LAT: Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away [View All]

[Pirate Smile]

Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away
The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet.

By Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writer
June 25, 2006


JAKOBSHAVN GLACIER, Greenland — Gripping a bottle of Jack Daniel's between his knees, Jay Zwally savored the warmth inside the tiny plane as it flew low across Greenland's biggest and fastest-moving outlet glacier.

Mile upon mile of the steep fjord was choked with icy rubble from the glacier's disintegrated leading edge. More than six miles of the Jakobshavn had simply crumbled into open water.
"My God!" Zwally shouted over the hornet whine of the engines.

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The ice is so massive that its weight presses the bedrock of Greenland below sea level, so all-concealing that not until recently did scientists discover that Greenland actually might be three islands.

Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world's coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate.

Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.


WATER PROOF: Greenland is losing 52 cubic miles of ice each year, more than anyone anticipated. The amount of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade. Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.


GETTING WARMER: NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally studies images at Swiss Camp in western Greenland, which he has visited every year since 1994. Zwally has studied polar regions since 1972.
(Robert Lee Hotz / LAT)


ICE GAUGE: Researchers erect instruments to monitor ice movement in western Greenland. The island’s glaciers, which help shape the world’s weather, are fading fast. “We are clearly seeing the effects of climate change starting to kick in,” one expert says.
(Robert Lee Hotz / LAT)

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-sci-greenland25jun25,0,6885120,full.story