"Ice sheet" means glacial ice on land.
“Ice shelf” means ice that extends into the ocean.
The article is about the ice sheets. Most of the comments so far are irrelevant.
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Such nonsense. Even the NY Times chokes on it (from http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/keep-in-mind-scientific-and-societal-meanings-of-collapse-when-reading-antarctic-ice-news/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&):
"Less certain is the time scale, with the onset of rapid (>1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse in the different simulations within the range of 200 to 900 years.
To translate a bit, that means sometime between 200 and 900 years from now the rate of ice loss from this glacier could reach a volume sufficient to raise sea levels about 4 inches (100 millimeters) a century."
Note the word “could.”
Incidentally, what is a “tech culture journalist”?
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Study: West Antarctic Melt a Slow Affair
‘…but the process — at its fastest — takes thousands of years. Over all, the pace of sea-level rise from the resulting ice loss doesn’t go beyond about 1.5 feet per century, Dr. Pollard said’
‘Over all, the loss of the West Antarctic ice from warming is appearing “more likely a definite thing to worry about on a thousand-year time scale but not a hundred years,” Dr. Pollard said’
“…This new study illustrates once more that the collapse of West Antarctica and parts of East Antarctica is not a myth,” he said. “It happened many times before when the Earth was as warm as it is about to be
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/study-west-antarctic-melt-a-slow-affair/
I’ve given up thinking that capitalism is in any way prepared to accomodate or adapt to the inevitable change. The only question left in my mind, is if we’ll allow the ones responsible for the banker’s bailouts and universal surveillence to also assume responsibility for flood and famine relief.
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Another quote from the same article: “Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory cautioned that the new findings were based on a single, fairly simple simulation and said that while the results matched well with the seabed evidence, they lacked the precision needed to know what will happen over short periods.”
But, of course, that one wouldn’t fit with the image you’re trying to push.
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Five things you should know about climate change
Survey of 12000 studies finds strong agreement on climate change
Three arguments about climate change that should never be used
and because it’s a discussion that’s mostly exclusive to the USA (that’s what you probably get when you start teaching religion as science):
Americans listening to politicians more than climate scientists
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But we are talking about the Antarctic, which is land ice. The Antarctic is not an ice cube bobbing in the ocean, it is affixed to land and it is almost a mile and a half thick.
Your uncle was a very wise man.
Ah, yes, the crux of most denier tactics. Of course he pulled that maneuver.
Oh jeez, I wish only climate change deniers used that inane tactic around here. But, good on you for calling it out in this case as well.
I think we should start naming these catastrophic events as we do with hurricanes, but name them after prominent climate change/impact deniers in the process.
I can think of quite a few libertarians from reason.com that are still climate change impact deniers and scores of republicans and tea baggers as well.
Unfortunately, because of willful ignorance and inaction I don’t think we’ll run out of names nor catastrophic events.
Also, the less insane of us will take note of this ars technica post:
Copypasta:
Just to give a little context to this discussion, here is some geography of Antarctica:
Notice on the lower cross-section chart where sea level is (‘0’ on the left axis). Now, moving from the left side towards the right, look at the height of the ground (grey color). Notice that the first group of land is basically a “hump” with ice on top of it.
That little hump (at about 200 km on the bottom axis) is a little below sea level, with a big chuck of ice on top of it.
Notice the level of the ground in relation to sea level from that hump, all the way to the Transatlantic Mountains (about 3000 km worth of distance).
Once that little chunk of ice on top of the hump melts away, sea water can pour into the low area on the western side of Antarctica. This will start to melt, and eventually float, all that ice trapped behind the hump right now. Eventually, all that water will make it’s way into the ocean and cause the worldwide sea level to rise.
This is one of those “tipping points” you read about. A small change (melting of the small glacier on top of the hump) leads to the large event (the west Antarctica ice sheet melts into the ocean).
Pictures are from here, by the way.
Edit: I had a couple east/west terms transposed. Should be correct now.
Last edited by RaceBannon on Mon May 12, 2014 2:51 pm
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When the authors of this article say the sea level rise is “unstoppable”, do they really mean that, or is it a figure of speech?
Assuming the former:
At what point in time did it become unstoppable? Before or after AGW became part of general public awareness (30-35 years ago)?
Assuming the latter:
Could specific actions have been taken by my country (the USA) that would have prevented this ice collapse? Yes or no?
Assuming the latter:
If it’s unstoppable, and there was nothing I could have done about it, is there any reason for me not to fire up my charcoal grill again this summer?
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Thanks for the link.
Every time a well-meaning climate change activist takes the cheap scare-headline road, their cause is damaged a tiny bit, and the “deniers” try to hide their grins.
I believe your “height above sea level” chart shows an outlier at around 3000 km. We should throw out the whole data set.
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@charlesplatt said:
Such nonsense. Even the NY Times chokes on it … Incidentally, what is a “tech culture journalist”?
I think a better question than asking what is a “tech culture journalist” is why is it necessary to resort to insultingly mocking someone’s title if the facts are on your side?
First of all, the deniers are going to deny climate change or climate change impact issues no matter what anyone says.
Secondly, Xeni’s headline is on par with other reliable accounts as well.
Glaciers draining Antarctic basin destabilized, big sea level rise all but certain
Melt of Key Antarctic Glaciers “Unstoppable”
Finally, the link from @charlesplatt was to an opinion piece at the New York Times. The same New York Times that was complicit in this. The New York Times is hardly the last word on accuracy within the media.
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What should the height be instead?
Shhhh! You’re ringing the dinner bell for the moon landing denialists*.
*I’m am curious to learn if there’s much overlap between the two groups, though.
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Do you mean this WaPo article? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/23/antarctic-sea-ice-hit-35-year-record-high-saturday/
That’s actually a good question.
Is there an ideal sea level? Is it the 1980 level? 1930? 1881?
How do we select it, and how do we get there from here??
I think there are a lot of us who do not deny: (1) that the planet is warming and (2) that human activity has played a role in that.
But we do question that (3) the effects are going to be cataclysmic and (4) passing laws is a realistic strategy to prevent those effects.
It’s not binary, you know.
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The ideal sea level is the plainly the one where all the coast-related stuff is. If nothing lived on land with an altitude below 5 metres, and all the ports and mangrove forest were sitting that far up with no water reaching them, we would want that the sea level to rise that much higher. But strangely civilizations and ecosystems are all adapted to where it is now, so we would prefer changes within the range they can handle, or on a scale much slower than we expect those to last.
Sure, it’s not binary. Some people would rather reject the overwhelming scientific evidence wholesale, and others don’t want to question more than they absolutely must to ensure nothing gets done about the problem. But there’s a failure to listen to evidence either way.
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How does what you wrote relate to a potential overlap between two groups of conspiracy theory adherents?
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