Say Goodbye to Florida

One of Antarctica’s largest glaciers is melting much faster than it was a few years ago, potentially adding anywhere from an inch to a foot to global sea levels. According to one of the scientists who broke the bad news: “This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We’ve known that it’s been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”

In addition to super hurricanes, drought, animal extinctions and other natural catastrophes, that means a lot of places where a lot of people live could end up underwater.  —PS

BBC:

One of the authors, Professor Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University, said that the melting from the centre of the glacier would add about 3cm to global sea level.

“But the ice trapped behind it is about 20-30cm of sea level rise and as soon as we destabilise or remove the middle of the glacier we don’t know really know what’s going to happen to the ice behind it,” he told BBC News.

“This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We’ve known that it’s been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”

Read more

Wikimedia Commons / Polargeo

A seismic survey on Pine Island Glacier.