Smart people tell us that when it comes to conveying the reality of climate change, and the threat it poses, people don’t respond to facts. We respond to stories and narratives. We’re a narrative-driven species.
But at Universe Today we know that facts underlie every good story. And the facts regarding ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica are not good.
“Every centimetre of sea level rise leads to coastal flooding and coastal erosion, disrupting people’s lives around the planet.”
Prof. ANdrew Shepherd, University of Leeds, IMBIE
These latest findings, showing that both Greenland and Antarctica are losing their ice six times faster than in the 1990s, were published in the journal Nature. Unfortunately, but not necessarily surprisingly, these results are in line with the IPCC’s (International Panel on Climate Change) worst-case scenario predictions.
One of the papers is titled “Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018.” It gives author credit to ‘The IMBIE Team.’ IMBIE is the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise. Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds and Erik Ivins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lead IMBIE.
IMBIE is an international collaboration of polar scientists, with both NASA and the European Space Agency playing leading roles. In their latest release, they start by looking at the recent past. Between 1992 and 2017, Greenland and Antarctica lost a combined total of 6.4 trillion tons of ice. That pushed sea levels up by 17.8 millimeters.
Rate of elevation change of the Greenland Ice Sheet determined from ERS, ENVISAT and CryoSat-2 satellite radar altimetry (top row) and from the HIRHAM5 SMB model (ice equivalent; bottom row) over successive 5-yr epochs. Image Credit: The IMBIE Team, 2020.
Antarctic ice melting accounted for about 60% of the rise, or 10.6 mm. Greenland’s melting accounted for the remainder.
In only three decades, melting has increased six-fold. That’s from roughly 81 billion tons per year in the 1990s to 475 billion tons per year in the 2010s. This the conclusion: The melting of our polar ice sheets contributed one-third of all sea level rise in that time-frame.
[embedded content]
The data behind these conclusions comes from a total of 11 satellites. The 11 includes the EU’s (European Union) Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions, as well as the ESA’s Envisat and CryoSat missions.
The scientific term for the large-scale loss of ice in the polar sheets is ‘mass balance.’ It’s like an equation with ice on one side and sea levels on the other. And right now, one side of that equation growing, at the expense of the other. Prof. Shepherd explains, “Every centimetre of sea level rise leads to coastal flooding and coastal erosion, disrupting people’s lives around the planet.”
“If Antarctica and Greenland continue to track the worst-case climate warming scenario, they will cause an extra 17 centimetres of sea level rise by the end of the century,” said Shepherd. “This would mean 400 million people are at risk at annual coastal flooding by 2100. These are not unlikely events with small impacts; they are already underway and will be devastating for coastal communities.”
So, what are we going to do? Hoard toilet paper?
[embedded content]
For scientists, the mission is clear: keep working cooperatively to gather data and keep presenting it clearly. And satellites play a huge role in monitoring the planet’s melting ice sheets.
ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, comments, “The findings reported by IMBIE demonstrate the fundamental importance of using satellite data to monitor the evolution of ice sheets. IMBIE is also a prime example of how the best science teams in Europe and the US have worked in an exemplary way together to address some burning questions of science.”
The International Panel on Climate Change was created by the United Nations way back in 1988. Its role is to gather the data on climate change and present reports, specifically to policy-makes in the UN’s member nations. This new release from IMBIE confirms the IPCC’s worst-case scenario: global sea levels will rise 60 centimetres by the year 2100.
In fact, this new IMBIE report exceeds the IPCC’s worst-case scenario. Emissions are rising faster than expected, not falling at all, and melting has increased since observations began.
Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, Professor of Glaciology at the University of Iceland and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report, commented, “The IMBIE Team’s reconciled estimate of Greenland and Antarctic ice loss is timely for the IPCC. Their satellite observations show that both melting and ice discharge from Greenland have increased since observations started.”
[embedded content]
The amount of ice lost during each year can fluctuate. Sometimes, a single year will have less ice loss than the trend, and optimism briefly blooms. But the trend is consistent, and though Antarctica and Greenland host the two largest sheets, other ice sheets around the world are also under scientific scrutiny.
“The ice caps in Iceland had similar reduction in ice loss in the last two years of their record, but summer 2019 was very warm in this region which resulted in higher mass loss,” Aðalgeirsdóttir said in a press release. “I would expect a similar increase in Greenland mass loss for 2019. It is very important to keep monitoring the big ice sheets to know how much they raise sea level every year.”
[embedded content]
Antarctica and Greenland experience melting in different ways. In Antarctica, almost all of the ice loss is due to the warming oceans. As the outlet glaciers reach the ocean, they’re melting more quickly, causing them to speed up. It’s like conveyor belt of ice, and our emissions are the throttle.
The largest glacier in Antarctica is the Lambert Glacier. It’s also one of the largest in the world, with a length of over 400 km and an area of 1 million square km. It feeds into the Amery Ice Shelf, which is where the glacier leaves underlying land and floats on the water.
Antarctica’s Lambert Glacier is one of the largest in the world. Image Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The warming ocean is eating away at the Amery Ice Shelf, making it melt faster and making the Lambert Glacier travel faster. The rate of travel has been monitored by satellite, and those observations clearly show the glacier speeding up at the ocean.
This NASA image shows glacier velocities. Brown=50m per year, Green=250m, Blue=500m, Purple=1000m, and Red=up to 1200m per year. Image Credit: NASA, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52852432
Greenland suffers ice loss through contact with the ocean too, but that accounts for only about half of its ice loss. The other half is due to warmer air.
We all know that our emissions are behind this. It doesn’t matter what political outlook you subscribe to. Science tells us what’s happening, and the evidence is overwhelming. This report is just one more piece.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
