Glacier melt in our hot, hot Summer and what it might mean

Greenland Ice Sheet Faces 'Tipping Point in 10 Years' Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level by Suzanne Goldenberg WASHINSTON - The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress Tuesday. An enormous chunk of ice, roughly 97 square miles in size, has broken off the Petermann Glacier along the northwest coast of Greenland. Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University "Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet. The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish. "What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said. From a different article and source yesterday, too: Since 1970, temperatures have risen more than 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees C) in much of the Arctic — much faster than the global average. In June the Arctic sea ice cover was at the lowest level for that month since records began in 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Back to me: Two plus two is starting to look like four, folks. Link to original posts: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/11-1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island