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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A six-year investigation into the vast Thwaites glacier in Antarctica has concluded with a grim outlook on its future.
Often dubbed the “doomsday glacier”, this huge mass of ice is comparable in size to Britain or Florida and its collapse alone would raise sea levels by 65 centimetres. Worse still, this is expected to trigger a more widespread loss of the ice sheet covering West Antarctica, causing a calamitous sea level rise of 3.3 metres and threatening cities like New York, Kolkata and Shanghai.
It is an extremely remote and difficult area to get to, but the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), a joint UK-US research programme, has managed to deploy 100 scientists there over the past six years, using planes, ships and underwater robots to study the dynamics of this ice in detail. “It was a tremendous challenge, and yet we really learned a lot,” says Ted Scambos at University of Colorado Boulder.
These discoveries include the fact that Thwaites glacier is particularly vulnerable, as it rests on a bed of rock that is well below sea level and is being melted from the underside by warmer seawater. What’s more, the bedrock slopes downwards towards the interior of the ice sheet, so, as the glacier retreats, even more ice is exposed to warm seawater, threatening to accelerate the collapse.
[...] “It’s not going to instantaneously lead to a catastrophic retreat in the next year or the year after, but, at the same time, we are very sure that Thwaites is going to continue to retreat, and ultimately the retreat is going to accelerate,” says Rob Larter at the British Antarctic Survey, another member of the team. “We can’t put an exact time frame on that.”
Ultimately, however, the ITCG researchers think that, by the end of the 23rd century, Thwaites glacier and much of the West Antarctic ice sheet might be lost.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2024, @03:53PM (8 children)
frivolous dismissal of warnings about climate change is pretty typical, too. hint- the problems don't wait to start until the glacier has disappeared.
(Score: 5, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 30 2024, @03:56PM (3 children)
Oh, that is OK - whatever happens after khallow is dead doesn't matter at all.
Party on!!!
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 01 2024, @09:53AM (2 children)
You already know I care about stuff that happens after I die - years of evidence that you overlooked. The problem here is that you haven't bothered to show this one of those things that I should care about rather than hand off to a capable future generation. Remember, if you can, that we can't fix every problem in the universe for future humanity. We have to prioritize. And there's a lot of bigger problems out there than a two foot rise in sea level over 200+ years.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01 2024, @01:58PM (1 child)
>one of those things that I should care about rather than hand off to a capable future generation.
Ah, so it's somebody else's problem, like poverty and suffering. Just keep it far enough away - over the border in space or time and let "more capable people" closer to the issues deal with the shit that flows downstream from your lifestyle.
Gotcha.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Wednesday October 02 2024, @04:38AM
So just because I don't pay lip service to JoeMerchant's hobby horses, that somehow must mean I don't care about real problems? Despite years of posting to the contrary? Look, until you have the wisdom and understanding to know the difference between fixing problems and causing problems, your opinions just don't matter. Here, a big one is simply that we can't make the world perfect for future generations. They will have to handle problems that we can't completely address. It makes sense to hand off problems that manifest in the distant future like climate change - instead working on problems we can address - like poverty and suffering.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 01 2024, @09:45AM (3 children)
The end of the 23rd century is 276 years away. There's something wrong with your narrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2024, @01:45PM (2 children)
that's because you skipped over the inconvenient half my post, silly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 01 2024, @05:15PM (1 child)
The "problems" are on the order of two millimeters per year - when it gets started. You have to wait a while to get even part of the effect, much less part of the problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2024, @05:30PM
lol! it was brilliant enough that you dodged it...
... then you hastily tried to brush it aside again. hint 2- 'problems' was plural, silly.