Monday, August 6, 2012

Alarming mass melting occurs in Greenland’s surface ice sheets

Hasn’t happened in over 120 years – but may have been predicted by one oil company 50 years ago
By Will Collette

Before and After: NASA images taken less than a week
apart (July 8, left, and July 12) show surface
ice mass before and after surface melting
A new element was added to the climate change debate a couple of weeks ago when NASA reported that 97% of the surface ice in Greenland had started to melt. In just one week’s time, surface melt went from 40% of total area (which is close to normal summertime surface melting) to 97%.


Most of the scientific community believes the planet is undergoing significant climate change due to human activity especially since we started using fossil fuels in mass quantities. There are still hold-outs who deny the phenomenon exists. And this recent report got both sides mobilized.

Climate-change deniers point out that these types of Arctic ice melts have happened before – the last in 1889. Ice core samples indicate that such melts do seem to occur more or less every 150 years.

But this one is early in the cycle and is not good news especially when combined with hard data showing global temperature rise, ocean level rises, and shrinking glaciers and ice caps worldwide.

These days, the climate change deniers tend to blow off all the evidence as inconclusive at best or, at worst, bogus.

However, in the days before this debate took center stage, the fossil fuel industry was not so bashful about claiming “credit” for its ability to melt our polar ice caps, as this advertisement from the February 2, 1962 issue of LIFE Magazine shows:
Source