Doomsday glacier, which could raise sea level by several feet, is holding on 'by its fingernails'

Oh oh, better sell that beachfront property and move uphill a bit. Sea doom is coming (sooner or later). On the bright side, it is not like a 1,000 foot wall of water coming inland.

Not really much we can do about it but wait and see.

www.cnn.com...

The Thwaites Glacier, capable of raising sea level by several feet, is eroding along its underwater base as the planet warms. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier's historical retreat, hoping to learn from its past what the glacier will likely do in the future.

The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida. But it's just a faction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which holds enough ice to raise sea level by up to 16 feet, according to NASA.

a reply to: infolurker

I saw that. My house is a few minutes' walk to the ocean, but 63 feet above sea level. However, our downtown would be completely under water. As would the golf course neighborhood, and many of the houses built beside the water would be gone. I don't see it as a completely bad thing for me. It just means that my town will become smaller. We are surrounded by a national forest, and all of the developable land already has houses on it. 

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Wasn't the ice caps supposed to melt this year or in 2020 according to al gore?

a reply to: tamusan

You may be lucky enough to get a brand-new beach front, make sure the state provides you with sand to build the new beach.

Really glaciers breaking away are not new, actually we used to have more of them in the news but they die out.

I remember one Iceberg that was going to hit NY coast at one point in time, I forgot but it was a few decades ago.

Many years ago, the old beach houses here were mostly 1 story & right on the beach. The beach has been slowly, but steadily eroding away. So as they replaced the old houses, rather than moving construction back from the beach, they just started putting newly built houses up on stilts. Now we've started to have a few houses up on stilts tumbling down into the ocean. It's taken a while, but I finally think they may be learning that building that close to ocean isn't working!

originally posted by: vNex92
Wasn't the ice caps supposed to melt this year or in 2020 according to al gore?

Pretty sure that was by 2001.


The sea isn't rising, the land is sinking.
Some of it, anyway.
No problems on the coast around here, waterfront buildings from the 1800s are still being used, cobblestone paved over and windows replaced, but the tide doesn't rise an inch more than it did two hundred years ago.

a reply to: infolurker

It's just mother earth getting rid of those carbon producing pricey beach homes.

Perhaps a net gain for mother earth to get rid of all those vacation beach houses that litter the shoreline.

We all know business are simply carbon producers and bad for the environment that sit on the edge of the shoreline. It's just Mother Earth cleaning house. Anything that trashes carbon producers is normally a big celebration for environmentalists.

Environmentalists should be cheering and hoping for this to happen, especially the 1%ers who are always complaining about homes and businesses creating too much carbon output. If their beaches and mansions are destroyed, they should rejoice that there is one less mansion to pollute the environment.

a reply to: vNex92

Yeah , and his Expertise as a Top Climate Scientist is Beyond Reproach . Oh , wait........

a reply to: tamusan

Your property could be considered lake frontage if this happens. that means they will raise your property taxes up really high, can you afford to have a ten fold increase in your property taxes and everyone would be afraid to buy your house because another event would put it under water?

I don't have to worry about that, and it would be great if global warming made it warmer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...which would be a pipe dream.

a reply to: GlobalGold

Most of the east coast of the US is man made, in order to sell beach front real state, many people have no idea how manufactured the east coast really is, erosion is a problem because the area were meant to be without sand, every year it cost the tax payer in the states millions of dollars to replace the sand.

I was born in an Island; in contrast every time is a storm the sand accumulates in the beaches and have to be taken away by truck loads.

Here we go again. Everybody get hysterical because the weather is the weather.

a reply to: infolurker

From the most trusted name in news:

The Thwaites Glacier itself has concerned scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it was at high risk of collapse. Nearly a decade later, they found that -- because the glacier is grounded to a seabed, rather than to dry land -- warm ocean currents could melt the glacier from underneath, causing it to destabilize from below.

It can’t raise sea levels, because its volume is already contained in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean.

/thread

a reply to: rickymouse

I am unconcerned with any of that. My property already extends to the beach and is considered oceanfront. The article says that the ocean will rise by several feet. That would still leave my house sitting at 56 feet above sea level. People are still buying houses built on the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. I don't think that many people looking for oceanfront property would be scared to buy my house. My property value would also go up even more as there are already not enough houses here for the people who really want a house here. I get mail all the time from people offering large sums of money for my house. I just hope the glacier hurries up and slides into the ocean already. How many years have they been saying it is hanging on by a fingernail? Hopefully, it happens before my dogs die, because that is when we will be selling this property and heading to Japan.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: infolurker

From the most trusted name in news:

The Thwaites Glacier itself has concerned scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it was at high risk of collapse. Nearly a decade later, they found that -- because the glacier is grounded to a seabed, rather than to dry land -- warm ocean currents could melt the glacier from underneath, causing it to destabilize from below.

It can’t raise sea levels, because its volume is already contained in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean.

/thread

The only point that matters.
Like I said- the ocean isn't rising, some land is sinking.

youtu.be...

some folks need to watch this lol.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: infolurker

From the most trusted name in news:

The Thwaites Glacier itself has concerned scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it was at high risk of collapse. Nearly a decade later, they found that -- because the glacier is grounded to a seabed, rather than to dry land -- warm ocean currents could melt the glacier from underneath, causing it to destabilize from below.

It can’t raise sea levels, because its volume is already contained in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean.

/thread

And if I remember correctly from my high school science class frozen water actually takes up more volume than liquid water so wouldn't the level go down?

a reply to: underpass61

A simple experiment can be performed to gain an understanding of the physics at play here.

Take an ice cube and place it in an empty glass, then fill the glass with water all the way to the brim of the glass. Now, sit back and observe as the ice cube slowly melts. You should see that the water level remains unchanged.

Let me guess, it's straight from the Rockefeller boondoggle agency.

a reply to: underpass61

Isn't CO2 an inert 'heavier than air' gas?