"West Antarctic Ice Sheet's Collapse Triggers Sea Level Warning"

[SSDD]

Centuries long process? Isn't that what coming out of an ice age is like? Prior to the beginning of the ice age that the earth is now exiting there was little, if any, ice at either of the poles. Is there any reason to expect that the earth won't return to the temperature before the beginning of the ice age which will be so warm that little if any ice will remain at the poles just as it has done over and over and over again?

Hilariously ignorant babbling gobbledygook with almost no connection to reality. As usual from SSooooDDuuumb.

The last period of heavy glaciation (popularly, the last ice age) ended about eleven to twelve thousand years ago. Since then the Earth has been in an interglacial period called the Holocene. For the last two and a half million years, the Earth has been in a long major Ice Age, called the Quaternary Glaciation, with approximately 100,000 year long periods of heavy glaciation broken by 12 to 30 thousand year long interglacial periods. Over that time there has always been large amounts of ice at the poles. That is the definition of an 'Ice Age'.

We are not "coming out of an ice age", as the denier retard claims. The Earth came out of the last period of glaciation over ten millennia ago. The Earth warmed a little bit more after that large warming that ended the 'ice age', through a period called the Holocene Thermal Maximum, and then it started to cool slowly for the last 5000 years.

Sorry corporal ass wipe, but the earth is presently in an ice age. It is working its way out, but alas, it is still in an ice age. You seem to not know the difference between a glacial period and an ice age.

You seem to believe anything you read in wiki, so here, from wiki.

Quaternary glaciation also known as the Pleistocene glaciation or the current ice age, refers to a series of glacial events separated by interglacial events during the Quaternary period from 2.58 Ma (million years ago) to present.[1]

Here, from other sources you warmest wackos seem to trust:

NOVA | What Triggers Ice Ages?

Are we currently living in an ice age? - Curiosity

There are literally dozens of credible sources that state unequivocally that we are, in fact still in an ice age. Sorry you didn't know that. Ignorance is abundant on your side of the argument. Now, I suppose you could provide equally credible sources that state that we are not in an ice age. I invite you to do it. We could then begin to discuss the obvious credibility problems that arise from current science being unsure whether or not the earth is in an ice age. How could science possibly be sure about AGW if it remains divided over whether or not the earth is or is not in the grips of something so obvious as an ice age.

It is much like heat. Were you aware that science, here in the 21st century remains unsure as to what heat is? I can provide equally credible sources stating that heat is a thing and that heat is not a thing....that heat is a process, and that heat is the signature of a process. If science remains unsure as to such a basic thing as what heat is, how credible do you suppose they are regarding things related to heat...like climate?

has been fairly stable over the Holocene.

Really? The temperature spread from the Holocene optimum to the depth of the little ice age was nearly 6 degrees. Are you saying that a temperature swing in the climate of 6 degrees is stable? If so, why the panic over a fraction of a degree over a century with the bulk of that being due to UHI and data tampering?

A 6 degree swing is only a fraction of natural variability..and you are waving your hands like an old lady over a fraction of a degree? You warmer wackos are absolutely pathetic. Does everything scare you like that? Are you afraid of the whole world and everything in it?

 

[PredFan]

Don't we get this kind of warning every year?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......................................................................

no...everyday now.

Well, you're exaggerating a tad but not much. Wake me when one thing they tried to scare us with actually happens.

 

[mamooth]

There are literally dozens of credible sources that state unequivocally that we are, in fact still in an ice age.

We are in an interglacial inside an ice age. You're playing word games to deflect from the fact that the "natural cycles!" argument is nonsense.

We are now in the downside of an interglacial, where temps were very slowly declining into the next glacial period. That is, until humans interrupted the natural cycle with greenhouse gases, and changed that slow cooling to a fast warming.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

There are literally dozens of credible sources that state unequivocally that we are, in fact still in an ice age.

We are in an interglacial inside an ice age. You're playing word games to deflect from the fact that the "natural cycles!" argument is nonsense.

We are now in the downside of an interglacial, where temps were very slowly declining into the next glacial period. That is, until humans interrupted the natural cycle with greenhouse gases, and changed that slow cooling to a fast warming.

...a fast warming that was eaten by the Pacific Ocean, right?

 

[IlarMeilyr]

no denier posts yet?

I also heard this on the radio. Very important stuff.

Holy fuck are you AGW FAithers a pathetic lot.

Try to get it through your gullible pin heads.

Just because some of us "deny" that humans are a significant contributor to global warming does not mean that we "deny" that the climate periodically changes, and that warming can be a part of that periodic change.

In a few precise sentences, please tell us what human-kind CAN actually do to stop the globe from getting warmer? Doesn't any such suggestion implicitly maintain that humans actually have the ability to control climate? What is the evidence for that? (Come on. Be honest. There is no such evidence, is there?)

