Greenland Ice Sheet Is Shrinking Faster Than Forecast, Locking In Sea Level Rise: Study - TPM – Talking Points Memo

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This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was first published at The Conversation.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1430410
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The author of the report is hopeful.

Fossil fuels?..haven’t we always seen the call for curtailment and control? He makes the same warning.

(I’m glad he’s hopeful…dealing with sea-level rise that’s what you want to hear)

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Am I the only one who is surprised to see all of these ladybugs crawling over this ice sheet?

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I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

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The FBI should give Mar-A-Lago a through search before it goes underwater .

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Good thing Trump didn’t get to buy it … we would have wildly overpaid!

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Some back of the napkin math: Greenland currently accounts for 20% of global sea level rise. This study says Greenland will add roughly 10 inches to sea level rise this century (10.8” with most coming this year) and that is the best case - and if emissions go to zero tomorrow. To be conservative, assume that Greenland’s share of global sea level rise increases to 30% (assumes that other areas don’t degrade/melt as fast), that means 3 feet of Global Sea level rise by the end of the century. And that is the best case. If emissions continue to increase, we could easily see double that. Goodbye Florida!

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The consequences of climate change have been an emerging disaster for our species (and so many more) for decades. The resistance to addressing it has been intractable.
It seems to me that we are now at the point of looking for ways to the mitigate the most extreme possible results.

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“I don’t believe we’ve passed any doom-laden tipping point that irreversibly floods the planet’s coastlines.”

This sentence, or variations of it, will begin to appear in every climate article from now on. This is to keep people engaged so they don’t give up, but it’s long past too late already. The powers that be just can’t say it until plans are solidly in place to keep those in the most danger away from everyone else. Protect borders and economies at all cost.

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I never would have imagined it; but, it is incontrovertible evidence of climate change.

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Let’s take carbon out of the air. Let’s do Carbon Negative approaches.

(let’s everyone jump on me with combat boots)

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It’s comforting to know that this is all a hoax being perpetrated by climate scientists looking for job security.

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Excellent article.

The past few years in particular have been unnerving for the sheer rate and magnitude of change underway.

Rate and Magnitude.

More in every sense, bigger in terms of intensity. In a word, overwhelming, especially when out of control.

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It should have been started yesterday, but the political will for a positive investment in reversing this disaster (the train is already wrecking) doesn’t seem to exist in enough places.
Certainly in this country, as shown by SCOTUS carbon dioxide ruling, it’s still contested.
Whistling past the graveyard seems to be the only policy on which there is actual national consensus here.

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Those are pumpkins, coming south for the holiday, aren’t they?

Christmas decorations must not be far behind   ; - )

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Thanks for your concern, as well as your reasoning (which I share). Humans can do this…it’s just that there are still too many G.O.M’s around.

GreedyOldMen

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I think your calculation is spot on.

I saw an episode of Bill Nye yesterday – about the midwest aquifer getting used up – (Spoiler: there’s no grain, corn, wheat, bread, hot dog buns, nothin’ in the world). So I’m pretty depressed already.

Stretching for the dimmest bright spot, I’d point out that I don’t see much data related to recovery. I see a lot along the lines of “Greenland will melt more unless we reverse global warming.” Okay, say we do. Is there modeling of what happens then?

I’ll wager there’s some, with the stipulation that it’s wildly inaccurate. Science has a way of generating a lot of “one-off” data results. So many that political pollsters, for example, have taken to averaging bunches of surveys (hopefully about the same thing) in order to get a defensible number.

Well, maybe if we do eliminate all carbon by 2050… you know, what’s the good news?

Thanks for calculating those numbers : - )

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We can take Carbon Out of the Air.

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The demand for that is far larger than our present abilities to do so.

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