Thursday, June 30, 2011

Sea Level Rise and the Pine Island Glacier

The title link is to an article about the Pine Island glacier in West Antarctica which based on 2009 studies is loosing ice mass 1.5x as fast as it was in 1994. The cause is not simply ocean warming, but rather a reduction in grounding of the glacier on the land below it so that warm water is getting up under the glacier enabling the land based portion to slide into the ocean at a faster rate.

This mechanism has the potential to continue to accelerate leading to a faster rise in sea level than has been predicted. A more detailed review of this study can be found at Science_MSNBC.

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GREENLAND - Will probably be the focus of near term sea level rise

Greenland is almost all covered by a very thick glacial ice cap. If all of Greenland's ice either melted or slid into the oceans, sea le...