Climate speed record set: 7500 Greenland lakes made toxic by one event. Way to go!
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A friend to all of us, sent this article to alert me to an unanticipated disaster in West Greenland. Although there is much about environmental collapse that can be broadly predicted with more or less accuracy surprises still abound. Prior experience, on-site scientific measurements and computer modeling from the wealth of data flowing out of the region can act to forewarn us — but as we are weaving in and out of uncharted territory, events for which we are not prepared can ‘drop from the sky’.
A record amount of precipitation in the fall of 2022, most likely delivered by ‘atmospheric rivers’, set off a chain of events in West Greenland with dire consequences.
These airborne rivers of moisture dumped enormous amounts of rain instead of snow.
Coupled with a record breaking heatwave, the deluge flipped pristine blue, fresh water lakes, turning them fetid, cloudy and brown.
“Additionally, the heat prompted the surrounding permafrost to thaw, releasing an abundance of carbon, iron, magnesium, and other elements. Combined, the heavy rainfall washed these substances into the lakes, significantly altering their chemistry.
In turn, the flood of organic material and nutrients turbocharged the growth of bacteria in the lakes, turning the waters brown and giving them a nasty taste and smell. This is far from ideal since the lakes provide residents with fresh drinking water.” IFLScience
Atmospheric Rivers Are Causing Ecosystem Chaos In West Greenland's Lakes | IFLScience
From the article:
“As the lakes became darker and cloudier, the lack of light caused a sharp decline in the biodiversity of plankton and upset the region’s climate cycle.
The unusual conditions decreased the number of phytoplankton that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, yet increased the amount of plankton that release carbon. As a result, there has been a 350 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions – a climate-warming greenhouse gas – from the lakes.”
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https://pixabay.com/photos/banyan-tree-tree-nature-tropical-8576003/
In the area in south Florida where I live, many of the hedges are ficus, as I suspect is the case all over the state. They grow fast, are hearty and provide thick foliage for privacy.
We also used to have magnificent, seemingly ancient gigantic banyan ficus trees (benghalensis ficus), most of which were knocked down about a decade ago due to the increased voracity of our hurricanes.
At around this time another force nearly as powerful, arose to threaten them. More or less simultaneously, we were ‘gifted’ with a blight of minuscule flies, so small that even with my acute nearsighted vision, I could barely see them. They were left on our shores via the largesse of poorly inspected container ships, awarding a ‘premium’ on top of the goods demanded by our binge-gorging consumption.
These Lilliputians attacked the ficus and in the process individually injected them with near molecular level amounts of toxin — but once again, sheer numbers carried the day.
My friend had an enormous 40 foot, half-century old ficus in his front yard (much like the one in the photo ) and it suffered greatly from this disproportionately scaled, indiscernible amount of poison. Had he not had it sprayed, it most likely would have succumb.
If you liken the unified glaciers in Greenland to this tree, we are the flies attacking this incomprehensibly massive ice sheet, averaging 1.4 miles thick, with our seemingly ‘innocuous’ individual buying ‘habits’.
Every time we fill gas tanks to expedite futile efforts to fill our empty desires with the stuff of avalanching consumer dreams… we feed the beasts - farting the gases - melting the glaciers.
In the face of this proof-positive of cause & effect, most continue to override logic, preferring to cling to their false belief in the impotence of individual climate actions.
This handy deceit provides an escape hatch to avoid fulfilling their fair-share responsibility of becoming meaningfully proactive. In this emergency, recycling and token gestures of conserving, are the equivalent of spitting on a maelstrom of fire. Worse yet, waiting for someone else to solve the problem has become the birther of monstrous nightmares — the likes of which no one has the capacity to dream without self immolating in the process.
Ironically, on a site that rests on the foundation of ‘one vote’ as a pillar of democracy, such bull shit excuses have become unconscionable and toss the lid on top the coffin you’re lowering your kids into — while every act of auto-reactive-purchasing serves to drive another nail in.
