(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Big trouble in the Antarctic has been brewing for a long time
by David Spratt, June 15, 2014
“A game changer” is how climate scientist Dr Malte Meinshausen describes newly published research that West Antarctic glaciers have passed a tipping point much earlier than expected and their disintegration is now “unstoppable” at just the current level of global warming. The research findings have shocked the scientific community. “This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like,” ran a headline in Mother Jones magazine.
(cont’d below the fold)
In the Guardian, lead researcher Dr Eric Rignot explained:
We announced that we had collected enough observations to conclude that the retreat of ice in the Amundsen sea sector of West Antarctica was unstoppable, with major consequences – it will mean that sea levels will rise one metre worldwide. What’s more, its disappearance will likely trigger the collapse of the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which comes with a sea level rise of between three and five metres. Such an event will displace millions of people worldwide.
[…snip…]
Big changes are also underway at the other end of the world, in the Antarctic, where most of the world’s ice sits on the fifth largest continent. The majority of Antarctic ice is contained in the East Antarctic ice sheet – the biggest slab of ice on Earth, which has been in place for some 20 million years and which, if fully melted, would raise sea levels by more than 60 metres.
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