the door to a changed planet. NASA ‘s ICESat orbiter with its laser altimeter has revealed a remarkable speed-up in the shrinkage of ice cover on Greenland and Antarctica. Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey and University of Bristol who pored over several years of data have their results in the current Nature.
The measured loss is a “surprise,” Reuters‘s Alister Doyle reports from Oslo, and sources tell him it is a sign of “dynamic thinning” of ice more pervaasive and persistent than had been generally expected.
Other stories generally take the same line: Better numbers reveals faster ice lost than supposed. How this will play in the public mind, if at all, is unclear. Stories of shrinking ice caps, ice packs, and ice streams have been coming up for so many years now, they may all run together in the average reader’s mind. The challenge to reporters to try to keep it fresh is immense.
- Irish times – Dich Ahlstrom: Glaciers melting faster than expected ;
- San Francisco Chronicle – David Perlman: Satellite reveals faster melting of polar ice ; Perlman offers a physics lesson on the side, one that many people have not take in before. He points out that, unlike landbound ice that flows into the sea, floating sea ice and ice shelves as they melt, “do not effect sea level any more than melting ice cubes would raise water in a glass.” Good move – it may reduce one of the more common popular misapprehensions in global warming and sea level rise.
- AP – Seth Borenstein: NASA data: Greenland, Antarctic ice melt worsening ; the meaning of it all is unclear. Borenstein does get an important opinion from a distinguished outside authority who says the most optimistic views of glacial loss and sea level rise are now eliminated. One possibility bruited here: a runaway.
- BBC – Jonathan Amos: Laser satellite records ice loss:
- Independent (UK) Michael McCarthy: Ancient glaciers are disappearing faster than ever
Related News:
- AP – Karl Ritter: Greenland’s Helheim glacier: a melting mystery; Ritter has been filing stories from on the scene in Greenland. This one looks into the irregularity of ice stream velocity – some speed up, then slow down, and he rpeorts that the reasons are not clear. Earlier this week he filed another piece, on intrusion of somewhat warm tropical waters into Greenland fjords.
Grist for the Mill: British Antarctic Survey Press Release ;
Charlie Petit
