Could Collapsing Antarctic Glaciers Raise Sea Levels Sooner Than Expected? (salon.com)

"We may be headed for an ice apocalypse which could result in the flooding of coastal cities before the end of this century," writes long-time Slashdot reader whoever57. Grist reports on two of the largest and fastest-melting glaciers in Antarctica which "hold human civilization hostage." There's no doubt this ice will melt as the world warms. The vital question is when... Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world's oceans -- an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet... Each new iceberg that breaks away exposes taller and taller cliffs... In the past few years, scientists have identified marine ice-cliff instability as a feedback loop that could kickstart the disintegration of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet this century -- much more quickly than previously thought. Minute-by-minute, huge skyscraper-sized shards of ice cliffs would crumble into the sea, as tall as the Statue of Liberty and as deep underwater as the height of the Empire State Building. The result: a global catastrophe the likes of which we've never seen... When [land-based ice] falls into the ocean, it adds to the overall volume of liquid in the seas. Thus, sea-level rise.... All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt...

A lot of this newfound concern is driven by the research of two climatologists: Rob DeConto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and David Pollard at Penn State University. A study they published last year was the first to incorporate the latest understanding of marine ice-cliff instability into a continent-scale model of Antarctica... Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet was more likely, according to DeConto and Pollard's findings. But if carbon emissions continue to track on something resembling a worst-case scenario, the full 11 feet of ice locked in West Antarctica might be freed up, their study showed.
If sea levels rise by six feet, "around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world's most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map."

Comments

Re:A bit sensationalist [Re: How Were All of the..

[Evangelical_Molester]

Actually no Geoffrey, this is one of dozens of similar articles that explains the very real possibility if the shelf breaks free completely. You're a bit naive and unread. "This particular article, however, verges on the sensationalist."

Re: A bit sensationalist [Re: How Were All of the.

[phantomfive]

The East Anglia climate email leak shows that a lot of climate scientists weren't acting in good faith.

That's a weird interpretation of the absolving outcomes of multiple commitees' investigatons.

You're wrong. The investigations showed that the science they were doing wasn't outright malfeasance (although the statistics could use some help). The investigations weren't checking to see if the scientists were acting in good faith. You should have known that.

It's the sun stupid!

[p51d007]

Man caused global warming (climate change) is NOT REAL. It's a made up term used by morons, trying to bilk wealthy nations out of money, in a form of redistribution. You really want to know what screws up our weather? Go look up the term Maunder Minimum, Dalton Minimum, Modern Maximum (which just ended). The SUNSPOT CYCLE is what impacts weather on Earth, more than man could ever dream of (short of an all out global nuclear war). One good belch from a volcano has more impact on our weather than "man". The modern maximum, with cycle 23 just ended within the past year, but the trend in sunspots has been down, WAY down. There have been many times this past winter & spring, that the Earth facing solar disk has been completely BLANK. NOT ONE sunspot. Sunspots are disturbances on the surface of the sun, magnetic ripples. When one of those lets go a coronal mass ejection (CME), and it is streaming to the Earth, it strikes our magnetic field, and can change weather patterns. There is evidence now from some, stating the positions of Venus & Uranus can also change the suns relationship with regard to spots. In the 1700's, (the Maunder minimum) winters were so cold, the Thames in London, and the Potomac in Maryland FROZE SOLID. We had the modern maximum in the period where people like Algore came up with the idea of "man made global warming". Now, in the past couple of years, after cycle 23, the trend has been for cooler overall temperatures. But, since most people under the age of 30, have been indoctrinated from birth to "save the polar bears" bla bla bla, they will not look at the hard science of what really impacts this little blue ball in space. Boy it’s been fun cruising the liberal blogs watching their collective heads EXPLODE. This man made global warming nonsense needs to be put to rest. THE SUN is what changes our climate. Man couldn’t change it, short of an all out nuclear war, if it wanted to. One belch from a volcano screws up the weather more than man can do. Why don’t you guys start researching the solar sunspot cycles over the last 400 years and then lay the graphic temperatures on top and you will see they are pretty much the same. Cycle 23, just ended, and with it, ended what REAL scientist call the modern maximum (1950's through early 2000's). The trend in the last 9 years has been for less spots on the sun, which results in less geomagnetic disturbances. Those disturbances, in the form of coronal mass ejections (CME’s) hit the magnetic bubble around our planet, and screw with the weather...not man. In all likelyhood we are heading toward a COOLING trend, not a warming trend, but, you’ve been indoctrinated since birth into believing it is all man’s fault, and, in particular, “evil rich white slaveholder men from the imperialist United States”.