Friday, September 11, 2015

Eternal Summer... of the most disastrous kind

Study Predicts Antarctica Ice Melt if All Fossil Fuels Are Burned

From the NY Times, comes an article (link above) about global warming and burning fossil fuels that is best summed up by this quote:

“To be blunt: If we burn it all, we melt it all,” said Ricarda Winkelmann, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and the lead author of a paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

 Calving glacier on South Georgia, 2007 - Bill Fintel photo

To me the moral issues are as profound as any we have ever faced. From the article:

“What right do we have to do things that, even if they don’t affect us, are going to be someone else’s problem a thousand years from now?” asked Ian Joughin, an ice sheet expert at the University of Washington who was not involved in the new research. “Is it fair to do that so we can go on burning fuel as fast as we can?”
 

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GREENLAND - Will probably be the focus of near term sea level rise

Greenland is almost all covered by a very thick glacial ice cap. If all of Greenland's ice either melted or slid into the oceans, sea le...