West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Could Disintegrate Within Decades

[Crick]

As you are unable to prove any contention you or Frank has made about the climate. When will you learn there are no proofs in the natural sciences?

 

[jc456]

As you are unable to prove any contention you or Frank has made about the climate. When will you learn there are no proofs in the natural sciences?

what is it you think I must prove? it is you with the challenge and failing miserably because there is nothing for you to use to prove a point that can't be proved. fail....

 

[Crick]

Prove that the world has not gotten warmer since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

Prove that carbon dioxide doesn't absorb IR radiation

Prove either that CO2 has not increased or that it originates from something other than human activity.

Prove that something prevents matter from emitting photons in the direction of warmer matter

Prove that all the climate scientists on the planet are involved in a perfectly executed conspiracy to push a hoax of AGW

Prove that you have the basic intelligence necessary to participate in this discussion.

 

[IanC]

Wasn't there an unexpected result a few months back? Something like, a hole drilled under the WAIS edge showed ice accumulating rather than melting?

Models have a way of mirroring the beliefs of the programmers .

 

[Crick]

I did not see such a thing. They've been drilling down to the sub-glacial sediment for some time and only recently reached it. I believe the large cavity was found by gjround-penetrating radar.

 

[jc456]

Prove that the world has not gotten warmer since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

Prove that carbon dioxide doesn't absorb IR radiation

Prove either that CO2 has not increased or that it originates from something other than human activity.

Prove that something prevents matter from emitting photons in the direction of warmer matter

Prove that all the climate scientists on the planet are involved in a perfectly executed conspiracy to push a hoax of AGW

Prove that you have the basic intelligence necessary to participate in this discussion.

so you want me to prove everything you can't? too funny. I don't do others homework. You said it was getting warmer, I chose to disagree with you. You fail to present evidence that the world is getting warmer. why?

 

[Crick]

You have no value here. None. At. All.

 

[IanC]

I did not see such a thing. They've been drilling down to the sub-glacial sediment for some time and only recently reached it. I believe the large cavity was found by gjround-penetrating radar.

"





Watch: Scientists from New Zealand peer beneath the ice.

VIDEO
Deep Bore Into Antarctica Finds Freezing Ice, Not Melting as Expected
Scientists will leave sensors in the hole to better understand the long-term changes in the ice, which may have big implications for global sea level.

4 MINUTE READ
BY DOUGLAS FOX

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 16, 2018




SCIENTISTS HAVE PEERED into one of the least-explored swaths of ocean on Earth, a vast region located off the coast of West Antarctica. It is locked beneath a crust of ice larger than Spain and more than 1,000 feet thick, making its waters perpetually dark—and extremely difficult for humans to access. Now, a team of researchers has bored a hole through the ice and sampled the ocean beneath it. Their work could shed light on a poorly understood, but ominous episode in Antarctica’s recent past.

A team of scientists from New Zealand began this two-month expedition in November. A ski-mounted Twin Otter aircraft ferried them 220 miles from the nearest base, landing near the middle of the Ross Ice Shelf—the massive slab of ice and snow, as flat and empty as a prairie, that hangs off the coastline of West Antarctica and floats on the ocean. Amid the glow of 24-hour summer sunlight filtering down through fog, they assembled an automobile-sized contraption of pipes, hoses, and boilers. (See more of the world below Antarctic ice.)


Get more of the inspiring photos and stories we're known for, plus special offers.


By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from National Geographic Partners and our partners. Click here to visit our Privacy Policy. Easy unsubscribe links are provided in every email.

This machine generated a powerful jet of hot water, which they used to melt two narrow holes, each a few inches across, more than 1,100 feet down to the bottom of the ice. They then lowered cameras and other instruments through the holes, into the waters below. In doing so, they hoped to answer a question of worldwide importance: just how secure is the ice of West Antarctica?

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is up to 10,000 feet thick in some places. It sits in a broad, low bowl that dips thousands of feet below sea level—making it vulnerable to deep, warm ocean currents that are already nipping at its outer edges. It is stabilized, at least for the time being, by a phalanx of floating ice shelves, that hang off its outer edges—of which the Ross Ice Shelf is by far the largest. Those floating shelves provide a buttress; they “are holding back a very big amount of ice,” says Craig Stevens, an oceanographer from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, who participated in the expedition.

TODAY’SPOPULAR STORIES
TRAVELPICTURE STORIES
She arrived a tourist. The island’s beauty inspired her to become its sole nun.

ENVIRONMENT
Striking photos reveal plastic and plankton side-by-side

ANIMALS
Lions cling to giraffe's back in risky attack

Global sea levels would rise by 10 feet if West Antarctica lost these crucial stabilizers and spilled its ice into the ocean. Scientists fear that some of these ice shelves are already weakening. Stevens and his colleagues hoped to assess the health of the Ross Ice Shelf by measuring water temperatures and ocean currents beneath it—thereby determining how quickly ice is melting off its underside. (See what would happen if all the world’s ice melted.)


