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Bob Bingham Blog page.

A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

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Melting Antarctica. Totten glacier.

20/9/2015

2 Comments

 
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A recent sea-born scientific expedition  to the Totten glacier in East Antarctica has discovered that the glacier is thinning from the bottom at the rate of 10 metres per year.  This unexpected discovery is similar to the situation in West Antarctica and shows that the whole of the Antarctic ice is under threat. The oceans have been absorbing 93% of the heat from the Sun and it is beginning to make itself felt. 

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Sea water at the surface of the Southern Ocean is -1.8 C and if it becomes colder it would freeze and become ice. The sea water at greater depths is much warmer and this is the problem. As the winds in the Southern Ocean speed up it is bringing this warmer water up from the deep and this warm water although still very cold at 0.9C is entering valleys in the sea bed and reaching right under the ice shelf.

As the ice shelf thins it becomes vulnerable and large amount break off and no longer act as a buffer to hold the land ice sheets in check. It will take a few years for these huge glaciers to start moving, the way that they have in West Antarctica and Greenland, but it has started. 
We only need one metre of sea level rise to have grave economic impacts to the USA and Europe and none of this recent research was included in the IPCC report so we are moving into a critical climate change stage. While politicians are arguing about climate change and how to cheat the system nature is relentlessly moving ahead.

2 Comments
Bob Bristow
22/9/2015 02:05:41 pm

Many thanks Bob for posting that information and effects of the Totten Glacier decline.

Dr James Hansen a wise and early academic on the scene of modern climate science, publishes some serious predictions today that we will encounter if we do not address our energy imbalance. . . . . . .


"The exact course of North Atlantic cooling is difficult to predict, because of competition there between amplifying and diminishing feedbacks, as discussed below. Nevertheless, the nature of the prediction is clear: the warming-induced freshwater flux increases ocean stratification, slows North Atlantic Deep Water formation, reduces the strength of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and cools the North Atlantic Ocean. This is an old concept, studied extensively for many years. However, what we are saying is that the system is more sensitive than has been realized and effects are already beginning to occur."

http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/2015/09/21/predictions-implicit-in-ice-melt-paper-and-global-implications/

Reply
Bob Bingham
22/9/2015 08:14:27 pm

Hello Bob. I have been doing a free online course on the oceans with Futurelearn and this has alerted me to the sensitivity ofthe ocean systems. Like a lot of climate change disaster is a lot closer than people realise.

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    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

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