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Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet
- tenkabuto 9y agoI get that the volcanoes could exacerbate climate change's effects, but how much effect might these volcanoes have on climate change already? The following suggests that volcano activity followed from their uncovering by ice sheets, but might the causality of such be flipped? > he pointed to one alarming trend: “The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska. > “Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active.”
- foobarbecue 9y agoThe causality is bidirectional; it's a positive feedback. Does that answer your question?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- 0xbear 9y agoExcept, of course, _Antarctic_ ice sheet just keeps growing. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-o...
- slg 9y agoThere is some doubt around the study you linked. A followup study concluded the original overestimated growth by 3x and that the ice sheet is in fact shrinking. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-growth-east-antarctic-ice-sheet.html https://phys.org/news/2017-05-growth-east-antarctic-ice-shee...
- 0xbear 9y agoThere is always "doubt" in science. That's why it's science and not religious dogma. Who was right, however, still remains to be determined.
- Numberwang 9y agoYour previous post was stated as a fact..
- 0xbear 9y agoSo was the reply. I didn't know about that other study. I also have no reason to believe it is more (or less) authoritative than the NASA study. Most people don't actually know that the Antarctic (unlike the Arctic) ice sheet is not rapidly receding.
- heisenbit 9y agoRight, it is not receding. The breaking up of Larsen-C last month did not happen. Antarctica is much thicker. Of course it recedes slower.
- mercer 9y agoWell thanks for clearing that up for us!
- credit_guy 9y agoJust to put things in perspective: both those studies talk about gains/losses of less than about 100 GT/year, while the total mass of the Antarctic ice sheet is about 25 million GT. http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-ice-sheet/ http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-i...
- yfuguvuvuvv 9y agoThis story just keeps getting more alarming. When will someone do something to save our species? Is that question too unsophisticated?
- hyperdunc 9y agoNo one person has that kind of power. Also, our species will be fine, but civilization may not be.
- m_mueller 9y ago> our species will be fine People keep saying that, but I wouldn't be so sure. From an earlier comment of mine (edited for clarity/formatting): Most recent study of methane flux/storage in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf: [1] Arctic temperatures are estimated to rise 1.9x compared to global average: [2] During Holocene Climate Optimum (the warmest period in human history) the arctic is estimated to have been 4-6C warmer than baseline (yearly average): [3] That's not all that much. We're now already at 400ppm CO2, and recent unmitigated projections to 2100 (538ppm) simulate an arctic yearly average of ~ plus 8C [4]. And that most probably doesn't take a positive methane feedback loop into account. This is a significant gamble. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum boundary showed a global average warming of 5C, mostly from arctic methane at a time where there wasn't even a large ice shelf, so with significantly lower capacity [5]. We can only guess what a global average temperature increase of 13C could do to the ecosystem that's currently feeding 7B people. [1] http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2052/20140451 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2052/2014... [2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025244/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025244/full [3] https://epic.awi.de/38441/1/Beierlein_2015_Holocene_page1.pdf https://epic.awi.de/38441/1/Beierlein_2015_Holocene_page1.pd... [4] http://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-is-set-to-reach-13c-by-2100/ http://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-is-set-to-reach-13c-by-... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maxim...
- tomw2005 9y agoI would argue that the species will be fine. If your definition of 'fine' is the species surviving. If 99% of the human race were wiped out by Global Warming we would still have 70 million humans on the planet (approx one UK). That should be more than enough to repopulate given a long long time. Obviously that would be a terrible disaster the likes of which our race has never seen. 100 times the death toll of WW2 and would destroy pretty much all our infrastructure etc as supply chains fail etc. This is something we should strive to avoid at all costs but I do think the species would survive. We are quite a hardy bunch actually.
- robbiep 9y agoEchoes of Red Mars, although it was volcanoes under the Greenland ice sheet that did earth in then
- wolfram74 9y agoNope, Antartic ice shelf. Last chunk of Green Mars. The terrestrial panic it caused let the martians have a successful blitzkrieg revolution.
- Poc 9y agoWhat a nice trilogy, when I read it I had the feeling that there was really a colony on Mars. I still have music which I listened at the time that trigger a martian feeling !
- Pxtl 9y agoSo, Permian-Triassic exctintion, anyone?
- SubiculumCode 9y agoLet us do more than hope not. The more I learn, the less stable I realize is the earth.
- mmjaa 9y agoIn my opinion, we need simply to continue to build vessels to weather all we can encounter, on this planet on others, i.e. yes please, sign me up for the mother ship(s).
- dlo 9y ago1) Turns out there are a bunch of volcanoes, 91, underneath the west Antarctic ice sheet that we previously didn't know about. In fact: (Excerpts are placed between square brackets.) ["We were amazed," Bingham said. "We had not expected to find anything like that number. We have almost trebled the number of volcanoes known to exist in west Antarctica. We also suspect there are even more on the bed of the sea that lies under the Ross ice shelf, so that I think it is very likely this region will turn out to be the densest region of volcanoes in the world, greater even than east Africa, where mounts Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Longonot and all the other active volcanoes are concentrated."] 2) Furthermore, eruptions would cause the ice sheet to melt: [“Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.] 3) They could already be erupting and causing the ice to melt: [“We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past,” Bingham said.] 4) Also, consider this quote: [If one erupts, it could further destabilise some of the region’s ice sheets, which have already been affected by global warming.] I followed the link. The headline is: [Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural] The article links to a source, another article in the same paper, that actually contradicts the claim it is making. Another quote from the article: [So, while ice fracturing and surface melting may sound like signs of climate change in action in Antarctica, they are really part of the background against which we must look for real change.]