Alaskan Glaciers are Melting and Adding to Sea Level Rise

In Alaska unprecedented heat is melting glaciers and causing sea levels to rise. According to a new study the amount of water from melting glaciers could cover the entire state of Alaska in a foot of water every seven years. This is the finding of the authors of a study called "Surface melt dominates Alaska glacier mass balance," published in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Alaskan glaciers have lost 75 billion metric tons of ice every year from 1994 through 2013. The Columbia Glacier on its own is releasing 4 billion metric tons of water into the oceans every year. Although Alaska may only have 1 percent of the Earth's glacial ice volume however the state accounted for 33 percent of global ice loss between 2005 and 2010.

Chris Larsen, a research associate professor with the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lead author of the study suggested that the trend of Alaskan ice melt will continue to drive sea level rise.

"There is a lot of momentum in the system, and Alaska will continue to be a major driver of global sea level change in upcoming decades," he said.

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Antarctic Glaciers Pass the Point of No Return

A recent report concludes that Antarctica's ice sheet has reached a tipping point from which it will not be able to recover. Scientists predict that the glaciers in the western part of Antarctica will melt and raise sea levels by four feet or 1.2 meters. These sea level rises will displace tens of millions of people from coastal areas around the world.

As explained by NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot, the glacial retreat "appears unstoppable." Rignot is the lead author of a joint NASA-University of California Irvine paper that used 40 years of satellite data and aircraft studies to come to the conclusion that Antarctic glaciers are now "past the point of no return."

The rate at which the area's ice is melting has increased 77 percent since 1973. According to researchers the melting is being precipitated by warmer ocean currents which have begun a chain reaction. Although first observed around glaciers in the Amundsen Sea-area, the effect is expected to spread to other Antarctic glaciers.

Researchers attribute the melt to global warming and a depletion of the Earth's ozone layer which has changed the winds in the area, causing more warm water to be invected toward the glaciers.

These findings are not contradicted by the news that Antarctic sea ice recently hit record levels. Sea ice forms and melts quickly, while glaciers appear to be headed for an unavoidable decline. This is a phenomenon that has not occurred for at least a half a million years.

The entire west Antarctic ice sheet has enough ice to raise the global sea level by about 16 feet. This is but the latest scientific assessment that suggests climate change is progressing faster than predicted.

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Video - Watch the Disintegration of the Largest Glacier Ever Recorded on Film

Glaciers are melting at an ever expanding rate all around the world and this video documents the disintegration of the largest glacier ever recorded on film. This glacier has ice spires that are two or three times taller than the tallest buildings in New York City. In the last ten years it has retreated more than in the previous century.

This video is excerpted from the Documentary "Chasing Ice" which was screened by delegates at COP 19. Glaciers take millennias to form and due to human hubris, they are dismantling before our very eyes. The powerful documentary aims to record them for posterity.

Given the fact that much of the world's population lives on or near the coast, rising seas have dramatic implications for all of humanity.

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Study Shows Coal is a Bad Investment

There was a time when investors made a great deal of money from investing in coal, but new research shows that those days are drawing to a close.

As reviewed in a ThinkProgress article by Joe Romm, Goldman Sachs has published a new research paper shows that coal used to generate power is no longer the profitable investment it once was. The tile of the paper says it all, “The window for thermal coal investment is closing.”

As explained in the paper:

"We believe that thermal coal’s current position atop the fuel mix for global power generation will be gradually eroded by the following structural trends: 1) environmental regulations that discourage coal-fired generation, 2) strong competition from gas and renewable energy and 3) improvements in energy efficiency. The prospect of weaker demand growth (we believe seaborne demand could peak in 2020) and seaborne prices near marginal production costs suggest that most thermal coal growth projects will struggle to earn a positive return for their owners."

The Goldman paper projects a flat future for shipping coal by sea. The waning demand for coal is a global phenomenon. This even includes China where the near-term demand for coal imports is "collapsing."

Washington state’s Department of Ecology recently said its review of the Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, will include “an evaluation and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions of end-use coal combustion.”

As explained in a Sightline analysis, the burning the 48 million tons of coal proposed for annual export from the terminal would release roughly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide. Efforts to combat climate change through emissions reductions would be utterly undermined if this coal were shipped.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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