This Antarctic glacier is cracking from the inside out — and that’s bad news for all of us

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting from the Inside Out

Great story - and a quick read. Highly recommended.

“It’s generally accepted that it’s no longer a question of whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt, it’s a question of when,” study leader Ian Howat, associate professor of Earth sciences at Ohio State, said in a statement. If things continue the way they are, glaciers will keep melting, and West Antarctica will significantly collapse “in our lifetimes.”

In the case of the 2015 iceberg, researchers believe that the rift began deep down the ice shelf, where warming waters are eating away at the ice. That’s a new threat to the Antarctica ice sheet, where rifts usually form at the margins, not deep inland. Similar breakups had been observed in Greenland and the global consequences of melting ice in these regions are huge.

The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. Previous papers have shown that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is inevitable, and it could raise sea levels by as much as 10 feet. In the US, that would mean that cities like New York and Miami would go underwater.

It's starting to look as if things are much worse than first thought. Ice sheets and glaciers are melting in Antarctica, and the sea ice is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic.

And I don't think there's a damn thing we can do about any of it...

I certainly wouldn't consider beachfront property a good long-term investment...

a reply to: Riffrafter

At least we'll be able to fund out what's under the ice ;-)

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Riffrafter

Seems as though the cause is thought to be related to ocean warming and/or meltwater discharge from subglacial lakes:

The cause of the initial formation of the basal crevasses are uncertain but may be the result of periods of enhanced basal melt due to episodic intrusions of warm deep water and/or subglacial meltwater discharge associated with lake drainage [Joughin et al., 2016].
...
Also considering the rising temperature of Antarctic shelf bottom water [Schmidtko et al., 2014] and increased melting of the Pine Island Glacier [Dutrieux et al., 2014] in the last decade, we therefore postulate that ocean forcing primarily caused expansion of basal crevasses and resulting in center-shelf rifting. Continued expansion of these basal crevasses and upglacier migration of rift development would provide a potential mechanism for rapid ice shelf disintegration.

Accelerated ice shelf rifting and retreat at Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

From the paper:



Deep ocean warming combined with increase meltwater runoff.

originally posted by: Greggers
I certainly wouldn't consider beachfront property a good long-term investment...

No. But mid-state property is going to SKYROCKET in that time frame as it slowly becomes beachfront property.

dbl post

If you really believe in this you would start shorting beachfront real estate property holders and beachfront property insurers. It's an easy pick up if this is a fact.

originally posted by: Riffrafter


It's starting to look as if things are much worse than first thought. Ice sheets and glaciers are melting in Antarctica, and the sea ice is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic.

Yet the growth rate of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is still greater than the losses.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

And I don't think there's a damn thing we can do about any of it...

Change your lightbulbs to energy saving bulbs, that might do the trick!

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Greggers
I certainly wouldn't consider beachfront property a good long-term investment...

No. But mid-state property is going to SKYROCKET in that time frame as it slowly becomes beachfront property.

Nah, they will find a way of screwing you so you so you won't get ahead with this. They will triple your taxes starting next year in anticipation that it will someday be beachfront property.

I see that you had a double post, maybe your taxes will only double next year instead of tripling. It is an omen..

Are there any other satellite time lapse graphics for other years and glaciers?

We need a context of how glaciers split in general.

We are finding early iron age relics as glaciers retreat, that means it was a herll of alot warmer then than now, and earth cycled back as it does over thousands of years.

I'm afraid we are cherry picking 4 year time spans of a glacier's million year old lifespan as a global change

originally posted by: Riffrafter

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting from the Inside Out

Great story - and a quick read. Highly recommended.

“It’s generally accepted that it’s no longer a question of whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt, it’s a question of when,” study leader Ian Howat, associate professor of Earth sciences at Ohio State, said in a statement. If things continue the way they are, glaciers will keep melting, and West Antarctica will significantly collapse “in our lifetimes.”

In the case of the 2015 iceberg, researchers believe that the rift began deep down the ice shelf, where warming waters are eating away at the ice. That’s a new threat to the Antarctica ice sheet, where rifts usually form at the margins, not deep inland. Similar breakups had been observed in Greenland and the global consequences of melting ice in these regions are huge.

