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Earth

Antarctic 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster, Scientists Warn 68

Posted by msmash from the concerning-signs dept.
A massive Antarctic glacier, dubbed the "Doomsday Glacier," is melting at an accelerating rate and could be approaching irreversible collapse, international researchers are reporting. The Thwaites Glacier, holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by over two feet, has seen rapid retreat in the past 30 years.

Scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration used ice-breaking ships and underwater robots to study the glacier up close since 2018. Their findings reveal warm ocean water funneling through deep cracks in the ice, causing unexpected melting patterns. While computer modeling suggests catastrophic cliff collapse is less likely than feared, researchers project Thwaites and the Antarctic Ice Sheet could disintegrate within 200 years. This collapse could ultimately lead to 10 feet of sea level rise, devastating coastal communities worldwide.
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Antarctic 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster, Scientists Warn More

Antarctic 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster, Scientists Warn

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  • In retreat sounds good (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @02:36AM (#64804969)

    The Thwaites Glacier, holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by over two feet, has seen rapid retreat in the past 30 years.

    Good! That thing looked way too threatening.

  • Maybe don't break the ice... (Score:3)

    by srussia ( 884021 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @02:47AM (#64804983)
    FTFS:

    Scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration used ice-breaking ships (...) Their findings reveal warm ocean water funneling through deep cracks in the ice, causing unexpected melting patterns.

    • You were probably joking, but to state the obvious, you don't--can't--break through a glacier with an ice-breaking ship.
      You use an ice-breaking ship to navigate through waterways prone to icing over.

  • Move to higher ground (Score:3)

    by djb ( 19374 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @04:23AM (#64805057) Homepage

    When I moved home a couple of years ago, I made sure my new place is at the top a hill. Whilst sea level rise is still a long way off, higher global temperatures means more water in the atmosphere and more flooding events around the world.

    Your local area should publish a floodplain map, I’d suggest being at least a couple of metres above the 100 year level if you can.

    • 100-year level? Thats not nearly enough. Nowadays the âoe100 year catastropheâ of the 1900s is now happening every 24 months, as far as weather goes.

    • I’d suggest being at least a couple of metres above the 100 year level if you can.

      So fuck the entire Netherlands then. :-)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hattig ( 47930 )

      This is sensible. I'm also around the top of a hill well above sea level so should be fine, but will probably get stiffed with some other side-effect of climate change (most likely, ironically, colder weather due to the degradation of the atlantic gulf stream.

      Yes, you should always check the flood maps before buying a house, over here that would be something most competent conveyancers would do.

      Stay well away from engineered water courses that used to be flood plains and are now channels through housing.

  • GOP investment opportunities! (Score:4, Funny)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @04:50AM (#64805095)
    There's some fantastic bargains to be had in prime coastal areas of the USA. GOP climate deniers should invest in these amazing opportunities!

  • It's not like there's any chance of stopping whatever is going to happen. Even if it was possible in theory, even if we had the technology and the money to do it, the world doesn't have the will.

    So it's going to happen. I hope it happens soon so all these doomsday articles can finally stop. It's getting quite annoying.

    • Re: I can't wait. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
      Yup, our generation screwed the pooch on this one, and its literally too late to mitigate. This generation is a lost cause. Adaptation is our only option at this point. I tried to be part of the solution and failed. You were obviously part of the problem and now you dont want to hear about it.

      Too bad. Its gonna get shoved in your face over and over and over and over again. For literally centuries. Youre not the real target. The human population needs to understand that were now big enough and advanced e

    • You have to understand they're following the 80's Club of Rome document on how to control a world-sized population. PDF is online (archive.org etc.)

      The key idea is "Man is the Enemy of Man".

      They suggested: man-made Global Warming, man-made Financial Crises, man-made pandemics.

      So, it's probably untrue but the key economic insight, per your observation, is that all the money spent on prevention could be spent on adaptation and prevention money is worth zero in your scenario. So Opportunity Cost disaster.

      Howev

      • The Club of Rome was a bunch of idiots. Among other things, they were claiming that we were going to run out of iron because they were ignoring the fact that iron is constantly getting recycled. That's right, they thought that when a building was torn down all of the girders making up its skeleton were discarded and that we had to mine more ore and refine it to build another building there. Utter nonsense, it was.
  • The sea level is one problem to consider. The diminished reflection of the solar light is another, more critical one, since it accelerates the rise of temperature and thus has a positive feedback on the process. This will expedite the end of the ice age before we know it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      That is more of an issue with glaciers further from the poles. I don't think Thwaites gets a lot of sun.

  • Don't be so quick to blame "climate change" (Score:4, Informative)

    by davide marney ( 231845 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @06:22AM (#64805189) Journal

    It just could be volcanic activity under the continent, which is substantial. https://www.nbcnews.com/scienc... [nbcnews.com]

    N.B. Was there ever a more imprecise term than climate "change"? Just say which change you are specifically talking about.

