Rate Of Ice Loss For West Antarctic Glaciers Much Faster Than Expected; Avg. Up 77% 1973-2013

[hatrack]

Six big glaciers in West Antarctica are flowing much faster than 40 years ago, a new study finds. The brisk clip may mean this part of Antarctica, which could raise global sea level by 4 feet (1.2 meters) if it completely melts, is nearing full-scale collapse.

"This region is out of balance," said Jeremie Mouginot, lead study author and a glaciologist at University of California, Irvine. "We're not seeing anything that could stop the retreat of the grounding line and the acceleration of these glaciers," he told Live Science. (A grounding line is the location where the glacier leaves bedrock and meets the ocean.)

From satellite observations such as Landsat images and radar interferometry, Mouginot and his co-authors tracked the speed of West Antarctica's six largest glaciers. The biggest of the half-dozen are Pine Island Glacier, known for cleaving massive icebergs, and its neighbor, Thwaites Glacier. The other four are Haynes, Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers. [Video: Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Is Rifting] Ice from the six glaciers accounts for almost 10 percent of the world’s sea-level rise per year. Researchers worry the "collapse" of West Antarctica's glaciers would hasten sea-level rise. The collapse refers to an unstoppable, self-sustaining retreat that would drop millions of tons of ice into the sea.

The amount of ice draining from the six glaciers increased by 77 percent between 1973 to 2013, the study found. However, the race to the sea is happening at different rates. Recently, the fast-flowing Pine Island Glacier stabilized, slowing down starting in 2009. (The slowdown was only at the ice shelf, where the glacier meets the sea. Further inland, the glacier is still accelerating.)

EDIT

http://www.livescience.com/44434-west-antarctica-glaciers-speed-up.html

[Prophet 451]

1. But global warming is a hoax!

Yes, that was sarcasm, I don't know how to do the sarcasm tag.

I think, at this point, we're just cataloguing the unfolding disaster. The deniers (both vested interests and their contrarian puppets) have made it pretty much impossible to do what needs doing in the time remaining to us. Like Canute, we're going to be swallowed by the waves, even as we (or some of us) insist they aren't rising.

[2naSalit]

2. It's tragic

for countless reasons. However, I did notice at the linked site that the only benefit I can see is that the terrain beneath the glaciers is giving up some very interesting fossil records that shed light on species we have never <probably> imagined.

And that's a miniscule consolation prize for what it takes/what is lost to have those revealed.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. "Faster than expected" -- it's the new "no one could have predicted". nt