From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), home of Schnellenhuber.
Uncorking East Antarctica yields unstoppable sea-level rise
The melting of a rather small ice volume on East Antarctica’s shore could trigger a persistent ice discharge into the ocean, resulting in unstoppable sea-level rise for thousands of years to come. This is shown in a study now published in Nature Climate Change by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The findings are based on computer simulations of the Antarctic ice flow using improved data of the ground profile underneath the ice sheet.
“East Antarctica’s Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant,” says lead-author Matthias Mengel, “once uncorked, it empties out.” The basin is the largest region of marine ice on rocky ground in East Antarctica. Currently a rim of ice at the coast holds the ice behind in place: like a cork holding back the content of a bottle. While the air over Antarctica remains cold, warming oceans can cause ice loss on the coast. Ice melting could make this relatively small cork disappear – once lost, this would trigger a long term sea-level rise of 300-400 centimeters. “The full sea-level rise would ultimately be up to 80 times bigger than the initial melting of the ice cork,” says co-author Anders Levermann.
“Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its ten times bigger counterpart in the East might also be at risk,” says Levermann, who is head of PIK’s research area Global Adaptation Strategies and a lead-author of the sea-level change chapter of the most recent scientific assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. This report, published in late September, projects Antarctica’s total sea level contribution to be up to 16 centimeters within this century. “If half of that ice loss occurred in the ice-cork region, then the discharge would begin. We have probably overestimated the stability of East Antarctica so far,” says Levermann.
Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt
Melting would make the grounding line retreat – this is where the ice on the continent meets the sea and starts to float. The rocky ground beneath the ice forms a huge inland sloping valley below sea-level. When the grounding line retreats from its current position on a ridge into the valley, the rim of the ice facing the ocean becomes higher than before. More ice is then pushed into the sea, eventually breaking off and melting. And the warmer it gets, the faster this happens.
Complete ice discharge from the affected region in East Antarctica takes five thousand to ten thousand years in the simulations. However, once started, the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty, even if climate warming stopped. “This is the underlying issue here”, says Matthias Mengel. “By emitting more and more greenhouse gases we might trigger responses now that we may not be able to stop in the future.” Such extensive sea level rise would change the face of planet Earth – coastal cities such as Mumbai, Tokyo or New York are likely to be at risk.
Article: Mengel, M., Levermann, A. (2014): Ice plug prevents irreversible discharge from East Antarctica. Nature Climate Change (online) [DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2226]
Weblink to the article: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html
==============================================================
Meanwhile…back in reality
Antarctic Sea Ice Blows Away Records In April
By Paul Homewood
Antarctic sea ice continues to set new records, with extent in April at the highest since measurements began in 1979.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Ice extent has also been above last year’s already high levels for most of this year.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Meanwhile, both GISS surface and UAH satellite datasets show the Antarctic has been much colder than usual recently.
Full story:
“Emitting greenhouse-gases could start uncontrollable ice-melt” – as opposed to the controllable sort we’ve had for the last 5 -10 thousand years.
Here’s the thing(s) 1. Will New York etc still be around in its current state 5 – 10 thousand years from now? and 2. When’s the end of the current interglacial scheduled?
Soooooo…he’s paid to “find” these problems and write about them…..and then we’re supposed to be surprised when he finds one that COULD be a problem IF certain unlikely things occur.
Heck, that’s a sweet job.
Phil’s Dad says:
May 5, 2014 at 5:02 pm
“When’s the end of the current interglacial scheduled?”
Pretty much right about now. Go a couple of posts up.
Cheers
And the MAIN POINT of publishing that junk science now is:
PROPAGANDA.
Arctic ice melt is underway. The Enviroprofiteer-controlled media will ignore (they’ve done it before…) that it is the Antarctic being discussed and just RUN with this:
“…. warming oceans can cause ice loss on the coast. … this would trigger a long term sea-level rise of 300-400 centimeters. ‘The full sea-level rise would ultimately be up to 80 times bigger than the initial melting of the ice cork,’ says co-author Anders Levermann.”
Okay. That’s the bad news. More propaganda.
GOOD NEWS: Nobody cares!
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
#(:))
This is almost as bad as the Cosmos series remake. Anybody else watching it? I have lost what little respect I had for Neil Degrasse Tyson.
chuck says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:16 pm
By the way, chuck, Don Easterrbrook is correct. The clue is “ppm”.
Yet again the models have correctly predicted that p will occur, where p is something alarming and requiring more funding for the models.
“…..the discharge would slowly but relentlessly continue until the whole basin is empty.”
