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Earth

Journey To the 'Doomsday Glacier' (bbc.com) 97

For the first time a hole has been hot-water drilled through Thwaites Glacier to access the sea water below. Where is the water from and why is it melting the glacier so vigorously? From a report: The images are murky at first. Sediment sweeps past the camera as Icefin, a bright yellow remotely operated robot submarine, moves tentatively forward under the ice. Then the waters begin to clear. Icefin is under almost half a mile (600m) of ice, at the front of one the fastest-changing large glaciers in the world. Suddenly a shadow looms above, an overhanging cliff of dirt-encrusted ice. It doesn't look like much, but this is a unique image -- the first ever pictures from a frontier that is changing our world. Icefin has reached the point at which the warm ocean water meets the wall of ice at the front of the mighty Thwaites glacier -- the point where this vast body of ice begins to melt.

Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. It is massive -- roughly the size of Britain. It already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year -- a huge figure for a single glacier -- and satellite data show that it is melting increasingly rapidly. There is enough water locked up in it to raise world sea level by more than half a metre. And Thwaites sits like a keystone right in the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- a vast basin of ice that contains more than 3m of additional potential sea level rise. Yet, until this year, no-one has attempted a large-scale scientific survey on the glacier. The Icefin team, along with 40 or so other scientists, are part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year, $50m joint UK-US effort to understand why it is changing so rapidly. The project represents the biggest and most complex scientific field programme in Antarctic history.

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Journey To the 'Doomsday Glacier'

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    and pay more taxes, and the weather will be fixed.

    -- Greta Thunberg

    • You got it right, you know.
      Oh, and MUCH less inherited wealth both transferred and positional
  • why it is changing so rapidly"

    Easy answer, the weather is hotter.

    Now, give my 50m$

  • Two words: Homo "sapiens"

    Not using contraception, is mass-genocide. And will be punished with extinction.

    • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2020 @04:01PM (#59665620)
      Ok, doomer.
    • You and the rest of the antinatalism ilk can retroactively make up for your parents' supposed sins any time you like. I'm perfectly fine with late-term abortions that take place after the third trimester considering we can get the baby's consent and all that.

      DNA that doesn't try to replicate will quickly find itself replaced by DNA that does or is more successful at it. It's only you that's going extinct. Now please have the grace and dignity to do so without carrying on so loudly.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tempo36 ( 2382592 )

        Translation:

        "I believe the Earth can support infinite people because God tells me so right there in the Bible. God also says we can do whatever we want to do because he loves us more than everyone else. We're just going to keep doing what we're doing. Everything is fine."

        • Translation of translation, "I have no counter argument so i straw man a bunch of bullshit about God and the Bible you never said but it gives me virtue signal cred amongst my echo chamber friends, bro!"
          • Oh, did you actually want to look at the difficulties of overpopulation, birth rates, and income disparity? Or pollution? Or environmental changes? I sort of assumed based off your "antinatalism ilk" comment that you weren't really interested in having a debate about actual science. So, Mr or Ms "Antinatalism ilk" what's your confusion about the negative consequences of a continuously growing global population on our environment, infrastructure, natural resources, and health?

            Should we start with something b

            • You don't even know who you're replying to. I called out your straw man. It is nice you are capable of actually posting a link and engaging in debate. Too bad you didn't start that way. I certainly never said anything of the things you're saying I said. Which is what I was pointing out about your previous post above. You're straw manning. Again.

              Have a nice day.
              • Why would I have started out that way with someone, I'll grant that it wasn't you...my bad, who opened their discussion by ranting about antinatalism? You really think that person was looking to have any kind of rational argument?

                You're right, I brought up several topics that you didn't mention. You didn't express much of an argument yourself, you just appear to be trying to defend the original "antinatalism" post as if it has some kind of valid point. Or you're just being scrappy on the internet.

                Let's rese

      • The hardest choices require the strongest wills.

    • Mass genocide? Doesn't simple "genocide" sufficiently cover the concept? Why is it "mass genocide"? How is that different from regular, old, dirt common genocide?
      And punishment? Who exactly is doing the punishment? God? The FSM? AOC? Punishment is something inflicted by one entity upon another for bad behavior. Perhaps you meant to say "consequences" which does not require an outside actor?

      More likely, I suspect you're just ranting and virtue signaling, as usual, trying to karma whore with zero
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Two words: Homo "sapiens"

      Not using contraception, is mass-genocide. And will be punished with extinction.

      Your parents should have done a better job with contraception.

    • by mi ( 197448 )

      Not using contraception, is mass-genocide. And will be punished with extinction

      • What do we want?
      • Post-partum abortions!
      • When do we want them?!
      • Now!!!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Skimming the article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RJFerret ( 1279530 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2020 @04:42PM (#59665762)

    One of the projects wasn't completed due to weather (drilling from the top). The one in the summary did which found multiple processes are at play, fresh water circulates up, drawing warm salt from underneath in convection, melting the ice faster from beneath, undermining its support.

    The overall surface area is nearly the size of Great Britain (192,000 sq. km vs. 209,331). However the west side of Antartica has thicker ice than the east side, over two miles thick.

    So its expected to increase ocean levels about 3 meters, making current high tide levels as lows, and making high tides about 9-10' higher than they currently are.

  • by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2020 @05:01PM (#59665820) Journal

    So while everyone is bickering about "changing something" to "combat climate change" - let me simply align priorities: Yes indeed, climate changes over time, and yes indeed, there is an increase in the feedback cycle due to atmospheric changes, and yes some of those atmospheric changes are from human industrial output. But overall, asking the population to "pretty please" just stop making that output is nae impossible. Really because we don't change quickly; we don't act with a single mind (which helps our adaptability); and because there are so many of us - we're expendable. Sadly, there will be mass migrations of starving & suffering humans and still industrial inertia will continue to fight the admittedly expensive alternatives. So it's not worth debating the physical models and observations, it will be a fascinating opportunity to manage herds of humans becoming hunter/gather tribes again.

    For the next few centuries, a few major weather events and a slew of smaller floods will gently-at-first, then ever-more-strongly convince populations to "move away from there". The arguments over borders and immigration will be less about physical barriers and more about assimilation and education. Imagine all of Bangladesh walking over to Myanmar and creating havoc, cascading into other countries. This could eventually disrupt manufacturing centers for most of the rest of world, causing wild price spikes on the most random things. Not because of strife alone, but just because populations need time and effort to unify as a viable workforce.

    Now imagine all of Southern Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana also moving. Economically, consumption models make a relatively sudden change - so that a relatively tiny town in Arkansas becomes a waypost, then a center for some labor, etc. This is a huge challenge to leadership to ensure towns rise, have adequate resources, civil institutions, training for workforces, and a market role. With massive unemployment due to a locale being unfeasible for transport or infrastructure, idle hands will come with opportunistic crime. Law enforcement and penal institutions will probably also grow in importance - and hopefully social services, but the US has not been balanced in those ratios for quite some time.

    Just run the experiment using any economic model on the back of a napkin, we're in need of fast-deploying "town makers" to accept populations with near-zero capabilities and bootstrap. Go visit the experiments already running in the Middle East (where unemployment is at unbelievable numbers) - achieving what I'm describing is tremendously difficult, but ultimately required. The alternatives are not enjoyable, even for the affluent, since the many areas will hold a multitude of squabbling tribes, disrupting trade and destroying infrastructure under martial law. Child survival rates will go down, if only from lower access to modern healthcare and sanitation.

    IE Climate Change is not about saving energy, it's about lifting people into productive roles, and convincing them it's necessary

    • by evanh ( 627108 )

      Where there's a will there's a way. If we decide to change we most certainly can.

      There is many recent and historical examples. Reversing the ozone layer damage is one recent example. China limiting it's population is another. Transitioning into war production, for any war, over many eras, is many examples all on its own.

    • by Jerry ( 6400 )

      "IE Climate Change is not about saving energy, it's about lifting people into productive roles, and convincing them it's necessary"

      No, it's not. It's all about transferring wealth from the 1st world to the 3rd world, and giving China a free pass to build a 100 coal fired power plants.

      https://www.nzz.ch/klimapoliti... [www.nzz.ch]

      "But one has to say clearly: We de facto redistribute global wealth through climate policy." -- Ottmar Edenhofer, 2010, IPCC

      Endenhofer is not the only one against capitalism at the IPCC.

      h [sovereignnations.com]

      • by mugnyte ( 203225 )

        I barely understand this comment. The economic model doesn't really matter; trade need not be equitable. But it must happen - no society consumes only what it produces. Add-in luxury items and you either have a black market or a form of capitalism, since you'll need a trading currency to keep things efficient. Politically, democracy or authoritarianism doesn't change the societal effects of uninhabitable places. China can manipulate prices and pay wages into a pseudo market, but it cannot make the rain

  • I'm cold now
  • to build that really big boat.
  • Three new peer-reviewed papers [plateclimatology.com] confirm it's vulcanism under the WAIS that is causing the problem. Think about it - raising the air temperature from -45 deg C to -42 deg C won't cause ice to melt, and raising water temperature from 2 deg C to 2.1 deg C won't do it, either. But dozens of active volcanoes under the ice sheet will...
    • Why do you think linking to a page on about the most biased source you can find will convince anyone? All you're doing is virtue-signalling to your echochamber.

      • Does that invalidate the three papers linked there? What is your scientific argument against the papers which show extreme vulcanism below the WAIS? Or is it just "messenger bad" that drives you?
  • the 4% of a mm/yr of sea level rise means it will take only 1250 years for the oceans to raise 1/2 meter. But, comparing shorelines in pictures taken 150 years ago with shorelines today shows NO visible sea level rise at all, except in those few areas where the land or near by sea floor is sinking.

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