Melting ice sheet: Is it too late? 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Georgina.

With no end in sight to the coronavirus

pandemic, many people can't wait for

the year 2020 to end.

But with the coronavirus dominating

the newspaper headlines, attention

has moved away from an equally

serious global issue which has

quietly been getting worse -

climate change.

August 2020 saw the hottest

temperature recorded anywhere

in modern times - 54.4 degrees

Celsius in California's Death Valley.

The same month also saw record

amounts of ice melting into the

oceans around Greenland and the

Arctic - huge icebergs breaking

away from the edge of the ice

sheet - a thick layer of ice which

has covered a large area

for a long time.

Greenland's ice sheet is three

times the size of Texas and almost

2 kilometres thick. Locked inside

is enough water to raise sea levels

by 6 metres.

But global heating and melting

polar ice has many scientists

asking whether it's now too late

to stop. Have we have reached the

point of no return? In this programme,

we'll looking at the effects of climate

change on the Arctic and asking

if it s too late to change.

And learning some of the related

vocabulary too. Now, Georgina,

you mentioned record levels of

ice melt in the North Pole but

the scale is hard to take in. The

amounts are so big they're

measured in gigatonnes - that's

a billion metric tonnes.

Imagine a giant ice cube

1 kilometre by 1 kilometre

by 1 kilometre.

So my quiz question is this:

how many gigatonnes of ice

are now melting into the ocean

every year? Is it: a) 450 gigatonnes?,

b) 500 gigatonnes?, or

c) 550 gigatonnes?

I'll take a guess at b)

500 gigatonnes.

OK, Georgina, we'll find out

later. Now, glaciologist Michalea

King has been monitoring the

melting of Arctic ice by satellite.

Here she is answering a question

from BBC World Service programme,

Science in Action, on whether the

destruction of the ice sheet is

now unavoidable:

If we were to say ... define a

tipping point as a shift from

one stable dynamic state to

another, this certainly meets

that criteria, because we're

seeing now that the ice sheet

was more or less in balance prior

to 2000 where the amount of ice

being drained from the glaciers

was approximately equal to

what we are gaining on the

surface via snow every year.

Ice is made from snow falling on

Greenland's glaciers - large,

slow-moving masses of ice.

At the same time though, ice is

also lost through melting.

These two processes of

making and melting ice kept

the ice level in balance - having

different parts or elements

arranged in the correct

proportions. Essentially the

melting ice was replaced

by newly frozen ice.

But now, the glaciers are

shrinking faster than new ice

is being accumulated and the

situation may have reached

a tipping point - the time at

which a change or an effect

cannot be stopped.

So, does this mean that global

heating and ice melting are now

running automatically, separate

from the amount of greenhouse

gases humans are pumping into

the atmosphere? And does that

mean should just give up on

the planet?

In fact, the situation is far from

simple, as Michalea King explains

here to BBC World Service programme,

Science in Action:

We can definitely control the rate of

mass loss, so it's definitely not a

'throw your hands up' and jus

not do anything about it - give up

on the ice sheet kind of situation -

that's certainly not the message

I want to send... but it does seem

likely that we will continue to lose

mass... but of course, a slow rate

of mass loss is highly preferred

to large annual losses every year.

Michalea thinks that changes in

human activity can still slow the

rate - or speed at which something

happens, in this case the speed of

Greenland's ice sheet melting.

She's convinced it's not too late

for collective action to save the

planet, so it's not yet time to

'throw your hands up' - an idiom

meaning to show frustration and

despair when a situation becomes

so bad that you give up or submit.

It's a positive message but one

which calls for everyone to do

what they can before it really

is too late.

Because the rate of ice melt is

still increasing, right, Neil?

Yes, that s right - in fact, that

was my quiz question, Georgina...

do you remember?

Yes, you asked me how many

gigatonnes of Greenland's ice sheet

are now melting every year. I said

b) 500 gigatonnes.

And you were correct! In fact, some

of these giant ice cubes are like

small towns, almost a kilometre tall!

So there's still work to be done.

In this programme, we've been

looking at the rate - or speed -

of ice melt in Greenland's ice

sheet - the thick layer of ice

covering a large area of the Arctic.

Previously, the melting ice was

replaced by newly formed ice on

glaciers - large masses of

slow-moving ice. This kept the

Arctic in balance having

different elements arranged

in proportion.

But the effects of global

heating have brought us

close to a point of no return,

called a tipping point - the

time at which a change or an

effect cannot be stopped.

The situation is serious but

there's still time to take action

and not simply throw your

hands up - show frustration and

despair when you want to give up.

That's all for this programme, but if

you want to find out more about

climate change and Greenland's ice

sheets, search BBC's Science in

Action website.

And for more trending topics

and useful vocabulary, remember

to join us again soon at 6 Minute

English. Bye for now!

Goodbye!