At the beginning of the 21st century, the whole world realized that global warming is not a joke, not an invention of the press and sensation hunters. Global warming is a harsh reality that humanity is no longer able to change. Scientists' most terrible predictions about the melting of the polar caps - the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica - are coming true.
In July 2006, an expedition headed to the largest island on the planet was shocked by what he saw. Instead of eternal ice and snow, green lawns opened before the eyes of the researchers. Where permafrost and cold reigned, now it is quite possible to arrange golf courses. Huge chunks of ice shelves - tons of fresh water, break away from Greenland and are carried away by the current into the world's oceans. And every year the catastrophically rapid melting of glaciers is taking place more and more intensively.
November 2007. The UN General Assembly submits for consideration the issue of global climate change and the human influence on this process. Greenland's ice crust is shrinking right before our eyes. Environmentalists are sounding the alarm. If the crust melts completely, the sea level will rise by seven meters. Some coastal cities will hide under water, others will turn into rotting swamps.
2008: With the accelerating melting of the polar caps, the crumbling gigantic chunks of Greenland and Antarctica ice, the small island states in the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru, are on the verge of extinction. The government of these microscopic countries, with a total population of just over 130,000, is beginning to gradually evacuate the population from flooded areas. The unique coral islands will face the fate of Plato's Atlantis.
The summer of 2009 in Greenland is more and more striking in the number of temperature records. Slowly but surely the permafrost is receding, the glaciers, whose history goes back thousands of years, are inexorably melting.
In August 2010, an unprecedented event took place, the Arctic broke a kind of record of the 60s. The Peterman Glacier, one of the largest in Greenland, has decreased by 260 km². The crack, which had formed a few years earlier, widened and, eventually, a giant iceberg floated out into the open ocean. A catastrophe on a global scale - this is how the media called this event.
In July 2012, NASA astronauts transmitted truly terrifying photographs to Earth. What until recently was the plot of science fiction films has become a reality today. Almost all of Greenland has lost its ice crust. Scientists estimate that 97% of Greenland ice has melted. Some glaciers remain intact, but this is already a drop in the sea.
Why is such a rapid change in the outlines of the north and south poles dangerous? Icebergs - glacial debris melt in warmer waters, fresh water mixes with salty sea water, the temperature and density of water in certain regions of the oceans change. Warm current - the Gulf Stream will cease to exist in the near future. As a result, the world climate will finally change and the interglacial will begin.
