And while comptemplating the worrisome news in Bernie's article below, I found this story at The Adventure Corner by Olaf Malver reporting on his just completed kayaking trip to eastern Greenland. He describes passing 12 mile-long tabular icebergs the likes of which his 55 year-old Inuit guide has never seen before. These icebergs can only make their way south because so much of the Arctic Ocean has opened up during the summer. Olaf, who has camped along eastern Greenland for fifteen years, also noted that many of the fresh water pools at his favourite campsites have dried up, and he also comments on receding glaciers.
As the author of the Guardian article noted, "We all live on the Greenland ice sheet now. Its fate is our fate."
Having just returned from Alaska, I saw the same sorts of thing. As we travelled up Tracy Arm, our guide said, "When I started guiding 20 years ago, the glacier started here" pointing to a line on the cliffs we were passing. Then a couple of minutes later, "four years ago, the glacier started here." Then a very very long time later, we got to the glacier itself. The implications were obvious and chilling. The glacier was calving constantly, even as we stood there. A constant rumbling roar as we watched the glacier recede almost before our eyes.
ReplyDeleteLooking around Juno, it was sobering to note that none of the mountains had snow on their peaks. None of the locals could remember when that had last been the case. In Ketchecan, instead of 14 days of no rain, they went 14 weeks. (