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“This Is Crazy” – Antarctic Supervolcano Is Melting The Ice-Caps From Within

“This Is Crazy” – Antarctic Supervolcano Is Melting The Ice-Caps From Within

As we’ve pointed out, the supervolcano phenomenon is hardly unique to Yellowstone National Park, where a long dormant volcano with the potential to cause a devastating eruption has been rumbling since mid-summer, making some scientists uneasy.

Surprisingly active supervolcanos have been documented in Italy, North Korea and, now, Antarctica after scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have found new evidence to support a theory that the breakup of Antarctic ice may be caused in part by a massive geothermal heat source, with output close to the scale of Yellowstone National Park.

Of course, if accurate, this theory would help rebut the notion that man-made climate change is in part responsible for the melting ice, Russia Today reports.

A geothermal heat source called a mantle plume, a hot stream of subterranean molten rock that rises through the Earth’s crust, may explain the breathing effect visible on Antarctica’s Marie Byrd Land and elsewhere along the massive ice sheet.

While the mantle plume is not a new discovery, the recent research indicates it may explain why the ice sheet collapsed in a previous era of rapid climate change 11,000 years ago, and why the sheet is breaking up so quickly now.

“I thought it was crazy. I didn’t see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it,” said Hélène Seroussi of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Seroussi and Erik Ivins of JPL used the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM), a mathematical depiction of the physics of ice sheets developed by scientists at JPL and the University of California, Irvine. Seroussi then tweaked the ISSM to hunt for natural heat sources as well as meltwater deposits.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Toward a More Reflective Planet

Toward a More Reflective Planet

CAMBRIDGE – The last time the atmosphere held as much carbon dioxide as it does today was about three million years ago – a time when sea levels were 10-30 meters higher than they are now. Climate models have long struggled to duplicate those large fluctuations in sea levels – until now. Indeed, for the first time, a high-quality model of Antarctic ice and climate has been able to simulate these large swings. That is smart science, but it brings devastating news.

The new model shows that melting in Antarctica alone could increase global sea levels by as much as one meter (3.2 feet) by the end of this century – well above prior estimates. Worse, it suggests that even extraordinary success at cutting emissions would not save the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, locking in eventual sea-level increases of more than five meters. As little as one meter could put at risk entire cities, from Miami to Mumbai, and cause enormous economic disruption.

We need to turn down the heat – and fast. To this end, albedo modification – a kind of geoengineering intended to cool the planet by increasing the reflectivity of the earth’s atmosphere – holds tremendous promise.

Injecting synthetic aerosols that reflect sunlight into the stratosphere, for example, could help counter the warming caused by greenhouse gases. The mechanism is similar to wearing a white shirt in the summer: white reflects sunlight and cools what is underneath, whereas darker colors absorb sunlight and heat.

To be sure, even in the best-case scenario, solar geoengineering alone could not stabilize the world’s climate. For that, we must both stop pumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere and learn how to remove what is already there. That is why emissions cuts should receive the lion’s share of resources devoted to combating climate change.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Abrupt Sea Level Rise Looms As Increasingly Realistic Threat

Abrupt Sea Level Rise Looms As Increasingly Realistic Threat

Ninety-nine percent of the planet’s freshwater ice is locked up in the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps. Now, a growing number of studies are raising the possibility that as those ice sheets melt, sea levels could rise by six feet this century, and far higher in the next, flooding many of the world’s populated coastal areas. 

Christopher Michel/Flickr
West Antarctica’s glaciers and floating ice shelves are becoming increasingly unstable.
Last month in Greenland, more than a tenth of the ice sheet’s surface was melting in the unseasonably warm spring sun, smashing 2010’s record for a thaw so early in the year. In the Antarctic, warm water licking at the base of the continent’s western ice sheet is, in effect, dissolving the cork that holds back the flow of glaciers into the sea; ice is now seeping like wine from a toppled bottle.

The planet’s polar ice is melting fast, and recent satellite data, models, and fieldwork have left scientists sobered by the speed of the sea level rise we should expect over the coming decades. Although researchers have long projected that the planet’s biggest ice sheets and glaciers will wilt in the face of rising temperatures, estimates of the rate of that change keep going up. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put out its last report in 2013, the consensus was for under a meter (3.3 feet) of sea level rise by 2100. In just the last few years, at least one modeling study suggests we might need to double that.

