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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, @02:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @02:00PM (#602053)
    Please compare various cities in 1917 with them in 1957 and 1997. Notice some changes? Yes some buildings in 1917 might be no longer be usable or worth anything 50 years later. Big fucking deal.

    So there's no need to do dikes and seawalls. All you need to do is require the actuarists, accountants and property valuers do all calculations for potentially affected property with the assumption that property in those zones will be underwater and worth near nothing in 50 years. Then new buildings will be built elsewhere, and people will gradually move away from the affected zones.

    I seriously doubt it'll be so soon though, all the other scientists are giving numbers where it only gets bad in the next century.

  • (Score: 2) by Virindi on Monday November 27 2017, @02:59PM

    by Virindi (3484) on Monday November 27 2017, @02:59PM (#602063)

    That neglects the historical and cultural value of existing neighborhoods.

    But of course it would make sense for properties that need protection to pay the lion's share of the costs of that protection.