Greenland glacier melt could contribute to rise in sea level

NASA eyeballs glacial melt in Greenland - Capital Weather Gang:

"...The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the 'calving front,' nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record..."

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Photos Reveal Receding Himalaya Glaciers

Lens Blog - NYTimes.com:

7/16/10

New York Times

“...There’s a lot of people who either don’t understand climate change that well and the effects that it’s having, or they want to deny the effect it’s having. These pictures are worth a thousand words. We haven’t done anything to them except print them.”

David Breashears,, a senior fellow with the Center on U.S.-China Relations, referred to the exhibition, “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya,” which opened this week at the Asia Society in Manhattan. Mr. Breashears is best known for directing the Imax film, “Everest.” In the exhibition, pictures taken as early as 1899 are placed alongside recreations by Mr. Breashears, who photographed the same places from precisely the same vantage, beginning in 2007."

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Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice

The Tundra Drums - Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice:

Published on July 22nd, 2010

By ALEX DEMARBAN

"...Residents in a lower Yukon River village far from typical polar bear habitat say they've seen plenty of bears, but nothing like the big, white beast that floated in the river on Tuesday.

Isaiah Charles, a state Department of Fish and Game technician, said he didn't believe the rumors that a polar bear had arrived near town, until his sister called from downriver and said she was watching it.

Charles, with his aunt and nephew in tow, jumped in a boat and traveled for 20 minutes from Emmonak. They saw the bear's head in the water.

'Sure enough it was a real polar bear,' he said. 'It was just hanging out on a sandbar, like, in the water just hanging out. It got maybe 40 yards away.'"

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The BP oil spill and religious environmental ethics

On Faith Panelists Blog: The BP oil spill and religious environmental ethics - Valerie Elverton Dixon:

Washington Post

BY VALERIE ELVERTON DIXON | JUNE 2, 2010; 6:07 PM ET

"...the tragedy of the BP oil spill is a moral crisis that is the result of human estrangement from the Divine, from each other and from nature. A holistic spiritual morality, an environmental ethics rooted in religion can help us find our way back to wholeness and to holiness."

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World still heading for 3 degree Celsius warming

AFP: World still heading for 3 degree Celsius warming: study:

"BONN — The world is careering towards three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100 despite headline-making promises to curb carbon emissions, a study released at UN talks here said on Thursday.

'The current pledges and loopholes give us a virtual certainty of exceeding 1.5 C (2.7 F), with global warming very likely exceeding 2 C (3.6 F) and a more than 50-percent chance of exceeding 3 C (5.4 F) by 2100,' said Bill Hare of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Around 120 countries have signed up to voluntary action on greenhouse gases under last December's Copenhagen Accord, which aims to limit warming since pre-industrial times to 2.0 C.

Scientists caution there is no consensus on what is a safe level for warming, and some say a rise of even 2.0 C could still have far-reaching risks for ice and snow cover and rainfall patterns"

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Melting permafrost threatens Arctic housing projects

Melting permafrost threatens Arctic housing projects - CTV News:

"MONTREAL — An Arctic community that has seen its fire hall sink and roads buckle in the melting permafrost is now shifting future building projects away from town.

The effect of vanishing permafrost -- soil normally frozen year round -- is now being felt across Canada's North, and the Quebec village of Salluit is just one of many Arctic towns trying to adapt to an increasingly warmer climate.

Rising temperatures are being blamed for natural disturbances in the North, such as the rapidly eroding coastline of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., and unprecedented floods that knocked out two bridges in Pangnirtung, Nunavut.

Salluit even considered relocating the whole town. One of Quebec's northernmost communities, Salluit saw its local fire station sink into the softening ground a year after it opened.

Across town, paved roads have crumpled, foundations of buildings have cracked and now even summertime grave-digging isn't what it used to be."

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