Fwd: [graffis-l] MELTING ICE CAP TRIGGERING EARTHQUAKES

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>Sat, 08 Sep 2007 08:56:27 -0400

>stopthepoisons , w_o_w , HEALTH

>The Havens <thehavens

>Re: [graffis-l] MELTING ICE CAP TRIGGERING EARTHQUAKES

>

>At 08:13 AM 9/8/07, you wrote:

>> " Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes, Estimates of sea-level rise

>>Posted by: " V. " veedot veedotveewire

>>Sat Sep 8, 2007 12:09 am (PST)

>>Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes

>>· Estimates of sea-level rise out of date, say scientists

>>· Religious leaders pray for planet at Greenland glacier

>>Paul Brown in Ilulissat

>>The Guardian

>>Saturday September 8 2007

>>

>>The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that

>>it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice

>>several cubic kilometres in size break off.

>>

>>Scientists monitoring events this summer say the

>>acceleration could be catastrophic in terms of

>>sea-level rise and make predictions this February

>>by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change far too low.

>>

>>The glacier at Ilulissat, which supposedly

>>spawned the iceberg that sank the Titantic, is

>>now flowing three times faster into the sea than it was 10 years ago.

>>

>>Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate

>>Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat yesterday:

>> " We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed

>>with which these glaciers are moving into the

>>sea. The ice is moving at 2 metres an hour on a

>>front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 metres deep.

>>That means that this one glacier puts enough

>>fresh water into the sea in one year to provide

>>drinking water for a city the size of London for a year. "

>>

>>He is visiting Greenland as part of a symposium

>>of religious, scientific, and political leaders

>>to look at the problems of the island, which has

>>an ice cap 3km thick containing enough water to

>>raise worldwide sea levels by seven metres.

>>

>>Yesterday Christian, Shia, Sunni, Hindu, Shinto,

>>Buddhist and Jewish religious leaders took a boat

>>to the tongue of the glacier for a silent prayer

>>for the planet. They were invited by Bartholomew

>>I, the spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide.

>>

>>Dr Corell, director of the global change

>>programme at the Heinz Centre in Washington, said

>>the estimates of sea level rise in the IPCC

>>report were based on data two years old. The

>>predicted rise this century was 20-60cm (about

>>8-24ins) , but it would be at the upper end of

>>this range at a minimum, he said, and some

>>believed it could be two metres. This would be

>>catastrophic for European coastlines.

>>

>>He had flown over the Ilulissat glacier and " seen

>>gigantic holes in it through which swirling

>>masses of melt water were falling. I first looked

>>at this glacier in the 1960s and there were no

>>holes. These so-called moulins, 10 to 15 metres

>>across, have opened up all over the place. There are hundreds of them. "

>>

>>This melt water was pouring through to the bottom

>>of the glacier creating a lake 500 metres deep

>>which was causing the glacier " to float on land.

>>These melt-water rivers are lubricating the

>>glacier, like applying oil to a surface and

>>causing it to slide into the sea. It is causing a

>>massive acceleration which could be catastrophic. "

>>

>>The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the

>>sea although in surges it moves even faster. He

>>measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.

>>

>>Veli Kallio, a Finnish scientist, said the quakes

>>were triggered because ice had broken away after

>>being fused to the rock for hundreds of years.

>>The quakes were not vast - on a magnitude of 1 to

>>3 - but had never happened before in north-west

>>Greenland and showed potential for the entire ice sheet to collapse.

>>

>>Dr Corell said: " These earthquakes are not

>>dangerous in themselves but the fact that they

>>are happening shows that events are happening far

>>faster than we ever anticipated. "

>>

>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange/print

>>~~~

>>--

>>_

>>/ \

>>\ _______________________________/\ \

>>\ \ \ \ \ \

>>\ \ \©2007 veedot\ \ \

>>\ \ \____________________________\_\ \

>>\ \/_________________________________\

>>\_/

>> " Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it

>>can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts. "

>>- Heinz Pagels, 'The Dreams of Reason', 1988

 

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