    • Re:Don't be so quick to blame "climate change" (Score:5, Informative)

      by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn.earthlink@net> on Saturday September 21, 2024 @09:00AM (#64805413)

      You really can't say which change, because it differs from place to place. Some places should expect increased flooding, other place increased droughts, etc. So far one of the main changes is the jet stream becoming slower and more unstable, but most people can't measure that directly, what they can notice is that rainly patches often remain in place longer. Ditto for dry patches. And the season at which some things happen has been changing. (Like caterpillars showing up early, but not the birds that usually eat them.)

      • Even granting all the different types of changes you are describing, by lumping all of them together under the same label of "climate change", we're implying they all have the same root cause. But that is clearly not the case. This sort of mislabeling actually muddies the waters, it doesn't clarify it. I just don't think we should be talking at the level of slogans at all when we discuss Science topics. It's just rather frustrating to have to spend all this time talking about how something isn't what we wan

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          The particular "different changes" I mentioned are all related to the single cause "slowing of the jet stream" which is because the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator has been reduced. And this is because of the increased level of CO2. There are definitely other changes that I can't as simply relate to that, but that doesn't show that they aren't related. (Often others can relate chains of causation that I am unfamiliar with.)

          Now if you want to claim that there are multiple reinforcin

  • So how should we be responding to an apparently inevitable consequence of actions in the past?

    I live in a second (third to my US readers) floor apartment a good distance from the sea and significantly above sea level. So I'm not going to get flooded. But otherwise?

    At some point information like this serves very little purpose...

    • Theres basically nothing to be done except adapt. The window to mitigate this stuff closed at least 10 years ago, and were still DECADES away from making real emissions reductions. Go look at the data. Its been nothing but upwards movement. The effects are gonna hit us like a freight train where nobody ever bothered to put on the brakes and theres no getting off the tracks.

      You seem annoyed that others are pointing this out, but this is literally part of learning. Populations of people who dont understand
      • It's a good one I'll give you that. Anything but giving up are stupid fucking SUVs that we spend 3 hours a day trapped in while breathing tire particulate so that the CEO of whichever of the major car companies we picked can get his bonus this year....

        And no you will not find a single scientist who isn't on the payroll of a major oil company that will tell you we shouldn't be doing everything we can to mitigate global warming and climate change. It can always get worse and we can always make it better a

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        People aren't very good a long term learning, even with the population having repeated exposures. If they haven't noticed a problem during their lifetime, they tend not to believe it's real. (They may *think* it's real, but it doesn't drive their actions.)

      • You're right, of course; the average prole doesn't really believe that CO2 emissions are causing the worsening weather that we're all experiencing; the fact that the GOP and other right wing parties in effect are climate deniers in some of their material is depressing. I'm just trying to respond rationally to the flow of bad news FOR MYSELF. And it makes me ask myself hard questions about my news consumption! I like to hope that I will have shuffled off this mortal coil before it gets really bad...

  • This is probably a lack on my part in reading skills, but it looks like the lead says 2 feet, anf later in the body it is 10. I agree with many here that at some point the environmental alarms going off are tanamount to car alarms in NYC, but this fatigue is only compounded by confliciting info which seems more to alarm rather than inform.

    "holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by over two feet"
    "This collapse could ultimately lead to 10 feet of sea level rise, devastating coastal communities worldwi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      My guess is those are two predictions for different degrees of melt, probably at different time-points, but possibly also using different bounds for "what's in the glacier?" or "how thick is it?". Or possibly "what secondary effects are included?". The story's from CNN, and sometimes their science reporting is a bit confused.

    • Re:Which is it -- 2 feet or 10 feet ????????? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ixuzus ( 2418046 ) on Saturday September 21, 2024 @09:31AM (#64805453)

      The Thwaites Glacier melting would lead to about 65cm of sea level rise. The higher figure is likely based on this collapse destabilizing the entire ice sheet over West Antarctica.

      I think the more concerning thing is that the rate of change in reality is streaking out ahead of what the models predict.

    • 10 feet refers to both Thwaites and the whole Antarctic Ice Sheet, while two just Thwaites.
      But note that currently there is more water running into the oceans from Greenland than Antarctica. The median predictions of sea lever rise by 2100 is 1.2 meters, and it won't stop there of course.

  • Does anyone here actually believe we will (not can, will) prevent catastrophic sea level rise?

    I find these news stories odd because I have never seen evidence of anything concrete done to stop it. A lot of talk and token gestures. But nobody's changing how they live to prevent this. So to me it's a forgone conclusion.

    • Agreed, results are certain, or as certain as anything involving prediction of complex systems.

      Just listen to the uproar when you suggest banning commercial air travel as a totally unnecessary luxury or suggest running a data center on solar power and simply turning it off at sundown.

      Howls of agony everywhere. "Not my luxury! But my streaming!"

      And it's not just here. Look at the super cruise ships. Or go to YouTube and watch the boats going in and out of Haulover inlet. Every 200 HP outboard drinks 20 GPH a

  • Really. We swear it this time.

    I know our track record of doomsaying and predicting the end of all things has been terrible thus far but,
    we assure you, THIS time we're right. . . . . :|

    I mean, look how far sea levels have risen since we started making those predictions . . . . .

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