The Greenland Ice: A Story of Changing Climate

Topics For Discussion

The following discussion points come from information covered in this chapter:

• 1.

  As the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet continues, how will different societies around the world be effected?

• 2.

  What kinds of efforts might be tried to address the problems of the oceans? Of the melting ice caps?

• 3.

  What efforts will be needed to monitor and fine-tune whatever efforts human societies make?

• 4.

  Is there a story in place of young people in these efforts? Could that story be the reader’s story?

Introduction

The Oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, and hold 97% of Earth’s water. And the glaciers currently cover around 16 million square kilometers of the surface of our planet and almost all are represented by the Antarctic ice sheet and Greenland. They are formed in places where it is very cold, more precisely where more snow falls in winter than melts in summer.

The sea ice is formed when sea water freezes excluding most of the salt at very low temperatures and to this is added also the snow. The sea ice that forms in Antarctica is seasonally melts back to land’s edge each spring, while the core of the Arctic ice can last for several years.

Figure 1.

S.S. Jeannette Expedition (1879-1881) in North Pole before encountering almost any ice, (Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/)

Figure 2.

Janette trip. (Source: http://nsidc.org/data/virtual_globes/)

In a glacier there are two zones:

• 1.

  The accumulation area, where the accumulation of ice occurs. In this area, the snow falling during the winter remains stored even in the hot season. In the high mountain glaciers, the accumulation zone is located at high altitude.

• 2.

  The area of ablation, where the loss of ice occurs. In this zone the melting of the fallen snow and ice occurs as well as detachment of parts of ice. Alpine glaciers have an area of just 3,000 square kilometers and make up just 0.018% of the Earth’s surface; 46% are in Switzerland, 20% in Italy, 18% in Austria, 14% in France, and 0.03% in Germany.

The largest glacier in the Alpine chain is located in the Bernese Alps, which has an area of 86 square kilometers and a length of 24 kilometers. About 50% of the glacial surface has disappeared in the Alps in 150 years.

Society can measure the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and monitor the polar ice caps. Society can measure the rise of global sea level to an accuracy of millimeters per year. Both of these are increasing at an accelerating rate.