{"id":24512,"date":"2014-06-10T08:22:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T14:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/?p=24512"},"modified":"2014-06-10T08:22:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T14:22:47","slug":"volcanos-melting-w-antarctica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/2014\/volcanos-melting-w-antarctica\/","title":{"rendered":"Volcanos melting W. Antarctica….?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carnac predicts. This PNAS article with the title Evidence for elevated and spatially variable geothermal flux beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet<\/a>is going to be batted around. The significance statement, <\/p>\n

\nSignificance<\/p>\n

Thwaites Glacier is one of the West Antarctica’s most prominent, rapidly evolving, and potentially unstable contributors to global sea level rise. Uncertainty in the amount and spatial pattern of geothermal flux and melting beneath this glacier is a major limitation in predicting its future behavior and sea level contribution. In this paper, a combination of radar sounding and subglacial water routing is used to show that large areas at the base of Thwaites Glacier are actively melting in response to geothermal flux consistent with rift-associated magma migration and volcanism. This supports the hypothesis that heterogeneous geothermal flux and local magmatic processes could be critical factors in determining the future behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is going to be discussed various ways. I clicked to Delingpole’s<\/a> article from his tweet. He writes<\/p>\n

But according to a new report from the Institute For Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt may not, after all, be the direct result of man’s selfishness, greed, and refusal to amend his carbon-guzzling lifestyle. Rather, it seems, it is the result of natural causes.<\/p>\n

Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.<\/p>\n

The geothermal heat contributed significantly to melting of the underside of the glacier, and it might be a key factor in allowing the ice sheet to slide, affecting the ice sheet’s stability and its contribution to future sea level rise.<\/p>\n

The cause of the variable distribution of heat beneath the glacier is thought to be the movement of magma and associated volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth’s crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

phys.org<\/a> discussion of the article also mentions the global warming aspect of the issue the retreat to the warming ocean.<\/p>\n

The glacier is retreating in the face of the warming ocean and is thought to be unstable because its interior lies more than two kilometers below sea level while, at the coast, the bottom of the glacier is quite shallow.<\/p>\n

Because its interior connects to the vast portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that lies deeply below sea level, the glacier is considered a gateway to the majority of West Antarctica’s potential sea level contribution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the two spins appear to be, “See, volcanoes are<\/i> melting the Thwaits glacier.” or “Global warming is ‘the cause’– but the volcanoes make things worse by further destabilizing the Thwaits glacier”. I’m sure we will see both with both sets of spins containing their respective elements of correct and misleading. <\/p>\n

Those preferring the former<\/I> spin are certain<\/I> to dredge up ‘insightful’ articles like this one by gavin<\/a> which at least appear to be making fun of the notion that volcanoes are even involved with melting glaciers at all<\/i>. Gavin’s “nuanced rebuttal” of Morano’s suggestion that a volcano might be melting the glacier was,<\/p>\n

Morano….hedges his bets with a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Volcano, Not Global Warming Effects, May be Melting an Antarctic Glacier\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hail Mary pass.<\/a> Good luck with that!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(I got a service not available. If you do, google cache works<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Mind you– Morano may have said something silly, but as far as I can tell, the scorn – by – sarcasm was directed at his merely linking<\/I> an article that discussed volcanoes contributing to melting of the Pine Island glacier. (The location of that glacier is shown here.<\/a> It seems to be directly across the bay from the Thwaits glacier discussed in the current article.)<\/p>\n

I do know we are going to read a flurry of posts. Here’s one on hot air<\/a>. I’m sure rebuttals, counter rebuttals, bunkings, debunkings and de-debunkings will abound. If someone does have any insight let me know. If you have a copy of the paper… even better. Until I read it, my comments are restricted to the prediction of the upcoming blog\/twitter storms. \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carnac predicts. This PNAS article with the title Evidence for elevated and spatially variable geothermal flux beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheetis going to be batted around. The significance statement, Significance Thwaites Glacier is one of the West Antarctica’s most prominent, rapidly evolving, and potentially unstable contributors to global sea level rise. Uncertainty in the … Continue reading Volcanos melting W. Antarctica….?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-comparisons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}