Beam me to The Top of the World !
Posted on 02/24/2009 4:56:44 PM PST by NormsRevenge
OSLO (Reuters) – Jagged mountains the size of the Alps have been found entombed in Antarctica's ice, giving new clues about the vast ice sheet that will raise world sea levels if even a fraction of it melts, scientists said on Tuesday.
Using radar and gravity sensors, the experts made the first detailed maps of the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, originally detected by Russian scientists 50 years ago at the heart of the East Antarctic ice sheet.
"The surprising thing was that not only is this mountain range the size of the Alps, but it looks quite similar to the (European) Alps, with high peaks and valleys," said Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey who took part in the research.
He told Reuters that the mountains would probably have been ground down almost flat if the ice sheet had formed slowly. But the presence of jagged peaks might mean the ice formed quickly, burying a landscape under up to 4 km (2.5 miles) of ice.
Ferraccioli said the maps were "the first page of a new book" of understanding how ice sheets behave, which in turn could help predict how the ice will react to global warming.
Antarctica, bigger than the United States, has been swathed in ice for about 35 million years, and contains enough of it to raise world sea levels by about 57 metres (187 feet) if it ever all melted. So even a fractional melt would affect coasts around the globe.
"Unless we have a basic understanding of how ice sheets work, any sort of predictive model won't match reality," Ferraccioli said.
The U.N. panel on climate change says that greenhouse gases, mainly emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more heatwaves, floods and droughts, and raise sea levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I bet it is cold in the valley.
just wait 10 years..manbearpig says all that ice will be melted and tourists will then pay to scale the things..
Gotta love those headline writers. Yeah they were found......50 years ago. On the other hand mapping them is kinda cool.
Also I wonder if maybe they weren’t ground down because the ice formed on top of and around them so there wasn’t much motion to grind them down.
Why should I believe their other assumptions?
“The U.N. panel on climate change says that greenhouse gases, mainly emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more heatwaves, floods and droughts, and raise sea levels.”
They better get their stories straight. They’re all becoming a laughing stock.
Feb 24, 2009
Scroll down in the left column to:
Al Gore Retracts on Warming Disaster Claims made before AAAS audience
[...]
Now that Gore has admitted that including the slide based on CRED data was a mistake, it raises a more fundamental question: How could it be that Al Gore presented obviously misleading information before a large audience of the world’s best scientists, which was then amplified in a press release by AAAS, and none of these scientists spoke up? Read more here. http://www.icecap.us/
In other news:
“Oops! Houston - we have a problem”
NASA global warming (CO2 monitoring) satellite crashes on take-off.
http://jackmyers.daylife.com/article/08PMbV53Ceary?q=NASA
Awwwwwwww.... 10 years in the planning, and “poof”!
:)
The middle map on the bottom , Subglacial Topography, relief map of area
Exploring the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains during the International Polar Year 2007 - 2008
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/AGAP/
And no yodelers. Well, I’m assuming that, actually. Maybe there are yodelers buried under a half mile of ice.
I’m waiting on a Dolly pic....Come on guys, I know I am not ths only one that sees possibilities with the title.
OK. I'll predict that the ice sheets won't form a Riverdance troupe. Now where's my grant?
If they are as tall as the Alps, that would be a LOT of grinding.
Stupid journalists.
That’s a heckuva big chunk of ice..
great graphics of area.
Antarctica’s Gamburtsev Province Project (AGAP)
Antarctic Research: Peering Through The Ice
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/gambit/index.htm
"Negotiating an underwater tunnel [beneath the ice] to gain the island's interior, those aboard U-33 are amazed to discover a tropical prehistoric world kept warm by volcanic forces. Here dinosaurs that should be long extinct live and roam, as do a curious race of humanoid savages that appear to exhibit all the various phases of Man's evolutionary development. To survive long enough to repair and replenish the U-boat, wartime enemies must put aside their differences and cooperate with one another. But not everyone is playing from the Kumbaya songbook... The Land That Time Forgot is a thoroughly old fashioned sci-fi/fantasy adventure of the type they weren't really making anymore even in 1975. A lot of this has to do with the script sticking to Burroughs' Victorian style. (His Caprona tales were first published in 1918; as late as World War II he'd still be cranking out novels in the writing style of the 19th Century.) The film's a throwback to the likes of the original King Kong and potboilers such as Unknown Island (1948) and The Land Unknown (1957), only in color."
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/cult_movies/land_time_forgot.htm
Can’t be. The ice down there is all melted and stuff.
Maybe the Garden of Eden had some nice snow capped peaks in the mix? Now guarded by an angel with a fiery sword, albeit a very cold fire? Are there not also giant redwoods down there as well? Must have been a great garden spot when the Earth was enveloped in mist.
The "Chariots Of The Gods" aliens were keeping a spare Alps on ice, because they knew that Man would destroy the original Alps with Global Warming.
Yep, them dang aliens think of EVERTHIN.
So, a giant sheet of ice walks into a bar...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.