Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting At Fastest Rate In 5,500 Years 162
Two major glaciers in Antarctica may be shedding ice faster now than they have at any point in the past 5,500 years, new research suggests. The melting ice could lead to more than 11 feet of global sea level rise in the next several centuries, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. Smithsonian Magazine reports: Scientists studied both the Thwaites Glacier (nicknamed the "Doomsday Glacier" for the potentially devastating impacts if it melts) and the neighboring Pine Island Glacier on the western side of the continent, which are both vulnerable to melting from warm water flowing underneath them. The researchers analyzed penguin bones and seashells from ancient Antarctic beaches using radiocarbon dating to reconstruct changes in sea level relative to the coast over 5,000 years, per the statement. Scientists also studied the shifting height of the land under the changing loads of ice to see how glaciers retreated and advanced. Larger, heavier glaciers can cause the land to sink and sea level relative to the coast to rise and lighter glaciers can lead the land to rise and sea level relative to the coast to fall.
The researchers found that from about 5,000 years ago until 30 years ago, sea level relative to the coast fell at a steady rate consistent with stable glacial behavior. But in the past thirty years, relative sea level fall was almost five times lower, most likely because of rapid loss of glacial ice that led the earth to rise, per the study. On top of that, because the glaciers rest on a slope with no known highs, no topographic features will help stabilize the glacier where it is, potentially leading to runaway melting.
The researchers found that from about 5,000 years ago until 30 years ago, sea level relative to the coast fell at a steady rate consistent with stable glacial behavior. But in the past thirty years, relative sea level fall was almost five times lower, most likely because of rapid loss of glacial ice that led the earth to rise, per the study. On top of that, because the glaciers rest on a slope with no known highs, no topographic features will help stabilize the glacier where it is, potentially leading to runaway melting.
*sigh* (Score:5, Informative)
Never stops being relevant around here. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
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By now, millions are likely to die whether we act or not.
Now you are making stuff up that isn't supported by scientific consensus.
This bears repeating, since there's so much hype:
We have scientific consensus that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will warm the globe.
There is no scientific consensus as to millions of people dying as a result.
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In this case, you are the contrarian. I am on the side of scientific consensus.
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What is the scientific consensus on predictions of the effects of global heating on excess fatality rates?
There is none lol. Read the IPCC report.
Also, why did you call it global heating instead of global warming?
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"World’s largest study of global climate related mortality links 5 million deaths a year to abnormal temperatures" https://www.monash.edu/medicin... [monash.edu]
Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. https://www.who.int/news-room/... [who.int]
The Impact of Global Warming on Human Fatality Rates https://www.scient [scientificamerican.com]
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The question now is whether we can do enough quickly enough to prevent billions from dying.
I do not think that is realistically even on the table anymore, giving were we are after knowing about this reliably for 40 years now and still dragging our feet. It is more a question of whether 1 billion dies (civilization may survive that), > 4 billion die (no more modern civilization) or _all_ billions die.
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From starvation
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” - Paul Ehrlich, 1971
disease
"In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution.” - Martin Bailey in Time Magazine, 1970
extreme weather
In An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore stated that the number and severity of storms would increase rapidly, due to climate c
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Except for the nail on 10 years (if Al Gore really said anything like that) nothing is wrong
We acted against air pollution, otherwise it had happened.
Plenty of nations at the coasts have big problems. Storms have increased in frequency and severity. You just do not know it as most DON'T happen in YOUR COUNTRY. Extreme weather events that usually happened once in a century now come every few years, in unprecedented severity.
And: you seem not aware about all the wars going on, we even have one in Europe, in c
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Wow, when you falsely represent the situation you can make any point you want!
I suppose I shouldn't expect better from someone whose such a basement dwelling troll as to impersonate another user for months on end. Tell your mom hi for me when she brings you down your pizza bites.
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Seems like human tech advance speed directly parallels warming, then.
I'm all for it! Finally we'll get those flying cars I expect.
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Never stops being relevant around here. https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
Very much so. The deniers are capable of ignoring and disputing cold hard facts when they stare them in the face. Just remember those people dying from COVID that claimed on their death-bed that COVID does not exist? There was a comparable a lot smaller number of people that said they had an insight and that they now undertstand they were stupid. But most stuck to their deep belief, no matter what the evidence was.
