So-called Doomsday Glacier is 'in trouble,' scientists say after finding surprising formations under ice shelf | CNN
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Antarctica's "Doomsday Glacier" -- nicknamed because its collapse could drive catastrophic sea level rise -- is melting rapidly in unexpected ways, according to new research.

A team of researchers reports Antarctica’s enormous Thwaites Glacier is on the verge of collapse, with warm water seeping under the weakest parts of the glacier and melting it from below. Researchers deployed a robotic submarine to penetrate the vast ice sheet, which is roughly the size of Florida. They found the glacier is susceptible to rapid and irreversible ice loss that could raise global sea levels by more than half a meter. Its collapse could destabilize surrounding glaciers that could raise the Earth’s oceans by a further three meters — or nearly 10 feet.

From DemocracyNow!

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I wonder how people would react if Thwaites was to suddenly break off. Would society finally wake up and take actual concrete action, or would there instead be debates about how this isn’t related to human-caused climate change but is instead from the climate is always changing / solar activity / these things happen / it’s a 1 in 1,000,000,000 event and we were due / insert other creative argument.

    a_dance_with_fire comments on Warm water melts weak spots on Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier', say scientists

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      If COVID has taught us anything it's that a significant part of the Westoid population would rather choke to death on their own fluids than take simple public health measures like wearing a mask.

      They're going to yell about their freedoms even as the seawater floods into their lungs.

      • barrbaric [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yep, COVID was like an easy mode trial run on fast-forward for how our society will deal with the many coming crises. It won't, and billions will die.

    • fox [comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I fear that while most nations would absolutely take action if meters of coast vanished overnight, the US has so devolved its ability to do anything to parasitic private interests that it would be unable to take any climate action besides tax incentives to build solar. If Florida sank beneath the waves, the libs would be celebrating the loss of a red state, the chuds would be shooting up synagogues in vengeance, and the government would try to find contractors to repaint road signage to avoid Florida

    • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Some will and most won't. We've already seen from Covid which societies will give a damn and which ones will scream about freedom as they find themselves homeless with insurance refusing to cover them.

    • huf [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      they'd just blame china and do nothing.

      except possibly start a war.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Knowing the ongoing clown car crash pileup and escalating circus fire, this may be spun as another justification to send more subsidies to :my-hero: to Save Humanity(tm)(r) with Martian escapist fantasies.