Linked to the month of July 2012 particularly rotten weather level in Northern Europe? Maybe too ...
In any case ... it fucks the balls ... for the rest ... and there is not too much! (sorry for the word game at 2 balls) ...
Map of 8 and 12 July 2012: in 4 day the font changes from 40% to 97% ...
Greenland icecap thawed at 97% in July
The frozen ground of Greenland melted in July on an extent never reached in more than thirty years of satellite observation. According to data from three satellites analyzed by the US Space Agency (NASA) and university scientists, about 97% of the surface icecap had thawed in mid-July.
The situation is so unexpected that researchers initially thought it was wrong. "It's so unprecedented that I first wondered about the result: was it real or was it due to a data error?", Explains Son Nghiem, a NASA expert. He said he noticed the disappearance of most of the Greenland ice on July 12 by analyzing data from a first satellite. Results from the other two satellites confirmed this discovery. Satellite maps of the melt show that the ice sheet had melted 40% by July 8 and 97% four days later.
A NATURAL PHENOMENON?
During the summer, on average half of Greenland's ice surface naturally melts. Usually, most of the water from this melt freezes quickly aloft or is trapped by ice in coastal areas, while the rest drains into the ocean. "But this year, the magnitude of the surface or near surface melt has increased dramatically," says NASA. Over the past three decades, the largest melt detected by satellite did not exceed 55% of the area, says the BBC.
Researchers must now determine whether this event, which coincides with unusually strong warm air pressure over Greenland, will contribute to rising sea levels. NASA said that even the highest point of the ice cap, more than 3 kilometers above sea level, was showing signs of thawing.
According to glaciologist Lora Koenig, this type of melting occurs every 150 years on average, and it is difficult to determine whether it is the result of a rare, but natural phenomenon, or of man-made global warming. "The last one having taken place in 1889, this event is well on the agenda", she explains. "But if we continue to see this type of melting over the next few years, it will be scary."
ABNORMALLY FREQUENT BREAKS
These results were known a few days after a huge block of ice twice the size of Paris or Manhattan broke off from a Greenland glacier. This is the second time in two years that an iceberg has come off the Pertermann Glacier. For climate scientists, it is the rising temperatures of the oceans that are implicated in these glacier breaks that have become abnormally frequent.
"It's dramatic, it's disturbing. We have data for 150 years and we are seeing changes that we have never seen before. This is one of the proofs that Greenland is changing very quickly. ", explains Andreas Muenchow, professor at the University of Delaware.
The Greenland icecap, whose melting contributes to rising sea levels, is more sensitive to global warming than has been accepted so far, suggests a study published in the March issue 11 Nature Climate Change.
THE SECOND RETENTION OF WATER OF THE WORLD
Previous studies have established a warming threshold of + 3,1 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era beyond which the ice that covers Greenland could have completely melted in millennia. This new study, based on numerical simulations, lowers this threshold to + 1,6 ° C (in a range from + 0,8 ° C to + 3,2 ° C), knowing that the planet has already warmed by 0,8 ° C since mid-eighteenth century.
The time taken for a total melting of the Greenland ice sheet (or ice sheet) depends on the duration and extent of the exceeding of this threshold: it could have disappeared in two thousand years in the event of a warming of + 8 ° C, but in fifty thousand years in case of rise contained at + 2 ° C, according to researchers at the Potsdam Institute (PIK) and the Complutense University of Madrid. Limiting the rise to 2 ° C is the goal set by the international community but, in view of current greenhouse gas emissions, the world seems to be on a trajectory of + 3 to + 4 ° C.
Greenland constitutes, after Antarctica, the second largest water reservoir on Earth. A significant melting of the icecap, which covers about 80% of the territory, could contribute to a rise of several meters of the sea level and affect the lives of millions of people, remind the authors.
Source: http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2 ... _3244.html
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Edit title Edit: The ice of Greenland has melted almost completely this summer! en The surface of Greenland has melted almost completely this summer
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