Massive Antarctic Glacier Has Entered Irriversible Melt, Could Add Up To 1 Centimeter

[JWBooth]

1cm?
What is the +/- on the margin of error?

 

[mamooth]

Gimme $32 to buy the whole article, and I'll tell you.

 

[Abraham3]

I just wanted to point out to Polar Bear, something that he must already know. An Antarctic glacier calving ice into the ocean is raising sea level. And, of course, the faster a glacier moves, the more often it calves and the higher the rate of mass contribution to rising sea level, as the abstract clearly points out.

Are you or FlaCalTenn coming back to show that a 40 km retreat of the grounding line to a point below sea level is trivial, the writers are being alarmist or they are all obviously ignorant of how science really works? Eh?

 

[SwimExpert]

Gimme $32 to buy the whole article, and I'll tell you.

So you don't even know what the article says, you just assume that it's true. Your logic is impeccable. You're a regular Mr. Spock.

 

[Octarine]

Time to do what denialists hate most, which is ignore their hysterical deflections and just talk about the issue. Here's the paper being discussed.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2094.html#affil-auth
---

Retreat of Pine Island Glacier controlled by marine ice-sheet instability

Over the past 40 years Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has thinned at an accelerating rate, so that at present it is the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in Antarctica. In recent years, the grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice shelf, has retreated by tens of kilometres. At present, the grounding line is crossing a retrograde bedrock slope that lies well below sea level, raising the possibility that the glacier is susceptible to the marine ice-sheet instability mechanism. Here, using three state-of-the-art ice-flow models, we show that Pine Island Glacier’s grounding line is probably engaged in an unstable 40 km retreat. The associated mass loss increases substantially over the course of our simulations from the average value of 20 Gt/yr observed for the 1992–2011 period, up to and above 100 Gt/yr, equivalent to 3.5–10 mm eustatic sea-level rise over the following 20 years. Mass loss remains elevated from then on, ranging from 60 to 120 Gt/yr.

 

[flacaltenn]

Gimme $32 to buy the whole article, and I'll tell you.

So you don't even know what the article says, you just assume that it's true. Your logic is impeccable. You're a regular Mr. Spock.

Beat me to it.. The answer to the question doesnt require 32 bucks.. Its 6.5mm +/- 3.5mm. But for the press release, call it 10.

So the ass end IS in the water.. CORRECT? If its already in the water, how does that raise sea level if it melts? How far is the retreat until the grounding line base is TOTALLY above the sea?

 

[mamooth]

So the ass end IS in the water.. CORRECT? If its already in the water, how does that raise sea level if it melts?

Because _more_ of the ass end moves off the land and into the water.

It's not a difficult concept. Why does it fluster you so?

 

[Abraham3]

And, it WASN'T in the water prior to this 40 km retreat.

 

[Abraham3]

You folks remember my comments about large areas of the West Antarctic sitting on bedrock that's BELOW sea level. I've brought this up before. It's because my parents discovered I was extraordinarily gifted while I was still in the womb. They'd been talking to me since conception and after a month or two I started talking back. Told some Rosemary's Baby jokes that could have made the network news. I was enrolled in an Ivy League school at -2 months. ;-)

Anyway

This could very well be the beginning the end of West Antarctica. If it happens, it will happen relatively rapidly and the rise will be measured in FEET.

 

[flacaltenn]

So the ass end IS in the water.. CORRECT? If its already in the water, how does that raise sea level if it melts?

Because _more_ of the ass end moves off the land and into the water.

It's not a difficult concept. Why does it fluster you so?

Cannot do that and maintain integrity back towards the head end.. If ice moves towards the sea AS ICE, it means the glacier would be growing.... As soon as the grounding line is not underwater, the calving would stop and the retreat would be on dry land..

so it matters to SLrise how much of the current ice is ALREADY in the water.. Is it most of a 10km retreat? Or does actually THINKING about this flluster you? Think that the thinking is above your ability and we should just let a journalist tell us whats important?

 

[skookerasbil]

Oh Gawd.....not this shit again!!!






s0n....do you even ever leave your house?

 

[skookerasbil]

 

[flacaltenn]

And, it WASN'T in the water prior to this 40 km retreat.

Read the abstract dummy...

In recent years, the grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice shelf, has retreated by tens of kilometres. At present, the grounding line is crossing a retrograde bedrock slope that lies well below sea level, raising the possibility that the glacier is susceptible to the marine ice-sheet instability mechanism.

.........tens of kilometers retreat with the glacier grounded to bedrock BELOW SEA LEVEL. MEANING a lot of the ice lost was ALREADY in the water. And CALVING off or melting would NOT increase sea level for the ice already below the water line.

 

[Politico]

Oh Gawd.....not this shit again!!!






s0n....do you even ever leave your house?

No. They don't plan on taking a bath soon either. I bet their grandma is pretty pissed.

 

[Abraham3]

When ice ages have warm periods, glaciers melt. It also happens when ice ages are moving toward an ending.

Trouble with that is that the Milankovitch cycles won't hit a combined minimum for another 10,000 years.

 

[mudwhistle]

Cool

 

[Abraham3]

The 40 km, grounding line retreat put 40 km of that glacier into the ocean. If you want to pretend nothing is happening there, it doesn't really matter - we're your only audience. What will matter is if the entire West Antarctic ice sheet gets floated and a billion people end up with sea water lapping at their feet... or higher.

 

[Old Rocks]

A massive river of ice, the glacier by itself is responsible for 20 percent of total ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet today.
On average, it shed 20 billion tonnes of ice annually from 1992-2011, a loss that is likely to increase up to and above 100 billion tonnes each year, said the study.
This is equivalent to 3.5-10 millimetres (0.14-0.4 inches) of global average sea-level rise over the next 20 years.
The global mean sea level rose by 3.2 mm in 2010—itself a near-doubling from the rate of two decades earlier.
The European Space Agency said last month that the West Antarctic ice sheet was shedding ice at a much faster rate than before—currently at about 150 cubic kilometres (36 cubic miles) per year.
Climate scientists are keeping a worried eye on the mighty ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, as continued losses could threaten vulnerable coastal cities with dangerously high sea levels.
Last year, the United Nations' climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected sea levels would rise between 26 and 82 centimetres (10.4 and 32.8 inches) by 2100.


Read more at: Giant Antarctic glacier beyond point of no return, research says

A doubling in two decades. Suppose that turns out to be the rate of increase. By 2033, 6.8 mm per year. By 2073, 27.2 mm per year. And that is without any nasty surprises from some of the massive ice shelves.

 

[skookerasbil]

Lets face it.....we've been hearing about these epic events for a dogs age on snow, hurricanes, tornados, floods.......predictions by the score that fall on their faces. The agenda necessitates it. Its like watching the NFL Today on CBS.


Heres a bunch of IPCC predictions, as presented in the NY Times ( what a surprise) that have fallen flat on their face >>>

IPCC Predictions Fail



And some in here wonder why the public doesn't give a shit about global warming anymore!!


The honest scientists state that nobody knows. Well.....of course. Science in the 2000's isn't science anymore......as predictable as social science. Is that science?

 

[Abraham3]

Why don't you take up predictions from the IPCC reports??