Glacial melting and rising sea levels from climate change

Glacial Melting

Though global acclimate change has been debated much over the last 20 years the debate seems to be coming to an end, with regard to the masses of evidence of its occurrence, at an extremely accelerated rate over the last 50 years. Global climate change in its current state is creating massive glacial melting, which can have devastating effects on the earth. Glacial melting, will eventually cause massive shifts in the composition and breadth of the ocean, which will likely cause shorelines in many low lying areas to disappear under a wake of differently composed sea water. There will likely be loss of biodiversity, as many island nations and shoreline areas are a center fro biodiversity and will be underwater. Additionally, the arctic regions also play host to diverse species that will no longer be able to find the space and food they need once the ocean temperatures rise and the ice disappears.

How much should we worry about global climate change and other forms of environmental degradation? Any lingering doubts about its occurrence, as well as humankind's influence, are quickly fading amid new reports of faster-than-expected glacial melting (Overpeck et al. 2006) and unprecedented rates of species loss, deforestation, desertification, and water shortages (Hughes et al. 2003; Jackson et al. 2001; Thomas et al. 2004). (Schwartz, Parker, Glass, and Hu 1807)

Glacial melting has been occurring for some time, at an accelerated rate, most believe as a result of human interventions on the earth, technology, encroachment, deforestation, burning of massive amounts of fuel which produce carbon emitting gases that have degraded the atmospheric protection of the earth.

Scientists suspect the enhanced melting is linked to human-influenced climate change. Air temperatures in the region have risen by more than 2 degrees Celsius in 50 years, one of the fastest warming rates in the world. But they also say topography, wind and precipitation patterns, and changing ocean conditions could play a role.

Mastny 9)

There are many causes that together make up the result of markedly higher temperatures, reaching the polar ice caps today. These trends are not showing signs of marked reversal, and many argue that anything people do today, in an attempt to reverse glacial melting may be simply, to little to late.

Scientists have released the most compelling evidence yet that certain glaciers in Antarctica are melting rapidly. In April, researchers with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the U.S. Geological Survey reported that 87% of 244 marine glaciers they surveyed on the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated markedly in the last 50 years

According to a collaborative group of scientists who have been studying glacial melting (over the last 50 years) for the last three or more years are convinced by the data that the numbers look not only bad but startling and that this rate of melting has never been seen on this earth. "Loss of all ice on the Antarctic Peninsula would raise oceans by an estimated 0.3 meters."

Mastny 9)

Other parts of Antarctica have seen signs of melting as well. Scientists report accelerated glacial drainage from the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels seven meters. In all, Antarctica is home to more than 90% of the world's ice. The three-year effort... is the most comprehensive study to date of ice loss on the peninsula, a narrow chain of mountains stretching towards South America. To assess glacial trends, the researchers analyzed more than 2,000 aerial and satellite photographs dating back to the 1940s. The study suggests that marine glaciers are retreating by about 50 meters a year, although one (the Widdowson Glacier) has lost more than a kilometer of ice annually in the past five years. The loss is relatively new, scientists say, as most of the glaciers were growing as recently as 50 years ago.

Schmidt 605)

When we discuss this issue we often slide back to the points which most effect the humans who will be effected by this long-term trend that is rapidly being exposed as a serious short-term trend with devastating long-term effects.

It's estimated that more than a hundred million lives are potentially impacted by a one-meter increase in sea level," Abdalati says. In the meantime, even the comparatively small increases in sea level seen today can produce large effects, particularly when superimposed on high tides and storm surges, says Laury Miller, who heads NASA's Satellite Altimetry Laboratory. Miller adds that as a first impact, rising seas contaminate freshwater resources.

Schmidt 605)

Two of the ways in which this occurs is through desalination and the development of massive growth in often toxic algae growth, which is traditionally kept in check by salt content and low temperature but will be spurned on when these natural growth barriers are removed by global climate change and glacial fresh water. "Eutrophication of water bodies has always been part of the natural cycle in waters ranging from highly oligotrophic alpine lakes on land newly exposed by glacial melting to shallow, eutrophic lowland ponds."

Pitois, Jackson, and Wood 25) Another way in which water content and volume can change the face of the earth is that the salt water of the ocean reaches in to existing fresh water sources, and though this diluted system can seem to become logically cleaner it becomes incapable of sustaining human existence and biodiversity in the fresh water systems that are balanced by weather and isolation from sea water.

Current trends in research are often set about with the monumental task of gauging effects, of something that is actively occurring as well as to predict long-term outcomes. All of this information together builds a picture that is devastating for the earth. Small incremental and rapid changes completely throw off the balance that ahs existed for millions of years. Regardless of the human contribution to this matter the resolute scientific understanding is that these changes are in many ways unknowns. We do know, however that the earth will not look as it does today in just a few years as ocean water temperatures rise, in part do to higher ambient temperature and as a result of glacial melting storms will continue to rise in intensity, and frequency and marine life as well as shore life will be altered in unknowable ways. The cascading effect will be the most fundamental part of the unknown and the least of the earth's worries are how these issues will effect people, as it struggles through an accelerated, imbalanced pattern of life or death to survive.