August 18, 2020 due to Johnna Crider
Greenland satellite view, via Google Maps.
Who remembers the primary school learning about Greenland and Iceland and that refined switcheroo that Vikings used to save other Vikings from realizing that Greenland was not so green? Well, it turns out that story is not true, but the real history of Greenland is perhaps just as interesting:
“Greenland was named by Eiríkur rauði or Erik the Red* About 120 years after Iceland got its name. Erik was sentenced to 3 years in prison by Iceland and spent those years exploring Greenland. When he returned to Iceland, he told people great stories of a beautiful country in the west. Erik wanted to set up a settlement in Greenland and he knew he would need the support of so many people to make the settlement a success. That he deliberately gave the country an appealing name to attract potential colonists. ‘People would be attracted to go there if it had a favorable name’. His sales management worked, many people came to him to form two colonies in Greenland and he became the ‘lord’ of Greenland … “
Now, since 2020, Greenland’s ice sheet is melting fast, and it turns out that it is not changing. This is something we should all mourn. This slow farewell says hello to a hotter planet.
CNN reported that Greenland’s ice sheet has melted to “a point of no return.” This information comes from a new study by researchers from Ohio State University. The study, entitled “Dynamic Ice Loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet Driven by Sustained Glacier Retreat,” found that the large mass loss of the ice sheet occurred at a faster pace in the 21st century. This will also be the largest single participant in rising sea levels.
“The ice sheet is now in this new dynamic state, where even if we could return to a climate that was more than what we had 20 or 30 years ago, we will still lose mass pretty quickly,” said Ian Howat, a – author of the study and a professor at Ohio State University.
This study combined well over 30 years of “remotely observed observational glacier velocity, elevation, and position changes across the entire ice sheet.” The ice sheet dumps more than 280 billion metric tons of melted ice into the ocean each year. Lead author of the study Michalea King said this made it the largest single contributor to global sea level rise. This loss has been so massive that it has caused a measurable change in the gravitational field across Greenland, she explained.
Greenland’s ice milk also adds more than a millimeter increase to sea level every year, and with this news of unstoppable melting, it will only get worse. Sea level rise, which is expected to rise by more than three feet by the end of this century, will erode beaches and coastal properties. States like my own, Louisiana, like Florida have had to deal with the effects of rising sea levels for years, but it will get harder.
CNN notes that 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas and is vulnerable to rising sea levels. In Mississippi, the cost of flooding the coast is high – the constant flooding of water causes those living along the coast to move to higher ground. In fact, between 2005 and 2017, there was nearly $ 16 billion in loss of coastal property value due to floods in coastal areas.
It is not just the United States, but every continent on the planet that is facing this crisis. In Fiji (it is not just a watermark) coastal communities have had to relocate, as their islands have already wandered through the sea. One resident, Barney Dunn, was forced to testify that his ancestral homeland disappeared under the rising sea. ‘You see your ancestors swimming in the sea. If you live there, you will know how it feels, “he told 1 NEWS Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver, who visited Togoru.
“There are a lot of places, like in Florida, where one meter would only cover a lot of existing land,” King said. CNN. “And that gets eroded when you get storms and hurricanes and things like that, which then cause extra current on top of a higher baseline.”
The study, which used satellite data for 40 years to measure the changes in Greenland’s ice sheet, found that it was reversing in rapid bursts. This leads to sudden and unpredictable rise in sea level, which makes it challenging to prepare for the effects. The authors also discovered that after 2000 the ice sheet began to shrink so rapidly that the replacement snowfall could not keep up. The point of no return has passed for the Greenland ice sheet.
However, it’s just an explanation of what’s coming. If people refuse to change their ways on this planet, the melting speed will be much less. Ian Howat, one of the authors of the study, said that whole ice beaches are being repurchased all at once, thanks to climate change. He noted that all 200 glaciers that make up the Greenland ice sheet were withdrawn at the same time.
“We have passed the point of no return, but of course there is more to come,” he said, “rather than being a single point in which we have gone from a happy ice block to a rapidly collapsing ice block, it is a stairs where we have fallen from the first step, but there are many more steps to go into the pit. ‘
End on a lighter note, here is the footnote from the article that brought the quoted text near the top:
* BTW his son, Leifur Eiríksson was also an explorer like this father. Leifur sailed from Greenland and found & named three Lands:
That Leifur is often acknowledged to have found the Americas about 500 years before Christopher Columbus did …
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About the Author
Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem, and mineral collector, a member of the International Gem Society, and a Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 on “Believe in Good.” Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter
