Greenland’s ice sheet retreating faster

Paris deal boosts plan for NY climate change museum

PARIS, Dec 17, (Agencies): The Greenland ice sheet, a potentially massive contributor to land-encroaching sea-level rise, lost mass twice as fast between 2003 and 2010 as during the entire 20th century, researchers said Wednesday.

Greenland ice loss contributed to a global average sea level rise of 25 millimetres (about an inch) between 1990 and 2010 -- mainly from surface melt, said the research published in the journal Nature.

The total mass lost was over 9,000 gigatonnes (billion tonnes).

It was net loss, meaning the difference between ice melt and ice gain from falling snow or rain.

The researchers from Europe and Canada said their study was the first to provide observation-based data of Greenland ice sheet loss from the end of the 19th century, when it started to retreat after the Little Ice Age.

The study therefore contributes valuable knowledge on past and likely future ice sheet loss to be taken into account in forecasts of global warming-induced sea level rise.

Data on the Greenland ice sheet has been lacking in reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), they said.

behind it ever applies to state officials for a new permit to build at the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Astronomers consider the volcano one of the world’s best places to view the cosmos,

“In order to predict future sea level changes and have confidence in the projections, it is essential to understand what happened in the past,” study co-author Kurt Kjaer at the Natural History Museum of Denmark said in a statement.

While previous work had relied mainly on mathematical modelling, the new study used data from historical aerial photographs mixed with satellite and other data.

The photos allowed them to study imprints left on the landscape by retreating ice over the decades.

The team found that the ice sheet lost about 75.1 gigatonnes per year in mass from 1900 to 1983, 73.8 gigatonnes per year from 1983 to 2003, and 186.4 gigatonnes per year from 2003-2010.

Nature

“The authors show that the recently observed increase in mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and its resulting contribution to sea-level rise, appear to be unprecedented since the Little Ice Age,” said a Nature summary.

“They suggest that the overall pattern of mass loss and sea level rise they observe is likely to continue for the near future.”

The study was not designed to make

and planned to use it as the site of the Thirty Meter Telescope, which project officials said would have a primary mirror spanning 30 metres (100 feet) and rank as the most powerful optical telescope on the planet. specific projections as to future loss.

Ice sheets are masses of ice that are on land, and thus add to sea level when they melt. Sea ice, which floats on the ocean surface, does not make any such addition.

Second to Antarctica as the world’s biggest ice sheet, Greenland would cause Earth’s sea levels to rise 7.2 metres (23.4 feet), drowning low-lying coasts and deltas, if it lost all its ice.

But this is a doomsday scenario ruled out by most climate scientists unless global warming scales unprecedented peaks and is sustained for a very long time, possibly centuries.

New York City’s museum devoted to climate change has no walls, no admission fee and no exhibits. In fact, it doesn’t exist yet. It’s an idea that its planners, led by Miranda Massie, attorney-turnedmuseum director, are hoping to make a reality. They are eyeing an opening in 2020, with pop-ups and publicity between now and then to get it off the ground.

Yet, despite growing pressure to cut planet-warming emissions and the new historic global accord on climate change reached in Paris last weekend, building a successful museum on the issue is no small task, experts say.

But Native Hawaiians and environmentalists oppose the project, saying it would damage sacred lands. Protesters have repeatedly tried to block construction at the site this year.

“Paris gave us a huge boost,” Massie told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It shows that the museum will be wanted and will succeed, and that it’s very much needed.”

Exhibitions

While science museums may have climate-change exhibitions, a dedicated museum would be unique for the United States and cutting-edge globally, joining a climate change museum in Hong Kong and Klimahaus in Bremerhaven, Germany, which exhibits the world’s climate zones, Massie said.

The challenges of creating such a museum are immense, from fundraising to keeping exhibits up to date, said Joseph Gonzales, director of museum communications and an assistant professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

“Museums of causes or museums of ideas can be particularly challenging,” he said. “They’re ideological or they’re about abstract concepts, and they’re not collection-based.”

Not only are museums of any nature difficult to launch but they are at high risk of failing later, said Mark Walhimer, a museum planning expert and author of the book “Museums 101”.

The Hawaii Supreme Court found on Dec 2 that the permit for the project issued by state officials in 2013 was invalid because at that time, a public hearing to air objections to the plan had not been held.

“We respect the Hawaii Supreme Court decision and, as good neighbors and stewards of the mountain, TMT has begun relocating construction vehicles and equipment from Maunakea,” Henry Yang, chair of the TMT International Observatory board of governors, said in a statement. (RTRS)

Hawking launches medal:

Renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Wednesday launched an award for science communication that will bear his name.

The “Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication” will be awarded to those who help promote science to the public through media such as cinema, music, writing and art.

“I’m happy to say I’m here today not to accept a medal but to announce one,” Hawking joked as he launched the medal at an event at the Royal Society, Britain’s de-facto academy of sciences.

“When I wrote ‘A Brief History of Time’ I was told that no one would want to read a hardback book about physics. Fortunately for me, it turned out not to be true,” he added, referring to his best-selling popular science book. (AFP)