That would be the proper title for the story just released today by Reuters, based on recent statements from NASA scientists. But the title, perhaps predictably, was “Greenland Ice Sheet Shrinking Fast.”
Once again, let’s do the math, based on NASA’s own data, as reported in this story: During the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, NASA scientists estimate 41 cubic miles of ice melted along the periphery of Greenland, while 14 cubic miles of new ice were deposited via snowfall in the interior of Greenland. This is a net loss of 27 cubic miles per year. Does that sound like a lot? It isn’t.
Given that there are 139 million square miles of ocean, adding 27 cubic miles per year of ice melt from Greenland to this surface area equates to a rise in sea levels of 1.2 inches per century. This amount is consistent with calculations based on other recent press releases from the scientific community, as noted in our posts “Antarctic Ice” and “Greenland’s Icecap.”
If you don’t make these calculations, and most reporters and most concerned citizens do not, then you would only base your conclusions from this story on its title, and on the quote from NASA scientist Scott Luthcke, who noted that Greenland’s ice melt now constitutes ”an annual net loss of ice equal to nearly six years of average water flow from the Colorado River.” Need we add that at an annual flow of 4.5 cubic miles of water, by volume, the Colorado is a relatively small river?
We’ve ran two feature stories in the last month by the eminent atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen of MIT. Unlike many of his critics (and supporters), Dr. Lindzen voices his skepticism regarding global warming in a measured and reasoned tone. Anyone who is serious about learning more about whether or not there is a basis for global warming alarm should read Lindzen’s ”Global Warming Facts,” and “Climate Catastrophe?”
Finally, we encourage anyone who believes we should do whatever we can to reduce global warming because the steps we may take are good things anyway to read our recent posts “Deforestation Diesel” and “Filthy Air With Less CO2.”
October 22nd, 2006 at 1:58 am
[...] Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
[...] Here are questions regarding the notion of anthropogenic CO2 causing runaway global warming that all who opine might find worth personally investigating: - atmospheric CO2 molecules boil off the upper atmosphere and are self limiting - the impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 is non-linear, we’ve already seen most of the warming effect - global warming is caused more by sunspot and cosmic ray activity, as well as earth’s many orbital cycles (ex: when earth’s orbit is more circular, the planet is hotter) - recent measured temperature change just below the “CO2 belt” in the upper stratosphere is down, not up, contradicting fundamental runaway CO2 threat theories - anthropogenic CO2 is only 3-5% of CO2 emitted, the rest is natural - yearly fluctuations in natural CO2 emissions are an order of magnitude greater than all yearly anthropogenic CO2 emissions - there is evidence that historically (over the past several million years) rising CO2 levels were the effect of global warming, not the cause - the southern icecap is actually increasing in mass (Ref. Antarctic Ice) - greenland’s icecap is not melting at a significant rate (Ref. Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly) - sea level rise is insignificant - much flooding is due to land subsidance - storm fury is more visible today because of overbuilding into marginal areas - the western arctic is warming but the eastern arctic is actually cooling - warming in the northern hemisphere over the past 20-30 years could be due to the interdecadal oscilation between the northern and southern Atlantic ocean temperatures - the most recent IPCC summary acknowledges there is no evidence to suggest the gulf stream that warms Europe may be disrupted - global temperature measurements are weighted towards areas that are increasingly urbanized, and urban areas absorb more heat - there are now over a million square miles of urbanized land, and this urban heat island effect could cause some warming on a global scale - transpiration from watered, forested land, especially in the tropics, is the forcing mechanism to maintain global monsoon circulation and prevent drought - in turn - deforestation causes drought, creating hotter land and additional heat island effect - the tropical forests have declined from over 7 million square miles to less than 3 million, and tropical forests release more moisture and are cooler than open land - using mechanized pumps, in the last 100 years we have depleted aquafirs in all the agricultural lands of the world, lowering water tables from, say, 10 meters deep to over 500 meters deep. The resulting agricultural land heat island comprises perhaps 10% of all land surface on earth [...]
June 28th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Brilliant site. At least the truth exists somewhere on the web. The crisis still is about habitat loss and deforestation, not what kind of car you drive. Unfortunately it is easier for people to look in their rear view mirrors and feel the guilt association fabricated by the media than to read a scientific journal. Channel 4 in the U.K. produced an excellent documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle” worth a viewing highlighting many prominent scientst pointing out your talking points.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
[...] - greenland’s icecap is not melting at a significant rate (Ref. Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly) [...]