Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers
The Associated Press details findings in Greenland that indicate water temperature is rising due to human influences.
- Water from warmer subtropical latitudes is moving through the colder waters of Greenland, contributing to glacial melt.
- While the shifting of cold and warm water in the area is a natural process, water temperatures have continuously been going up in a way that can’t be explained without taking into account human influences.
- The world’s ocean surface temperature from June-August of this year was the warmest on record since 1880 according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Changes are especially marked in the North Atlantic
- The temperature of the water flowing into the arctic has increased by as much as 3.5 degrees Farenheit
An excerpt of the article is below. Read the full article at the Boston Globe.
Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers
By Karl Ritter
September 23, 2009
SERMILIK FJORD, Greenland—With whale fins splashing in the distance, Ruth Curry hauls up her catch from the blustery deck of an icebreaker.
An orange tube fixed to a metal frame breaks the surface as the motorized winch stops groaning. Inside: data on the water temperature deep down in this glacial fjord off southeast Greenland.
"If you were to dip your hand in it, it doesn't seem that warm," says Curry, an American climate scientist. "But it is. It's warm enough to melt ice. And that's the important thing here."
Curry and her colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts zigzagged between majestic icebergs in the Sermilik fjord last month in search of proof that waters from warmer latitudes, or subtropical waters, are flushing through this remote and frigid region.
They found it -- all the way up to the base of the outlet glaciers that spill into the ocean like tongues of ice from Greenland's massive ice sheet.
Read the full article at the Boston Globe.
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