Subject: An invitation to join FracTracker in the Alliance

Become a FracTracker Supporter.

You’re warmly invited to join us in a newly formed group of special donors called the “Alliance.”

The members of the Alliance, our Advocates, provide ongoing, monthly gifts that help form a steady stream resource we know we can count on. Your monthly support will help make tangible changes, such as decreasing the number of oil and gas wells in the US, protecting the public from toxic and radioactive chemicals, and stopping petrochemical expansion into vulnerable communities.

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Join the FracTracker Alliance today:

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As we close out the fiscal year, we thank all of our friends and supporters for helping FracTracker achieve our mission to map, analyze, and communicate the risks of oil, gas, and petrochemical development to advance just energy alternatives that protect public health, natural resources, and the climate.

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Glaciers naturally flow but thinning is alarming

From an Article by Brett Wilkins, The Guardian UK, 4/28/21

Researchers warn of the need for urgent climate action as a study published Wednesday revealed that the world’s mountain glaciers are melting at an unprecedented pace, with glacial thinning rates outside Antarctica and Greenland doubling this century. “A doubling of the thinning rates in 20 years for glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica tells us we need to change the way we live,” the study’s lead author said.

For the first time ever, researchers analyzed three-dimensional satellite measurements of the world’s approximately 220,000 glaciers, except for those on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. The results, published in Nature, show that the planet’s glaciers lost 267 billion tonnes of ice each year from 2000 to 2019, the equivalent of 21% of sea level rise. The study’s authors said that is enough water to flood all of Switzerland under six feet of water every year.

The paper notes that “thinning rates of glaciers outside ice sheet peripheries doubled over the past two decades.” The study’s authors found that, on average, glaciers lost 4% of their volume during the two decades studied. They determined that the fastest-melting glaciers are in Alaska and the Alps. Alaska alone accounted for one-quarter of the world’s glacial melt, with the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound retreating by around 115 feet annually.

“A doubling of the thinning rates in 20 years for glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica tells us we need to change the way we live,” Romain Hugonnet of the University of Toulouse in France, the study’s lead author, told The Guardian.

“It can be difficult to get the public to understand why glaciers are important because they seem so remote,” he added, “but they affect many things in the global water cycle including regional hydrology, and by changing too rapidly, can lead to the alteration or collapse of downstream ecosystems.”

Hugonnet said he was particularly concerned about glacier loss in high Asian mountain ranges, which are the sources of rivers upon which more than 1.5 billion people rely for water. “India and China are depleting underground sources and relying on river water, which substantially originates from glaciers during times of drought,” he told The Guardian.

“This will be fine for a few decades because glaciers will keep melting and provide more river runoff, which acts as a buffer to protect populations from water stress,” said Hugonnet. “But after these decades, the situation could go downhill. If we do not plan ahead, there could be a crisis for water and food, affecting the most vulnerable.”

Mark Serreze, director of the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the Associated Press that sea level rise—which is exacerbated by glacier melt—”is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as we move through the 21st century.” Serreze did not contribute to the new paper.

The new study’s authors implore policymakers to devise adaptive measures for the estimated billion people threatened with water and food insecurity before 2050. “We need to act now,” stressed Hugonnet.

Samuel Nussbaumer of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which did not take part in the study, said that “the new paper will have a big impact.”

“This is the most global, complete study. The gain in new information is huge,” Nussbaumer told The Guardian. “The rapid change we see now is really interesting from a scientific point of view. Never before in history has change happened this fast.”

The new study follows research published last week showing shifts in the Earth’s rotational axis—which have accelerated over the past three decades—are caused by melting glaciers.

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“If we do not plan ahead, there could be a crisis for water and food, affecting the most vulnerable.” —Romain Hugonnet, University of Toulouse

“Never before in history has change happened this fast.” —Samuel Nussbaumer, World Glacier Monitoring Service

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See also: Global Ice Loss on Pace to Drive Worst-Case Sea Level Rise, Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, January 25, 2021

A new study combines ice melt data from all sources to reaffirm one of the most serious climate change threats.

Living on “iceberg alley” is unbelievable!!!

