West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Be Destabilizing - British Antarctic Survey

[hatrack]

"British scientists have discovered a new threat to the world which may be a result of global warming. Researchers from the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered that a massive Antarctic ice sheet previously assumed to be stable may be starting to disintegrate, a conference on climate change heard yesterday. Its collapse would raise sea levels around the earth by more than 16 feet.

BAS staff are carrying out urgent measurements of the remote points in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) where they have found ice to be flowing into the sea at the enormous rate of 250 cubic kilometres a year, a discharge alone that is raising global sea levels by a fifth of a millimetre a year. Professor Chris Rapley, the BAS director, told the conference at the UK Meteorological Office in Exeter, which was attended by scientists from all over the world, that their discovery had reactivated worries about the ice sheet's collapse.

Only four years ago, in the last report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), worries that the ice sheet was disintegrating were firmly dismissed. Professor Rapley said: "The last IPCC report characterised Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would say it is now an awakened giant. There is real concern."

He added: "The previous view was that WAIS would not collapse before the year 2100. We now have to revise that judgement. We cannot be so sanguine." Collapse of the WAIS would be a disaster, putting enormous chunks of low-lying, desperately poor countries such as Bangladesh under water - not to mention much of southern England."

EDIT

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=606845

[htuttle]

1. Hmm...if sea levels rose 16 feet...

...I wonder if the corresponding destruction of all coastal cities would hinder economic and industrial activity to the point that it slows global warming?

Not that I'm hoping for anything, mind you. There's a lot of people, innocent people, living below 16 feet above sea level. But what are we to the planet? Mere cells. Possibly cancerous cells.

Just thinking out loud...

[Maestro]

2. My God! A 16 feet rise in sea levels!

That is incredible and would wreak havoc everywhere in the world. I wonder what the naysayers of global warming are going to say is the cause of this; mischievous penguins?

[happyslug]

8. There goes the Everglades..... (And other areas like lower Manhatten)

For ome information on the LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED:
http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html

Southern Florida under 2 meters of Water:


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Shrub won't let it happen. That would put Diego Garcia underwater

and he needs that base too much.

He'll stop it. He will speak, and make it so.

For he is the One.

[NNadir]

4. Here's a tarnished silver lining...

Most of Florida is less than 16 feet above sea level.

If there were a god, she would, under these circumstances best be represented as having a sense of humor.

[Boomer]

5. I have this sneaking suspicion....

>> Collapse of the WAIS would be a disaster, putting enormous chunks of low-lying, desperately poor countries such as Bangladesh under water - not to mention much of southern England." <<

I have this sneaking suspicion that if only Bangladesh were affected, the West wouldn't care.

[hatrack]

6. No, we'd host a telethon, send a carrier group for a couple of weeks

And then we'd forget all about it as the Michael Jackson trial entered its seventh year.

[NNadir]

7. I strongly agree with this assessment.

It sounds about right.

When FL goes under I intend to keep asking people about whether or not Scott Peterson will really be executed.

[happyslug]

9. Some maps of what will happen if the WAIS Collapses.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinson/ice.html

[ramapo]

10. There goes Atlantic City

Not that I'd miss it. But my favorite NJ beaches...

But seriously, the human and economic cost of this are nearly unimaginable. BushCo will continue to study the possibility of global warming in the meantime and I'm sure will deliver a wonderful speech from an undisclosed location should such a calamity occur.

Could the collapse be a sudden event precipitating a nearly immediate rise in sea level or would it likely occur over perhaps a few years (still rather immediate but not instantly catastrophic)?

[XemaSab]

11. I like the cursory analysis of the collapse of the East Sheet

"eh, not gonna happen, but if it did, we'd all be underwater."