Eric Rignot
Eric Rignot
Eric Rignot is Professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, and principal scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
although clearly enormous result time understand warming
We are witnessing enormous changes, and it will take some time before we understand how it happened, although it is clearly a result of warming around the glaciers.
along coasts effect ice level measurable melting result sea storms
I don't think it will effect Californians immediately, It will effect storms along the coasts and we will see a measurable effect at sea level as a result of melting ice caps.
clearly result warming
This is clearly a result of warming around the periphery of Greenland.
active bit discharge greenland loss mass push resulting retreating start
The mass loss resulting from this glacier acceleration in Greenland is very significant. These are very active glaciers. They all end up in the ocean, discharge icebergs and are very dynamic. One you push them a little bit out of equilibrium, they start retreating very fast.
concerns maybe models
I think this will heighten concerns that maybe the sea-level models are a little too conservative.
generation greenland increase means percent producing sea
What it means right now is that Greenland is producing 20 percent of the sea rise. We think that contribution will increase from generation to generation.
determine directly effected man warming whether
Whether the warming is effected by man is not something that we can directly determine with this study.
dominant found ice response
What we found is this is probably the dominant response of the ice sheets.
contribute faster greenland level rise sea
Greenland is probably going to contribute more and faster to sea level rise than predicted.
magnitude surprised
What surprised us was the magnitude of the changes.
climate greenland half northern reacting southern waiting
The southern half of Greenland is reacting to what we think is climate warming. The northern half is waiting but I don't think it's going to take long.
few flow grow ice increased might overall process rates sheets winning
A few years back, we thought ice sheets might grow because of increased precipitation. Now we see that rates of glacier flow are changing. We think the process that is winning overall is the rate of glacier flow.
concern effects polar raising
This is raising concern on the effects of the polar caps.
looked
We did not look at one or two glaciers. We looked at all of them.