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Greenland turning rainbow-colored seems funny, but the truth behind it is no joke.

Greenland is supposed to look like this, right?

[rebelmouse-image 19529223 dam="1" original_size="750x491" caption="Photo from David Mark/Pixabay." expand=1]Photo from David Mark/Pixabay.

So why are parts of it starting to look like this?

Colored ice down in Antarctica. Photo from Serge Ouachée/Wikimedia Commons.

That's no snow cone.

It's ice down in Antartica, and Greenland's stating to look that way too. The normally pale ice that covers 80% of the islands' surface has been turning some weird colors recently — green, yes, but also brown, and pink, and red.

What the heck is going on here? The answer: teeny, tiny, microscopic algae.

Out on the ice might seem like a weird place for anything to grow, but for cold-adapted algae, it's home. They can come in a wide range of colors. There are even pink species that create so-called "watermelon snow."

[rebelmouse-image 19529225 dam="1" original_size="750x413" caption="Watermelon snow near Mount Rainier. Photo from brewbooks/Flickr." expand=1]Watermelon snow near Mount Rainier. Photo from brewbooks/Flickr.

This is more important than you might think, especially if you live on the coast.

Dark colors absorb more sunlight, which makes those spots out on the ice warmer. This is known as the albedo effect and could make the ice sheet melt faster, which is in turn connected to sea level rise. Researchers say hundreds of cities and towns in the United States could flood thanks to rising sea levels.

These colorful changes are pretty incredible, but they're also evidence the Earth is changing.

There are still things we can do to help head off the worst effects of climate change, but this is a serious problem, and we need to take it seriously. If we don't, Greenland might really start living up to it's name.

Want to know what the North Pole is really like? We asked an Arctic researcher.

Photo by Vince Gx on Unsplash

A sunny day at the Saarland Glacier near the North Pole.

When Richard Krishfield began his career fixing office equipment, he had no idea it would take him to the ends of the Earth.

Then, in 1986, Krishfield, who had spent years working on computers and electronics for businesses, was asked down to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts to work on one of their instruments — a conductivity, temperature, and depth (or CTD) device that collects data from its seat on the ocean floor.

It wasn't the work Krishfield was used to, but it offered an intriguing promise of adventure.

"I thought well, jeez, it might be kind of fun to work on ships and travel the world for a few years," Krishfield says over the phone. 35 years later, he's still doing it.

For over 85 years, the WHOI has been at the forefront of oceanographic study and innovation. Their scientists, engineers, and innovators routinely travel around the globe — from oil spill sites to exotic coastal shores to underwater volcanoes — collecting valuable data and learning how our world works.

Krishfield's work with the WHOI has brought him to some of the world's most extreme places, including the North Pole.

Unlike the iconic images of a massive, globe-spanning, elf-employing, gift-making, reindeer-housing operation run by a jolly man in a red suit, the real North Pole is home to navigators and researchers who brave some of the coldest weather on the planet in the name of science.

Living and working at the North Pole is an intense experience that takes a physical toll on those who venture out there.

Every year, Krishfield and his team spend months at a time camping out in the Arctic, setting up advanced observation instruments that send real-time data back to the WHOI. "Basically they’re sending back what you might consider the weather of the ocean," says Krishfield. And setting them up is no easy task.

"You’re living in a tent on the ice," says Krishfield. "And you don't have things like forklifts, so you have to muscle heavy equipment on and off small airplanes." Those airplanes land on makeshift runways that are cleared out by workers, too. In order for the ice to be thick enough to land a plane on, most of the work has to happen when it's as cold as possible.

"You have to get acclimated to the minus-20 or minus-30 degree temperatures and dress appropriately and know what to do," Krishfield says.

Over his 35-year career, Krishfield has seen firsthand just how much the Arctic is changing.

"Obviously the ice is melting," he says. "And in the 30 years I’ve been going up there, it's very clear how much."

One of the instruments Krishfield has helped set up is a buoy that sits on ice floes and dangles sensors into the water below to measure temperature, salinity, and current velocity of the ocean. When he first started installing them, he and his team would look for ice floes that were up to 4 meters thick.

"Then after a couple years we were looking for 2- to 3-meter floes," says Krishfield. "Then we were looking for 1-and-ahalf to 1-meter floes, and then this last summer, we were out there, and there was hardly any thick ice at all."

Greenland, research, global warming, Arctic, human footprint

Photo taken from a plane over the Jacobshavn Glacier Front in Ilulissat, Greenland

Image via U.S. Department of State/Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, Krishfield and the scientific community have been reporting shrinking ice in the Arctic for a long time. Studies confirmed long ago that the Arctic is warming, that the ice is melting, and just how catastrophic the result of that could be for the Earth's climate and ecosystems.

If the Arctic becomes a seasonal ice cap (where ice melts during the summer and refreezes during the winter), it could throw the planet's weather systems into utter chaos. Scientists estimate that could be the case by 2050.

"Probably sooner than that," says Krishfield.

You don't need to look at satellite data to see how much the Arctic has changed, Krishfield says.

"I look back and think of all the trips we used to do back in the summertime ... it was really beautiful out there," he recalls. "It’d be bright and sunny, and it was just beautiful."

"Now that the ice has melted away quite a bit, what you end up having is very grey, dull, dreary, and sort of foggy days out there. So the whole climate of it has changed."

It's hard to imagine that human beings could have any effect on the North Pole — as far away from it as we are — but we can and we do.

Arctic sea ice loss has been directly linked to carbon emissions, and saving the Arctic is a matter of cutting down those emissions quickly and dramatically. The North Pole is so extreme and so far away that we hardly ever think about it — let alone wrestle with the true global impact of what would happen if we let it melt. Odds are, the North Pole only comes up in conversation around Christmas — and not exactly in a "lets save the Arctic ice cap" context.

If you find hope in one thing though, consider the fact that human beings really can have an impact on the Arctic, for worse — or for better. Our actions have brought the Arctic Ocean to the brink, but it's the actions we take next, along with the hard work of scientists and researchers like Krishfield, that save it.

Heroes

18 amazing photos of Greenland and how it's about to change.

This is probably the picture that comes to mind when someone starts to talk about Greenland.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Stark, pale blue glaciers. High, rocky mountains.

Greenland is a poster child of climate change.

A scientist studying layers of ice in a glacier. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

It sometimes seems like the only images we see are giant fields of ice — and maybe, if you're lucky, a scientist in snow gear plunging an indescribable instrument into a snow drift, like some sort of future explorer on a distant planet.

It's easy to talk about Greenland as if it were some alien world.

But Greenland isn't just glaciers and snow.

An aerial view of Ilulissat, Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

While it's true that about 80% of the country is covered by glaciers, many small towns and cities dot the coastlines.

More than 55,000 people call Greenland home.

Loretta Henriksen with rhubarb gathered from her garden. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

About 16,000 of them live in Nuuk, Greenland's largest city.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Nuuk is also Greenland's capital and home to the University of Greenland.

In 2013, photographer Joe Raedle went to Greenland, where he found children playing on playgrounds...

Playtime in Nuuk. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Families eating together in a cafe at a mall...

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

A young woman on a set swings...

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

And people relaxing with cups of coffee.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Out in the country, Raedle also snapped a shot of Greenlander Pilu Nielson playing with his dog near the family farm.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Nielson's family raises sheep and grows potatoes near the city of Qaqortoq.

As it turns out, Greenland can be, well, pretty green.

Trout caught in a stream near Qaqortoq. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

And climate change ... may actually be making the land greener?

Arnaq Egede walks along her family farm, the largest in Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

That's part of what Raedle went to Greenland to document: how the people are adapting to changes in their environment.

It probably doesn't come as a surprise that in recent years, Greenland has been getting a lot warmer.

Two men playing guitar in the summer sun, 2013. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

The trend was already apparent when Raedle visited in 2013, and it hasn't let up since. In, fact, in June 2016, Greenland's capital hit its highest ever recorded temperature.

How climate change is affecting Greenland is more complicated than the thermometer, though.

On the one hand, climate change has been hurting traditional hunting practices. On the other, warmer summers have extended farmers' growing season.

A supermarket in Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

While Greenland's famous glaciers have been shrinking at a record pace, that's also opened up new land to farming and mining.

A geologist looking for samples to better understand the glacial retreat. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Greenland also has rich mineral deposits, including uranium, which could bring jobs — or exploit local workers. Many people, including some in Greenland's government, are being cautious about jumping in.

But climate change's biggest effect on Greenland may be the ocean.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Almost 90% of Greenland's export economy is made up of fish and shellfish, especially cold-water shrimp. Climate change may bring new species, but it may also endanger these precious stocks.

In a perhaps bittersweet twist, Greenland is also starting to get a lot of climate change tourism.

Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.

Tourists want to see the glaciers before they're gone. In 2010, Greenland had an estimated 60,000 tourists, according to Smithsonian Magazine — that's more tourists than there are Greenlanders!

Climate change is going to change a lot in Greenland, but Greenlanders seem adaptable.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

"We're used to change," said Pilu Nielson (the farmer playing with his dog). "We learn to adapt to whatever comes."

It's easy to feel like climate change is something that'll only really matter in a hundred or a thousand years.

But these pictures show it's changing lives now, especially in Greenland.

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These 5 bafflingly weird old maps of the Arctic show why it's worth preserving.

The North Pole was once one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.

Robert Peary's 1908 expedition to the Arctic. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Ships trying to sail anywhere near it risked getting permanently frozen in its vast, icy prison.

Fridtjof Nansen's ship, stuck in ice. Photo from Fridtjof Nansen/Wikimedia Commons.

Going on an expedition meant being at sea for at least a few months (maybe even years) and battling horrible cold, wind, snow, and ice, not to mention starvation. Not everyone who set out made it home again; whole expeditions sometimes just ... disappeared.

The crossing was so intense that humans actually reached the South Pole first. It really says a lot when Antarctica is the easier of your two options.

The first verified expedition to the North Pole didn't happen until 1926.

Though U.S. Navy engineer Robert Peary claimed to have made it to the pole in 1909, the first verified, undisputed claim to that achievement didn't happen until Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen flew over it in an airship in 1926.

Roald Amundsen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Amundsen's team had also been the first to reach the South Pole, which I'm pretty sure means he owns the Earth now.

Before Mr. Roald "Fur Coat" Amundsen, however, mapmakers had been trying to guess what the Arctic looked like for centuries.

See the stone thing in the center and the four islands surrounding the North Pole in this map from 1595?

The red, green, and yellow blobs around the edges are Canada, Europe, and Asia, respectively. The blobs in the middle are ... Mordor? Image from Gerardus Mercator/Wikimedia Commons.

Those are there because mapmaker Gerardus Mercator seemed to think there might be some sort of lost world up there.

By the late 1600s, mapmakers had a better idea of what the pole looked like, but Greenland and Canada still seemed to cause some conundrums.

1680 map by Moses Pitt. Original image from Moses Pitt/Toronto Public Library/Wikimedia Commons.

Like, I'm pretty sure Greenland and Canada don't actually connect to each other.

Original image from Moses Pitt/Wikimedia Commons.

And this mapmaker in 1720 seems to have admitted ignorance, shrugged his shoulders, and just stopped drawing.

C. G. Zorgdrager's 1720 map of the North Pole. Original image from National Library of Norway/Wikimedia Commons.

Some maps, like this one from 1762, made some ... interesting guesses at what the North Pole looks like.

Jean Javier's 1762 map of North America. Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons

Interesting guesses like "Maybe future-Alaska isn't a thing."

Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons.

And "What if I put a big ol' sea here in the middle of what will one day be Seattle and British Columbia?"

I'm pretty sure I'd remember if Seattle were in the middle of a giant bay. Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons.

Even years later, in 1776, Alaska was still proving troublesome to mapmakers.

1776 map. Image from Zatta/Wikimedia Commons.

I mean REALLY.

?!?!?!!!!! Image from Zatta/Wikimedia Commons.

By the 1880s, at least, we knew more or less what was at the North Pole (nothing but water and ice).

Although this map still has a few blank places at the very top of Greenland and Canada.

Those Aleutian Islands look a little short, too. An 1882 map. Image from the New York Public Library.

Good job, 1880s.

Thanks to those explorers and technology, we now know that the Arctic looks like this:

Image from Uwe Dedering/Wikimedia Commons.

But — would those explorers of a century ago, the ones who spent months and years traversing its icy waters, even recognize the place if they saw it today?

In a recent interview, oceanographer Peter Wadhams told The Independent that the Arctic may be on track to be ice-free for the first time in 100,000 years.

Climate change has been consistently reducing the sea ice around the Arctic Ocean for decades, to the extent that the same passages and channels that once baffled and trapped early explorers are now so ice-free that they're being considered for use as shipping lanes.

In late 2015, the Russian icebreaker Vaygach completed a trip along the north coast of Siberia in just seven and a half days. Image from Dudinka_Apu/Wikimedia Commons.

Our maps may be a lot better now, but that doesn't mean we should abandon the Arctic's air of mystery and adventure.

After all, it's still home to seals that look like something out of a Tim Burton film...

Yup, that's definitely the seal version of Beetlejuice. Image from Michael Cameron/Wikimedia Commons.

...not to mention weird methane that seeps from deep in the seabed and these fire-breathing lakes. So even though we now know where we're going when it comes to the North Pole, there's still plenty up there left to discover.

Last year, 174 countries pledged to help fight climate change at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris. Individual people can help, too, by reducing their energy consumption and not only voting for politicians who don't think climate change is a hoax, but making sure they stick to their agreements after they're in office.

If we can accomplish that, we can keep the Arctic cold — and help preserve for future generations the air of mystery and adventure that those old (admittedly faulty) maps embody.

Scientists in Belgium find a surprising reason why Greenland's glacier is melting so fast.

A team of scientists in Belgium has discovered a somewhat counterintuitive reason the Greenland ice sheet is melting at night.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

The surprise culprit? Clouds.

Jerks. Photo by Sy Clark/Flickr.

It may seem just ... kind of wrong to the many of us whose brains reflexively associate "clouds" with "chilly." If cloudy weather indeed equals cold weather, ice should ... stay frozen better on a cloudy day, right? According to this new study, however, increased cloud cover over the glacier actually accelerates the rate of melting.

Here's how it works, according to Kristof Van Tricht, University of Leuven professor and lead author on the paper:

"Over the entire Greenland ice sheet, clouds raise the temperature, which triggers additional meltwater runoff: 56 billion tons per year — a third more than clear skies. Contrary to what you would expect, this effect is not so much visible during the daytime melting process, but rather during the following night. A snowpack is like a frozen sponge that melts during the day. At night, clear skies make a large amount of meltwater in the sponge refreeze. When the sky is overcast, by contrast, the temperature remains too high and only some of the water refreezes. As a result, the sponge is saturated more quickly and excess meltwater drains away."

In other words...

The clouds basically act as a giant, celestial Snuggie for the glacier.

Overcast skies at night prevent heat — which builds up during the day while the sun is out — from escaping from the surface of the ice sheet. That heat makes it too warm for the water on the glacier's surface to refreeze when it's supposed to — and once the water drains off the glacier, it's lost forever.

Climate change is the elephant in the room here.

An iceberg that cleaved off the Greenland ice sheet. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Of course, the results of the study would just be a cool, neat, "ain't science something" thing if the melting of the Greenland ice sheet didn't have the potential to cause seriously catastrophic problems for everyone on Earth.

At the current rate, Greenland is losing over 300 billion tons of ice a year. The consequences of the ensuing sea level rise are expected to include anything from increased flooding during storms to the evacuation of coastal cities — basically, nothing terribly desirable.

Researchers hope that identifying this new behavior will help them predict future melting events — and the overall rate of sea level swell — more effectively, rendering them better able to gird humanity's loins for the worst (or, at least, the not-so-good).

In the meantime, continuing to ratchet back all the carbon we're putting in the air will only help things for the better.

The major climate agreement signed in Paris last year is super ambitious with good reason: We need a super ambitious plan if we're going to have any hope of limiting the damage to our sea and sky that's already begun, and we need to make sure we stick to it.

That means electing politicians who not only believe that manmade climate change is a real thing, but are willing to take the necessary policy steps — de-incentivizing the burning of fossil fuels while investing in renewable energy — that will help us snuff it out for good.

That way, those bastard clouds can't threaten us anymore.

That's right: Back off, sickos. Photo by Sy Clark/Flickr.

Heroes

13 devastating photos to show your friend who doesn't believe in climate change.

Climate change: It's real, folks.

Human activity is affecting our planet. Big time.

Don't take my word for it, though — take the 97% of climate scientists' who believe climate change is not, um, voodoo, but, in fact, a real thing largely caused by us.

Although science says climate change is certainly happening, however, Americans are a bit less sure. In a Gallup poll published back in March, only slightly over half the country believes the effects of global warming are occurring.

That ... isn't good. Because, as Dana Nuccitelli wrote for The Guardian, when people are less certain of climate change, they're, of course, less inclined to fight it.

"Research has shown that perception of consensus is linked to support for climate policy. This is true along most of the ideological spectrum — when people are aware of the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, they are more likely to support taking action to solve the problem."

So, in order to convince your friend/dad/aunt/neighbor that climate change is not actually a vast conspiracy so that we can push progress along...

Here are 13 astounding images that reflect how drastically climate change has already altered planet Earth.

1. A critical water shortage in Lodwar, Kenya, is no joke.

East Africa has been hit hard by a critical shortage of water, which climate change has only exacerbated. We'll be seeing a lot more droughts, like this one in 2009, due to rising global temperatures. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

2. The Passu Glacier in Pakistan is disappearing. Quickly.

This photo, taken in September 2015, shows a shrinking Passu Glacier in Pakistan's Gojal Valley. It's melting, and fast. Thanks, climate change. Photo by Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images.

3. Bedono, Indonesia, is no stranger to massive flooding...

These floodwaters in Bedono, Indonesia, in 2013 were no laughing matter. Just like we can expect more droughts, we can also expect more flooding due to a warming planet. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

4. ...Neither is Somerset, United Kingdom...

This flood from 2014 in England wiped out an outrageous amount of farmland. In general, climate change means wet places will get wetter, and dry places get drier. (In both cases, not good.) Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images.

5. ...Or Fischbeck, Germany.

OK, last flood photo (I swear). But doesn't this one truly show how big of a deal this is? It was taken back in 2013. You can imagine how dangerous these flood were — to both the region's wildlife and people. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

6. Brush fires, like this one in Lake Hughes, California, will be getting more and more common.

This photo, taken in 2013 in Southern California, hits particularly close to home. Forest fires — a symptom of climate change that will only get worse with rising temperatures (remember when I mentioned dry places getting drier?) — remain a serious concern in the Golden State. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

7. And polluted air, seen here in Wuhan, China, will make Earth warmer while hurting our health.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is air pollution, captured in 2009 in Wuhan. Our addiction to burning fossil fuels doesn't just contribute to the planet's warming — it's downright terrible for our health. (I would not want to be a pair of lungs in that city.) Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images.

8. Isn't Greenland gorgeous? But wait ... there's a catch.

Whoa, the glacial ice sheet of Greenland is freaking gorgeous. Unfortunately (I hate to be Debbie Downer, but), that beautiful blue streak you see there? It's melted water. And that's not a good sign for coastal cities around the world, seeing as melting ice means rising sea levels. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

9. That big red blob in the Gulf Coast? Yeah, not good.

This satellite image of the Gulf Coast from 2008 captures Hurricane Gustav. It/he was a Category 3 storm that tore through Louisiana and endangered thousands. Climate change means more severe storms, just like this guy. Photo by NOAA via Getty Images.

10. Vincennes Bay, Antarctica, is getting warmer (and wetter).

This image, taken in Antarctica in 2008, is beautiful ... but also sad. Similar to what's happening in Greenland, the ice near Earth's poles is melting. And Vincennes Bay is no exception. Photo by Torsten Blackwood - Pool/Getty Images.

11. And Tehuacán, Mexico, is getting hotter (and drier).

A water hole in Tehuacán has definitely seen better days. The region, captured here in 2006, has been drastically affected by climate change, suffering from long, dire water shortages. Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images.

