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.
aspect behavior build changing dump evolve glaciers ice melt quickly react sea sheet takes time understanding
The behavior of the glaciers that dump ice into the sea is the most important aspect of understanding how an ice sheet will evolve in a changing climate. It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet, but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes.
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.
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.
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.
additional expect further greenland increase level losses northwest sea warming
In the future, as warming around Greenland progresses further north, we expect additional losses from northwest Greenland glaciers, which will then increase Greenland's contribution to sea level rise.