Saturday, August 07, 2010
Gloom and Doom again
An "ice island" four times larger than Manhattan has separated from the Petermann Glacier in Greenland. The new ice island has an area of at least 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building.
The ice is a shelf which was helping to hold back the glacier, slowing down calving. Now the shelf has detached itself, the weight of it holding back the glacier has been removed and the glacier will dump ice at a faster rate into the ocean. Like many other glaciers, that will add to the rate of rise in sea levels.
IMO: We may have "Waterworld" before we expected, if this goes on a lot. I blame USA and China, though at least some Chinese leaders seem to be becoming more aware of the evils of capitalism (and indeed alcohol). Sigh ... it seems to me that some (relatively) very quick and easy fixes to global warming are still not being applied.
# posted by uv : 3:24 AM
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