Western Antarctic Ice Shield
Geoff Thomas has written: Something receiving little attention world wide that would seem to me very important is the Western Antarctic Ice Shield, (WAIS)
as it could soon contribute over 3 metres of ocean rise and in the long term almost 5 metres, – I have been watching the WAIS situation as possible over the last few years and the situation there has deteriorated, particularly with the instability of the ice shields into the Amundsen sea and the increasing flows from the Thwaites, Smith and Pine Island Glaciers, which are now contributing an increasing portion of the world annual sea rise, – should those Ice Shields blocking flow from those three glaciers into the Amundsen Sea significantly collapse, a process already happening with no reliable prediction method to know how quickly or when, a good metre of sea level rise could happen in a month or two, as the unimpeded glaciers accelerate into the ocean.
as it could soon contribute over 3 metres of ocean rise and in the long term almost 5 metres, – I have been watching the WAIS situation as possible over the last few years and the situation there has deteriorated, particularly with the instability of the ice shields into the Amundsen sea and the increasing flows from the Thwaites, Smith and Pine Island Glaciers, which are now contributing an increasing portion of the world annual sea rise, – should those Ice Shields blocking flow from those three glaciers into the Amundsen Sea significantly collapse, a process already happening with no reliable prediction method to know how quickly or when, a good metre of sea level rise could happen in a month or two, as the unimpeded glaciers accelerate into the ocean.
Those three glaciers drain area containing ice total that would cause 2 metres in sea level rise if completely melted, so just how much would let go is hard to know, – we do know the Antarctic Archipeligo broke up very quickly.
In my opinion, if one or two of those glaciers accelerated enough to cause say half a metre in sea level rise I believe that would wake up the world without wiping it out, – I find myself actually wishing such a milder calamity would occur, to perhaps cause humanity to act enough to be spared far far worse.