Massive Antarctica ice sheet is cracking due to warming oceans

[flacaltenn]

From your OP --- -

Looks as if the scientists have been a bit conservative once again.

Hell no.. They just got the source of "WARM WATERS" wrong. This is NOT likely the ocean running UPHILL for 50 miles. It's likely that "WARM WATER" is running DOWNHILL -- towards the footing. Just the direction that Newton predicted it would travel..

More bullshit. The water beneath the glacier is saltwater because the bottom of the glacier is below sea level.

Your crack is showing ---- WAY dafuck inland dude. Not near the 700m deep sea footing.
Alternate hypothesis is building mass inland is causing the PIG to move. That's what glaciers do all day long.. You think all that creeping is supposed to go cleanly at the surface?

Antarctica Ice Shelf Is Breaking from the Inside Out

If Antarctica were not covered in ice, it would be a series of islands. That means much of the ice in the region is already under constant pressure from the ocean, as its movements dislodge the ice that covers the area between the land masses. Cracking is more likely to occur in the valleys located on the ice sheet, where the ocean is in closer contact with the ice, researchers found.

The currents off Antarctica are warmer and carry saltier water that encourages melting. The sea temperature is about 5 degrees Celsius, which is far warmer than the average surface temperature of minus 20 C. That causes a twofold vulnerability for the ice, because some of it is located underwater and because it is exposed to the warm sea around it.

Similar rifts have already been observed in Greenland, as the Arctic warms and ocean water flows along the bedrock, causing the ice to melt. The Pine Island Glacier and a similar-sized neighboring glacier are unique because they block ice flows from reaching the sea. That’s enough to keep about 10 percent of the ice sheet from toppling into the warmer water.

where is it written that massive flows are pristine and organized events that DON'T crack up occasionally? How long have we actively monitored MASSIVE ice flows in Antarctica?

As for the "warming" of the Southern Sea -- it AINT there. We've done this before. Graph below is a screen shot from when I plotted UAH satellite data of the southern ocean over (IIRC) a 30 year span.. If you're looking for LOCALIZED warm sea water --- I'd check the volcanic fissures under the WAIS first. Dontcha think? Certainly if the claim is 5degC water..

 

[Crick]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

Name one prediction that the global warming demi-gods made that came true. Science doesn't involve ifs - those are conjecture. Science involves facts.

This comment tells us that you don't know science from jack shit.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

According Algore Florida should already be underwater.

 

[Old Rocks]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

According Algore Florida should already be underwater.

Link?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

According Algore Florida should already be underwater.

Link?

He also said NY would be underwater.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Rift in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf is 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and about a third of a mile deep. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/rift-in-antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf …

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Rift in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf is 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and about a third of a mile deep. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/rift-in-antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf …

If the width is 300 yards and a 1/3 of a mile deep why is it obvious that its wider than it is deep?

 

[Old Rocks]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

According Algore Florida should already be underwater.

Link?

He also said NY would be underwater.

Link?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Now why should anyone freak out about it? After all, if we see 10 feet of sea level rise before 2050, what possible harm can it do?

According Algore Florida should already be underwater.

Link?

He also said NY would be underwater.

Link?

You probably watched An Inconvenient Truth fifty times and you still cant remember?
Fucken retard.....

 

[Crick]

The problem here is that what you THINK you recall never actually existed. Gore never said Florida or New York would be underwater by now. You're the one with the knowledge failure. And then there's the failure of bringing Al Gore into this at all. Deniers are the only ones who think he's some sort of reference. The rest of us use actual scientists doing actual science.

 

[Constructive Anarchy]

Thanks for the info. I hope nobody freaks out about it, though. It is just Earth being Earth

Funny how earth being earth results in mass extinctions every few million years or so. When that happens it won't matter whether or not people freak out or what their opinions are.

 

[TNHarley]

Thanks for the info. I hope nobody freaks out about it, though. It is just Earth being Earth

Funny how earth being earth results in mass extinctions every few million years or so. When that happens it won't matter whether or not people freak out or what their opinions are.

Very true.

 

[Constructive Anarchy]

Thanks for the info. I hope nobody freaks out about it, though. It is just Earth being Earth

Funny how earth being earth results in mass extinctions every few million years or so. When that happens it won't matter whether or not people freak out or what their opinions are.

Very true.

I don't know if we can really know whether or not climate change is man made. But we certainly have the capability of making our earth an intolerable place to live. Just look at the giant garbage dump of swirling plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A few decades ago I don't believe anyone could have even imagined something like that being real.

 

[miketx]

When a giant (225 square mile) slice of Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier broke off in 2015, scientists wondered exactly what caused it. Well, they now have an explanation... and it's not very reassuring. They've determined through satellite imagery that the break started when a rift was formed at the base of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, almost 20 miles inland, in 2013. Most likely, warming oceans intruded the sheet at the bedrock well below sea level, triggering cracks that gradually made their way upward. In other words, Antarctic ice could be much more susceptible to breaking up than it seems on the surface, and that separation may be happening faster than researchers expected.

There's still a lot left unanswered. The discoverers want to know just how these rifts get started, and determine their overall effect on the stability of ice shelves. That will require data collected from the air and on the ground, not just in space. And that may be difficult for US researchers when the incoming Trump administration appears bent on shutting down"politicized science" -- that is, anything which studies the causes of climate change. The US and UK are already teaming up on field research in the area, however, so they'll likely have more info regardless of long-term American science funding.

If the glacier break is a sign of things to come, it reinforces predictions that humanity is in for a rough ride as the Earth warms up. Scientists believe that the entire West Antarctica Ice Sheet is likely to collapse within the next 100 years, sending a massive volume of water into the sea. That would be enough to raise the global sea level by almost 10 feet and flood coastal cities. The newly analyzed satellite data suggests that the collapse could happen sooner than later, and possibly within your lifetime.
Massive Antarctica ice sheet is cracking due to warming oceans

Looks as if the scientists have been a bit conservative once again.

Gee, golly, I wonder why it doesn't melt? Anybody?

 

[Crick]

T < 0C. Did you really not know that? Let me guess: you believe that unless it gets above freezing, it hasn't warmed.