The Greenland ice sheet, climate change and human activity. Genesis 1:26 – And God said, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish in the sea and over the birds in the sky and over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground”. However you come to believe the origins of humanity it is clear that as a species we hold dominion over all the world. No other species, individually or collectively has more
The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest ice mass on Earth and is about one-tenth the volume of the Antarctic ice sheet. It is the only significant ice mass in the Arctic today. [ See Antarctica and Climate Change ; and Ice Sheets .] It is an ice-age relict that overlies a bowl-shaped continent almost completely fringed by coastal mountains. PHYSICAL-GEOGRAPHIC SETTING The ice sheet extends from about 60° to 83°N over a distance of 2,400 km in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ice sheet covers
and the other on Greenland. Observations made by scientists over the last thirty-five years all agree upon the notion of shrinking, and or retreating of the ice sheets. The melting of ice sheets has powerful implications for the millions of people who depend on glacial melt for drinking water and the millions of people who will be displaced by the sea level rise occurring as a direct result of the melting. The observations of ice melting also show that the rate at which the ice is melting is accelerating
Climate Change: A Greenland Perspective Works Cited Not Included Climate change is the alteration of temperature and precipitation patterns over an extended period of time. Across the globe, scientists are identifying climate change in relation to the greenhouse gas emissions and solar cycles. While most researchers believe that the increase of atmospheric CO2 is effecting global warming, others are endorsing the concerns of another Ice Age, which is likely to occur due to orbital variations
melting of glaciers and polar ice caps. 2.1Thermal expansion As seawater becomes warmer it expands. Heat in the upper layer of the ocean is released quickly into the atmosphere. However, heat absorbed by the deeper layers of the ocean will take much longer to be released and therefore, be stored in the ocean much longer and have significant impacts on future ocean warming. 2.2 Melting of glaciers and polar ice caps: Large ice formations, like glaciers and the polar ice caps, naturally melt back a
middle of paper ... ...that we should use less fossil fuels and not to pollute. Building dams levees are going to stop the sea levels from rising, but do we know how long it will be able to do so? It is very likely that by the 23rd century, the ice sheets will melt at a fast rate and that the oceans will rise at an increasing speed. We are getting prepared, building; thinking and researching. Some scientists believe that our CO2 levels could quadratic over the next centuries. If CO2 continues to
A Melting Planet Although most glaciers and ice sheets reside in areas that man does not inhabit, they are nevertheless important for society and the global environment. Due to anthropogenic activities over the past two centuries, the temperature of the earth is rising at an alarming rate. This rise in temperatures has resulted in an overall loss of ice mass worldwide, including a rapid depletion in mountain glaciers. The effects of glacial melt will have a significant impact on the future of
determined by the grounding line -- the upshot seems to be relative stability. "The ice streams do not appear to be susceptible to the kind of unstable retreat once envisaged," says Bentley. "Their flow is largely insensitive to the presence of the ice shelf so the grounding line would remain the same." Instead of possibly collapsing in 100 years, as was considered possible 10 years ago, Bentley says the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is more likely to collapse -- if at all -- in perhaps 5,000 years at the soonest
paper ... ...what is to come.36 Glaciers and ice sheets are going to continue to melt, and immediate barriers can only help for so long.36 5. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, inundation events are dangerous hazards to coastal communities.1 These events are further exacerbated by sea level rise.1 Sea level rise is largely due to the warming climate, which causes thermal expansion of oceans, melting of ice caps and glaciers, and ice loss from major ice sheets.6, 11, 15 Current research suggests that sea
Taking a Stand In the essay, “Global Warming is Eroding Glacial Ice,” Andrew C. Revkin argues that global warming is the primary cause for many of the world’s natural disasters; including flash floods, climate change, and the melting of the polar ice caps. He includes multiple accounts of expert testimony as well as a multitude amount of facts and statistics to support his theory that global warming is a threat to the world. However, in the essay “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott
Polar ice is sea ice created from the freezing of sea water, ice sheets and glaciers. These in turn are formed from the build up and compaction of fallen snow. Both the ice sheets and glaciers cover vast areas of the Polar Regions. This polar ice is hugely important to our globe and takes up a large part of it. Global sea-ice coverage averages about 25 million kilometers square; this is the area of the entire North America continent. The ice sheets, which cover the land, with the glaciers cover
The main objective for this program concerning melting ice sheets was to warn us that we must act now on the issue of global warming before it is too late and basically slow down the progression of ice sheets melting in Greenland and Antarctica that is causing sea level rise in low coastal area at an extremely fast rate that could potentially harm about half a billion people. If the ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica completely melted away into the ocean, the water would rise to about 200
Warmer, sea ice-free oceans could also increase melting from Greenland's glaciers. The quicker sea ice loss causes Arctic temperatures to rise, the faster the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt and while it isn't going to disappear any time soon, this contributes more to sea level rise. According to Carbon Brief, it states, ¨ temperatures rise faster in the Arctic than at lower latitudes, this changes largescale temperature and pressure gradients which has consequences for northern hemisphere
shows how the ice caps have been melting faster in the last 20 years than in the last 10,000. The satellite sturdy have had confirmed that the melting ice caps are raising sea levels at an higher rate. My topic is about how ice caps have increase their melting rate in the past centuries. Many have notice the ice caps have been getting frozen ones again but they have not noticed the ice is thinker and thinker. In the past centuries this couple years have been a huge change with our ice caps. This means
climate. By releasing the huge amounts of carbon stored in fossil fuels over millions of years, mankind has disrupted the natural carbon cycle. We have intensified the natural greenhouse effect and turned it into a planetary menace that is melting our ice caps. In his award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore (2006) states, “human activities, if unchecked in the next decade, could destroy one of the earth’s principle mechanisms for cooling itself” (p.291). The world needs to address the
his extraordinary film that the most powerful interaction known is between mankind and nature. We are surrounded by endangered wildlife and we are the cause of the endangerment. Chasing Ice is such an eye-opening film that demonstrates how powerful climate change is. Setting up multiple cameras in Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and Montana results in shocking imagery of the disappearance of glaciers. The imagery that is captured is beautifully terrifying that offers the evidence of greenhouse gases destroying
these changes are effecting our climate, a few of them are: • Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica show that our climate does respond to changes in greenhouse gas levels. It also shows that changes happen quickly (years). • Sea level rise: As of January 2015, globally the sea levels measured 61.91 mm. Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water coming from the melting of land ice and the expansion of sea water as it
earth is the polar ice caps. There are three major prominent features, the Antarctic ice on the South Pole, the Arctic ice on the North Pole and Greenland on the north between North America and Europe. Antarctica consist about 90 percent of the world's ice (and 70 percent of its fresh water). It is covered with ice an average of 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet). The Arctic ice is not so thick in
“Chasing Ice.” Published by Exposure. Film/Movie. google : www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/news/.../extremes_000.doc. Hansen, James. 2014. “climate change.” NPR Radio. ☺ IPCC Working Group I. 1990. “Policymakers Summary.” IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_spm.pdf. Romm, Joseph. 2014. “CLIMATE CHANGE 101: AN INTRODUCTION.” Years of Living Dangerously. http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/science/blog/climate-change-101-introduction/. Tedesco, M et al. 2013. “Greenland Ice Sheet
Is climate change real? In Robert Kenner’s, Merchants of Doubt, he takes viewers of his movie on a journey to understand people hired to cast a doubt upon climate change and toxic chemicals. Kenner provides several examples of how casting a doubt through media and political organizations can create disbelief upon facts and scientific evidence. He provides evidence of how smoking and climate change have both undergone enormous scrutiny of not causing harm to both people and the environment through