Antarctica's Ice Flow Fully Mapped For the First Time

tvlinux writes "Antarctica is a big continent, so mapping all of its ice flow isn't exactly a piece of cake. But for the first time scientists have been able to get the complete picture of the southernmost continent's ice flow, from the South Pole to the shoreline. From the article: '"This is like seeing a map of all the oceans' currents for the first time. It's a game changer for glaciology," said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California (UC), Irvine. Rignot is lead author of a paper about the ice flow published online Thursday in Science Express. "We are seeing amazing flows from the heart of the continent that had never been described before."'"

Comments

What happened to geology for its own sake?

[tp1024]

There was a time, way back, when geologists would have presented this kind of finding and said:

"We finally have a map of how the ice in Antarctica moves. We don't quite know exactly why it moves the way it does, but at least now we know some of the questions we should ask ourselves."

Instead we get scaremongering drivel along the lines of: "That's critical knowledge for predicting future sea level rise. It means that if we lose ice at the coasts from the warming ocean, we open the tap to massive amounts of ice in the interior."

Re:What happened to geology for its own sake?

[KeensMustard]

This would only be scaremongering if it weren't true.

1. Have you evidence that it is not?
2. Surmising (on presently available evidence) that sea rises due to melting ice is likely, how can talking about it be bad? Surely more knowledge is a good thing?