Scientist 'speechless' at scale of ice melt on Greenland glacier

[spanone]

Astonished scientist says he was 'completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless'

New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless."

In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off , prompting a hearing in Congress.

Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K., told msnbc.com by phone that another section, about twice the size of Manhattan, appeared close to breaking off.

In 2009, scientists installed GPS masts on the glacier to track its movement.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44353322/ns/us_news-environment/#.Tl-KeXPtjf8

[malaise]

1. Scientists don't know crap

Rick Perry, the dunce is the expert!

[spanone]

2. pretty scary, eh?

[malaise]

3. It's only scary if you are rational

ReTHUGS couldn't care less.

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. WEll look at the bright side. At least now the rich can drive their yachts through there. nm

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. And you can now row to the magnetic north pole

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rowers-reach-impossible-north-pole-thanks-to-global-warming-2344689.html

[Joe Fields]

5. We won't care until we all have to wear gas masks.

We will need gas masks, oxygen tanks and protective clothing in the future, if we want to go outdoors. THEN we, as a nation and as a political force, might give a damn.

Until then...business as usual, I'm so sad to say.

[Shagbark Hickory]

8. And then we'll be powerless to do anything because of the "protective clothing" lobby

[The2ndWheel]

7. It's the price of human progress

It will not come cheap. We don't like regulations imposed on us by the environment, don't like paying our planetary taxes, and we do like to privatize the profits of the planet, and socialize the costs to the rest of life.

Whatever we use, we're going to alter the planet in some way, as it's a complex system, and we're but a small percentage of life existing within that system, while attempting to write the rules increasingly and strictly in our favor.