4 ms·

Sure, but it seems unlikely to be reversible on human timescales, which are the ones that matter to me.

• exporectomy 6y ago
  It won't melt on human timescales either. Total mass of Greenland ice = 4e15 tonnes. Upper end of predicted melt rate this century = 4e13 tonnes/century. So it could lose up to 1% of its mass this century or at the same rate, take 10,000 years to completely melt.
  • eloff 6y ago
    Those estimates can always be revised as we learn more, and melting ice sheets are not a linear process - it accelerates both as it melts and as the climate continues to warm. You're right that it will take a long time, but wrong that we needn't worry. Even just a couple feet of sea level rise will wreak havoc in parts of the world.
    • exporectomy 6y ago
      We're talking about the irreversibility of the melting here, not the fact that it's melting which everyone already knows and was even happening before AGW started.
      • eloff 6y ago
        No, we were taking about the pace of melting and the impact of that. Don't move the goal posts.