Fading frost
The world's ice is in retreat. This summer about 97 percent of Greenland's ice sheet melted, and the extent of Arctic sea ice reached an all-time low. In Central Asia's Pamir Mountains, the Fedchenko Glacier, seen in this false-color image, has shrunk 1,400 meters over the past 80 years. The loss of this glacier's snow and ice (cyan) may slow down, however. According to research in the September Nature Climate Change, precipitation patterns in the area have increased, which may help larger glaciers such as this one stick around a while longer. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
Credit: COURTESY OF JESSE ALLEN AND ROBERT SIMMON NASA Earth Observatory
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5 Comments
Add Comment"This summer about 97 percent of Greenland's ice sheet melted, .."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRidiculous. How does this type of garbage get though the editors of Scientific American?
Less of 1% of Greenland's icesheet melted. It's called 'summer'. The icesheet is several thousand feet thick.
"97 percent of Greenland's ice sheet melted"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoor wording. Should have said 97% of the ice sheet experienced some melting during the summer.
This story is total nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean has plummeted to its lowest level on record — but down at the other end of the world, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica has swelled. That’s no surprise, considering that winter is just ending in the Southern Hemisphere — but what may be surprising is that the overall extent of Antarctic ice has grown by about 1 percent per decade, on average, since satellite records began a little over 30 years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.climatecentral.org/news/forget-the-melting-arctic-the-sea-ice-in-antarctica-is-growing-skeptics-say-15032
I believe what she was trying to say was that 97% of the ice cap had melt water on the surface. I've seen the Ice Sheet melted printed elseware and it keeps being quoted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere I lived for 2 years on the ice cap (Dye 3) It was 10,500 feet thick, 15% of which was below sea level. Had the ice cap melted the sea would have risen about 17 feet and New York would really be in trouble as would other costal cities.