And a bunch of volcanoes could erupt, and a Carrington type solar flare event could happen, and an asteroid could hit the Earth. I worry about these far more than Antarctica.
From Penn State climate modeling via Eurekalert:
An ice sheet model that includes previously underappreciated processes indicates that sea level may rise almost 50 feet by 2500 due to Antarctic ice sheet melting if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, according to researchers from Penn State and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“In this case the atmospheric warming will soon become the dominant driver of ice loss, but prolonged ocean warming will delay the recovery for thousands of years,” the researchers report in today’s (Mar. 31) issue of Nature.
Antarctica was the primary contributor to sea level rise in the past and may be the primary contributor in the future because much of its ice sits on ground. Floating ice, like that of the Arctic Ocean, is already in the water and if it melts, does not raise sea level. The Antarctic contribution will also probably dominate melt from the smaller Greenland Ice Sheet. While only parts of Antarctica will melt in the worst case scenario, the melting suggested by the model would be sufficient to double the recent estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for future sea-level rise over the next 100 years.
“Recently we looked at the long-standing problem posed by geological evidence that suggests sea level rose dramatically in the past, possibly up to 10 to 20 meters around 3 million years ago in the Pliocene,” said David Pollard, senior scientist in Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Penn State. “Existing models couldn’t simulate enough ice sheet melting to explain that.”
Ocean warming has previously been identified as the main cause of ice retreat occurring today. Warmer water quickly erodes the underside of floating ice sheet portions. Floating ice shelves act as buttresses for the grounded ice inland, whose base is below sea level. Once the shelves are gone, the grounded ice can move faster. However, in previous models, this process did not simulate enough melting to explain the past sea levels, with only West Antarctica collapsing even though similar areas in East Antarctica with huge amounts of ice could collapse in the same manner.
Pollard, working with Robert M. DeConto, professor of geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looked at two further mechanisms that could account for greater melting. The first mechanism is fracturing and deepening of crevasses on the low-lying floating ice shelves by pooling of surface meltwater and rainfall caused by warming air temperatures. If emissions continue unabated, this process will begin to dominate ocean warming within 100 years. It already caused the disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002.
The second mechanism comes into play once floating ice sheets disintegrate back to the grounding zone, leaving extremely high walls of ice. These walls are so high that simple physics says they cannot structurally support their weight, and then collapse into the sea, eroding the cliff further and further inland as long as the bedrock stays deep enough below sea level. Similar cliffs, with about 328 feet of ice above sea level and 2625 feet below, exist today at a few of the largest outlet glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula, where huge calving events occur regularly.
Both of these mechanisms are known, but neither has been applied to this type of ice-sheet model before. The researchers incorporated the physics and tested the model, driven by high-resolution climate models and past climate data. The updated model reproduced ice-sheet retreat consistent with geologic sea-level data for the warm Pliocene and also for the last interglacial period around 125,000 years ago. Then they applied the model to the future, forcing it with various greenhouse-gas emission scenarios.
“Although the future sea-level contribution in our model is greater than previously thought, it is based on credible mechanisms and is consistent with geologic evidence of past sea-level rise,” said Pollard. “We regard the results as worst-case envelopes of possible future behavior, and the mechanisms should be considered seriously in future work.
###
The National Science Foundation supported this work.
Added – Some thoughts to consider h/t to Chip Knappenberger and Mike Bastasch)
The current rate of sea level rise is 3.3mm/year & unchanged over past 25 years.
New York City has effectively dealt with Sea Level Rise since it was founded, see end of this article: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/28/freaking-out-about-nyc-sea-level-rise-is-easy-to-do-when-you-dont-pay-attention-to-history/
The Dutch could prevent sea level rise in 1000 AD, I’m pretty sure we have better technology now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlands
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Whew! Thanks for the the warning. I’ll have to double the height of the gunwales on my boat.
If that goes well, I think I’ll advertise my gunwale-raising services to CAGW true believers. I’m sure there’s a market in there somewhere.
lol
FEMA already beat you to it!
So… you have a boat that doesn’t float? I think when waters rise your boat should rise too, eliminating the need to increase gunwhale height. Oh… I get it now. You think this stuff is funny. Haha. Like war is funny. Haha.
Like war is funny. Haha.
Bill Mauldin ain’t funny?
Leland, there’s no comparison between war and sea level rise over 500 years. In wars, people get killed whereas sea level rise over centuries merely inconveniences some people.
The Democrats will give your gunwale business a subsidy. The DOE as no one that understands Physics or chemistry so it will be approved.
Hmmmmm… so the permafrost bio-mass surrounding the arctic is from kelp beds of an ancient sea that covered the continent, and where mastodon and other large aquatic mammals frollicked?
The two meters by 2100 based on WAIS collapse was also claimed by OLeary in Nature Geoscience 2013. Not junk models as here, claimed observations of highstand corals along the western Australia coast. Proven clear cut academic misconduct in figure 3 which is labeled as if corresponds to Figure 1 coastline but is actually only Quobba Ridge, which provably was disturbed by a major earthquake. Essay By Land or By Sea lays out the sordid details. Presented them to Nature and asked it be retracted. Nope.
The prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming will not be denied.
That said, sequester another carbon-based human baby for environmental stability and green lawns.
Luckily we have environmentalists making great efforts to preserve the existing Antarctic ice. They set up heated camps on it, drill thousands of deep holes in it to study the ice cores, and continually zap it with microwaves to measure it. As for the sea ice, they employ ice breakers to keep the channels open for supply shipments.
Other than that, I’d like them to Show their Math.
– Are they assuming the ice is entirely solid? I saw how they “measure” sea ice, they segment satellite images into squares and then determine if each square has at least 15% ice and if so then the whole square is added to the total.
– Are they using the formula for the volume of a sphere? Each increment of sea level rise requires more volume of water than the previous one.
So once the ice is all gone in Antarctica will it still be a UN protectorate or will we have to go to War to decide which nation gets all the Natural resources? This is certainly as serious a policy issue as the paper on sea level rise 500 years from now is.
Actually, the last group of antarctic scientists to have overwintered will claim “Indigenous Peoples” status. No fools them. The UN grants their claim under international law, and the scientists declare Antarctica as a new and independent country. With themselves as the government, of course. A bunch of penguin counters and ice core drillers end up owning it all.
It will contain the only ski resort on earth, but no where to go get groceries.
Such a course of action would be doomed to failure for the simple reason that after all the scientists have become the government there will be no taxpayers. Pooof! A government without taxpayers has never and will never exist.
@JustAnOldGuy, 6:31 pm, You are vastly underestimating the power of bureaucrats. As ever they will find a source of OPM.
Exactly up the same strasse as the TV New Zealand pre-news advertorial proclamation, “Climate change responsible for rise in school head lice.”
More hand wringing about arctic sea ice here:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/03/30/arctic_sea_ice_hits_record_low_maximum_extent_in_2016.html
“It already caused the disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002.”
How about near Wolf Island in December 1956 that was the largest measured tabular berg? Shhhhh…
The only time that sea level rises have ever got any where near the rate they suggest. ls when the climate moved out of an ice age.
Sea Level measured to the resolution of Millimetres? Total B.S. Watch the Video.
I suggest everybody who has not yet done so watch this video. It is an object lesson in how to deal with problems arising in real science. If the methodology was not good, your GPS elevation would not work.
What posh.
50 feet in roughly 484 years is 3.15 cm/year (on average) which is ABOUT 10 TIMES the current sea-level rate of 3.27mm/year.
In addition, as Anthony pointed out, MSL is not accelerating over the last 25 years.
In fact: the 2nd order quadratic fit shows that sea-level is actually DECELLERATING since 1993.
(using all the data available here: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-removed)
Also, the 2nd order curve fit to the data has a better R-value than the linear fit. In laymans terms meaning that a decellerating model of sea-level fits the data better, i.e. the rate of sea-level increase is actually slowing.
That’s what the data says anyway.
There were even two recent warmunist papers attempting to explain the recent deceleration you note. Both complete nonsense, amusingly kiboshed in essay PseudoPrecision.
Do you really believe Mother Nature more than models? RICO on you!
The West Antarctica ice sheet is not collapsing now, so it will not have an impact on the present rate of sea level rise. Therefore, using current rates of rise does not factor in WA, nor its impact.
Correct.
But it won’t ‘collapse’ in the future either. Essay Tipping Points gives the specifics. OLeary’s 2013 west Australia highstand corals Eemian collapse evidence is bogus, comprising clear academic misconduct. Essay by Land or By Sea, in ebook but also one line at Judith Curry’s place.
During the warmer than now Eemian, Average Rate of SLR change was about 25-30 cm/century, for about 30 centuries. About what we see now with sat altimetry before silly modelled GIA adjustments, and more than what we see now with reasonably geostationary tide gauges.
Sure, it’s fine to debate the merits of the analysis done in the paper, and the measurements they have used to validate their conclusions (or not done). A substantial % of the comments here are saying it’s not possible as the present rate of sea level rise is too low – which is not relevant to the type of scenario outlined in the paper.
The only comfort l can take in this report. ls that climate science is at last starting to become aware of the important role that the weather has in climate change. Not just an one of the effects of it, but as a cause of it.
Looks like Manhattanites will have to migrate to Syracuse. Too bad, so sad. It sucks to be you.
The smart ones will sell now before their property value dives to swampland in Florida levels.
Wait did he say 2500? Whew! Plenty of time to plan a move.
This sort of stuff is so far removed from any type of certainty that imo it’s tantamount to blatant propaganda designed solely to maintain influence and keep the grant money flowing. Activist garbage. Nothing less.
Given this is a “worse case scenario” from a computer model, it’s the upper bound of what is a wild guess, making it a wild wild guess. If they even try claim they have modeled accurately it would be a massive leap of faith not supported by anything of a factual nature, “we think” “Could” “might” “may” “if” “possibly”.