 

[ScienceRocks]

New Studies Suggest Many Coastal Cities Eventually To Be Abandoned With Antarctic Ice Collapse

New studies in Science and Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) find that glaciers in the Amundsen Sea region of the great Antarctic ice sheet have begun the process of irreversible collapse. That by itself would raise sea levels 4 feet in the coming centuries.

antarctica_amundsen_sea_sector-1But more importantly these glaciers act “as a linchpin on the rest of the [West Antarctic] ice sheet, which contains enough ice to cause” a total of 12 to 15 feet of global sea level rise, as the University of Washington news release for the Science study explains.

What most of the media has failed to emphasize is that 1) this is not a worst-case scenario and 2) failure to curb carbon pollution ASAP will result in vastly higher levels of sea level rise that devastate the world’s coastlines.

The New York Times story on the studies warns:


[Climatologist Richard Alley] added that while a large rise of the sea may now be inevitable from West Antarctica, continued release of greenhouse gases will almost certainly make the situation worse. The heat-trapping gases could destabilize other parts of Antarctica as well as the Greenland ice sheet, potentially causing enough sea-level rise that many of the world’s coastal cities would eventually have to be abandoned.

“If we have indeed lit the fuse on West Antarctica, it’s very hard to imagine putting the fuse out,” Dr. Alley said. “But there’s a bunch more fuses, and there’s a bunch more matches, and we have a decision now: Do we light those?”

New Studies Suggest Many Coastal Cities Eventually To Be Abandoned With Antarctic Ice Collapse | ThinkProgress

Time to invest big time in fusion!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Og the Caveman said he'd have to abandon his home too due to the deglaciation of most of North America

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Og the Caveman said he'd have to abandon his home too due to the deglaciation of most of North America

Climate scientists algunt, rdorp and Oldsuk promptly agreed in a peer reviewed cave painting.

 

[PredFan]

GREAT! I would love to have beachfront property!

 

[westwall]

West Antarctic Ice Sheet's Collapse Triggers Sea Level Warning - NBC News
By Alan Boyle
First published May 12th 2014, 12:02 pm

Two teams of scientists say the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what's likely to be a centuries-long process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet.

"There's been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behavior is under way," Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a news release about one of the studies released Monday. "This study provides a more qualitative idea of the rates at which the collapse could take place."

The findings from Joughin and his colleagues, published in the journal Science, indicate that in some places, Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is losing tens of feet, or several meters, of ice elevation every year.

They estimate that Thwaites Glacier would probably disappear entirely in somewhere between 200 and 1,000 years. That loss would raise global sea levels by nearly 2 feet (60 centimeters). The glacier serves as a linchpin for the rest of the West Antarctic Ice sheet, which has enough frozen mass to cause another 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) of sea level rise.

A second study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, reports the widespread retreat of Thwaites and other glaciers on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — and says the retreat can't help but continue.

"It has passed the point of no return," the research team's leader, Eric Rignot of the University of California at Irvine, told reporters during a NASA teleconference on Monday.

Bolding mine.

Good! If it's "past the point of no return" maybe you jackasses will shut the hell up and stop pushing your progressive, anti human dreams of genocide.

 

[westwall]

There are literally dozens of credible sources that state unequivocally that we are, in fact still in an ice age.

We are in an interglacial inside an ice age. You're playing word games to deflect from the fact that the "natural cycles!" argument is nonsense.

We are now in the downside of an interglacial, where temps were very slowly declining into the next glacial period. That is, until humans interrupted the natural cycle with greenhouse gases, and changed that slow cooling to a fast warming.

Keep telling yourself that admiral. when you're freezing your ass off because the windmill that you paid for to power your house fails, and the solar cells are buried under feet of snow, you just keep telling yourself that son!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Og the Caveman said he'd have to abandon his home too due to the deglaciation of most of North America

Climate scientists algunt, rdorp and Oldsuk promptly agreed in a peer reviewed cave painting.

 

[ScienceRocks]

The melting of those glaciers caused 130+ meters of sea level rise between 22,000 and 8,000 years ago. After that the avg rate of increase, decreased to mm/century(5,000 to 1700).

Now we're seeing mm/year!

What you need to understand is the reality that most of our civilization is near the ocean. 10,000 years ago it wouldn't really matter to humanity...Besides as a land bridge to hunt on.

 

[Crick]

Are there any denier arguments in this thread (or any of it's paralllels) that go beyond "We've heard all this before"?

 

[westwall]

Are there any denier arguments in this thread (or any of it's paralllels) that go beyond "We've heard all this before"?

Are there any fraudsters arguments that deal with the fact that all of this HAS happened before? In written historical time. And that not one catastrophe any of these silly people are bleating about ever occurred then. Even when it was much warmer.

