The Fate of Greenland: Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change
The Fate of Greenland: Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change by Philip Conkling, Richard Alley, Wallace Broecker, and George Denton. Photographs by Gary Comer. MIT Press. 2011. 216 pages. Illustrated. $29.95.
As Greenland’s climate goes, so may go the climate of the rest of the world, according to conservationist Philip Conkling, glaciologist Richard Alley, oceanographer Wallace Broecker, and geologist George Denton. In a firsthand account richly illustrated with dozens of photographs of Greenland’s landscapes and glaciers, they explain how researchers’ findings about the land mass’s geological past and present raise grave concerns about its future—and ours.
Researchers agree that Greenland experienced several major climate shifts in its past, and each one precipitated weather changes and sea-level rise across the globe. Greenland seems to be on the verge of yet another major shift due to warming trends that melt gradually larger and larger quantities of its ice sheet. The world cannot afford not to pay attention.
Uncertainty lingers over exactly how much warming will take place. Some amount is inevitable, however, and it will surely be higher if humans persist with business as usual, the authors warn. As small amounts of ice continue to disappear from the ice sheet’s edges, the center will lower and warm up. Eventually, warming will imperil all of the remaining ice. The full process would take place over the next few centuries, but coastal cities everywhere could be in jeopardy from flash floods within the next few decades. Meanwhile, the changing climate would inflict desertification and storm patterns that wreck economies and food supplies on every continent.
The Fate of Greenland beautifully presents the challenges of forecasting climate change and the care that researchers must put into getting it right. It also compellingly explains the serious harms that humanity stands to suffer if it mistakes forecasters’ uncertainty for an excuse to take no action on greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists and non-scientists from all walks of life will find this an eloquent and timely read.
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