I am amazed at such a stupid statement.
I refer to a link by Prof Cliff Ollier: http://ff.org/images/stories/sciencecenter/greenland_and_antarctic_in_danger_of_collapse.pdf
Andres Valencia says:
May 5, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Thanks, Mac the Knife, I thought I might have dozed off for a second and a nightmare replaced the end of the show in my mind. Maybe I just had switched to “The Horror Channel”?
Maybe, in that empty chamber in “The Hall of Extinctions” will be the cultures that believe in the CO2 scare.
Andres,
It did seem to be ‘long on opinionated propaganda’ and ‘short on science’, didn’t it?
Just a bit earlier in the Cosmos show, Tyson referred to a massive volcanic event in the area of Siberia, that may have contributed to the mass extinction at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods 250 million years ago. He also asserted that these massive lava outflows over ran and burned huge deposits of coal, releasing …… huge amounts of CO2 gas and radioactive elements, the pollution from coal.” (again, quoted to the best of my memory of last nights Cosmos show.) I had a vague recollection of reading of ‘flood basalt plateaus’ created by this type of vulcanism but I had never heard it related to burning massive coal deposits simultaneously…… or the assertion that it was this “coal pollution” that was the real cause of the great extinction!
I did a rather quick search and found several references on the ancient Siberian vulcanism but did not turn up anything relating it to burning huge coal deposits or the ‘radioactive coal pollution’ killing off the dinosaurs! Wonder what Hall of Extinction Mr. Tyson found that that gem in????
Mac
Okay. A few hippies in their 80’s care. Whoo, hoo.
MOST people say essentially, “{SHRUG} Meh. What — EVER. Melt happens. I feel fine. What’s for dinner?
Take heart from this NON-Fantasy-Science-Cult-mentality song!
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine)” — R.E.M.
THIS is what most people under 30 are interested in:
CARS
AND
VIDEO GAMES
by Jonathan Mann
This scare-story is too slow, and bores me. I far prefer the story that was around colleges in 1971, (and seemed a good reason to avoid getting a good job that involved working 30 years for a pension.) That story said a huge block of Antarctic Ice would slide off all at once, creating an enormous tsunami that would be world-wide.
Kids nowadays just don’t have the imagination they used to.
(The students who ignored the scare-stories and went to work retired in 2001 and have now been playing golf for over a decade.)
First check this out: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/235946467951285308/
From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research website:
The research domain “Transdisciplinary Concepts and Methods” develops climate impact research in those areas where concepts and methods are found wanting. It does so guided by stakeholder dialogues and using mathematics as a tool to meet conceptual challenges.
Our research domain focusses on the following lines of research:
The study of flows of energy and raw materials that support human societies (social metabolism) using complex and adaptive network analysis and micro-simulation modeling.
The study of structure formation in complex networks as a novel approach to model heterogeneous climate impacts and interacting social systems.
The Development of methods of nonlinear time series analysis and visualization techniques and their application to observations of the system Earth and of socio-economic data.
I thought Global Warming was causing us to freeze our asses off?
But let me see. I reckon even IF I was working alone, I COULD PROBABLY, build a 4 meter high, wall the whole way around Japan in less than 5000 years. Maybe IF I start next week, I could finish early.
Eamon.
Meanwhile I am still skiing. Guess its “Regional” 😏
For Sunshine Ski Resort at Banff
OVERNIGHT 24 HOURS 7 DAYS SETTLED BASE CUMULATIVE
3cm 5cm 42cm 220cm 861cm
OR OR OR OR OR
1½in 2in 1ft5in 7ft3in 28ft3in
For Lake Louise Ski Resort
Mountain Conditions
Mountain Conditions
Updated: 6:00 AM, Monday May 5th, 2014
3 days
59cm
Going to take my fat skis out for a run in the Pow. Enjoy the debate ….
“””””…..Eamon Butler says:
May 5, 2014 at 7:01 pm
I thought Global Warming was causing us to freeze our asses off?
But let me see. I reckon even IF I was working alone, I COULD PROBABLY, build a 4 meter high, wall the whole way around Japan in less than 5000 years. ……”””””
This is known as “The New Orleans Solution.”.
And in regard to this “solution”, New Orleans is the solute !
The height of the wall; 4 meters, in the case of your Japan plan, determines how deeply underwater the place will be, after you complete the swimming pool.
Hurricanes are known to extend thousands of meters above mean sea level, so as was demonstrated in the case of Katrina, they are more than capable of going right over the top of any wall, you want to build, and fill up the swimming pool.
