Greenland?

Question

anyone from greenland wish to clue me in on what's going on with the warming?

anyone in university or anything for climate type stuff etc?

Answer 1

Winter is just ending.  The ice has been piling up over the last 6 months ready to melt in the summer warmth as it always has.

Answer 2

About a thousand years ago, during the Medieval Warm Period, the Earth was several degrees hotter than it is now.  Greenland got its name because Vikings farmed there.  Then, a deadly cold period hit and the glaciers grew, crushing the life out of the formerly green land.

Now that it is warming again, there may once again be a chance for life to prosper and for Greenland to regain its name.

This whole cycle is mainly driven by Earth's eccentric orbit and changing sunspot activity.

This is partly driven by increasing volcanic activity under Greenland but is mainly driven by Earth's recovery from the last deadly Ice Age that sent crushing glaciers as far south as London and New York.

Answer 3

speakeasy is wrong. There are no paleoclimatologists who claim it was "several degrees" warmer during the medieval period than it is now. There were various regional warming events over a several century time period (some comparable to recent warming, though not "several degrees" warmer), but that's a different thing than the current rise in Global temperature.

Greenland is melting faster than early predictions expected.  One recent discovery was how surface melting causes under-glacier rivers which have the effect of lubricating the glaciers on the bedrock (i.e. allowing them to slide toward the ocean faster than expected).

Here's a chart that shows the decreasing ice mass of Greenland:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/13984...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news...

http://www.livescience.com/environment/a...