From Stephanie Osmanski, Green Matters, December 10, 2020

One of the most overt effects of climate change that researchers can point to is the melting of ice in the Arctic. The average temperature of the planet is getting hotter, with 15 of the hottest years on record having occurred since 2000, according to NASA, and as temperatures climb, the climate no longer becomes sustainable for the environment necessary to support the Arctic. In fact, as of winter 2018, the Arctic’s sea ice coverage was the second smallest it’s ever been measured.

So, what happens if the Arctic melts?

“The Arctic is a natural freezer,” Michael Mann, a climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told The Verge. “Just like you’d be concerned if all of the ice in your freezer melted, so should you be concerned about the loss of Arctic sea ice.”

Sea levels will be drastically affected (increased)

The disappearing ice in the Arctic affects more than just the surrounding area. As the Arctic’s ice disappears, the rest of the world experiences global warming. As per Museum of Natural History, one of the most dangerous ways in which we would be affected by the Arctic melting is the rising of sea levels.

Why is this important? Different cities are established at different sea levels. If the sea levels rise 20 feet, populations and cities would be decimated. Coastal communities — Florida, New Jersey, Maryland – could be drastically affected and even now, are experiencing more instances of flooding. Raise the sea level 20 feet, and these areas will likely not survive.

“If all the ice covering Antarctica, Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 70 meters (230 feet). The ocean would cover all the coastal cities. And land area would shrink significantly,” the Museum of Natural History site reads. “The [main] concern is that portions of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps may disappear. We do not know how much or how quickly this could happen, because we do not know exactly how it will happen.

Here’s what happens if the permafrost melts:

Mongabay reports that permafrost – which refers to any ground that remains completely frozen in nature for at least two years straight, usually near the North or South poles – is heading toward a crisis. Permafrost is located in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia.

“Permafrost covers approximately 22.8 million square kilometers (8.8 million square miles) in the Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine regions — comprising nearly a quarter of the exposed land surface in the northern hemisphere,” according to Mongabay.

“The world’s permafrost serves as a massive carbon reservoir, storing nearly twice the amount of carbon currently found in the atmosphere. An estimated 1,400 gigatons of carbon — made up of decomposed plants and animals which once inhabited the Earth — can be found embedded in permafrost.”

Should the world’s permafrost melt, it could unleash a toxic amount of carbon, while simultaneously damaging wildlife homes.

Damage to the Arctic may also lead to extreme weather

It has been proven that when the Arctic is “unusually warm,” according to The Verge, extreme winter weather is anywhere from two to four times more likely in the Eastern U.S. Clearly, our extreme weather events here, are directly tied to what’s going on in the Arctic. If the Arctic continues to warm – and at alarming rates at that – the U.S. could experience more extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, heavy rainfall, and hurricanes and tropical storms.

Some researchers believe the Arctic’s issues are to blame for unusual weather in the U.S. – 2018’s bomb cyclone, record-breaking freezing temps, and a slew of hurricanes in a short period of time, to name a few. It’s not just the U.S. that is affected by the state of the Arctic. A 2017 study linked the Arctic’s disappearing ice predicament to the unhealthy smog layer in China.

How can we stop the Arctic ice from disappearing?

The most important, day-to-day thing we can do to stop the Arctic ice from disappearing is to cut back on greenhouse gas and carbon emissions. The lesser rate emissions happen, the slower the rate of global warming happens. The slower the rate of global warming, the slower ice from the Arctic disappears.

However, researchers are actively searching for ways to slow down the rate of the ice disappearing. Non-profit Ice911 has proposed covering the Arctic in millions of silica and glass beads, to reflect sunlight back into space and while insulating ice that would have otherwise melted. Silica does not pose a threat to nature or animals, and the beads actually stick to the ice and water upon contact.

Ice911’s silica bead tactic is still being field-tested as of 2019, but it could prove an important means to an end in the near future. In the meantime, the most impactful thing the average person can do is be cognizant in trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint overall.