The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. Previous papers have shown that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is inevitable, and it could raise sea levels by as much as 10 feet. In the US, that would mean that cities like New York and Miami would go underwater.

It's starting to look as if things are much worse than first thought. Ice sheets and glaciers are melting in Antarctica, and the sea ice is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic.

And I don't think there's a damn thing we can do about any of it...

This is nothing that hasn't happened before humans. I'd love to see what's buried under Antarctica's miles deep sheet of ice. I've heard there are huge Evergreens beneath it, so that tells you it wasn't covered in ice forever.

a reply to: Butterfinger

This paper posits the same thing:

Our observations reveal that basal conditions of an Antarctic ice stream can rapidly evolve and drive a dynamic ice response on subannual timescales, which can bias observations used to infer long-term ice sheet changes.

Episodic ice velocity fluctuations triggered by a subglacial flood in West Antarctica

The full paper is behind a pay wall, but the above excerpt from the abstract indicates the very possibility you mention.

This is exactly right... All this fear mongering over climate change is a whole lot of worrying over something that has already happened before.

This is exactly why I continually rail against pop-sci links.

From Wikipedia, The Pine Island Glacier is about 68,000 square miles. The Antarctic ice sheet is about 5.4 million square miles. So we're talking about somewhere in the area of 1.25%.

That's big, yes, but

A massive glacier at the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is cracking from the inside out at accelerating speed. That’s alarming because this glacier — and others — function like corks in a bottle: they keep the ice from flowing into the sea, which would raise sea levels by several feet.

Source: The original link

How big is 'massive'? It it bigger or smaller than 'hughmongus'? Is it smaller or larger than 'huge'? How many 'massives' equal a 'monstrous'?

As it turns out, even the actual paper doesn't specify how much of the Pine Island Glacier is expected to separate, or how big the Pine Island Glacier is. Neither do we even know how thick the Pine Island Glacier is compared to the average ice depth of Antarctica, so even if we knew the area, we still wouldn't know the volume. And volume is what will matter if this particular bit of doom porn comes to pass.

And of course, neither the original article nor the paper it was based on mention how this phenomena relates to ice increase/decrease on the rest of Antarctica... the paper because it is not a paper on the whole of Antarctica, and the article because it would take away from the "OMG we're all gonna die in the fiery flood caused by the Global Warmings! Someone tax the carbons and save us!" effect.

Point two: how does removing one section of ice from a second section of ice suddenly cause the second section of ice to behave differently? If ice flows (which it does), why wasn't the Pine Island Glacier flowing as well?

Answer: It was. It is. That's why it's cracking. Not because little carbon dioxides are burrowing in and cutting it loose with an army of tiny hacksaws.

TheRedneck

ETA: I am at work, so I may have access to papers behind a paywall. If that happens, sorry.

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: Riffrafter

At least we'll be able to fund out what's under the ice ;-)

Cheers - Dave

Encino Man awaits our arrival...

a reply to: Riffrafter
Isn't it summer time there?
Doesn't ice break off all the time? other wise the ice would cover most of southern hemisphere.
What about the old maps they found that show the coastline of Antarctic ice free, if it was ice free then wouldn't the sea level be high then? Seems like people lived through it.
Doesn't the ice melt and reform in cycles, kind of like when it's winter you get snow and ice and in the summer it melts.
Maybe there's some volcanic activity in that region, couldn't that be heating the water?
It would be good to see if the ice reforms when it's winter there.

I'm sure this cycle has been going on for millions of years and is nothing new. You could always ask Nancy Pelosi she looks like she is old enough to have witnessed a couple of cycles. a reply to: Riffrafter

a reply to: Riffrafter

Well atleast boat travel will be easier...

originally posted by: chrismarco
a reply to: Riffrafter

Well atleast boat travel will be easier...

Thank god for small mercies...

3.15 inches for this time period and the sea level is rising 3.4mm per year 1993 to now.

OK, so it's rising about .14 inches per year. So RUN NOW BEFORE YOU DROWN!!!

Sorry, could not control myself.



With it rising at that rate, if we can't make the needed changes to allow for the sea level rise by the time it becomes an issue, we are one stupid species for sure.