Watching a Train Wreck

Over the six years Alex Gardner monitored Canada's Arctic glaciers and ice caps, he says they lost almost as much water as there is in Lake Erie.

The ice loss has increased sharply "in direct response to warmer summer temperatures" since 2004 — so sharply that Gardner and his colleagues say the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise outside Greenland and Antarctica between 2007 and 2009.

He says that in 2009, the ice-loss rate was four times larger than estimated by NASA for the mid- to late-1990s.  ..

"It's like watching a slow train wreck," says Gardner, noting that millions of people around the world could be displaced in coming decades as ice melts and sea levels rise.

Gardner, ... says it might be possible to avoid the worst outcomes by coming up with a "more responsible" way of managing the economy.

"Canada still has one of the largest carbon footprints in the world, so I would say we are failing on that," he said.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Melting+Arctic+could+nearly+fill+Lake+Erie+Study/4649174/story.html

Watching a train wreck indeed......