Posted on 11/28/2016 1:54:42 PM PST by heterosupremacist
Its generally accepted that its no longer a question of whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt, its a question of when, said Ian Howat, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State.
We may see a significant collapse of West Antarctica in our lifetimes.
In 2013, a gigantic rift began forming within a valley in the ice of the Pine Island Glacier.
Then, in 2015, a 225-square-mile iceberg broke off and floated away. Discovered a massive crack across the Pine Island Glacier, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Extending for 19 miles, the crack was 260 feet wide and 195 feet deep.Photo: NASA
Howat said this could indicate that the massive slab of ice was being eaten away from the inside out.
Rifts usually form at the margins of an ice shelf, where the ice is thin and subject to shearing that rips it apart, he added.
However, this latest event in the Pine Island Glacier was due to a rift that originated from the center of the ice shelf and propagated out to the margins.
This implies that something weakened the center of the ice shelf, with the most likely explanation being a crevasse melted out at the bedrock level by a warming ocean.
The ice sheet has previously been described as an awakened giant and is mostly made up of glaciers sitting on top of a layer of bedrock.
If it melts, it would add vast amounts of water into the oceans, sending sea levels rocketing to dangerous heights.
The really troubling thing is that there are many of these valleys further up-glacier, Howat added. If they are actually sites of weakness that are prone to rifting, we could potentially see more accelerated ice loss in Antarctica.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Well, that would fix the skewed voting in NY state.
Women, children and minorities to be hardest hit?
Please stop teasing me unless you’re going to do it.
God is in charge.
Seems like a flood of Biblical proportion could wipe out NewvYork State.
BULL CRAP - THE ICE SHELF HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST AND YEARS AND HAS STAYED THAT WAY - THEY ARE HAVING GLOCAL COOLING THERE FOR YEARS!
Read Genesis - A flood of “Biblical” size would flood the world!
JEREMIAH 5:22
Should you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Should you not tremble in My presence? I made the sand a boundary for the sea, an everlasting barrier it cannot cross. The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail; they may roar, but they cannot cross it.
not to op........hey you people go f yourselves...still waiting for the gore predictions.......oh wait they didn’t happen either.
And the downside is?
So what’s the bad news?
Also a Muslim with the appropriate smuggled-in nuclear weapon could do the same thing.
NYC, Long Island, New Jersey and Florida would disappear. No great loss.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 332,519,000 cubic miles of water on the planet. Remember this is cubic verses 225 square miles. So we're talking about a drop in the ocean.
Also, when floating ice melts, water level doesnt rise.
Just sayin’
“A flood of biblical proportions would wipe out” EVERY city. Didn;t it cover all the land of the earth?
Build a waterproof wall within and around NYC. Protect the Lubavitcher neighborhoods of Brooklyn and any other reliably conservative neighborhoods. Drown the rest. Bring in barges to dispose of the corpses. Voila! NYC becomes a conservative bastion. Triggering the San Andreas Fault in California would turn it back into a Reagan Republican state. Bye bye San Fransicko. Bye Bye Lost Angeles. New coastline for normal people!
You mean this would specifically target NYC and leave other coastal cities alone?
It wouldn’t be a flood of biblical proportions unless it did a lot of damage, by definition.
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.