Irvine, Calif., March 18, 2020 - During the exceptionally warm Arctic
summer of 2019, Greenland lost 600 billion tons of ice, enough to raise
global sea levels by 2.2 millimeters in two months. On the opposite
pole, Antarctica continued to lose mass in the Amundsen Sea Embayment
and Antarctic Peninsula but saw some relief in the form of increased
snowfall in Queen Maud Land, in the eastern part of the continent. These new findings and others by glaciologists at the University of
California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are the subject
of a paper published today in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"We knew this past summer had been particularly warm in Greenland,
melting every corner of the ice sheet, but the numbers are enormous,"
said lead author Isabella Velicogna, UCI professor of Earth system
science and JPL senior scientist.
Between 2002 and 2019, Greenland lost 4,550 billion tons of ice, an
average of 268 billion tons annually - less than half what was shed last
summer. To put that in perspective, Los Angeles County residents
consume 1 billion tons of water per year.
A heat wave is causing unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization just declared July 2019 the hottest month ever recorded. We speak with Jason Box, professor and ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, about the intensifying climate crisis.
He says humanity must move toward living in balance with the environment. “If we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately stabilize CO2 … there’s no real prospect for a stable society or even a governable society,” Box says. “Perpetual growth on a finite planet is, by definition, impossible.”
A "sleeping giant" hidden in permafrost soils in Canada and other
northern regions worldwide will have important consequences for global
warming, says a new report led by University of Guelph scientist Merritt
Turetsky.
Scientists have long studied how gradual permafrost thaw occurring over decades in centimetres of surface soils will influence carbon release
to the atmosphere. But Turetsky and an international team of
researchers are looking at something very different: rapid collapse of
permafrost that can transform the landscape in mere months through
subsidence, flooding and landslides.
"We are watching this sleeping giant wake up right in front of our
eyes," said Turetsky, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Integrative
Ecology.
This is what the world will be like if we do not act on climate change.
- The best-case scenario of climate change is that world gets just 2°C
hotter, which scientists call the "threshold of catastrophe".
- Why is that the good news? Because if humans don't change course now,
the planet is on a trajectory to reach 4°C at the end of this century,
which would bring $600 trillion in global climate damages, double the
warfare, and a refugee crisis 100x worse than the Syrian exodus.
-
David Wallace-Wells explains what would happen at an 8°C and even 13°C
increase. These predictions are horrifying, but should not scare us
into complacency. "It should make us focus on them more intently," he
says.
David Wallace-Wells is a national fellow at the New America foundation
and a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He was
previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York
City. His latest book is The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (https://goo.gl/ih35YX)
This is what the world will be like if we do not act on climate change.
- The best-case scenario of climate change is that world gets just 2°C hotter, which scientists call the "threshold of catastrophe".
- Why is that the good news? Because if humans don't change course now, the planet is on a trajectory to reach 4°C at the end of this century, which would bring $600 trillion in global climate damages, double the warfare, and a refugee crisis 100x worse than the Syrian exodus.
- David Wallace-Wells explains what would happen at an 8°C and even 13°C increase. These predictions are horrifying, but should not scare us into complacency. "It should make us focus on them more intently," he says.
David Wallace-Wells is a national fellow at the New America foundation and a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He was previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York City. His latest book is The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (https://goo.gl/ih35YX)
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