The Fate of Greenland: Lessons From Abrupt Climate Change
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Description
Viewed from above, Greenland offers an endless vista of whiteness interrupted only by scattered ponds of azure-colored melt water. Ninety percent of Greenland is covered by ice; its ice sheet, the largest outside Antarctica, stretches almost 1,000 miles from north to south and 600 miles from east to west. But this stark view of ice and snow is changing -- and changing rapidly. Greenland's ice sheet is melting; the dazzling, photogenic display of icebergs breaking off Greenland's rapidly melting glaciers has become a tourist attraction. The Fate of Greenlanddocuments Greenland's warming with dramatic color photographs and investigates episodes in Greenland's climate history for clues about what happens when climate change is abrupt rather than gradual.
Greenland's climate past and present could presage our climate future. Abrupt climate change would be cataclysmic: the melting of Greenland's ice shelf would cause sea levels to rise twenty-four feet worldwide; lower Manhattan would be underwater and Florida's coastline would recede to Orlando. The planet appears to be in a period of acute climate instability, exacerbated by carbon dioxide we pour into the atmosphere. As this book makes clear, it is in all of our interests to pay attention to Greenland.
ISBN
9780262525268
Publication Date
2011
Publisher
MIT Press
City
Cambridge, MA
Keywords
Climatic changes, Global warming, Environmental conditions, Greenland
Disciplines
Climate | Earth Sciences
Recommended Citation
Conkling, Philip W.; Alley, Richard B.; Broecker, Wallace S.; and Denton, George H., "The Fate of Greenland: Lessons From Abrupt Climate Change" (2011). Faculty and Staff Monograph Publications. 55.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/fac_monographs/55