This is a bit terrifying but gorgeous at the very same time. Be sure to scroll through the whole thing, especially that page that zooms in and out from a skyward overhead view of Greenland, to the closeup on the porous ice at the surface.
Greenland is melting away
“Any cuts could directly affect the work of Dr. Smith and his team, who are supported by a three-year, $778,000 grant from NASA, which must cover everything, including researchers’ salaries, flights, food, computers, scientific instruments and camping, safety and extreme cold-weather gear. Every scientist, Dr. Smith said, is keenly aware that the research costs ‘a tremendous amount of taxpayer money.'”
$778,000 over three years is not a tremendous amount of money for something this important. Congressional representatives trying to take that money away make $522,000 over three years, and that’s not including extras for travel and other “expenses.” Science is a bargain.
When the Times isn’t talking about Apple, they do great work. Too bad their tech writers are such bozos.
Yeah, considering that’s like a bill from one of their golf outings, I’d say it’s quite the bargain.
except for where you mention the linked article is completely wrong, its great.
http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
http://beta.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/b/m/s/d/e/accumulatedsmb.png
if me and the people i worked with used philosophy instead of physics and numbers (like the linked article) – there would literally be satellites falling on your heads.
Maybe the article could have provided older pictures to pictures in the same place today, it would make the point more poignant!
That’s a huge bargain…
I have yet to do a thorough analysis of the data in the links you provide, yet they only seem to show seasonal variations and not necessarily over a few years – which is also a fairly short duration as well…
so your conclusion is that Greenland will not become a satellite of water vapor in the sky anytime soon?
also, this …
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/11/03/antarctic_ice_still_losing_mass.html
– which is about the Antarctic ice… but here is some stuff on Greenland, “… this isn’t including Greenland, which is losing ice at an even more staggering 280 billion tons per year, and has lost well over three trillion tons over that same time period.”