Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The 'doomsday' glacier is on the brink of collapse
Popular Science ^ | Dec 18, 2021 | Sara Kiley Watson

Posted on 12/18/2021 3:38:21 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?

One of the ever-looming threats of climate change is sea level rise, which already threatens to displace millions of people worldwide and force them to move inland by the end of the century. A big part of the rising water levels are hotter temperatures at the poles—home to giant glaciers and ice shelves that hold crucial quantities of frozen H2O.

The Florida-sized Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, nicknamed the “doomsday glacier,” is already losing 50 billion tons of ice each year. That in itself accounts for around 4 percent of annual global sea level rise. But unpublished research shared at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting this week shows that the thinning ice shelf extending from Thwaites could shatter within the next three to five years. Behind Thwaites lies an even larger body of ice that, if the glacier melts, will be exposed to increasingly warm waters.

“Thwaites is the widest glacier in the world,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and lead coordinator for the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), said in a press release. “It’s doubled its outflow speed within the last 30 years, and the glacier in its entirety holds enough water to raise [global] sea levels by over two feet. And it could lead to even more sea level rise, up to 10 feet, if it draws the surrounding glaciers with it.”

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0wrongforum; antarctic; artarctica; carbonpropaganda; chat; chatforum; climatechange; climatechangehoax; climatehoax; doomsday; fakenews; fakescience; fearmongerig; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; notnews; popularscience; sarakileywatson; thwaitesglacier; wereallgoingtodie
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-122 next last
To: frank ballenger

We can expect lowering of the seawater salinity. What will it do to marine life?


101 posted on 12/18/2021 6:01:41 PM PST by 353FMG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?
PBS, Nature, and Nova are all chanting the mantra of the glacier, Thwaite, melting and raising the ocean depths by ten feet or higher inundating many coastal cities.
102 posted on 12/18/2021 6:06:03 PM PST by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: vetvetdoug

I’d love to see someone ask Grand Caliph Baraq about the elevation of his new estate on the coast in Cape Cod.


103 posted on 12/18/2021 6:09:36 PM PST by nascarnation (Let's Go Brandon!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies]

Need about 275 feet to make our property beach front. We would be on a bay with a narrow inlet, but that’s okay. The crabbing would be spectacular.


104 posted on 12/18/2021 6:51:38 PM PST by Born to Conserve
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: datura

One of the best fishing grounds of the Atlantic is the Hudson Canyon. It was the mouth of the Hudson River during the ice age. Lake Hitchcock was where the Connecticut Valley is now. Long Island Sound was Lake Connecticut. The earth is fine...


105 posted on 12/18/2021 6:57:15 PM PST by Deplorable American1776 (I'm the one trying to save American Democracy...Donald Trump 6/21 at the NCGOP convention! )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Ouderkirk

.........Lol, I bet you never got a speeding ticket.


106 posted on 12/18/2021 7:00:04 PM PST by Cen-Tejas
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?

I ran the math on this the other day. That glacier needs to contain 50+ Quadrillion gallons of water to rsise the world’s oceans 2 feet


107 posted on 12/18/2021 7:13:54 PM PST by shotgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dutch Boy
I will start worrying about rising sea levels when the rich and famous start selling their beachfront properties for pennies in the dollar.

Yes, and look at photos of New York City and San Francisco. See all of those construction cranes? It means their city planners don't really believe for a minute that they'll really be underwater.

Re the "Doomsday Glacier" responsible for 4% rise of the sea level: reminder from basic math - 4% of zero is zero.

108 posted on 12/18/2021 7:21:37 PM PST by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that most of the media is hate & agenda driven, not truth driven.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Cen-Tejas

I write technical documents for a living and it’s just a pet peeve.


109 posted on 12/18/2021 7:44:09 PM PST by Ouderkirk (The democRATS are not looking to govern, they intend to RULE.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 106 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?

They’re just stupid and confusing “sea level rise” with the tides. The dunes to the water in front of my condo is the same average distance today as it was 20 years ago when I bought.


110 posted on 12/18/2021 7:44:45 PM PST by mikey_hates_everything
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All


Less Than $916 To Go!!
Your MONTHLY And Quarterly Donations To FR
Help "Light The Fuse" To Speed Up The Pace
Of These FReepathons!!

Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!


111 posted on 12/18/2021 7:45:34 PM PST by musicman (The future is just a collection of successive nows.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ouderkirk

I know the rule. I just get in a hurry and don’t give a damn so I make stupid mistakes from time to time. From 16 to about 30, I also received over a hundred traffic tickets. Same reason..............., not paying attention.


112 posted on 12/18/2021 8:58:50 PM PST by Cen-Tejas
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: ASOC

The Old Ones are doing this as a real estate development.x


113 posted on 12/18/2021 8:59:35 PM PST by robowombat (Orthodox )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: rellic

You don’t understand the difference between ice shelf and Glacier. The full article explains why if the ice shelf goes it will release and drag the glaciers plural behind it into the ocean. Those glaciers are on land not floating and they absolutely contain enough water to raise sea level by ten feet or more. Antarctica as a whole has enough water on land to raise sea level by 200+ feet which in the geological past there was no ice on Antarctica and sea levels were hundreds of feet higher. The geological term for this type of sea level rise is eustatic. There is plenty of geological evidence of past glacial / ice shelf collapses all through the Pleistocene. This ice sheet has dozens of GPS sensors that measure down to the centimeter its movements if it’s moving there is a GPS verifiable record which these scientists have published. This has happened before and it will happen again humans just have to get out of the waters way. There is no way humans can stop this Glacier from sliding into the sea of the ice shelf holding it back breaks up in front of it. The evidence shows that the ice shelf is unstable and if it goes humans will have a few years to get to higher ground as the glaciers slide under gravity to the sea displacing the water and causing sea level rise. The ice doesn’t have to melt coming from land to ocean is enough when it melts is irrelevant it already displaced the water it was floating in ask Archimedes for a brush up. Point is there is more than enough volume of water behind that ice sheet to raise sea level ten feet of more comes down from the associated glaciers. We could witness for the first time in recorded human history a eustatic sea level rise from a scientific point of view absolutely fascinating to a geologist such as myself.


114 posted on 12/18/2021 11:23:11 PM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?

115 posted on 12/19/2021 12:48:48 AM PST by Trillian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jay W; 2banana

You do not need to just look at the Obamas. They might be dumb.

But oceanfront real estate prices rose faster than inland real estate according to the National Association of Realtors.


116 posted on 12/19/2021 2:14:04 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (We are being played by forces most do not understand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: DoughtyOne

Don’t forget the coral reefs study that showed climate change is destroying them because they cherry picked the starting year.

The coral reefs ebb and flow in cycles and are now larger and healthier than ever. But if you choose the right peak year, you can make it look like they are dying.


117 posted on 12/19/2021 2:15:47 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (We are being played by forces most do not understand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: JD_UTDallas

We could witness....

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Why haven’t we or some other generation witnessed such an event? Temps have been rising and falling from time immemorial. So why the need for concern now?


118 posted on 12/19/2021 4:38:25 AM PST by bramps (t's the Islam, stupid!I )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 114 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?

This shouldn’t be a problem. Hussein promised her handle the sea level issue, so I have to assume he took care of that while he was in office. So we’re safe.


119 posted on 12/19/2021 5:17:08 AM PST by MayflowerMadam (When government fears the people, there is liberty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: where's_the_Outrage?

Oh noes!


120 posted on 12/19/2021 7:43:52 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-122 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson