Antarctic Glaciers' Sloughing Of Ice Has Scientists at a Loss

[donsu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031501063.html?referrer=email


Some of the largest glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are moving in unusual ways and are losing increased amounts of ice to the sea, researchers said yesterday.

Although the changes in Greenland appear to be related to global warming, it remains unclear what is causing the glaciers of frigid Antarctica and their "ice streams" to lose ice to the ocean in recent years, the researchers said.

-snip-

In Greenland, glaciers appear to be moving more quickly to sea because melting ice has allowed the sheet to slide more easily over the rock and dirt below. In Antarctica, the loss is believed to be associated with the breaking off into seawater of ice deep under the ice sheet with little-understood internal dynamics that put increased pressure on the massive ice streams.

Wingham said he thinks the final paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will say much the same about the Antarctic. "I believe it will be along the lines of 'Something is happening beneath the ice sheets, but we don't really know what it is yet.' "

-snip -

In the same issue of Science, other researchers report that air pollution from industrialized areas is collecting over the Arctic and creating "Arctic haze." The pollution comes from industrial and natural sources -- aerosols, chemicals that can form into ozone and black carbon, which is produced by incomplete burning of fossil fuels. The gradual warming of the large forests below the Arctic has resulted in an increase in forest fires, which produce air pollutants that can increase warming further.
----------------------------

vicious melting circle

tick, tick, tick

[kestrel91316]

1. Um, I hate to sound alarmist, but if I owned real estate at

anything less than 200 ft elevation above CURRENT sea level, I'd unload it while I could.

And yes, I DID say 200 ft.

[bigmonkey]

4. Ok, I'll bite.

I'm not well-versed enough in the volume of land-based ice to tell why you would say this. Is 200ft the rise expected if all the land ice hits the sea?

[Selatius]

6. Yes, if Antartica and Greenland melted off, that's how high it would be.

Of course, we're not talking about all of that melting. If only 10 percent of that just melted in a worst case scenario, that would be a 20 foot rise in ocean water, enough to put cities like New Orleans under permanently.

[petronius]

7. If all the major land ice melted, it would add around 250 ft

Greenland would contribute ~7 m (23 ft)
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet would contribute ~5 m (16 ft)
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet would contribute ~65 m (213 ft)

This outcome is considered really unlikely, however - it's the doom and gloom scenario. The current
expectation (IPCC AR4) is about 0.4 m by 2100, but this number does not include the sorts of poorly understood ice sheet changes discussed in the OP article (which will probably push the total rise up)...

[kestrel91316]

11. Yep. Antarctica is really starting to worry me. But I have to admit that

I inherited a strong worrywart gene from my maternal grandmother.

I also have turned out to be right about too many of my fears throughout my life to ignore this, lol.

[Ezlivin]

2. Nothing to worry about - it's just the "natural" cycle

Just as natural as an asteroid striking the earth.

Too bad we don't know the reason the earth is getting so hot right now. :sarcasm:

[Blue Belle]

3. Too bad we aren't putting any more money toward halting either cause of the earth's destruction.

Beit death by warming or asteroid... the Bush Administration would rather have more wars for the Earth's natural resources than save it from an accelerated demise.

[bigmonkey]

8. Thinking about preventing an asteroid hit.

Although it's easy to point to downsides to most human activity, preventing a hit from a large asteroid seems like an entirely beneficial thing that human society could do for the planet. At least theoretically. I find myself astonished at the lack of a downside, in the abstract.
Of course the downside currently is that we (the humans) evidently think it's too expensive to look into.

[BushLiesDaily]

9. Not to worry...

One of my repuke friends, who claims that Bush is 'the greatest president who ever lived', says sunspots are causing the globe to warm.

Not that he has a poor track record for anything remotely resembling the truth or anything...

[The Stranger]

5. We'll never know what horrors are already unleashed, meanwhile, the idiot "scientists"

scamper around in their white coats, pinching their chin and knitting their brows.

See you in Hell, my friends.

See you in Hell.

[bigmonkey]

10. The wrangling over the cause of the problem is stupid, frankly.

If there's anything humans can do to mitigate it, they should do it. It doesn't matter if the humans caused it or not, if the amount of human suffering and environmental disruption can be reduced by taking certain steps, why isn't it a no-brainer for everyone that those steps should be taken?

I feel that the entire argument about the cause is a distraction, so long as the argument is over whether it's greenhouse gases or something humans can't affect. Reduce the greenhouse gases, and mitigate whatever is impending, dimwits! Who cares if it's "our fault" or not.

Sometimes taking responsibility for something is more than just confessing culpability. A responsible parent doesn't just 'fess up when the kids run into the street, they prevent it from happening. Yes, it's inconvenient, but you have to do it. Humans have a moral responsibility to do what they can to minimize the derangement of the environment, as I see it.