Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled in the past decade

I chose the statement “The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled in the past decade”. I have confirmed that this is true, the speed of the ice flow has increased from 1996 to 2005. The amount of ice lost because of glacier decay has increased from 63 cubic kilometers to 162 cubic kilometers. Combined with other things such as snowfall and ice melting, the total change from 1996 to 2005 was 96 cubic kilometers of ice loss to 220 cubic kilometers of ice loss. This is a change of 124 cubic kilometer of ice loss, or 124 000 000 000 000 litres of water. The amount of ice melt has again almost doubled from 2005 to 2010.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Various-estimates-of-Greenland-ice-loss.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2006021621775

There are many new technologies that can help, and maybe completely stop global warming. Mainly there is solar power, wind power and hydro power. There are also other things like huge wind turbines, like the one on Grouse Mountain, and CO2 scrubbers and solar powered planes. My favourite is the solar power that can create energy at night. It does this by being able to absorb more light and light that is not in the visible spectrum, such as infrared. This allows the solar panel to work at night, since the Earth emits IR at night. Some low tech things people could do are things like covering your water heater in insulation, use smaller more efficient vehicles or filter our emissions.
http://www.google.ca/#q=top+10+green+technologies+2010&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=641&prmd=ivns&ei=hoVuTc4VhtKwA57zsNoL&start=10&sa=N&fp=e067f16aedc4d01b
http://news.softpedia.com/news/A-Solar-Panel-that-Works-at-Night-25159.shtml

Some things that society could do to combat climate change are mostly simple things. People could do things like bike to work or school, turn off lights and recycle. Societal values affect choices because people believe they have rights and they believe they should be allowed to do what they want. One big thing the US government has to do is make a restriction on car efficiency so that their companies create more efficient vehicle.

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