West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse Could Alter Earth's Axial Rotation

[hatrack]

Scientists say the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would have such profound effects it would shift the planet's rotation, sending a bulge of water into the Northern Hemisphere.

The enormous ice sheet, which many experts believe could collapse as the climate warms, is so heavy that as it melts it "will actually cause the Earth's rotation axis to shift rather dramatically," reports a team led by geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica, at the University of Toronto. The scientists say the North and South poles would move about half a kilometre if the entire ice sheet collapses and shifts more water north.

Coastal regions from Washington to Vancouver could expect sea levels to rise at least six metres, Mitrovica and his colleagues report Friday in the journal Science. Much of Florida would be drowned as would low-lying areas in Maritime Canada, the Arctic and along the Pacific coast. There is nowhere on the coast of Canada or the U.S. that the sea level won't rise to at least six metres, Mitrovica said in an interview.

He and his colleagues stress that the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, while a big concern, is not imminent and may not occur for centuries. "But these findings do suggest that if you are planning for sea level rise, you had better plan a little higher," says co-author Peter Clark at Oregon State University. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that a collapse of the ice sheet would raise global sea levels by about five metres — a figure that has led to the "simplistic" idea that water will rise evenly around the planet, says Mitrovica. He and his colleagues say the five-metre estimate neglects several key factors, such as gravity, changes in the Earth's rotation and a rebound on the land the ice now sits on.

EDIT

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Technology/Antarctic+melt+could+shift+Earth+rotation+Study/1261393/story.html

[XemaSab]

1. I have rediscovered my will to live

:D

[Javaman]

7. You too, huh? nt

[Delphinus]

9. Why?

Surfing? I am probably missing something.

[phantom power]

2. You know. If you're planning...

plan a little higher.

[Lost in CT]

3. Is it me or have they secretly switched global climate change scientists with

Clive Cussler....

It is like a bad Folgers commercial... oh and this theory is fuckin nuts... sure you get into the paper but will your scientist buddies return your calls afterwards.

[phantom power]

6. Except that these guys are predicting a shift of about 0.5 kilometers.

I would guess that Cussler's potboilers are a very very very bad interpretation of the real thing.

[GliderGuider]

4. The ghost of Hugh Auchincloss Brown rides again

Hugh Auchincloss Brown (23 December 1879 – 19 November 1975) was an electrical engineer best known for advancing a theory of catastropic pole shift. Brown claimed that massive accumulation of ice at the poles caused recurring tipping of the axis in cycles of approximately 4000-7500 years. Brown argued that because the earth wobbles on the axis and the crust slides on the mantle, a shift was demonstrably imminent, and suggested the use of nuclear explosions to break-up the ice to forestall catastrophe.

A novel about Brown's theory, called "The HAB Theory" was written in the mid-70's and has been re-published. I read it at the time, it was quite a page-turner. Everything old is new again...

And no, I don't buy this one for a second.

[Nihil]

5. That was the first thing that came to mind ...

H.A.B. (the person not the crappy novel that didn't even credit him).

As far as this guy's "new" discovery goes:
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. ...
"There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered by those who follow.
(from that old bundle of joy, Ecclesiastes)

And, to misquote Ambrose Bierce, there are also lots of old things that
we don't know and really couldn't be arsed thinking about too hard
in case it disturbs the sports on the TV ...

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Still around; a movie is in development

I also read it in the mid-70s, and I read CotA in high school -- my school library had a copy. Pretty interesting stuff, but while the idea of a "wandering pole" is correct in general, there is no evidence whatsoever for a complete tip-over. But even an abrupt 500 m shift could do a lot of damage.

There are several websites dedicated to The HAB Theory. One of them is http://www.habtheory.com/ and it includes a copy of Hugh Auchincloss Brown's Cataclysms of the Earth. There is also a scan of a 1948 article from a popular magazine that is floating around online, on one of those websites that show pre-1960 versions of the future -- the whole jetpacks-monorails-and-Bob Dobbs treatment. I think it's on the http://blog.modernmechanix.com/">Modern Mechanix blog.

We're finding that although many of our dramatic theories are turning out to be wrong, reality is providing enough dramatic changes of its own, most of which we ignored during the golden era of disaster movies and books.

--d!

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Will Polar Waves Swamp America? (Jan 1949, Modern Mechanix blog)

Here's that article about Brown's 1948-1949 book about polar destabilization.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/05/05/will-polar-waves-swamp-america/">Will Polar Waves Swamp America?

--d!

[kestrel91316]

10. I live at 800 ft above sea level. I'm safe for now. When I retire to the upper Midwest

someday, I'll check the local elevations. Never can be too careful.