This denial based self-delusion, is perpetrated to deflect the threat action poses to our comfort zone. As consumer junkies, we are loath to forgo our addiction to obsessively compulsively ‘feathering’ our lives with the pre-waste of needless ‘trinkets’. The vast majority of what we have been so skillfully brainwashed into thinking we need, has been engineered to tempt us with novelty only long enough to accept delivery and then promptly lose interest. The endgame on this conveyor belt of gluttony are the waste heaps of mercurial dreams in the form mountains of discarded material goods.
These strip the planet of resources, converting them into toxins with which to fell the tree — of life.
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Those with grandolesque plans, have no idea what’s gunning for them. They fancy themselves omnipotent, but will soon find themselves snapped and scattered to the winds of climate change.
Gaia is the mother of us all, but we continue to shit in her mouth.
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At the same time I received the link that opens this diary, another friend who spots climate articles of interest from her msm feed, sent this:
Catastrophic tipping point in Greenland reached as crystal blue lakes turn brown, belch out carbon dioxide | Live Science
From that report on the same topic:
“The lakes normally absorb CO₂ in the summer, but by the following year they had flipped to become carbon dioxide producers. These types of widespread changes would normally take centuries. Researchers have observed the browning of lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S., but it typically takes multiple decades — much longer than the transformation of Greenland's lakes.” (my bold)
“Researchers estimated that 7,500 lakes turned brown and began emitting carbon after the fall. But the emissions weren't the only concern for scientists: these lakes also provide residents of Greenland with drinking water, which could be compromised by the changes.” (my bold)
LiveScience 1/24/25
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… and later the same day, cawfeemug provided a slew of articles and links to the devastation wrought in West Greenland by these “rivers in the sky”. (quote from Tom Hale’s IFLScience above)
An animation showing an Atmospheric River lashing the sides of Greenland in July 2012.
Image credit: NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory
“West Greenland's lakes have undergone an alarming change. Within just a couple of years, thousands of its great blue lakes have turned brown and become dominated by a stinking gunk that pumps out carbon emissions. According to a new study, atmospheric rivers might be to blame.”
“When the team (Scientists at the University of Maine*) studied some of the impacted lakes in July 2023, they found that the waters had undergone a radical change in terms of their physical, chemical, and biological properties.” *(my edit)
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"The increased dissolved organic material can interact with drinking water treatment processes to produce chlorination byproducts called trihalomethanes, which may be carcinogenic," Jasmine Saros, lead study author and Associate Director of the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, said in a statement.”
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We’ve been doing this incrementally to the vast majority of the planet’s lakes and rivers, ever since the development of cities in ancient times. Starting with the age of industrial development, the process has sped up, but I am hard put to know of many examples in which the change was so fast and dramatic. The best comparisons I can come up with for unintentional terraforming through stupidity and negligence are Chernobyl and Fukushima, or even Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
When we’re in over our heads, denial takes the helm.
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insane flooding rain to Greenland - rapids in an atmospheric river
It’s not just flooding in Vermont, Japan, Mexico, new study documents deluge rains to Greenland Article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/met.2134 We add a new term to the atmospheric river vocabulary, “rapids” Copernicus, Arctic, Regional, Reanalysis video: ”What is the Copernicus Arctic Regional Reanalysis? https://youtu.be/D8gfrJ853UY 2021 ...
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It would seem that this is not the first time these ‘airborne rivers’ have created remarkable and noteworthy events.
In August of 2021, rainfall was observed falling on the Greenland ice sheet, having never been seen to do so in recorded history.
Jason Box narrates this highly professional and informative 11 minute film.
As a professor of glaciology, he has been hands on involved in monitoring weather on the Greenland ice sheet since at least the 1990s.
I highly recommend this beautifully made film,
sent to me by cawfeemug 1/25/25
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We are children prodding pythons.
