The Arctic Ice Crisis

The Arctic Ice Crisis

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There’s no place on Earth that’s changing faster – and no place where that change matters more – than Greenland. Late last month, NASA reported that ice all across the vast glacial interior of the world’s largest island was melting – a “freak event” that hadn’t occurred for at least 150 years. The alarming discovery briefly focused the media’s attention on a place that rarely makes headlines. Rapid Ice Melt Baffles Scientists, The Wall Street Journal declared.

In fact, scientists weren’t baffled at all – a paper published just weeks before had predicted that an abrupt, islandwide melt was imminent. The rapid loss of ice is only the latest in a chain of events that have upended conventional understanding of how the Earth’s “cryosphere” – its frozen places – behave. Taken together, the events offer new insight into how fast the world’s seas are likely to rise as a result of global warming – and hence, the fate of major cities like New York and Miami and Mumbai.