That is the real problem here: The human race is overall not capable of facing and accepting r
Could we have science without editorializing? (Score:2, Insightful)
11 feet of global sea level rise in the next several centuries
Let's take "several centuries" to be 500 years. So these glaciers may be contributing as much as 0.67mm/year to sea level rise.
We’re watching a world that’s doing things we haven’t really seen before
Yes, well, we've only been taking climate-relevant measurements for a couple hundred years. So anything that happens on a scale of millenia (or more) is something we haven't seen before.
Seriously, could we have the science without the editorializing? It's like they think their papers won't be published if they don't include words like "doomsday" and "catastrophe".
Re:Could we have science without editorializing? (Score:5, Informative)
It's like they think their papers won't be published if they don't include words like "doomsday" and "catastrophe".
Bad news for your thesis, the paper in question [nature.com] includes neither of those words...
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Thwaites is referred to as the Doomsday Glacier (although not in this article) because the geography it sits on is uniquely suited to allow it to advance very quickly into the ocean if it does melt. It could cause 6ft of sea level rise all by itself over decades, not centuries.
Re: Please don't contradict yourself in one senten (Score:3)
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Climate doesn't change this rapidly on its own.
"from about 5,000 years ago until 30 years ago, sea level relative to the coast fell at a steady rate consistent with stable glacial behavior. But in the past thirty years, relative sea level fall was almost five times lower, most likely because of rapid loss of glacial ice that led the earth to rise"
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the reality is climate changes on its own
People die on their own, and yet we call if murder if somebody is killed by another...
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I think some people would have complained bitterly about the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet, if they could pin in on oil companies or capitalism. Heck, they would if asked on polls: "Do you believe AGW is the cause for retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet? Yes or no?" because 99% of people (a made up statistic) have no clue what the Laurentide ice sheets were.
Sometimes I imagine a modern society 10,000 years ago, complete with MSNBC announcers pronouncing their dismay about the loss of habitat for the O
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About 8500 years ago the largest lake in the world, Lake Agassiz, which once covered almost half-a-million square kilometers (about 180,000 square miles) of central Canada simply drained, virtually overnight in the geologic timescale, into the Arctic ocean. "The last major shift in drainage occurred about 8,400 calendar years before present. The melting of remaining Hudson Bay ice caused lake Agassiz to drain nearly completely. This final drainage of Lake Agassiz contributed an estimated 1 to 3 meters to to
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No it doesn't. If the glacier starts melting faster, then there is a breakpoint where further melting will cause sea level rise. Are you really that daft?
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Yeah, no. [americanagnetwork.com]
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At the present time productive crop areas for food are rapidly vanishing
Yeah, no. [americanagnetwork.com]
See https://unfoundation.org/blog/... [unfoundation.org]
So... actual facts on the ground versus doomsaying prognostications of a nebulous future. Hmmm.
Leaving aside the likelihood of said nebulous future coming to pass, the assertion was that cropland is "rapidly vanishing" right now when in fact it's expanding.
This is the problem with climate alarmism polluting the subject. No actual scientist said that cropland is "rapidly vanishing right now" but some study was published somewhere saying it could rapidly vanish and the spin doctors very carefully published
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See https://www.worldvision.org/hu... [worldvision.org]
The first two suggestions for how to help in that link are to pray.
You're an idiot and should stop using the Internet. You are unqualified to be exposed to so much information you are obviously unable to understand.
Pray to stop hunger... Fuck. You. Sideways.
Hunger today is caused exclusively by politicians. That article lists the five regions in the world where politicians consistently work to actively hurt their local populace for their own gain. Not just exploit them, but intentionally injure them.
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Re: 11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:2)
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Yeah, no. [americanagnetwork.com]
When they're cutting down forests to plant things that wreck the soil?
Not a thing we should be celebrating.
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Re: 11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:2)
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Most of these problems aren't problems.
Unless the ability to do things like drain swamps is faster than the loss of cropland elsewhere, they are issues. No amount of drainage makes the sun be in the sky longer, though.
Roads have been built for millennia.
Indeed, and they cost money. It all cost money. It involves your crops being in someone else's country too, potentially.
Iceland even has agriculture
Not much known for its fields of wheat or maize, though. Yes, you can grow something but not necessarily what you want or need globally.
and lets not forget the fact that livestock can flourish as well.