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Listen Up! Dr. James Hansen Has A Message For The Citizens Of Earth, Steve Hanley, Clean Technia, September 7, 2020

Dr. Hansen says there are three parameters to the global heating conundrum but only two receive regular attention — the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and average global surface temperatures. The third critical component is the Earth’s energy imbalance and it may be the most important of the three. “Stabilizing climate requires that humanity reduce the energy imbalance to approximately zero,” Hansen writes.

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See also (Video): New projections for sea-level rise due to climate change, CBS News, December 23, 2020,

A newly published scientific paper warns that sea levels are rising more rapidly than previously thought. Oceanographer John Englander is one the authors of that paper, and he joined CBSN’s Tom Hanson to discuss their findings and the importance of the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.

Greenland ice sheets melting more rapidly

Interview of Michael Oppenheimer by Steve Curwood of Living on Earth, October 23, 2020

The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting at alarming rates thanks to climate change, and will continue to do so for decades even if the Paris Climate Agreement goals are met. Host Steve Curwood speaks with Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer about how these massive ice sheets contribute to global sea level rise, and why their melting necessitates both the reduction of global warming gases and adaptation to protect vulnerable coasts.

Transcript of Interview Available Here

As the planet continues to warm, the ice of Antarctica and Greenland melts faster and faster, adding to sea level rise. Scientists say even if the Paris Climate Agreement goals are met, melting from the West Antarctic ice sheet alone could raise the oceans some eight feet by the end of the century. Sooner than that, in less than 30 years, the ice losses from Antarctica, combined with the rapid melting of Greenland are projected to elevate the seas one if not two feet. And that doesn’t factor in the impacts of thermal expansion of water already in the ocean and the melting of mountain glaciers. Here to discuss the latest research is Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. Michael Oppenheimer, welcome to Living on Earth!

CURWOOD: Walk me through the science behind the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. What’s going on?

OPPENHEIMER: First of all, let’s understand what an ice sheet is and how it forms. Think about a pancake on a griddle, the pancake slowly spreads out. And the reason it does is the weight of the liquid when you pour it down, and once that spot basically pushes the pancake, so the circle of pancake expands, well, an ice sheet forms when instead of pancake batter, snow falls on the middle of a very cold continent. And as that mountain of snow piles up and transitions to ice, the weight is increasing. And that weight, just under the force of gravity, pulls the whole thing down, and the ice spreads out and eventually covers the continent. That’s what happens in Greenland. And that’s what happens in Antarctica. And then that addition of ice due to snowfall is balanced out, because as the pancake or mountain of snow and ice spreads and gets toward the ocean. Well, the ocean is warmer than the land area in the Arctic. And number two, as that mountain of pancake or ice collapses and spreads, it’s getting lower in altitude. So if you go toward the edges where the ocean is, you’re at sea level eventually, and the atmosphere is colder up high and warmer down near sea level. So those two effects mean that the ice around the edge is going to start to melt a little bit. If you look at the Greenland ice sheet, the primary contribution to sea level rise is the runoff of melting water. Antarctica is a little more complicated. The ice doesn’t just melt there, it doesn’t melt much at all. In fact, what it does is it slides. Just think of that pancake again, the stuff is oozing towards the edge of the pan. Same thing with the ice, it oozes or flows. And when it gets to the water to the ocean edge, pieces break off — those are icebergs. So there are two contributions to sea level rise from these ice sheets, direct melting and their warmer parts, and flow and formation of icebergs when the flowing ice gets to the ocean’s edge.

CURWOOD: Michael, give me some numbers, what’s going on with the nexus of sea level rise and the loss of ice?

OPPENHEIMER: Well, let’s look at it historically, what happened during the 20th century, for instance. Sea level rose about six inches. And that was largely absent any significant contribution except for the last 15 years maybe of that century from the ice sheets. And it rose six inches, largely due to thermal expansion and the melting of mountain glaciers. As I said, the rate is now accelerated, it’s going now at sea level rise the equivalent of 12 inches per century, but it’s not going to just stay at that level, it’s already accelerating. And it’s going to get faster and faster. By the end of this century, depending on which projections you look at, the rate of sea level rise could wind up being about five times what it was, about five times that six inches in the 20th century. And we’re having trouble dealing with the six inches that we had trouble last century. In this century, five times as fast sea level rises can be awfully difficult to deal with. At this point, we’re not ready for it. We’re not primed to deal with it. We haven’t deployed the adaptive measures that we really need to at the scope and rate that we need to. So this is a looming not just a difficulty, but in some cases a disaster.

