Ice Caps

Eric Umansky is scared

Eric Umansky: The Ice Caps: This is scary, scary stuff:

Following two recent studies on changes to Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, NASA is touting a survey that it says confirms “climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth’s largest storehouses of ice and snow.”

In a press release for the survey, NASA directly tied the changes to warming and described the survey as “the most comprehensive” ever in both regions.That stand can in part be explained by lead author Jay Zwally’s warning....

“We’re seeing the early signs of changes in the ice sheets,” he added. “The climate warming from greenhouse gases has really just started.”

As much as I talk about Iraq and national security, those things are small beans compared with the administration's failure to acknowledge let alone confront global warming. (Not that the White House is alone in fiddle-faddling.) GW, after all, is going to affect the world far more than Iraq--and I suspect it will affect the world far quicker than most of us think. Why? Feedback loops, such as, say, the icesheets melting.