Surprising Finds
The surprises began almost as soon as a camera was lowered into the first borehole, around December 1. The undersides of ice shelves are usually smooth due to gradual melting. But as the camera passed through the bottom of the hole, it showed the underside of the ice adorned with a glittering layer of flat ice crystals—like a jumble of snowflakes—evidence that in this particular place, sea water is actually freezing onto the base of the ice instead of melting it.

 

[Crick]

That's good. But the behavior of the shelves over the last decade or so doesn't give me a warm fuzzy that that finding is commonplace. Was there more text to that? I went to the video link but could not find anything from this story

 

[IanC]

Surprising Finds
The surprises began almost as soon as a camera was lowered into the first borehole, around December 1. The undersides of ice shelves are usually smooth due to gradual melting. But as the camera passed through the bottom of the hole, it showed the underside of the ice adorned with a glittering layer of flat ice crystals—like a jumble of snowflakes—evidence that in this particular place, sea water is actually freezing onto the base of the ice instead of melting it.

Sorry, my last post was only supposed to be this long. A surprising find because they expected ice melt but when they actually looked they found ice growth. The models were wrong.

Someone Here, presumably Crick, will say that was only one spot and maybe it is different elsewhere. Perhaps but I bet the spot was picked as likely to produce good results.

 

[Crick]

You've got several things going on there. Overall, the shelves have been crumbling. However, those remaining intact have been growing in area. That is primarily due to the acceleration of the glaciers ashore pushing more and more ice out off the coast. Temperatures ashore and in the sea have been rising. Given all that, I would not extrapolate from this one location to the entire coast of Antarctica. It might, but I wouldn't bet on it with the cards you have in your hand right now.

 

[IanC]

Look Crick, I consider myself a very reasoned and reasonable man. I do not believe the CAGW doomsday scenarios.

I argue against the idiot claims made by the extremists on my side. I never see you taking a stand against the extremists on your side.

 

[Crick]

I expressed my concern that the WAIS might disintegrate catastrophically far sooner than the multi-century prognostications suggest the first I heard the grounding lines were pulling back.

 

[IanC]

I expressed my concern that the WAIS might disintegrate catastrophically far sooner than the multi-century prognostications suggest the first I heard the grounding lines were pulling back.

Sorry. For a moment I forgot you are a wacko extremist on the warmers side.

 

[Crick]

As the article and study linked in the OP shows, I am not the only person to have such concerns. Those were not "wacko extremists".

 

[IanC]

Antarctica is the perfect place to make up doomsday scenarios. There is very little data. What little data there is has only been collected very recently. The methodologies used to collect the data uses massive assumptions that dwarf the signal that we are trying to pry out.

For example. The GRACE satellites estimate the size of the Antarctic ice sheets by inferral from minute changes in gravity. But it only works if we know exactly how much the underlying ground is rising or sinking. And there has only been a brief time where measurements have been taken. The initial estimates were very large in a negative direction and have come down since. In contrast, laser altimeter needs less assumptions because it is more or less a direct measurement. What did it show? Ice mass gain. The results weren't even released for five years after they were collected.

The OP says they found a hole under the ice. A theory is quickly invented to explain how this is worse than we thought (even though we don't know if the hole was already there). When they actually drill a borehole to examine the underside of the ice, they find it is growing instead of melting.

Which data is to be believed? I don't think we can decide that with the paucity of data that we have, especially when it is contradictory.

 

[Oddball]

I expressed my concern that the WAIS might disintegrate catastrophically far sooner than the multi-century prognostications suggest the first I heard the grounding lines were pulling back.

Sorry. For a moment I forgot you are a wacko extremist on the warmers side.

Not to mention as dense as lead.

 

[Crick]

I'll take the source of that comment into account.

 

[mamooth]

For example. The GRACE satellites estimate the size of the Antarctic ice sheets by inferral from minute changes in gravity. But it only works if we know exactly how much the underlying ground is rising or sinking.

Let's explore your theory, even if it is totally unsupported.

Sea level rise has to be coming from somewhere.

If a portion isn't coming from Antarctic melt, it must be coming from somewhere else. Where do you think that source is? Remember, your theory won't work if it doesn't account for all the data.

And since sea level rise is already at a high rate, then any increased melt off of Antarctica, no matter what the baseline melt was, will still raise the rate of sea level rise by the same amount as predicted before. Thus, the same amount of concern would be warranted.

 

[IanC]

For example. The GRACE satellites estimate the size of the Antarctic ice sheets by inferral from minute changes in gravity. But it only works if we know exactly how much the underlying ground is rising or sinking.

Let's explore your theory, even if it is totally unsupported.

Sea level rise has to be coming from somewhere.

If a portion isn't coming from Antarctic melt, it must be coming from somewhere else. Where do you think that source is? Remember, your theory won't work if it doesn't account for all the data.

And since sea level rise is already at a high rate, then any increased melt off of Antarctica, no matter what the baseline melt was, will still raise the rate of sea level rise by the same amount as predicted before. Thus, the same amount of concern would be warranted.

The last time I saw a sea level rise budget come close to being balanced was was done around 2010 when the big drop occurred.

What papers are you referencing to make your claim?