Hmmmmm?

 

[ScienceRocks]

If we didn't warm up a single .01c over the next century = we're screwed with the west Antarctic ice sheet. This is what this means.

 

[ScienceRocks]

 

[Crick]

Ice melt in part of Antarctic 'appears unstoppable,' NASA says - CNN.com

(CNN) -- New research shows a major section of west Antarctica's ice sheet will completely melt in coming centuries and probably raise sea levels higher than previously predicted, revealing another impact from the world's changing climate.

According to a study released Monday, warm ocean currents and geographic peculiarities have helped kick off a chain reaction at the Amundsen Sea-area glaciers, melting them faster than previously realized and pushing them "past the point of no return," NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot told reporters.
The glacial retreat there "appears unstoppable," said Rignot, lead author of a joint NASA-University of California Irvine paper that used 40 years of satellite data and aircraft studies.

NASA says the region has enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet. According to Rignot, conservative estimates indicate the complete melting of the Antarctic ice cited in the study could take several centuries.

However, the melting could have an impact this century, according to Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University.
The United Nations' most recent climate change report estimated sea levels could rise from about 1 foot to 3 feet by 2100. Such a rise could displace tens of millions of people from coastal areas around the world.

Anandakrishnan said the U.N. estimate largely didn't take into account the melting ice sheet from west Antarctica, because few studies for that area had been completed.

"So as this paper and others come out, the (U.N.) numbers for 2100 will almost certainly" lean closer to 3 feet, he said.

Why scientists think it's unstoppable

The rate at which the area's ice is melting has increased 77% since 1973, and there are several reasons, researchers said.
The ice sheet there, unlike those in much of east Antarctica, is attached to a bed below sea level. That means ocean currents can deliver warm water at the glaciers' base, or grounding lines -- places where the ice attaches to the bed, NASA said.

The heat makes the grounding line retreat inland, leaving a less massive ice shelf above. When ice shelves lose mass, they can't hold back inland glaciers from flowing toward the sea. Glaciers then flow faster and become thin as a result, and this thinning is conducive to more grounding-line retreat, NASA said.
"The system (becomes) a chain reaction that is unstoppable, (with) every process of retreat feeding the next one," Rignot said.

A hill or a mountain behind the grounding line would slow this retreat. But the beds behind nearly all the Amundsen Sea glaciers slope downward, researchers said.

Rignot said he believes climate change and a depletion of the Earth's ozone layer are partly to blame, saying they have changed the winds in the area to cause more warm water to go toward the glaciers.

Climate change skeptics, many backed by a huge campaign funded by the fossil fuels industry, seek to undermine research findings on the impacts of what is popularly referred to as global warming. They challenge the scientific validity of climate change, as well as the role of human-produced pollution in contributing to it.

For example, such opponents of policies to reduce U.S. carbon emissions say the severe North American winter that just ended and evidence of increasing Antarctic sea ice defied the claims by scientists of a warming planet.

However, Rignot and Anandakrishnan said their findings on the west Antarctica ice shelf don't clash with news of the record levels of Antarctic sea ice. They noted that sea ice forms and melts quickly, while glaciers are subject to longer-term change.

Rignot added that the same winds that stir subsurface heat toward the base of Antarctic ice shelf also can expand sea ice cover.

Not a first

Such a melting would be uncommon, but not necessarily unprecedented, Anandakrishnan said. Evidence shows that west Antarctica retained an ice sheet during the last few 100,000-year cycles of glacial formation and retreat, he said.

But evidence also suggests the entire west Antarctica ice sheet might have melted 500,000 to 600,000 years ago, Anandakrishnan said.
The six Amundsen Sea glaciers are just a portion of the entire west Antarctic ice sheet. Though much of the other west Antarctic sections are grounded below sea level, the Amundsen Sea area is more vulnerable, in part because it has fewer hills behind the leading edges and because the shape of the sea floor helps usher more warm water to the base, NASA said.

Anandakrishnan said it was possible that the melting in the Amundsen Sea area could destabilize other ice sheets. The entire west Antarctic ice sheet has enough ice to raise the global sea level by about 16 feet, NASA said.

END END END END END END

Do any deniers out there have any real science which challenges these conclusions? Do you believe (and can you show) that the grounding lines of the glaciers feeding into the Amundsen Sea, particularly Pine Island, are not receding at a rapid pace? Can you show that the process has not become unstoppable? Can you show that it will not result in an additional 15 to 20 feet of sea level rise in the next hundred years?

 

[RandomVariable]

There is a series of photos where a hiker is in a glacial valley every year for about 5 years and one can see the glacier just run up the valley. It is really scary. I don't know where it is but if anyone else does it's worth posting.

 

[Vigilante]