New environmental research continues to alarm as three studies published within the past week amply demonstrate.
Danish scientists report a significant increase in winter rain over Greenland.
The rain-induced melt refreezes forming a dark crusty layer that acts
as a greater heat absorber than white fresh snow. After decades of more
frequent winter rain, the snow-pack contains many such layers speeding
up its melting under the summer sun.
Rain has also increased during the rest of the year and the average air temperature in the last three decades is up 1.8 C in summer and 3 C in winter. The warm moisture-laden winds from the south are not new but rising ocean temperatures mean their moisture content is greater. More clouds lingering longer form a blanket over the warm air bringing them, increasing the melt even after the rain abates.
It used to be that most of the loss of ice came in the dramatic form of large icebergs shearing off with thunderous cracks, and floating away on the sea. But satellite monitoring in recent years has shown that 70 percent of the loss is due to ice melt.
The
270 billion tons lost between 1992 and 2011 from Greenland's 1.7
million square kilometers of ice has raised sea levels by 7.5 mm. The
rest could raise it another 7 meters, obliterating many island nations
and submerging lower Manhattan and coastal areas. The eventual
consequences are indeed alarming.
Also this week the Environmental Integrity Project, assisted by Earthjustice, concluded a study of ash pollution from coal-fired electricity-generating plants across most US states. Using industry data recently made available through news regulations, they analyzed data from 4600 groundwater-monitoring wells around the ash dumps of approximately three-quarters of US coal-fired stations. Their findings are disquieting.
The
coal-ash waste ponds are poorly and cheaply designed with less than 5
percent having waterproof liners, and most built to levels near or lower
than the groundwater tables. It is not a surprise then to find 60
percent of the plants polluting the groundwater with dangerous levels of
lithium (associated with neurological damage) and 52 percent with
unsafe levels of arsenic, which can cause cancer and impair the brains
of developing children. The worst ones have lithium at 150 to 200 times
safe levels, cobalt, molybdenum, cadmium and selenium (lethal to fish)
also at similar or higher levels.
The third study
this week by Bangor University in Wales and Friends of the Earth has
found microplastics pollution (pieces per liter) in all the ten sites
studied: from pristine Loch Lomond (2.4) and Wordsworth's beloved
Ullswater (29.5) in the Lake District to the River Thames (84.1) and the
awful River Tame (>1000) in Greater Manchester.
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