Bad News Keeps Flowing From Antarctica

[Binkie The Clown]

Bad News Keeps Flowing From Antarctica

The meltback and disintegration of ice shelves in this area, in particular, are more worrisome than most because of the topography that lies under them. The so-called “grounding line” in this part of Antarctica — the point where the ice shelf is anchored to land — is on ground that slopes downward toward the continent’s interior. Scientists generally agree that this and other ice shelves are mostly melting from below, as warm ocean water eats at their undersides.

In a case like this, however, if the ice shelf thins sufficiently, it will float free of the grounding line, allowing warm water to rush underneath and attack areas that were previously protected. “It’s hard to know, but that could mark a point of no return,” Wouters said. This configuration of ice and bedrock has already been documented in the Weddell Sea, on the other side of the Antarctic peninsula. “We learn something new every year about Antarctic changes,” Rignot said.

Unfortunately, little of it bodes well for the world’s coastlines and the people who live there.

[yeoman6987]

1. I find it fascinating.

I wished I lived back in the day when the entire North America was ice. The media would have had a field day....oh no Florida lost all ice and now it is seeping into Georgia. It would have been interesting. If we find a way to use this excess water for California, we will be set for life. Maybe all of this could turn out to be a good thing. Vehicle knows. I like the idea of using ocean water for areas that need water. It is crazy we haven't done for before. Our entire world is water and yet we allow ourselves to worry about droughts? We have a long way to go before common sense happens. It is amazing that so many inventions were. Done in the past. Can you imagine how hard it was to invent electricity? Cement? The highway system? The Hoover dam? None of these things would be invented today because they would be considered to hard.

[BillZBubb]

2. We haven't felt it too hard to sequence the human genome!

We haven't felt it too hard to find the Higgs Boson. We haven't felt it too hard to invent the internet or place rovers on Mars.

I believe you are incorrect in your assessment of the situation.

[Romeo.lima333]

3. common sense is what caused people to burn others b/c they thought those people were witches

common sense isnt what it's cracked up to be

[happyslug]

4. Thus the test for witches, including seeing if the water would accept them....

Who ever came up with that test was a genius. If you are dropped into a pool of water 95-99% of the time you will be "Accepted' by the water and thus be shown you were NOT a witch. If the village priest put on the local Iron Cross on you, it would increase the chances of you NOT popping up and being rejected the water.

People knew people floated, thus by saying people who are NOT witches would go down in the water made "Common Sense". There is a story of the Medieval Bishop who knew the background of dunking and agreed to it for himself when he was accused of being a thief. For a month before had in practiced in his castle and every time in was "accepted" by the water, then on the day of the actual test he popped up like a cork. It is one of the few times when someone actual failed the test (He then admitted to stealing and asked forgiveness).

Now, the dunking test was NOT a test if you had been a witch, but that if you were INNOCENT of being a Witch today. i.e. if you had never been a witch, the water would accept you, if you had stopped being a witch and God had forgiven you for being a Witch, the water would accept you. Other crimes were also tested by Dunking (as for example the above Bishop). Being hit was a hot iron and seeing if you hand festered in three days was another popular test. Most people's hand will fester but on the fourth or later day after being hit with a hot iron. When King Stephen of England was asked to used that test on some peasants who had stolen wood, he was shocked that all of the peasants where, by the test, either innocent or God had forgiven them for their crime. King Stephen then commented he would NOT be as Forgiving as God when it came to such crimes (but accepted the decision of the hot irons).

The Salem Witch Trials refused to use dunking to test for witches, on the grounds witches were known to defeat such tests. Instead we had spectral evidence used to show that the defendants were still attacking the accusers as could be seen by what the accuser said and did in court.

http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2012/10/29/the-salem-witch-trials-a-legal-bibliography-for-halloween/

Once you understand the dunking test, you see how it lasted as long as it did. The village leaders would bring out the accused and have her or him dunked into a stream. When the water "Accepted" the victim he ordered the people of the village to save the victim for it was clear he or she was innocent. It was a way to shut up accusers by showing "Clear evidence" that what they were saying could not be true. The dunking test was a way to defeat "Common Sense" when it was on a rampage.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. If it helps, don’t think of the melting ice as the problem

Last edited Fri May 22, 2015, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a symptom of a larger problem…

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica detected

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2015/may/ice-loss-in-antarctica.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica detected[/font]

Press release issued: 21 May 2015

[font size=4]A group of scientists, led by a team from the University of Bristol, has observed a sudden increase of ice loss in a previously stable region of Antarctica. The research is published today in Science.[/font]

[font size=3]Using measurements of the elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet made by a suite of satellites, the researchers found that the Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change up to 2009. Around 2009, multiple glaciers along a vast coastal expanse, measuring some 750km in length, suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean at a nearly constant rate of 60 cubic km, or about 55 trillion litres of water, each year.

This makes the region the second largest contributor to sea level rise in Antarctica and the ice loss shows no sign of waning.

…

“The fact that so many glaciers in such a large region suddenly started to lose ice came as a surprise to us,” continued Dr Wouters. “It shows a very fast response of the ice sheet: in just a few years the dynamic regime completely shifted.”

Data from an Antarctic climate model shows that the sudden change cannot be explained by changes in snowfall or air temperature. Instead, the team attributes the rapid ice loss to warming oceans.

…[/font][/font]