S: Is for Sea Levels Rising

There is a new program on by CNN's reporter Anderson Cooper, Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin & Dr. Sanjay Gupta called "Planet in Peril". Though I found it elementary if you have been following the progression of the earths peril, there are some who's eyes will be opened. Planet in Peril explores the Earth's environmental issues in a worldwide investigation. It starts with the ice melting from Greenland and other Arctic areas causing sea levels to rise. It makes the possibility of it flooding low-lying cities, such as Shanghai, China, and New York City, displacing millions of people in the process as highly probable. A recent report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, estimate the sea level rise by 2100 could be as much as 1½ feet. "That sea level rise is only based on melt from ice sheets, and does not include a new fast flow of ice we have detected in Greenland that is generating additional icebergs," said Dr. Konrad Steffen, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder. Steffen estimates sea levels could rise three feet over the next century, a stark prediction that could wreak havoc around the world if it comes to pass. Greenland holds enough ice to cause sea levels to rise 23 feet if the entire ice sheet melted, a development few scientists expect to happen anytime soon. But global sea levels have been rising at the rate of three millimeters per year since 1993. For each of the past 17 years, Steffen has spent one month at a remote research site called Swiss Camp, located 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Greenland. He monitors the changing ice sheet through a network of global positioning systems and weather stations, which have recorded a dramatic rise in temperatures since the mid-1990s."When we came here in 1990, the first two, three years were actually colder than normal. Then in it started to warm steadily and since then, we've had a temperature increase during the winter months of 4.5 degrees centigrade, 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very large, the largest temperature increase on earth". The majority of scientists say greenhouse gases are the chief cause of global warming. Dr. Jay Zwally, a climate scientist with NASA, said he thinks "The current warming trend in Greenland is very extensive and is not likely to be explained by natural variability alone," Last year, satellite data collected by NASA scientists revealed Greenland is losing 100 billion tons of ice each year, more than it is gaining from snowfall in the interior. Steffen and others have also detected a new, faster movement of the ice sheet, causing the glaciers to dump more ice into the ocean, where it melts and contributes to sea-level rise. Steffen hopes his prediction of a three-foot rise in global sea level by 2100 won't become a reality. It is a F.A.C.T. that we need to be aware of our planets peril and make a difference. They say we can't that it might be too late, but the best part of the program was the hope that was found in the furthest of regions where most of the country would consider primitive. They had hope and hope can change the world and that is a F.A.C.T.