Eric Rignot at the University of California, Irvine says that study underscores the possible speed of ice sheet melt and collapse. “Once these processes start to kick in,” he says, “they’re very fast.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Antarctic techno-fix cannot slow rising seas

Antarctic techno-fix cannot slow rising seas

Ongal

Pumping seawater into Antarctica is unlikely to halt sea-level rise.
Image: Lyubomir Ivanov via Wikimedia Commons

Pumping seawater onto the Antarctic landmass to form ice and stop sea levels rising stands little chance of success, scientists say. 

LONDON, 10 March, 2016 – Sea level rise is likely to be a problem too big to handle. Geoengineers will not be able to magic away the rising tides, according to new research.

In particular, they will not be able to pump water from the sea and store it as ice on the continent of Antarctica. That is because, unless they pump it enormous distances, that will only accelerate the flow of the glaciers and it will all end up back in the sea again, a study in the journal Earth System Dynamics says. 

Geoengineering is sometimes produced as the high-technology solution to the environmental problems of climate change: if humans don’t change their ways and start reducing greenhouse gas emissions, say the proponents of technofix, human ingenuity will no doubt devise a different answer. 

But, repeatedly, closer examination has made such solutions ever less plausible. Scientists have dismissed the idea that the melting of the Arctic can be reversed, have only tentatively conceded that technology could dampen the force of a hurricane, and have found that  instead of cooling the Earth – attempts to control climate change could either make things worse or seriously disrupt rainfall patterns.   On balance, scientists believe that most of the big geo-engineering ideas won’t work

Deep freeze

And now a team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has poured cold water on the idea of pouring cold water onto the ice cap. 

The idea is a simple one. Are sea levels rising 3mm a year because the world is warming? Then pump the sea high onto the Antarctic landmass where it will freeze and stay frozen for a millennium.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Cli-Fi Story: Winter Solstice in Antarctica

A Cli-Fi Story: Winter Solstice in Antarctica

Antarctica deglaciated and uplifted, as it could appear ten thousand years after the Great Warming of the 21st century (from global warming art). 

The text below is part of my cli-fi novel “Queen of Antarctica” that one of these days I might be able to publish, somewhere. The novel takes place in a remote future and it is based on the idea that, after the runaway climate change of the 21st century, the survivors managed to colonize the extreme North and the extreme South of the planet, including Antarctica. And here is how their remote descendants living in Antarctica would tell the story. Note that the story assumes a relatively warm Antarctica, but it reflects the peculiar conditions of a civilization living near the South Pole that would experience six months of light followed by six months of darkness.In this world, people would spend the dark winter in a sort of hibernation. For them, seeing the stars in the dark sky would be something special, worth celebrating. 

Children, come. Come here, because this is a special night. It is the night when the Moon is highest in the sky, and the night when the Moon starts to go down and, slowly, to let the sun come back, and give us light again after the long winter night. And we call this night the night of the winter solstice.

So, children, you have been sleeping through the long winter night, but now you are awake, and it is good that you are awake because this is a very special night. It is the night when we all wear heavy clothing and we go out to look at the stars! Yes, children, the sky is dark during the solstice night, and this night is darker than all the other nights of the year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Antarctica’s Totten Glacier, twice the size of Victoria, ‘melting from below’

Antarctica’s Totten Glacier, twice the size of Victoria, ‘melting from below’

Warm ocean water is melting one of the world’s biggest glaciers from below, potentially leading to a rise in sea levels, Australian scientists have discovered.

Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis recently returned to Hobart from Antarctica, with a team of 23 scientists who had used new technology to collect the first water samples near the Totten Glacier.

At 538,000 square kilometres, Totten is twice the size of Victoria and holds enough water to raise sea levels by six metres.

Steve Rintoul from the Australian Climate and Environment Cooperative Research Centre said the results indicated the glacier was being melted by the sea water beneath it.

“The measurements we collected provide the first evidence that warm water reaches the glacier and may be driving that melt of the glacier from below,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

China’s interest in mining Antarctica revealed as evidence points to country’s desire to become ‘Polar Great Power’

China’s interest in mining Antarctica revealed as evidence points to country’s desire to become ‘Polar Great Power’

New evidence has emerged of China’s interest in exploiting Antarctica’s minerals despite an international agreement preventing it.

It is thought the icy continent has abundant supplies of oil, gas, coal and iron ore.

An emerging polar power, China has a growing scientific program. It has increased the number of its research stations and has started building a new icebreaker.

A signatory to the Madrid Protocol which banned any mining activity until 2048, president Xi Jinping re-affirmed that commitment in a memorandum of understanding signed in Hobart after the G20 summit in November.

After the signing, Environment Minister Greg Hunt denied China had any interest in overturning the mining ban.

“They themselves really wanted to drive into the heart of the agreement, the Antarctic Treaty, the non-militarisation of the area and the protection against mining,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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