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Satellites monitoring the state of the White Continent indicate some 200 billion tonnes a year are now being lost to the ocean as a result of melting.
This is pushing up global sea levels by 0.6mm annually - a three-fold increase since 2012 when the last such assessment was undertaken.
Scientists report the new numbers in the journal Nature.
Governments will need to take account of the information and its accelerating trend as they plan future defences to protect low-lying coastal communities.
The researchers say the losses are occurring predominantly in the West of the continent, where warm waters are getting under and melting the fronts of glaciers that terminate in the ocean.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44470208
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y
See also: Ars Technica, Phys Org and University of Leeds.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VanessaE on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:44PM (5 children)
I firmly believe global warming is a problem, and that we're the primary cause, but I question the validity of the 0.6 mm estimate...
But, okay... a 3-fold since 2012, so 6 years. So in 18 years, we're looking at a 1.8 mm rise. That's certainly mathematically significant, but still less than the "noise" from just waves on a mostly calm day. In another 6 years we're at 5.4 cm, then 16.2 cm by the time we get 30 years out...
According to NOAA's sea level rise visualization tool, the US wouldn't lose hardly any land area by that point, and not even all that much more if the water rose 1.8 m (the limit of the tool, which only shows the US and its territories).
Sure, it eventually adds up, but now we're out to 2048 for 18 cm, or somewhere just past 2060 for 1.8 m, and that's if the rise triples every 6 years, which I doubt. 30 years is a long time to go with zero results from efforts to curb global warming, let alone the 43-44 years it would take to get to 1.8 m.
So... why again are we worried about sea levels? So some people will be displaced -- they've got multiple decades to get out. Granted, a few areas would be hard hit if the water rose that much (especially the Florida Keys, and Louisiana's coastline), but overall, it'll be a popcorn fart. Hell, even Puerto Rico and the larger Virgin Islands would fare okay.
Shouldn't we be focused on things like agricultural problems, or the increased frequency of "superstorms"?
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:46PM (3 children)
Hm. I missed a cycle in there. 12 years to 1.8 mm, not 18. But my point stands.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:59PM (2 children)
12 years to 1.8 mm
That's 1.8 mm per year! Your estimate if off by an order of magnitude.
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:07PM (1 child)
I was just going by the original math, that indicated a tripling of the rise in 6 years, and extrapolating from that to get what I figured was a worst-case scenario. But okay, if it were a flat 1.8 mm per year, that's still a 1 meter rise in 555 years. Even if the rate were to double a few times, it'll still be like 60 years at worst. I think we have time to fix it, or at least to adapt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:39AM
So let's get this straight: you screw up your estimates by an order of magnitude... but you're going to trust your gut on this one.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday June 15 2018, @01:13AM
As always, numbers related to climate change are being oversimplified and considered in isolation. The above mentioned NASA study said that ice was decreasing in West Antarctica, and increasing more than as much in East Antarctica. So what does this mean?
You can't tell from just that. One thing you would need to know was how the temperature of the ice in East Antarctica was changing.
There's a reason climate models can't get things right, and it isn't because it's easy, or because they have an agenda. It's because it really is too difficult to accurately model. So they use ensembles of models that are right more often that they're wrong, and predict where the models agree, and ignore when the models get too strange. The problem is that sometime it's the time when they're getting too strange that they're correct.
Face it, even weather is too difficult to predict well, and climate is nothing but a complex composite of weather. Loose predictions are easy, but when you try to get detailed, you're going to make mistakes. Yes, the sun will rise tomorrow, and it will probably be warmer at 2PM than at 7AM. And winter will be colder than summer. But when you want detailed information, errors creep in. (Even then, some days it's colder at 2PM than at 7AM, it's just that that's quite unusual.)
So you aren't going to get reliable climate models. What you can get are "best guesses". But the professional best guesses will be better than yours, and the further in the future you are predicting, the more true that is.
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