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Unprecedented Greenland Ice Melt Stuns NASA Scientists


Sharpshooter

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You wish it was a trendy buzzword. It's now more like a brand.

Get your green mobile with ecoboost and your good to go in smug superiority! (Just don't give up the yard or have to suffer with potentially unsavory neighbours by living in a dense walkable community).

I would laugh if it wasn't so sad the number of products I see labeled as "green" simpy by being slightly less damaging than a similar product regardless of whether or not the product is even needed PERIOD.

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Congratulations, this is the first post of actual informational value you've contributed to this thread. Water vapor, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, Fluoroform, Hexafluoroethane, Sulfur hexafluoride, Trichlorofluoromethane and Sulfuryl Fluoride are the main culprits, in that order.

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WAIT!!! I CHANGE MY MIND! We're all gonna die in next 50 year unless we do something. stop all oil production now.. that's it stop!!! this may be my last post as I am gong off the grid asap quitting my job and all consumption!

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-18959399

Move to higher ground!!

Antarctic: Grand Canyon-sized rift 'speeding ice melt'

_58136493_black-112x63.jpgBy Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News

_61759964_c0120489-antarctic_iceberg-spl.jpgThe interaction between ice and sea is complex, but key to understanding sea level riseContinue reading the main story

Related Stories

A rift in the Antarctic rock as deep as the Grand Canyon is increasing ice melt from the continent, researchers say.

A UK team found the Ferrigno rift using ice-penetrating radar, and showed it to be about 1.5km (1 mile) deep.

Antarctica is home to a geological rift system where new crust is being formed, meaning the eastern and western halves of the continent are slowly separating.

The team writes in Nature journal that the canyon is bringing more warm sea water to the ice sheet, hastening melt.

The Ferrigno rift lies close to the Pine Island Glacier where Nasa scientists found a giant crack last year; but the newly discovered feature is not thought to be influencing the "Pig", as it is known.

The rift lies beneath the Ferrigno Ice Stream on a stretch of coast so remote that it has only been visited once previously.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The geology and the present rate of ice loss are intricately linked”

Prof David VaughanBAS

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) project revisited the area two years ago in the person of Aberdeen University glaciologist Robert Bingham.

The plan was to make ground observations that could link to the satellite data showing unexpectedly pronounced ice loss from the area.

The team towed ice-penetrating radar kit behind a snowmobile, traversing a total of about 2,500km (1,500 miles).

"What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape," said Dr Bingham.

"If you stripped away all of the ice here today, you'd see a feature every bit as dramatic as the huge rift valleys you see in Africa and in size as significant as the [uS] Grand Canyon.

"This is at odds with the flat ice surface that we were driving across - without these measurements we would never have known it was there."

_61759670_61759669.jpgThe shape of the rift is shown in a radar cross-section of ice and underlying rock

The Ferrigno rift extends into a seabed trough, called Belgica.

The scientists suggest that during Ice Ages, when sea levels were much lower than at present, the rift would have channelled a major ice stream through the trough.

Now, they suggest, the roles are reversed, with the walls of the Belgica trough channelling relatively warm sea water back to the ice edge.

_61759668_c0122495-pine_island_glacier,_antarctica,_2011-spl.jpgThe nearby Pine Island Glacier appears set to calve a 900 sq km iceberg

Penetrating between the Antarctic bedrock and the ice that lies on it and lubricating the join, the water allows ice to flow faster into the sea.

"We know that the ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is governed by delivery of warm water, and that the warm water is coming along channels that were previously scoured by glaciers," said Prof David Vaughan of BAS.

"So the geology and the present rate of ice loss are intricately linked, and they feed back - if you have fast-flowing ice, that delivers ice to the edge where it can be impacted by warm water, and warm water makes the ice flow faster," he told BBC News.

Prof Vaughan doubted there would be more such features around the West Antarctic coast, though in the remoter still regions of the east, it was a possibility.

Ice loss from West Antarctica is believed to contribute about 10% to global sea level rise.

But how the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets respond to warmer temperatures is the biggest unknown by far in trying to predict how fast the waters will rise over the coming century and beyond.

A total melt of either sheet would raise sea levels globally by several metres.

East Antarctica, by contrast, is so cold that the ice is projected to remain solid for centuries.

"Since the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [in 2007], which highlighted uncertainties connected with ice sheets, almost every significant piece of research we've produced has increased the significance of the ocean for West Antarctica and Greenland," said Prof Vaughan.

"There are changes in precipitation now and in future; but the really big, potentially fast, changes are connected to the oceans, and the goal for us is to model that system."

Continue reading the main story

antarctica_624x510.gif

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It's more complicated than a simple 'like' or 'no like'.

I like it for some reason, and dislike it for others. I think it's fair in some ways and unfair in others.

Without turning this into a Carbon Tax thread.....i'll simply say that i'd prefer to keep the tax, but want to see it's collection parameters, applications, and investment strategies altered, to be more effective in reducing the use of fossil fuels by fast-tracking the investments of alternative fuel and infrastructure technologies for the best public or private or PPP initiatives.

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It's more complicated than a simple 'like' or 'no like'.

I like it for some reason, and dislike it for others. I think it's fair in some ways and unfair in others.

Without turning this into a Carbon Tax thread.....i'll simply say that i'd prefer to keep the tax, but want to see it's collection parameters, applications, and investment strategies altered, to be more effective in reducing the use of fossil fuels by fast-tracking the investments of alternative fuel and infrastructure technologies for the best public or private or PPP initiatives.

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Every BC gov't begrudgingly gets some credit now and then. None are good all the time, nor bad all the time.

So, much like the BC Liberals, i give some credit to the tax, but know there's more to dislike than like, because of the decision to put politics and subservience to industry before putting the average middle class citizen and its effectiveness as the top priority.

Good idea but poor conception and implementation and effectiveness.......as much like the Liberals, aka Conservative-lite, gov't this needs to be scrapped for something better.

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While not coming from the carbon tax itself there was significant investment and subsidies to install large numbers of wind and run of river projects.

Amazingly this progressive view isn't getting them any support. What they get is resentment over the tax and the handouts to these energy producers combined with opposition from enviromentalists that frequently don't even want these sources of power installed.

Combine that with a federal liberal party that shot itself in the foot by campaigning on a carbon tax and you have your answer why politicians don't have the "courage" to run on a platform that enacts these kinds of policies.

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A lot of what you have said in this post has happened in my country , the government did not campaign on a carbon tax but as soon as it was re- elected announced that it would enact one on July 1st 2012 which it has done.

The conservatives have been fear mongering since the tax was announced and i believe this is where the problems lie .

governments and oppositions are there to act in the best interests of the people who elect them and it was obvious that either liberal or labour was going to introduce the tax if they got into government , because it was at the time what many australians wanted .

so because the conservative's lost they have attacked this policy simply because it seemed politically expedient to do so , they have sided with the mining industry and have/ are running a FUD [fear , uncertainty, doubt ] campaign.

this is not in the best interest's of the people they represent or for the other people we share this planet with.

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