The Warming of Greenland
by: John Collins Rudolf 16 January 2007
LIVERPOOL LAND, Greenland — Flying over snow-capped peaks and into a thick fog, the helicopter set down on a barren strip of rocks between two glaciers. A dozen bags of supplies, a rifle and a can of cooking gas were tossed out onto the cold ground. Then, with engines whining, the helicopter lifted off, snow and fog swirling in the rotor wash.
When it had disappeared over the horizon, no sound remained but the howling of the Arctic wind.
"It feels a little like the days of the old explorers, doesn't it?" Dennis Schmitt said.
Mr. Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, Calif., had just landed on a newly revealed island 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland. It was a moment of triumph: he had discovered the island on an ocean voyage in September 2005. Now, a year later, he and a small expedition team had returned to spend a week climbing peaks, crossing treacherous glaciers and documenting animal and plant life.
Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice.
Maps of the region show a mountainous peninsula covered with glaciers. The island's distinct shape — like a hand with three bony fingers pointing north — looks like the end of the peninsula.
Now, where the maps showed only ice, a band of fast-flowing seawater ran between a newly exposed shoreline and the aquamarine-blue walls of a retreating ice shelf. The water was littered with dozens of icebergs, some as large as half an acre; every hour or so, several more tons of ice fractured off the shelf with a thunderous crack and an earth-shaking rumble.
All over Greenland and the Arctic, rising temperatures are not simply melting ice; they are changing the very geography of coastlines. Nunataks — "lonely mountains" in Inuit — that were encased in the margins of Greenland's ice sheet are being freed of their age-old bonds, exposing a new chain of islands, and a new opportunity for Arctic explorers to write their names on the landscape.
"We are already in a new era of geography," said the Arctic explorer Will Steger. "This phenomenon — of an island all of a sudden appearing out of nowhere and the ice melting around it — is a real common phenomenon now."
In August, Mr. Steger discovered his own new island off the coast of the Norwegian island of Svalbard, high in the polar basin. Glaciers that had surrounded it when his ship passed through only two years earlier were gone this year, leaving only a small island alone in the open ocean.
"We saw it ourselves up there, just how fast the ice is going," he said.
With 27,555 miles of coastline and thousands of fjords, inlets, bays and straits, Greenland has always been hard to map. Now its geography is becoming obsolete almost as soon as new maps are created.
Hans Jepsen is a cartographer at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which produces topographical maps for mining and oil companies. (Greenland is a largely self-governing region of Denmark.) Last summer, he spotted several new islands in an area where a massive ice shelf had broken up. Mr. Jepsen was unaware of Mr. Schmitt's discovery, and an old aerial photograph in his files showed the peninsula intact.
"Clearly, the new island was detached from the mainland when the connecting glacier-bridge retreated southward," Mr. Jepsen said, adding that future maps would take note of the change.
The sudden appearance of the islands is a symptom of an ice sheet going into retreat, scientists say. Greenland is covered by 630,000 cubic miles of ice, enough water to raise global sea levels by 23 feet.
Carl Egede Boggild, a professor of snow-and-ice physics at the University Center of Svalbard, said Greenland could be losing more than 80 cubic miles of ice per year.
"That corresponds to three times the volume of all the glaciers in the Alps," Dr. Boggild said. "If you lose that much volume you'd definitely see new islands appear."
He discovered an island himself a year ago while flying over northwestern Greenland. "Suddenly I saw an island with glacial ice on it," he said. "I looked at the map and it should have been a nunatak, but the present ice margin was about 10 kilometers away. So I can say that within the last five years the ice margin had retreated at least 10 kilometers."
The abrupt acceleration of melting in Greenland has taken climate scientists by surprise. Tidewater glaciers, which discharge ice into the oceans as they break up in the process called calving, have doubled and tripled in speed all over Greenland. Ice shelves are breaking up, and summertime "glacial earthquakes" have been detected within the ice sheet.
"The general thinking until very recently was that ice sheets don't react very quickly to climate," said Martin Truffer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "But that thinking is changing right now, because we're seeing things that people have thought are impossible."
A study in The Journal of Climate last June observed that Greenland had become the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise.
Until recently, the consensus of climate scientists was that the impact of melting polar ice sheets would be negligible over the next 100 years. Ice sheets were thought to be extremely slow in reacting to atmospheric warming. The 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely considered to be an authoritative scientific statement on the potential impacts of global warming, based its conclusions about sea-level rise on a computer model that predicted a slow onset of melting in Greenland.
"When you look at the ice sheet, the models didn't work, which puts us on shaky ground," said Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University.
There is no consensus on how much Greenland's ice will melt in the near future, Dr. Alley said, and no computer model that can accurately predict the future of the ice sheet. Yet given the acceleration of tidewater-glacier melting, a sea-level rise of a foot or two in the coming decades is entirely possible, he said. That bodes ill for island nations and those who live near the coast.
"Even a foot rise is a pretty horrible scenario," said Stephen P. Leatherman, director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University in Miami.
