Geothermal Heat Contributing To West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting

bricko sends this news from The University of Texas at Austin: Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it's being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where accurate information has previously been unobtainable. The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.

Comments

The Gods

[Thanshin]

It was so much nicer when we could just attribute disasters to the Gods, sacrifice one or two goats and all be happy about it.

Re:Queue the deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that geothermal activity is caused by CO2 emissions too.

When I drop something, I usually blame gravity.
Everything else that happens, I blame global warming, um... climate change.

Re:Let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is due to AGW and it is turtles all the way down...

Ya' think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring on the geothermal heat "deniers"

Re:And who will be pushing the accelerator

[wonkey_monkey]

No [r] way!

Kenya imagine a worse country-name pun than that?

Re:And who will be pushing the accelerator

[MancunianMaskMan]

No [r] way!

Kenya imagine a worse country-name pun than that?

Oman that's awful!

Re:And who will be pushing the accelerator

[Jason Levine]

I agree. We need to kill a few trillion people.

Kif: "Sir." *whispers* "There aren't that many human beings."

A thought occurs. There aren't that many humans.

Lrrr: "We're willing to wait a few weeks while you shore up the numbers."

Hmm. Nine hundred and ninety three billion babies in a few weeks. We'll need an army of super virile men scoring 'round the clock! I'll do my part. Kif, clear my schedule!