Climate change science hard to ignore

…Beyond global warming from atmospheric CO2, climate scientists are very concerned about climate tipping points. These tipping points occur when the Earth warms enough to jump start natural processes that cause increasing, runaway warming.


Glaciers, especially in Greenland and Antarctica, represent a stabilizing influence on the climate, much like ice cubes keep a drink cold. Glaciers typically move very slowly towards the sea, their total size remaining approximately constant because as they drop huge ice burgs into the sea, snow fills in gradually becoming hard packed ice. But scientists have recently recorded glaciers accelerating their move to the sea. Researchers Dr. Pannir Kanagaratnam, at the University of Kansas Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, and Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA