Using computer models and data collected in the past decade, some climate scientists now believe that a major Antarctica ice sheet is in the process of collapsing.
Using computer models and data collected in the past decade, some climate scientists now believe that a major Antarctica ice sheet is in the process of collapsing.
One team combined data on the recent retreat of the 182,000-square-kilometer Thwaites Glacier with a model of the glacier’s dynamics to forecast its future. In a paper published online today in Science, they report that in as few as 2 centuries Thwaites Glacier’s outermost edge will recede past an underwater ridge now stalling its retreat. Their modeling suggests that the glacier will then cascade into rapid collapse. The second team, writing in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), describes recent radar mapping of West Antarctica’s glaciers and confirms that the 600-meter-deep ridge is the final obstacle before the bedrock underlying the glacier dips into a deep basin.
Because inland basins connect Thwaites Glacier to other major glaciers in the region, both research teams say its collapse would flood West Antarctica with seawater, prompting a near-complete loss of ice in the area. “The next stable state for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might be no ice sheet at all,” says the Science paper’s lead author, glaciologist Ian Joughin of the University of Washington (UW), Seattle.
This result really falls under the category of the uncertainty of science. Though the data suggests a glacier that is part of the much larger West Antarctica ice sheet is melting, the prediction that the ice sheet itself will collapse sometime in the next two centuries is solely based on computer models that have all too often turned turned out to be wrong.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Using computer models and data collected in the past decade, some climate scientists now believe that a major Antarctica ice sheet is in the process of collapsing.
One team combined data on the recent retreat of the 182,000-square-kilometer Thwaites Glacier with a model of the glacier’s dynamics to forecast its future. In a paper published online today in Science, they report that in as few as 2 centuries Thwaites Glacier’s outermost edge will recede past an underwater ridge now stalling its retreat. Their modeling suggests that the glacier will then cascade into rapid collapse. The second team, writing in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), describes recent radar mapping of West Antarctica’s glaciers and confirms that the 600-meter-deep ridge is the final obstacle before the bedrock underlying the glacier dips into a deep basin.
Because inland basins connect Thwaites Glacier to other major glaciers in the region, both research teams say its collapse would flood West Antarctica with seawater, prompting a near-complete loss of ice in the area. “The next stable state for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might be no ice sheet at all,” says the Science paper’s lead author, glaciologist Ian Joughin of the University of Washington (UW), Seattle.
This result really falls under the category of the uncertainty of science. Though the data suggests a glacier that is part of the much larger West Antarctica ice sheet is melting, the prediction that the ice sheet itself will collapse sometime in the next two centuries is solely based on computer models that have all too often turned turned out to be wrong.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Do these people believe that the earth was formed with ice caps in place and that that is the natural and “normal” way that the earth should be and that the existence of humans and their activities threatens this “normal” model? Because that is what it seems that they are saying.
From human caused global warming to global warming to climate change and now the fourth Permutation? Climate disruption.
They will get it right eventually.
Volcanic activity the likely culprit.
http://www.livescience.com/41262-west-antarctica-new-volcano-discovered.html
Why does it look like just another scare tactic, with the advantage of being able to say, “see, we already passed the tipping point that all those people warned us about”?
On the other hand, now that it *is* too late to take action, we should stop plan A (cap and trade, Kyoto, etc.) and move on to plan B, adapt to the damage as it arises.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley has used the costs and effectiveness of current CO2 emission mitigation attempts (stopping global warming/climate change/whatever) to show that the cost of adapting to the worst-case damage that might occur is far less than preventing that damage in the first place.
According to Monckton, stopping the effects of global warming (which apparently is now too late) is 36 times more expensive than fixing that damage as it happens, so plan B is less expensive than plan A was.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/is_c02_mitigation_cost_effective.html
The following is a 19-minute video of one of his presentations on this topic. “Focused adaptation is the way to go”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRdjtDQlWZQ
For those who are gluttons for punishment, this is a 1 hour presentation (followed by 1/2 hour of Tom Tanton, a renewable energy expert) to the California Legislature in March of 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heamMWFQ_qY
And now I have to ad this new term, “Climate Chaos” and notify you that apparently the people of earth only officially have 500 days left as per the French and John Kerry.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/french-foreign-minister-500-days-avoid-climate-chaos_792736.html