Geothermal Heat Contributing To West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting 387
bricko sends this news from The University of Texas at Austin:
Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it's being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where accurate information has previously been unobtainable. The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.
Re:And who will be pushing the accelerator (Score:2, Interesting)
Then quit pissing in the commons, disconnect your power, buy a solar powered (ONLY) car, avoid anything made with , well anything.
And then, after your satisfied your not increasing the risk to me and everyone else, I think it would be ok to not have any taxes go to cleaning up your mess.
Otherwise, quit freeloading off others, denialist commie.
I'm a denialist commie (Well, socialist actually, but what's the difference.) who lives in a country with carbon neutral energy production.
Since I live close enough to work I don't own a car. I don't see how buying a solar powered one would help.
Now, if you are so concerned with carbon emission, how about you stop emission carbon instead of paying taxes for it. The taxes aren't used to stop the emissions anyway so in the end it is just a feel-good tax that you pay so that you can keep living you current life-style but not feel bad about it.
meaningless, unless the geothermal is new (Score:4, Interesting)
Usually (Yellowstone, Iceland, ...) geothermal sources are present tens of thousands, if not tens of millions, of years before present. Unless this is a newly-formed hot spot, the ice sheet has survived millions of years of it. Only the OTHER (read: us) source of heat is now exposing the ice sheet to more heat than it can withstand.
Re:Queue the deniers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it does. It's the only way for practical research to ever happen. You can't go around questioning fundamental assumptions at every turn. This doesn't mean that those fundamental assumptions are "settled" for all time, but from a practical standpoint, science must treat some core assumptions as effectively "settled" in order to get on with any detailed research.
The level of ignorance is astounding. "questioning fundamental assumptions" is exactly what science is all about. Nothing is ever settle in science. Major breakthroughs occur when you successfully challenge fundamental assumptions. And this gets modded up. It's no wonder the current climate debate is so off kilter.