So nyet on encapsulating whole countries inside bathtubs of doom !
Alarmists stupidity has been uncorked.
It’s too easy to be a dumbass.
Is Greenland jealous of Antarctica?
When I melt, you melt, we melt.
Melt not yet ye be melted.
If Antarctica melts and no one hears it, did it really melt?
Bad little melt. Wait till your ice age gets home.
If our polar caps were tropical and the equator an ice belt would there still be an Al Gore?
Why can’t the great lakes count as sea ice extent?
See. Anyone can do it.
I like to bring history into such cases.
20,000 years ago humans could walk into the Japanese islands from the Asian mainland. The sea level was that low. It was low enough so that all 4 main islands were connected by land and even into Sakhalin a dry connection existed. It allowed for the settlement of the Japanese islands by humans. Imagine how low that sea level must have been then.
And that wasn’t the first time this happened. Animals most likely came earlier, around 500,000 years ago, when the sea level was so low again, including a bridge into Korea.
And then the sea level rose. Over several thousand years, until it looked we know it today. Those cavemen really managed make quite some impressive “global warming”.
OMG! IN A COUPLE OF THOUSAND YEARS WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!! It’s time to panic!
Wait, what do you mean I won’t live 5,000 to 10,000 years?!
Someone with more time and cred than I do needs to write an alarmist piece about the *cooling* of the Antarctic. The press LOVES alarmist pieces — and cute penguin chicks. I suspect that the penguin chicks are going to be suffering greatly because of the larger ice shelf this year, perhaps decimating the penguin flocks. The liberal/green press would eat up an article about how “climate change” is hurting the penguins, and then suddenly say, “Hey — wait a second… this is because a polar ice cap is too BIG????” Their heads would explode. See data here: http://www.climatenerd.com/antarctic-sea-ice-stats.php
David Ball says:
May 5, 2014 at 5:44 pm
You are wrong.
The “ppm” is irrelevant.
If you start out with 300 staples, and end up with 400 staples, you have increased the quantity by 33%
Some German’s never learn from their history. Schnellenhuber and his freaking Institute PIK is one of them.Maybe w deal with him at the next Neurenrnberg trial.
An unimpressive announcement, certainly. But, as usual, I was puzzled by the recurring term “alarmist” employed in responding posts.
It would seem that some here consider “alarm” and “climate skeptic” to be mutually exclusive terms. This strikes me as particularly illogical, as well as ironic. While I perceive the predominant tone of postings here as smugly cynical, there is also a strong undercurrent of alarm that our economy is being damaged, perhaps irrevocably, by climate predictions based on bad science.
How is such alarm any different from that of the climate change zealots? Surely no one here is seriously suggesting that there should be no alarms, or that everyone who sounds an alarm should be derided as an “alarmist”? How then is this use of the term “alarmist” anything but a tool for ad hominem attacks on those who offer an opposing viewpoint?
It functions just like the perennial establishment favourite – “conspiracy theorist” , which governments, industry, and sundry other entrenched groupings of society employ frequently to ridicule critics or perceived enemies. It is only when the upholders of the status quo themselves perceive conspiracies that these are not considered risible.
Surely neither expression has any place in a forum that pretends to exist for scientific discussion. And that the term “alarmist” should find a happy home here is thus doubly ironic, since this is surely not a forum for supporters of the established order.
chuck says: May 6, 2014 at 4:59 am
Similarly, if you throw a needle in a haystack 10000 times heavier, how much has the composition of the haystack changed?
more soylent green
If the Antarctic ice cap melts, it appears almost certain that the land will rise some as well as you correctly state.
However the land will only rise in the vicinity of Antarctica where presumably the ocean will get shallower. Unfortunately it appears to me that the rising of the land will also contribute to an overall sea level rise from the point of view of the rest of the planet. That is there will be a double wammy.
But you bring up a valid point in that we are aware that continents and land masses have been rising since the last ice age.
One thing I have not seen is the effect of the rising of these land masses, which are well documented, being factored into calculations of predicted and past sea level rise.
Maybe this phenomena could more than explain the miniscule rises already documented?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
Here’s a quite interesting paper from Hearty (1999):
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/Coastal_Conf/PDF/COAST.PDF#page=77
Sea level has nothing to do with temperatures.
It has everything to do with geothermal, plastic crust distortion, lunar and other gravimetric/geomagnetic forces.
It is no more a measurable phenomena than are temperatures on this dynamically variable planet.
This is a NON subject for discussion and is more about justifying employment status.