Here we go again. The risk is greater than we thought … sea level rise … global warming … slide into the sea … yada yada … computer models say … destabilize … brink of change … size of New Jersey and so on. We say: Well why didn’t it do so in the Holocene Climatic Optimum when temperatures were higher 5-9 thousand years ago? Yeah, yeah. Models, climate grants, hand wring. Phooey!
Using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft, a team of scientists from the U.S. and U.K. have uncovered a previously unknown sub-glacial basin nearly the size of New Jersey beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) near the Weddell Sea. The location, shape and texture of the mile-deep basin suggest that this region of the ice sheet is at a greater risk of collapse than previously thought.
Team members at The University of Texas at Austin compared data about the newly discovered basin to data they previously collected from other parts of the WAIS that also appear highly vulnerable, including Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier. Although the amount of ice stored in the new basin is less than the ice stored in previously studied areas, it might be closer to a tipping point.
“If we were to invent a set of conditions conducive to retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, this would be it,” said Don Blankenship, senior research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics and co-author on the new paper. “With its smooth bed that slopes steeply toward the interior, we could find no other region in West Antarctica more poised for change than this newly discovered basin at the head of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. The only saving grace is that losing the ice over this new basin would only raise sea level by a small percentage of the several meters that would result if the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet destabilized.”
shows that we don’t really know enough to forecast climate catastrophe with any believable accuracy. what else is there that lays unknown to us now that may be an important factor? and how can we justify draconian (possible even catastrophic) economic and societal responses in the face of such uncertainty?