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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAntarctic glaciers thinning so fast, it's like a switch was flipped
A new study has recorded a sudden and rapid thinning of once-stable glaciers along the southern Antarctic Peninsula, demonstrating that significant changes in glacier mass can occur surprisingly quickly as ocean and air temperatures rise.
The findings support what researchers have been seeing in other parts of Antarctica, with scientists warning last year that four key glaciers on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appear to be on the verge of wholesale retreat with nothing to stop them.
The new study points to a common cause among the glaciers it studied: Warm water is melting away the underside of the glaciers where they meet the sea floor, weakening the ice shelves that slow the glaciers slide the ocean. The researchers "observe a relatively strong [common] response across multiple glacier systems that clearly points to changing ocean condition as the main culprit," says Alex Gardner, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., who was not a part of the study, in an e-mail.
The study is unique, he says, because of how effectively it pinpointed the major driver of the changes. The study, which appears in this weeks issue of the journal Science, also points to the speed with which these changes are occurring.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0521/Antarctic-glaciers-thinning-so-fast-it-s-like-a-switch-was-flipped
Faygo Kid
(21,478 posts)This world is unraveling. We got dirty, built forts, came home when the street lights came on, watched black and white TV, rode our bikes, and watched three or four channels on TV.
Of course, we also had to remember JFK, Vietnam, MLK, RFK, and more. Still, I think we grew up in the greatest place and era in world history.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Video games were found in arcades and movie theaters. Popcorn and a drink was still cheap and movies were entertaining without the need for green screens and the compulsion to make a billion dollars.
OF course we still have to remember Reagan and the Bush Family, but still it is better than what I believe the future offspring will remember about this planet.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)haikugal
(6,476 posts)CrispyQ
(36,446 posts)We are so fucked.
Some of the crew of "Chasing Ice," a documentary on the melting of the arctic, caught a huge calving event on film. At about 1:55 you can see a whale leaping out of the water.
This video is about 5 minutes long, but in real life the calving event took 75 minutes to complete. At 3:45 he superimposes an image of Manhattan over the glacier to show the scope of the breakage.
It is stunning in scope & global leaders don't do a thing.
shanti
(21,675 posts)to leave me awestruck. (i couldn't see the whale, though)
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,850 posts)Could someone build a device that takes carbon out of our air faster than trees and shrubs? (I think that's where they get it from anyhow.)
IDemo
(16,926 posts)And likely at a large carbon output in doing so. As well as having the problem of what to do with the 'captured' CO2.
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,850 posts)but reforestation of the world is something we could do.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,850 posts)Here on the Calif. coast we haven't stopped the forest conversion to grapes. Back East it's Mt. Top Removal and creek fill. Lots that could be done if we didn't have climate change deniers.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)More speculatively
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-russian-scientists-rare-blood-mammoth.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/18/mammoth-cloning-wrong-save-endangered-elephants
Bonus footage:
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elena_Pikuta/publication/234064949_Anaerobic_cultures_from_preserved_tissues_of_baby_mammoth/links/02bfe50ec6caba6a78000000.pdf
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,850 posts)That's interesting. I also believe we should save elephants.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)We are so fucked.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)Repubs will make sure no one in the US is funded to study climate science. And their allies in other countries are following suit.
dembotoz
(16,799 posts)And there is opportunity