Greenland ice sheet faces 'tipping point in 10 years'

[G_j]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/10/greenland-ice-sheet-tipping-point?intcmp=122


Greenland ice sheet faces 'tipping point in 10 years'

Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level

* Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 August 2010 19.29 BST

The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today.

Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University

"Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet.

The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.

"What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said.

..more..

[kestrel91316]

1. And I love how nobody wants to talk at all about Antarctica, just occasional

fretting about the WAIS.

Prediction: 10 years from now will see serious fretting over Antarctic itself. The melt is on.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. According to this flood map I might be ok. (My Florida cousins might have to move in) How about you?

http://flood.firetree.net/

[G_j]

4. great map

thanks

Glad I live in the mountains

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I bet my brother would be pretty glad he does too, until the

Florida cousins and I move in. LOL

[MountainLaurel]

6. I live in New Orleans

Anything above a 1m rise here, and we're in the swamp as are the major roads.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Yeah, that's not good at all. :^(

[Kievan Rus]

21. Most of Manhattan is underwater on that map

As are Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Seattle, major portions of the San Francisco Bay Area, and parts of Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles and Houston.

[northernlights]

3. 7 years ago I moved near the coast

while I still could...but I'm still a couple hundred feet above sea level. I moved here (Maine) in part because my inner voice said, "there will be water." It wasn't until my 2nd year here, taking the Master Gardener Program, that I came to understand the water wars already underway. The 20th century wars were fought over oil. In the 21st century, wars will be fought over water. We're sitting on a major pure water aquifer and have been fighting Nestle legally as they've sued one village after another trying to expand Poland Springs.

[maryf]

26. another reason to fight hydro-fracking...

it can kill water, permanently, when did Nestle get Poland Springs anyway?

[northernlights]

31. Nestle bought them out many years ago

I'm not sure when.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Kick for an important thread. (If only people would stop arguing long enough to read it.)

[G_j]

9. & it's hard to imagine what the future will be like

as the heat is killing people across the planet

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. 'Nother kick, just in case someone else is sick of the Gibbs kerfuffle and wants to

know what else is happening in the world.

[wildflower]

20. Thank you

Ten years, wow.

[XemaSab]

11. And the deniers are unreccing this

x(

[WinkyDink]

12. Next on MTV: "The Pennsylvania Shore."

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. +1000

[WinkyDink]

23. (The weird thing? We have a town called Jersey Shore!)

[Uncle Joe]

14. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, G_j.

[highplainsdem]

15. K&R

[Ezlivin]

16. What people don't fully grasp...

...is that scientists are struggling with all the data and are growing fearful that their projections have been much too conservative.

If anything they have erred on the side of caution, but now events seem to be moving at a more rapid clip than their models indicate.

It seems like every time they make a prediction they have to follow that with a correction and the correction usually involves reducing the timeframe or increasing the rate of change.

By the time the deniers finally realize their folly it will be too late for the rest of us. We will be too busy struggling to survive to issue a pointed "I told you so."

[MountainLaurel]

18. Wish I could recommend this post

I've been reading a lot about that very issue recently, that change is happening at an unanticipated rate,

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. +1000

[G_j]

24. yes

unfortunately this seems to be the case.

[Starry Messenger]

25. +

[XemaSab]

30. .

[Forkboy]

17. K&R

[slackmaster]

19. I wish it would go ahead and tip so we can all do Ice Bongs

Then plant grapevines in Greenland.

[maryf]

27. thanks...

the truth hurts but we gotta know it...k&r

[JCMach1]

28. Let's say they are wrong and only 1/4 melts... We are still

SCREWN

[G_j]

29. ==

[felix_numinous]

32. We're too busy brawling to pay any attention to that

don't be a party pooper :P