Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Doomsday on Ice Rapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the end of this century. ... Eric Holtaus

Eric Holthaus calls the article he's published at Grist.org, the most important he's ever written. It's about the emerging branch of glacial science that is modeling the potential for rapid sea level rise on a twenty to fifty year time frame. (Remember, FPL has modeled 6 inches of sea level rise within this century for its plans to build two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point.) Next to a meteor strike, rapid sea-level rise from collapsing ice cliffs is one of the quickest ways our world can remake itself. This is about as fast as climate change gets.

Of rapid glacial ice-melt, Holthaus writes: "The only place in the world where you can see ice-cliff instability in action today is at Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, one of the fastest-collapsing glaciers in the world. DeConto says that to construct their model, they took the collapse rate of Jakobshavn, cut it in half to be extra conservative, then applied it to Thwaites and Pine Island. But there’s reason to think Thwaites and Pine Island could go even faster than Jakobshavn."

I've visited Jakobshavn twice and wrote this in 2016:
The ice cap of Greenland is melting fast. Computer models of sea level rise are not keeping up with feedback loops for which there is no historical record: extreme heat, drought, flood, fires and the additions to the atmosphere not just of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil and coal and gas, but the release of methane from safe-keeping in the permafrost and warming oceans.

A visit to Iceland forces one to match these discordant facts -- a storyline on which civilization hangs in the balance -- with the awe-inspiring beauty of the place. It is unsettling. I didn't expect surprises. This was, after all, my second visit to Greenland since 2013. But I was surprised when I stepped off the helicopter onto the melting ice cap and sunk to my calves in slush. I felt a sense of fear I hadn't experienced by a landscape: dread.

In preparation for my visit, I corresponded with one of the world's leading scientists on glaciers and climate change, Jason Box. Box, featured in Rolling Stone last year, recently tweeted: "CO2 in air: Last time CO2 was at 400ppm, oceans were 15m-20m higher, temps 2–3°C warmer."

We are on a climate change path that is irreversible within our lifetimes and perhaps for many generations ahead.

The only question is whether we have the political willpower -- not just in the United States -- to embrace mitigation strategies and costs well in advance of when we may be too poor, as industrialized nations, to do anything about a rapidly changing climate. What do I mean, by "too poor"?

Our national tax base depends on a vast, multi-trillion dollar infrastructure that supports the stable asset value of personal property and of businesses, both large and small. Climate change is already sending shock waves, although we are now resilient enough to absorb them.
To read more on Greenland at Eye On Miami, click here.

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