Ice Might Trigger Sudden 16ft Rise In Sea Levels

i live in Australia and live quite a few meters above sea level, but who can help but get worried about stuff like this? i also agree with the comment posted about the titanic! human reactions can be alarmingly strange

From: The Independent: Dramatic change in West Antarctic ice could produce 16ft rise in sea levels

Researchers from the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS)

This returned an interesting news-search...

a lil bit worried bout that cuse i live in 'lowlands' but more worried fer my home country(philippines) which is surrounded by huge water bodies.not too good at swimming also...

[edit on 3-2-2005 by Xavierrouge]

This is what I have so far...

Density and salinity differences essentially cancel each other out.

The surface area of the ocean is 3.63*10^14 m^2

16 feet translates to 4.88 m

So the volume that represents is 1.176656*10^15 m^3

Convert that to Km^3 and you have 11766560 Km^3

If someone can find the surface area of the ice shelf in question that is overhanging the solid base then we would have a thickness.

For example the Larsen B Ice Shelf has an overall surface area of 12,000 km^2. Dividing that into the above number gives a thickness 147.21 Km.

That is one thick piece of ice!

Does this calculation check out?

edit:math error

[edit on 2/3/2005 by Gools]

I believe the only thing keeping this ice sheet from floating off into the ocean every year are a few islands, which act like pins up into the sheet, holding it in place. Now i guess these new fears could be as someone said, just them wanting a new round of attention to the whole topic of global warming. Or they could actually have some genuine concerns that this event is imminant, maybe new fractures in the sheet have developed, or maybe the pinning action is weakening or whatever. But have no doubt if this ice sheet does brake away, theres gonna be some major problems. Whatever ocean in floats into, its gonna disrupt some major current, and that would affect the weather on a global scale big style. Thats one thing, but then after about a year or so the thing would of completely melted and then you get the double wammy of water levels rising, 5m is high enough for all the beach front property in the world to be wiped out, as well as plenty of low lying countries. Not as apocalyptic as the whole damn poles melting, still pretty bad though im sure you'll agree.
And yet with global warming looming the largest single problem to come in this century, the guy in charge of the most influential and most powerful nation ignores it. Bush waxed lyrical last night about the 'doomed' social security needing reform to save it from bankruptcy (maybe it wouldnt if he didnt keep raiding it to pay off the deficit). He wants to protect the sanctity or marriage and spread democracy to the whole world, all this to ensure future US generations live in a better world. Although he almost brushes aside global warming, I think he said one sentance about it. This issue needs to be adressed, and now.

Whoo-Hooo, Im finally gonna have some beachfront property !


But seriously, 3 years ago,...

www.guardian.co.uk...

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey said yesterday the speed of the complete disintegration of the 200-metre thick, 3,250 square kilometre Larsen B iceshelf was "staggering".

"We knew what was left of the Larsen B iceshelf would collapse eventually, but this is staggering," said Dr David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the BAS in Cambridge. "It's just broken apart. It fell over like a wall and has broken as if into hundreds of thousands of bricks".

The collapse is believed to have dumped more ice into the Southern Ocean than all of the previous half century's icebergs combined. "This is the largest single event in a series of retreats by ice shelves in the peninsula over the last 30 years.

But I dont recall hearing about the ocean rising even one measly foot.


edit - forgot to add linky..

[edit on 3-2-2005 by smirkley]

I found it just a bit humorous, if not amazing that this topic, and like associated articles, were listed at JunkScience.com, hmmm.

Then I ran across this from them:

It's becoming fashionable to claim rapid Antarctic warming too - from NYT yesterday:

"Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable" - "A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why." (New York Times)

Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating.

An interesting read.
Article on Antarctica and Artic





seekerof

OK, my goof. Re-reading the link article I posted...

Because the Larsen B iceshelf and the Thwaites ice tongue were already floating, their disintegration will have no impact on sea levels which will only rise if the ice held back on land by the ice shelf flows more quickly onto the sea.

[edit on 3-2-2005 by smirkley]

Does that mean that the ocean won't rise 16 ft? Darn, I was looking forward to having beach front property (my house 18 ft above see level). Oh, well.

I got all excited about the last Antarctic adventure with the largest demolition derby on the planet
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Scientist predicted fireworks were possible. That turned out to be much ado about nothing.

My take:
The internet is providing science junkies and the rest of us with soooo much info and all these theories and possibilities are just out there for us.

Anyway, I heard global warming may just be the new fear to keep us in line. Didn't I read somewhere that Antartica was in fact getting colder???

I live in Sacrmento, CA so i'm not exactly at ease with these theories floating around...

Does anyone know of a site that graphs what the worlds geography would look like if the sea levels raised?

There's some information and maps about rising sea level impact on the U.S. here:

yosemite.epa.gov...

What exactly is "collapse"? Collapse where? How? Into pieces, or fall off into the ocean altogether?

Originally posted by p a v e l
What exactly is "collapse"? Collapse where? How? Into pieces, or fall off into the ocean altogether?

The mainland "rock" under the ice is way below sea level. They have known for some time that the ice in the west is unstable. A huge area of the ice is getting "undermined" by the sea. Sooner or later it´s gonna fall into the ocean. They previously thought this could happen in about 100 years. The point of this new findings are that this collapse might find place much sooner than expected. The melting is accelerating in "explosive" speed...

If anything all of this indicates that more funding needs to be put into climatological and related researches. There's a real danger of these things happening, they're known to have happened in the past.