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Faygo Kid

(21,477 posts)
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 05:49 PM Sep 2020

Two major Antarctic glaciers are tearing loose from their restraints, scientists say

Source: Washington Post

Two Antarctic glaciers that have long kept scientists awake at night are breaking free from the restraints that have hemmed them in, increasing the threat of large-scale sea-level rise.

Located along the coast of the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, the enormous Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers already contribute around 5 percent of global sea-level rise. The survival of Thwaites has been deemed so critical that the United States and Britain have launched a targeted multimillion-dollar research mission to the glacier. The loss of the glacier could trigger the broader collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to eventually raise seas by about 10 feet.

The new findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from analysis of satellite images. They show that a naturally occurring buffer system that prevents the glaciers from flowing outward rapidly is breaking down, potentially unleashing far more ice into the sea in coming years . . .

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/14/glaciers-breaking-antarctica-pine-island-thwaites/



I turned 69 today, so will make it through this. What about you, your children and grandchildren?

Vote Biden.
18 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Two major Antarctic glaciers are tearing loose from their restraints, scientists say (Original Post) Faygo Kid Sep 2020 OP
We are not doing anything MuseRider Sep 2020 #1
We have past the point of no return. roamer65 Sep 2020 #2
My gut agrees with you. I graduated HS in 1973 and remember the first Earth Day. This post just c-rational Sep 2020 #14
Animal populations have declined by 68 percent since 1970. roamer65 Sep 2020 #15
Another terrible fact that I am aware of...I spent my career as a civil/environmental engineer, c-rational Sep 2020 #16
Life expectancies will fall, population will decrease eventually bucolic_frolic Sep 2020 #3
Eventually - but in the meantime we still have high birth-rate hotspots sandensea Sep 2020 #8
Nothing positive here StClone Sep 2020 #4
"so will make it through this" PSPS Sep 2020 #5
A global pandemic, thousands of miles out west burning, glaciers raising seas, what next ffr Sep 2020 #6
Happy Birthday, sir! And many more! sandensea Sep 2020 #7
I wonder what plan Donnie Two Scoops assigned to Jared over this. Can Donnie spell mitigation ... marble falls Sep 2020 #9
I can just hear them now: sandensea Sep 2020 #10
This makes me feel sick... calimary Sep 2020 #11
....and who knows what ancient bacteria or viruses will be unleashed???? sdfernando Sep 2020 #12
Republicans don't care what happens to our children and grandchildren Martin Eden Sep 2020 #13
A couple of years older and spent 30 years safeinOhio Sep 2020 #17
I'm investing now in West Virginia beach front property. Yeehah Sep 2020 #18

MuseRider

(34,060 posts)
1. We are not doing anything
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 05:58 PM
Sep 2020

like we should be doing. We are trying but cutting things so they won't hurt too much now. It is ridiculous, we need to be really feeling the push. By we I mean all of us. I am doing every thing I can even though that isn't much.

I turn 67 in a couple of months. I am hoping to make it through this but my kids will not. I would rather they not have to. It is terrifying when I really think about this.

roamer65

(36,739 posts)
2. We have past the point of no return.
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:05 PM
Sep 2020

At best it may now be some sort of mitigation.

But I doubt even that. The path is very clear to 1000 ppm GHGs.

c-rational

(2,581 posts)
14. My gut agrees with you. I graduated HS in 1973 and remember the first Earth Day. This post just
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 08:35 PM
Sep 2020

sickens me. What have we done to our home-this planet.

c-rational

(2,581 posts)
16. Another terrible fact that I am aware of...I spent my career as a civil/environmental engineer,
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 08:43 PM
Sep 2020

and over the last several years I note as I drive around NYC and the boroughs I am overcome with sadness bordering on tears when I see what damage we have wrought. The next century will not be pretty. Don`t forget the bees. I hear in China they now have humans doing the pollination.

sandensea

(21,530 posts)
8. Eventually - but in the meantime we still have high birth-rate hotspots
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:28 PM
Sep 2020

None more so than Africa - which with just 17% of the world's people now accounts for 40% of earth's annual population increase.

...Population...Annual increase...

Asia: ......60%......50%
Africa: ....17%......40%
Europe: ..10%........1%
Lat. Am: ..8%.........7%
US/Can: ..5%.........2%
Australia: negligible

StClone

(11,679 posts)
4. Nothing positive here
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:10 PM
Sep 2020

Except Limbaugh's Florida mansion may get a much needed cleansing:

“I don't think looking at things through the prism of fear is going to accomplish anything.”

-- Rush Limbaugh

So fearless Rush will smile as his shit hole tax free "homestead" vortex will be washed out to seas. Unless tax payers pony up to build more ocean flood barriers-which isn't out of the question.

PSPS

(13,516 posts)
5. "so will make it through this"
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:12 PM
Sep 2020

Don't be so sure. What's happening indicates a far more rapid increase in the rate of change than even the worst-case predictions of last year. 115 degrees above the Arctic circle, Massive wildfires in Siberia, etc. These things weren't supposed to happen until 2090.

ffr

(22,649 posts)
6. A global pandemic, thousands of miles out west burning, glaciers raising seas, what next
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:15 PM
Sep 2020

Oh yeah, fresh water shortages. The years isn't quite done yet. I think we can pull that one off too. Maybe a war after that.

So glad we don't have Hillary Clinton in the White House to control matters and unite the power of government and the world. That would have been a disaster!





sandensea

(21,530 posts)
7. Happy Birthday, sir! And many more!
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:16 PM
Sep 2020

Thanks for posting this.

If only we could actually do something about it! I don't doubt that today's youngsters will study world maps with quite a few low-lying areas missing (New Orleans, Miami, Bangladesh, etc.).

marble falls

(56,359 posts)
9. I wonder what plan Donnie Two Scoops assigned to Jared over this. Can Donnie spell mitigation ...
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:29 PM
Sep 2020

can Jared think loooooooooong and however hard on it without commandeering the sand bags and pumps like he did Covid19 supplies from states that had already paid for it?

There's going to be so many Grand Juries in 2021.

sandensea

(21,530 posts)
10. I can just hear them now:
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 06:40 PM
Sep 2020
"Hey, Jar - it's me. Have you heard Antarctica's melting? Well, there might me oodles of oil there - and I want to be in on the action."

"Eww. Oil. My Testonis will get ruined!"

"Who cares about your fucking balls! Get your pansy ass down there pronto!"

"Like - hello? I was talking about my shoes!"

"Oh."


sdfernando

(4,897 posts)
12. ....and who knows what ancient bacteria or viruses will be unleashed????
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 07:09 PM
Sep 2020

Stuff so old humans would have no immune defense.

Martin Eden

(12,803 posts)
13. Republicans don't care what happens to our children and grandchildren
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 08:33 PM
Sep 2020

They do, however, claim to care for them in the fetal stage.

But that's just a means for so-called "Christians" to feel morally superior while trashing everything Jesus taught along with the environment which sustains life itself.

safeinOhio

(32,532 posts)
17. A couple of years older and spent 30 years
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 08:56 PM
Sep 2020

in the SouthEast of the Mitten drinking Fargo. The last 10 years of it I was stuck on the shore of Lake Erie with no ice to fish on. Now no, or little ice up here in Northern Mi.
Feel lucky to have never reproduced. Not going to worry about kids and grand kids suffering.

Yeehah

(4,524 posts)
18. I'm investing now in West Virginia beach front property.
Mon Sep 14, 2020, 08:58 PM
Sep 2020

Drinking moonshine on the front porch, watching the sun rise over the Atlantic.

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