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Rapid Collapse of Antarctic Glaciers Could Flood Coastal Cities by the End of this Century

posted by mrpg on Monday November 27 2017, @07:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-doomed dept.

Whoever writes:

We may be headed for an ice apocalypse which could result in the flooding of coastal cities before the end of this century. Glaciers in Antarctica may break and release ice, exposing taller cliffs, resulting in faster melting.

"In the past few years, scientists have identified marine ice-cliff instability as a feedback loop that could kickstart the disintegration of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet this century — much more quickly than previously thought."

[...] A wholesale collapse of Pine Island and Thwaites would set off a catastrophe. Giant icebergs would stream away from Antarctica like a parade of frozen soldiers. All over the world, high tides would creep higher, slowly burying every shoreline on the planet, flooding coastal cities and creating hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @01:32PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @01:32PM (#602047)

    You cannot honestly treat it as anything else, extrapolations from previous century notwithstanding.

  • (Score: 2) by Virindi on Monday November 27 2017, @02:10PM (6 children)

    by Virindi (3484) on Monday November 27 2017, @02:10PM (#602054)

    The timescale you are talking about is too short to conclude any pause occurred in the data you linked.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:40PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:40PM (#602059)

      When 20+ years is "too short a timescale" for a process, most any human being thinks "nothing is happening", or at least, "does not affect me". Right or wrong, humans still aren't eternal beings, and certainly not wired to react like such.
      BTW, they're not wrong here; 20 years nowadays bring huge changes in technology, running around crying wolf now as opposed to developing better tech for later is plain stupid.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:53PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:53PM (#602060)

        If there were nobody running around "crying wolf", then nobody would have any reason to develop better tech.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 27 2017, @04:43PM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 27 2017, @04:43PM (#602099) Journal

          If there were nobody running around "crying wolf", then nobody would have any reason to develop better tech.

          Ok, smarty pants what apocalypse provided the reason for the iPhone? Better tech happens for a lot of reasons, few which have anything to do with apocalypse hysteria.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:51PM (#602126)

            Well, it seemed like annoying greed that led Steve Jobs to convince millions of suckers not only that they need a smartphone instead of a miniaturized computer, but that they need to keep buying new versions of it every year or two for the forseeable future. However, without the iphone (and on this site, I suppose I should mention its android imitators as well), we wouldn't have a mountain of ewaste in 20 years' time to build seawalls out of to save our coastal shitties^Wcities. Hail Jobs, the apocalypse-curing hero!

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 27 2017, @06:21PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 27 2017, @06:21PM (#602132) Journal

              Well, it seemed like annoying greed that led Steve Jobs to convince millions of suckers not only that they need a smartphone instead of a miniaturized computer, but that they need to keep buying new versions of it every year or two for the forseeable future.

              So doesn't with the narrative of the grandparent AC. And here, "annoying greed" created some technology that people wanted.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:35AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:35AM (#602292) Journal

            Ok, smarty pants what apocalypse provided the reason for the iPhone?

            I assert iPhone is an apocalypse in and by itself [telegraph.co.uk] (grin)

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