More junk science, complete waste of money, and not falsifiable for 480 years.
Any fool can produce this junk and as long as it fits dogma, it slips under the radar and gets published even though it is crystal ball gazing posing as scientific research
For connoisseurs of pure high octane wingnuttery everywhere – that’s a keeper! Surely a wingnut tour de force of that magnitude must be worth some kind of award. Anyway, huge bravo from me.
How many climate alarmist scientists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
just one to hold the bulb … but rotating Antarctica is a beast and will take the whole team from Penn State and UMASS
@FJ: They’d need a 4 year old to help them open the box the bulb came in.
I thought i read someplace connected with this blog, that if this were true, that no matter how much we reduce CO2 emissions, there will be negligible short-term effect on the climate.
So, do you want stay on present speed or do you want to slow down to alleviate the consequences of impending impact?
My God. Can you read? What we can do, under present theories, has almost no effect what so ever. So suggest something else.
@Hugs
I was trying to express that because of inertia in the climate system it takes time to get to the full impacts of CO2 emissions that have already occurred.
So there will be consequences. The question was if we (all humans on earth) should keep on the present path and make consequences worse, or try to minimize the consequences of the impact (by not adding to it).
…0 x 0 = 0 !
“The question was if we (all humans on earth) should keep on the present path and make consequences worse, or try to minimize the consequences”
But the people and governments in Asia and elsewhere in the ROW have already made the decision to keep on the present path. What the rest of us do does not help the world significantly, it only harms us.
That’s exactly what IPCC AR5 says, but only with the worst*4 scenario RCP 8.5 (Tables 13.5, 7, 8 – max 6.63 m or 21.8 feet) which is impossible to achieve even with burning all of the estimated fossil fuel reserves.
What’s up with the site today? Balky, slow, erratic.
“The first mechanism is fracturing and deepening of crevasses on the low-lying floating ice shelves by pooling of surface meltwater and rainfall caused by warming air temperatures.”
(Bold mine)
So, how much has the Antarctic air been warming?
Well, that clinches it FJ Shepherd – I’m moving to higher ground tomorrow!
Maybe we should just move on to the “Second Mechanism” since you obviously aren’t willing to take the first one seriously.
/grin
Oh, wait…
“The second mechanism comes into play once floating ice sheets disintegrate back to the grounding zone, leaving extremely high walls of ice…”
it looks like the second mechanism is dependent on the first.
Good thing we caught this before the paper was published.
Uh, oops….
Maybe they did Mike’s other trick, and turned that graph upside down ??
Well, Antarctica is “down under”.
/grin
I think I might start having a laugh with some people and report the hilarity, with:
“Well, you know how the bath water swirls around the plug hole in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, right, well it’s also well known by scientists that the dipole moment of carbon dioxide works the opposite way too, because of the magnetic field being the other way around, so that’s why Antarctica is cooling”.
Good catch. Spotted it also, but thought a more basic attack should come first. Checked the average summer air temperature on the Antarctic sea edges. Almost never gets close to above freezing there IN SUMMER except on the peninsula. So the ice face iceberg calving mechanism (hydraulic thaw/freeze wedging) at work in Greenland (where summer obviously does get well above freezing) IS ALMOST NEVER at work in Antarctica. And 3C warmer does not change that basic fact. Adding a Greenland calving mechanism to Antarctica ice faces is just more Penn State Mannian ‘climate science’. Self evidently stupid.
The average annual surface temperature of Antarctica is -47 degrees C. If it rose by 10 degrees C to -37 degrees C, would the ice melt by much? I doubt it would melt at all.
An ice sheet model….
well my model says it won’t….so there
Please publish and widely publicize all of the researchers’ names. there is nothing makes a researcher more careless, than a cloak of anonymity. Nothing makes them more careful of what they say and do, than their name being known and widely publicized as often as needed to expose their errors, and with a great fanfare of publicity.
So now we pay scientists to write science fiction after playing with the computer. That’s great.
What they describe is impossible.
1. Antarctica is cooling not warming.
2. Antarctica is not contributing to sea level rise according to NASA researchers NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses
3. The study does not take into account that we will run out of fossil fuels to burn long before that happens.
Scientific Journals should make a better job at filtrating this type of silly works.
But you don’t understand! The models say it will happen, so clearly Antarctica adding ice mass means that there is more water going into the ocean. Or something. Because models, CO2 and climate.
This is what happens when you forget how old the Earth is compared to the 140 year record that is used for Global Warming/Climate Charge (oops Freudian slip Change).
The Baltic Sea used to be frozen over.
There was a land bridge from England to Europe.
Parts of the Rocky Mountains were under water.
You can see pillow lava in the geologic formations in Sonoma County.
People and animals migrated from Asia to America.
It is silly to think the Earth is static.
I have lived in LA for 40 years. Sea level is supposed to have risen a few centimeters. However, LA moves north a few centimeters every year. This is ignored. Some time in the future, LA will be due west of San Francisco.
Stopping burning fossil fuels is not going to change this.