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Iceberg B22 moves toward the open ocean, a verified source of volcanic activity upstream of P.I.G. [1]
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Date: 2022-12-27
Image of West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier (PIG) calving an iceberg in February 2020. The natural, historical process of PIG shedding massive tabular icebergs the size of nations has instead begun a process by climate change of crumble and splinter. Climate change and an active upstream volcano will collapse the ice shelf within ten years, warn scientists.
In a world that sees two meter sea level rise, with continued flooding ahead, it will take extraordinary effort for the United States, or indeed any country, to look beyond its own salvation. All of the ways in which human beings have dealt with natural disasters in the past…could come together in one conflagration: rage at government’s inability to deal with the abrupt and unpredictable crises; religious fervor, perhaps even a dramatic rise in millennial end-of-day cults; hostility and violence towards migrants and minority groups, at a time of demographic change and increased global migration; intra-and interstate conflict over resources, particularly food and fresh water. Altruism and generosity would likely be blunted. R. James Woolsey former CIA director 2007
As summer begins in the southern hemisphere, global warming has melted enormous swathes of Antarctic sea ice. The lowest extent of sea ice ever observed by satellite just a day or so ago.
The Amundsen Sea Embayment is about the size of Texas, and the ice is approximately two miles thick. The ASE is one of three ice drainage basins in West Antarctica. It includes the ice of Pine Island Glacier, Ninnis, and the remaining portion of the Thwaites glacier’s tongue. The flow of glaciers to the sea in the embankment has been accelerating significantly since the turn of the century. Snowfall is what adds volume to the ice streams and has not changed.
The central tongue of Thwaites Glacier formed a dramatic rift in 2001, and in 2002 broke away from the main glacier, became stuck on a sea mount, and stayed there until NASA Worldview imagery showed the iceberg named B22 freed itself this month and now floating quickly to the open sea. The development is critical news as Thwaites is now exposed to stormy southern ocean wave action that will repeatedly lift and pound the vulnerable and retreating shelf coined as the doomsday glacier. The collapse of Thwaites and possibly the entirety of the Amundsen Sea Embayment’s land ice to flow into the ocean, raising sea levels worldwide by four feet.
If you are wondering if this news has made headlines yet, it hasn’t.
x Icebergs B28 & B29 are now also moving away. They clear a large opening through which all of the sea ice behind them has a safe conduct to reduce the entire bay to open water. The glacier is stripped of any pushback force & stable anchor points.
January will be a critical month. pic.twitter.com/oeiICk1Mfc — Kris Van Steenbergen (@KrVaSt) December 22, 2022
Meanwhile, the neighboring Pine Island Glacier, a geothermal heat source from volcanic activity under the ice, has been confirmed. There is plenty of discussion on what this will mean, but the finding by no means contradicts the severe climate impacts in Pine Island Bay. Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) “is the primary heat source for melting glacial ice and its increased presence on the Amundsen Sea continental shelf has been implicated in the rapid melting and grounding line retreat observed beneath the Pine Island Glacier...”
The study confirmed active “geochemical evidence of a volcanic heat source upstream of the fast-melting Pine Island Ice Shelf, documented by seawater helium isotope ratios at the front of the Ice Shelf cavity.”
In other words, the volcano is not directly melting the ice. The volcanism has the potential to heat the bedrock along with the friction generated by the ice grinding over the bedrock, which will make the land ice slide into the southern ocean that much easier.
Deniers will likely seize on this study to negate glaciology science. Elon Musk has unleashed trolls to berate, ridicule, and threaten climate scientists. Do not feed the trolls; they will come after you if you do.
From the study discussion:
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/27/2143452/-Iceberg-B22-moves-toward-the-open-ocean-a-verified-source-of-volcanic-activity-upstream-of-P-I-G
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