CURWOOD: So talk to me about the challenges that coastal communities face now amid these rising sea levels.

OPPENHEIMER: Well, there are two major challenges. One is sea level is rising in some sense faster than people’s ability to grasp what’s going on and government’s ability to mobilize and act. And secondly, there’s a larger uncertainty about exactly what’s going to happen because of the uncertainty in the behavior of the ice sheets. But we know that the thermal expansion of seawater is happening, we know that mountain glaciers are happening, that part is not subject to a lot of uncertainty. And furthermore, the other big uncertainty in this problem is how much greenhouse gas we’re going to emit into the atmosphere in the next 20, 30, 40 years and therefore, how warm the planet will get and therefore how much ice melt and thermal expansion will get. And when you put all that together, what you see interestingly is the difference in the sea level rise projections between a lot of emissions and not too much emissions is not very much until you get out to about 2040/2050. So for the next approximately 30 years, you can say with fairly good confidence that we know what the sea level rise is going to be.

CURWOOD: So what is that number? How much sea level rise for parts of the United States by the year 2050?

OPPENHEIMER: Well, we’re talking about one or two feet, which may not sound huge, but on a typical East Coast beach, a foot of sea level rise takes away a hundred feet of beach horizontally going inland, unless you keep feeding the beach. And that’s just sort of symbolic of what’s going to happen. A lot of areas aren’t beachy. There are buildings in places like downtown Boston or downtown Manhattan, that are just a few feet above sea level, and you add high tide to it, and you add a storm to it, and all of a sudden, you got a lot of flooding, just like happened in Hurricane Sandy. or forget Hurricane Sandy, a big Nor’east storm. A Nor’easter in this neighborhood does the same thing at a slightly smaller scale. So we have a problem today, this isn’t a problem for the future. This is what we failed to protect against adequately today.

CURWOOD: If the ice continues to melt at this pace, what does this mean for the future of humanity?

OPPENHEIMER: Well, it means among other things, that we are inevitably going to lose a lot of cultural heritage, because a lot of human cultural heritage is built right along the coast. And that’s unfortunate, but it also means huge amounts of money lost. And it also means lives lost because people are caught unaware in big floods that happen now more and more regularly.

CURWOOD: So before you go, give me an assessment please of what policies you think are necessary to curb this damage to the ice sheets, to at least slow down this process? And what do you think the role of the United States is in this? And for that matter, what do you think of the various climate proposals that are around here in the US?

OPPENHEIMER: The bottom line is we’re not going to get anywhere. And we’re always going to be behind if we don’t implement very quickly a serious program to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas that are causing the problem in the first place. As much adaptation as you do, climate change will always have run into if you don’t control the greenhouse gas emissions. As much greenhouse gas emissions as you control, it won’t be enough to protect people, unless we also do a significant amount of adaptation. So we have to do both. We need to build cities and other settlements smartly, so they’re not so exposed to sea level rise. There should be funding for building sea walls, surge barriers, whatever coastal defenses are necessary, where they’re necessary, and there should be funding for facilitating people who make the choice to relocate away from the coast or away from forest fire areas or away from any area that’s threatened by climate change, and where there’s a limit to how much protection the governments can offer or that individuals can take upon themselves. So it all fits together that solving climate change isn’t like often some corner by itself. Solving the climate change problem is integral to setting our society right again.

CURWOOD: Michael Oppenheimer is a Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time with us today.

See Also These Links

Nature | “The Worst Is Yet to Come for the Greenland Ice Sheet”

The Guardian | “Melting Antarctic Ice Will Raise Sea Level by 2.5 Meters – Even if Paris Climate Goals Are Met, Study Finds”

A fishing vessel sails in the ice fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland September 12, 2017. REUTERS

From an Article by Cassandra Garrison, Reuters via Portside, August 16, 2020

Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.

Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting.

That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland’s ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters — enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades.

“Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues published the study Thursday in the Nature Communications Earth & Environment journal.

The Arctic has been warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world for the last 30 years, an observation referred to as Arctic amplification. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years.

The Arctic thaw has brought more water to the region, opening up routes for shipping traffic, as well as increased interest in extracting fossil fuels and other natural resources.

Greenland is strategically important for the U.S. military and its ballistic missile early warning system, as the shortest route from Europe to North America goes via the Arctic island.

Last year, President Donald Trump offered to buy Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. But Denmark, a U.S. ally, rebuffed the offer. Then last month, the U.S. reopened a consulate in the territory’s capital of Nuuk, and Denmark reportedly said last week it was appointing an intermediary between Nuuk and Copenhagen some 3,500 kilometers away.

Scientists, however, have long worried about Greenland’s fate, given the amount of water locked into the ice. The new study suggests the territory’s ice sheet will now gain mass only once every 100 years — a grim indicator of how difficult it is to re-grow glaciers once they hemorrhage ice.

In studying satellite images of the glaciers, the researchers noted that the glaciers had a 50% chance of regaining mass before 2000, with the odds declining since.

“We are still draining more ice now than what was gained through snow accumulation in ‘good’ years,” said lead author Michalea King, a glaciologist at Ohio State University.

The sobering findings should spur governments to prepare for sea-level rise, King said. “Things that happen in the polar regions don’t stay in the polar region,” she said.

Still, the world can still bring down emissions to slow climate change, scientists said. Even if Greenland can’t regain the icy bulk that covered its 2 million square kilometers, containing the global temperature rise can slow the rate of ice loss.

“When we think about climate action, we’re not talking about building back the Greenland ice sheet,” said Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center who was not involved in the study. “We’re talking about how quickly rapid sea-level rise comes to our communities, our infrastructure, our homes, our military bases.”

Two feet of rise this century is very significant

From an Article by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, February 12, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite research shows.

At the current rate, the world’s oceans on average will be at least 2 feet (61 centimeters) higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

Sea level rise is caused by warming of the ocean and melting from glaciers and ice sheets. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists’ computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the United Nations, which releases regular climate change reports.

“It’s a big deal” because the projected sea level rise is a conservative estimate and it is likely to be higher, said lead author Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado.

Outside scientists said even small changes in sea levels can lead to flooding and erosion.

“Any flooding concerns that coastal communities have for 2100 may occur over the next few decades,” Oregon State University coastal flooding expert Katy Serafin said in an email.

Of the 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) of sea level rise in the past quarter century, about 55 percent is from warmer water expanding, and the rest is from melting ice.

But the process is accelerating, and more than three-quarters of that acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.

Like weather and climate, there are two factors in sea level rise: year-to-year small rises and falls that are caused by natural events and larger long-term rising trends that are linked to man-made climate change. Nerem’s team removed the natural effects of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption that temporarily chilled Earth and the climate phenomena El Nino and La Nina, and found the accelerating trend.

Sea level rise, more than temperature, is a better gauge of climate change in action, said Anny Cazenave, director of Earth science at the International Space Science Institute in France, who edited the study. Cazenave is one of the pioneers of space-based sea level research.

Global sea levels were stable for about 3,000 years until the 20th century when they rose and then accelerated due to global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany, who wasn’t part of the study.

Two feet of sea level rise by the end of the century “would have big effects on places like Miami and New Orleans, but I don’t still view that as catastrophic” because those cities can survive — at great expense — that amount of rising seas under normal situations, Nerem said.

But when a storm hits like 2012′s Superstorm Sandy, sea level rise on top of storm surge can lead to record-setting damages, researchers said.

Some scientists at the American Geophysical Union meeting last year said Antarctica may be melting faster than predicted by Monday’s study.

Greenland has caused three times more sea level rise than Antarctica so far, but ice melt on the southern continent is responsible for more of the acceleration.

“Antarctica seems less stable than we thought a few years ago,” Rutgers climate scientist Robert Kopp said.