Seal and robot discovered potential climate change disaster at glacier

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Researchers had already observed that the glacier was losing some of its mass, which is a worrying sign. They also knew something else: Denman serves as a potential doorway into a region of extremely deep and thick ice, even for Antarctica.

With Denman and several other neighboring glaciers in place, the doorway remains closed. Opening it would allow warmer ocean water to start eating away at this thick ice, leading to gradual melt and eventually, a massive influx of new water into the ocean. That would have the potential to unleash over 15 feet of sea level rise, remaking every coastline in the world. So the scientists flew a few planes over Denman and watched with their satellites. And they waited.

The Robot

A striking discovery came in 2019. Using satellite data and other techniques, scientists published a new elevation map of all the crushed-down land beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. And it showed that beneath Denman lay the deepest point of them all, about the depth of two Grand Canyons, or two miles below sea level. If water, rather than ice, were to someday fill this valley, Denman Glacier could raise global sea levels by nearly 5 feet.

Almost simultaneously, scientists reported something else: Denman was reeling. The region of its “grounding line,” where the glacier touches both the seafloor and the ocean, had retreated backward more than three miles toward the center of Antarctica since 1996, bringing the sea to the edge of the newly discovered canyon.

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/18/climate-change-glacier-antarctica/

[Xoan]

1. For the most part ...

[Uncle Joe]

2. 'We Are Still Failing Badly': Al Gore Delivers Fiery Remarks On Climate Change Dangers

[ancianita]

3. The splitting of Antarctic ice from its rock grounding will be the undoing of what coastlines are

in the 25% of human occupied land on Earth. There's a solution that would prevent this disaster -- it's described in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future, but unlike the globe's oil companies in the story, our Big Fossil won't try it for love or money.

Thanks for the post, Uncle Joe!

[ShazzieB]

4. I just bought that book off of Amazon to read in my Kindle app.

I went looking for it because it sounded intriguing. Clicked on "Look inside," started reading, and was instantly hooked. The author is new to me, too, and I see he's written quite a lot. This could be the beginning of a great new reading adventure! 📚

[ancianita]

5. Great.

I think it won a national book award. And for good reason. There are two plots at work -- the local guy and the global Ministry woman -- which come together near the end. I couldn't stop reading it, once I got the sense of where it's going about 30 pages in.

Enjoy!

[Uncle Joe]

6. Thanks for the recommendation ancianita, I will have to check that book out