Posted on 03/18/2015 9:40:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Scientists have raised concerns about a large, rapidly thinning glacier in Antarctica, warning it could contribute significantly to rising sea levels.
They say they've discovered two openings that could channel warm seawater to the base of the huge Totten Glacier and bring the threat of potentially disastrous melting.
The glacier is bigger and thinning faster than all the others in East Antarctica.
It contains enough ice to raise the global sea level by at least 11 feet (3.4 meters), according to researchers from the University of Texas at Austin who were among the authors of a new study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Scientists had previously detected warm water on the seaward side of the glacier. But until now, they had found no evidence that it could threaten coastal ice.
"We now know there are avenues for the warmest waters in East Antarctica to access the most sensitive areas of Totten Glacier," said Jamin Greenbaum, a University of Texas Ph.D. candidate and the lead author of the study....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Stop making sense.
I just want to ask 1 question to these global warming hysterics: When did the Sun stop having an impact on Earth's climate? The answer is the minimal Sunspots that have occurred over the approximately the last 15 years. The same time Earth's temperature has stopped increasing. I don't get how these people call themselves scientists.
Where is this additional water coming from to "raise" the seal level?
Your proposed experiment is valid for floating ice, i.e. an iceberg.
Try it again with the ice cube suspended above the water in the glass. Like ice on a land mass above sea level.
Just sayin’...
Your point would be valid in the arctic where the ice is frozen seawater that is free floating in denser water and is displacing it, but this is a glacier which means most of it is on land- in other words, it’s made of ice that formed from precipitation and not from seawater, and it is coming down a mountainside, meaning it is additional fresh water, not merely displaced seawater. The seawater is eroding the ice at the point where glacier meets sea.
You can simulate a melting glacier by putting a block of ice on your kitchen counter. Melt it from the bottom edge where it hangs over the counter with a hair dryer. As you melt it keep pushing it towards the edge and the hair dryer’s flow. You will end up with a puddle of water on the floor that wasn’t there before. You will also notice that as it melts it slides easier, because water gets beneath the block and “lubricates” it.
Because the melting of this glacier is from the bottom up and not the top down, the ice bearing land just onshore may be warmer too, effectively “lubricating” the glacier’s path and lowering the friction in the same way. But this effect will only be on that narrow part right on shore, so I doubt it can measurably speed up the total glacier’s descent.
What they are not telling you is how long the process will go on, and they’re not saying that the warm currents can only affect a portion of the glacier that is at sea and maybe a wee bit onshore, but not the bulk of what lies on land- so even if the melting of that portion at sea were to happen all at once and not over thousands of years, the rest is still going to be on land, quite unaffected...
That is, unless whatever is causing the warm current is geothermal and also heating up the land. A lot of things can cause warm currents to form, though. If we don’t know why currents have changed then we also don’t know when or if they will change again, or if the currents have done it in the past.... for all anyone knows the warm current may be a recurring one that has appeared and disappeared for tens of thousands of years.
Just the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic = ~913,000 cu. km. = ~213,000 cu. mi. = ~200 quadrillion (2 followed by 17 zeroes) gallons.
Add in the Arctic and Indian oceans plus Caribbean, South China and Mediterranean seas plus salt water bays and you’ve got a truly ludicrous number.
Aren’t they talking about ice on top of land?
Raise the entire global sea level by 11 feet!?
Someone needs to check their geometry. All the salt waters on the entire planet are connected openly. The volume of water contained in ALL the ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic, atop water and land, does not have the volume of water needed to increase the entire interconnected salt water oceans by more than a foot. Think every shoreline where there is saltwater in the entire world.
Try running those total volume numbers again chicken little.
Put an ice cube (glacier) in the ocean.
*************************
The ice cube represents an iceberg, not a glacier which is on land and which would add water to the ocean.
In other words: a Grad Student
Aw crap! Just when I finally got my little place in Ocean City. 11 feet, eh? I’m lucky it’s on the 2nd floor./S
Based upon other predictions made by climate scientists, we can expect this prediction to come true when...? It has happened before, and it will happen again, unless it doesn’t, and then it won’t. Can I get a government grant for this study?
Due to the thermal activity in Yellowstone, a snowmobiler occasionally encounters spaces in the trail where the ground is bare and warm while all around it the snow is 10 ft deep.
Do these eggheads ever leave their ivory towers and actually experience the real world?
Dollars to donuts, while the snow and ice are melting in that one area of Antarctica due to thermal activity directly beneath it, they have been increasing on most of the rest of the continent, and the rest of the globe pretty much.
Do your people not realize the danger this holds for members of federally protected minority groups, women, children, the LGBTG Community, not to mention endangered species?
I must reserve special opprobrium for the "conservative" who reached me privately to suggest that "since the melting antarctic glacier is providing fresh water, why don't we air-drop Ferguson rioters at the very spot, along with body wash and other hygienic products?"
I must admit that although this sounds harsh, if California's illegal aliens were to be dropped, it would ease demand of water resources there.
Yours is the most salient comment on the thread.
Other questions:
Is the study funded by NSF?
Do they make their agenda clear when they make the award? Or is just a wink and a nod enough?
Yea, that really bugs me too since I think the average high temp. of the Antarctic is -49 F..........and the average low is -56 F.......not that you could feel the difference.
These so-called “scientists” are mainly political pimps trolling for taxpayer-funded “grant” money. What a hoax...what a pathetic joke. We just returned from Patagonia...there were glaciers everywhere and it was cold in their “summer”. Bah! What fools!!!!
I’d also hazard a guess that the data was collected in a climate corresponding to August in the North. August is traditionally the hottest month of the year for us. So ice melts in the summer? That man deserves a fat, juicy grant!
You are supposed to measure the water level after you add the ice cube.
The difference is discernible.
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.