Pink Octopus Arm (Micro Discovery/Getty Images) Posted on 06/16/2023 9:12:27 AM PDT by Red Badger
Pink Octopus Arm (Micro Discovery/Getty Images)
Ocean bays that pinch West Antarctica are home to two distinct populations of Turquet's octopus (Pareledone turqueti). The shared secrets of their ancestors do not bode well for the future health of our planet.
A recent DNA analysis of the two geographically separated octopus populations, published earlier this year ahead of peer review, indicates they were once part of one big family.
This "direct historical connection" suggests that around 125,000 years ago, the massive 2.2 million cubic kilometer (530,000 cubic mile) West Antarctic ice sheet that separates the two bays had fully collapsed into the sea.
West Antarctica Octopuses
The two populations of Turquet's octopus in the Weddell and Ross Sea. (Sally Lau/Twitter)
Scientists who sequenced the genomes of octopus populations in both the Weddell and Ross Seas found evidence of ancestral gene flow between the two populations roughly 70,000 years ago, suggesting that "an ancient seaway was likely once opened across the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which directly linked the present day Weddell Sea and Ross Sea".
"This could only be facilitated by a complete West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse during an interglacial period, which we infer to have occurred approximately between 68 and 265 [thousand years go]," they write.
If it happened then, it could very well happen again, especially since global temperatures are reaching a similar threshold today.
At the moment, scientists don't really know whether West Antarctica is at risk of fully collapsing due to the climate crisis. It's one of the major uncertainties left to solve in climate models.
While some experts warned of disaster in the region as far back as 50 years ago, other climate models made just 10 years ago predicted no significant ice loss in Antarctica within the century.
How wrong that turned out to be.
Today, West Antarctica is discharging melting icebergs the size of major metropolises much faster than the rest of the continent.
One of its glaciers is known as the 'Doomsday Glacier' because if it collapses, it could cause 65 centimeters of sea level rise all on its own. Climate scientists recently warned the glacier was holding on "by its fingernails".
So how long will the region continue to dangle on a cliff's edge?
Of course, the past collapse was due to a natural cycle in Earth's climate. It was not caused by rapid global warming, triggered by human fossil fuel emissions during what should be a planetary cold spell, as it is today.
If the entire West Antarctic ice sheet collapses from human-induced global warming, forming an archipelago in the southern ocean, the resulting environmental catastrophe is hard to fathom.
Scientists predict sea levels could rise by 3.3 to 5 meters (11 to 17 feet) around the world, overturning water circulation in oceans globally and drastically reshaping the coastlines of continents.
"Currently, future West Antarctic ice sheet collapse on centennial timescales is considered as a low likelihood process," researchers of the octopus paper write.
Yet even the most optimistic future models predict air temperatures will reach 1.2 to 1.7 °C by 2100, and as the authors point out, that is "potentially within the tipping point of future West Antarctic ice sheet collapse".
Currently, over half the ice shelves holding up the Antarctic ice sheet are on the brink of caving in, and if they crumble, it could possibly lead to irreversible losses.
If Turquet's octopuses in the southern ocean are ever reunited with their long-lost family members, it will mean our planet has entered truly troubled waters.
The study was published in bioRxiv.
BRING BACK PANGEA!
Buffalo numbers were probably way too high. Lotsa methane.
WEF propaganda alert!!!
I need that T-shirt.
Notice how they use hard science, genome sequence of specific species, to proselytize their quasi-religious doomsday cult pseudoscience.
Of course. Naturally. What other reason could there be?
Yet, the article says "around 125,000 years ago, the massive 530,000 cubic mile West Antarctic ice sheet...had fully collapsed into the sea."
We all know the REAL reason for that warming 125,000 years ago...
They’re either ignorant, lying, or both. The ice shelves are already floating on water or, if resting on bedrock, displace a lot of water. So if they melt there is zero or only a small increase in sea level. If the ice sheets currently on land collapse as well, that’s a completely different scenario.
Only an ignorant idiot would be convinced by this “science” article.
There were glaciers. Some of them went away. Some animals were separated from other animals. Some survived. Some didn’t.
Once upon a time in a country long ago, there were science journals. They actually practiced science and didn’t write wild ranting suppositions for a gullible public.
In other words, life on earth was not destroyed by the collapse of an ice sheet back then, and even the octopus species in the area survived just fine.
Possibly...maybe...could...potentially...
Fear porn.
so the ice sheet broke off... it didn’t melt... there is a scientific reason for that to happen... the ice grows and becomes too heavy...
if the ice melts, it recedes and doesn’t break off.
so the ice was growing and the octapusses were frollicking and then the ice broke of and separated the two and i guess they never became friends.
We are all going to die again form scientific guess work!
Oh brother. Guess the author and all those issuing this warning missed middle school science class where they talked at length about how the earth has warmed and cooled over the eons.
Gotta keep the narrative going. If it’s not a crisis how can they transfer $trillions for those that earn it to themselves?
Unfortunately for the crisis mongers, if one does just a bit of historical research regarding ice ages in the past it shoots down most of what they are pushing as crisis data.
Octopuses (Octopi, Octopussies) can’t swim?
in b4 aliens! what do i win?
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