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Earth

ESA Satellite Shows Sudden Ice Loss In Southern Antarctic Peninsula 268

ddelmonte tips news that the ESA's CryoSat spacecraft has detected a sharp increase in the rate at which ice is being lost in a previously stable section of Antarctica. In 2009, glaciers at the Southern Antarctic Peninsula began rapidly shedding ice into the ocean, at a rate of roughly 60 cubic kilometers per year (abstract). From the ESA's press release: This makes the region one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise in Antarctica, having added about 300 cubic km of water into the ocean in the past six years. Some glaciers along the coastal expanse are currently lowering by as much as four m each year. Prior to 2009, the 750 km-long Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change. ... The ice loss in the region is so large that it has even caused small changes in Earth’s gravity field, detected by NASA’s GRACE mission. Climate models show that the sudden change cannot be explained by changes in snowfall or air temperature. Instead, the team attributes the rapid ice loss to warming oceans.
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ESA Satellite Shows Sudden Ice Loss In Southern Antarctic Peninsula

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  • Sudden? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:22AM (#49750731)

    People have been talking about global warming/climate change/politically-correct-term since the last two decades but some countries just keep their head in the sand. *COUGH*U.S.A.*COUGH*

    • Re:Sudden? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:26AM (#49750763)

      Global Warming is MYTH! A MYTH, I tell you! Glub. Glub. Glub.

    • Re:Sudden? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:29AM (#49750805) Homepage

      It's not the country, It's the drooling morons that we have running the country.

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        It's not the country, It's the drooling morons that we have running the country.

        We get the politicians we deserve.

        • Re:Sudden? (Score:5, Informative)

          by itsenrique ( 846636 ) on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:39AM (#49750909)
          Why is this necessarily so? In many cases, e get the politicians who's team has the most money.
          • by plopez ( 54068 )

            Because people don't spend a few hours to research their politicians before voting for them. Ignorance is not an excuse nor is laziness.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              Or they spend many hours researching them and have come to the logical conclusion that it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're all just slightly different flavors of the same poison.

              We need to burn the existing system to the ground and rebuild it. It's the only way to put us back on the right path.

              • Are you asking for help? [wikipedia.org]

              • by Muros ( 1167213 )

                Or they spend many hours researching them and have come to the logical conclusion that it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're all just slightly different flavors of the same poison.

                We need to burn the existing system to the ground and rebuild it. It's the only way to put us back on the right path.

                The system you have is perfectly adequate, it is just that people don't have the required patience to use it. The obvious current flaw is a lack of additional political parties at the federal level. This can be rectified, but would have to take place gradually over the span of many electoral cycles, as most people will subscibe to the "better the devil you know" notion.

            • That's true. I didn't vote for Romney because he ticked 'corrupt' on this application for president.

          • by dave420 ( 699308 )
            Because voter complacency has allowed such a system to come in to effect. A democracy gets the government it deserves, each and every time.
          • Why is this necessarily so? In many cases, we get the politicians who's team has the most money.

            It's not only the politicians but the main stream media that is owned by powerful financial interests. The media is more interested in reporting the horse race and clashes between politicians than they are in substantial reporting on the issues. Media news reporting has largely become infotainment because that's what draws the eyes of much of the American public.

        • You get the best ones money can buy........

          I would ask for a refund if i where you...........

      • Re:Sudden? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:47AM (#49750989)

        There are many cases where even republicans go on record stating man made climate change.
        It is basicly the Oil industry who is trying to keep the doubt about it.
        So the politicians Democrat or republican (mostly republican) who come from the Energy Producing states. Will play onto the spew to keep themselves elected.

        Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

        • It is whether the science is politically useful for them or not.

          Politically, or FINANCIALLY, useful for them.

          Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, be they monetary or environmental. It's the way of many of the current American politicians.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by dj245 ( 732906 )

          There are many cases where even republicans go on record stating man made climate change. It is basicly the Oil industry who is trying to keep the doubt about it. So the politicians Democrat or republican (mostly republican) who come from the Energy Producing states. Will play onto the spew to keep themselves elected.

          Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

          Have you ever visited a coal mining town that doesn't mine coal anymore? The end result is almost always a severely depressed area, rampant poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, high drug use and abuse, prostitution, etc. A lot (millions) of people live in oil towns and oil cities in the US. For the good of the world, maybe we need to cut back on oil and gas. But the politicians would not be doing their job if they didn't represent the people who elected them.

          I see a lot of people calling f

          • by dave420 ( 699308 )
            Plenty of plans have been discussed. You not knowing about them doesn't mean they don't exist :) And you missed the word "some" in front of "environmentalists", if you weren't attempting to make a massive, factually-incorrect generalisation, that is.
          • Ummm those towns face that inevitability anyway.

          • Have you ever visited a coal mining town that doesn't mine coal anymore? The end result is almost always a severely depressed area, rampant poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, high drug use and abuse, prostitution, etc.

            The same thing has happened in a lot of timber towns in Oregon. But in the end things change, the world moves on and people have to accept reality and move on with it rather than clinging to a lifestyle that is no longer viable. Yes, we should assist them with the transition but they need to help themselves as well.

        • Re:Sudden? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by rwa2 ( 4391 ) * on Friday May 22, 2015 @10:42AM (#49751577) Homepage Journal

          Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

          This. If you know anything about lawyers and law, the first tenet is NEVER ADMIT FAULT. No good can come of it. People might then expect you to pay for damages or whatever.

          Environmentalists make the mistake thinking that conservatives are stupid. That is not the case. The only thing they care about is that they will not have to pay for or be part of the solution. Any time you spend trying to convince them otherwise is wasted.

