Monday, February 20, 2006
Greenland Glaciers Melting Much Faster
"NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that satellite observations indicate that Greenland's glaciers have been dumping ice into the Atlantic Ocean at a rate that's doubled over the past five years. Greenland Ice Sheet's annual loss has risen from 21.6 cubic miles in 1996 to 36 cubic miles in 2005 and it now contributes about 0.5 millimeters out of 3 millimeters to global sea level increases. One theory as to why this is happening is that the meltwater, caused by increasing temperatures in Greenland, serves as a lubricant for the moving ice, hastening its push to the sea. Another study has estimated that the warming rate in Greenland was 2.2 times faster than the global norm -- which is in line with U.N. climate models."
source:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/19/1931207
source:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/19/1931207
# posted by dark master : 2/20/2006 10:20:00 AM
