The Big Thaw

The Big Thaw

This article is about the melting ice sheets across the world. According to the author these ice sheets are melting because of human interactions in the environments and they are melting at a much quicker rate than previously predicted. Greenland's ice sheet is melting even quicker than previously modeled. Scientists had modeled out supposed rates of ice sheet melting and it seemed to indicate that there would only be less than a foot of sea level rise due to melting over the next century, but they now realize that these predictions were not entirely accurate. Because of what scientists call "feedback" the ice sheets are melting even quicker due to this process. Feedback is caused by the melting snow and ice uncovering darker earth below leading to the ground heating up and causing the snow to melt quicker. Usually the white snow reflects the suns energy keeping melting low but with the dark rocks below exposed it causes the ground to be heated up causing rapid melting.

Most scientists believe that the Antarctic ice is safer than the Greenland ice sheet and thus will have less melting. Antarctica is located on its own in the ocean and does not receive direct sunlight, so there will be no heating from the sun or nearby landmasses. But instead the real threat lies in the warmer ocean water that flows underneath the ice sheet. On the west side of Antarctica lies an ice shelf that has broken off and fallen into the ocean, but even with this its rate of decay is less than any other glaciers or ice sheets around the world. Scientists are afraid that this is just the start though, because even though data says that Antarctica is relatively safe from melting, the same data also said that Greenland would be safe. So scientists are unsure of Antarctica's exact future, but for now all data points to it being relatively safe from melting.

In the Andes Mountains melting has also taken off at an unprecedented pace. The Chacaltaya Ski Resort has lost nearly all of its snow. The ski resort sits on a glacier in the Andes and that glacier over the last twenty to thirty years has all but vanished. What remains is a few areas of ice not bigger than that a football field. This is happening all over the world though. It is happening in Glacier National Park, what once gave the park its name my soon be gone. All of glacier parks glaciers could be gone by 2030. Much of the glaciers in the Alps could also be gone by the end of the century, as recent data shows.

With such alarming rates of melting it is even more alarming that people still deny climate change. Not that all of this may be attributed to humans, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have a large impact on the environment. The earth may be in a larger cycle than we even realize and this could all be contributed to natural event, which has happened in the past. Sea levels at times have reached ten to twenty