“We started in the early 1990s to see if there was anything happening, and I think we’ve been going thru discoveries and discoveries, – each time, going, – wow.”
Glaciologist Eric Rignot interviewed by John Cook at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, December 2014. This is part of a continuing series aimed at bringing those interviews to a wider audience.
“It’s happening very fast – decades not centuries” sobering thoughts, and unfortunately Norway set to exploit (low oil prices or not):
“When the ice has moved, and satellites show it has moved further north, then we have to take care of nature in this area. What we are doing will ensure that,”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-norway-oil-arctic-idUSKBN0KT0HW20150120
“Now, while attending the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway, I’ve learned a few things that make me highly skeptical that those Arctic oil and gas reserves will be left unburned, and that global warming will be held to under 2 degrees C.”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2015/01/20/dangerous-climate-change/#.VL48wyzfXA4
It is so difficult for scientists to talk about the bad news. At the end there, when he spoke of changes occurring over decades and not centuries, he gave a nervous smile after being completely serious when talking before.