Stephan: I have been writing about this for years, and the trend just keeps getting worse. Because humanity, and particularly America, is not taking climate change seriously the most basic factors of our climate are radically changing. The impact this is going to have on all human societies is going to be drastic and painful.
In this view from an airplane a lake of meltwater feeds a canal the meltwater has carved into the Greenland ice sheet near Sermeq Avangnardleq glacier on August 04, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland, where over the last several decades summers have become longer and the rate that glaciers and the Greenland ice cap are retreating has accelerated. Credit: Sean Gallup /Getty
The vast Greenland ice sheet is melting at some of its fastest rates in the past 12,000 years. And it could quadruple over the next 80 years if greenhouse gas emissions don’t decline dramatically in the coming decades.
Research published yesterday in the journal Nature warns that the ice sheet’s future losses depend heavily on how quickly humans cut carbon emissions today.
Led by Jason Briner of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, the study is among the first to compare the possible future of the ice sheet with its ancient past.
“Now we’re really able to put into perspective just how anomalous our current change is and […]
