-
Contents
- Sweet Confusion: Does high fructose corn syrup deserve such a bad rap?
- Closed Thinking: Without scientific competition and open debate, much psychology research goes nowhere
- subscribe
- give a gift
- renew
- RSS Feeds
- email alerts
- Digital Edition
- Podcast
- Past issues
-
Contents
- Better chow yields more milk: A more nutritious form of corn for dairy cows boosts farm profits, teen investigator finds
- Fuzzy future: Kids may suffer impaired vision from spending too little time outdoors, studies suggest
- Building with moon rocks: Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials
Web edition: March 11, 2013
The glaciers of Canada’s Arctic islands are irreversibly melting, researchers warn.
Jan Lenaerts of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and colleagues simulated ice loss in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago throughout the 21st century as temperatures warm. By around 2100, the islands’ glaciers may shed 12.4 trillion tons of ice, or 18 percent of their current volume.
That melting would raise global sea level 3.5 centimeters, the team reports online March 7 in Geophysical Research Letters. After Greenland and Antarctica, the archipelago will be the world’s third-largest source of sea level rise caused by vanishing ice.
Citations
J.T.M. Lenaerts et al. Irreversible mass loss of Canadian Arctic Archipelago glaciers. Geophysical Research Letters. doi:10.1002/grl.50214. [Go to]
Suggested Reading
D. Powell. Himalaya rush. Science News. Vol. 182, August 25, 2012, p. 18. Available online: [Go to]
J. Raloff. Modern-day sea level rise skyrocketing. Science News. Vol. 180, July 16, 2011, p. 13. Available online: [Go to]
E. Wayman. Shrinking polar ice caused one-fifth of sea level rise. Science News. Vol. 182, December 29, 2012, p. 10. Available online: [Go to]
Please alert Science News to any inappropriate posts by clicking the REPORT SPAM link within the post. Comments will be reviewed before posting.
I'm surprised to find such antipathy to science in the comments of a topical science website.
As the article says, if we warm, then sea levels may rise by up to 3.5" cm from Canadian glacier melting.
That's a prediction based on warming that is not occurring right now.
Since the Sunspot cycle is replicating the behavior of
sun spots during the Maunder Minimum back in the 17th century, the planet growing colder is a much stronger bet. We don't grow crops in ice. Many millions starved to death during the Maunder Minimum.
CO2 is not a pollutant, it is a necessary input for growing vegetation. It is estimated that vegetation on the planet has increased by 15% from the rise from 270 in 1800 to 400 ppm of CO2 now. Optimal for plant growth is 1400 ppm of CO2.
In short, warmer is better, shallow seas are the most biologically productive areas on the planet. Moving over water is easier than moving over ice. We can adapt to warmth, ice would be a total disaster.
The last 800,000 years of ice core samples show that 80% plus of the time we were much colder, and that the planets temperature fluctuates rapidly up and mostly down.
Unfortunately, all the latest data shows a high probability we are going to get colder. Lets pray I am wrong about that.
In summary, the if we get warmer, sea levels will rise may be true, but they sure won't if Earth's temperature stays the same or we get colder, and colder ensures billions could die from starvation. Ergo, warmer better, colder bad.
You must register with Science News to add a comment. To log-in click here. To register as a new user, follow this link.