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posted by cmn32480 on Monday December 26 2016, @01:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the floating-on-the-land dept.

Surface meltwater that drains to the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet each summer causes changes in ice flow that cannot be fully explained by prevailing theories. Now a multinational, multidisciplinary team led by ice sheet modelers at Los Alamos National Laboratory is exploring how changes in extensive, sediment-choked subglacial "swamps" actually explain why the ice sheet's movement slows down in late summer and winter.

"The drainage system beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet controls how fast the ice flows towards the sea and ultimately contributes to sea-level change," said Matthew Hoffman, lead author on the project and an ice-sheet modeler at Los Alamos. "For more than a decade it's been known that the ice flow more than doubles in speed in many regions during summer, as surface melt drains to the bed and lubricates the motion. This acceleration sends ice to the sea faster. However, the motion also slows down in late summer, fall, and winter, which largely offsets the summer speedup. Exactly why it slows down as much as it does and for as long as it does has not been clear."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 26 2016, @04:38AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 26 2016, @04:38AM (#445965) Journal

    I browsed that site for a litte while. I actually remember some of those crazy predictions. There was a time in my life when I actually half-believed all the Nostradamus related predictions. "Wow, the guy had a bunch of accurate predictions, what else is real?" I was never a real believer, but that crap did cause some anxiety, I guess you'd call it.

    Eventually, I moved on to "Well, Nostradamus may be right, but all the assholes who try to interpret Nostradamus are idiots. No two predictions ever match, and none of them come true."

    Finally, I decided, "Well, if I make thousands of predictions about all sorts of odd-ball crap, SOME of them will come true!" And, that's all Nostradamus ever had going for him - he predicted EVERYTHING!! Ehhhh.

    And, to put that slow realization into perspective, I remind everyone that THERE WAS NO INTERNET to look all that shit up. A headline in a newspaper, an occult-looking book, some rumors, and a mention in the 4 o'clock news is pretty much what my generation had to work with.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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