A
collaborative team of scientists from Denmark’s National Space
Institute and US-based University of Colorado at Boulder have observed a
melting of ice that is spreading at a rapid pace from Greenland’s south
to its northwest coast.
To complete their findings, the
international team compared data from a US National Aeronautics and
Space Administration satellite with GPS measurements from the ice
sheet’s coastal edge.
Study co-author and physicist, Dr. John
Wahr of the University of Colorado at Boulder, stated: “The ice mass
loss has been very dramatic… Our speculation is that some of the big
glaciers in this region are sliding downhill faster and dumping more ice
in the ocean.”
Such vast Greenlandic ice loss could in turn
lead to sea levels rising up to 80 centimeters by 2100, according to
oceanographer Dr. John Church of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
Dr. John Church (M):
One of the important things to realize about the ice sheets is that our
lack of understanding means that sea level rise could be substantially
larger than we currently estimate, but not substantially smaller.
We
need to recognize the importance and the seriousness of this issue.
Society needs to call on our governments to show leadership to ensure
that we reduce our emissions; we reduce them substantially and urgently.
VOICE: Dr. Church, Dr. Wahr and esteemed associates at the
National Space Institute and the University of Colorado at Boulder, we
appreciate your careful work in revealing more about the perilous
warming of our planet.
Let us heed such cautionary findings by living sustainably so that all may continue to enjoy the Earth’s bounteous beauty.
Supreme
Master Ching Hai has often conveyed her concern about the dire
implications of climate change as well as hope for humanity, as during a
March 2009 videoconference in California, USA.
Supreme Master Ching Hai: Before,
the United Nations predicted that one meter sea level rise would be
very catastrophic already and causing a lot of people to lose their
homes. But scientists have learned that Greenland and western
Antarctica and eastern Antarctica are all melting now which had not been
a factor before. Based on these findings, one scientist says:
If
all Antarctica were to melt, then the sea level could rise up to 70
meters! So, there’s no way we can run away from this except we turn to a
virtuous way of life; then we are connected with Heaven because Heaven
is virtuous and love and blessing.
I see no other way we can protect ourselves at all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36007220/ns/us_news-environment/ http://sify.com/news/greenland-ice-sheet-losing-mass-on-northwest-coast-news-international-kdypkhaghhh.html http://cires.colorado.edu/people/wahr/ http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5518