If Iceland is your barometer, then exist, and flourish in only specific locat
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we can leave the earth behind all together and colonize something as close as our moon. In short, we're not under any real threat.
Oh lord.
Re: 11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:2)
Northern Canada is the Laurentian Shield. Hard bedrock covered at some places with a thin layer of soil. Good luck with your plow
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Well, that is humans for you. What, it is far away? I do not care. What, it has gotten closer? I still do not care. What, It is threatening my life now? Why was I not warned? How could this have happened? I am blameless, I did nothing wrong!
So, taking into account accelerating effects that are known, we are likely already at 2.5C assured warming. Nothing that can be done about that anymore. There may be additional accelerating effects though that we do not know about and it does look like noting really effe
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Where I live the corn crop is all dead this year due to heat and severe drought, made much more likely by global warming.
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Huh... Looks like neither of you have it correct...
https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2022... [unl.edu]
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Places like Florida, where you're basically already at, or below, sea level in a lot of areas... freshwater wells and the like are already being "contaminated" with saltwater. Even a couple inches of sea level rise could cause some of the major sources of freshwater for the entire state to become saltwater.
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I see, so if man causes the sea level to rise so that Florida's fresh water becomes salt water, it is okay then. That's some fancy reasoning you have there. Maybe you could tell the Floridians this, half of them will feel better.
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The first need is to be honest and accept that it is unstable. Next work on what will factually make it less unstable.
Sadly, our approach was to first recognize that it's unstable, and then to push on it and argue over whether we're making it topple, or whether it would have toppled anyway.
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Venice was unstable mud flats.
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We are now just learning that the impact of climate change is coming in far faster than projected. It's not impossible that it won't be centuries, but within our lifetimes. Comparing it to the Sun going nova is outrageous hyperbole.
The entire southern section of Florida including Miami, Fort Myers, and th
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This is utter nonsense. We are already limiting and reducing CO2 and things could be worse. We have the technology to address this issue, we so far have insufficient will to act. The act of addressing this issue will actually stimulate healthy economic growth. There is no reason not to act.
It is the successful propaganda of ultra wealthy entities that stand to make more profit with the status quo w
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Sounds like the effects are already baked in to the future so we should be focused entirely on mitigation
Wrong reasoning. Yes, plenty of effects are already baked in, and we need mitigation. But there is a dose-response reaction going on. The more CO2 we release, the stronger the effects. And it's at least an order of magnitude cheaper to avoid further CO2 emissions than to mitigate the resulting effects (how do you mitigate 30 million Bangladeshis losing their land to the ocean?). So the rational human (a rare beast, I know) will do as much avoidance as possible because it reduces overall costs.
The irration
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Next you'll be telling me that the sun will explode in millions of years. Jumping into life rafts now.
Yep, that is exactly the mind-set that brought us the current and upcoming problems. Hopefully future generations will learn and confine people like you securely before they do damage.
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But ... what about the Florida-man stories we all love so much? No more of those when America's Wang is gone.
Today on "Cryptid Facts": (Score:2)
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Re:11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:4, Insightful)
I should really be posting stuff at billmcgonigle.com instead.
Yes, you really should. Please do that. Thank you.
Re:11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:5, Insightful)
Me:It's a fact that carbon retains more heat then most other elements in our atmosphere thus pumping tons more into it causes global warming.
Them: Duhhh, it's nature just taking its course!
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Right, the petroleum industry is against burning petroleum. You're a fucking genius.
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We thank you for assisting us with promoting the concept. That you are helping us unwittingly reinforces our belief that investment in propaganda campaigns are an important long term strategy as they eventually become self sustaining.
Hahahaha. Yes, the petroleum industry is tricking us all by convincing us their product is bad for the environment and you're so brilliant you've figured it out! Does their deviltry know no bounds!
Re: 11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:2)
If it was not for them you would still be living in the Victorian Age to a ripe age of 50 shitting in the woods scared of your feudal lord
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Them: We'll apply taxes and expensive regulation, depending on quiet discussions in the coffee shop. Then maybe not so much.
This is the way of the world, even for valid concerns.
In any case, let's consider the world in 200 years.
1. Year 2222 (nice!), with year 2222 technology, and seas 11 feet higher. People barely noticed as buildings age and need to be rebuilt anyway, moving in is no emergency over centuries.