On low-lying and gently sloping land like coastal river deltas, a sea-level rise of just one foot would send water thousands of feet inland. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide make their homes in such deltas; virtually all of coastal Bangladesh lies in the delta of the Ganges River. Over the long term, much larger sea-level rises would render the world's coastlines unrecognizable, creating a whole new series of islands.
"Here in Miami," Dr. Leatherman said, "we're going to have an ocean on both sides of us."
Such ominous implications are not lost on Mr. Schmitt, who says he hopes that the island he discovered in Greenland in September will become an international symbol of the effects of climate change. Mr. Schmitt, who speaks Inuit, has provisionally named it Uunartoq Qeqertoq: the warming island.
Global warming has profoundly altered the nature of polar exploration, said Mr. Schmitt, who in 40 years has logged more than 100 Arctic expeditions. Routes once pioneered on a dogsled are routinely paddled in a kayak now; many features, like the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in Greenland's northwest, have disappeared for good.
"There is a dark side to this," he said about the new island. "We felt the exhilaration of discovery. We were exploring something new. But of course, there was also something scary about what we did there. We were looking in the face of these changes, and all of us were thinking of the dire consequences."
source from stopglobalwarming.org
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You can do reduce Global Warming
Take Action!
There are many things you can do in your daily life that can have an effect on your immediate surrounding, and on places as far away as Antarctica. Here is a list of things that you can do to make a difference.
There are many things you can do today to reduce your own adding to on this problem!
Tropical Tree Growth Slowed
Other big changes are being monitored in the tropics, too. Data on tree growth, tropical air temperatures and CO2 readings collected over 16 years indicate that a warming climate may cause the tropical forests to give off more carbon dioxide than they take up. This would upset the common belief that tropical forests are always a counterbalance to carbon, taking huge amounts out of the atmosphere. The study, by Deborah and David Clark of the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, and Charles Keeling and Stephen Piper of the Scripps Institution, reports that rainforest trees grow much more slowly in warmer nighttime temperatures, which is a hallmark of climate change in the tropics.
Tropical Tree Charles Keeling
Landscaping Your Home for Energy Efficiency
In Winter, by maximizing solar heating while deflecting winds away from your home; and
in Summer by maximizing shading while funneling breezes toward your home. [Source]
Buy a Hybrid Car
The average driver could save 16,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $3,750 per year driving a hybrid.
Buy a Fuel Efficient Car
Getting a few extra miles per gallon makes a big difference. Save thousands of lbs. of carbon dioxide and a lot of money per year.
Carpool When You Can
Own a big vehicle? Carpooling with friends and co-workers saves fuel. Save 790 lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.
Inflate Your Tires
Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated. Save 250 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $840 per year.
Change Your Air Filter
Check your car's air filter monthly. Save 800 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $130 per year.
Reduce Garbage
Buy products with less packaging and recycle paper, plastic and glass. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.
Composting helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the number of trips trucks must make to the landfill as well as the amount of methane released by our landfills.
Use Recycled Paper
Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.
Buy Minimally Packaged Goods
Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10%. Save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide and $1,000 per year.
Unplug Un-used Electronics
Even when electronic devices are turned off, they use energy. Save over 1,000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $150 per year.
Plant a Tree
Trees provide a microclimate and sustained moisture for you. Trees suck up carbon dioxide and make clean air for us to breath. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.
Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
Replace 3 frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 per year.
Fill the Dishwasher
Run your dishwasher only with a full load. Save 100 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.
Adjust Your Thermostat
Move your heater thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the summer. Save 2000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $98 per year.
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Change the AC Filter
Clean or replace dirty air conditioner filters as recommended. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150 per year.
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Install a Low-Flow Showerhead
Using less water in the shower means less energy to heat the water. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150.
Buy Products Locally
Buy locally and reduce the amount of energy required to drive your products to your store.
Buy Energy Certificates
Help spur the renewable energy market and cut global warming pollution by buying wind certificates and green tags.
Insulate Your Water Heater
Keep your water heater insulated could save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.
Replace Old Appliances
Inefficient appliances waste energy. Save hundreds of lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.
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Caulk and weather strip your doorways and windows. Save 1,700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $274 per year.
Use a Push Mower
Use your muscles instead of fossil fuels and get some exercise. Save 80 lbs of carbon dioxide and x $ per year.
Put on a Sweater
Instead of turning up the heat in your home, wear more clothes Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $250 per year.
Insulate Your Home
Make sure your walls and ceilings are insulated. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $245 per year.
Air Dry Your Clothes
Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer. Save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $75 per year.
Switch to a Tankless Water Heater
Your water will be heated as you use it rather than keeping a tank of hot water. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $390 per year.
Switch to Double Pane Windows
Double pane windows keep more heat inside your home so you use less energy. Save 10,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $436 per year.
Buy Organic Food
The chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water supply, and require energy to produce.
Bring Cloth Bags to the Market
Using your own cloth bag instead of plastic or paper bags reduces waste and requires no additional energy.
Source from stopglobalwarming.org
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