12. Coastlines, like this one in Shishmaref, Alaska, are literally falling into the sea.

This is Alaska in 2006. Rising temperatures have resulted in less sea ice and thawing of coastline permafrost, which, in turn, means more erosion. And more erosion means beach communities can end up looking like this. Photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images.

13. And Marree, Australia, is one hot place.

Australia — already a pretty warm place — is getting hotter because of climate change. This photo, taken of the outback in 2005, shows what increasingly hot temperatures are doing to landscapes Down Under. Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images.

You just saw 13 depressing photos and feel hopeless and helpless and #OmgTheWorldIsEnding, right?

Don't feel that way!

The good news: People are increasingly waking up to the reality of climate change. Increased pressure on leaders to fight warming temperatures (both in the U.S. and abroad) has resulted in more eco-friendly policies around the world. And at the end of November, world leaders will gather in Paris for the United Nations COP21 summit with a mission to combat climate change for decades to come.

So what can you do this very moment? Fight oil drilling in the Arctic. Put more pressure on the president to make climate change action a top priority. Or learn how to live a little bit greener every day, just by doing the simple things.

The problem of climate change can seem overwhelming. But it's problem we created, and it's a problem only we can fix.

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Why are new rivers carving through Greenland, and can we stop them?

True

It's no big secret that our planet's heating up.

You can tell just by looking at the average temperatures over the last hundred years.

There's also the fact that, oh yeah, Greenland is literally melting.

Yup, that's a puddle of melted ice. Not actually a river leading to a lake. WHOOPS. GIF via New York Times.

That's why Dr. Laurence Smith and his team are getting their feet wet and hands dirty on Greenland's glaciers.

Perhaps more accurately, they are risking life and limb as they contend with frostbite and sinkholes in the cracking ice in an attempt to gather the most up-to-date and accurate on-the-ground evidence of climate change ever.

“We scientists love to sit at our computers and use climate models to make those predictions. But to really know what's happening, that kind of understanding can only come about through empirical measurements in the field," Dr. Smith, the head of the geography department at UCLA, told the New York Times (in a super-cool multimedia story that you should totally check out).

GIF via New York Times.

As the icy landmass crumbles beneath their feet, they're out there recording information on the velocity, volume, temperature, and depth of the thousands and thousandsof rushing rivers of melted water that have carved their way through Greenland due to rising global temperatures.

We're talkin' 430,000 gallons of water per minute flowing off the ice and into sinkholes called moulins that lead out into the ocean.

Did I mention that if the entire Greenland ice sheet melts, they're currently predicting that it could cause the sea to rise by a whopping 20 feet? 'Cause that's fun.

GIF via New York Times.

Until now, most climate scientists have relied on computer models to predict the changing shape of the world.

The physical evidence of climate change right outside is pretty hard to deny. But scientists have spent the last few decades trying to come up with computer calculations to predict exactly what will happen if our rate of carbon consumption continues.

430,000 gallons of water per minute is flowing off the ice and into the ocean.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors involved in climate conditions. As a result, these theoretical models have not perfectly predicted the future — a fact which those who reject mainstream climate science love to use as justification for their willful ignorance.

Case in point: Just this past year, when the overall sea level rose a whole one-quarter of a millimeter less than predicted.

To recap: Sea levels are in fact still rising, and the world is in fact heating up overall. But climate change isn't real because something something margin of error and science uh-huh OK sure.

GIF from "Easy A."

While these new calculations won't stop what's happening, they'll at least help us prepare for what we're about to face.

For example, if we can predict with greater accuracy (like, less than a quarter-of-a-millimeter off) just how much the water levels are going to rise in the years to come, we can enact a plan to build seawalls or other structures to stop flooding and save our coastal cities ( like that same quaint New England one that I call home ahhhhhhhhh).

GIF via New York Times.

But preventive treatment to stop the effects of climate change also means taking action to end the damage that we're doing right now. It's no use wasting taxpayer dollars on research that we ourselves are rendering useless to plan for a future that we won't live to see.

In the meantime, you can check out this stunning drone video of Greenland's melting glaciers — just as long as you promise to remind yourself that the beautiful sparkling landscape is neither natural nor good.