Or
2. Year 2222, no sea rise, but year 2112 technology, because regulatory burden slowed technol
Re: 11 feet rise over centuries? (Score:2)
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seas 11 feet higher. People barely noticed as buildings age and need to be rebuilt anyway
Miami is an average of 6 feet above sea level now. It would then be 5 feet under. It would have to move quite a lot, too. No more Everglades, of course. Sure, people would barely notice. No more Bangladesh either, or not a lot of it. But then it's only 160 million foreigners...
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But then it's only 160 million foreigners...
And they are only brown. Some even black.
I mean: who cares?
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Bangladesh is actually growing in area due to river-deposited sediment. [bbc.co.uk]
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That "rebuild cities further inland" 'solution' sounds like a programmer that once worked for us that said in response to a question about how supportable a technique of his was, "all systems should be rewritten every 5 years anyway". Immaturity is no excuse for irresponsibility.
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You have a pretty childish few on technologic progress.
And an even more naive idea about lush forests.
However your assumption global warming - as we have it already - will only kill 50 million people over the next 50 years: is completely retarded.
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Me: the seas will rise for the rest of the interglacial period, and then they will fall again, as it's always been.
Them: pay more taxes.
I hope you're young enough to really enjoy your mess when it happens.
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But your user ID says "not".
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It might help to realize that these are not the only glaciers that are melting. So, while this 11' might take 200 years, it adds to sea level increases we need to worry about from Greenland and general ocean temperature increases.
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What exactly is fear mongering about informing the public that a glacier is melting and when it wont stop the sea level rice will be about 11 feet?
You think they are too stupid to calculate the sea level rise? Or do you want to imply, you yourself do not need to fear because you will be long dead when it is over?
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chance the Arctic Ocean would be ice free during some seasons by about 10 years ago.
Yes it has happened. Are you an idiot or just living under a rock?
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This is the heart of the issue: fearmongering by scientists who find something that may become or is an issue, but instead of projecting rational conversation, they instead project panic.
They tried rational conversation, and they were ignored for so long that now we have to panic.
Re:Insert AOC jokes here (Score:4, Funny)
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100% correct but the Republicans are less damaging to the lower and middle classes.
Fundamentally Flawed 2017 Tax Law Largely Leaves Low- and Moderate-Income Americans Behind [cbpp.org]
the gall to call anyone else grifters.
you don't believe anything you say, you stand for nothing, you believe in nothing, your opinions are worth less than nothing
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Reagan increased the national debt. Bush II gave us the financial crisis. The former alleged president gave that top 1% a good tax reduction, they were suffering. He also misled America on Covid and convinced half the pop. that it was no big deal....1 million dead Americans later he still hasn't owned up.
I'm guessing those 1 million stiffs had better funerals because of him using your reasoning.
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Ya, but I like the pretend right wing groundnuts better when they strut around in their faux combat gear acting like they are ready for the revolution.
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Better some silly people cosplaying at fighting some revolution or something than BLM/Antifa burning down cities for real.
Although those were mostly peaceful protests in the name of a hardened criminal who died of a drug overdose.
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scientists looking to graft their next research grant.
Yay rah capitalism! The best solution except the ones we won't bother to try because Jesus didn't say so!
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People pushing climate change
Climate change is real. Some people plan to profit from it, but some people have profited from creating it and they're still profiting from making it worse.
If you love capitalism, you should be fine with people profiting from fixing the problem. If you love life, you should be against making it worse. If you love facts, stop with your AGW denialism bullshit.
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The problem is people "loving" capitalism but not understanding it. As to living life, I think these people do not.
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The RATE of change matters.
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The RATE of change matters.
That idea is too complicated and complex for the deniers. They are like the COVID-deaths that claimed with their last breath that COVID does not exist.
Re:Ice Ages end, right? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, there is no causal proof that CO2 causes a change in temperature.
Proof is for mathematics and alcohol, but the causal link between CO2 and warming is quite clear: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
It is hubris to think we can stop the cycles of polar ice by turning the atmospheric CO2 knob.
There is evidence that we have done just that: https://www.eurekalert.org/new... [eurekalert.org]
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What, evidence? How do you dare bring evidence into an exchange (cannot call it a discussion, that requires rational though on both sides) that is designed to allow some people to tell themselves nothing is wrong and everything will be fine?