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SUMMARY: On July 8, NASA satellite imagery showed about 40 percent of Greenland's top ice layer intact. By July 12, only four days later, 97 percent of the ice had melted. Margaret Warner asks NASA's Thomas Wagner for scientific explanation of the massive thaw.
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MARGARET WARNER: So, you're basically talking about the weather?
THOMAS WAGNER, NASA: Yes, and that is one way to thing about it. Climate is sort of long-term weather. But short term, you can get extreme variations. And we're seeing an extreme variation in Greenland.
MARGARET WARNER: So, you're saying you can't really attribute this to climate change?
THOMAS WAGNER: No.
And that's one of the things. We spent a long time trying to word the document that we put out describing it. And we said, look, there is evidence that this has happened before. Now, that doesn't mean -- we really don't know the explanation for this one. If it happens again, if it starts to happen repeatedly, then we have an indication that there might be a real shift going on in the Arctic system there.
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| NASA Images |
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