Predicted Effects of Global Warming
The Greenland, and probably the Antarctic, ice sheets have been losing mass recently, because losses by melting and outlet glaciers exceed accumulation of snowfall. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), loss of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheet mass contributed, respectively, about 0.21 ± 0.35 and 0.21 ± 0.07 mm/year to sea level rise between 1993 and 2003.
The IPCC projects that ice mass loss from melting of the Greenland ice sheet will continue to outpace accumulation of snowfall. Accumulation of snowfall on the Antarctic ice sheet is projected to outpace losses from melting. However, loss of mass on the Antarctic sheet may continue, if there is sufficient loss to outlet glaciers. In the words of the IPCC, "Dynamical processes related to ice flow not included in current models but suggested by recent observations could increase the vulnerability of the ice sheets to warming, increasing future sea level rise. Understanding of these processes is limited and there is no consensus on their magnitude." More research work is therefore required in order to improve the reliability of predictions of ice-sheet response on global warming.
The effects on ice formations of an increasing in temperature will accelerate. When ice is melted away less light from the sun will be reflected back into space and more will be absorbed by the ocean water causing further rises in temperature. This positive feedback system will could become independent of climate change past a certain point which will cause huge losses of ice to the icecaps.
Read more about this topic: Ice Sheet
Famous quotes containing the words predicted, effects, global and/or warming:
“School success is not predicted by a childs fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.”
—Daniel Goleman (20th century)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out ofcareer, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Ours is a brandnew world of allatonceness. Time has ceased, space has vanished. We now live in a global village ... a simultaneous happening.”
—Marshall McLuhan (19111980)
“When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.”
—Alfred Tennyson (18091892)