Loss of six glaciers in West Antarctica appears inevitable (NASA/UCI/earthsky.org)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Matt Daniel and Deborah Byrd in
Blogs | Earth | Human World on May 13, 2014

In a new report issued by NASA and the University of California, Irvine yesterday (May 12, 2014), six major glaciers in the West Antarctic ice sheet have “passed the point of no return” with respect to melting into the sea. These scientists say glacial ice in this part of Antarctica is in “an irreversible state of decline.” The complete melting of the six glaciers in this study – not expected to occur for some centuries – would raise global sea level by four feet (1.2 meters). The work is based on 40 years of observations, analyzing the glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica. It has been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The NASA/UC Irvine study is one of two studies on melting ice in Antarctica released on May 12. The other study, published May 12 in Science, focused specifically on one glacier in this region – the Thwaites glacier on the Amundsen Sea. It was thought to be “stabilized for a few thousand years,” but now is expected to collapse into the sea faster than that, on the order of 200-900 years. In other words, the two studies confirm each other’s results.

Unlike the Arctic, which is an ocean surrounded by continents, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by an ocean. That is why Earth’s two polar extremes are responding differently to global warming; they are very different places. Antarctica is a large land mass that is covered with ice that moves toward the sea in what are called ice streams.

In recent years, although in general there has been extensive ice growth in the ocean around the Antarctic continent, the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica has been experiencing ice loss. For example, NASA has been tracking the huge ice island B31, which broke away from West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier in November 2013.

The Amundsen Sea region is sometimes called “the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet” because most of the ice sheet is grounded on a bed that lies below sea level. That means that ocean currents can deliver warm water to glacier grounding lines in this region, that is, to the place where the ice attaches to solid ground (in this case, the seabed).
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more: http://earthsky.org/earth/loss-of-six-glaciers-in-west-antarctica-appears-inevitable
report: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/may/nasa-uci-study-indicates-loss-of-west-antarctic-glaciers-appears-unstoppable/#.U3JjRPldVEO

[happyslug]

1. This has been reported on at least three threads:

This report from NASA has been on at least two other threads on DU:

The First, dated, Monday May 12, 2014 at 6:46 pm, with a New York Times Article based on the NASA report in the Envronment and Energy Group:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112769134


A second on Monday, May 12, 2014, 06:52 PM, in the General Discussion Forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024943354


Another Thread started on Tue May 13, 2014, 12:21 AM, also in the General Discussion Forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024945079

Unlike Breaking New Forum, the above forum do permit duplicate threads, but try to keep them on one thread if possible.

[defacto7]

2. Thanks

This cannot be brought to the forefront enough.

As long as it's taken for granted and seen as passer it should be put forward until the ramifications are understood and well digested.