Wednesday, July 25, 2012

We're Melllllllllllllllllllllting


No, wait. That's not the picture I wanted.  Here we are...

Greenland's surface ice cover melted this month over a larger area than ever detected in more than 30 years of satellite observations, NASA has said. According to measurements from three separate satellites analysed by NASA and university scientists, an estimated 97 per cent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

"This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to data error?" NASA's Son Nghiem said.

[...]

Results from other satellites confirmed the findings. Melt maps drawn up showed that on July 8 about 40 per cent of the ice sheet's surface had melted, rising to 97 per cent four days later.

Until now, the most extensive melt seen by satellites in the past 30 years was about 55 per cent.

The news comes just days after NASA satellite imagery showed that a massive iceberg twice the size of Manhattan had broken off the Petermann Glacier in Greenland.
  alJazeera

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