Greenland ice melt shocks scientists
Rising sea level - Climate models failed to foresee the acceleration, and the far-reaching effects are likely to bring more Northwest rain
KANGERLUSSUAQ, Greenland -- The vast ice sheet that coats Greenland up to 2 miles thick is reacting to global warming far faster than scientists thought it would.
It makes some of them wonder whether they've underestimated the speed of changes a warmer climate brings.
A few decades ago, Greenland's glaciers had little bearing on Oregon. Now they're melting and sliding into the ocean quickly enough to measurably -- though slightly -- raise the sea level on the coast of Oregon and around the world.
It is the acceleration that stuns scientists. Greenland's glaciers are adding up to 58 trillion gallons of water a year to the oceans, more than twice as much as a decade ago and enough to supply more than 250 cities the size of Los Angeles, NASA research shows.
That's particularly unsettling because elaborate climate models that scientists use to estimate the effects of global warming did not foresee it. Scientists themselves never imagined Greenland's ice, which holds enough water to raise sea levels 23 feet and sits in position to influence Northwest weather, would move so quickly.
"The overriding mind-set was that it would take many centuries to change in any significant way," said Robert Bindschadler, a leading ice researcher and chief scientist at NASA's Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory. "The whole community was astonished at how rapidly these really large glaciers are accelerating."
So much ice is disappearing so rapidly that the earth beneath Greenland is rising -- bouncing back like a bathroom scale when you step off it. Researchers helicoptering around Greenland are now dotting its coast with global positioning units to track that rise.
Higher temperatures are melting more of the ice sheet, at higher elevations than ever known before.
Offshore, the sea level is rising faster than ever in modern times, approaching speeds scientists did not expect until later this century. Greenland is a question mark that, if its ice continues the rush seaward, could push the seas even higher, even faster.
Scientists know that seas rose as fast as a foot a decade -- some 10 times faster than today -- when the climate warmed in the past at the rate it is now. Greenland probably contributed much of that.
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Greenland ice melt shocks scientists