          The other bit is that politics is never proactive, always reactionary. No environmental protection or anti-pollution law was ever passed until something was already FUBAR, be it due to the London yellow fog, or smog over LA, holes in the ozone layer, or Chinese urban centers shutting down due to respiratory issues. The politicians will maybe finally get around to doing something substantial about AGW after there's a refugee crises from low-lying areas, like the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Louisiana, Florida, etc. Chances are, they still won't blame AGW, since it'll be sea swell from a hurricane/typhoon that does those population centers in, but at some point they'll get tired of throwing money at those places to rebuild. Fortunately there are already a lot of migrant refugee boats in the Mediterranean and Andaman Sea for other reasons, so we're already slowly building a framework for dealing with these kinds of things.

          • by rezme ( 1677208 )
            “Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.” -Henri Queuille
      • by plopez ( 54068 )

        Then who keeps electing them? In a democracy you don't always get the government you want but you always get the government you deserve.

      • To be fair, there are a lot of drooling morons in the country who believe that too.

      • It's not the country, It's the drooling morons that we have running the country.

        It's entrenched powers that stand to loss a great deal of money as well as feed their opponents money, if they admit something needs to be done.

      • What people mistake for global warming is basically geo thermal out sourcing. The Anartic is basically adjusting for less demand of its ice. So like any other efficent system, it sheds those things that it cannot make use of. And like any other global system, it lets the surrounding community handle any differences.
    • I wonder if China has taken into account the sea-level rise that is likely forthcoming on all those little islands they're building in the South China Sea ?

      Fast forward to 2020 when China converts said islands into a submarine base . . . lol

  • Being as it is the continent that encompasses the south pole, how do you define what is southern?
    • by Sir_Eptishous ( 873977 ) on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:43AM (#49750941)
      The penguins have confederate flag bumper stickers on their trucks.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Apparently, the Antarctic Peninsula is a specific feature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Peninsula

      Since peninsulas stick out into the ocean and the ocean is (of course) north of antarctica, I assume "Southern Antarctic Peninsula" describes the base of the peninsula, rather than referring to some nebulous "Southern Antarctica", which would be nothing more than an amusing way to refer to the pole. Giving directions there has got to be very confusing. Clocks basically turn east down there.

    • Being as it is the continent that encompasses the south pole, how do you define what is southern?

      Antarctic is a big continent. The Antarctic Peninsula stretches out toward South America. The article specifically talks about the southern Antarctic Peninsula which is well north of the South Pole.

    • "Southern" = the part closer to the south pole

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22, 2015 @09:39AM (#49750903)

    Build a trench from the ocean to the desert. Let the excess water pool there. Problem solved.

  • Not sure how this is news for nerds. Warming oceans are melting ice. That's not a surprise, it's not something new. We already know the oceans are warming. We already had a pretty good idea that warmer water meant ice would melt. We already know sea level is rising, meaning ice is melting.

    The news part would be if this was unexpected or otherwise faster than expected, which really doesn't seem to be the case, so yawn. I suppose it does open a platform for people to yell catastrophe, denier and other none se

    • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      There are some kickass "glacier calving" videos on youtube, though...
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      There's the bit at the end that shows glaciers have been receding more in the last 10 years than they have in the last 100 years, so there's that...

  • The post accepted by Slashdot cites European Space Agency's satellite as evidence of ice-loss.

    And earlier submission [slashdot.org] citing NASA's satellites leading to the opposite conclusion [forbes.com] was not accepted. Kind a strange for a normally unabashedly US-centric Slashdot to so openly favour European satellite-data over American — makes one suspect a certain pre-existing bias...

    I don't see any substantial changes here [uiuc.edu], do you?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22, 2015 @10:01AM (#49751113)
      The earlier submission is not citing NASA's satellite. According to the submission itself, the "original source" is Forbes. The article on Forbes does not have any link to NASA website, he has a link to a graph which shows some data, but does not link to any explanation of this data. (you know, something like a scientific article, or at least the web page of the satellite/project which provide the data, just to know what it represents)
      • by Holi ( 250190 )
        And even the graph shows a downward trend.
        • And even the graph shows a downward trend.

          For ice trends it's important to note if you are talking Arctic versus Antarctic as well as land versus sea ice. Here's a link for sea ice extent in both Arctic and Antarctic from NASA [nasa.gov]. Shows pretty clear downwards trends in Arctic and upward in Antarctic. Incidentally, the IPCC first report in 1990 estimated warming would reduce Arctic sea ice, but precipitation changes would increase overall ice mass in Antarctic...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      One of them reports what the actual scientists have concluded from meticulous study of the data, the other reports what a Forbes columnist has concluded from looking at some charts and having a hunch?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Response from uiuc (the source of their chart) accuses the Forbes article of cherry-picking data and arriving at unwarranted conclusions. I don't think we should consider the Forbes article an unbiased source.

      http://www.atmos.illinois.edu/~wlchapma/Forbes.article.response.pdf

    • Er, did you read the Forbes link before you shared it? It was about sea ice. The ice loss in evidence is land ice. You are trying to imply that there is a contradiction when there is none?

      Moreover, the link is to an opinion piece, not a news source. No wonder it was rejected.

      But if you want to talk about the Forbes piece, it claims there is *no* polar sea ice retreat (and the headline is worse, it claims there is no polar ice retreat at all, sea or otherwise). It fails to distinguish between Arctic sea ice

  • This sounds more like the work of a master villain than regular global warming!

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